skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> There isn't any phone other than iPhone that loses the signal altogether by just touching one point on the phone.

Perhaps, but I'm not entirely convinced that is true. It may be, but it may also be true that other phones do have a one point weakness which isn't marked by a visual cue. It's just that no one has tested a large selection of phones to locate that one point.

Of course, I'm not sure why it matters whether a pinky can drop dB ... you can't hold a phone with just 1 finger touching the side. This is just as much of an issue as arguing all phones have a major weakness because they drop dB when wrapped in aluminum foil.
"A penny saved is a penny earned." Just as a minute saved is a minute gained. I asked to save myself time. Hindsight is 20/20, and a whole lot of people on here have hindsight.
Yes, but that might account for why this guy isn't able to reproduce the bar drop.
Yes, I intentionally exaggerated. Apple isn't ruling the market with an iron fist (or a monocle). They are however making confident, clever marketing moves to continue to build their brand in inventive ways nobody has really done before. This recent one is especially clever in light of the fact that what they're doing isn't particularly inventive in an engineering sense, so the innovation is purely in public image. It's not going to completely counter their recent tailspin, but it's a lot stronger than I can imagine most other companies attempting. The only other one that I would believe capable of this sort of play is Coca-Cola.

And so yes, if anyone else does dare try the "we have cool testing facilities" move, they'll be patently copying Apple's marketing — not that this hasn't happened before.

The only other companies I've seen try to spotlight their facilities as being really cool and beneficial to customers have been car companies with their automated assembly lines and Intel. It doesn't work in a lot of circumstances, but there is definitely a huge cultural significance in the amazement at technology (or if you're not amazed, it's just nerd porn).
Adding CSS3 Support to IE 6, 7 and 8 with CSS3 Pie
I use the free Photo Toolkit (it's good enough for basic blogging: scale, rotate, crop) and tried this test. It has this flaw too.
Sometimes things go well and sometimes poorly on the voting. A common pattern on Hacker News is: first you think Hacker News is great, then you thing it is turning into Reddit and then you think it is great again. The different impressions may depend on if you visit the main feed page or visit the newest links page (and how often you do that).
I disagree, especially const-correct methods help avoiding mutation. The primary mistake IMO is that const can be cast away. Invariant should be invariant (like D).
Ahh, in that case learning C is a veritable goldmine!

Edit: Also, if you use linux and end up going down the rabbit hole a bit, C is a prerequisite.
Thanks. Obviously I've fixed the original problems now, but if I get a chance to try to recreate them I'll be in touch.

I should have mentioned that's the other thing to love about CoffeeScript: insanely responsive support!
Any and all feedback is welcome.

Hacker News has pretty much been my cofounder, investor, mentor and friend all rolled into one. So as always, thanks everyone.

If you like the concept please feel free to "Like" my application here:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=129421017095...

This will help me do some customer development and also get my Facebook url (without the identifer).
"... you have to understand that only government approved software is allowed on the computers..."
Those who care about titles are those that should become politicians. I respect engineers for what they do, not for what they're called.
There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, as is usual with these things.

The problem with rare and expensive new technology, as genetic engineering was until quite recently, is that it acquires totemic significance. Everyone reads about it, but few people experience it directly, so it's easy to fantasize about it and imbue it with all sorts of magical powers. One of my favorite examples of this -- because it's just so ham-handed about it -- is a 1950 B movie called Radar Secret Service, as spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000:

http://mst3k.wikia.com/wiki/Radar_Secret_Service

In this film universe radar is everywhere and can do anything - find valuable mineral deposits deep underground, locate large schools of fish underwater, etc, and all from thousands of miles away! Worship radar at the church of your choice.

Of course, in 1950 radar was an amazing war-winning technology that only MIT researchers and Air Force techs had any direct experience with. Sixty years later, now that radar has come and gone as a trendy police speed-measurement technology (it's all about the LIDAR now) and every local weatherperson has had a big Doppler radar display for twenty years, radar is kind of normal.

People's attitude toward genetics is such that if a woman is handed a genetic profile of a black man and told it is hers she will actually entertain thoughts that she might be a black man. People hear that they have the gene "for" some rare disease ("p < 0.05") and then contemplate suicide because the Book of Destiny has foretold their certain doom. This attitude is no joke: It really is an intense, potentially traumatic emotional experience to read a genetic scan at this point. One is reminded of the cultures in which people think that being photographed is to have one's soul stolen. Laugh at such cultures at your peril, for in our own culture to read one's genes is to read one's soul, one's essence, and one's entire future.

