skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Legal ramifications of linking to illegal content?
A friend of mine asked for my help in building a really quick and dirty app that embeds movies and TV shows found on sites like MegaVideo. It's a simple weekend project and he is confident he can build an audience for it, however I am hesitant as this seems to fall in a legally questionable area.

Does anyone have any experience with linking or embedding illegal content (movies and TV shows specifically)? The better part of me says to steer clear of this but I've found a few big sites (like blinkx.com) that do this exact thing.
Right, because Wikipedia doesn't have nearly enough facts for someone as hardcore as you. Give me a break.
Personally this is what I do:

1) Idea

2) Write a small paragraph explaining the idea

3) Derive features

4) Make todo list

5) Make mockups using mockingbird (awesome tool)

6) Write some code

7) Get bored and go back to 1) (not recommended)

Between 5 and 6 It should be better to work on the design rather than code. Code should be last imo. Also I hope someone could erase step7 and actually launch the product :)
Download Google Pacman
Rhino is coming too.
Dalai Lama tweets to Chinese web users
No.

From the page itself: "When you click [it] opens a new message in Tweetie with the url and title of the page you are viewing. If you select a piece of text, that text appears in the new message window instead of the title page."
Ah, TomBoy is the nickname of Jess' autistic brother.

I certainly can't control the overloading of the AAC acronym. :)
(UK only DRM?) bbc dramatisation of early UK home computer companies rise & fall
1. idea

2. google the idea

3. html mockup

4. code
I would say B and a half 45-50k
Personally, I dive right into the DB Schema. I use a modeling tool and just start with the basic relationships. For example, a User table and then as I think of features I think about how I will need to store them, how each entity relates to the other, etc. I'm a nut for normalization. At some point the schema is good enough to start coding some basic pages to login and do things. Of course, the schema never stays the same but evolves with the app.

I think the biggest reason I enjoy doing this is because I'm driven by visible progress. I do just enough DB work to then do a little bit of coding so I can do something in the app. Basically giving my self little feature goals here and there.
I built something like this for Sunlight Labs' Apps For America contest last summer. It feeds US patent application abstracts to a Markov processor to generate random invention descriptions. http://eurekaapp.com/

It's pretty slow (tail call optimization in Ruby would be nice), but what it spits out tends to be pretty funny.
That's all hot air (Techcrunch's main product). Outside of that it was actually a fun experience, and I got to meet some interesting people. I didn't accomplish much, nor did I really care about the prizes.
"Nothing will have to be re-figured out or relearned."

Phew, sounds like the iPhone must be hard to learn to use; a lot of investment? Every time I buy a new make of phone I need to learn how that make (and sometimes model) works. I just suck it up in the knowledge that learning is part of life. I've only used one Android phone (with Sense UI) so I can't comment on how different it is from vanilla Android. But I managed to pick it up fairly quickly, to the extent that the differences from iPhone OS that initially annoyed me, I started to prefer in a few days.
Yes this is always a mystery to me too. I am not a web developer. When I develop a web project there are always others who do it differently and better. I improved by some steps doing it the hard way, but it would be great to have some insight from people experienced in this.
The answer is highly dependent on your location.
I tend to think in terms of architecture, so how the data will fit together and what the major compontents will be. The functional requirements are usually something that crystalize in my head on the back-burner over a period of weeks until I pull the trigger and jump in. I often write some throw-away code that captures some of the non-trivial couplings between pieces as a proof of concept and then start filling in the gaps upwards.

Usually on the interface side there's a separate process that meets in the middle. I'll often either do some dummy HTML pages or (yeah, laugh) Keynote slides that give me an idea for the interactional mechanics.

That said, and it probably shows, my strong suit is in developing libraries, not applications, and I tend to paint with that brush even when doing apps.
Its been said before, but needs to be repeated every time:

The implications of this line of R&D are horrific.

Removing the risk of say, US soldier casualties, combined with media control, and with "merely" the current level of inhumanity of political leadership, would be a very ugly mix indeed.

So yeah, its hard for me to get excited about the tech in this case.
You're not putting your banking online—you're accessing a private service on an individual computer using a cryptographically-secure protocol. That's basically no different than having a direct hard line to the company's servers; there's no "Internet" involved, and therefore no "public" involved.

Email is public. It is hugely vulnerable to MITM attacks at every step of the process, not in the least by the postmasters of Alice and Bob's companies or ISPs, both or which are subject to police search as well as social engineering under the guise of police search. Unless you create a secure channel over email, you should always treat everything you say in an email as if, well, it was posted on your facebook wall. No sending email to your human trafficking buddies, in other words.
http://feelmax.com are what I use.
Kind of hyperbolic e.g. "every soul-draining search for a missing soccer cleat," "the fieldworkers, most of them childless graduate students seeing combat for the first time"
"Children starting school this year will be retiring in the year 2071."

