skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've known people with vision problems who have to skip light-on-dark web pages because it's just not tenable for them to try to read. (This was before Readability, though keep in mind it's nobody's obligation to find a work-around for your eye-straining website.)

I suspect there's an objective benefit, there.

Everything seems to indicate that dark-on-light is better than light-on-dark, and both are better than light-on-light or dark-on-dark. (Or, in other words, contrast is vital, and dark text is preferable.)
At the same time that OSS makes software unsellable, it also makes SaaS profitable. For example it's becoming really tough to sell version control software but totally feasible to sell a version control service, in both cases because of excellent OSS software.
One way to do it:

http://www.marathontours.com/index.cfm/page/Event-Informatio...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_Marathon

Though that's not on the continent itself. There was previously the South Pole marathon:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/siadventure/14/sou...

http://www.angelfire.com/wy2/marathon/SouthPoleMarathon.html

http://www.marathonandbeyond.com/tocvol6.htm (scroll down to South Pole Marathon).

(Aside, for anyone interested in running, I highly recommend a subscription to Marathon & Beyond.)
Library of Congress Blocks Access To Wikileaks
Given the rate of change in OS and GUI environments, support libraries, and other APIs, most desktop apps don't work very well for long these days either.

Of course unlike SaS you can always continue to use an old version indefinitely in a VM if it really matters.

But I find the longevity of the vendor is still critical for supporting new environments and API requirements, and in practice I don't end up discounting the going-out-of-business risk much for desktop apps vs. SaS apps.
Boo for Paypal, why not use an alternative, perhaps WePay or similar?

I tried (in a couple browsers) to make a donation via the link in the TechCrunch article, but got "Sorry — your last action could not be completed".
The world is always on sale.

You'll never walk into a Wal-Mart and find nothing on sale, no matter where we may be in the economic cycle.

Sales are a marketing practice, sales in retail store chains are not discounting below cost, so there's nothing unsustainable about them.

Maybe what you now see as "70% off" is the same retail price they used to call "50% off". Since the store sets its own retail price AND sale price, it can effectively make up any discount it wants. The only limit is what consumers will believe.
Except that Netflix's iPad app is so slow and clunky it's almost unusable.
28 steps, and he didn't think to create a new AMI to share with the world.
I agree, although I'm contemplating providing 2 UIs, an HTML5 version and an IE-friendly version for my own projects.
Correct, the world can't keep pulling short-term demand forward without making long-term demand even worse. Pretty soon, in this world of oversupply and decreasing demand (mind you, from people who have money, not talking about the entire world population), there will have to be massive restructuring/downsizing to correct supply/demand, whether it involves baby boomers trading their houses for smaller condos, government worldwide getting smaller in size, tons of startups with no monetizing models dying, etc. Oh and layoffs. Lots of layoffs.
I should say here that I too have the 'old version' problem: The software to send samples to my Akai hardware sampler only runs on Windows 98. I have a Windows 98 PC just for this!
Here is why CardMunch will win.

1. Stacked Team - founding team is full of winners
2. Stacked Investors - All top notch investors from the valley
3. Great Idea

Easiest money Ty will make in a while.
> I don't get why you're trying to stir this up.

Stirring things is up not the same as having a different opinion on something. Is this now your default operating mode where you will change every disagreement in to a personal attack ? Really, I gave some very simple reasons why I think this is a bad idea, whoever killed the original post apparently has reasons of their own why they think this is a bad idea (I can think of a few).

If you get rejected by YC it simply isn't the end of the world and I think that a 'co-founder wanted' post would have been MUCH more appropriate than the one with the title the way it was presented.

You can disagree with me on that for various reasons but to accuse me of trying to 'stir things up' just because you disagree is just another attempt at an ad-hominem.

Stop doing that.
This whole hoopla about AI using memristors seems misguided to me. Memristors are interesting because they can more efficiently do things that currently require collections of transisters and capacitors, but they don't have any particular advantage in AI.

Certainly AI may benefit from some specialized neural network style hardware, and memristors may be particularly well suited to this, but general specialized hardware like this isn't going to give us AI that can do anything that couldn't be done before memristors. (Unless as a pure consequence of performance improvements.)
Yes, but the lead surgeon at the hospital probably doesn't want one doctor using an Acme Scalpel 4000, another using an Ajax Scalpel, and yet a third using a FooBar X-Scalpel.

Maybe that part of the analogy doesn't hold up for a hospital, but it sure as hell does in a software engineering organization. If you have a bunch of people working together towards a common set of goals, it makes things a hell of a lot more complicated if everyone is just working in the language they like playing with the most, regardless of their overall technical knowledge. Organizations standardize on best practices, languages, frameworks and technologies because it simplifies things.
On the other hand, if the crux of the complaint is, "we asked Comcast for 20+ interconnection ports, and they only gave us 6 for free", it's hard to feel like this is simply Comcast being abusive.

