skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Actually the Foreign Affairs article makes it pretty much as simple as that. We were going pretty good in the 1960s and the moneyed plutocracy, angry that they were losing power, financed and fomented a conservative counterrevolution to undermine all the progress that had been made. They got obscenely wealthy, while we got the shaft. Pretty cut and dry.
Brand new URL Shortner for your convenience
FFMPEG claimed to have the fastest VP8 decoder on the planet back in July:

Announcing the world’s fastest VP8 decoder: ffvp8

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/499
I just wrote myself a little script. Let's see, if it sticks ...

$ cat bin/journal
#!/bin/bash
FILE=${HOME}/Dropbox/journal.txt
echo >>${FILE}
date >>${FILE}
echo >>${FILE}
vim + ${FILE}
Anti-matter has been created in the laboratory routinely for decades. And it has existed in nature forever. Cosmic rays routinely create showers of particles and anti-particles in the upper atmosphere. Radioactive decay generates positrons continuously throughout nature (in Earth's rocks and soil, in the oceans, in bananas, inside your own body). Every second of every day you are bathing in an ocean of anti-neutrinos, mostly from the Sun.

But that hardly changes the remarkable nature of anti-matter. A single grain of sand of anti-matter would be a sufficient energy source to power a Toyota Prius for an entire century. A chunk of anti-matter the size of an aspirin tablet could be used to create a bomb as powerful as a nuclear weapon or power 100 homes for a year.
ffmpeg does already supports webm, and the encoder is quite good from what i gathered, since it's done by the same crew than x264
Long live Flash video?
The Great Food Crisis of 2011
Speed. Scala beats both Groovy and JRuby pretty handily.
How Nike's Visual Tricks Made Oregon Look Fast (Despite Defeat)
Agree especially to the last line. Being the only person in my group of friends in the 60-70K category while they're in the sub 40K category keeps me on a college budget. Cheap dates, happy hour, home cooking, take-out, etc.
Can you provide your writing?
Hi ! Very nice idea, I like the app. A few comments :

- Why the heck is it free ? I would have paid for it !

- Can you make the web page for your follower display nicely on a computer web browser ?

- corollary : could you allow direct sending of emails ? (rather than copy + switch app + paste)

- on the web site, you could show screens of the app, not just the client.

Otherwise congratulations, it's quite nice and that would have been the next app I would have developed if I ever finish my current one;-)
What would TechCrunch look like today with NO iPhone/Verizon stories?
Want to be a Hipster? Early invitations available.
www.useHipster.com

We can't say much about the company publicly, but I'd be happy to answer any questions you email to me at Doug@useHipster.com
You (and Paul Graham) need to look into the studies that very clearly show people's happiness is a relative measure, not an absolute one.
The Science Of Consciousness
That's awesome...Congrats on getting it done!
Don’t try to win over haters. You’re not the Jackass Whisperer. --Scott Stratten
"One thing big blogs don’t do is buy traffic."

If it's true that there was an unwritten code amongst bloggers not to advertise, then that is a silly and outdated rule.
That would be nice if it were true. But it's not.
I've been using this zsh function for a year or two:

jr () {
echo "---"
echo "\n##"`date +" %a %D %l:%M%P"` >> ~/journal.txt
cat >> ~/journal.txt
}

It usually emits 72 dashes, so that I can stay within that margin (manually, heh). Edited to not break HN. The '##' is because I habitually markdown format everything.
this is very concerning
This is obvious selection bias, on several axes. Here are two of them:

- There is more/richer information available on people who keep journals, so it's easier to make the case for their greatness.

- If someone does great things but no record is kept, they are not acknowledged.

I enjoyed the stories of his grandfather, but the flawed reasoning in the argument annoyed me.
You do know that the reason h.264 is better on iOS is because the hardware decoder, right?

