skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I see this a ton. (I work for an entrepreneurship and ip related non-profit and have done a few start ups.)

Usually a tech start-up thinks it can get Gates money by applying their shizzle to global poverty or a non-profit decides it wants to make some consulting money. Both are hair-brained ideas -- choose one, it's hard enough to be successful in one world.
The reason you need to really care about memory management in game development is because most of the consoles don't have virtual memory. Once you run out (and you don't have that much), your game stops working. It's very similar to embedded system / real-time programming in this way. So you need to plan out how much space everything will use in advance, basically. Lots of fixed-sized buffers and pool allocators.

And the reason you don't use garbage collection is because real-time games can't afford a GC pause.
Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?
Just tried it, tapping URLs, email addresses, and physical addresses in the contact list doesn't do anything for me.
I'm looking to produce a few banner ads for our new startup: http://www.happybuy.com/

Would be interested in an outsiders thoughts on the best creative to express the idea of the site and have banner-ad viewers turn into active users.

My initial thought would be to simply have different banner ads highlighting a product along with its price graph. It quickly shows the utility of the site and how you can save money by knowing the best time to buy. Turning product info such as:

http://www.happybuy.com/product/Apple-iPad-MB292LLA-Tablet-1...

into a mini-banner ad could provide some insight, more so than a simple brand focused ad.
What's their reason for open sourcing it?
Mark Zuckerberg Interview
So I built a webapp.  OK, now what?
A few buddies and I spent this summer building Facebook apps. Some of them (in my inevitably biased opinion) are pretty fun.

One Facebook App we made lets people overlay mustaches onto their friends' profile pictures.

Another Facebook app is for compositing your profile picture into The Daily Show's Rally to Restore Sanity poster. It shares similarities with Twibbon.

We thought both of them had a really good chance of becoming viral; yet neither seem to be. I'm at a loss as to why. Is the original concept bad? Did we fail in the execution? Do people just not use Facebook apps anymore? Is "virality" more stochastic than I originally anticipated?

More generally, how do you measure the odds of a product gaining lots of traction and users before you actually build it? I'm sure we all get caught up in our enthusiasm for the projects we are working on; what methods do you use to independently validate your ideas?

I apologize for the two differing ideas in this post. 1) If possible, I'd love some feedback on how to make the apps I built better. 2) How about an open discussion on how to validate the worth of your ideas and projects?

Links to apps:

-Mustaching app: http://apps.facebook.com/youneedamustache

-Rally to Restore Sanity in your profile picture:
http://apps.facebook.com/restoresanity
Right the operative word being good here, Almost all developers consider themselves good. Reality diverges from that point.

I always considered myself to be slightly above average developer. I have worked with a lot of smart guys some MIT alumni some self taught and among them I was average. It was not until, I ventured out into larger organizations that I got smacked with the reality of the passionless developer, that somehow learned enough to get a job but has no interest in technology other than it provides a fairly decent paycheck. I was stunned by this reality, up until this point I had worked in simulation, start-ups and small shops with really passionate guys who took pride in their code. When I first encountered the passionless developer I was appalled by their absolute disinterest in quality of code. Further many of them considered themselves to be senior and on par with the best of the best because their entire development existence has been in a sea of mediocrity.

True story, I remember when the shift started taking place for web apps. When the cool kids where starting to write the front-end in JavaScript and shooting off XHR request to the back end to get info and update the page dynamically, when they started dumping the bulky server side frameworks for more nimble and rapid client side toolkits.

I was at a fairly sizable organization and this stuff was by no means cutting edge anymore and I said you know, we should start doing some prototypes with this app architecture and see if it is advantageous. We already know that it produces a superior product in terms of usability so lets see if we can come up with a development process that is more efficient than we use now and give it a try. The response was well it's not Java and we are Java developers from a good deal of the team, the idea of not using a Java framework, to do web development, was hericy in their eyes.

I was floored, I had never identified myself as a (X) developer and the reality that people do smacked me in the face pretty hard. So the point is if someone is an (X) developer, chances are they are not as good as they think they are. Development is about applying technology to problems not applying technology (X) to problems. If a developer has already constructed that box around themselves it lends evidence to the fact that they might not posses the though process or creative thinking required to be a great developer.
I bought yellow filter that clips to my glasses since I find it kind of hard to get individual filters for all possible devices. Also, melatonin helps.

Once I started exercising regularly, my sleep improved dramatically, so I rarely use filter or melatonin anymore.
They're not mutually exclusive. Now there's just an easy hack that both can use to get past the security mechanism.
I consider the purchase price of a new domain to be the first, and one of the best, barriers when vetting new ideas.

