skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think the biggest limitation of 3D, that is not shared by sound or color or other cinema technologies, is that it has limited ability for the director to stylistically alter the scene. It's limited to faithful and accurate reproductions, and that limits its ability to be used for artistic purposes.

Color can be used, and more importantly altered, to adjust the audience's perception, by giving characters and scenes psychologically/culturally-loaded color pallets. Smaller and more nimble cameras allow for all sorts of cinematographic shenanigans that subtly manipulate the audience's view by playing with the background while maintaining the foreground. Sound allows an actor another channel to convey emotion, and allowing spoken words instead of text allow for more interactive dialogue, which presents greater options for showing the relationships between characters. Sound also allows for narration, which allows the juxtaposition of exposition and demonstration.

The point of all of this, is that all of these technologies give the director additional tools with which to communicate, and using those tools, there are ways in which the cerebral stimulation or emotional impact of the film can be enhanced. Even the most gratuitous of CG effects can be used to good effect, even though 95% of CG is used for bigger and more impressive explosions. E.g., Children of Men makes excellent use of cinematography and CG enhancements, in order to add to the emotional impact of scenes and to add craptons of cultural allusions to the background.

By contrast, I don't see how 3D can be used to alter or enhance reality in a way that has meaning. It's largely limited to faithfully reproducing a real or realistic scene. You can make something appear closer or further than it otherwise would... I don't see the use case.

This is not to say that it can't be done. I'm not a film maker, and I'm obviously not aware of the full scope of what can be done. Maybe there is some crazy mind-bending case, and I'd love to see it. I love it when technologies are pushed beyond their boundaries to good effect. But I honestly don't think that there are ways to push the envelope of this technology. I think it's limited to realistic reproductions of reality. With that limitation, the film maker cannot use 3D to communicate something that he could not otherwise have communicated.

The only thing that additional mechanical accuracy adds is "immersion," which isn't really useful outside of escapist fiction. I, personally, am not very excited about the idea of more effective escapist fiction. Obviously, all new technical achievements in film lend themselves to bigger better escapist fiction, and often get invented for those use cases first. I have no problem with bigger better escapist fiction because I can just choose not to watch it. But, unlike other technical advancements in cinema, I don't think 3D has use outside of escapist fiction, which to me, makes it a rather lackluster achievement. It advances the craft of filmmaking without advancing the art.

[e]: I don't believe that 3D is entirely without potential. I'm outlining why I'm skeptical.
"Why they don't do something simple like that is just their mistake"

I think all of the customization started from them just not sanitizing input. People realized they could customize their page, inject javascript, etc and then that just became an expect part of MySpace. If they removed that now there would probably be little reason for many of the users still there to stay.
Sifteo (http://sifteo.com) is hiring in San Francisco. Drop us a line at jobs@sifteo.com if you're interested! Blurb follows:

Sifteo, a venture-backed consumer electronics start-up, is seeking talented individuals to help create a new generation of interactive games on a revolutionary platform. We are creating Siftables, a set of interactive video tiles that form the world's first tabletop game console.

We are currently looking for:

* Game Designer / Developers

* Software Developers

* Web Developers

For more info, please see:

* http://blog.sifteo.com/topics/jobs

* http://ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart...
We're looking for a core engineer(s) and design lead at gdgt in SF.

http://gdgt.com/jobs
No, his example referenced a little known fact about H.264, comparing hardware decodable H.264 versus non-hardware-decodable H.264. The iPhone isn't playing some other codec.

H.264 can be encoded, using the same tools, in a way that can, or cannot, be hardware decoded.
Grooveshark is good, I switched to it here in China. Outside of China on fast internet, I can usually find a playlist of what I want to listen to on Youtube, so I just do that. For Europeans, Spotify is far and away the best music service I've ever used, but it's not available outside of Europe yet.
This isn't "Apple" or "Jobs" going after anyone. Jobs is stating that members of MPEG-LA plan to do so. If Steve Jobs mentioning that other people plan to sue is an example of Jobs being "evil," then logically you must be evil too since you have also mentioned the potential lawsuit.
I was going to ask for your (grellas) opinion on the case, but I guess it's in the title ...

