skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This list boils down to:

1. Heavy-duty graphics, including video (canvas/svg)

2. Collaborative text editing (canvas/svg/ajax)

3. Read books in a mobile browser without a connection (localstorage)

I kind of expected a little more variety. Off the top of my head, here's what I didn't expect HTML/JS to do, in addition to the above:

4. Work on almost all new phones, without converting to a special language (Remember WAP/WML)?

5. Have open & standardized libraries that anyone can use to make coding easier (proto/moo/jQ).

6. Enable anyone to write browser-plugins easily.

7. Run as a server (node.js)

8. Constantly improve in performance

9. Be written using templating systems: SaSS, HAML

10. Still be handwritten in 2010 and beyond.
That's one of the most useful things about dpreview.com, they quote pixels per square cm as well. 2 pixels, one black, one white have more resolution than 10 pixels, all grey.
help me understand Quantum Mechanics. As I've read, with great interest, QM is a no longer a theory but a provable science that electron spin or rotation is equally opposite in two different places at the same time? What hardware do we use to detect electron spin direction and such... Can anyone explain this in easier terms?
If evolution is such a obvious theory as to be taken as fact, then why are there no species obviously evolving into another?

According to the theory, millions of years ago Chimps evolved into humans. Why then are there no chimps in a stage of evolving that would signify a progression to a different species? They've had millions of years to do so...
I'm pretty sure that the "weird sound" we hear are the reverberation early reflections. Reverb processor introduces a slightly delayed and damped set of reflections (10 to 250 ms late), so what we hear is the first note attack, slightly lower than the sustained note (the singer starts a bit low and corrects herself along), that gives that effect.

I've been a sound engineer until 1996, and I know that auto-tune definitely use some formant-aware phase shifting, so that a slight pitch correction (up to a couple of commas) must be essentially inaudible if properly used. Heck, back in the 1980s when we only had Eventide H3000 to save a poor performance, we could make a convincing approximation of the auto-tune effect in post-production, and when the digitech vocalist MV-5 became available, it made a really decent job at real-time pitch-correction, and it was back in 1995. Do you really think that a state-of-the-art fx module used by a competent sound engineer in 2010 would be audible? No way, sir.
When you go to the cinema, you're looking at an image only 2000 pixels across.
"Single payments have much to irk you as a businessman four years from now."

I'm sorry Patrick... I don't quite understand this. What is it about single payments you find that are troublesome?

I'm planning to sell a desktop application and accept single payments... and that works for other companies like TechSmith.
Yes, but the PG message - and the message of other VCs - is not "Well, here's one valid way to make a lot of money (with investment and an exit), but you can also make lots of money with a SaaS."

It's "This is the way to do business."

That's the issue.
Thank you for wording it this way. This articulates very well how I've felt about the whole anthropic principle thing ever since I read about it.
Import Nerdsort
Thanks Matthew,

my next big thing is..uhm.. basically a job listing site :)

I'm in the process of tidying up the environment, fixing obvious bugs and dressing up the site a little bit before going public. When done, will be back here requesting for critics :)

I believe that, as you've also mentioned, when product becomes well known, an upgrade to domain name will not be that problematic. what i fear is a way wrong name at the beginning might prevent it from gaining public liking.

I guess I'll stick to a simple general name, then will try to rename if it still bothers me.

Thanks
I see status.net uses CC license?
Mobile First Web Second
This grain of salt article about A/B testing is smart. Specifically, this is something that I learned too:

"Do user testing. Get people in and ask them to use your product. You’re going to get a lot more information a lot faster and have a higher degree of confidence in the results."

Expanding on this, I think that it's important not just to rally a group of your friends or other webheads. The closer that you can get to assembling a group of target users, the better.

On ecommerce sites with a checkout, one of my favorite tricks is to send a manual e-mail to a handful of people who have become customers. Clear and simple, I say that I'd like to talk to them about the checkout process, mention that there will be 3-5 other customers on the conference call and offer them a significant coupon (25% +free shipping or something) to participate. During the call, I talk to them about their shopping experience and show them a revision or two of different designs. I ask them to (fake) buy a product using the revisions. The feedback (especially with early designs) is consistently some of the most valuable I receive and it's surprising how much of a positive effect talking to people has. With one phone call asking for feedback, you often gain a repeat customer.
How do you know there aren't any?
I think you're referencing this urban legend: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp
This doesn't seem any more over engineered than the US Military philosophy of always recovering fallen soldiers and bringing them home. (I like it)
I consider Alex Barrera (one of the co-founders of Tetuan Valley) a friend and an incredible motivator who bleeds startups. If you're in Madrid/Barcelona and are completely new at 'startups' (this is not for experienced founders) these 6 weeks could change your life.
The author ignores a key component of the problem - "complex" interfaces make it easy to accomplish your goals.