If I come up with a sweet idea, I sit on it. If after a few weeks the idea is still burning a hole in my pocket, I'll purchase the domain.
FYI, I picked up the same mat as linked above at Amazon for a smaller chunk of change:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EFK9KM/

Thanks for the recommendation. I've been standing for several months and really enjoying it. Hoping this mat helps with the occasional foot/ankle pain.
Ask HN: Does this Microsoft KB hotfix download work for anyone?
I have been trying to download this KB hotfix for the last week - it currently affects my TortoiseSVN as it constantly causes errors and is slowing me down.

Clicking on the following link and then requesting the hotfix always results in a "The system is currently unavailable. Please try back later, or contact support if you want immediate assistance." error. I am just curious if this error is the same result for others; thanks in advance.

KB link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982927
Hotfix request link: http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=982927&kbln=en-us
I call myself web developer, but if I were a little bit more specific I could call myself: HTML/CSS/JavaScript/<whatever crazy sever technology you can think of> programmer. If I wanted to be a little vague I would call myself ninja or rock star.

The reason I like web developer is that it gives a clue to everyone about what I am doing or trying to accomplish, it also may give the impression that I am trying to be open minded about the technologies I use, with some bias towards the things I already know.

Frameworks are good but you should not get stuck with them. You should not use them if there is something else that may be better for the job.
In my experience, people who have an attitude of doubt or want a guarantee of quick returns immediately disqualify themselves from achieving something earth shattering. You've heard it all before I'm sure, and that's the problem. My project is a long term long shot. It's not for everybody.

I'm just being honest. If I could code like Zuckerberg, I wouldn't have to annoy developers so much.

What do I bring to the table? Something that hasn't been done before coupled with an understanding that I don't have all the answers, other people who are experts in their particular areas have value to contribute, and I don't care what has to happen to make my vision real as long as my vision doesn't get corrupted or sold short.

What is my supposed "vision"? It's not something I toss around in forums. I don't care what the folks at the YC Startup Forum talked about this year, if people are just throwing around ideas with no strings, they're being reckless because they have nothing to gain from their ideas being ripped off. I have bills to pay.
Clickables

KB link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982927

Hotfix request link: http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=9829...
Poor Barnes & Noble
Chatbot Suzette Wins 20th Annual Loebner Prize, Fools One Judge
This actually looks quite awesome, which is a stretch for me considering my opinion of Adobe lately.

I've always wanted to make a similar tool for JS animations, but never got around it.
Seems to me this was a rather unscientific experiment. If I turned off everything that makes light in my house, of course I'm going to go to sleep at 9 because there isn't anything to do except sleep. I also find it funny that the result was him being in a better mood as apposed to when he stayed up late and didn't sleep as much. du.
No where did I bring communism or capitalism into the conversation.

Really? From http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1821175 I find:

Do you feel that economies where the bulk of economic activity is organized via free actors engage in voluntary exchange tend to be more dynamic than economies where the government plays the major role in organizing economic activity?

What are you talking about if not capitalism? Then you go on to say:

If not, on what basis would you justify allowing the existence of non-governmental economic activity?

That sure as heck looks like a reference to something that famously happens in communism.

And both were straw men when referring to the parent comment. Which in effect boiled down to saying that it was possible that it could be easier to discourage gaming the system by providing bigger punishments for bad behavior than it is to do it by providing bigger incentives for not gaming the system.

Which actually seems like a good point to me. Increasing punishment would mean punishing CEOs that all agree have done something wrong, possibly with prison. Providing counter incentives means what? Do we give them more money than they would have made gaming the system as a thank you for not having gamed it? I for one would find that hard to swallow, and I doubt I'm alone!

Returning to the main thread of this conversation, it is up to each of us to decide how to spend our time. If you're not getting value (enjoyment, learning, reputation etc) for energy spent here or anywhere else, you shouldn't do it. If you are, you should continue to do it, and maybe should do it more. I can't make the decision for you. But that anonymous poster struck me as out of line, and doesn't seem to me to be the norm for this community.
I'm picturing Dwight Schrute as I read this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Schrute
You really should actually watch it before passing judgement. It does not seem to compile down to <canvas> -- it may use it for some bits, but they emphasize that CSS transformations and transitions are being used in a few different key places. It seems that it really does use HTML5, not just a canvas.
I don't think its so much the points into themselves, I know an overall count worries me very little. It's the negative feedback you get from having something voted down, which isn't to bad if someone replies and explains why they disagree or why the argument isn't well formed, doesn't add anything ect.

It's when you have a comment the represents your opinion and you think it's well written, but it still has been voted down for unknown reasons with no replies in can play on your mind. It's like your telling someone something, they tell you they disagree and the conversations ends there.
Thats interesting...

