skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You can give them the best hardware and still they wont become next Google or Facebook founders or use it in any other productive endevour! Seriously most of the human race does not deserves the power of computing!

And giving someone utensils doesn't make them a good cook. Yet, people use all sorts of technology in their kitchens now to make their lives better. So it goes with computers. You don't have to end up rich or wildly successful to appreciate quality of life improvements provided by technology.
Donate hair to help contain oil spills
You should have bought a rice cooker they are a lot more useful. I suspect the ipad-laptop usability will appear in a bit, but I don't think it will be as bad as bread-makers.
I share those exact 4 passions (surfing a bit less so, but have been getting more into it when time and weather permits, with climbing at #1 spot by far) and while I can totally see what you mean, I'm not sure I'd personally want to "monetize" climbing.

I climb to get away from computers, to spend an afternoon (or a few days) with friends away from technology and have by my escape. Just like artists who choose not to sell their art, I'm afraid trying to make money from it will ruin it. I have met guides who I've taken lessons from before who absolutely loved guiding and would not have traded it for the world. Obviously, other peoples' opinions will differ.

(Where are you geographically btw?

edit: just checked your info and I think I've asked you this before. Last time I did, you were in Thailand or the UK, not quite sure if I remember)
They seem to be somewhat desperate though, judging by the sign-off screen:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_happens_when_you_d...
The same crowd that frontpage appeals to?
> isn't a particularly expensive sport

Let me know when you get into traditional climbing, all the gear that it comes with, and start flying to different crags, then it will surely start adding up :P
some of the articles go into detail on specific trades (with the number of shares) that actually happened at $0.01 (or $0.000001 or whatever the number is that is meant to represent $0).

so it ultimately looks like a factor of events caused some people's simplistic trading programs to give away their shares for free, and the people smart enough to buy them up at near-zero did.

that's my best guess at this point, anyway. looking forward to hearing what actually happened :)
Are You a Good Client?
Wow. That is gorgeous. You've just made me really excited for the future of the web.
Thank you, I had such a hard time putting into words why I found the new layout so disconcerting.
Thomas Sabo Online Store,  Thomas Sabo silver for men and women
I don't mean to be overly critical, but I actually laughed out loud when I saw the image of the visual programming interface and read your description of it as "intuitive".

I first read on HN the quote, attributed to Bruce Ediger, "The only 'intuitive' interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned."

Say what you like about your "PHP logic editor": it's no nipple.
Thats not desperate, that's a great retention technique! Every startup can learn from this. If you don't have a practice to retain your users, you don't care about the success of your business.
The way top level domains worked, in the good old days
Crockford on JavaScript: Lecture Series
I always enjoy reading about the IT screw ups of very large corporations, because how can one of my clients be too angry with me in the rare situation when something goes awry on our servers? No one is immune from mistakes.
I heard this story with LabView: Aka Satan On Wheels for Instrument controls.

I'm going to have to see other people live it, love it, and convince me before I'll even clickthrough
"Today's internet content is dependant on Flash," said Grønvold. "If you remove Flash you do not have today's internet."

That may be for some folks I guess. I run Safari with all plugins disabled and I'm able to do anything I want to do on the internet. To me, Flash is irrelevant.
OK, after reading this article, I finally get it. (Or at least have a reasonable working hypothesis.)

The iPad does to the internet what the iPod did to music.

I don't really need that done to the internet for me, but I can see how millions of people would really like it.
This is a great point--once you've set your price, it's very hard to come up. It's a lot easier to establish value with your product/brand at a higher price and then offer an alternative, lower-priced SKU to get more volume while still using differentiation and upsell to the higher margin product. In the case of Omni, think OmniOutliner Pro vs. OmniOutliner.

