skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've definitely seen the light on the homepage thanks to you guys. (BTW, the bounce rate on '/' is 50% and time on page is 2 minutes. That's actually not too bad I think. But point is still taken. The homepage looks bad even to me now.)

I'm not convinced I want to kill the home/landing page. I think it could still serve a purpose, just with extreme optimization. I could see putting something actionable on there (entering your first todo). Then of course at the extreme end is your idea. I'll have to think about this pretty hard. Maybe even A/B test it.

I think the point about arrows as buttons is a really good one. I haven't seen any metrics that people aren't acting on them, but I think your intuition is spot on that you lose these kind of stand-out action verbs that reinforce what the app is all about. I think I just overdid it on trying to keep the design "slick" rather than abiding by long-standing conventions.

Thanks for the feedback!
The thought exercise is a bit silly, but it does reflect a real dilemma (so obvious to us that it isn't even mentioned in the text);

1 - people who write web apps can choose language what they want to use.

2 - PG and others claim that language choice can determine the success of a project.

3 - if you don't like PHP or the LAMP paradigm, at this stage of web history there aren't any clear winners.

4 - switching languages mid-project is perceived as a potential project killer, or at least not very fun.

I wonder though; do we have any empirical data to support #2 and #4? That is, do we know how big a factor language choice is for project success, and do we know if switching languages is really all that hard? Reddit switched languages, from Lisp to Python, and it was not a fatal blow.

I'm wondering if the right answer to "What language should I use" is just "Who cares? Start coding."

My day job is PHP, and I'm determined that my personal projects are not going to be PHP. Unlike the OP I am not as, um, decisive in the face of paucity of evidence, so I have gone down a rathole of evalling other langs (Haskell, Erlang, now looking at Scala).
Ugh. I was skimming the article, and when I read that, I was glad I was only skimming.

There was certainly a time when I pretty much thought the same thing, though. It's unfortunate.
The Lost Generation (very short video)
This is most likely a multi-wavelength image, where the various wavelengths were coloured differently in the composite. Some more detail about what the colours can tell us is given here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080605.html
Gizmo5 used to be a good alternative, and got purchased by google.
Because nobody here knows anything about how stuff works at that depth. And a million other reasons. You can't "hack" this can you?
Yes. Since we are near the "edge" of the Milky Way, we have a great view of the centre!
37signals' Jason And David At LessConf: It’s All About The Work
I agree the sensationalist headline. The moderators should delete this submission. Inflammatory headlines do nothing to encourage discussion.
Ask HN: Where should I post an RFP for tech project?
I have a ~4 week tech project I am looking to staff with a developer. Any good ideas of where to post other than elance?

I would really like to hire someone local - NYC.

I am not looking to find cheapest but best - ~$75/hr.

Thx
As I responded to a similar question, I believe that these images are created through a composite of Spitzer images taken at different wavelengths, where the colours have been added artificially. There's more information here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080605.html
How to make Lisp go faster than C [pdf]
I'm non-technical and co-founded a startup. I would never do it again without a technical co-founder or learning to code myself. So I'm learning Ruby. You can do a full-on MSCS from Stanford, or you can just teach yourself how to code, but that's the path I'd take - and I'm going to business school to get an MBA in the fall: http://www.sachinagarwal.com/why-this-startup-guy-is-going-b...
When Facebook is used as a substitute for friendship, it can be very, very bad. The article focused on that side of Facebook -- the teen angst, grass-is-always-greener, add "friends" to get ahead in FarmVille side.

When Facebook is used as a tool to support existing friendships, it can be very, very good. It's helped me stay informed of what my family is up to, reconnect with some old friends, and organize various social events. The article completely missed that side of Facebook.

To those whose experience matches the first paragraph, the problem isn't the tool, it's the users. It's a classic case of "you're doing it wrong".
From Skype's perspective, how is the cell network different from any other ISP? It's the carriers who will shoulder the burden; and there's no indication that any of the fee is going to them, given that Skype says "operator fees may still apply". I don't get it.
The author states that she adds anyone she has met, then seems off-put that her Facebook feed is full of people and information she doesn't care about. Perhaps she needs to learn to group people. Or just not accept all friendship requests.

