skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I spent some time in Qatar years back and got to know a couple of guys that were working there then when it was being set up. They wanted to have an Arab equivalent to the BBC or CNN. They were very impressed with the first Gulf War coverage on CNN and with the BBC's quality, but wanted an unbiased Arab news channel that would make the middle east the primary focus, rather than solely a source of trouble.

I tend to find there's not much by way of Islamic content in it (compared to other state news channels in the region) but the quality is far greater than say, Russia Today.
Carousels examined pt2 - graceful degradation
I use sleep cycle on the iPhone and it works great when I'm away. Having said that, if you share a bed with a partner, YMMV - I just don't bother using sleep cycle at home, my wife moves a lot in her sleep.
I work as a buyer in that sector (in Italy).
For aluminum castings and plastic injection
the bulk of the cost is about the making
of the stamps and toolings.
There is also a big difference wheter you are facing
a production of thousands or a productions
of millions of pieces.
> A compelling reason to self publish, if possible. Sure it's going to be harder to gain traction but you only need to sell a tenth the copies. Massive advantage if your subject matter is skewed towards the web anyway.

It's not all it's cracked up to be. I just wrote another comment on this.

You can get 15% from a major publishing house for a semi-mainstream project, and you're looking at 60% from Amazon. The problem is, you're going to have to pay your own copyeditor, cover design, formatting, presentation, etc with Amazon. Realistically, you're looking at $1500 to $3000 to self-publish a quality piece of self-published work, and that's with a lot of hours of grunt work on your own, and then your work hasn't been shaped by an editor that knows what the market wants.

Nonfiction really just doesn't sell very well, so there's a realistic chance you won't recoup your expenses for self publishing. Of course, you could skip having your book copyedited professionally, but then your quality is going to be a lot worse. No matter how good of a writer you are, you get too close to your own work and really should have a professional go over it. When you publish with a mainstream house, that's part of what they do. When you self-publish, you're own your own and out of pocket for that.

If you have an opportunity to get paid speaking events or being recognized as an expert would increase your pay, you actually probably stand to make more mainstream publishing. Also, it's still probably better for getting your message out to many people.

You can probably maximize short term cash by self publishing if you don't worry as much about production quality, if you alreay have a huge fanbase (like Seth Godin for instance, smart of him to jump into alternate models), and especially if you can speculatively burn $5000 to $10000 to hire professionals and spend some money promoting and you could handle taking a loss or breaking even if it doesn't pan out. If you're already fairly established and successful, self publishing is very viable. If you're not, there's a lot of advantages to being signed to a major house.
Researchers Turn Jelly Fish Into Solar Cells
Just installed this on a Telus Milestone/Droid here in Canada. Calling works great. Doesn't seem to support SMS, though?
Cubase64 - 11 real-time audio effects on a Commodore 64
TDK demoes flexible, transparent OLED display
The day we wake up dreading what we're about to do
It runs on my Froyo firmware (JPK), however, the voices are very robotic (you can barely understand what's being said).

Here's to hoping they fix the version for the Galaxy S soon.

[Edit: hm wait, this might be my provider limiting VOIP bandwidth :S]
http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc (linked next to the about box on your account settings page)

A Google search for "link:http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc site:news.ycombinator.com" shows that others have requested more links to the formatting help.
Are you talking about overnight increase or gradual?
Here is a blog entry from Skype:
http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/10/android.html

On the bottom you can find the following disclaimers:

* Skype is not available in the Android Market in China or Japan.

* Skype has been tested on HTC and Motorola devices with Android OS 2.1 and above. It may work on other Android phones, but we can’t guarantee full functionality or compatibility.

* We’re aware of some problems with the Samsung Galaxy S, and we’re looking to address these in the future.

* It’s free to use Skype in a WiFi zone. If you use Skype with a mobile data connection, operator charges may apply, so we recommend an unlimited data plan.

* In the US, you can make calls only over WiFi.

* A fair use policy applies to unlimited subscriptions.
No, inflation is not only in people's minds, it's a real measurable monetary phenomenon.

Sellers can raise prices but if there is not enough money to pay the price then no transactions occur, The sellers would then have to lower their price to sell the items.

In other words an increasing rate of inflation throughout the economy can only occur if there is enough money/credit available to pay the higher prices. You need more money available, an increasing money supply.

What's wrong with this NPR article is for everybody to think a "cheap trick" is what made it work. No, the tight fiscal policies (ie balanced budget) enacted by Brazil at the same time made it work.