It'd be interesting to see if a lot of money was left on the table when the iPhone app price rushed to $0.99 in the name of volume over long-term profit. Certainly a win for Apple in gaining end-user adoption of the store and showing that it's a viable marketplace, but I can't help but thinking value isn't being captured by price (a lot of iPhone apps cost less than a disposable, bottled soft drink).
Quite true. I guess it was a rhetorical question. It seems the switch is either flipped, or very, very close to being flipped.
Not really sure why this is press release worthy?
FYI: Whenever I see "readcast" I read it as "Re-Ad-Cast" not "Read-Cast" as I'm sure you mean it. With the color on the page it's a different story, though.
Just yesterday there was a story on ./ about a HTML5 coded VNC client.
Ask HN: Are there any churn figures for Facebook?
I've been searching for a good hour now, maybe my search fu is completely down the drain but I really can't find any churn figures for Facebook, zip.

Is there anybody that knows of a report on how many facebook accounts there are in total and how many of those are still active? It would be quite interesting to know more about the life-cycle of a facebook account, given the various doom predictions that are being made.

I know that some counterparts to facebook are in rough waters, but I attribute that mostly to facebook taking traffic away from them, not to a general trend in the social networking industry.

Any pointers would be much appreciated. If you work at facebook please don't respond to this request for obvious reasons unless it is sanctioned, I'd hate to get someone fired.

The hardest data so far that I did find was the result of an AB test that facebook did on their account cancellation page that reportedly kept '1 million people from cancelling each year' suggesting that the total number of cancellations is at least a multiple of that.
Do we need more top level domains?
Riffle Shuffle
Looking at the article, I find myself agreeing with a lot of the points presented.

There is defiantly a problem of stagnation in the workplace in Japan, especially in dynamic tech-based companies.

Generally the larger the company, the more lumbering they become.

I feel that this is mostly due to the fairly rigid seniority system that's instilled in Japanese culture (especially work culture). Like Patio11 often says, it's almost like it's anathema to think that someone under the age of 30 can have a good idea.

Most people in positions of rank in a company get there not because they're particularly gifted, but because they've been at the company the longest. This is not always the case -- but it is a rare sight to see a manager who's younger than their subordinates.

And generally, this has worked well for Japan. The young people come in, work their butts off to bring new ideas and energy into the company, present ideas to the older managers who then sends the good ones up top.

The managers don't work as hard as the younguns because they got finished with that 10-20 years ago. The younguns work hard because they know that in 10 years they will be able to relax more when they become a manager.

The problem is that with the current problems with social security, companies not paying retirement funds like they used to, and general suckiness of the economy, many young people no longer have confidence that their hard work will be rewarded with job security or a decent retirement.

Thus, many young people are starting to balk at the traditional Japanese working system, and while it is a slow movement, there are now a lot of more agile tech companies started by the younger generation. (One such great company is Messa Liberty in Osaka, which recently interviewed Patio11 in English and Japanese http://www.messaliberty.com/ )

I think that there is a chance that Japan will be able to spring back from this recession, and to be able to change their working style to more mesh with a technology-driven world.

If one thing I have learned in my many years here, it is that the Japanese are, if nothing else, incredibly adaptable.

Notes:
For those who are wondering about the social security from companies, etc -- my father in law who worked at NTT (the phone company) for 40 years, and became a mid-level manager now receives more every month in retirement pay than I do working at my current job. However, that's a thing of times past, and my company (like many) have little to no retirement packages besides public social-security. And who knows where that'll be in 30 years when I need it.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...
It would be like looking at the world through a very small key-hole.

Oh, yes. Heck, yes. I've found that to be a big reason why I love my iPad.

Remember all that psychological research on multitasking? The research that concludes that even the people who claim to enjoy multitasking and have "lots of practice" at it are less productive and more stressed when trying to do more than one thing at a time?

