skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
UX Rockstar or Programming Rockstar?
This was the premise for a new blog post, but nobody reads my blog and I'm interested in other peoples opinions.

Consider you're working on a new web startup. You need to hire one designer and one programmer. You have four applications and each candidate is completely devoted your product, 2 are rockstars and 2 are average. Due to budget limitations, you can only take one rockstar. Which do you take, the UX rockstar or the programming rockstar?
WTF's / minute ?

http://www.osnews.com/images/comics/wtfm.jpg
you don't have to use xor, this will work and perhaps easy to follow

/* assume x = 5, y = 10; */
x = x + y; /* x = 5 + 10 = 15*/
y = x - y; /* y = 15 - 10 = 5 */
x = x - y; /* x = 15 - 5 = 10 */
I can't decide whether my inability to tell whether this is satire reflects a failing of mine or of the author.

Writing a long-winded blog post about a simple idea, which itself is about distilling ideas to their essence is too obvious, right?
Why does everyone insist on putting a semicolon in "tl;dr"?

It makes a perfectly good acronym 25% longer than it needs to be.
I have to chime in that I also feel that Java is much as you said. I wanted to write some reflective code, and it took me an hour (admittedly doing it for the first time) and 57 lines of code. Frustrated, I did a mock up of it in python to see what the difference would be. It was only 12 lines, and much more intelligible. It was also much faster to write, but that isn't a fair comparison since the research into the function requirements had already been done.
PG: Thank you for putting on Startup School
I'd really like to say thank you to PG, the folks at YC, the speakers and everyone that put time and effort into making startup school what I think was an amazing event this year.

All the speakers shared invaluable insights into what we all love best - building things. In fact, I've already started hounding people who weren't able to attend to watch the videos. From Brian Chesky's lessons on perseverance to Andrew Mason's comments on forgetting your grand artistic vision and just building a tool that people can use, I feel like I've gotten some wonderful tips and tricks to help out my own ventures.

Perhaps even more important than the speakers though, at least for me, was the people. There really isn't any way to describe how invigorating it is to be around so many excited about technology, building things and their great ideas of how to change the world. I feel like the projects and ideas I've been procrastinating are now achievable and need to be done right away.

So, thank you again, everyone involved, for putting on such a singular event that helps us all out so much.
Cold is typically manageable. Cold and wet on the other hand is a totally different story. Was a complete pain when we got rained on while camping.
I think the "here is the sort of person you are" bit is more alienating. You allocate part of your monthly budget to speeding tickets? You play Halo 3? Of course these obviously aren't phrased as job requirements, but are still alienating for the potential applicant, who gets the idea that his new boss is the kind of person who has odd expectations about behaviour.
Nobody should ever have to die.

I don't think that's a particularly useful or healthy attitude to have towards death, actually.
The Sweet Tea Manifesto
IE8 Still Failing PNG Alpha
I make games and my startup has lots of game developers using it. It's just not HN-worthy most of the time because my blog is for my users to read, not HN.
Wait, why am I being downvoted? I was only offering my interpretation of the film means.
Even women who have spent most of their lives in high heels do not, for the most part, seem to suffer from serious foot problems.

I don't think this is true. All the women I know who wear high heels routinely complain of foot or knee pain (at least, the women I know well enough who would complain to me). I know of at least two women with permanent knee injuries caused (in large part) from wearing high heels.

If you ride the subway in NYC, you'll see plenty of ads for podiatrists typically featuring an unhappy looking woman (call 1-800-???-FOOT).
I'd suggest checking out http://html5doctor.com

The authors do a pretty thorough job of reviewing the semantics of new (or updated) HTML5 elements.
The Greeks were truly great. Not only did they know that the earth is a sphere, they also calculated what size it was, and considered the possibility that it revolves around its axis and around the sun. They conjectured that matter is made of indivisible atoms. They calculated the value of pi. Unfortunately their discoveries based on logic and observation would later be dictated to be false by the bible (including the value of pi)...
Wow! Responses like this make working on these apps all the more worthwhile. Thank you so much, and really glad you're enjoying the app!
Toddlers' Favorite Toy: The iPhone
Smartphones may mollify a fussy toddler, but does this new Toy of Choice inhibit a child’s development?
It seems very interesting talk. I guess it will be interesting for researchers in other areas. I will be watching tonight
Good think history leaves a trail. The last batch of documents were cross verified, I assume they'll do the same for this batch.
Why? And what could be healthy about something as destructive as embracing death?

I like to be pragmatic. I know very well that I will most likely die in a few decades. That’s just how it looks to be at the moment. I do however strongly believe we and the generations that follow us should fight death and that we can win.
Being from Canada, and having spent a winter on the prairies, all I can say is - it depends. There's cold and then there's COLD.
Well... Microsoft is a little more weird. The company still freaks out over open source. And when they "officially" started endorsing some open source, it was in the context of their own open source licenses and their own open source hosting website.