Almost everyone I've talked with were actively seeking financing when they closed their seed rounds.

I don't have any numbers, but I'd be willing to bet less than 1% of all startups are ever featured on TechCrunch, Mashable, or any other large industry publication prior to funding. I wouldn't rely on that to generate investor interest.

Posting your company on HN is about as close to looking for investors without "looking for investors"
No base station required: peer-to-peer WiFi Direct is go
Reading this article it was hard to keep a straight face. Obama is practicing trickle down economics? Exactly how is wanting to raise taxes on the rich practicing trickle down economics?
He's right. I know I'm guilty of this. Just get something done and out the door... quit navel gazing and pre-optimizing.

One of these days I'm going to take such advice to heart. One of these days.
Forget the TechCrunch Launch
http://www.Filmbet.com
The site wont display downvotes in excess of 4. That way, no comments are publicly downvoted into oblivion, but they do continue to lose karma.
This is the Adobe we want. Kudos to them for paying attention to HTML 5 as a valuable tool for web developers.
btw, did you use showoff for http://codebutler.github.com/firesheep/tc12/#1
what version of firefox do you need to have to run it? i can't get it to work.
The cynic in me would suggest that you didn't get the right influencers to sneeze this to their groups. In think there's some Seth Godin in there someplace too.
How Facebook News Feed Settings Work and how to game the system
If you click the link you can watch the video. I don't think they are preventing you from watching.

Edit: If you're not running Flash, you're preventing yourself from watching. Or Apple is. Either way, Adobe is offering you both the content and the decoder for free.
I'm a F.lux user, it dramatically improved my life.

With that frame of reference, I've had no sleep issues from my iPad, which I use to read before bed most nights. In fact, I read in lower light using the ipad than with a conventional book and lamp on the nightstand.

The two main apps I use are iBooks and the Kindle app. Both apps have controls for turning text white-on-black, and controlling the brightness. At night, I read exclusively white-on-black at low brightness.

Additionally, for apps that don't support inverted text, you can bind hitting home three times to invert the colors. Its at Settings -> General -> Triple-click home.
It sounds a good bit like Rice a decade ago actually. They're a bit more strict on the pranks ("jacks") these days, and some of the other things are becoming a little more restricted as the university gets larger, but it still mostly applies.
Looking at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3... it looks like the increased safety effect was documented over a period of 25 years in over 100 different locations.

That's strong enough data for me to strongly doubt your theory.
I'd have to agree, I was pretty impressed. I paused it in a couple of instances when they were showing the HTML source view and I didn't see any canvas tags. Obviously they could be added dynamically via JavaScript, but that doesn't seem to be the case as you've said. And to back up your statements, they did stress CSS transformations and there is a DOM view which clearly shows him editing DOM elements which when matched with the source code view implies pure HTML. My hope would be that they'd leverage jQuery to handle the actual dirty work of doing the transformations and focus on the tooling and timeline, though I'd imagine it's too early to know if that's case or they'll be rolling their own scripts.

I'm actually surprised someone hasn't made a tool like this for jQuery. I know jQuery and jQueryUI have basic animation support and likely some plugins that build and extend those features, but a dedicated tool for creating advanced timeline and event based animations would be amazing.
It uses jQuery, and it generates jQuery/JavaScript code, which is good because you could check it out and learn it. I learned SQL with PHPMyAdmin, so I think you may be able to actually learn how this works behind the scenes.
What do you call yourself?
I think you referred to this slide from PGCon 2010 http://www.pgcon.org/2010/schedule/attachments/141_PostgreSQ...
F.lux was written by a friend of mine from school, who is an awesome hacker and was one of the cofounders of Picasa (acquired by google)
Thank. You. I'm glad you nipped that in the butt. Could have been very embarrassing.

I'm feeling snarky because it's 11:29 PM local time, and I'm about to ditch the trial server software I had planned to use and just write the goddamn things I need in Python, and keep it all in memory, so I can actually finish my shit this week. Fuck databases, fuck socket-server middle-ware, fuck best practice dogma (except when they really matter).
Here's an example about the "Montana: No Speed Limit Safety Paradox" - http://www.motorists.org/press/montana-no-speed-limit-safety...
Actually there were no HTML5 stuff shown in the demo, I can code those effects to work with IE6. In fact that demo may even work in IE6 if you would include some hacks.
It’s an optional plugin, unavailable on many devices and in 64-bit browsers. Do you know which I’m using? In fact, a non-technical user just today was telling me that they can’t use YouTube in Internet Explorer because, in their words, “It says to install Flash. But then it says something about unavailable in 64-bit.”