I love this story. It's so complicated! Did you follow the links about how L3 did roughly the same thing to Cogent last year?
I'm not sure where this is coming from. I haven't noticed all that much in the way of deep discounting at the moment, no more than usual.
The linked interview with Swivel was interesting. I'm attempting a data visualization startup. But I've found a niche where customers have a burning need and money but lack the IT resources to implement their own solution. It's not enough to draw charts; Excel can already do that. You have to provide everything customers need, from fetching the data to analyzing the data. And it's still a tough sale because SaaS is newish and people are uncomfortable handing off critical business data. I can think of a dozen other niches where paying customers need data analysis and visualization.
I agree that it's less than ideal, but I wouldn't say unusable. The part that bothers me the most is the interrupted playback issues, which probably has nothing to do with html5.
A long, long time ago. I've always been an excellent problem solver, it definitely didn't get me any jobs until I was a programmer.
Ask HN: Interested in a centralized large-scale crawl architecture?
I have been using Nutch for a while and find it quite low-level. The batch based indexing system is good but doesn't work well in many scenarios.

I am talking about a single point, auto-updated crawl database. The distributed database will support APIs to inject/remove URLs, fetch content for a URL and register callbacks when a crawl is over, etc.
Yes, actually - we all, at some point, get to be the final arbiters of deciding whether what what we said was offensive or not. (which I suppose also means that everyone else gets to decided to the final arbiter of whether they're offended or not - a right some have proven time again that they're not giving up)

So again - I guess my bottom line is, if I didn't mean to offend a person, and they want to get offended and make a big damn deal out of it - they can go right ahead. I'm not changing what I do just to keep up with the most offended person in the room. :-)
Yep. Conditions which the NYC flight could probably claim to have had ( it's a little unclear whether the on board video let them fly it outside LoS, and if it did whether they ever did fly it outside LoS.)

I guess my point is that it's no more "definitely illegal" than driving a car. There are rules and regulations, but there are many people working within those rules, and legally flying autonomous drones. Nobody says driving a car is "definitely illegal" because you need to have a license, a registered roadworthy car, stop at red lights and drive on the correct side of the road. The regulations do allow for autonomous rc aircraft. They don't allow for them to do 60 mile round trips to collect cookies from your Mom, but saying "thats definitely illegal" needs at least qualifying with something like "except under certain constraints and conditions" or it's at least misleading, if not outright wrong.
The Last Words of a Genius
Need Gift Ideas?
Yeah, I know. I'd love to set up something like WePay but simply didn't have the time and we're already verified on Paypal. But I would like to talk to the WePay guys... :)

Also, the link doesn't work in TC but it does work when you visit our page - http://gumballcapital.org/7-Marathons-7-Continents/ - and click "Make a Donation"

Sorry for the difficulties!
Anyone know the actual people involved in these map design decisions at Google?
Submitted seven months ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1290367 - and sank without trace. Will it fare better this time?
When neutrons scatter off protons the energy often ends up shared, since the masses are about equal. Pretty soon the neutron becomes thermal, pottering about for a bit, until its half life of only 10 minutes leads to decay. So materials rich in protons, such as wet soil, provide useful shielding.

When neutrons scatter off iron they bounce. It is a random walk, but they keep up their speed. Tank armour is mostly iron. It isn't much good against neutrons, even though it is great against the blast and heat of ordinary nuclear weapons.

The obvious tactic is to have your infantry cower in muddy trenches while your neutron bombs inflict disproportionate casualties on invading enemy tanks. That is where neutron bombs fitted into the cold war.
Does Cleantech Need to Speak with a Single Voice?
If the empty subsequence is allowed, it's always possible to get at least zero.
There are some takeaways I reckon, but re. the email list it's a defunct model - which I think Andrew says as much.
Or you could take the opportunity to consider whether $FOO was right; perhaps your idea isn't as good as you think it is.

There's a big difference between having your idea or proposal rejected and being rejected as a person; it's a useful skill not to get offended at the former. (Perhaps the latter as well, but that's much more advanced.)
While a lot of people are poo-pooing the article, just earlier this week I heard someone make the comment that the 13" MacBook will run circles around PC laptops.