Then they try and develop web technology, Silverlight, that is better than Flash by technical standards but is so entrenched in Microsoft-land that hardly anyone wants to do anything with it. You can't author anything for it when using Apple and Linux doesn't even get a runtime (Mono doesn't count, can never be feature-complete).

Apple doesn't seem quite the same. A lot of Apple developers are active in other developer communities. Microsoft developers seem to stick to Microsoft technologies. Perhaps this is because Microsoft has their own implementation of almost everything.
Y'know, I don't think film is a good medium for making a political argument.

I do think it's a powerful medium for making a political argument, since you can capture a viewer's whole attention for two hours, tug at their heartstrings with music and pictures of crying children, overwhelm your audience's critical faculties and gloss over the main flaws in your argument without anyone noticing. And that's exactly the reason why I won't watch political films... not even if they're saying something I agree with.

For a complicated issue like corporate personhood (if indeed that's what this is about), I'm willing to entertain arguments either way, but I want them written down in black text on white paper and limited to a few pages, so I know I'm not being manipulated. And then I'd like to seek out an opposing viewpoint in a similar format, and make up my own mind. I don't see why anyone would want to subject themselves to a political film at all.
I guess the technical challenges that you face will be interesting and also the paths for visibility and success will be slightly different from the general use web-apps.
Don't mind at all.
> Back problems are very common. Digestive problems are very common.

They are in the civilized world, where everybody wears shoes with fat heels, and eats garbage. Take a look at places where people have to walk barefoot and you'll see a huge difference.

More relevant links:
http://mtkfitness.typepad.com/mtk-fitness/2009/07/more-antis...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-...
Great input on what's really important in a job description. Interesting Gen Y take on making sure the job description has a "what in it for me" section, since I know Curve Dental has a fun team working environment. And, I do think the description could save a few words.

That said, Curve Dental is a rockin place to work. I've seen their HQ office and there have high energy and happy people. They are a "contender", not a "pretender" in the Cloud-computing space with industry pundants applauding their direction & leadership. Microsoft's VP said cloud programming is "tough" and so I'm sure the list of truly qualified technical people for such a job is short.

Best of fortune to those techies who qualify because cloud computing is where it's at and Curve Dental has the leadership and the funding to make a bunch of people happy on payday.
Pretty cool. And they're not too sketchy!

The only one I was put off by was #6, hiding your free plan. Although it certainly makes sense, I know I get easily pissed off by this sort of thing. If you follow the other rules, and put it off to the right, I think it'd be fine.

Also, if you have them sorted in descending order AND have a decoy, I feel like that could be offputting: the first price you see would be huge.
Does this mean there's no place for http://tldrd.com ? :-)
I've been wearing VFFs on and off for the last two years and a bit (on my third pair now), and I agree, they still feel much better than "normal" shoes.
There is however an entire market of users like me that publishers could get if they were charging less.

Right now all my purchased books are used, the publisher and author get nothing for them and I buy them because they are 4-7 dollars (mass market-hard cover) at my local bookstore.

My bookstore is however 30 minutes away and if I were to find an ebook version for 4 dollars you can bet your ass I'm buying that copy, but right now my kindle is a project gutenberg ereader. I did buy two books on my kindle when I first got it, but about a month after my kindle gift the publishers decided that 5.99-7.99 for older books and 9.99 for new books was too little and I went back to used.

Edit: Also right now the pirate market for books is growing at an amazing rate because a large amount of users can't justify the 15-20 dollars for some ebooks but still want to use their ereaders.
Does anyone know the best way to download the videos off justin.tv? Chrome specifically?
I would encourage you to share even a back of the envelope explanation showing how the costs to distribute even 20,000 copies of an ebook would cost $10,000, given that publishers that are doing this are distributing their fixed costs of hardware and software over some large number of ebooks.
Exactly! If I were in high school, I'd be texting all day long.

This is a symptom of a deeper problem, namely that high school isn't very engaging for most people.
Worksforme on Chome 8.0.552.0 dev on Ubuntu

(edit: It worked for me even before the vimeo switch)
I tend to think that if you're going to insist that someone write code without access to documentation and in an unfamiliar environment then you shouldn't ask for anything more than pseudocode. Otherwise you're just testing whether or not someone has memorized the standard library of whatever language you want.

You can argue that someone who has memorized the [Foo] standard library might be better at some things than someone who hasn't, of course. But I think that what you're testing for is at best tangental to the ability to design/write good code.
When you wear shoes, you're much more likely to heel strike.

from
http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/4BiomechanicsofFo...:

"In heel striking, the collision of the heel with the ground generates a significant impact transient, a nearly instantaneous, large force. This force sends a shock wave up through the body via the skeletal system. In forefoot striking, the collision of the forefoot with the ground generates a very minimal impact force with no impact transient."