Android doesn't even do hardware-accelerated graphics, let alone video decoding.
Another point : it's an interesting developer's perspective, but its lacking in numbers. Maybe too young for that ?
There are no ads on the client nor on the app, and the app is free. Do you have a monetization plan ?
This comment in response to that post makes an interesting point; the most similar bits are likely the most carefully vetted, and may be written deliberately to avoid patent infringement. Patents on standards can be very narrow; as long they cover exactly what's in the spec, then any implementer of the standard still has to pay up:

"Patents are about _details_ so the mere fact that something does something like something else, isn’t necessarily something at all.

As we’ve pointed out before, many codec patents are exceptionally easy to work around: They specify every little detail because it makes it _much_ easier to get through the examination but doesn’t harm the patent’s ability to read on the final standard because the standard specifics exactly the patented behaviour.

D_S, for all his undeniable H.264 experience isn’t an expert on patents or even the H.264 patents. We can assume that in cases where VP8 looks similar to H.264 those would have been exactly the cases where care was taken to differ in the right places. I’d expect the primary risks for VP8 to be anywhere _but_ there."

more at
http://blog.gingertech.net/2010/05/20/vp8-adobe-is-the-key-t...
This is very surprising to me. When the home sales market drops, more people rent out their old home instead of selling it at a loss, hoping that the prices will rise soon. This causes the rent prices to drop. This is what I saw a few months ago when I considered renting out my house. Perhaps I need to check the prices again.
What you're missing is that nowadays to make it you have to corner a market - thats how internets works.

Not many mom and pops type business opportunities on the net.
Ep.io, a new python WSGI hosting company
5% operational expenses? Sounds a tad high.

Are they currently a 501(c) (or similar)?
This coming from someone who lives in a city (Milford, NJ) with a median family income of $62,167 USD that is 97% white. Ouch.

(Also, today I learned about HackerNewsers from your profile. Very cool site!)
Given that flash is reportedly going to support WebM, you may not have to do 2 encodings in the near future.
Who said anything about happiness? Are you implying that income is proportional to happiness?
The stats were aggregated from every rental listed on hotpads during 2010. At any given time there are half a million rentals listed, some of which have multiple vacancies (large buildings), thus the million prices.

original: http://hotpads.com/pages/housing-report-2011-01.htm
Respecting would be if it would be just a message.

Disabling the download for Mac users (I guess it is based on the user agent string of the browser) and making it just hang for 30 seconds is something different.
Yea, if WebM is free people will. If both are available then WebM is probably superior from a content producer's perspective.
Interesting Post.
This isn't a black-or-white issue. I can politely criticize your work, or you can crap on my work constructively.
Yes. However, increasing it from the current 15% to 35% or 38% probably wouldn't affect it much.
I agree that's what the FA article says. Anybody who really thinks that's the start and finish of the topic is standing there with their fingers in their ears singing "la-la-la I can't hear you".

The real world is a complex place. It's rarely possible to point to a single cause of anything.
Am very delighted by the news; some of computer science's mot problematic problems stem from the space complexity issue - the need for enormous amounts of space / memory to realize a solution. But with such innovations as these, such hurdles will continue to be overcome, and who knows what problems might then become tractable?
Talk of brute-forcing into previously feared domains!

This is a beautiful advance for us all :)
There is a very clear distinction between an closed standard and a closed implementation.

H.264 is patent encumbered and controlled by an organization that only temporarily does not charge for its use. It will never be open. And btw. Apple is on the H.264 consortium and will profit handily once prices will be charged for H.264.

Flash is an open standard with only one implementation (unless you count gnash and swfdec, etc).

I can't wait for Flash to go away too, but this is certainly the lesser evil.
Author's reasons for phenomenon in brief: (1) tax system not progressive enough; (2) govt hard on unions.
Not necessarily, and not in the long run.