What I find strangely absent in public discourse on the subject is that it's still unusual to actually meet people via social technology. I'm not talking about adding people to your Mafia Wars crew, but actually using Facebook as a tool to meet people more compatible than you are ever likely to stumble across in real life.

We nervously broach the subject of online dating, but across-the-board real-world socializing via technology seems to be virtually nonexistent.
1. The leak is at 1,500m. Doing anything is difficult and dangerous.

2. The well has a measured depth of +10,000m, the pressure acting on the reservoir is ejecting the hydrocarbons with a very large force.
Anya Kamenetz On How To Rethink Higher Education
Sounds cool, but how does it access the files? Does it support SFTP to edit files on a server?
> Can you explain what this has to do with the iPhone hardware?

Nothing, cabalamat is just hating.
iPhone? I'm sure this will apply to Skype's Andrioid client, too. (Also, "you idiot"? Really?)
John Hessler's blog, where he actually discusses methods for the cartographic analysis mentioned in the article, can be found here: http://warpinghistory.blogspot.com/

Here's a sample map made by the mapmaker Mateo Prunes (3200x1800): http://fglorente.org/zen/albums/mapas/Mateo%20Prunes.gif
> This isn't a net neutrality issue.

Of course it is. Packets should be packets, if you don't have the network to handle the packets, lower caps or raise prices, don't start making people pay based on the kind of packets they send or receive. It is precisely a NN issue.

> " We need to start clamping down a little" issue (I imagine)

"Clamping down a little" is not a problem, "clamping down on (VOIP|Gaming|long-lived downloads|P2P streams)" is
Indeed. Hoagland is a borderline crazy person, quite incapable of critical thinking. But the hollow interior aspect of the story is extremely interesting.

Paper is at Geophysical Research Letters website: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GL041829.shtml Infuriatingly, it's behind a paywall and the article has not shown up on arxiv or scribd. Mention of acceptance is documented here: http://webservices.esa.int/blog/post/7/1085

Note that the GRL paper asserting the existence of 'large voids' is based on analysis of a 2008 flyby. The recent one which took place in March anticipates mapping that interior. The ESA researchers say they'll present more information and pictures of the internal structure at a conference in September. 19 more flybys (including a closer one) are scheduled for august and December 2010; Phobos' orbit coincides with that of the Mars Express about every 5 months.

http://webservices.esa.int/blog/post/7/1082
http://webservices.esa.int/blog/post/7/1090
{url http://example.com/ Click here!}

From the manual/spec at:

http://cairnarvon.rotahall.org/misc/sexpcode.html

An interesting idea, but I'm not convinced that it has that many advantages.
Average person: Tumblr. The easiest way to blog isn't just their tagline, it's also true.

Average person who is a little geekier: Posterous. The easiest way to blog that also has some more anorak-friendly features.

Unhealthy interest in politics: WordPress/Typepad/Blogspot, because that's where most of the other politically opinionated people tend to blog. The hosted services, not the ones you install on your own server. That way someone else has to worry about security updates, maintaining performance, etc, and your friend doesn't have to learn anything about servers just to be able to write.

Programmer blogs: the latest fashion seems to be using github as a blog (e.g. raganwald) or else using a git-based blogging engine and deploying the blog to heroku (e.g. with toto) http://www.rubyinside.com/deploy-blog-with-toto-and-heroku-2...
Stars orbiting the Milky Way's central black hole (video)
It was a good article but not great. Didn't really have anything to do with Zen or it's application to trading.
Anyone else read "The Monkeys Thought 'Twas All In Fun" by Orson Scott Card?
As someone who has spent the past eight years studying markets and trading, I can say that these are not bad heuristics. Nonetheless, I wouldn't recommend them to a new trader. As many traders are fond of saying, you must pay your tuition in money lost and sometimes emotionally brutal events like "blowing up." (Paying tuition is a popular phrase inspired by Edwin Lefèvre's Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.)