I remember a similar story with EDA software, back in 2000 or so, with Cadence's code in Avanti products. Silvaco is a smaller company.

I suppose the point of the suits is that the first baker wanted the customers to buy his pies, or be paid for the pies they should have bought from him.

The back story linked ( http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?i... ) said that "Silvaco sued 12 semiconductor companies in 2003 and 2004 that bought CSI software" and seven settled. Don't know how harsh the terms asked were, but it might have gone the other way - apparently the big guys decided it was worth fighting.
My main issue though is that articles hand wave about these cameras, implying that they are a state owned program of surveillance. They're not.

Companies, shops, town councils, decide independently to install cameras.
When I read Steve's response, I didn't see anything implying that Apple would be involved. Even if they have some patents, they don't have to enforce them.
I've used Fastmail since 2001. Free or relatively cheap and IMAP was a winning combination.

I admit that once Gmail started offering IMAP support I started migrating over to Gmail, but I still use my fastmail accounts for other purposes.
Consider the "definition" shared in the letter.

Compare that definition to WebKit, then to Flash.
Half of the point seemed to be to build Flash-like games. That's not a Flash-like game it's a one page tutorial that's probably been written for every language in the last 30 years.

The other half was who needs Flash? Until you can show games comparable to these - http://www.kongregate.com/top-rated-games - with no omissions or compromises or exceptions, the answer is people who are serious about producing casual games need Flash.

JavaScript is improving in a lot of areas but "not Flash" is a horribly weak argument especially when backed by examples such as this. "Not Flash" implies the platform's actually a problem itself ... consumers, developers and an enormous portion of the internet don't share that mindset. If you want to win marketshare against Flash you need to be better in most or all areas, not almost equivalent in some.
If you have to use the same rules as the standard multiplication method then how is this anymore elegant than doing it the old fashioned way. So instead if counting numbers now you count dots, how revolutionary
Can you qualify that statement?
edit:
You are correct, the player provided by Adobe is not open.

However, anyone is free to make their own player, one alternative player is Gnash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash
That is probably not enforceable. Unfortunately the only real option is a class action lawsuit which would probably result in a minimal rebate.
I disagree with his point but to be fair, fragmede, that "sale by Apple" was a firesale.

A company that raised $35.1 million in funding was sold for $17.
Yes, at least the companies should aim for that.

I asked because some companies see the embrace the benefit and do not grudge.
Yes, at least the companies should aim for that.

I asked because some companies embrace the benefit and do not grudge.
This should probably be made as a 'sticky' topic :)
Something in here is certainly cheap, tawdry and sensationalist.
But to purchase a company which is pioneering new methods of music distribution, and almost immediately shut them down and force their purchases to fit your distribution model is anti-innovation, monopolistic....

I disagree. While it sucks in the short term, it'll actually cause the opposite effect in the long term.

By Apple doing this, it makes it more attractive for new startups to join this space, because there a likely exit. If Apple intends to keep cleaning them up by buying and shutting them down, it'll just attract more until it is no longer economically feasible for Apple to suppress them.

It'll become prohibitively expensive for Apple to maintain a monopoly by doing this indefinitely.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Funda Real Estate B.V. -- http://www.funda.nl/neveradullmoment (Dutch)

We're looking for a fourth UX designer to join our current UX team. In our company a UX designer is multi-disciplinary capable in the fields of communication, to design, to front-end development (HTML/CSS only with Javascript as a plus).

Please see above link for details. You're always free to send an e-mail to the contact person in the listing or myself at jeroen.mulder@funda.nl
Cary, NC.

http://phonebooth.com

JavaScript, Erlang, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, FreeSWITCH, FreePBX.
My Thoughts On Lala Shutting Down
There are a number of free web-based players with a nice interface, I use prostopleer.com.