From the Zen of Python:

Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.

Applying these three principles to user interfaces, the best user interfaces present lots of features at once, with each button (or small section) of the interface performing a specific, orthogonal task. Indeed, this is how consumer electronics are designed. My microwave allows me to select any mode I want, and manipulate the screen with a keypad in a separate rounded rectangle. The stereo, AC, wipers and headlight controls all manipulate unique parts of my car. My washing machine has a different rectangular selection pad for each "feature" of the wash - temperature? color? size? presoak?.

Flattening an interface helps the learning curve. If you need to set the time on your microwave, bet on the "time" button. On the other hand, I still need to ask my girlfriend how to set her iPod to "shuffle," or shut it off, or reset it when it freezes.
What People Pay For: In relation to web apps
print("2. Fork out this code, suggest improvements and submit those")

There fixed it for you :)
Suggestions for detecting an online poker cheat?
Do Local Links Work
Commencing your small scale business on the vast online arena will certainly need the link building strategies to promote your product and services.
Probably this is just a troll, since these answers are so well known, so I'm not going to bother looking up citations.

1. There are many examples of speciation that are documented in the time we've been watching rigorously.

2. If you think that the theory of evolution says that chimps evolved into humans, than you have no understanding of evolution.
You might want to reclaim the bodies water first, ala Dune.
aren't they a massive over engineering? Like having to create the appropriate fall back for older browsers would be a real pest.
All the planets and stars that you see in the sky (and earth) where made from spacedust. So yes you would be part of the cycle of the universe, possibly even creating new life :)

Who knows, perhaps we were created from some dead aliens shot into space.
Personally I would use Forth for this. PicoC looks interesting but if I were to weigh my options (i.e. PicoC vs Forth in his example app UAV-onboard system, I would definitely go Forth).
Do you have more information about the divorce ceremonies?
Twitter + OAuth update
It's a nice idea, but utterly impossible. There's no way to present information without bias. Your selection of which facts to present (and which to skip) in what order, what people to quote and which statements to use, etc., all contribute bias, sometimes in subtle ways that aren't immediately obvious.

So for me, I'd much rather that the writer and editor wear their bias on their sleeves. It saves me the work of having to reverse-engineer it all.
This seems to be another case of people not knowing what their needs are.
Life Challenges for the 20-Something Generation
Ask HN: Who's hiring? (September 2010)
I'm really interested in London, UK but I'm sure one of these is overdue so feel free to let others know what else is out there.

A little format to the first couple of lines is always helpful.
<Vague Job Title> - <City>, <Country>

And then a little bit describing the role and your startup/company.

Thanks in advance.
actually you do, but I completely agree with your point despite that :)
Yes, I'm a one off payment person too. Different strokes, I guess.

I dislike the accumulation of small payments. I'm usually happy to pay for 12 months without a discount.

Of course, this thinking does not stretch to taxes, which must always be paid at the last moment.
Reminds me of the good ol' Larry Wall quote "Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible."
Fertilizers can last forever. Matter is not actually used up.

As long as we have enough energy, we can make fertilizers. Of course, petrochemicals are a nice raw material, but not necessary.

And we are not running out of energy, anytime soon. (Though we may run out of oil.)
How to End the Great Recession
Awesome Etch A Sketch Creations
Why would you do business with, let alone invest in, people whom you did not trust?
Is 'all-in boffin barney' a respectable news phrase in Australia?
From an SEO standpoint changing your domain is always a headache. Even with tools from Google/Bing to facilitate the transfer your listings can go offline for a while before they re-index and hopefully pass your PageRank along.

If SEO is not a concern and you're strictly talking about your brand, I think you have more flexibility as many people will simply be unaware of your service until your achieve a certain level of visibility.
This seems like the right way to work on hard problem. Super smart team builds a product, gets early customers to use it on large datasets while they polish, tune, and iterate over a period of time leading up to launch.

Interesting pricing model too. It's more costly than some of the other hosted database services, but they also provide a reasonable free version so people can experiment with it. Good luck guys.
Plain old mechanical toaster trivia: The thermostatic element is placed in such a way that it is receiving reflected energy from the toast. As the bread dries and the Maillard reaction browns the toast it reflects more energy from the elements to the thermostat.

Viola! Toast browning detection in one bent piece of metal!
I would argue that it is a good thing for people to be able to take apart and fiddle with the things they buy. The ability to do this had diminished as goods have become increasingly complicated and automated.

The real solution is to offer simple as a feature. Have a default mode which makes everything really easy, and a "complicated" mode which allows people to change everything.