I think its a useful datapoint for consumers, even if it isn't a single datapoint that can be used to drive all decisions.
Why would one really does this? This does not seem reasonable what so ever. I do like the kid's idea, but its counter intuitive. The cost to get to Antarctica ranges from 5-14k. I dunno if that came out of his own pocket or what, but from what the article infers, it didn't. Also running 7 marathons in 7 continents, seems pretty expensive again. All that money wasted on travel could of gone to running the same program you already have locally. I have more questions but I'll direct those via email.
Unfortunately I cannot find anything other then a pitch for his book, but, John Boyd of Jcurve sales (20 or so years of B2B experience) transitioned into Job Search consulting.

At a talk I attended (sales related, which dived somewhat into his job search methodology, he challenged all of his attendees:

-Make ten cold calls a day (noone cold-calls anymore) to companies you wish to be employed

-Call the right people - decision makers, hiring managers, etc. (find via LinkedIn, Jigsaw)

-Those who actually did the above, had a position in 30 days.

Thats 50 calls a day (and cold calling can be difficult), for ~20 days..how much do you want a job?

My own experience, I would sometimes feel like I "did something" that day by firing out 50 online / electronic applications. That is PASSIVE marketing of yourself. Get active in your own marketing (which is a job search), and results will improved.

People also don't go out and network..attend the hundreds of little gatherings which you can find via LinkedIn groups. Just tell people what you are looking for, and ask how you can help them. Offer your services for free, the word will get out.

Get honest, Brutal and constructive feedback on your search. Your resume, phone-skills, elevator pitch, in-person interviewing (practice all of this).
That's great. Running a marathon (I've already done a half) and visiting Antarctica (I've already done all but one of the other continents) are both on my to do list. I probably shouldn't tick them both off in one go, though.
You can be rejected by YC for many reasons, one possibility is that others were even better...
That's why I used the qualifier "almost" ;)
An iPod Watch Project Explodes Online
there are other objects flying 500ft AGL and much much higher you know. Every now and then they too hit aircraft and are sucked into engines. How many people have died due to them during last century of flight? As many as car crash deaths in 1-2 hours, few days at most?

And is it because they have some incredibly efficient TCAS module installed?
Is this the one?

http://www.amazon.com/Kinect-Sensor-Adventures-Xbox-360/dp/B...

...or is there a cheaper package that doesn't come with a game?
Why employers won't hire: employers doing more with less workers
"Why do you think Wikileaks is only about the US? Right now the cables leaked out are from the US, but the point is to do this to every government. Everyone opposed to statism and nationalism benefits."

I think a dog only barks because that's all I've heard it do. I think you're choosing a "point" that chimes with your hopes, not the facts.

Your "benefits" too need made more explicit. I'm opposed to nationalism and don't see any short or long-term benefits for me, here. Doing actions contrary to the welfare of a national state doesn't automatically amount to a benefit for anti-nationalists.

On the contrary, there are serious questions to be asked about what this will do to things that actively help nations to work together, such as diplomatic backchannels. Severing those is no more laudable, and far more potentially lethal, than when TC posted Twitter's internal emails.

As for 1959, your answer's a little fine in its splitting of the hair -- the KGB went after plenty in its time, including assisting in the bizarre murder of Markov, and the "suicide" of Shevchenko's wife. There were also the many sentenced to death that had to be hidden by the CIA. Lets not start on the Stasi, either.

If your point was that tyrannies don't murder their citizens for treason, you'll have a tough sell. That's why actually taking them on is a lot harder than taking on a government that -- as the cables are showing -- is actually relatively close to plain-speaking in its dealing with other nations. A lot of the embarrassment has come from second-hand revelations about what other countries have been lying about.
Humour from Facebook
I just saw this posted by a friend on Facebook, and thought I'd share it with you.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am...."

The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "Everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."

The woman below responded, "You must be a manager."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "You don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."
There's no such thing as "client" or "server" languages.

Turing-complete languages like Javascript can be used for
any purpose, regardless of its most common application.

Someone has even written a webserver in PostScript:
http://www.pugo.org:8080/

Javascript is particularly well suited to evented style
programming because it has a very simple support of
first class functions.
Griffon Vultures have been seen up north of to 36,000ft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BCppells_Vulture)

Nature really, really is amazing. Part of the motivation for "The MIT drone" as it was lovingly called among my friends was trying to beat nature :).

There is a bird called the Arctic Tern which performs a polar migration (44k Miles/yr). The fact that there is an autonomous flying machine capable of refueling itself using its surroundings, and flying that far is really daunting.
Google Announces Acquisition of Widevine
Finally! Some mainstream tech criticism in contrast to the overwhelming din of cargo-cult social network startups.
There is an interesting part to some of those stories... kind of captured in some of those paragraphs. For example "If I go to CES in Vegas I go with the understanding that porn is part of the business of that conference". Many gamers' expos would have naked girls with game logos painted over them if they could get away with that.

