skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So it sounds like the source code for game is written in pure javascript (utilizing any special APIs calls provided by Impact). This javascript src is packaged using the Impact Game Engine which creates a Obj-C wrapper around the javascript. When the Game is loaded on an iOS device and run, the Obj-C wrapper (implemented by Impact) executes the javascript src via JavascriptCore.

It sounds like this is basically a Canvas to OpenGL translation layer.

Can only the Canvas object be leveraged when creating games/apps with this? Or could a "account creation" screen be created leveraging HTML elements like forms (I would assume not since its sounds like its executed outside of Safari, and the translation provided is from Canvas > OpenGL)
I don't want to say any more so as not to influence you ... just evaluate the site on its own merits.

I mainly made this site for my own parties, but what if I wanted to make it popular?

1. What do you guys think is keeping people from actually creating music mixes and inviting their friends, like I do and a couple of my friends do?

2. What would you recommend I do to change that and actually make people use it?

I'm just looking to learn and get feedback :)
GoogleBot seems to be on hiatus for the domain at the moment ...probably on a monthly crawl as so little changed until recently... rather frustrating.

Thanks for the forwarding, any responses can go to team at pacpacs.com (which is myself and co-founder)
If RDF's got a problem it's that it's too simple, at least in terms of the functionality it's offered.

It's complicated as hell to do simple things in RDF, but that's a different issue, not the one I struggle with every day.
Leucoderma treatment
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You can create an account, add all of your emails, but then limit their visibility to 'Only Me'. That way people can't impersonate you, and you don't need to reveal all of your emails to everyone.
You could do that just write a hack that disables connection to battle.net and you are good to go :)

You can do whatever you like just do it offline and you'll be okay.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10393136-37.html

You'll note it only hit jailbroken iPhones.
Ask HN: Who owns the idea?
Hi Guys,

I've been working on a project with two others for the past 6 months. At the beginning, we (stupidly) agreed to equal equity, rather than letting everyone earn it.

The relationship has now broken down, due to disparities in levels of commitment. I want to take the idea (I came up with it & designed the system to implement it) and build another team. Out of the three of us, I'm the only one with the knowledge base required to make this business happen.

We are not incorporated. I am not wondering who owns the code. I'm comfortable getting it re-written. Please assume neither of them will build competing companies.

So, who owns the idea? Can I start a similar company?

I plan to consult a lawyer but I just want to gauge the HN community's thoughts on this.

In advance, thanks for your time!
URL = http://lusislog.blogspot.com/2010/09/distributions-and-dynam...
<i>The whole point of accumulating money is to spend it. Sure, you can accumulate more if you don't spend (I actually sorta doubt it, but let's assume it for argument's sake).</i>

I disagree. Once you've learned the basics of investing or stock trading, accumulating capital becomes about increasing your income.

Let's look at your laptop & apartment example.

Case 1: Super fast laptop & nice clean apartment. I can max out a Macbook Pro for about three grand, and a nice 2br apartment in Boston will cost about $3k per month in rent. With your $8,000 bank account, you'll need to earn at least $3,000 per month from your job just to pay for your apartment. More to save up and purchase that laptop, and even more still if you want to afford to eat.

Case 2: Crappy laptop and crappy apartment with $50k. A crappy laptop is about $500 for a really nice netbook, and a cheap apartment in Boston is about $600 per month (for those in Boston, think JP and Forest Hills). Let's invest that $50k in an ETF called "PFF", which currently costs $40 per share and pays a monthly dividend of, on average, .20c per share. That gives you 1250 shares of PFF, for an average monthly income of $250. With $50k, you can buy a $1000 laptop in four months, or pay for almost half your monthly rent.

On a forum where people are constantly trying to generate passive income through webapps and side businesses, I'm surprised people continuously overlook the passive income power of large amounts of capital. $50k can buy you $250 a month for life.
good job, sssparkkk!

actually, i like that service way more than any chatroulette-like things. that one actually makes impersonalization before you can see the face of the person. most of time i was getting skipped. now i have a chance to actually meet the person before i get skipped)

nice talking to you :)
facebook games, tetris battle.
perfect thing to let your mind get a break
I'll recommend Gentoo as well. It gives you exposure to a lot of the system, and there is a lot of documentation. Now, you will blindly follow a lot of guides and not understand some of the things your are changing. But over time you will start to recognize exactly what these tweaks were. Compiling a kernel is a great example. Over time you will start to dive in and tweak the kernel. You will try a non preemptive kernel. You will compile modules in instead of loading them dynamically. (you probably won't notice much of a difference, but you'll do it anyway). Gentoo is a great tinkering environment.
"I do agree that you won't see any serious programming done on tablets. You need a keyboard, mouse and large display for that."

