skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
i don't know about on Mac or Linux, but on Windows the Safari font rendering is unacceptably ugly. it's fuzzy and blurry. it's the single reason i'm using Firefox instead right now

i think Safari uses a custom font renderer, which on Windows is far worse than Windows' ClearType (which Firefox takes advantage of.) maybe Safari's rendering looks good on high res monitors, but on my 1280x1024 it looks like shit. it's almost as if it's doing three or four extra smoothing passes

here's a couple side-by-side screenshots (note, there is some bug that makes the background of single-line text fields black):

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk63/temporaryupload/safa...

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk63/temporaryupload/safa...

and yes, i messed around with the options. it doesn't matter what strength of font smoothing it's set to. it still looks fuzzy. in fact it looks worse on lower smoothing settings. maybe i'm missing something, and if so, i'm all ears. maybe i'm just experience a particular set of bugs :/

it's unfortunate because i like most of the rest of the package, especially the fast loading and JS.
MySpace Might Have Friends, but It Wants Ad Money
30 is 29 too many.
GupShup is slang in Hindi for chit-chat or gossip
It might be a good idea to have them do some of the final assembly; ship the computers as kits, and have someone instruct them on what each part does. That way,they are forced to learn some functional aspects of what the thing is comprised of and how it works. This might spark a deeper interest and understanding than just handing it to them would.
I personally love 'going dark' - it is exhilarating - though I recognize the risks. On my last project I went dark for about 6 months developing a configuration tool for another part of the project. My code ended up looking nothing like the rest of the codebase, I didn't use the same approach to just about anything, but I've got to say, the tool itself is amazing.

I don't know if I could have built just as good a piece of software without going dark, but I do know it wouldn't have been as much fun. For all of the differences with the rest of the codebase, my own section has a cohesiveness of design that sets it apart. I'm actually trying to get better at staying with the pack, but sometimes I see that gnarly problem out of the corner of my eye and I just want to bolt.
His reference to the First Amendment is clearly allegorical - is that not obvious?
Even though the 1st amendment (or any amendment for that) has no bearing on HN, I agree with the spirit of your idea. I remember a month back, someone said something that I found funny (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=193369) ... and I put a LOL on it and I lost karma points for it. Seemed nuts to me.
I had an idea about this, you could require a reason when downvoting.

It might make people less likely to downvote stuff unless they have a good reason. It might also help explain to the original poster why they are being downvoted.

I'm not really sure what the implications of this would be though. Perhaps it might make it harder to get rid of obvious trolls and spam.
"... every major blogging platform has the features Disqus offers ..."

You have answered your own question. If you don't use "every major blogging platform" that is where Discus comes into it's own. Users want the ability to have commenting but maybe not hosting them. You still get access & own you own data sans the problems & limitations of homegrown or open source blogging software.
All I can say is, congrats, PG, for making a place on the net important enough for people to invoke the first amendment.
"It will be continually in motion, changing shape and giving residents the ability to choose a new view at the touch of a button. The form of the building would constantly change as each floor rotates separately giving a new view of the building as it turns."

"Each floor, made up of 12 individual units, complete with plumbing, electric connections, air conditioning, etc., will be fabricated in a factory."

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/06/09/rotating-wind-powered-to...

"In our buildings you can have breakfast facing sunrise, and dinner in front of a sunset over the ocean... without moving from your room."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RzQazjw-4jI

Sooo... what happens when the residents on both sides want to have breakfast in front of the sunrise and dinner in front of the sunset? Maybe they need a social-voting aspect to the building...

Anyway, this is still ridiculously cool, whether or not it's practical. I want one.
Hey Steve, I thought Java was "dead"?
EFF Scores Google's Litigation Gun
I use Safari on Windows because I think it renders fonts better than Windows normally does. The blurriness isn't a bug, it's a feature, it's rendering the font correctly as it was intended to be seen. Apple font rendering scales correctly when resized without suddenly getting darker or lighter like Windows fonts, which often look either bolded or too thin when resized.

Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed on what's more important when rendering fonts, see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html for an explanation. It's no mistake, Apple does this on purpose, I wish Windows rendered fonts as well as Safari.
It's really a matter of taste—i.e. whether you prefer typographic purity or optimization for screen. The Safari fonts look better to me even in your comparison screenshots.
This reminds me of Galileo's story.

Or possibly the Spanish Inquisition.

