skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Which proves that being a tablet is about more than just form factor.

Something MS either doesn't get or can't admit publicly.
Replacement isn't necessarily boolean. If you fetch glasses out of your pocket less frequently, that's still replacement, just not total replacement.
the title of the article is "Twenty Billionaires Who Started with Nothing"

given that this is just a collection of photos and facts, how is this piece bullshit?
Firefox 4 feels a lot faster to me, but try it for yourself: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta/ . RCs should be coming early next year, if you'd rather wait for a bit more stability.
Tonido iPad Application
The article wasn't clear: were these funds paid back with interest? Or is it just revolving debt?
What would have happen if one of the counter parties went under? Does the Fed just right off the loss and newly created money that was loaned just vanish?
How does that work though? Doesn't this method just return negative results by definition? There are a lot of results confirming that "apple sucks" or "toyota sucks".

Genuinely interested, because the only reliable way I've found is to spend hours and hours reading through niche forums and reviews, and for every great product there are plenty of bad comments out there.
Doubtful - "lets release a fake announcement" type ideas I think would get shot down quickly at Google.
The importance of User Experience Design in business applications
It's posted on there as an open challenge. No answer as yet.
Even more, once you move to anything slightly controversial, an opinion can be genuine, meaning sincere, but still not valid for the person searching ("they sold me the movie I asked for but it had too much violence!").
Microsoft's control was superficial, and that's how they like it. They don't want to control what you put on your computer, they just want you to pay them the same reasonable price.

Apple on the other hand clearly does care what you put on your iOS device, and in ways that go beyond a desire for good UX to a desire to control what is acceptable for society:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/apple-finds-christianity-offe...
So should Apple drop all the lawsuits it has pending against other companies so it can focus more on competing?

What I'm saying is that it doesn't seem unreasonable, as others are making it out to be, for RIM to sue a company for making a product that's nearly identical to its own.
Developing Adobe Interactive Forms: Considerations and setup
http://e.businessinsider.com/nbl.2e8/TPa_4qqdbcEdB9HKA8022

there it is - i called it!
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1957189
interesting note: that menu in the second screenshot is not the normal android style, the Messaging and Bluetooth icons are also not stock.

Is it a peek of Gingerbread or just another theme I haven't seen before?
A shame that pragprog sniffs my browser and only serves me stanza://<path-to-epub> files when I'm browsing via iPhone. I don't have Stanza installed, and I'd prefer to simply download the pdf. As far as I can tell, there's no way to do that on the iPhone unless I can remember the URL to the pdf.
Linux kernel: 13 million lines, over 5 patches per hour
To be pedantic, Flash memory is closer to DRAM than to disks, although it's used for storage. It has similar access cycles as DRAM, the chip architecture of controller plus array is closer than that of a HDD.
Total guess, but I believe Google licenses Yelp's data. They may be using the Yelp ranking in place of sentiment analysis to reduce the weight of those links.
Here comes the flame war about how our educational system has declined in the past hundred years. In an attempt to head that off at the pass (Hey, if you're going to have a cliché argument I get to use a cliché) here is the problem with that. This is a test designed to review the material deemed important by one person in 1895 (If it is really from then). The class would have gone over what "epochs into which U.S. History is divided". This is the same thing with the stupid joke that I always heard when I was doing calculus and adults were around "When I was growing up, you didn't have to spell out your math homework". That is code for "I have no idea what's going on here" and let's be honest, that is fine.

I would bet that most people who read this could have answered almost all of these questions at some point in their life. We have to remember that the purpose of education is to teach you how to learn and how to adjust to your current situations. You learn what you need to get the job done and you relearn what you can't remember to complete the job.