The ideas in this article, coupled with Krugman's debt default idea is sending you down a river to a waterfall.
Narcissism of small differences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences
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See my comment below linking to the skype blog. They say they are working on fixing some issues on Galaxy S so i guess it will be released for your phone once they fix it.
I agree. However, that puts the onus on the user. If there was some way for seamless opt out across the Internet, it would be a lot more easier.

Additionally, a LOT of users (I'd say 70%+ - I'm making up a number here) don't know or realise the implications or depth of tracking, the technology behind and most importantly how to protect themselves.
skype is poison software and is antithetical to the hacker ethos of open systems.

use at your own caution

(I'm probably going to get downvoted for this because it always seems to be that any negative comment about skype == downvotes on HN.)

:edit: a hacker I've been following for a some time has a blog and writes about emerging open voice+video standards. I think that Thiago Camargo expresses many points very well. http://xmppjingle.blogspot.com/
Go and get a drink every so often
I can't really analyze it one way or another, but selecting the acronym "WEIRD" sure doesn't help their case against Narcissism of small differences.
A Inside View of the IMF's Massive Global Influence
What's the point of Skype on Android if you need to be in WiFi Zone? In that case you can skype with your laptop in the first place.

... what's the name of the alternative that actually works over 3G?
Rolling out Windows Phone Marketplace for Launch
I interned at a language engineering research lab in 2003-2005 and I heard the exact same sentiment about DSL's from most people working there. All the typical examples are techie languages (SQL, Rake, ...). I've almost never seen a non-techie DSL whereas that is ultimately the promise of the concept. It's sad the DSL story has barely changed in seven years.

I haven't read the DSL book, but if it's about parser/evaluator technicalities as you claim, one might as well (re)read SICP.
I'm sure there are, that was not the point though.

My harddisk failed me, and if I was using one of their Levono with XP loaded, I would've received a fully operational replacement in 1 hour with the latest backup on it, with me having nothing to do but wait for it.

Sure, that company I worked for could make Macs and OS X fist class citizens, but they haven't (and I am talking about a big company providing software for OS X).

The point was ... I agree with the article (people get tired of fixing the same thing over and over again, and just want to get shit done), but not with the arguments.
IMDb Relents And Allows BitTorrent Movie The Tunnel a Listing
I have a few boring projects I'd like to try with something like this, any idea what it is likely to retail for?
I assume the 'Again' is a reference to the fact the author wrote another piece disagreeing with Gladwell about something else - see the first paragraph of the article.
Yeah. I don't know how "words mean things" came to be regarded as a counterargument to anything.
I've been wondering - how do they keep the civil service and army moving now? They were using inflation to pay for this. Having lost that ability, what are they doing instead?
The Fed bought up 1 trillion in mortgage debt and no one blinked -- that is why mortgage rates are 4%. If China started dumping their T bills the Fed would just buy them up. It wouldn't hit like a train -- more like a tricycle.
Graphene: Quantum weirdness on the end of your pencil
Maybe because U.S. "3G" is very slow in most areas?
At last.
The "Lite" version was virtually useless, and fring recently droppped Skype support, so Android was left skypeless.
Also, I think you have a lot of space over there. So bedrooms are cheap

That was the first thing I though of as well. My baby doesn't have her own room for the simple reason that we don't have a room to spare.
The price of goods can vary somewhat based on public sentiment, but the underlying cause is the printing of money. And it is correct of the public to mistrust a government that has proven untrustworthy in the past. The first steps to regain confidence are to end money production and cut expenses. A drunkard can't be trusted unless he is seen without a bottle first. So basically the government cleaned up its act first, there was no deception. If deception had indeed happened, money production would have still accelerated.
"The purpose of the Smalltalk project is to provide computer support for the creative spirit in everyone."

This alone inspire me to do something with my kids using Smalltalk.
Finally, Skype-Verizon exclusivity is over. It was really annoying how Verizon dictates the availability.
Interesting article (http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=12706) in the New England Journal of Medicine about a county in Colorado that was featured in a New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_...). This NEJM article describes some of the reasons poeple think this community has been able to keep costs low but maintain high quality care.
NYTimes reported that Instapaper has 800,000 registered users and 200,000 regular users. If every regular user signed up at $1/month, Marco would be pulling in $2.4M. Even if it's only a quarter of the users, that's still a nice chunk of change.
Regarding "What can I do with my karma?" another thing you can do once you reach a certain karma level is to setup a poll, with multiple answers that people can vote on.
More than twice I would say. iPad's A4 is a tweaked Cortex A8. Cortex A9 is out-of-order compared to in-order A8 and will likely be faster per clock.
IPad Adoption Rate Fastest Ever, Passing DVD Player
Things will unravel faster than you think
A lot if you're travelling outside of your home country.
It works on 3G in countries other than the US.
Ocean census discovers 5,000 new species
Sounds not all that different from the solution in the article, changing to a trusted currency.
The basis of the trust is the largest diff.
I guess I understand that, while providing a good insight into royalties in general, the article left out something more directly interesting:

Was it worth, monetary, to write the Geek Atlas? It wasn't written for the money, I read that. And I understand that the royalties are smallish, compared to the prices payed by the customers. But I do wonder if a book like that (targeted at a "minority", more a "novelty" thing from what I can tell) sells good enough to keep a single guy alive.

