skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've met this robot in-person :-) Aside from some minor technical difficulties it worked great.

One observation though. While I was talking to the creator, via the robot, the people around me were talking really loud, like there wasn't another person there. Made it hard to have a conversation. It's easy to dismiss the robot as a piece of furniture if you're not interacting with it. We haven't developed the social cues for robot interaction yet.

I telecommute, but I don't know how much a telepresence robot would help me. I don't have to move around the office (which is another problem altogether :-). All of my work is at a keyboard except for occasional meetings where face-to-face interaction is important.
> It mostly means that they can use the libraries without having to open-source Xcode itself.

LGPL would be fine for that.
I found the book "JavaScript: The Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford to be very helpful in understanding the language. It's short and covers the main things you'll need to know. It's a good starting place. In fact, he gave a tech talk on the main topics of his book which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQVTIJBZook
For Javascript, I totally recommend the Mozilla's guides https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide.
Just a warning some of this code doesn't fully work on all browsers but AFAIK they point it in the guides.

For HTML the w3schools guides are good http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp (the javascript one are also ok).

Once you get the basics of Javascript I'll recommend to go with one of this frameworks : JQuery, Prototype/scriptaculous, Mootools, Dojo, Google closure or Yahoo YUI.

There's no better ones, it's a matter of preference, I personally currently use JQuery but for some projects I used Mootools (great piece of code) and Prototype/scriptaculous. I heard a lot of goods for YUI also.
Java seems to have been dying for quite a long time, if you believe the hype. I think I saw the first "Java is Dead," headline in 2002. Frankly, I doubt the language is taking a dirt nap any time soon.
Do you remember the title or have the link? I'd be interested in reading this.
The plural of anecdote is not data indeed, and what was provided was anecdotal evidence. However, was there any evidence provided to the contrary (users do buy software on CD)? I think the reason the anecdote was upvoted was due to the lack of supporting evidence for the contrary conclusion. I'll give you games and movies (although Steam seems to be making great inroads toward making CD games obsolete), but I sincerely doubt that the majority of Mac software is purchased on CD and not through the internet.
I definately would pay for that. I am a web dev first and foremost, I usually dont like sys admin tasks, so I would gladly outsource that aspect to more professional handlers
More info and video:

http://www.biolitestove.com/CampStove.html
How does Flash compete with the App Store more than HTML5? Since Apple has been promoting HTML5 web apps, especially those targeting Mobile Safari, I find it hard to believe that their hatred of Flash comes from a desire to protect the App Store. I take Apple at their word that it's because of Flash's atrocious performance, which as a Mac user I can attest to.

I don't agree with this decision, though. I think the best way to handle Flash is to build ClickToFlash functionality directly into the browser.
I like the idea of taking it to the other extreme, attach the helmet to the shoulder and back padding so you can swivel the helmet but not change it's angle relative to the body. Then add even more padding and focus the sport on armored tanks flailing at each other. You would still have the issue of people flying end over end and landing on their heads so replace the playing surface with gymnastic mats. Of course we could still get some joint injury’s so add a protective exoskeleton to prevent over extension etc and then watch as people fling their body’s around and bounce off of each other.

It might not be a sport at that point, but it would be an interesting spectacle.
Or maybe they're not interested in being on the other end of an Oracle lawsuit. I don't know.
> The only real alternative is Soylatte[0], which is fairly purpose-specific.

What do you mean exactly by "purpose-specific"?
Partly because I don't have as much spare money (because I bought an expensive house in Palo Alto and haven't sold my Cambridge house yet) and partly because I don't need to as much.
Be Inspired (By Everything) 14
Welcome to the fourteenth Be Inspired. I’ve decided to extend to a fortnightly occurrence to let me build up a better collection of inspiration. This week features a healthy mix of print, packaging and video, if you do nothing else with this post, at least watch the first video, it’s brilliant. But of course it’s all good, so take a look and I hope you enjoy.
It used to be cross platform. Back in the dotcom days, I was at a company that would sell implementations of it for Windows and Sun servers.

That was when the software price started at 50k (iirc) though. When you're charging that kind of coin, I guess the motivation to support Windows is higher.
This last comment is exactly right. People are quick to blame Flash, but it's what Flash enables and what runs on Flash that is the problem, which is 90% ads. And that can just as easily become annoying in HTML5/javascript, minus the sandboxing of Flash.
Nokia slashes 1,800 jobs despite solid results
Coming from a similar background, I second a lot of the links pointed out so far (w3schools and JQuery have been a huge help in particular). It's a great start. After that, just dive in. I started writing a chess game using canvas (part of HTML5) and javascript. It's just been a matter of figuring it out piece by piece from there. Writing lots of awful code, figuring out why it's awful, tearing it up and doing it again (Javascript: The Good Parts has been a great help).