By breaking things up into two usability modes, most people get the benefits of simplicity, while the ones that care get the benefit of control.
"Pay what you like" is a terrible business model for most applications.

Remember that Radio had an established fan-base who was already sold on the quality of the product. If a previously unknown band had tried that, nobody would contribute before hearing the music-- and then, after hearing the music, I imagine only a very small percentage would remember to go back to contribute.

As for freemium, there are significant drawback to that, too, that you need to keep in mind.

First of all, you need to make sure that your "paid" version has enough added benefit that it will get users to actually convert. If not, you end up (in the best case) with traction but no revenue. In the worst case, you end up with a lot of very demanding users, placing a support burden on you, with no realistic hope of conversion. If you're not sure if support on your app scales, be careful offering a free version.

In short: figure out what your product is worth to your customers, and charge for it. Don't be afraid to price it high, if it actually provides sufficient value.

As Patrick already pointed out, recurring revenue is a god-send, so a subscription model is brilliant, if your product lends itself to that kind of purchase.

Remember: the goal is to maximize LTV, and minimize CAC.
Dawkins points out that at insect scale, flight isn't particularly interesting: in many environments, tiny organisms would have difficulty not flying. Thus, it may be that wings started as little rudders to control how the wind is blowing you. From that point, it's easy to imagine a gradual evolution to self-powered flight.

But I'm afraid this doesn't help us understand avian and mammalian evolution of flight. The example of the flying squirrel (that can't fly, but can direct his glide) may be a little instructive...
Quicklisp Lisp screencast in two parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11wYPAy9qNw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA5aeG-sdqY
I think many alcohol drinkers would find it easier to drink 1.5 oz of liquor, than 12 oz of beer or a 6 oz of wine, especially if the beer is in a bottle. I think the main benefit here is that holding a different drink separates you from the people who are heavy drinkers. It would work the same if the group were taking shots, and you chose a sip on a beer.
I have an iPad but have never had an iPhone or even Android device. Not having a camera sucks as it completely rules out many apps that both myself and my kids would enjoy thoroughly. So I guess there's one iPad user that is complaining; me.
What plan is that, by the way?

I'm on the lowest Even More Plus with 500 minutes, unlimited text, unlimited data, and it runs me $60.
i think beginning with a simple name, then changing it if it still bothers me might be a possible solution. well indeed "somethinghub" was what i had in my mind, but i may be somewhat late for it :)

thanks for the blog link, time to read.
I imagine Patrick was lamenting the fact that one-time payments seriously limit the "lifetime value" of a customer, once acquired.

Passive income is a wonderful thing, and subscription models lend themselves very well to this.

If your app doesn't lend itself to a subscription model, are you able at least to charge for an annual support contract?
Thanks man!! :D Would love to have you swing by this edition too!
This is not a proof at all.

There is still a difference and that difference might be the key. Also, if you take all SO sites together, you still have the very wide common topic "technical".

If the topic becomes even wider, some clever tag-filtering/handling may be needed so a user could view the questions like they have been before. Also the reputation could be tagged base.

In any case, just because not-so-well-made and not so technical-centered sites with not anywhere near the features of SO have failed is not a proof that a general answer site is a bad idea.
Scarcity is a natural property of supply, which is a natural factor of price. As a property without inherent artificial component, scarcity cannot artificially affect price without said scarcity itself being given an artificial component such as being purposefully controlled to that end.
The bigger screen also makes it a great trip/car browsing device. It's sinmply not comfortable to do extensive browsing on a phone. The iPad's niche is the middle-ground between a phone and latptop (between walking mobile and mobile office)
Yeah, that's true. It depends on entanglement of particles (or photons in this case, which are definitely never at rest!), which is hard to maintain for more than a fraction of a second.

Edit: If they ever get this working that might change! http://www.physorg.com/news196613216.html
Why have UFOs changed speed over the years?
Ask HN: Companies providing SaaS and using AGPL software for it?
In continue to my previous AGPL related question, please, post links to companies using AGPL and providing software as a service.<p>One already posted is Gitorious.org<p>It's good to know how AGPL is getting addopted in business world.
Good point about it being group response to change. I guess I was thinking more of the particular ways in which the rituals are shaped by the surrounding religious culture.

"ceremonial burial was practiced by archaic secular societies as well - including Neanderthals."

Is there evidence regarding religious belief among the Neanderthals? I'd love to read some material on that.
I pretty much had the same experience.

For comparison I found Muse had a stream on Ping so I checked it compared to their Twitter account. Ping's stream for them was sanitized and small. It was not personal and I assume it didn't tell me anything other than what the label wanted me to know.