Have you ever seen Cory Doctorow's theory of ebooks? The one that holds that long-form prose on computer screens hasn't worked, not because we're holding out for better screen quality -- many of us white-collar workers spend eight or more hours a day reading from our existing screens, after all -- but because our computers, and our habits when working with them, are so centered around distraction that we can't make ourselves concentrate when sitting in front of a computer? You start to read the novel from the browser window, but then your email beeps. Or, god help you, your mind starts to wander, your hands hit a key-combo, and you check your email as a sort of spinal reflex. And then you notice the RSS feed icon blinking, and then Twitter updates, and then a Skype call comes in, and before you know it you're reading Wikipedia about some band from the eighties while simultaneously watching a YouTube video of some kittens. Or (ahem) posting to Hacker News.

The iPad is relentlessly focused on one app at any given time. This is obviously a problem for some tasks -- yes, you can't really program on the iPad at the moment, or even blog very effectively; that's why iPad owners also have computers -- but for many other uses it is downright refreshing, even Zen. You do one thing. Then you do something else.
http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/92913319.html
I've always wondered why everyone recommends that book.
In the English-teacher community in Japan it's like the sacred text for those who want to complain about Japan. ;)
I don't believe it is and here's why. It's easy to link to your facebook profile. If you create an orkut profile, you can add a link to your facebook profile there and simply stop using facebook.

Eventually, it'll get too costly to maintain the infrastructure to support facebook or the customers -- that is, the advertisers -- will think another ad network is hotter and people will forget about facebook.

You could say, "But all my messages are in there. All my photos and my farm..."

But I'm a techie and I have had computer hard drives fail and take my life with them. Within a week, I forgot all about it. Sure, I wish I had that awesome paper I wrote for some class or another or the code for some program I wrote in high school that drew pretty pictures with mathematical formulas, but I'm okay with out it and life goes on.

And life will go on without facebook. Life goes on without myspace and linked in and friendster and...
I'll try to get some videos up that show it in action since it can be challenging to gauge usability with only screen shots.
Agreed completely.

An avid PC gamer, I suddenly, overnight, quit playing PC games after getting the Xbox 360. The gameplay experience was equivalent (the PC was plugged to the same projector), but the "hassle" factor went to zero on the Xbox 360.

Reducing friction makes users into fans. In the article's examples, sounds like people wanting to accomplish simple goals, finding friction reduced when using the new appliance.
Thanks man! I've started working up a similar thing w/ Steve Blank's business model templates. Hoping to have that ready soon. Cheers!
Replace all the taps in the article to faps and it becomes funnier.
? Regular iPods can do that? You're saying iPod touch in addition to iPod.
I've been feeling the same way about my startup, which has almost 17,000 users but only a small amount of them are paying customers (launched a paid plan a few months ago). I keep wanting to ask myself how much longer I should give it to see if it reaches profitability, or should I just shut it down? Anyway, right now I'm creating a survey for the paying users to be able to tell what they like/don't like about the paid plan. I also plan on doing a referral program that benefits both parties (I did get both of those ideas from a slideshow about a startup and their freemium model, forgot which). Keep those ideas in mind if you ever plan on introducing any paid plans and good luck.
A single developer looking at their day-to-day needs is going to consider maybe at most 5% of the total market need for Android apps. All developers together doing the same might consider only 40% of that possible market. ... and that piece of the market will be crowded.

A better approach is to consider how ubiquitous tablet/mobile almost-always-networked touch/voice-based computing is going to allow better HCI in what general spaces, cross-reference with a comprehensive list of industrial practices, see how those can improve, and team up with domain experts to identify common needs and start building libraries, back ends, and apps.

There are already too many to-do lists, casual games, and social apps. It's time to make industry more efficient.
All I see is a smiley. And that's with Chrome, Firefox, and IE8, because obviously other people are seeing something that works.
That's not a retention technique (even though it may work as such), that's a last ditch attempt.

A retention strategy makes sure that people never reach that page.
Death by algorithm
I see that trend at home too. My dad has a top of the line Dell computer, i7 quad core with 8gigs of memory, 25" 1920x1200 lcd, Nvidia GT200 core, the works. He uses it to browse the web, email (yahoo mail), and uses skype occasionally to chat with distant relatives. He also downloads these korean drama videos every now and then and watches them. He could probably survive on a computer built 10 years ago.