So - in the light of the recent talks about salaries around the world in general and in NYC/the bay area specifically: John - would mind sharing a very rough estimate of sales for this book?

(I guess the answer is "It's too personal", because otherwise it could've been part of the blog entry itself to further strengthen the "Not for the money" part, but hey - I guess it's always okay to ask politely)
Domain Names: The Wrong Question
Previous thread on how dumb their original name was - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1744583
I would guess that in this case the headlines tell you more about the readers than the medium.
Elementary yet interesting. I just "constructed" a pinhole by curling my index finger in my thumb, and could read letters on this page. At the same range without wearing contacts or glasses, I am unable to separate words. Only lines of text.

I use glasses in the evening and contacts in the morning, so the dimming could perhaps be beneficial for circadian rhythms if I need to use a computer, although I recognize that probably has more to do with the spectrum of light than the intensity.
There's a point that's not being made here, which is that if you're doing high-risk activism there's a good chance you want its organisation to be private. In fact you may well want to do it in a safe location, with people you really trust, who have left their mobile phones and any other risky electronic equipment somewhere else. I suspect the next (maybe current) generation of activists is going to struggle with that a lot, because they're pretty much cyborgs.
at least the police chief of new haven has recently avowed there's no problem video-recording NHPD officers at work, unlike some other jurisdictions.
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Findings from the Web Design Survey
Ask HN:Best Java Webservices books
I am looking for a hands-on book on Java webservices. I found two :
1. Java Web Services: Up and Running - good introduction
2. RESTful Web Services - good but talks only about REST.
Can you recommend any other books/resources for SOAP based Java webservices ?
really cool! great share!!
Two words comments are not appreciated here. They don' add anything to the discussion.

Read the unofficiql faq here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1755533 (read the main article)
I personally think that Python fills the goal of instant validation quite well for children. There's an interactive interpreter and very little setup for your first program (as opposed to Java's public static void main(String[] args) before even reaching "Hello World").

I help run a summer school[1] for high school students (many of whom have never programmed) and within a few days they can start putting together fairly complicated programs. One for example created an anagram solver for an online game literally within a day of learning what a program was and two or three days later their team had created a simple web crawler as the basis of their from-scratch search engine.

I think as long as they see a way to solve their own problems you'll hold attention long enough to get them self sufficient.

[1] National Computer Science School - www.ncss.edu.au
I wish comments on HN were sentiment scored for "humor" so I could go back and search for humor-as-comments (or at least attempts) as example. Almost nothing gets downvoted on HN faster than an attempt at humor. There are exceptions, but the joke has to be particularly good to not get a -4.

IRL, due to the kind of conversation that goes on around here, HN would be akin to the floor of the NYSE on a bad day. Lots of shop talk, not much else. It's all rather sad in a way, but it does keep the content of the site focused. We constantly have meta-discussions here as a defense to keep the conversational content high and there seems to be a community consent that humor, in general, is not for HN.

Part of the problem is that what often passes for Internet humor is absurdism. I'm not sure if that's because it's the clearest type of humor you can get across in text while being clear that, "hey, this is humor hint hint" since irony and sarcasm are so easily misconstrued in text, or some other effect. But it seems that once a site allows for acceptance of absurdism as part of the dialogue, the information content of the comments seems to drop quickly to near zero. It just introduces so much noise you have to find signal in, and it makes having a high signal conversation so much harder. I find it sad on many levels that HN is such a fun free place, but I get why it is that way.
Get a sense of proportion. You are treating edge cases as the norm.
Checklist on How to Reduce Page Load Time
The crucial and challenging part in doing PSD to HTML conversion is to keep the page size as low as possible.
I really liked this quote at the end of the press release

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2010/pr...

"Playfulness is one of their hallmarks, one always learns something in the process and, who knows, you may even hit the jackpot. Like now when they, with graphene, write themselves into the annals of science."