In other words, your knees, hips, and back act as shock absorbers when you heel strike.

Try this experiment - jump into the air, landing on your heels. Then jump, landing on the balls of your feet. How does each one feel?
Ironic that he opposes "Platonists" and yet uses Greek as a term of praise. Who are the Romans that Taleb is referring to, then? The comment suggests they are the norm, and that a Greek is rare.
no input box here, ubuntu 64bit chrome 6.0.472.63, only the car.
You can vote for multiple. :-)
"Fanboy article from a iSheep on HN"
> Our ancestors invented shoes for a reason, and it wasn't because Nike marketing told them to.

Agreed, but only partially. Our ancestors invented shoes because they provided a benefit, and continued using shoes because of that benefit. What they didn't (and couldn't really) know was the cost that came along with it. Now we have the science to find out exactly what that cost is. Ignoring that cost isn't going to make it go away.

That being said, if, with full knowledge of the costs and the benefits, you decide to wear shoes anyway, then that's your choice and I can respect that.
Yep. Although many of the challenges are much the same ... how do I get users, etc etc.

It's definitely fun solving a growing problem for developers - games aren't disconnected and audiences are massive, "I want high scores in my game" is not as simple as hacking together some php/mysql on your $8 hosting account when a popular game reaches 10s of millions of people.

I think the biggest difference ultimately is HN doesn't hold any marketing value for me or other gaming startups so none of us are making a play for it. The analytics side of my platform dwarfs many of the ones we talk about here - but the others are relevant for anyone with a registration form, so they write / submit more stuff.
So "piracy" is okay so long as the money ends up in the hands of the producers?

No, piracy is always okay.
I read paperbacks a lot, too, but I'm going off of data from selling 3 fairly successful technical books. eBook sales are huge.

Having a paperback is a huge win, but it's often not worth the effort to futz with editing it (inserting page breaks properly etc.), typesetting it, finding a proper publisher, and messing with the whole process of getting the whole thing setup. Lulu makes it easier than nearly any other solution I've looked at, even if their margins are high (their margins aren't but their production costs are; authors balk at them but they're usually absorbed by publishers so while it seems that you're getting screwed, it's just that you're taking on the risk now instead of the publisher).
In my experience thinking is nigh impossible with your hands on the keyboard. Thinking happens in the shower, or with a pen in your hand and a sheet of paper in front of you, or in a conversation.

Here's a homework question that I got last week:

Two numbers x and y in 0..50 with x <= y get selected. Bob gets told x^2+y^2, Alice gets told x+y. Alice and Bob have the following conversation:

- Bob: I don't know which numbers x and y are.

- Alice: I don't know which numbers x and y are.

- Bob: I don't know which numbers x and y are.

- Alice: I don't know which numbers x and y are.

- Bob: I don't know which numbers x and y are.

- Alice: I don't know which numbers x and y are.

- Bob: Now I know which numbers x and y are.

Question: which numbers can x and y be?

If you're able to solve this problem by firing up your editor and starting coding the 10 lines of code required to solve it I'd be very surprised. Hard problems require real thinking.
I'm hoping to get funding to start a game development start-up, and I was wondering the same thing. I think there's plenty of room for indie game development. You can't compete with huge companies in terms of making a game that costs millions of dollars with a massive team, but there's plenty of other games to make. The game industry has gotten to a point where it takes so many years and massive amounts of money that they can scarcely try anything that's not a surefire hit, and companies get entrenched in continuing series of already popular games (instead of something new). So I think independent game developers might start to be more recognized as crucial to keeping things fresh and innovative.

Also, non-state-of-the-art games are getting more and more popular with the Wii and iPhone, while more and more people start to play games, people who don't demand hyper-realistic graphics and who want to try new ways of having fun.

To me we're still on the tip of the iceberg of game development; it has lots of potential and places to go for independent teams of hard-working, creative hackers.
Who knew. Everyone jokes how his paintings can be replicated by an infant, but I guess there's a lot of subtlety. Very cool.

(I wouldn't claim this, as its easier to copy something once it's already done.)
Is this actually from experience? Or is this simply cherry-picking from famous web apps?

If the author hasn't built a successful pricing page themselves, then this is just white noise. Best practices for this kind of thing seem to go in and out of style every 6 months.

Disclaimer: I have made 2 SaaS apps and the pricing page is the kind if thing where if you haven't done it before, your opinion about what color green works best etc has zero value.
As others have noted, it's not true that "nobody is talking about game development" on Hacker News; however, I think you're correct it is not a dominant topic. I can't speak for other's interests, but I know for myself that although game development is something I find somewhat interesting, it is not something I pursue, for a couple of reasons.