More than most professions, trading requires you to fundamentally alter the way you respond to stimuli. We have some natural biases that make us pretty unsuited to trading. Traders who are successful are the ones who remodelled their brain, a job that often starts with an intellectual sledge hammer. Studying a list of proverbs, no matter how good they might be, will not prove profitable. They might act as a good scaffold to lean on while "paying your tuition," but I am skeptical.

(This argument can be expanded to most proverb-style writings. In fact, I was going to write this in response to one of the 37,000 threads regarding ReWork during that mania.)
I'm pretty sure he was talking about Apple having the opportunity to block competing VoIP solutions (say Google Voice). With Gizmo going to Google you can bet that they will be doing really interesting things with SIP on Android.
In this context, the beginning would be designing, building and debugging (getting to work) a "serious" digital circuit or piece of software. Woz's analog work, e.g. the critical switching power supply for the Apple, is a bit beyond that.

I'm not sure how to define the threshold for a digital circuit in those days (that's not my field, for one thing, and the Lisp Machine ones I was vaguely familiar with are huge in comparison to a personal computer of that era).

For software, I'm not sure how to define it in words, but "I know it when I see it" ^_^. Certainly more than "a few thousand lines of C code" ... maybe, it depends on the code. More than you're generally required to do to get an EE (sic) degree....

However, for Jobs, as far as I know he hasn't come close to the thresholds in either domain. Famously, he hired Woz to do that block of Atari digital design work, and as for software, I'm not aware of any programs he's written, and there's these tidbits for backup:

Woz: "Steve jobs never programmed in his life." (http://davidweiss.blogspot.com/2006/10/woz-at-microsoft.html)

This one may be folklore but it's just too fun not to include:

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all of your books."

"You're full of shit," Knuth responded.

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...
Why I won't be upgrading my iPhone
It's not easy to create a competitor to Skype.

Skype's main attraction is not the technology, but the network effect and it's closed system. You could make a cool SIP client for Android/iPhone/etc. but it wouldn't matter because you wouldn't be able to talk to 90% of the mundane's who only have Skype.
Another article which confuses the media attention a story receives with the actual feelings of most people.
try KISSinsights to poll your audience on if you should add features, what would they be, etc?

We used KISSinsights on HelpaStartupOut.com to help us pick the best categories, add additional ones, and remove the non useful ones. We're still in the learning stage but its good to get user input in shaping your product and figuring out how they actually use your product
seriously need to do something about the logo
If it was the carriers, Skype had all the hand--no one wants to hear that their carrier wants to make you pay more money. They could have announced that carriers were looking for ways to try and get you to pay but that Skype told them they wouldn't play ball. Instant win.

This stinks of a money grab on Skype's behalf.
Far from it. If Apple has an off-switch for any potential competitor to AT&T, which any VoIP provider is, then the only way for another VoIP provider to take on Skype on the iPhone is to have enough market share outside of the iPOS garden to make it too costly for Apple to hit the kill switch.
I can help make a better logo.
High-Res Cutout of a Boeing 747
Hah. I might be the same way. A lot of times I realize I don't know how to pronounce words or that I've never said words verbally even though I use them all the time online.

Case in point: 'articulate'. I bet I've used it quite a bit online but nary a time in real life.
well, until apple does, all that means to me is that there is a huge market out there for an ipad/iphone/ipod touch app that does news better than safari.
It doesn't cost them anything more, but I bet it means more usage. It's a lot easier to have Skype always in your pocket than just when tied to WiFi. I think they foresaw a future when data-plan only phones make all their calls "for free" through Skype.
Don't worry, it's like the stock market: as soon as people start optimizing their submission times, any advantage of optimizing your submission time diminishes to zero.
Aside from the custom keyboard (which seems to not always be on screen? See: the third image.) and syntax highlighting that looks rather ugly, for i is rather sparse on features. Not something that I'd pay $10 for yet.
Just don't do any work with it:

"(ii) You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use."

http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html
Thanks for the links, though I don't think the numbers are really comparable since the studies refer to two wholly disjoint populations (US and UK.)
The article states that the content is still available, just not the original physical film that it was created on.
#7 has been a rough idea of mine in the past too - somewhere that you can jot down your education, qualifications and other useful stuff as you go along. Then create customised resumes for jobs as you apply.
I think there are a lot of ways to in-fill housing in SFBA without affecting open space. Allowing tall skyscraper condos in downtown SF makes a lot of sense (and has been one of the major changes from 1995 onward); the continued replacement of light industrial with lofts (from the 1980s), and subdividing victorians into apartments (1920s?).

Most of this has been focused on SF itself. I'd be happy to see more apartment complexes in the 2-5 story range replacing single family homes in parts of the peninsula. Improving transit can also make the east bay and San Jose itself more viable. HSR will arguably make Stockton/Modesto an option for a lot of people.

Actual home space isn't the limiting factor I think. I'd like to see the supporting infrastructure be more dense and efficient (roads/transit, schools, utilities).

Of course, once I bank my first $250mm, I'd like a $20mm house in Palo Alto as it is right now, and a $10mm loft and $10mm house up in SF. :)
At first I thought: Like every other "static Python to compiled language X translator" this one will only translate some static-enough subset of the language, at which point it's not Python. Interesting as usual, but mostly academic.

But then I started reading the source code, and the amount of python features supported with regression tests is impressive! (Especially for something coming from the Haskell community which is notoriously anti-automated-tests).

http://github.com/bjpop/berp/tree/master/test/regression/fea...

Especially cool is the fact that you can use callCC!
I'm pretty sure that that's meant to apply to music/video bought from iTunes, not the use of boughten apps
I've added Clojure support to our CodeRay library -- this should be live in about an hour or so on our site.
Template for creating compojure projects on google app engine
For HN: A quick little Chrome extension to mute/hide submissions
I blew up last night and made an idiot of myself in someone else's submission, calling people names and saying it was not HN material. I was an idiot and shouldn't have done that.

One of the interesting things about HN, given its current size now, is that all of the submissions end up in the same bucket -- there are no categories, tagging, or sub-HNs.

I'm not going to like everything I see. But if I wasn't open to at least glancing at the new stuff that comes in, I'd miss a lot of cool things. If I really don't like it, though, it bugs me if it sticks to the top of the front page.

So I made a technical solution to a psychological problem. Rather than give myself the opportunity to be a jerk, here is a small Chrome extension that lets you hide submissions by clicking on their number on the left. They'll stay muted forever, or until you click the unmute link that it adds to the bottom of the page.

Screenshot of the effect it has: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2316004/hnmute.png

Link to .crx Chrome/Chromium extension: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2316004/hnm.crx
No inside knowledge or anything like that, just from the description in the article above of what they're doing internally. Converting each page of the layout into two JPEGs, one for portrait and one for landscape. That's really wasteful and destructive, they're ruining the usability of text and turning their paid app into an inferior product compared to their website.
> anti-automated-tests

Ummm... the Haskell community invented QuickCheck and HPC, the limit case of automated testing tools...

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickCheck
* http://projects.unsafeperformio.com/hpc/
Submitted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390960
Wallpapers: beautiful wallpapers of nature
"North Korea is thought to have enough purely conventional weapons to destroy South Korea's capital, Seoul..."