These beliefs will fade eventually. I actually think the 23andme incident might be helpful for public education. The biggest problem with genetic data at this point is that people take it way, way too seriously. Turning it into a laughingstock would be a positive development. Reading genes needs to feel more like reading the Daily Racing Form, or shopping for fashionable prescription sunglasses, and less like touring a funeral home, scoring poorly on the SAT, or attending an exorcism.

(Of course, as someone who almost certainly does not harbor the gene for Huntington's disease, this is easy for me to say.)
Ask HN: What do you waste too much time on as a developer?
I was comparing the wrongness of the story, and how it was relatively easily defused by further research and by honesty on the part of Motorola. Mind you, there response left much to be desired, but it was a vast improvement over the "there's not problem" response from Apple.
Hi, author here. Let me know if you have any comments or feedback. It's always appreciated and I hope you enjoy the read.
A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere
Why not just check the request URL, and if it doesn't match your domain, or a domain of your affiliate, display an invalid domain screen instead of the game?

Toss in a frame breakout script for good measure.

Doesn't seem like a very difficult problem to fix.
I don't worry about my comments getting down-voted. It has happened and I figure, Eh, screw you for not getting it. Just ignore it and move on.
Voice control is perfect for the living room.

I'd be wary of it being too easily triggerable, though.
Can I have a few more upvotes please? This is the only way to do it. There's currently two root posts above this one advocating the incorrect way, with versions in the URL.

By doing it this way, you don't break links when you want to bump versions. Or if you have a single resource with an incompatibility, you can just upgrade the version of it, and leave all the others the same, without having to change anything, or your clients having to change theirs, either.

I wrote a blog post about this awhile back, please see point #4: http://blog.theamazingrando.com/your-web-service-might-not-b... (apologies for the formatting, I just imported it to Posterous, and it seems their styles aren't quite right)

Also, a former coworker of mine wrote a series of posts about this topic as well:
http://barelyenough.org/blog/2008/05/versioning-rest-web-ser...
http://barelyenough.org/blog/2008/05/versioning-rest-web-ser...
http://barelyenough.org/blog/2008/05/resthttp-service-versio...
Absolutely, yes.

+ From the point of view of Python or Java (say), it's close enough to assembly language to let you understand how things might work;

+ If you need speed or control over hardware, sometimes it's your best route to extend whatever you're working in;

+ In many jobs you'll be the only one who has the knowledge to do unusual things, hence you'll be more valuable;

+ It gives you another point of view when designing systems;

+ You say you'll need it for college - learn it now;

+ A spread of languages is critical if you want to master programming.

You can carve out a perfectly good programming career without knowing C, but it's always of benefit and value to get a wide range of skills. Some recommend:

+ Pure OOP: perhaps smalltalk or Self

+ Pure Functional: perhaps Haskell (non-strict) or ML (strict)

+ Pure Imperative: perhaps C

+ Pure Logic: perhaps Prolog

Other hybrid languages are useful and perhaps more productive, but it's the ideas that really matter while you're still learning.
C is lingua franca of programming languages. Even if you don't find yourself programming with it, it will still be useful.
Google the new Microsoft; Apple insists on being Apple
I'm running a similar stack, although I'm only using a Thinkpad T410 at the moment.

Arch+Xmonad+urxvt+tmux+emacs+git and a lot of reading and tweaking gives me a machine that is fine-grained for how I like to work, and allows me to be so much more productive than I've been able to accomplish with other stacks, it's ridiculous.

I use OSX at work, and it's not too bad, but I'm still slower. I'm sure there's an argument to be made about how I'm just not using OSX to it's fullest, but frankly knowing that I can't actually change the way anything works if it disagrees with me makes me assume that I'm not going to be capable of maxxing out my productivity on that OS.

I haven't run into RSI yet, but I've been thinking about picking up a Kinesis advantage when I start fleshing out my home-coding space. It looks wonderful.

I too almost never touch the mouse. It's wonderful.
Well, by their behavior with respect to pornographic or erotic apps, their response to jailbreaking, their decision to completely lock the device against unauthorized apps, and their censoring of books and comics over non-sexualized nudity. From the very beginning, Apple has demonstrated a near complete dismissal of their customers' ability to make decisions for themselves, as can be seen from their decision to make a walled-garden sort of marketplace where customers can play around without getting hurt.
I've been cooking that idea the whole week. Here is what I'd do to improve it:

- Get a reseller deal with godaddy so you can sell domains and get some extra cash to keep the business going from day one.

- Divide the screen in two sections: one to auction domains, the other one to ask for domains based on a business idea.

- So if I want to start a business about toys, I can poll the audience for toy related domains. People make money, you make money, the user gets satisfaction.

- Spice up the auctions. We all know auctions on ebay get hot in the last minutes only, so set up the auctions to last just two minutes and use the latest websocket technology to broadcast the auction in real time.