EDIT: It's good to see that Snopes already did this. Thank you Snopes and thanks glhaynes for pointing us to it.
Apple kills super fast MacBook Air SSD replacement
Consider showing up at their office with your best CV and try to catch their HR. Respect their time but quickly explain why hiring you would be the best decision they ever made. This works in some cases.
> Also, I am not comfortable taking my $800 iPhone out of my pocket in front of a door in a dark alley, whereas a fist full of keys makes a damn fine improvised weapon.

If this startup is done right, I see no reason to force you to take your phone out of your pocket in order to use the key functionality.

It's not like the physical shape of the phone has anything to do with the key aspect, so it may as well just stay in your pocket. As you approach a door, it'll unlock.

Well, this is how I imagine it anyway.
The other question is for Apple - what other sorts of addressable hardware could be added to the iPad to make it even more versatile (temperature sensor, various transducers, etc.).
Australia's parliament rolls out Windows Vista
You then have to read the review and see the content.

You contrast "one star, it doesn't this obscure thing it didn't to do but otherwise it's great" versus "one star, it fell apart in three days, seriously" and get the idea.

It's a constant battle, altogether.

Hopefully, the Internet will continue to be deeper than the scamsters' ability to game. And hopefully Google will keep helping in this regard.
New "TearOff Flyer" WebApp - feedback pls?
Hi there!

We just launched a new webapp where you can create the popular tear off flyers in less than 20 seconds. We would love your feedback on that!

http://www.tearoffflyermaker.com/
But at least Kik has recourse in the lawsuit case. In the former they simply don't have the right to exist because the platform holder says so. It's not good for customers and it's sure as hell not good for developers.

I agree with the parent, simply booting someone from your walled garden is more evil in the sense that they can't do anything about it.
Yes, just as with voting on HN -- does that downvote mean it's an inane comment, or just that someone disagrees?
All about Littlecosm
Conditional GETs in App Engine
Isn't that true of any non-SSL website now?
Games for the brain
Acquisition before the cash runs out ...
More importantly, many of the test questions are dependent on rote memorization of facts that are nearly useless in the accomplishment of successful life. How many bushels in a tare? What is a "principle part" of a verb? These things can be found on Google. I have all the skills tested by this test, but lack some of the knowledge. Since my brain is just a cache for knowledge, I can always fault it in if the need arises.
I burn return legs all the time, with no consequences. I believe in the 1970s if you did that too much, airlines would potentially blacklist you, but it really isn't a problem now. I've even had airline employees wink wink nudge nudge encourage purchasing a much cheaper r/t vs o/w when the price differential was huge.
>> Volume-key navigation: if you enable this in the settings, you can navigate by using your phone’s volume keys for next and previous

I wonder how many volume keys are designed to withstand that level of frequent use.
Sure, but lying about it is a great way to not get published.
Whenever people drop accolades upon historical figures (Fuller included) I always have to wonder if there is a bit of survivorship bias at play. I'm not saying that Fuller wasn't a complete genius (he definitely was), but I wonder how many other incorrect predictions, and other "geniuses", have been forgotten because they were incorrect.
"Or, even better, don’t piss off 10% of your customers because you may get gamed by .001% of them"

fake stat is fake.
When the NY Times article first appeared, the merchant still showed in Google's and Bing's results, but interestingly not in Duck Duck Go's.
Ask HN: Who are you using to manage your email campaings?
I'm looking for a company to send and manage email campaigns for a client. It's been tough to research because anytime you search for anything related to email marketing you are instantly knee deep in junk. I've looked into companies like MailChimp, Contactology, and Campaign Monitor and I was wondering if people had any other suggestions? There are a couple requirements that even some of the companies I just listed didn't meet. We need to be able to send transactional emails and have them tracked and included in reports. A web accessible API is a must but it seems almost every company has that these days. Pricing isn't as much of a factor as functionality is but obviously it needs to be considered. The best option I've found so far is Contactology because it lets me create automated triggers like 'send this email when user is added to list' type thing. That's what we are looking to do, more one at a time emails then massive campaigns. Any help is most appreciated.
In Turkey, they are called "cep telefonu" or "cep" in short, for "pocket phone" or "pocket".
Of course it returns negative results. The key is not to take them blindly.