I've managed to learn just enough html/css/javascript to be dangerous, now I'm moving on to server-side programming. What I like to do is this: Take an 11"x17" piece of paper, and write whatever it is I'm trying to learn in the centre and circle it. As I figure out what I don't know know about this technology, but need to, I draw a branch off the centre circle, for that piece of knowledge. And I continue to break it down as I go. This gives me a good visual of things I should start focussing on.

As a more concrete example, I'm using python as the backe end to my current side project. So in the centre of the page is a bubble for python. Off that I have different things I want to explore, so there is a bubble for Security, WSGI, templating engines, and SQLAlchemy. Off of security, there are bubbles for server hardening, XSS, etc..

Best of luck, there's lots of confussing technologies and non-sensical gotchas, but eventually it does start to make sense.
Here is Gladwell on Football safety:

Offensive Play

How different are dogfighting and football?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_...
NO.

Your target audience are developers. And it's already super easy to do what you want done with pre-built images, yum etc. Then there is a trust issue with someone who's new.

If you want to go ahead and provide a service to setup distributed architectures using Nutch/Hadoop etc, you have an audience, but it's a lot of work and there are people already doing it.
7 Weird Celebrity Endorsements
Celebrity endorsements are a good way to sell a product, but it only works if the right celebrity is chosen.
I don't know about the providers you list, but Linode has something called StackScripts, which gives you the possibility to easily build a new machine with all the software etc you want installed. They've got ready StackScripts for a lot of the common setups.

I'm not sure why I'd pay another service for this. What would the added value be?
Wireframe and prototyping Tools - Review and Comparison
historious populars
Combine this news with the announcement of the App Store for OS X, and one possible conclusion is that Apple doesn't want Java-based apps in the app store. It's an easier prohibition to make if the JVM is not officially supported by Apple.

Also, this could be a guard move against Oracle, a capricious litigator.
If you're going into some frontend development with javascript make sure you also get familiar with at least one of the common javascript libraries like jquery. they're very powerful.
"Oh, as the article notes, Windows doesn't ship with Flash installed, either."

Why Microsoft doesn't ship Windows with Flash anymore might have something to do with the fact that they're trying to push Silverlight (even though that's not a standard install either).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverlight#Relationship_to_exi...
A very poor analogy. You never deliberately initiate a collision in a car. Also being surrounded by a car body gives you a false sense of invulnerability.
Well a couple of interesting points here.

1. Either you have to host the server on your account, or I have to give you my username and password to my hosting account. This might put people off so just keep that in mind.

2. Also I don't see a reason to limit yourself to cloud platforms. Hosts like linode/dreamhost/etc are pretty popular these days and service like this would help a startup with limited/no knowledge in server platforms.

3. I also wouldn't limit yourself to just Linux. If your familiar with windows systems you might make a little more money on setting up MSSQL, Exchange, and IIS (And if I recall correctly Rackspace now offers Windows in the cloud).

4. Also think about upkeep of the servers as well. If someone is going to pay you to set it up, they will likely pay you to maintain it.
Highschool is a weird anomaly really, inside there's one set of rules for what's good, what's important, and who's popular. But when you get outside you realize it was all crap. Being popular in high school earns you nothing in real life. Noone outside cares about what was important in high school.

Except...
Work at a company that has more than a handful of people. Who is the PM, the VP of sales, the product manager? Creative is mad at engineering because they have to redo all the graphics to make room for a new javascirpt dropdown. The tech exec meeting has to be rescheduled because the director of mobile is running a triathlon. Are we going to have a scrum with the SA's and network ops? Maybe promotions occur via, uh, tests and a grading system. Maybe they occur because one VP likes another director.

It's a social structure that has no bearing on the world outside of the organization, with it's own internal cliques and language and popularity contests. Dare I say there's a fair amount of bullying involved as well. If you leave to become an independent, you realize it was all crap.

I don't think High School is really that much of an anomaly. It's just a collection different sub-organizations and power structure than what you find in other organizations.
In theory you're right, but probably not so in practice. Football players would see the consequences of the change much more quickly - they'd go from being able to dive at a player head first and have a cushioned impact to having their skull connect with something hard and feeling a lot of pain. I'd expect their behaviour would adapt in response to that. Similarly car drivers probably wouldn't drive any more safely until they experienced the consequences of crashing while not wearing a seat belt.
Be it as it may, but xterm/X11 still kills Terminal.app in text rendering speed. Also, MacVim is, on my Mac at least, visibly slower in text rendering than the naked vim under xterm.
What was my tax rate again? Oh yes, somewhere around 40%... Nice to see that everyone is doing their share.
MonoMac has been around for a little while, but MonoMac + the OSX App Store are firmly in Miguel De Icaza and team's sights:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Oct-20-1.html
My take on this: The human body was made to run without add-ons. Pads and helmets seem like a great idea at first but they cause NFL players run out of memory after they retire. Let's re-install the Football OS clean of all plugins and call it Rugby ;-)
i think titles are one of the most overrated inventions of the 20th century. they are way too limiting and unnecessary.