:/
As-Rigid-As-Possible Shape Manipulation
> looks like a ">" with 3 horizontal lines to the right

.. and to think that earlier in the Mac's history the mantra for GUI design was "a word is worth a thousand pictures" (see: http://www.asktog.com/columns/038MacUITrends.html). If Apple still followed that mantra railsjedi would have actually noticed that Web Inspector had all these awesome features.
What about blocking ads with AdBlock Plus?
I think downvoting on an "lol"-type comment is appropriate. Making that sort of comment adds nothing valuable to the conversation and actually detracts from the comments by adding unnecessary clutter. Whenever you want to "lol" a comment, just upvote it.
"Going dark" might be more acceptable to senior programmer types who already have a strong grasp of software development concept, accepted idioms, and basic coding style.

They seasoned expert is like likely to return after his dark period with something consistent, clearly written and mostly bug free. (Especially the troublesome design flaw bugs).

The junior programmer who goes dark mostly out of fear of criticism is likely to return with something that has no consistent style, mixed up idioms and likely fundamental system-wide design flaws that require rewrite.

The important difference here is the reason these two different classes of developers choose these long dark periods. The first developer wants to be free of politics, interruptions and nitpicking while he builds what he knows how to build. The second is afraid of criticism as he stumbles through unfamiliar territory hoping that if he can get it to "just work" it will hide his ignorance.

Denying the first his time might cost you something truly great that you otherwise won't be able to get. Allowing the second cheats the junior of a valuable learning experience and simply allows him to continue in bad practices, gaining "experience" without any real increase in know-how, thus generating the strange coder we;ve all met with "20 years of experience in blub" who writes unusable code.
Don't worry about all that environmentally efficient stuff going on in the tower, most of the people who enter the building will drive there in $300,000 supercars that get 6 MPG.
How is greasemonkey (or its equivalent) on safari?
Comments Can Be Blog Posts
Pleasantly surprised at Google's position on net nutrality.
PithHelmet
Dude,

1.) Perspective. This isn't the same at all as saddam and has nothing to do with the first amendment.

2.) This casual usage of the concept of lynching bothers me. A lot. I would probably fire someone who threw it around casually like this, on the spot. Go have a conversation about it with people from the communities that actually dealt with lynching, and read a damn history book or two. Would you say Microsoft 'holocausted' a company they bought out or drove out of business? Fuck no. Don't say 'lynching' in such a casual way. It trivializes decades of horrible abuse towards an entire race of people and creates an environment where a lot of people feel subliminal racism. You might not know anyone to point out to you just how grating things like this sound to people, or perpetuates racism, so let me.

3.) Your concept of evolution is very narrow and, well, unevolved. Evolution just deals with how a system responds to it's environment. No restriction will stop evolution, it will just evolve around whatever change happens. Digg evolved to blow goats, it's still evolution.

4.) Stop identifying with your ideas so much. Who cares if people downvote your ideas. Either they are wrong, or you are. You can learn something either way. Maybe what you learn makes you think the community is wrong, or that you are wrong, or that you could just write better. It's not a really a judgement on you.
If anything, not being able to express your disagreement or displeasure towards a comment should be considered a violation of the First Amendment.

Also, telling someone that their comment is idiotic by way of reply or down arrow is far from persecution. It's almost as if in your ideal world, everyone's comments would be accepted and passed on with glee, without any sort of counterbalance. If that's the case, the Earth would still be the center of the universe.

And... no one is preventing you from using the service following a down vote, it's your choice. Had your internet connection been cut off and your computer seized following a submission of a less popular or less agreed upon comment, your argument would hold some validity.
I've never seen a "leading telecom" messaging system send my single message simultaneously to a thousand people via email, sms, IM, and a web interface within a minute.

SMS by itself is slow, unreliable, expensive, and only goes point-to-point.
What you are describing is the power of the open market; it's what happens when you don't have an oligopoly like we have here in the US.
Wow, I'm speechless. You need to get some sense of scale, buddy.
Just had a look and found this post which seems that the webkit version is available? A little late here so I'll check this out in the morning:
http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2007/05/google-gears-for-webki...
Windows live VoIP service in trouble
And of course, people should also refrain from saying 'I just baked a pizza' to a Jew, 'My dad is going to whip my ass' to a black person, and 'I bombed that test' to a relative of a fallen soldier.

Sure, lynch can be used offensively, but then you'd have to look at it contextually.

No dictionary returned a result for 'to Holocaust,' either.
Perhaps you've never used SMS? (or at least not in the US) They are frequently late or dropped. (and we pay $0.30/sms for the privilege)
The misfits: The genetic legacy of nomadism may be an inability to settle
Bravo, this is the best argument in favour of downvotes (or, indeed, fonwvotes) I've seen so far.
The first iteration is not what "don't go dark" is about. The aphorism refers to releases 2, 3.. N, where the code you're writing needs to mesh with the expectations, needs, and codebase of other people.