These changes will occur in the next couple months

By then flash will gain WebM playback support. This move is a good one and it does make sense, I don't think there is room for compromise in regards to the open internet and non-proprietary standards.
Apple didn't previously have Flash support in iOS and then remove it... taking something working out for ideological reasons is much worse than never adding something in for ideological reasons in my book.
> "I don't know about the developers and why more people aren't interested in helping out"

This probably doesn't help GIMP any, but I suspect it's because very few people want to hop on such a clearly troubled project. Only two core devs left? A long history of neglect and moving in the wrong direction?

I can bet if, say, Pixelmator went OSS right now, there'd be a sea of devs fighting to add features to it.

Most devs don't want to walk into a major, legacy project just to pick up the pieces, most of us would rather join something that has a solid base where the maintainers have a decent idea of what the product needs.
I've never been to T&H, my work schedule doesn't really jive with their hours (they close at 6 m-w and aren't open on Sundays). But how's the vibe there? It always looked to me like a snooty wine shop, but for tea. Having worked in a moderately snooty wine shop, I would really rather go somewhere a little more genuine.

Its hard to explain rationally without sounding like a hipster, but I think I just got spoiled by the really cool tea shop I used to go to at school - it was like the kind of place you would find an ancient artifact of untold power in the corner behind a dusty basket of chocolate bars.

Not that that's the only kind of tea shop I would go to, but it really felt like a place owned by people who got it: they stayed open past their posted hours and when you walked in, whoever was working (there was a grand total of 4 people that worked there over the five years I went) would acknowledge you casually and never talk about product unless it really seemed like you wanted to.

I guess now I have to try it...
I think it's general Internet etiquette that when you are referring a community of people (that you are a member of) to a specific product though your own site, you don't pass in a referral code. It shows that the product you are talking about is actually recommended, rather than a quick money maker for yourself.

I don't have a problem with the website in general, especially if I found it through Google. But, what's to say that 10 other HN'ers don't post a book review tomorrow with an affiliate link? Because, after all, it's profitable. Who cares if the book is good or not?

Given the OP's unofficial librarian status, I don't think it's a major offense in this case. But, I didn't find that out until after I posted my first comment.
Jerry Brown strips cell phones from California state employees
The biggest H264 supporter is Apple, and it kind of worked because Apple has leverage in the iPhone arena. I don't think Google has quite the same leverage in the browser arena. If this happened at the WebKit level, then maybe. But not at the Chrome level.
Completely agree. I love that site and I think most of the criticisms are on point.

There is/was something special about apps on a Mac versus their equivalent shareware versions on Windows. I think it's fair to assume the Mac App Store will bring with it the same kind of UI trash that is in the iPhone app store.
I tried this app just now and I set up a reminder for myself. I was sitting in a boring mtg and could just walk off. saved me. thanks.
By Favorites do you mean favorite receivers? Yeah, that's something I'm thinking to add in future. Thanks for the feedback and wishes! Yeah, web application version will be launched soon, which will be primarily targeted towards small businesses with mode advanced features!
Great technology companies often do.

If that's true, at what point does that trait change from an advantage to a liability? Is it purely about openness? Or is it more subjective (e.g. I don't like Silverlight, so Microsoft should support standards vs. websockets sound awesome, and I'm glad Google is innovating)?
"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less." - Socrates
Hear me out for a second.

I really don't understand this mentality of "yeah me too". It's great to be heard and all, but why contribute anything if you have nothing to contribute.

Furthermore, if you have nothing to contribute, why offer <i>ducks</i> to point this out and make it obvious that you're trying to avoid something?
Express on Railway
Thanks for the feedback. I debated heavily between paid and free when I released it. I went with free initially because I felt I wanted to get a simple version of the product out there. At some point I might go the freemium root and offer a paid version with some additional features.

- Emails are coming along with better formatting for desktop browsers

- Thanks for feedback on the website!
The problem with the super-strict parenting style described in the WSJ article is that it destroys passion. I'm not Chinese; I'm Indian. Nevertheless, I've seen a lot of this style of parenting applied to my peers.