This is true for any of the 'serious' programming languages currently in use. And it is because their semantics are such that there are huge returns from being able to display a lot of text at one time (they are not interactive, they are not concise). (Is this because of something inherent in programming, or is it because we tailor the language to be easily editable with keyboard/mouse? It is unclear.)

It would be interesting to see a language like APL on a tablet. The use of sigils leads to a very concise language, and the downside of sigils (lack of a specific keyboard for them), seems to be overcome on a tablet where you use the touch screen as a keyboard.

You could probably go further with it, tailoring a language and development environment specifically to the strengths of a tablet. You might also see something more lisp-like, editing a data structure in real time as a way to create your code.

We aren't going to be there anytime soon, but it is an interesting area of research.
Not only is this article poorly written, but all of the subsequent TechCrunch articles suck as well. As Homer Simpson once said, "You take forever to say nothing."
Nice flashy prediction, I'm interested how will WP7 do in real life. Tell me technical merits not just some lame predictions.

I seen a WP7 in action(youtube-it) and well it's far from impressive. It looks like a half baked product to me. Especially the under construction pages.
Operating System SAGA: Linux vs. Windows
I remember when I first installed Ubuntu Linux on my computer. It was the then-latest version 7.04, which means it was somewhere around 2007 — that’s how they name Ubuntu. 7 means it was released in 2007, and 04 means it was April.
Ask HN: Any ideas on testing misspelled domain names?
I own the domain blnik.com. I have an idea for a service that I want to launch, possibly on that domain.

However, while I like the name, I am also unsure about how much impact the misspelled domain will have. Looking at history, it seems that for some sites it works for others it doesn't. And that it is hard to get an idea about how much the name contributed to a site's success or failure.

So is there any way to get some idea if a misspelled name like blnik will be a hindrance for a service targeted at college students?
Nice work. Kudos!

As much as I appreciate Common Lisp, I'm always puzzled at how a language reputedly targeting AI problems still lacks an "intelligent" package manager the kind Perl has always had. To me, that says a lot about the failure of AI.

EDIT: Let's hope the time has comed.
Why the Windows Phone 7 Start Page Has Blank Spots
I'd like to see the code.
"It is concluded that the advantages with respect to physical loading of sitting on an exercise ball may not outweigh the disadvantages," the researchers wrote."
http://lifehacker.com/5645943/exercise-balls-might-not-be-th...
This is fine advice, but you're burying the lede:

There really i no ergonomic way to use a laptop that doesn't involve at least one of an external keyboard or screen.

Amen. Laptops have lousy ergonomics. Get an external keyboard, and/or a portable external keyboard, and/or find some way to prop up the screen, and/or get an external monitor.
I should imagine the decision about how much protection is applied to the system is made long before the device is accepted on various carriers. Ok, this is a 'made for T-mobile' device, but its likely it will appear in almost the same form on other carriers under another name and HTC branding. So, it would be easier to build in the protection other networks want at this this early stage.
Zed, I totally get what you're saying. I do think ninjas exist in larger teams, but maybe that's not a mongrel2 priority, which would make sense.

The bit that gets me that I think some take issue with is that there's a human readable representation of the configuration that does not actually represent the configuration . Except when it does, sometimes. Even usually. But there's no guarantee. Not saying your decision is wrong (any more than "language x os wrong", but it's a reason why some people may not like it.

I almost wonder sometimes if the configuration should be solely accessible through an http API, just to shut people up. ;)
Industry wide, commonly considered and accepted, best practice.

Make sure everything works without javascript, and then add as many bells and whistles as you like with javascript afterwards.
Will share tonight.
The sad thing is that money problems are a major cause of divorce. Starting out with a bunch of wedding debt is not helpful.

As several folks told my wife and I, "the marriage is more important than the wedding." Our wedding was wonderful, but simple and cheap - I think about $3,000 (with lots of help from friends). But from the start - from dating to pre-marital counseling to continued investment in our relationship - we've been focused on our marriage itself.
Tell them you'll create your own company and if they wish they can continue with the project themselves.

Since their level of commitment is not high, you have a very high chance of succeeding even if they retain the code...

It's all about the execution...
99% of people would go to blink.com
I like the color scheme. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Also a nice marketplace ... the question will be how you execute it from now. So far you've got a nice press kit page. I would say your next problems are:

1. chicken & egg problem
2. how to contact PR people

You should just focus on solving 1 and 2 before they start. The way to solve #1 is to let people sign up and be CONTACTED (push) when there is a match.
I'll mostly agree.