If they mention specific facts (extra bonus for verifiable ones), do not sound like ones written by poopheads or mass produced by competition, then it's a very strong red flag.

Things like unfavorable terms of service or checked-by-default, hard-to-notice checkboxes subscribing you to worthless additional services are easy to verify, even if you give zero trust to anonymous reviews.
They're on the 4th page, as of this writing.
I found the day a lot deeper than can be summarized into some twitter posts. If you want the text/ramen edition of their advice most of it is in their books. What you get from attending the master class is the same advice but demonstrated through examples of their own projects in the morning and attendees projects in the afternoon. It all adds up to a much richer experience. There is nothing like getting ideas and advice in person. But of course you may not agree with everything and it may not all apply to you. It's up to you to apply it as you see fit.
Maybe they are continuing to research it because enough people outside Google think it's a good idea that not researching it would make them appear unresponsive or irresponsible? Kind of like politicians doing something for the sake of being seen doing something.
The State of Web Performance Optimization – 2010
Want to play with building Twitter apps on Tropo? Source code for 5 simple apps
agree, nobody starts with "nothing". Being raised in the woods by wolves is close, though.
I did. Don't have copies of them, though.
It's hard for me to feel inadequate when looking at this test—regardless of whether it's real or not—because tests are typically dependent on your retention of what you are taught. If you're an 8th grader whose teacher doesn't explain what elementary sounds are, it would have no impact on whether or not you could pass the 8th grade.
Video: Intro to using ClubCompy.com shell and language
government censorship of dissenters...China would be proud.

this is actually pretty stupid on their part, it's the equivalent of locking the barn after the animals escaped.
Any social game startups looking for a virtual intern? Email me :D
We wouldn't allow Amazon to host DVD rips. Doesn't classified government information deserve a bit more protection than mere copyright, not less?
I like the commentary on the TechDirt one:

"Look at who's complaining the most about Wikileaks and you realize that it's the people who benefit from not being held accountable for their actions."
If this is the study I'm thinking of, these are bone/calcium specialists looking at calcium and Vitamin D and are judging required D based on calcium in the body.

Given that D has a lot more functions than that, it's ... limited in utility at best. I have heard that D testing is a bit messy, though.

For a counterpart observation, if you're white, at a low enough latitude and get (nearly) whole body sun exposure for 30 minutes during the summer, your body generates a self-regulated amount of D of 10,000 IU (or maybe a bit more, I forget exactly how much). Regulated in that staying out longer won't increase the amount you get per day.

That suggests various obvious things, especially about safe maximum levels of D in your body.

One final comment: as far as I can tell, with the exception of Vitamin C to a certain extent, you simply cannot study one or two required nutrients in isolation. E.g. if you have too little of X, Y or Z you may not absorb enough D in your body. Ditto for too much of M, N or P. Then there's questions of "how much fiber in the meal?", is there enough fat for the fat soluble stuff, etc. etc.

And our general knowledge of digestion and what goes on in the digestive tract it pathetic. Did you know that you've got more bacteria in your gut than you have cells in your body?
37signals didn't use Rails for consulting. It was for Basecamp.
That page gives no evidence that it is fake, it's all just making excuses for how people shouldn't be expected to do well on it. I followed a couple of links bac and found Snopes's definition of "False" as "claims which cannot be established as true by a preponderance of (reliable) evidence." Which is easy enough, if you don't want it to be true under this standard, just don't look too hard for evidence.

I had never really looked into Snopes before, this just knocked its reputation back a good bit for me.
Ask HN: What are your web site's browser and OS stats?
After seeing the recent thread on Techcrunch statistics, I am curious what different websites in the various areas we operate or have created have for their breakdown of browser and OS usage.