The pernicious thing about this parenting style is that it appears to work very well for the first 18 years. Then, the child graduates from high-school, and goes to college. Some break down without the constraints imposed by hovering parents and constant scheduling. Some get pulled into the wrong crowds and end up doing questionable or illegal activities. But the most unlucky ones go through college just fine.

Why are these the most unlucky ones? Once they're done with the academic grind, they look around and have no goals. They never developed the ability to create their own goals - to be self directed. Not only is this a huge disadvantage in their personal lives, but it hurts job performance as well. No assignment at work is going to be as well defined as a school project. No manager will babysit these people as much their teachers and parents did. What ends up happening is that these people find themselves being surpassed by others who have less skill, as the others have much more self direction and the ability to push themselves without requiring external motivation.
{Disclaimer: I'm a tea drinker}

Those medical studies are usually discarding the parallel social relation of drinking tea. Tea drinkers may have different habits than the coffee drinkers. This is similar than the "the children who have grown with books at home have better education", the reason is not really the books by them-self but more just a sign of the social behaviour. Might be the case of (some) tea drinkers.
The dude just doesn't stop. Not only does he create top notch software but he's got the excellent documentation to go along with it as well so pretty much anyone can pick up the stuff and use it.
That's true, my only point is that it's a trend in the wrong direction: after Google makes this change there will be people will be using Flash for playback than there were before.
Thanks for the feedback. :-) I'm trying to get a sense of which devices various people prefer. I get what you're saying about the "Apple allure" -- although other devices now are very, very close to Apple's design, there's still something compelling about Apple's presentation and overarching design of its products.

As for the new stuff at CES, there were a handful of pretty powerful new devices announced, but the two that really caught my attention were the Motorola Droid Bionic and the Motorola Atrix. All of the feedback on the Bionic has been positive so far, with a lot of it centering on how fast the device feels. The Atrix really stole the show though -- it's a phone that can be docked into a laptop or desktop form factor and used almost like a normal computer for most tasks. Expensive though, but a really cool concept.
Ha ha! I had not expected this usage before. But someone also wrote this review for my app in the app store. I guess this is going to be a common use case then. :)
It's important to know what is being measured and what is not. Basically Stella is timing the backend performance and network speed from a single server in a single location.

Since 80% of performance is front-end, I find it's often more interesting to look at rendering time instead. Most websites can get the html back to you in a few hundred milliseconds. The more interesting question is how long it will take the browser to download and render the associated resources. This is the pain your visitors will be feeling and probably the one you should focus on. Instead of trying to get your server response down from 500ms to 200ms, focus on getting your onload time down from 5 seconds to 2.

One great open-source tool for measuring front-end performance is http://www.webpagetest.org/. It allows you to test sites from various locations around the world in and it gives you detailed performance data, waterfall graphs and even videos of the page loading. One downside is that it is IE only but it does support IE6-IE9.

Here is a sample report for Adioso on a DSL connection in Dallas in IE7:
http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110111_ZF_27134dc481325cfa...

As a disclosure, I'm the founder of a web performance company and sponsor the Ireland instance for WebPageTest although I have no financial benefit from promoting them.
this HNews post is my writing.
$7k a year would be impossible for me and most other people. My rent alone is $12k/year. But, say to be frugal, and this isn't my current situation be what I imagine would be the bare minimum: $400/mo rent, $100/mo car insurance, $30/week in groceries. I have other necessities but for bare minimum that's already well over $7k/year.
Front page is NSFW, should probably pick a different clip unless it's random.
The Coble Family's Tragedy and Miracle
The problem with a high earning career as a professional athlete, is that you have to average their salary over their lifetime, and their earnings drop really fast after they hit their mid thirties.
Quick and Easy Custom Contact Form
It can´t be all about freedom if they´re dropping Theora too. (related: how can Theora be so bad is Vorbis is so good?)
As a basketball player, I'd gladly take any (any, really) critique from Kobe. I won't take any (any, really) shit from Joe Blow.
Prove to me you can do better than me. Then, we'll talk.
I'm actually surprise by how many people are defending the author of RTFHIG. As a designer I can tell you can most of the users of HN could end up on a site like that with their app (web or native). Those people that he's picking on could be developers who build those app for the love of programming and make some extra cash, and they may genuinely thinking those are good UIs.
The US's 'mammoth' military budget and research endavours might seem like a safety wall with its 'competition', but it looks like they are fast climbing over, and probably, some are short-circuiting right 'through the wall'!