That's if the relatively new concept of retiring at 65 is still around or even makes sense in 2071.
Don't touch Bank of America with a ten foot pole.
Exactly. Buying special shoes to run barefoot is completely unnecessary. The best analogy I can think of is the guitar: at first your fingers won't be tough enough and they'll hurt, but keep at it and you'll develop tougher skin for a pain free experience.

Barefoot running is the same way. Sure, it's going to be uncomfortable at first, and you'll probably end up with some minor scrapes. Big deal. You've basically been wearing gloves on your feet your entire life.

I can just imagine some Kenyan reading this and laughing at the excesses of our lifestyles.
Recommended: The Economics of Happiness, by Ben Bernanke
I'd like to see tagging, with a page and corresponding RSS feed for each tag. I usually read HN via RSS, so maybe I don't have a pony in this fight (is that the expression?), but I suspect most folks who visit the front page are there for things that could plausibly be tagged "news", and those complaining about clutter want to avoid things that would be tagged "humor" or "rant".

I think having non-exclusive, optional tags would be much less of a leap than having to assign each post to a single category. Perhaps all users with karma above a cerrtain threshold could have authority to remove a tag from a post, ensuring that the "news" page would only contain things that are clearly considered to be news. Or there could be a "tagflag" link under each tag.

The biggest problem I'd expect to see with this scheme is that editors would have to add tags to items missing them. But important news items are typically submitted multiple times. So perhaps the tags from multiple submissions could be aggregated.
Imagine if they could efficiently vacuum your floor and mow your lawn. We're still a long way from robot world domination.
I don't do anything once I have the initial idea.

I let it sit around in my head for a few days/ weeks... If it keeps bothering me then I try and get the core of the functionality down as quickly as possible -

I get something online which I show my friends and family. Once I've taken, or not taken, their advice I move forward.

I push forward a bit with my gut feeling and get my girlfriend to work on the design. (She's an awesome designer, I'm really lucky!)

I flesh it out around the edges, user registration, 404, 500 error pages whilst I'm waiting for the designs. (Or I just work on something else.)

And then I'm in "beta."
1. idea

2. list features in order of importance

3. select top 50% of 2.

4. paper mockup with various iterations

5. code

6. revise with external feedback (usability study?)

7. go to 3/4/5.
Today: HDH Invitational Final ($3450 Starcraft2 sportscast) 22K viewers atm
There's all sorts of private content available to approved people via the internet that's not available to the public.

It's not how much oil hasn't leaked that concerns people.
I know I probably should be worried about this kind of technology, but I just can't help it - I see this and I'm excited like a little kid again. I want one of these :)
I was going to go (I was registered), but in the end, I preferred to spend half the day doodling around Madison Sq Park, and the rest of the day hacking on some new code for my startup.
I suppose for some it could be a "back to the basics" thing, but it is more about physiology and the best way to move. As such, there is really no reason to avoid the small improvements that do not affect the mechanics. Such as a thin kevlar layer underfoot.
Or, my favorite:

1. idea x

2. google idea x, find nothing

3. spend 2 weeks working on it

4. realize your idea isn't actually x, but more like y.

5. google y, find a bunch of people have already implemented it.
1. Sketch & remove features (usually fit in a page or 2, 3) until I have something minimal. While sketching, I also figure out the main features and then the main db tables and methods/functions. Sometimes the sketch paper has some competitors there, ideas around how to make money, user experience notes etc... Often a little supersimple objectmodel or db scheme too. Always fits on 1 page.

1.5 Put that sketch on my "ideas" wall. Most ideas never make it. But for the ones that do:

2. Set up local domain mynewsite.peter, and optionally put codeigniter on it.

3. Put 1 or 2 html pages up.

4. Create a database table or two, code some functions that call it, and get something working.

Now I have something working, I iterate on it finetuning it for a while. And if I still like it, I might improve it a little and put it online for friends to play with. I've done projects that I launched but only ever used myself.
Find a potential customer and run the idea past him/her.
I only count 6.
Until we devise a system where consumer products, or government grants, drive more research like this, the military war machine is necessary for this type of funding. Most public company's with deep pockets live quarter to quarter. Gotta beat those earnings estimates, by a lot.
Video: Ron Conway talks about investing in the new Twitter ecosystem
Very true. We don't know what the retirement age shift will be. My guess is that it pushes upwards until we have people working until they are unable to anymore. We can see that coming with the lack of savings and commitment to finances.
Very impressive. Sci-fi stuff.

I just found the big stair demo cheap. That "jumping" behavior looked hard-coded (and it was implied by the narrator) and seemed to possibly damage the robot. Still impressive, but a lot less so than the other demonstrations.
Pictures of iPhone 4G with white front panel surface
"It's a super simple extension that puts a button on the browser to share links easily using Tweetie for Mac."