Sure, if you haven't released your code yet and you have no users, you can be as dark as you like. You can change your API on a whim. Nobody cares! There's still a risk, of course -- the risk that you're wasting time developing something that everyone else will just ignore -- but that's just your problem. The problem with "going dark" after the initial release is that it causes trouble not just for you, but for everyone else whose work depends on your work.
Good luck with that. Lipstick on a pig and all that.

Apple - beautiful stuff in a gorgeous museum setting, representing some of the best human technology on the planet, giving people creative power not accessible to the masses even 10 or 12 years ago.

Army - come try our simulations of serving 3 or 4 years when your signed up for 1 tour, getting shot at and attacked with bombs so American VIPs can prance around markets in body armor for TV cameras, and experience the fun social pressure to kill innocent kids from your dominionist sergant who you also depend on to not die. All in a fun apple like museum setting. I wonder if they have a simulation for desperately trying to get disability from the VA for 6 or 12 months for PTSD, finally turning to alcohol to escape the nightmares of random bomb blasts and the haunting look on the dead faces of the kids or innocents you were ordered to help kill, and then finally being rejected for drinking. That one sounds fun. I want to play that one in this nice new store.

I think to succesfully imitate apple, the army will have to stop sucking first. The problem isn't the Army Brand sucks or the Army store sucks, the problem is the army sucks right now.
Success with design or programming, and with who?
Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu
Siemens gets serious about open source
Its in their best interest to prevent throttling. If they had nothing to gain by doing this, they probably wouldn't do it. (more appropriately, nothing to lose by not doing it) Its awesome that they are going to try to do this, but one can't look at it from a completely altruistic standpoint. Obviously we could debate until we are blue in the face exactly why or how much of their reasoning was to defend users or their bottom line, but I think its important to make the point that its in their best interest that their users can use as much bandwidth as they want. They aren't the bandwidth provider, they are the provider of something to provide the bandwidth for.
How to write a lazy UNION in MySQL at Xaprb
It depends how you count. If I send a tweet to 100 followers, is that 100 messages, or one? 3 million is low if the former, and high if the latter. I think Twitter does closer to 1M unique tweets per day.
I don't know what to say other than that I was thoroughly disencouraged after reading this post.
I think the word "lynching" cannot casually be used non offensively by a community of mostly white people.

There is no context where a community of white people casually joking about lynching isn't going to cause minorities to feel subliminal racism. It's way different then casually saying you baked a pizza to a jewish person.
Fast Ranking Algorithm: Astonishing Paper by Raykar, Duraiswami, and Krishnapuram
David Chalmers Forward to Supersizing the Mind, Which Discusses iPhone and Consciousness.  (PDF)
Get traction, build a large user base, and the money will follow ...this seems to be general startup mantra.

But $1B in revenue even from 118M users is a steep target, and most sites would be happy with $7 per user. In this respect I think that as long as MySpace is profitable, they should not wory so much and focus on building what people want and making it easier to get it. If they create value, they will 'earn' value (at the rate the market determines)?
I'm going to assume that English isn't your first language, and not address the language of your post.

The ability to downmod a submission meets a practical need on sites like this one. As it stands now, without the ability to downmod a submission, it's fairly easy for a small group of people to dictate what does and does not show up on the front page. Your submission, for example, is currently in the number 2 position, with just 9 votes (slow day).

The ability to downmod allows the community as a whole to say, "this is not the sort of article we want on this site."

The way downmodding is used, the particulars of how it's set up, depends on the site and the community. I don't think there's as much danger of people downmodding something simply because they don't want anybody "speaking their mind"; I think this whole thread is proof positive of that, where nobody agrees with you and yet a number of people are spending time discussing it.

Also, I figure there's a good chance that there're enough smart people involved here that somebody can figure out how to make downmodding work well.

Based on what you wrote, I would've guessed you for a troll, but you've been around on here for over a year and have around 900 karma. So maybe not.
"The first amendment enforces the FREEDOM OF SPEECH, which is disencouraged by Donwvotes."

While I understand your point, the first amendment applies to Congress making laws. Not privately run forums.
"silence is louder than downvoting"

Your entire quote, a response to my earlier comment, in context, was:

"Well said edw519. Silence is louder than Downvoting."

Oddly, I was, and still am, not sure what you meant. This was one of those comments that can mean 2 very different things, depending on the interpretation of the reader.