Every time I visit home, there's something broken that I have to fix -- the printer doesn't show up on the network, the computer fan is making a funny noise, the video card is stuck at a low res, the windows file sharing folder disappeared, etc. If you could print via safari on the ipad, I'd probably buy it for them so I don't have to fix windows problems every time I visit home.
I've spoken with a few lawyers who would love for Scribd to allow deep links into PDFs/content that would bring a user to a specified page and highlight a certain range in a document. Think "document permalink" so that they can send the URL to their colleagues.

Also, commenting and annotating on the doc. i.e. highlight a paragraph and add a line of text in a bubble.
2011 Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera Review
The 2011 model from the Lamborghini Gallardo model is specialized due to its use of carbon-fiber components and massive weight reduction design. In addition, a specialized vehicle manufacturing team is working on offering a lot of high end features into this model such as E-gear transmission, a dedicated setup system, sports tires and seats, superior interior ambiance, and other such features to ensure maximum comfort and efficiency for its rider.
You've known for years that the end is near for Facebook and yet facebook has been and is growing insanely. I am tempted to repeat jacquesm's comment about all os us dying above..
Maybe I should use facebook in incognito mode. Or better yet, make a VM specifically for it.
Sure, and some people are perfectly happy using lynx. But the vast majority of people I know either use Hulu and/or play Flash games frequently, especially those in Apple's target demographic.
But they all share a promise that no one will let any fail

Thanks. This statement is the key that I wasn't aware of.
google 'tkinter'

Here's an example I just made:

#-----begin------

from Tkinter import * #part of standard library

def reverse():

s=entrybox.get() #get text from entry widget

entrybox.delete(0,END) #delete text from entry widget

entrybox.insert(0,s[::-1]) #reverse text, insert it

root=Tk() #create a window

entrybox=Entry(root) #create an entry widget

entrybox.pack() #display it in the window

button1=Button(root, text='Press Me', command=reverse)

button1.pack()

entrybox.insert(0,'type here') #add a default value

root.mainloop()
Hey man. I can afford some of those.
This. Very much this. I used to avoid scribd because I didn't want to deal with the flash; now I'll probably favor it because I know I'll get a good layout.
Know When To Finish
I don't think very many people understand that abstracts are really tl;dr's because many people haven't ever really written a report, but yes abstracts are nice if an article is long enough to warrant it.
I downloaded it because I was curious. I haven't opened it since.
You're talking about Cocoa, not Objective-C. It's best to separate them, since some people love Cocoa but hate Objective-C and vice versa.
makes sense. I had to troubleshoot printing problems with my Dad over the phone... apparently the printer got a new IP address and windows couldn't find it. Trying to tell my dad how to fetch the printer ip from the access point and then configure it in windows was a serious pain. After 10 years of technology, configuring the print driver is still hard in windows... it's amazing how well it works on Macs, it's just too bad my parents probably won't want to make the switch.
....on your platform.
> Or (ahem) posting to Hacker News.

Guilty as charged. You have me almost convinced that I should cut down my screen real estate to something a bit more modest and a maximum of one open window at a time.

Maybe I should try that for a week and see how it works and do a write-up.
"... secondspeak.com is currently unregistered ..."

That also means you could try other languages. Something that should be considered. Chinese/English for example could give you a lot bigger user base.
I like your hypothesis.

I bought a 16gb iPad the week after they came out. I didn't really have a need for it, I just wanted to see if it was interesting. I had a very simliar experience as the author.

My wife has little but distain for my gadget obsession, but within minutes she wanted one for herself. Our three-year-old adores it. I put some educational games and cartoons on it, and she can get to it all on her own. Literally every person I've shown it to has wanted one.