As more such virtual goods (video, audio, books, etc) companies will fail to offer reliable long-term service, customers will force them to switch to a model where you get something better than a temporary database record for your money.

Meanwhile, I'm only paying for service subscriptions.
Can the same not be accomplished with a comment?
Of course if it really was that easy to find people in the UK, then the CSA (Child support agency) would be able to. But they can't.

I can't find the stat at the moment, but generally they can't find most absent parents.
WebGL? I know it's not finalized but it be useful to see WebGL included.
Which part of the definition does flash violate? Also, Apple doesn't give much credit to KDE with WebKit, they certainly like to imply that they are very open with it without mentioning its origins...
BackType (YC08) is hiring engineers to work on both the front and back end of our analytics product. We work mostly with Clojure and Python and use a mix of technologies from Thrift and Hadoop to Cassandra and graph databases. We're three people, we all code, and we work with TBs of data, manage a cluster of 100 machines, and build and scale products that serve hundreds of millions of monthly requests.

Checkout our tech blog at http://tech.backtype.com and contact me directly at mm@backtype.com
Get a Job as a Piracy Snitch
Do you know if they are also willing to hire interns for the summer for dev positions?
I can. "License: Proprietary freeware EULA" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Player

And the argument that anyone is free to re-implement is just as valid for anything. The fact of the matter is that thousands of man-years have gone into building Flash Player, and replicating them is far from a straightforward task. The spec is huge, and there are millions of .swf files to which an alternative implementation needs to be compatible. It's a bit like suggesting someone re-implement Windows if they don't like Microsoft's version of it. It's open, right? Anyone can look up the ABI for user space executables, kernel drivers, etc., so how hard could it be? ReactOS (or Wine) hard, as it turns out.

Note also that for the supposedly open components, Adobe controls them so tightly, they are only "look but don't touch" open. Openness is only useful insofar as you can actually do something with the information or code. They maintain this control precisely because they have an iron grip on the player. There is no point for a third party to extend the Flash spec or compiler, because they can't realistically build an implementation that actually runs code obeying the forked spec. It's as ridiculous as creating a driver to run on a hypothetical version of Windows. Yes, you can do it, but it's also completely pointless.
Another good alternative is emusic.

$10/month for 30 DRM-free downloads. Only downside is it's only independent labels, so no Rolling Stones. Lots to choose among, though. Their website says they've got 6 million tracks from 60,000 record labels.
It's not about the game. You're still missing the point.
LinkedIn - Mountain View, CA

I'm hiring a team to help develop a new user-facing Data Product built on top of LinkedIn's massive dataset of 65 million member profiles, connection graph, recommendations, company database, and other rich information sources - both internal and external. I described a bit about what it is like working on our team earlier this month on the LinkedIn blog: http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/04/20/linkedin-data-scientist-...

To accelerate the application process, feel free to ping me directly (info in my HN profile).

* Senior Software Engineer - Analytics Applications
http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=937403

Front end engineer working directly with me & the Data team. You will be wiring up an application and UI that serves millions of users, pulling data from sources like Voldemort and relational databases. Looking for solid developers who can quickly crank out a solid web app in Java, Rails, or Django. Should be someone who iterates quickly and thinks about scale. Interest in information design / interaction is a plus.

* Site Operations Engineer (Ruby on Rails)
http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=902262

Another role that might be of interest to HN readers: You will work closely with the Light Engineering Development team to configure, deploy, and monitor production-ready applications using any or many of: apache, nginx, memcached, mongrel, thin, Passenger Phusion, rabbitmq, redis, sphinx, and anything else it takes to get the job done.