Also, have you lately been to a students' club? In some places (and not even of the lowest quality) kissing and proposing sex to people you barely know is pretty much a normal behaviour. (this happens from both genders)

Now you have lots of people coming out of that environment and expect them to figure out by themselves that this is a different environment? Of course there will be someone who doesn't quite get it.

It also doesn't help when in some environments women are ok with as much attention as they can get. I've seen a couple of IRC channels of open-source projects where there's a regular female user appearing there. Strictly no-offtopic channels suddenly switch to 2h "what's new in your life in any details you want" discussions between her and 10 random guys that includes innuendos every once in a while. Again - do you expect those people to figure out themselves that it's not the same environment?

I really don't think this is a problem "of open source conferences". It might be something that manifests there more often than in other places.
While emotionally appealing, the problem with that type of "chivalry" is that you may get to enjoy the sights and sounds of your local county jail. Unless there's a couple of very helpful witnesses to the catalyst behavior, you're going to get slapped with an assault charge, moreso if it was verbal sexual harassment you started a fight over, or just so the original assailant can save face regarding the situation.

I'm not advising that you never come to someone's aid, but be careful before you commit a misdemeanor crime based on someone's claim, especially when alcohol may be involved.
I don't know about that...
The Pentagon Papers did not give carte blanche to publishers, and they could still be brought up on charges under the Espionage Act.

> Times v. United States is generally considered a victory for an extensive reading of the First Amendment, but as the Supreme Court ruled on whether the government had made a successful case for prior restraint, its decision did not void the Espionage Act or give the press unlimited freedom to publish classified documents. A majority of the justices ruled that the government could still prosecute the Times and the Post for violating the Espionage Act by publishing the documents. Ellsberg and Russo were not acquitted of violating the Espionage Act; they were freed due to a mistrial from irregularities in the government's case.

(from your wiki link)

There needs to be a more defined separation between what we might think we want to be the legal line and what the line actually is.
Apologies in advance for being off-topic, but am I the only one who hates people hunched over their laptops while hogging starbucks' chairs for hours . I work in a downtown location and its impossible to have your coffee at starbucks as there is no place to sit. I really wish Starbucks could charge for seating ;-)
They forgot to compare the similar priced Macbook and Macbook pro.
The first two are completely true for games industry since modern games run into the bottlenecks faster than other software.

The third is absolutely true since data is the name of the game. I've written game engines, and each iteration only takes about one to two months of hard-core work. The value is in the content that the game engine has to power which requires scores of people working with it. Artists, production artists, sound engineers, level designers, game mechanic programmers, etc.

Big Data is no different. The more data I have, the more things I can learn about. The more ways I can study the data. When I don't have data, I can't really do anything.
Garmin makes Nuvi. Try looking at some of the competition; TomTom are good for maps with just the right amount of visual complexity, and clean UIs.
No, it's a terrible metaphor. The vitamin business is hugely successful! I did the research once and vitamins and supplements actually outsell pain relievers.

[ Edit: supporting research I did, which I've now cited twice in comments on Hacker News. I should probably write a blog post. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499929 ]
Let me clarify: learning JavaScript is not that important for non-web development.
the mapping function doesn't need to be a direct translation.

But I believe you are right.... curse you Hungerford for teaching rings and groups simultaneously....
(Voted you back to 1).

I'm guessing the reason the YC company that posted the ad dead'ed it was because of posts like yours that picked up the ad and ran it all the way down the field to the worst possible interpretation of what they were saying. Personally, again, an offer of an exec role at a profitable YC-backed startup is basically the exact polar opposite of an insult, and I don't think that's a quirky way of looking at it.

And, I'm sorry that you don't like the particular ad hominem argument I made, but: it's a critique I'm going to keep making. Why did you write this post? Nobody with a viable startup thinks a YC rejection is the end of the world anyways.

You can have the last word.
I hope so, I really enjoyed the idea. Many interesting things get lost on hacker news ...
Implementing Graph algorithms Pregel style using Phoebus and Erlang
I've seen the if only we get (tiny percentage) of (huge number) to pay (seemingly small amount), we'll be rich! arguement framed about a thousand different ways. I actually cautioned an entrepreneur I was talking to last night about this.

Sales start from 0, and they continue from there. Until you have sold it a few times, who knows if .1% is incredibly easy or impossible. Sometimes any number >0 just isn't going to happen.
That's the only iPad app my 2-year-old needs help navigating. He likes to watch Thomas and Friends on it, but by the time he's asking for help he's added about 50 things to my DVD queue. This happens almost every day, so whenever I drop a DVD to return in the mail I can't be sure what comes next.