Will the 'real' Cold War ever end?
To be honest, probably nothing. Rich people are pretty much pros at operating tax shelters, which explains the famous Buffet quote about how he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
I liked you better when you were still underground.
Don't forget hardware.
Well now that the highly moralistic scrapers know it's not allowed I'm sure they'll stop.
That's not inconsistent with being "fully behind HTML5". That page is meant to show off how Safari handles various HTML5 features. If you view it in a different browser, it is not showing you how Safari handles those features. Hence, it makes perfect sense for it to try to limit itself to people using Safari.
This better be good with a name like that. Signed up.
The problem is a standard can be 'open' yet restricted, i.e. you have to pay to distribute software using it. Can't pay? Can't give people the program. The tricks that LAME uses to work around MP3 encoding patents aren't going to work for browsers.

Of course it will go away once the patents expire, just like with GIF, but calling it 'open' now is just marketing speak which doesn't come close to the actual nature and purpose of open-source software.
I haven't used Octave, but I find that Python + PyLab is a great replacement for Matlab in many cases. It's certainly a subset of Matlab in terms of features, but the things it does do, it does really well.
Ask HN: What CAD program is worth learning, if any?
I've learned that in order to get what I want from graphic designers, it's really worth it to know Photoshop, even if I have no interest in being a PS monkey. As a corollary, can I plan ahead and learn the rudiments of CAD if I have aspirations of pursuing product development? Would that be a useful endeavor for a biz-guy?
Content providers already have to support browsers that don't include h.264, and Chrome users are now in the same boat as Firefox users -- which content providers certainly won't ignore.

For sites which only produce h.264, Chrome includes Flash which can play h.264. And every video site is going to support a Flash playback path for older browsers.

The real impact here is pretty small, other than legitimizing a free and open codec. Chrome has just moved from one must-support category to another one. Most people will never notice the difference. How is that a loss?
The other would kill the browser immediately.

Firefox doesn't bundle Flash either, and that hasn't killed it.
> There's no particular reason to expect it to conform to GNOME's human-interface guidelines, is there?

How about 'not being weird?' Asides from the already mentioned historic background, GNOME is the most popular OSS Unix desktop.
Did you read the article? Blogging is mentioned.

Personally, while I do blog periodically, my journal is entirely different than what I publish online. My journal is for my own consumption. Some things that are written down there (I prefer pen and paper) may end up online or in an essay, but others won't see the light of day (often for good reasons).
I disagree that the only type of business on the internet is a google or a facebook. However, assuming they are, they were still started as the brain child of a few people who were not rich when they started.

Also, both google and facebook cornered markets that didn't exist 20 years ago. Where did that market come from? No one else got wealthy because of search or social networking?
Yes, good design is more than visual aesthetics.

But you seem to be saying that the aesthetics are then not important, which is completely false.

If it looks terrible, it's a bad design. Period. At best, top-notch effort in other areas can drag it up to the same approximate level as pristine-looking-but-utterly-unusable designs, which are still terrible. His position would only be contradictory if he somehow claimed that something was a good design based solely on a screenshot.
While H.264 may not be entrenched, it certainly is established and far, far from being emerging.
Yes, in spirit too:

"This demo was designed with the latest web standards supported by Safari. If you’d like to experience this demo, simply download Safari. It’s free for Mac and PC, and it only takes a few minutes."

Come see web standards! Using a specific browser.
Pose: Photo sharing fashion app
clickable http://simplton.com