I really wish HN submitters could somehow tag articles mac-only or something. Or maybe just put a bit more consideration into article titles or forgo submitting some things altogether.

I don't have anything against OS specific news, but Chrome (and Chromium) run on a lot more than just OSX. Sort of feel like anything for Chrome also ought to be compatible with those systems.
I've hiked in mine, and they would probably be reasonable for light climbing as well.
The "funny" thing is that it's probably easier to make a robot-killer than a robot that will cook me a variety of healthy meals.
I've always hated Scribd; it's effectively a PDF hosting site which doesn't allow anybody to download the PDF. Instead, we have to deal with their horrible flash/html abortion of an interface.
It may work well for you, and you should certainly feel free to work however you like, but I've found that diving into the code as early as possible works better for me.

I'm generally driven by seeing something working, even if it's only working enough that I can see some data on a page or have a single button that makes something happen.

If I can keep a good decoupling between my views and my models it's pretty easy to go back whenever I get the itch and make things look nicer without touching anything else. Unless you have a lot of javascript doing intense dom operations on a page you should be able to redesign it at will without worrying about breaking anything else, so I don't really worry about getting it right the first time, or really any time unless I'm getting ready to show it someone who's going to judge it on visual rather than functional grounds.

I've found (and, again, this may only apply to me and not you) that leaving design for later helps keep me from getting bogged down in details and losing my steam. If I have a very concrete picture of how something should look in my head I start worrying about getting my boxes to line up right and why my line heights are off and all that stuff that doesn't actually contribute to getting anything working. If I've purposely left the design aside I've in essence given myself permission to be okay with things looking crappy until I feel like fixing it, which helps keep me going on things that actually contribute to working code.
Facebook we have a problem
for me, if there is a commitment to a partner or a real customer, whether or not money is necessarily attached to meeting every commitment, I work very hard and get things done.

but without other people and their feedback, I eventually lose steam.

We need other people. We evolved that way. As with sex and many other things, you can do them on your own, but they aren't nearly as compelling and rewarding.
Cameron Moll At LessConf: The Difference Between Good And Great Design
Make a mockup in HTML/CSS or Photoshop/Fireworks, then show it to someone.
I downloaded the free Delicious App
Or even better, attack dogs of the future. When I got home last night the first thing my roommate did was show me that video and then remind me of the "rat things" in Snow Crash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Rat_Things
Wouldn't that just be something like MailChimp or Campaign Monitor? :-)
Write something, anything! It doesn't even matter how good it is, just get something up and running. Then change it. Change it again. Repeat.

Have you ever written anything before? Good. Then take the closest thing you have from your repository, strip out the code that doesn't apply and file it under the new name. There. You're already x% done. Now finish.

I've tried many different approaches, but this one has worked best for me. It may seem counter intuitive, but I have found that things move along much faster when I enhance a minimal product than if I stew with my thoughts for too long.

[EDIT: No offense taken, but I took out the template. Now close your browser and go write your own.]
It's fun when lawyers write about programmers. (Do I get bonus points for staying up late hacking almost every night, and doing the same all day at work? Oh no, I forgot, that's boring.)
Final match started one minute ago, two phenomenal players. The commentators have massively popular youtube channels that get more views than ESPN's channel, worth watching as Starcraft 2 is THE game that could make eSports mainstream outside of Korea.
Why can't it move 10x or 100x faster? Is speed constrained by computation or something else?
I would say anyone who can reliably deliver ObjC code within a few weeks rampup would be a sucker to accept 50k, though I don't doubt you can find suckers.
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime :)

But youtube wouldn't be here today if everybody froze out of fear for the legal implications of what they're doing.

Sometimes it works out well, even if it is illegal.
There must be some level at which you would object, no? On what grounds do you object when the percentage becomes 50%, 80% or even 100%? You've already conceded the principle and a slave is still a slave regardless if he cooperates with his master. Moreover, nothing I said implies that roads, education, medical services or even charity would not be funded -- in fact you proved my point, these things would be funded voluntarily precisely because many people (myself included) value them. Funding these things by force is immoral. If you think my position is extreme, try not paying your taxes for a few years and learn what the "threat of force" really means to your own freedom and right to property.
Anyone else notice the spelling mistakes?
"For example, if you looking at a page on your computer than you want to take on the go (something I do all the time), you can now just use a Chrome extension and with one click, it automatically appears on your phone."
you're, then.
Ha! I was at Google IO during the demo and I was like, that looks familiar!
It's amazing how science fiction influences emerging tech:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270489
> Parents generally were so flexible in dividing up chores and child-care responsibilities — “catch as catch can,” one dad described it — that many boundaries were left unclear, adding to the stress.

> The couples who reported the least stress tended to have rigid divisions of labor, whether equal or not. “She does the inside work, and I do all the outside, and we don’t interfere” with each other, said one husband.