If you foresee building any custom embedded Linux systems, even if you like openembedded, it gives you a good picture of what's going on down there (and a good picture of what openembedded is doing for you).

If you want to learn system administration, I really don't see it being that helpful. You'll learn what all the components of the system are and how to build them, but not necessarily how to use them.

I'd suggest that if you're a hacker type, you might want to try it anyway, just for fun. :-) But in general the knowledge you get from building LFS or Gentoo or similar isn't actually that useful from a system administrator/power user perspective.

I'll also second the comments from other people who built it, and then abandoned it: LFS is too finicky to manage and too hard to upgrade for me to do any real work with it. For me, it's a toy system that I play around with, then reboot into Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/whatever to go get real work done.
An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers (Niven, Zuckerman and Montgomery)

Graph theory with applications (JA Bondy and USR Murty, available online)
I like the idea.

There's also some sort of Zeroconf-based chat in Pidgin/Telepathy/Empathy which serves the same purpose and doesn't rely on you and the Internet for privacy, although it isn't quite as instant as your solution.
To start make the initial call to action simpler. Just let them enter a song or band name and let that action carry the user into creating a playlist. They will figure it out from there.
Cool Idea.
I'd hope targeting US would not be far off, but starting UK (and even more locally as others have suggested here seems like our first goal). Someone else mentioned sniffing IPs and showing USD pricing... this would be a pretty easy step towards US. Would love the help when we are at that point though thanks!

I've thought a little about affiliate programs, but couldn't see much working. What makes you think it would be a good fit?
Or widowers of women...
Sounds like incron. Which is just a cron-like interface for inotify.
TelAviv, Israel

* Rent+Utils: 700$ (each-with roommates) / 1300$ (2 room appt)
* Internet: 30$
* Food: 500$
* Transport: 140$
* Beer 1 litre: 12$
* Corner Bar Food (cheap): 7$
* Lunch deal: 13$
* Cellphone: 55$ (~300 minutes)
* Petrol: 2$/ltr
* Cars are expensive, e.g.: Mazda3 30,000$

* Salary: 4,000$ - 8,000$
* Average salary in the country: ~2400$

Generally the life style of a tech person is very high compared to other professions.
Kubuntu-Mobile 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)
Like the post a lot. Don't think they are "bad" ideas. Worse ideas are successful every day.

Not exciting to say, but ideas are a small part of success. Or said another way, to implement one idea, you need 1000 good ideas.
ps: yes we created the videos and own the rights, some kind of 'just access to the videos' account might work. Well... if I come up with a better name for the account than that.
If you wrote the code and did not explicitly sign the copyright in that code over to the group - then you own it. If someone else wrote the code then (assuming the above) they own it.

The "idea" is all about execution - as is often said here at HN - ideas are ten a penny - it is getting something done that counts.
Sit down into a comfy chair, grab a keyboard, try to type the domain name 100 times, without paying much attention.

How many times did you type blink.com? If it's more than ~30%, then it will be a hindrance.

blnik is awkward to type, and while one can bookmark it, it's still an issue.

Misspelled domains might work when the mispelling either makes sense, is a common mispelling, and isn't awkward to type.
"Yes, you're going to do those things, but since millions of other people are doing that too, you're still invisible. Visibility-fail. Anyone-gives-a-crap-fail."

Hmmm..., I think we can say millions of people do (or will do in the near future) the methods you describe. I don't see why are those methods harder to do than the methods you categorize as default stuff.

I think what is hard is product market fit. You say:

"Ask a technical founder about his startup, and he'll proudly describe his stunning software — simple, compelling, useful, fun."

I think mostly this is the most important stuff unless someone is really incompetent at marketing. I think a really good product cannot win without any marketing, but a really good product can win with 'routine' marketing.

Product market fit is always important. Whether even technical merits are very important depends on how hard the problem technically is. Why there are no other machine tranlators than Google Translate? Because they have bad marketing? No, because the problem is incredibly hard technically.
Also, see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

"Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page." [Priority 1]
Ahh sorry. I just copied and pasted it from a tweet I had sent out previously.
I have a much simpler problem, a domain name that begins with merry and ends in a simple 4-letter phrase that most people would get right. So I simply bought merry, merri, mary, and marry domains. I suppose I should cover meri and mari as well, but those seem less likely...
Let me give you my feedback with one disclaimer: like most HN readers, I doubt I'm a typical user. Sometimes it's hard for us tech types and early adopters to appreciate "normal" usage of pretty much anything.

I go to the site and my initial thought is: too dark. In fact I saw an article on colour theory recently that explained why you should never use black. I can't find it at the moment. I'll add it if I do.

Another thought: some of the things loading on the site seemed to be a bit slow.