If you are interested in a partner, or if anybody wants to set up such a business, let me know by replying here.
Did you try a USB display adaptor on the Macbook?

I ask because I've got a Mac mini and am semi-seriously contemplating a third monitor.
No, please don't do this. Having a version string in the uri is bad. The version means nothing about the resource, and everything about the representation. Please see some of the links further down in the comments for a more detailed explanation.
Don't worry. :-)
It's funny that everything discussed here is globally applicable. I'm not patriotism-crazy either. Your view added at least another insight into the motivation of such a move (patenting).
pretty good. I am wondering what are the three grey boxes doing in the sidebar?
I am also interested in your other 92attempts.... that sounds a lot!~
You won't learn anything unless you need it, and it depends on your interests whether you need C in your programmings.

Other than that, I can't speak for anyone but myself.

For me, C has taught me so much since I was 14 that I couldn't possibly be where I am if I hadn't spent years writing C and I couldn't possibly recommend anyone not to learn it. But it's a different world for everyone and I can't say it's a bad thing if you don't know C. It would be a bad thing in my line of business but not everyone does the same things I do.

One thing about C is that it's a nice forced marriage with the von Neumann machines we're using these days. If you really want to know C, you really want to know the current hardware architecture as well. It will change but it won't do that at least in the next couple of decades.

On the other hand, mastering high-level languages first and dropping down when necessary might be a wise choice, if you only know you can do it. Like I said, architectures and paradigms will change in the future, and higher-level languages can embody abstractions that are very hard if impossible to contain in a von Neumann machine and it is the revolution of some new architecture when C will eventually be obsoleted.
I agree with you, except I don't know that a lot of iPhone 4 users consider this a huge issue. I remember people getting upset about slight color imperfections in the iPods a couple of years back. People tend to consider Apple products more than just a phone/mp3 player/whatever, so even minor problems are considered huge issues.

I think they feel that most of this reception frenzy has been whipped up by people who don't own/use the phone, and whose basis of determining the usability of the device is a series of youtube clips.

I respect the shouting and screaming from those who made the 0.55% of AppleCare calls regarding this issue, and the 1.6% who returned the phone. But I think the majority of the noise is made by others, which feels a whole lot more lika whining to me. And I'm hard pressed to respect whining.
The point is the single data point you are providing. Finding iPhone 4 users with this same data point of not having a problem point to the fact the you entirely missed the point.
I love this! Is there a way to cut to the chase, taking it to the logical conclusion: a plain, old, linear RSS feed for every published academic journal?
Before I clicked the link, I thought you meant physical workspace, and I immediately thought of my best physical workspace hack: every day, I try to focus on one big important thing. I write that thing on a post-it and attach it to my main screen. It's a huge productivity improvement for me.
Complex Ovarian Cyst Symptoms | Cancer 24h
I'd never heard of Pintos before. This looks like something I'd really enjoy working on, thanks for bringing it up.
If you like to hold your phone differently than how Apple thinks you should, then too bad-- that's their only current-gen phone.
Or you can get their free case, which leaves it still thinner and arguably better looking than most other phones on the market.

The antenna problems illustrate why buying an iPhone is always a losing deal

That seems really hyperbolic... always a losing deal? Unless perhaps you assume that the portion of critical-problem-havers is 100%. In actuality, it's a tiny fraction. (And, of that tiny fraction in this particular case, the vast majority can be solved with the free case.) Could Apple someday be struck by the inability to make a good product, leaving users with no upgrade path? I guess so, but that doesn't keep me from buying what appears to be for me easily the best device on the market. If that ever changes, yeah, I'll have to find replacements for maybe $50 worth of apps. Not the end of the world -- it's not like I'm signing on me and the next few generations to Apple-only.
I had the same problem when designing a REST API a while ago. After reading lots of documents on REST philosophy I decided that no one really knows what REST is and there is no precise answer.

In our case, we decided to go with the version number in the API (I don't think it matters if you use "1" or "v1"), because we wanted to be able to easily route requests to various API versions in the future (using load balancers). But it's more a matter of taste than a hard technical decision.
Safari 5.0 on OS X gets it wrong (http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma_dalai_lama.html); just a gray image with subtle, barely visible pink and green contours.
Reasonably extensive discussion from the last time this was submitted:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1141971
Ask HN web designers/devs: What are your pain points?
Hi guys,
To the web designers/devs at HN: What are your major pain points as web designers/devs? What tool do you absolutely wish existed?

For me, the tool I'd love to have would be a Photoshop-like design tool which would generate HTML + CSS rather than PSD files, and I've been thinking of writing something like that.
Perhaps the title should be amended to show that this article is a big deal because it is a NYT Travel piece about AirBnB.
No, you should learn Java instead. The leap from Python to C would be atrocious, but the leap from Python to Java would be feasible. (And if, after feeling comfortable with Java, the leap from Java to C becomes reasonable too).