I think it'd be helpful if you include what area the site is and who it would appeal to.
Nice find.

Snopes is TFM for this kind of unlikely forwarded-email fodder. Whoever submitted it was woefully negligent in not checking.
Actually, not easy. I tried that. I asked the front desk to call for an HR manager or recruiter. After 20 minutes of calling around, I had to leave. Cold calling does not work well for job searches.
that doesn't make look any less ugly :P I changed the settings on my terminal.app long ago, antialiased monaco 13 <3
Key issues: you don't want to just unlock automatically whenever you approach. You don't want to run wires to the door lockset, and it needs to be very low power. Ideally you want to use an existing oem lockset because making things out of atoms is painful. You don't want to abuse the battery on your phone via a background app either.
Interesting article about Thomas Peterffy, number 16 on the list (pdf):

http://www.iinews.com/site/pdfs/IIMag_InteractiveBrokers_Nov...

From the Business Week piece on him:

"According to a November 2005 profile in Institutional Investor, Peterffy wrote computer code in his head while trading during the day, then went back to the office to apply computer models to trading. The early use of computers made him a pioneer in the field."
MailChimp works pretty well for us. They have great API. Not sure if they have "send something once new user joins" as we send such things from our app.
Meetups are great if you are lucky enough to live near one of them. Moving to Silicon Valley is not really a cheaper option.
I use Dolphin as my web browser primarily because it allows using the volume buttons to switch tabs. I haven't run into any problems and it's convinced me that more apps should offer similar options for using those buttons.
Ted Nelson's Geeks Bearing Gifts: How the Computer World Got This Way (2009) is an interesting read, though of a particular variety. It's fairly negative and contrarian, as usual with his stuff, and also pretty disorganized and rambling, not really well edited. Some of his opinions aren't really backed up, either. It's sort of like someone had taken notes on a long interview with him asking: what do you think about the entire history of computing, and why are things the way they are? But, it's got a lot of thought-provoking stuff buried in it, if you're the kind of person who likes the idea of Ted Nelson going on about all of computer history in an opinionated way for an hour or two.

link: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/geeks-bearing-gifts/43...
Sure, but how elevated can you expect it to be? (This is a serious question, I am not being snarky.) My vague understanding is that you get some level of metabolic boost from your body busily repairing itself, which is likely to be more true for weight work than cardio, but I don't actually know how much. Any good sources?
Interesting thought. I don't know anything about PID controllers - are they so compute intensive that they need a processor significantly more expensive than a Bluetooth controller?

On the guitar effects pedal: Apple has actually run an iPad ad that included a shot of a guitar plugged into an iPad running an "amplifier emulator" (not sure what the right term is for that sort of thing). Not sure which app it is, but it's probably $10 or less. :)
As soon as I saw this title I was going to post the Snopes rebuttal, but you beat me to it.

A non-tech family member will send this in an email chain at least once every six months along with some variant on this message: "OMG THE SKY IS FALLING, OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM IS POOP!?!!" (All caps used for quote truth/ accuracy).
I think of it more as a look at how different life was in 1895. You couldn't Google anything. A farm owner probably would benefit from being able to do those math problems in his head.

BTW, tare isn't a unit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tare_weight
After three years of working with an affiliate marketing, lead generation and advertising company I would say that incentivized traffic is the worst kind of traffic. This is after seeing thousands of offers and processing millions of leads.

The problem with any type of incentive on a signup form (not checkout, that's different) is that it changes intent. You end up with two groups of people: those interested in your product and those looking for a reward. Differentiating those two groups can be very expensive. If you are sending out a news letter or other marketing material you also should expect to see higher unsubscribe rates and spam complaints from incentivized sign ups. These people will often not remember where they signed up or what it was for and that leaves you dealing with problems at your ESP or wasting money on increased numbers of mailings. I've seen offers for services where an agent calls the person signing up to complete the process and those are even more fun. Then you have to deal with people that are pissed they are receiving a call from a "telemarketer" even though they signed up to receive a call. There are also other factors working against incentivized forms such as forums set up for the sole purpose of detailing places you can sign up for something for free and receive a tangible reward in return.