The home page says "Make a party mix with your friends!". Ok, that gives some idea of what the site is for but what problem is this solving?

I click on some of the mixes there but nothing seems to come up. What is it meant to be? Collections of Youtube videos? If you're having a party, how do you use such a mix? Most people will want to play such things through a stereo, probably through an iPod. Youtube videos require a computer (or an iPad or iPod Touch). Sound quality is typically worse. Bandwidth is an issue.

I can see why you chose Youtube as it's one of the very few ways of getting music on the internet but really for mass adoption something like this needs to integrate with iTunes or something else you can just play. Distribution of such content is going to be a huge problem. There was a post on HN in the last couple of weeks saying that music startups were basically dead. Legal barriers too high. Content owners stuck in the past that will simply bleed you dry.

The site suggests Facebook login. I guess to connect with your friends. But the mixes on the front page were public. So, as a user, I'm confused. Is this public or something I do with my friends or both? There's no clear message here.

What I think would need to drive this is high ranking on Google. This might take some research and possibly some AdWords. Things like "80s party mix". Themes like that.

Another big problem: Youtube allows you to create playlists on the site. What incentive and advantage is there to going somewhere else to compile this?

Music is a hard problem. Medieval content owners, iTunes being a closed ecosystem. It's tough.
This sounds like some really, really great stuff. As it is, canvas in Safari/IOS is simply too slow to make any fast action game in JavaScript.
> Are there? Cite some for me.

I'm sure you are aware of them and if you had any actual contradictory position on this you would have mentioned it.

> You don't actually need to be a super genius to go into tech.

I'd say you need to be well above average in 'math IQ' to be useful programmer. When you combine a lower mean in math-like capability with a smaller standard deviation this significantly cuts down the percentage of women who'd be expected to cross that 'threshold'.

> Maybe to found a startup, though that's also a reach, but certainly not to go be a dev somewhere

Can you actually program competently? Cause I'm getting the vibe that you don't have much respect for the art.

> why this community tends to assume A) that the tech community is totally immune to societally constructed gender forces that have at some point affected pretty much everything else in the world

Because at it's heart, the nuts and bolts of tech work is not about social interaction, it is about you and the computer/system. At some level it doesn't matter whether you are an bipolar lesbian midget with major personal hygiene issues or a privileged WASP, the computer doesn't care - your program will either work or not. True geeks don't need to ask for anyone's permission, approval or assistance to get into the area - they just start learning and coding. Sure, this is 'back room' stuff but at the heart of most successful tech startups you will find a healthy 'inner geek' that respects results above contemporary social mores.

> What evidence? I'm very happy to evaluate the evidence objectively. But it seems so far that there's been very little evidence presented either way

I agree in that none of he individual arguments presented are knockout blows. But when you accumulate the maths vs language gap, the variance difference, a reasonable explanation for different attitudes to risk, the successes in previous male bastions (law/medicine) versus the individualistic/mathy tech - it starts to look a lot like mutually supporting evidence.

When it comes to the 'complicated and totally unfounded explanation based on evolution' I see it as stronger than the 'secret societal forces that nobody can seem to put there finger on that stops women from entering tech'. Your argument about fear makes some sense but it is just as easy to argue that founding an ambitious startup is actually irrational in terms life result pay-offs - even for men.

In general I think it is quite too fall into the trap of thinking of people as fundamentally more similar to ones self than they really are, and to explain away the differences as societal influence. Modelling the rest of the world as 'slightly different versions of me' certainly has power but also great inaccuracies. This particular article called 'Generalizing From One Example' was a real eye opener for me.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/
The True Size of Africa
Since you don't have any documentation or agreements between parties, you can also most certainly expect a lawsuit addressing all of this under the event you become successful with your efforts.

I would therefore consult with an attorney, and see what the ramifications truly are, and what long term items you must now consider in the event your idea becomes successful.
Can you paste the email you send to folks here? I'd be interested in seeing it.
T&C's aren't as important, but if people are going to be submitting data to your website, you should have a privacy policy. A comment on a third party forum isn't equivalent.
"1. What is the four-digit number in which the first digit is one-fifth the last, and the second and third digits are the last digit multiplied by 3? (Hint: The sum of all digits is 12.)"

I don't understand how they got the answer to this one; it makes no sense to me at all.
OK, but I think the point is that 1) status symbols may actually be debt symbols, which makes them less attractive, and 2) people who can buy fancy stuff often don't, which demonstrates their belief (maybe true) that it's not worth it.

Secondly, there's a lot to be said for peace of mind. Who is richer: someone who lives in a fancy house and constantly worries about losing it, or someone who lives simply, has no debt, has saving, and can basically do whatever they want?