any startup might as well put "Pro Athlete" on the title of each team member's card as they'll need to be pretty versatile with limited resources.

some people work their entire professional careers just to get a "bigger" title...might as well increase the font size!
7 Free Printable Web Design Wireframing Templates
Rob Pike answers this question directly in the last couple minutes of his Go talk at the Emerging Languages Camp, earlier this summer. I think it's pretty illuminating as to the rationale behind why Go does it the way it does.

http://confreaks.net/videos/115-elcamp2010-go

Check out the video, but here's a rough transcription of part of it:

"This is a systems language, which means you should have the choice to do efficient things, if you know what you're doing. You shouldn't be told "you can't do that because you might get it wrong." Let me explain. The model for sharing and locking all that stuff is like having a big piece of paper and we all gather the paper and we make notes on it about who owns what, when -- and we scribble and erase and rewrite and work on it. This model is: you don't have one piece of paper, you have lots of pieces of paper. And you write a message on a piece of paper, and you give him that piece, and he goes away, and you don't have it anymore. He'll bring it back to you if it's relevant to you; he won't if it's not. And because the individual pieces are broken up, there's no concern or worry about who owns what at any one time -- it's whoever's got ahold of it at the moment. And once you understand that, it just doesn't come up as an issue, that for efficiency reasons, I want to pass a pointer on a channel, because once I've passed it I forget it. The only person who has it is the person whose business it is to deal with it now. If you're worried about it and you really care: don't pass a pointer, pass a value. Make it a channel of struct, rather than a channel of pointer to struct. It will be a copy, and there's no way you can share it. But that's your decision, not the language's."
Ditto'd regarding Linode, with some notes on why we'd hesitate: While we as an enterprise love moving things to Linode, or just generally "out," I don't know if many in your planned market would be okay with someone else setting up their systems.

If you're going for bigger group (which will mean larger deploys with far larger payments), make sure you're bonded, can prove security, that you're not running virtualization on top of our systems, etc etc etc. Your primary benefit as I see it is currently convenience, but trust is just as valuable.
I don't see the problem.

Flash is 3rd party add-on.

It doesn't perform wonderful and has some issues. More users are using Apple products and have noticed it's not the best experience.

It has been stated and somewhat emphasized by Apple and the media to the general public that HTML5 embedded video is the future. See for example: http://www.apple.com/ipad/ready-for-ipad/

The way I see it this is just your typical forward looking / future innovation push move by Apple.
From the article:

"Google's practices are very similar to those at countless other global companies operating across a wide range of industries,"

So, why's the article about Google? Shouldn't the article be about "countless global companies" bilking us for billions? I'm astonished at the lack of outrage on this issue every time it comes up.
You'll want to check out Mosis for getting ICs fabbed on the cheap. http://www.mosis.com/
Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties,  am I nuts?
ok, so here's the rub;

I am technically minded, I did my first degree in Elec. Eng, which I finished in 2000, and was exposed to some programming.

I spent 5 unfulfilling years in tech support at a big global company, then went travelling for a few years, then came back and did a software degree in 8 months at the age of 30 (due to the fact that I already had exposure, they allowed me to skip some credits). I came out with a high 2nd class honours from this, which I felt was pretty good considering the amount I had to learn.

Since I graduated in 2008, I opted not to jump into the first job that came my way, and instead started studying Ruby on Rails, jQuery, and more recently BDD with Rspec and Cucumber, as well as working on some projects and building wordpress sites in between for a little extra cash. The idea was that this time around I would get work that interested me instead of going through the motions.

Recently I've been looking for employment, and haven't been successful, although feel as though I have come close once or twice.

Still, I'm starting to get a sinking feeling. I don't have enough experience to get started, and I can't get started without experience. It's starting to get me down a bit. I'm 33 now, and I need to start my career already.

I would love to know what insight you guys have for me in this situation.

cheers

Paul
Something like that would be good, yes. Though obviously MacOS-based and not iPad-based, cuz I need my Terminal.app et cetera.
The Physics of Consciousness
I have no proof for it, but I don't need it. The burden of proof is not on me. They are making the claim that 'complex life only happened once'.