Isn’t this the whole point of Adobe starting to make tools that don’t require Flash? Going from 90%+ to 100% (of browsers)?

So Adobe talking about their HTML5 future while failing to

1. Link to a movie file,

2. Use HTML5 video, or

3. Provide a text equivalent

is head-in-the-sand oxymoronic activity that does prevent some users from viewing it.
Ask HN: making money in Apple App marketplace?
There are over a quarter of a million offerings in the Apple App Store. Does a newcomer have any realistic chance to make money in this market, or is it over-saturated? Does the Mac App Store offer an opportunity to squeeze in?
World’s first laptop, 25 years old and still running
Correct me if I'm wrong (I may well be), but I was under the impression the JS aspects were used for things not implementable in CSS3/HTML5 spec? With the generated animations being done primarily in CSS3 (but maybe a JS fallback?)

I'm having a hard time finding official/reputable info on this, so if you've seen it please share. =)

If it does just use JS for animations, it's quite deceiving to call this an HTML5 animation tool. Though I'm aware the CSS3 spec isn't officially part of HTML5, I think most people assume it is.
I was going to guess Caltech which has a very similar policy and culture as described. The only thing that didn't fit was the "women's college across the street".
I'm a little surprised Apple isn't on there.
Similar for me. I'm male, and have an interest in photos and news. Probably from flickr + picasa, and here, as I certainly don't sign up on newspaper / magazine sites - that's what BugMeNot is for.

Help! Help! I'm being deanonymized!

Meh. They can keep it. And if it would mean fewer penis enlargement emails, they could have more.
Can you unshorten those links so people can see the ultimate destinations (and affiliate links) before clicking?
Until we get rid of most IE versions, we can't really reliably produce animation in web applications. I have built a very simple image cross-fade effect. I most of my time making it IE compatible.
This isn't a Redmond problem, it's a Ray Ozzie problem. You don't get a ton of writing by Sinofsky published on the public internet, but he's a fascinating and thought provoking writer by comparison.
Working within the timeframe of the current rate of development in web apps, I'm not the "business person" in my operation because I don't have the time or experience to accomplish what is listed above. I'm the "vision person", I need a developer to make my vision real in the form of an alpha version of the site, then I need a "business person" to come in and connect the dots for the investors to make the thing real.

I need a lot of help for sure but my hand is open, I know I can't do this on my own. I haven't found the people to fill the roles I need through my limited professional network.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I'm working on the connections listed in #1 by networking with local developers and applying to the YC winter session.

#2 is a big jump for me without a working demo which I'm currently contracting and developing. 14K name mailing list? Yikes, I need an expert for that one.

I've attempted #3 already but it's not efficient to design things and then not being able to pay for the coding of all the stuff I design.

I need cofounders who have the time, energy, and value system to take my vision and run with it and make it real.

I know I sound like a kid writing a letter to Santa but I know that someone is willing to pursue a dream. I just have to find them.
Ask HN: San Francisco's Best Coffeeshops for Writing Code
I was always skeptical about writing code at coffee shops, but have just tried once and found out that I was way more focused and spent time much more effective than from home. So I want to explore it a bit more and was curious what is the other peoples' experience.

So a question for those who don't work at offices. What are your favorite places in San Francisco to write code/make a design? Places where you would go instead of working from home. And do you find working from coffeshops more effective than from home or just go there to feel more social?
You can say quite negative stuff, but it is much harder to get away with trolling outright.

My diatribe against django: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1490415

Me telling some digg engineer that the plan to switch to cassandra was retarded, way back in '09: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813967

Calling the content of a submitted article 'crap': http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=772693

I guess I might get away with negativity without being modded into oblivion, my secret is that my posts have some sort of information content.
Too many people downvote people that they disagree with which is the downfall of a karma based system. What if you disagree, but they are right? Why do you dislike the fact that someone may have an opinion that differs from yours?

Downvoting people you disagree with implies that you are always right. I bow down to your perfection.
In general, anything that doesn't contribute to the conversation will end up downvoted. Check out this conversation, for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647322

If you look through my comment history, you'll find that I occasionally don't follow this, either... I'm just trying to explain why you might have been downvoted, I am not 20 different HNers, nor the HN morality police.
Can you document or reference the "lot wasted going back and forth"? That sounds like a convenient rationale, but doesn't appear to reflect reality.
Cool. I'm tentatively planning to to Hiroshima this weekend. I'm ok for a place to stay, if you'd like to catch up for a coffee around the area, that'd be great.
The LLVM project is one of those open-source project which originally aimed to do some great things and eventually found out to do even greater.
It is quite humorous that they demo it with Flash only. Maybe they should have made their page using their own HTML5 video widget they just released? =)