Congrats to the winners and especially to Konstantin Novoselov who is one of youngest to win a Nobel at age 36.
I agree with this. Every so often a little humor slips through the HN downvote filter and it usually fits your supplied parameters. I'd also add (4) not ironic or sarcastic (5) not absurd.

Crafting a joke that fits all that is probably worth an upvote just on principle.
Ask HN: re: secondary markets for startup stock..
I've been reading about secondary markets for non-public stock [1], that is, buying and selling stock in companies that haven't IPO'd yet. From what I understand, they can be freely sold as long as the people making purchases are accredited investors. Is that right?

I read that early Facebook employees have been able to cash out by selling some shares on secondary markets.[2] I've also read about people selling Zynga shares on the secondary market. [3] I also know that SecondMarket.com [4] is trying to capitalize on this.

What are avenues for founders and early employees to sell stock in a secondary market? Anyone hear of companies other than Facebook and Zynga selling stock on secondary markets? What other stipulations are there about selling shares in a private company?

_update_ I also just found a secondary market at sharespost [5]

[1] http://www.ericjohnolson.com/blog/2009/04/23/secondary-markets-for-private-company-stock-whats-happening-and-what-are-the-issues/

[2] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_33/b4096000952343.htm

[3] http://www.secondshares.com/2010/04/06/zynga-5-billion-valuation-buy-–-early-leader-in-social-gaming-is-printing-money/

[4] http://www.secondmarket.com/

[5] http://www.sharespost.com/
as 99.5% of the world aren't "hackers" and quite like the idea of calling people on the other side of the world for free, perhaps the success of Skype shows your ideals are out of touch with the world around you. Who, then, is more likely to be wrong?
FeedDemon is my fav: http://www.feeddemon.com/
I have made about 1/12 of my annual salary from the book. This is great, but I consider the fringe benefits of having the book much more important.
Nice interface, a little CPU-hungry though.

Noticed: Some dates of some of my emails are off (e.g. by a year or some just days). Gmail reports the correct date, so it might got lost during the sync.
Yeah, to clarify my original comment, back then I found VB very rewarding to work with as a child because you got instant results with buttons to press, textboxes to type in and so on.

I think nowadays it would be counter productive to teach children VB, the toolkits and languages out there today are a lot more robust an accessible in comparison to what it was like when I was learning to program
We speculate that in the context of mobile, meritocratic societies, cultural evolutionary processes rooted in our evolved tendencies to imitate successful and prestigious individuals will favor the spread of child-rearing traits that speed up and enhance the development of those particular cognitive and social skills that eventually translate into social and economic success in these populations.

I'm so thankful that I didn't pursue a career that required me to read, write, and possibly take seriously pseudo-intellectual crap like this.
Neither.

Ideals aren't about convenience, that's why they're ideals. While I love Skype, I can appreciate the fact that it's stifling innovation and killing interoperability, since you can't use it with SIP...

It's as if we had email, and then a proprietary protocol which everyone used. Countless services would never have been created.
Do you think retail banking sites, trading firms, brokerages, etc. would choose .NET today?
I haven't used it on my own phone or anything, but I have several friends that use Skype on their Blackberries for IM and calls. I assume this is Skype and not skype-lite since it can make calls, such as on Verizon's Storm.
It reminds me that it's an echo of the old cyber-punk concept of corporate countries. In Snow Crash, "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" and "Narcolumbia" represents franchised corporate/country soil entities one can slip into and out of as needed, and might be interspersed throughout a geographic region like McDonald's and Burger King.

It's an interesting idea where the aspect of national membership is decoupled from identity. I think you're closer to how it actually works though, where people assume different identities depending on their virtual national membership.
"Are all those new fancy DOM traversal, XPath and XSLT APIs really not faster than parsing and joining of strings?"

It cannot be understated how much slower touching the DOM is compared to doing string manipulation. Any DOM touching - but generating DOM nodes and traversing them is radically slow. If you want to support Internet Explorer it's not even an option, as far as performance goes.
Concise electronics for geeks
My point isn't about what is popular, it is about what is right.

anyways I don't like making predictions, but I can't see skype lasting 10+ years if they continue to pursue a closed architecture. it just will not happen.

What is most uncomfortable about skype to me is the fact that they are the single provider of their service; for example if you wanted to use another service you wouldn't be allowed to use that other network to contact a skype user. This is an example of a choice I consider to be wrong.
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Very cool. My first thought upon just looking at the site was, "I don't know why I would use it rather than the search engine bar in Firefox." I then did a search and I found that I enjoyed how it retained/ran the search against the various engines/sites.
Twitter founder Evan Williams steps down as CEO