Quite interestingly this was a pattern I've already noticed in my friends and families' houses. Those with rigid divisions of labour tend to be the most relaxed, which personally I know I'm most relaxed if I know what I'm doing in advance. It personally bugs me when I get home from work and I'm told BTW we're going out now as I usually have things I already planned to do in that 1-2 hours after work.

However, a caveat is that rigid divisions of labour /= rigid rules. Most families I've seen with rigid rules tend to have the most drama, and whilst they usually have rigid divisions of labour, the rules typically blow the stress level through the roof.
Does not seem to work with Google Apps account (
I'd really like to see this but the DRM knocks out about 95% of the HN audience, not much point in posting links like that without providing a work-around.
Really? I got this much at my first job doing PHP for a university. If a real job doesn't pay better than this for Objective-C, something is wrong.
If only Scribd and Flash in general would allow my two finger scrolling to work, it would be much better. I don't like having to go grab the scroll bar just to be able to scroll down in a flash document.
1) Idea

2) check market potential using google keyword tools and get an answer to the question: Can I make money with this?

3) If 2) ist positive, then write it down and go to 4) , if not, forget about it.

4) set workflow then mockup

5) code

6) SEO

7) try to get ramen profitable
They're only horrific if they're misused. Robots like this will also have plenty of non-military applications - especially in agriculture. Legged locomotion opens up the possibility of cultivating land which was previously inaccessible to conventional farming automation.

It should also be said that there is nothing inevitable about the close association between robotics and the military - it's just an artefact of American culture and the idiosyncratic way in which high tech research gets funded in America.
I would think it would be possible to find spending-per-pupil for catholic schools to compare apples to apples.

Quick google says catholic schools are financially "twice as efficient spending less money per pupil" as public schools: http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/catholicschools/

From 2002, so you can probably do better.
I wouldn't recommend Rails as a starting point. The ecosystem has become quite large and there is a lot to learn. Plus, it's in transition from Rails 2 to Rails 3, so you'll be learning a moving target and the ecosystem is a bit unstable as a result. If you'd like a Ruby framework to start with, I'd recommend Sinatra. It has less moving parts but is still plenty powerful. http://www.sinatrarb.com/

If your web application is mostly a web site with some dynamic features sprinkled in, then PHP would be a good choice because it's easy to embed straight within the HTML. If you're building a full-fledged web app (lots of dynamic content, database-backed, user accounts, etc.) then I would choose a web framework. I don't know how PHP web frameworks compare with Ruby web frameworks since I haven't used a PHP web framework myself.
I agree. The fact that Joyce only comes in at number 11 is absurd.

edit: On second look, if you exclude the top ten as extraneous, explainable due to the internet poll effect, the remainder of the reader's list isn't that bad.
Find customers.
You can try what the 37signals guys recommend at http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_From_Idea_to_Implement...

1. Brainstorm
2. Paper sketches
3. HTML + CSS mockup
4. Code
Totally depends where you are:

Atlanta/Austin 55k
ny/Boston 75k
San Fran 80k
Bumblesticks 40-45k
I wasn't comparing the two cars' price points with each other, but comparing their price points with their US price points. Neither of those cars, actually, were ones either of us wanted. I just had seen ads for them recently.

And trust me, it's not a status symbol to my husband. Nobody is impressed by BMWs in Austria. They're common as dirt. Even all the cabs are Mercedes sedans, or the occasional Prius.

I refuse to get a BMW because we'll drive, like I said, maybe 10-15 hours a month. It costs the same to buy a car as to rent one each time, if we get a cheaper but reliable VW. So how nice the car is to drive doesn't really matter.
I really hate to resort to ad hominems, but I'd like to point out that this is by a designer slash developer. It's really easy to feel that code is only part of your job when it's only part of your job. Personally, I work with code all day every day, and I feel as though every moment I've spent improving my code has paid back at least twofold. You just have to think of code as an investment. It's something that you have to put extra into up front to get a big return.
I have a few friends that are into this and have been praising it's benefits for a couple years. I tore a tendon in my ankle last year and am concerned this could hurt my recovery. Anyone have experience running barefoot post injury?
6. So go back to doing x.
I'd think the physics would change dramatically. It's probably a brand new problem to have it work at higher speeds.
It doesn't work for me, because I'm bad at design unfortunately. But from my experience from client projects where I dive into code first to implement specs from my clients without having them a final design usually tend to be slow progressing projects. Sometimes they die half way because it works but it looks terrible and the user experience sucks, even though they know its not finished yet, it kills motivation by a dissapointing user experience.

If you have a design which looks awesome, at least for me, I have greater motivation to get it work. The more detailed and comprehensive the design is, the more eager I am to make it work.

But again, this is what works for projects I've done for clients. Personally I don't have any good finished projects, none of the methods I tried worked there.