You'd want to learn C to get a feeling for how the computer works at the core, but more important than that you should be seeking a rock-solid foundation in proper coding methods and structures that has potential off-branches into your courses and your career.

From Java, you could pursue Android development or even Objective-C for iOS development. From C, that transition would be frustrating to say the least.

(Other points behind pursuing Java is you'd find it quicker to start testing on your local box without needing to seek help, it'd give you great insight into what an IDE is and why it is your best friend, and there are more community projects surrounding Java than C that you could start to participate in when you're ready.)

In the end, any language you want to learn would be a good language to learn (even Fortran), but you should go after a language that you can go from 0-to-novice on your own in a short time where you'll end having built a nice repertoire, and I think Java would best suit that need for you.
I've made a living buying and selling domain names and 100$ is a fine price in many cases. I've had days where I've registered 100+ names... if I could get decent liquidity at $100/each, I would be a happy man.

Anyways, about the idea, one of two outcomes is possible:

1. If they domain is worth more than threshold, someone will buy it and take advantage. I don't see a difference of a startup benefiting versus someone else reselling it. the difference in value is still being captured.

2. Garbage names, nobody cares and the site dies.

I know I am not the only domain investor reading HN and if there is quality, someone will buy them.
I'm on an F1 visa and have been working as the sole founder of my startup since May. You have to apply for OPT and choose the "self-employed business owner" option.

The biggest problem is that OPT is valid for one year, plus 17 months if you're coming from a technical (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) degree. So you have about 2.5 years to do something so big that you can transition to something else (EB-5, startup visa?).

Feel free to ask me more, I did lots of research in this area before quitting my job and starting to work full-time for my own business.
Majority can do that; there are also comments which are full of misinformation and wild assumptions, yet get upvoted like crazy because of their "tone". I hate it, but it's not my pathology.
As a long-time user of Open/FreeBSD & Linux & solaris/opensolaris....

The point about # of devs is true - linux is the new nix reference platform (well, not new anymore I guess). It used to be SunOS/Solaris.

OpenBSD has a small number of committers and developers more because of the attitude of it's community and head honcho - OpenBSD is fantastic at what it's fantastic at, but the developer community is very much "If you don't like the way we do it, F* off" (which is perfectly fine...no moral judgement implied).

FreeBSD on the other hand doesn't get enough cred... it's solid, it's constantly incrementally improved. It's a single distribution with a very focused core - so while it doens't have all the fire and brimstone of linux, those FreeBSD guys have been cranking out solid, wonderful, well engineered and well documented code for a long, long time.

I'm often on the brink of wishing I could switch an enterprise to FreeBSD completely - the commercial support isn't all there, but from a purist point of view it's pretty much THE best free *nix out there, and I'm never really sure why it doesn't get the same focus linux does - I suppose it's just the way things went and media hype about the GPL.
No, this is incorrect. If you have versions in your url, then the same client (eg, with ID 1) has two resource identifiers, /v1/clients/1 and /v2/clients/1. In fact, you have the same resource, /clients/1, but multiple versions of the representation. There's links further down, the one by Peter Williams in particular, that describes a way to do this using content negotiation and the Accept header.

Updating is easy, just add the representations to the resources that need the newer version (eg, "views" in rails). Updating with a new v2 in your URI means updating ALL your resources, or writing lots of redundant code to route multiple incoming uris to the same resource. This gets unmanageable, fast.

Putting versions in the URI increases complexity, for you, and writers of clients.
Write a relationship essay that has a good topic
A relationship essay examines the relations between two people, two objects or two processes. If a student can understand the deep interactions between two people it is easy for writing the relationship essay. This article explains this with some examples.
I am sad that he isn't running Apple. Of course I will get the 'but it wouldn't be what it is' argument. But as a human being, he is infinitely better than steve jobs and perhaps they could have adopted a google like culture to success.
Folks often poo-poo Apple's choice of Objective C, but I find that a VERY graceful object oriented extension of C, and far nicer than C++ or Java (yuck!).
The problem with ignoring it is that HN turns into Reddit. It's good to stay mindful of why we're here.
Which parts of it are really valuable to the FOSS community.

The "zones" stuff is really only valuable for the big-iron systems, which you probably want/need support from Sun for anyway..... and if it's ZFS, the other big killer factor, FreeBSD is probably a better place to focus efforts than Solaris.
It's a bit more complicated than a simple formula, but certainly more productive than serving "cease and desist" orders when it comes to protecting IP.

We're a start-up, and we aim to innovate and build value. If we do patents, the objective is not to monopolize but more like an old Arab saying, "Trust in God, but tie up your camel".