Other types of incentives for the check out page of a pay service or store selling goods can work really well. The best example are check out pages that have free shipping thresholds. If you prompt the user "Hey, spend $X more and you get free shipping." You have a great opportunity to upsell or to push smaller items that might have more markup. Additionally a reward like this site seems to be offering might push people to finish the check out process if the reward is good enough.

Having been down this road I would be very skeptical of the quality of the signups as a publisher in this system and as an advertiser I'd want good terms on what qualifies as a conversion as well as well defined return policies on leads. It doesn't look like advertiser information is available yet (did I miss it?) so hard to say what terms they are getting.
Started with:
While most of the world's richest people earned their money, some had farther to climb. Neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffett inherited wealth, <- that's wrong, buffet had a significant trust fund from dead relatives.

Even most of the world's richest people earned their money is somewhat debatable, years of compound interest + a solid nest egg helped many billionaires along. And plenty of them benefited from more from less than ethical behavior and or luck than hard work.

PS: If you want to look for patterns look a little closer to the bell curve. Start talking about 1 person out of 6 million and patterns are next to meaningless.
Here's the difference:

You don't have to use any Apple device if you don't want to. That choice is yours.

I spent many years working in places where you had to use Microsoft products. There was no choice.

Microsoft didn't care what you put on your machine because all they care about is making money selling you stuff.
Yeah, this reads to me more like an NDA-violation lawsuit than a patent lawsuit, despite the title.
It's more a matter of git vs. mercurial than Github vs. Bitbucket.
FYI the startup community is far more than poor hackers starting a website. $1000 is CHEAP for valuable business knowledge. I'm paying a shit load more for my MBA, and would probably learn just as much in their class ;)
App Stores Are Here To Stay
A friend of mine applied for a position at RTM but the staff didn't even respond to the application. They didn't even respond to the follow-up email asking if they received the application.

You might be hiring, but you don't seem to be doing it very well.
The Setup: Jeff Lindsay
What's a lifestyle business?  A condescending term used by VCs
I don't know anything about the guys behind Bitbucket. I have used a ton of software (not to mention config files!) that GitHub puts out as open source. So I support them.

Oh, and the interface is gorgeous, BitBucket's feels really tacky. There aren't many outages, and an outage has yet to actually affect me.

Just really happy with GitHub in general.
Agreed 100%.

Seems like Lieberman chose some low-hanging anti-anything-anit-America fruit to bolster his relevancy. It's pretty transparent.
Here's a good reply http://securosis.com/blog/ranums-right-for-the-wrong-reasons
Thanks. I agree, I think most of the real work comes in the months and years after launch, slowly building back links, improving your funnel, trying new advertising channels.

This blog is dedicated to my business strategy, what is working, and what is not working, so I'll be including the longer term marketing efforts as well over time. Where I focus initially will depend a lot on the launch reception and initial customer reactions.
RIM can't keep a stranglehold on having decent Exchange integration forever. Many corps already want additional tools to use on the BBs than just exchange integration. You'll have stuff where people want to be able to check inventory for anywhere, hook into the company ordering/ticketing system, whatever. And they're willing to have these apps developed for them (usually in house).

Whenever RIM loses their edge in exchange integration, if corporations ability to create custom apps is still crap, then it'll just be inertia keeping them as the 'not wrong' brand. And that inertia will fade.

As it stands now, I've seen two corporate teams developing BB apps for two companies from a distance. And it sounds painful. I mean, just running the simulators is kinda painful. I swear that the simulator can take longer to boot than the actual handhelds sometimes.
I find Joe Lieberman reprehensible
Not for long. They've said the cloud should start making more money than the shopping shortly...