Love it or hate it, but don't ignore it.
By "big picture" I mean aesthetics, design, and also strategic resource allocation. I'm in my late 20s and know for a fact that, with a year of study, I could do better than 50-80% of society's major decision makers if in their place.
There's some text issues (text on top of other text) on my iPhone on the normal text fine. The forumlas look great.

It's pretty slow to render on my 2G (definitely rendering because I'm on wifi), but it is pretty underpowered and obsolete.
Yeah, but I can't image that crowd wanting to edit logical PHP diagrams. This looks like it is geared towards programmers, not your frontpage user.

Your frontpage user would be better off moving to a CMS like Harmony, SquareSpace, etc.
you are the first true troll I have seen on HN
...on my platforms.

Text based systems: FBSI, SIS

GUI based systems (when not pointing and clicking): Patsystems JTrader<A>, Trading Technologies' XTrader<A>

<A> These are systems I have used for personal use but not at work
It's been many years since I took driver's ed but I don't really recall a whole lot of time spent on the subject of emergency maneuvering. It would probably be a really good idea if you have a kid learning to drive, or for yourself, to take a few lessons that include recovering from a skid (actually doing it, not just reading about it), drifting off the road, etc. etc.
What competitive advantage do they lose if your app--which doesn't depend on anything special--runs on android, palm, and blackberry but not on iphone?

Let's look at Macs instead. Walk into any large company, which probably spends millions of dollars a year on computers (and IT support). No Macs. Why?

(Because their half-assed IE 6-only app doesn't run on Macs. Hence, they waste millions of dollars a year supporting Windows XP.)

Similarly, why do the corpo-drones all have Blackberries instead of iPhones? Not because the Blackberry has an awesome UI or is cheaper -- because the app they need is Blackberry-only.
- xchat (maybe that does work on the iPad, it could be)

X-Chat? Nope. However, I can personally vouch that IRC works on the iPad. And will work even better once we get Colloquy for the iPad released :)

- an ide (currently intellij, I hate it but that's what I'm using)

There's no JRE on the iPad. No bundling your own interpreter either. However, I can see someone making a very good web development IDE for the iPad. Hell, I'd probably pay a lot of $ for one..
How is it insane to prefer Ruby or Clojure or even C++? You may happen to agree with his preference, but there's a difference between saying, "yes, I prefer those languages too!" and "everyone who prefers any other language is insane."
> If you think your hands are clean in any of that, then you are sorely mistaken.

Oh yes, original sin. Wonderful. That makes sense. Can I buy some plenary indulgence from you, or is it a 'salvation by grace' thing now?

> They are representative of the state of the world in that we still allow them to go on.

The world once allowed the Black Plague and religions based on human sacrifice to 'go on', as you say. Darfur and North Korea are nothing compared to those.
You would be surprised at what crap people can make using a drag and drop interface, just because people are better off doesn't mean they are more inclined that way.
Pre-order ?? How about a 7 day free trial before we get to the ordering stage?

Mind you, great respect for your focus on the monetization but I predict that with an unfinished product at a $65 per unspecified unit of time you may have a bit of an issue with chargebacks.

I don't think it's very good to have a blank terms page when you're charging money either.
Please give the RC a try - we put it out specifically for people like you, and we try really hard to ensured backwards compatibility. If you find bugs now, we can still fix them before the final ships.
I wonder if it doesn't amount to an indictment of the state of computational literacy.

It doesn't.
Developer outrage over this policy has nothing to do with having to learn a new language and everything to do with imposing artificial restrictions on the development process.

If anything, developer outrage is a sign that developers value creative solutions to programming problems.
you have just transformed my opinion of scribd's utility from negative to positive. kudos.
That would be neat, kind of like GitHub's links to a specific line or ranges of lines.
MCSE 70-270
The MCSE is one of the most widely recognised technical certifications in the IT industry. Achieving an MCSE certification provides a valid and reliable measure of technical proficiency and expertise and really will set you apart.
So use multiple domain names.