No. Give it a good WWII strategic bombing level thwacking, certainly, but far from "destroy".
gcc 4.0.3 vs. CMUCL, the predecessor to SBCL.
Maybe not a death penalty, but a pretty serious wound:

BPs total revenues in 2009 were $239 billion - of which about $130 billion was from the USA.
The article calls Le Guin a good writer and Tolkien a bad one. Le Guin herself writes:

"I picked for comparison three master stylists: E. R. Eddison, Kenneth Morris, and J. R. R. Tolkien; which may seem unfair to any other authors mentioned. But I do not think it is unfair. In art, the best is the standard. When you hear a new violinist, you do not compare him to the kid next door; you compare him to Stern and Heifetz."

and:

"Tolkien writes a plain, clear English. Its outstanding virtue is its flexibility, its variety. It ranges easily from the commonplace to the stately, and can slide into metrical poetry, as in the Tom Bombadil episode, without the careless reader's even noticing. Tolkien's vocabulary is not striking; he has no ichor; everything is direct, concrete, and simple."

http://books.google.com/books?id=ksOjjuy3issC&pg=PA83...
Is there social value in shorting?
The value of investing (going long) in a business makes sense to me on a social level: it's people putting faith in other people that they will offer a good business to the market that will help them make a return on their investment. Even more simply put: it's people having faith in other people.

Shorting on the other hand seems to make a mockery of society: it shows the behavior of some people who do not have faith in people.

I think Germany is doing the right thing by banning shorting not only to prevent further liabilities but also to secure faith (even though the press and experts don't seem to think so):

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-25/german-short-ban-drops-bomb-on-regulators-lawyers-update3-.html

I'd love to know what other people think!
25 Best Cities for College Grads in USA
To be even remotely interesting, these numbers need to be ratios of degree density over population density. Of course the city with the densest population in the country (NYC) scores highly. I'd be interested to see the normalized numbers.
20 Outrageous Insurance Claims
The following 20 people through stupidity, criminal intent or just plain bad luck made the following bizarre insurance claims.
Point taken - there are several on this list where I've spent pretty much zero time with.
RIP Lala.com: An obit for the best music service ever
That's not what Apple say (if you believe this blog):

http://ursecta.com/wp/2009/08/anything-but-games-are-illegal...

A quote from one of the linked articles (The Register) at the bottom:

"Apple is reminding customers that applications sold through the iTunes store are strictly for non-commercial use: business use is forbidden, which makes one wonder what that section of the store is for."
that's no API.
It's subject to change whenever they wish.
However one could stitch back together "the original physical film" (as the article details, it's more complicated than that), digitally capture it and restore as needed, and produce a frame by frame accurate version of the original, which could then be delivered in proper DVD anamorphic and BlueRay formats.

"There exist enough film copies and back-ups to re-create the film, however, so nothing is impossible in terms of a more classical high definition re-release."

"'"It's certainly possible to do a new, high-quality transfer from original 35mm material. You could totally restore the original films from their original negatives for a few million dollars...'"
Okay, with my free-time hobby being the study of weather and atmospheric activity, I'm left unsatisfied and felt I should say something. In particular, the section about clouds stands to be corrected. "Clouds moving in different directions=bad weather coming, probably hail"? What you're probably seeing, when you see two huge collections of clouds moving in opposite directions is the Coriolis effect, something very common in atmospheric activity.

Take this poster at face value, the abundance of the word "probably" indicates to me the creator is going off of second hand information.
"So please go head and login→ or register→"

"So please go ahead" <-- The A is important.

Also, the yellow is kind of obnoxious to me; I would prefer a green or blue.
I think they started lying earlier when they offered 'unlimited' that isn't really unlimited, but subject to a so-called fair use policy. I would call that 'virtually unlimited'. FTC, where are you??
It still says so here: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/security/safety/safe-payments/

"Skype-to-Skype calls will always be free but there are a few things that cost a little such as calling mobiles and ordinary phones when you want to get hold of your friends that havent started using Skype yet."
Looks similar to Latte minus the backslashes. (Which is good; I wrote my old website in Latte minus the backslashes, using a little preprocessor to adjust the syntax.)

http://www.latte.org/

Also http://curl.com/
Clickable links

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2316004/hnmute.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2316004/hnm.crx
Can you share the email with us? I know its private communication, but it would be educational for many of us to know how was the thoughtprocess of 2 successful entreprenuers, in the early days.