First, I don't spend much time playing games, because they don't hold my attention long and they're not the best use of my time (they're a pastime, literally, a way to pass time, but I don't need many of those). I know you don't need to play games to make them, but a deep love of games probably helps motivate you to make them, and I don't have that.

Second, I'm ultimately interested in creating things that change people's lives to some extent, whether by helping them solve problems, communicate more effectively, earn more money, etc. I think many people on HN feel similarly - they are interested in building things that enable people to get more out of life, in some way, and games don't always fit that description.

Of course these are just my personal opinions.

I'm still somewhat interested in developing games but more as a way to improve my skills in other areas, such as Javascript (I'd probably focus on HTML5 games if I got around to it) and challenging stuff like AI.
I'm writing my first game at the moment, inspired somewhat by the challenge put forward a few weeks ago to make $1 from a game by the end of October. I'm writing a very simple game, and it's taken way longer than I expected.

I'm not using standard widgets, so I'm having to create a library of custom widgets.

Everything is 100% vector graphics (no images at all), so I've have to write a library of vector routines, (very) basic physics, etc

Transitions; Every non-game object (text, menus etc) has custom animate-in and animate-out transitions. nothing just 'appears' on the screen.

Games need sound, which I've never used in a desktop or web app before. This is a whole new world to me.

and so on...

I'm not entirely sure It'll be done by October 31, and when it is I fully expect to receive comments like "This is a very basic game, should be free, not worth $2". I'm pretty much doing it for the experience, but I'm also creating a game I (think) that I'd like to play.
It depends on the complexity and difficulty of your app. If it's very difficult to create then get the rockstar programmer with hopefully some average UX skills.

If your app is not that complicated to make and intuitiveness matters a lot than get the UX guy.

When you refer to UX guy do you mean he's a designer? Can't you give the programmer instructions for the UI? For example, I'm great with UX but I'm neither a designer, nor a programmer. I'm a perfectionist and I want the products to be as easy to use as possible, or to look very good.
Ask HN: Why did you vote on "Cancer not a disease of modern world"?
Apart from programmer I am also a scientist on cancer; when I saw this subject I (in full: "Briefing: Cancer is not a disease of the modern world") had to read the corresponding link, especially as it was voted to the top (2nd place) of HN. Although it is already explained in the article why the title's statement is wrong (read the statistics), it gained the 2nd place in HN. Why, dear HN co-followers, did you vote this utterly unscientific, not rational, misleading, and clearly wrong statement to the top of HN? (Because cancer IS a disease of the modern world; We grow about double as old as a few hundred years ago, and the number of mummies we have collected so far are definitely not enough in the exceptional assumption the title of the post does). So, everybody who voted this article up: why did you do so? Furthermore, this "mummy & cancer" issue is even known [to me, at least] to be an old hoax brought up already several times (and there you will simply have to trust me, as I will not even start to waste my time by trying to bring up references for that).
Videos are here I believe: http://www.justin.tv/startupschool
Ok, the list below is now live, for those that did not supply an IP address or a hostname to redirect to you'll find that you are redirected to localhost.

The people that asked for a path redirect will have to be patient for a bit longer. If there is anything let me know.

Also, plenty of you have not mailed in your confirmation yet, please do so (j@ww.com).
> non-state-of-the-art games are getting more and more popular with the Wii and iPhon

I think mobile platforms are the way to go for indie developers, because the technical standards are so much lower. The App Store's top charts frequently feature games that are no more complicated than many Flash games and are sometimes direct ports of them (e.g. Canabalt, Solipskier).
"Smoking is the most significant of these, causing around a quarter of all cancers globally."

Except for that the research shows that smoking doesn't cause cancer, except maybe for tobacco. And even the surgeon general now apparently admits that most cancers that tobacco users suffer from probably aren't from tobacco.[1]

[1] http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_health2.shtml
I can load it up on my school account, but DeepFreeze keeps it off regardless. I expect between security features like DeepFreeze and user policies it would not be possible.
The interesting thing about the body is, when you damage one area, lots of times another area feels the pain.

When you support yourself day in and day out with the wrong shoe, your back has to work harder to pick up the slack. The average person is a heel striker which sends up vibrations to the knees and back. Since the knees work harder than normal, the muscles in your legs work hard and develop. From there, the average person does little to no exercise to stretch out the muscles, especially the hamstrings which when developed and tight pull on the back.

Then there's the simple fact that we have five toes which normally would be spread apart and help with balance and agility. We then shove them into badly fitting shoes and we squeeze our toes together practically forming one giant toe. This of course due to the fact that humans as a race decided walking on concrete and asphalt was much better than grass and dirt.