We also need more data scientists to focus on the machine learning algorithms & statistical processing behind this and other similar products we have in the works. Experience with things like Hadoop, Mechanical Turk, & Info Retrieval a plus:

* Senior Software Engineer, Information Extraction
http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=923006

* Senior Data Scientist
http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=944162
what no love for linux? http://img2.me/4sWE8.jpeg

Either way, I'll see what you have to offer. Good luck finding HNers
Doh! http://litmusapp.com/
Looks like there's at least one really cool coworking spot though:

http://wiki.workatjelly.com/JellyInSanDiego

I still miss the coffeeshops down there, especially the 24 hour ones like Lestat's:

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=2610062677630197912
because to perform 312 * 123 you draw 12 lines, count a total of 36 intersections and perform a single addition.

you did not have to actually know any multiplication. and the rules for are hung on a visual framework instead of just being "the rules."

No one said it was revolutionary (well maybe some youtube commenters..)
Both are perfectly legible
Guy who found prototype iPhone found
What is wrong with Amazon MP3? no drm.
Finishing move: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
I agree with you somewhat. There seems to be a divide between the cases of the text. Since Microsoft's framework is named in all upper-case.. it seems to be the convention for .NET framework related apps/companies. If a company was named "Orange.net," I wouldn't think they were related to MS or .NET.

There are a lot of companies and products that use this name... I'm sure you've researched it a bit, I can think of about 5 off the top of my head. My guess is as long as you aren't a threat to Microsoft's income.. you'll be just fine.
I'd like to get a Scala users group added to this list. Any Scala users or enthusiasts in San Diego?
Airbnb is hiring 10+ people right now. In particular, we could use some Front End Engineers (backend knowledge is a big plus). Our team is small and you will have a huge impact on the product.

Email me directly at chris@airbnb.com if you:

1) are nasty with Javascript / CSS / HTML

2) can prove it with existing work on great websites or projects

3) love the idea of Airbnb

More about our jobs here: http://www.airbnb.com/jobs
It's not a question of history, but of the way the bill is written. In stark contrast to the law that is the topic of this thread, the bill has been online to view for years, and even has a summary in plain english: http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/PlainEnglishSummary_TheFairTaxAct...

How do I know the income tax will really be gone? Section I of the bill abolishes all income, estate, payroll and gift taxes, repealing sections A, B, and C of the Internal Revenue Code in their entirety. Sec 301 disbands and defunds the IRS, and requires that all its records be destroyed in a year. And sec 401 contains a sunset clause that negates the whole thing (both the sales tax and the abolishment of the income tax) if the 16th amendment to the constitution is not repealed within seven years. Thereafter, any attempt by congress to bring back an income tax would be, not merely unpopular, but actually unconstitutional. And they'd have to build up the infrastructure from scratch.

These guys are deadly serious.

Why would politicians give up power like that? Not sure. But there are a lot of them who say they'd be willing to: http://www.fairtax.org/cgi-bin/scorecard.cgi

Whether or not you think the Fair Tax is a good idea (and obviously I do), it's a model for how law ought to be made. In public, with a lot of visibility and discussion up front, a lot of time for question and answer, the full technical details exposed. The bill is not a tangled mess of amendments, but a well thought out and cohesive whole.
Why don’t you want to leave your PC running? My sleeping MBP needs one Watt. That’s what, maybe the equivalent to one hot bath for a year worth of leaving your computer running? I can live with that. Being able to always pull that laptop out and have it running within two seconds is just damn cool.

Bootup time still matters, waiting forever until the system reboots after you installed that security update is still annoying. But it arguably matters less.
If your point isn't the title of your submission then what is it?
Is it just me that thinks it's a little creepy that Amazon knows what I highlight? (Well, theoretically anyways, I don't own a kindle)
Excellent, now cross reference that with the difficulty of obtaining citzenship/work visa for each country for an American and I'll be all set.
It also works with binary numbers.
An odd footnote here: I incorporated Silvaco and represented them through about the mid-1990s, though I have not been connected with any of the lawsuit activity described in this article. The style of the company can accurately be described as "aggressive."
Thanks for the link, you are certainly correct that adobes player is proprietary, but I provided you with a link to an alternate player... Just because something is hard to reproduce doesn't make it closed. Do you consider java closed because Sun/Oracle makes the best applet viewer?