Life certainly does exist so p > 0. Since our understanding (or I should say, my under standing of 'our' understanding) of n is approaching infinity, it stands to reason that p x n is > 0.
This needs to be more than just a service. You need to think about about the psychology of it all. I come across words all the time that I don't know, but I don't look them up. I have plenty of excuses why not, but those don't matter. Just like loosing weight.

The point is that to 'win' you need to address the psychology of looking words up. How is this going to be easier than looking them up my self. This service would be useful for many people, if it just e-mailed you the next day all the words you didn't know and definitions, and then sent you an e-mail at the end of each week.

If you really wanted to market it well, I'd do this and then do research on word exposure frequency like being exposed to it every day for 2 days, then every 3 days for 6 days, then every week for 6 weeks, then once a month 5 months or something like that. And this strategy increases word retention by 65%. These numbers are all made up, but that's the gist of it.
I'm on the fence. If I hadn't of gone through the process of learning how to set up servers myself, I definitely would have used your services. Now I know how to do it, though perhaps not efficiently, and perhaps not in the most secure, optimized way, you'd have to do a good sales job to get me interested. I'd at least take a look at your website's home page though. :-)
Or maybe some people have been on projects where someone else butchered their code really badly and appreciate the parallel?
2011, year of the Linux desktop
Wow, these popups are unbearable.
Flash Chart vendors in trouble?
I think stuff like this isn't really that bad for devs who use the platform. Devs (should) have the ability to pull down the replacement in this situation when the time comes. It's going to be harder on the end user that no longer gets why his/her Java application no longer works right.
What this should signal, is that the US should lower its corporate tax rate. Even just making it competitive with other developed nations would probably generate more revenue for the government. And though it would still be higher than the effective rate many companies pay with all these transfer schemes, it would make the hassle less worthwhile.

However, what it will actually cause lawmakers to do is increase regulations to make income transfers like this illegal, and leave the corporate tax rate as is.
Agreed, I think Goldman Sachs has their effective rate down to less than 2%.
As the article points out they have an obligation to maximise profits. If there was a way to cut your tax rate from 20%+ to less than 5% and they didn't use it, it would be a breach of their duties.

It's amusing to see how effective industry lobbyists have been in shutting down any reform that would close these loopholes. Lets talk about slashing entitlements but completely stonewall any attempts to get corporations paying more tax...
I understand this could be an issue for older films/audio but in the modern era i think the internet is doing a fine job archiving everything that ever existed.
Tufte's site is s piece of crap, completely ridiculous. Criticizing websites is easy, making websites is hard. You're not an expert in user interface design if you haven't done user interface design.
Ask HN: Best blogs about rails?
I want to stay current and up to date on rails in every sense of the word. What are the best rails related blogs and tutorial sites (like railscasts for example) that I should be keeping up with?

Thanks!

-bgnm
2.24 "Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected"

It doesn't explicitly e.g. it, but Flash isn't installed by default either on the new MacBook Airs, so I'm guessing you can't do a wrapper around a SWF either.
> Is there an implementation of GTK that doesn't run via X11 on the mac?

GTK-OSX is supposed to do this, but I haven't been able to get it working.
That may not be far from the truth. It may be akin to the counter-intuitive removal of signs and signals from roads to increase safety:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html

I think that the primary logic of the article is that helmets were designed to prevent skull fractures but an unintended outcome is an increase in concussions.
I don't think Microsoft executives are losing sleep over "Microsoft Hatred" as much as they are losing sleep over "Microsoft Irrelevance". How many college students know how to program on Win32? How many even know what Win32 is? In 10 years, these college students will be the senior developers at their respective companies.

Certainly, any good engineer will choose the best tool for the job. But I find it unlikely that those that know little of MS technology will promote those tools later in their careers.

/* What is Microsoft? */
What about the 30% commission?

I'm assuming they charge you HST on that which you can recover in your HST filings?
Adobe needs a good kick in the ass. Spend a day in any of their flagship design apps and let the pain begin. Inconsistant UI, constant errors... their products have gone down hill and Flash is no exception.

Adobe needs product leaders that care. I think Apple is not so subtly trying to send them that message.
I think that abstracting away as much as possible and providing "everything as a service" is definitely the direction the cloud companies are all going (Rackspace included) so you're on the right track there.

Not knowing anything about the market, there might be opportunity in building large custom clusters instead of just single servers, and use Open Stack as a base. Might make it look like a juicy acquisition for someone.
Of course, rugby players also get a lot of brain injuries.

I knew one kid at school (well okay, I knew of one kid at another school) who had his neck broken in a scrum. (That ended the "compulsory Rugby" policy at that particular school.)
Because I lived through the 90s and early 2000s
If you know Python, learn CoffeeScript - that's how I learned JS. http://coffeescript.org
And like any PhD, the really difficult part will be finishing.

More so for him than your average 21-year-old.