With full access to my very large library including many albums purchased in ITMS, they suggested a series of artists I have no interest in.

Activity is only measured by what you purchase or review in the ITMS, not on what I actually do in iTunes. They have an opportunity to steal everyones lunch with Ping. Mirroring last.fm functionality with scrobbling and then presenting that info in the profile is a no-brainer.

When looking at my profile, I noticed that the two things it pointed as were two reviews I made in iTunes from years ago. Fresh content is king.

The interface is terrible. Navigating around Ping is a mess.

Granted this is a 1.0, but they have a lot of work to do if they want it to get serious traction and they need to loosen the content reigns a bit. Waiting for my profile pic to be approved is silly.
Unfortunately, "keeping their opinions out" and reporting both sides is no guarantee of avoiding bias. By way of analogy, let's pretend Hawking said something slightly different from what he actually did, something a bit more non-committal like "Formerly, it was widely thought that the existence of the universe and its suitability for life are good reasons to believe in a creator, but in the light of present-day physics I think we must say that these things offer no evidence whatever concerning the existence or not-existence of any sort of god". Now, imagine two possible articles reacting to this:

1. Quotes hypothetical-Hawking's statement. In the interests of balance, also quotes a theologian who claims that the existence and well-suited-to-us-ness of the universe really do demand that there be a creator.

2. Quotes hypothetical-Hawking, as in #1. In the interests of balance, also quotes someone who maintains that present-day science is not neutral on the God question but offers strong evidence for the nonexistence of God.

The first would give the impression that the real debate is between those who think modern science gives evidence for God and those who think it's neutral. The second would give the impression that the real debate is between those who think modern science gives evidence against God and those who think it's neutral.

Someone puts out a report saying that anthropogenic global warming is going to be twice as bad as currently forecast. Newspaper 1 quotes the report and gets some "balance" from a climate scientist who defends the current consensus figure. Newspaper 2 quotes the report and gets some "balance" from someone who doesn't believe in anthropogenic global warming at all.

Someone puts out a report saying that 20% of Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Newspaper 1 gives this "balanced" coverage by quoting the report and talking to one person who believes Obama is a Muslim and one who doesn't. Newspaper 2 gives it "balanced" coverage by quoting the report and talking to one person who believes it and one who thinks the whole idea is so ridiculous that the report must the the result of push-polling, sampling screwups or something.

During the recent US healthcare reform debate, Newspaper 1 reports on the proposals before Congress and provides "balance" by quoting someone who thinks those proposals will mean "death panels" and nationial bankruptcy. Newspaper 2 provides "balance" by quoting someone who thinks they don't go nearly far enough and what the US needs is a robust single-payer system.

Giving equal time to both sides is only unbiased in so far as there's no question what "both sides" are.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window .
A general name should be good for a new startup. Do make sure to check the name of your choosing properly to make sure it's totally 'free' from any trademark names.
Convert PowerPoint Files into PDF, TIFF, XPS Within SharePoint
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This should work. If they pay for whole year, give them discount. If they are charging monthly then don't give them discount. You should calculate your profitability when figuring out the discount
Couldn't Craigslist just change jurisdiction? Prostitution of adults isn't a crime everywhere.
QM is a no longer a theory but a provable science that
electron spin or rotation is equally opposite in two
different places at the same time?

No, this "superpositioning" aspect of QM is still a completely untested theory, al beit one which is accepted without question by most contemporary physicists. It's called the Copenhagen Interpretation. There are other possibilities, and no empirical basis for distinguishing between them, at this stage.
They might be using RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) which comes with Python 2.4 and in 2.4 you can't use print as a function.

LE: python 2.5 -> 2.4 (bconway was right)
"Oh and you still get the anti-inflammatory actions of alcohol too, just without any of the extra calories."

Alcohol causes inflammation, it's not an anti-inflammatory in any way. Maybe the author was confused because both alcohol and aspirin reduce your risks of heart attacks, and the latter is an NSAID. But taking alcohol if you have inflammatory problems is an extremely bad idea.
Clojure also seems to have lot more momentum behind it.
This is a big subject. Try in this order:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_quantization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution
The problem then is that, while a dead seamen doesn't pose a threat to the ship, in the case of a dead astronaut, you must be sure the body's trajectory won't intersect your own at any significant speed.
And it has more than 100 points at HN.
rentacoder has changed it's name to vworker, yet still keeping rentacoder name and domain and related links pointing
to vworker. Of course i'll not be updating the name every two weeks, but may be in time it might be a necessity to rename the service.

Also i'm seeing this solution for "how to not postpone the project for not finding an awesomely awesome domain name" problem. So seo is not a main concern for now, before going public :)

thanks
Students And Intellectual Property Rights