I am not trying to say Adobe is guilt free or anything, but it looks to me like they are making it as open as they can, unless I am missing something.
That trick with the forward slashes is awesome. Now I'm trying to think of other cool designs that can be done using just large, cropped text.
Would you consider people from outside SA (willing to relocate)?
Flash Lite is alive and well on the Symbian os, including applications and websites.

In fact Symbian is probably the os with the most dev tools available: java, c++, python, flash, ruby(?). There was a .net too but the company that made it closed shop.
SSi Micro is hiring great hackers. Know C pretty well, be great at one high-level language (Python, PHP, whatever), be a quick learner (and we mean quick), and then come and be a propellerhead at our awesome, small company.

www.ssimicro.com/jobs

We're a little company based in Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories. We deliver broadband satellite internet to 61 of the most remote communities on earth, and now that our network's up and running (although we're investing heavily in upgrading it), we're busy building great software for our customers, optimized specifically for our unique network.

Right now, we're building a file sharing webapp. Why not just use dropbox, you ask? Well, our network is pretty unique: all our traffic is bounced off a satellite, and round-trip latency of ~600ms (which is because of the horrible limitation of the speed of light, which we are constantly working to exceed) means that we have to do things a little differently. SSi is so cool that when we won a government contract to do "time-shifted file transfers", we decided that we /could/ meet our contractual obligations with a few weeks of work/testing, but instead we're building a wicked webapp that brings the functionality to everyone on our network, not just big clients with IT departments.

Yellowknife's not as cold as you think, and the 24-hours-of-daylight summers are not to be missed.

If you're interested and game, we'll make an offer really easy to accept: We'll get and pay for your apartment, a car if you need it, and pay you atop that. We'll do all that for up to three months while you evaluate us and the north, so that it's risk- and hassle-free for you to come to a really great, unique company in an awesome little city.

Email: stephenw@ssimicro.com
Um, I can't get ubuntu one to work. Maybe because I use swiftfox... Seriously you can't even enter your username/password into the tool directly.

I guess dropbox is the way :P
If you're going to be offering cloud services to developers they'll have to do a lot better than they're doing right now in their marketplace.

Restrictions simply won't cut it in that market, and it needs to be seen if something like what Apple is doing will survive without those restrictions.
It makes a silly imbalance between new and old properties. The immediate second you buy that new house, it's price drops in value 30%. So you have little incentive to buy new as you can get 30% more house for buying slightly used.
I'm disappointed with this change - it seems like picking up the new shiny tech for the sake of new shiny tech, at the expense of usability. My mac came with ruby, but not node.

Also, a 1.5-second speedup is not terribly compelling for something done rather infrequently (and if you're not caching or pre-processing to static files, you're doing it wrong).
But what counts as a business. If I write a book and get $5000 in royalties on a 1099, do I have to send Amazon a 1099 for the computer I bought to write the book?

Even if I do... not gonna happen.
The things which are patented generally apply to parts of the spec that have never been deployed.
I think you can roll those all into a single 'own the dominant delivery form of the era'.

Of course everybody is shifting, IT is a moving target and that will not stop for a long long time. The really interesting question is what it all converges to in the long run, and if that can be 'owned' at all.
Please Make it Hard(er) for Me to Cause (Email) Disasters
Panjiva, a venture-backed startup in Boston and NYC, is building a Ruby on Rails supply chain web service. The small dev team of MIT and Stanford grads (including a YC alum) is expanding and looking for people with web application and data mining expertise for summer internships and full-time work. I have contact info in my profile if you have questions, or go to http://panjiva.com/jobs.
No, I'm being funny. Somebody else is using words like "conflating".