On one hand, it sounds like agreement, with a semi-profound simile attached.

On the other hand, it sounds like mocking, perhaps with a little attitude.

Do you see how it could be interpreted either way, depending possibly on the mood of the reader?

You've just entered territory where we've all been. When we can't see your eyes and body language, hear your tonality, and have never met you, all we have is the words on the page. They have to stand on their own. So they did. And the community responded.

At one point, I resorted to using tags like <sarcasm> and </sarcasm> because I had to; no matter how "smart" my readers were, the words alone didn't have the power to stand on their own. I had to give them a little help.

Exactly what did you mean? Just tell us, openly and honestly, and let us surprise you with our open response. For a community that puts a premium on the clever smarta$$ retort, we still value sincerity above all.

So instead of worrying about the rules of the game, why not just explain what you meant and let the chips fall where they may. In a forum like this, that's pretty much the best any of us can do.
Regarding stories, I think off-topic ones should be downvoted/deleted. Off-topic being defined as "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." Having this text or a link to the guidelines on the submit page would probably be nice. (see http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Regarding comments, there are also some guidelines and not following those guidelines clearly deserve a downvote. I personally think that downvotes shouldn't be used to "say that you disagree". I prefer that it be used to filter out useless comments.
There is no context where a community of white people casually joking about lynching isn't going to cause minorities to feel subliminal racism.

That's a lot of fucking context.
http://www.sanneblad.se.nyud.net/johan/?p=180
I'm glad they're stopping development of Gobuntu, I think it's wasted time and effort. Let the Free Software nuts work on their strictly-free-software software.
| ...by a community of mostly white people.

That is, by definition, a racist sentiment. I know that you won't see it that way, but it's still worth pointing out anyway.

What a person does or does not take offense to is entirely up to them. I happen to think that it's reasonable to consider both the context and the intent of what's said, but some folks just like to get wound up about things.
I agree with your point (we shouldn't have down votes), but not your reasons for it. As others have said, the first amendment doesn't really apply here.

The real problem with down votes, imo, is that it effectively gives everyone two votes on a story. First you get your one point for submitting it or voting it up, then you can get an additional point (relatively) by voting down everything else on the new page. Now, not everyone will do this, but some people will, which negatively affects the karma of everyone who submits stories, providing a disincentive for anything that one isn't sure is going to be immediately popular. This leads to a decline in the overall quality of stories. The sad truth is, when you take someone's name and put a number next to it, there's some people that will just lose their minds trying to get that number as high as possible. (Not to mention monetary incentives for marketing firms, as has happened on Digg and probably reddit, too. Maybe that's not as much of a concern for Hacker News, since the audience has been kept relatively small)

My solution, when I see a story I don't like on the front page, is to go to the new page and vote up every story I DO like.
It is, but that doesn't make it less wrong.

There is no logical stance for saying that a website owner must, or ethically should, permit any particular opinion.
The context is the experience of the minorities who come from communities hurt by this and may also be reading here. Such a person might look at it (a group of mostly white people making light of lynching here), and put it in their context (decades of experience with their culture being hurt and violently repressed by groups of white people who liked lynching) and not feel quite so safe or welcome.

Remember, lynching was a mechanism of control to keep minorities well behaved. The senate only apologized for lynching in the US in 2005 (too many republicans objected before that). There was a lynching in 1998, not to mention several more recent gay bashings that meet the criteria of lynching. It still happens. The relevant context isn't mine or yours, it's the minorities. Take a damn sensitivity class. This is controversial?
Your problem with downvotes has little to do with the idea of them, and more to do with the implementation.

It's not hard to implement downvoting in a way that doesn't have the problems you described.

Also, I would assume that people ordinarily do upvote the submissions they like. The only way you could be describing anything different is if you meant that you upvote everything that you don't dislike, which I think runs completely counter to the idea of upvoting.
lol - I couldn't resist :-P
It is sad that projects like this aren't really profitable to the author directly.

I'm sure he'll make plenty of money consulting, but to see so much sweat for minimum wage, ouch.
Ubuntu would not be my first choice for building cloud compute server clusters (there are better *nix distros). Am I missing something?
No. It's a sentiment about demographics that relates to race. If you don't see a difference between that and being racist, I don't really know what to say to you.

There are lots and lots of people alive in their 40s and 50s who survived or had family lynched. There are lots of people in their 20s and 30s who's childhood (like what side of town they could go to and what girls or boys they could date) was deeply affected by aftershocks from this.

It's not so much about taking offensive as not triggering something that is still salient in a lot of people we should want to feel comfortable here.