skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That looks like trash compared to the iPad. We've seen in the market so far that building a tablet that is remotely close to iPad in terms of hardware build, let alone software, costs more.
Apple's HDMI Adapter works with iPhone 4, 4th-gen iPod touch, and 1st-gen iPad
Seems to miss the point of what a Lean Startup is.
I don't see anything in that list that would have Apple scared in the slightest bit.
"Yes, we can all agree that the displays are seriously cruddy and the overall build quality and design, for lack of a better work, suck, but at this point we've just come to expect that for a tablet under $300."
I find it fascinating that the technology is so pushed to the background, putting the experience front and center, that they don't even mention how much memory it has. This is a very conscious decision.
The article's over ten years old, and since then there's been a sorta revival of the genre. There are all the Telltale games, the Monkey Island remakes, and more recently the brilliant Machinarium. Digital distribution services like Steam have helped, of course.
Maybe it could be decentralized - a system of interconnected networks connected by common protocols.
I think the relaunch of Monkey Island on the iPhone proved that adventures are far from dead. Are they still mainstream? Maybe not, but I definitely see elements of adventures in modern games. Games like Fallout 3 and Bioshock rely heavily on storytelling. You could argue that some sandbox games like GTA San Andreas (haven't played IV, sorry) are technically adventure games or have adventure components. While I think the point and click (and text-based IF) adventures of years gone by are no longer mainstream, to say that it's dead is like saying that RTS is dead because there's no more fixed-view overhead style Command & Conquer games - they've just evolved.
The Biggest Headache for Investors in Groupon and Facebook
All good points (very good points). I think we will see the cost of extraction result in a net energy loss by the end of the decade, and maybe sooner. I could be wrong, though. As for growth rates, where do you see that global growth is declining? I think that's only in advanced industrialized societies (like Germany and Japan) where birth rates are lower than death rates. Even in the US, population continues to grow, and big increases are expected.
> But that's not the big point. The big point is that placing the blame externally kills off your ability to solve problems yourself.

If all you think about is solving your own problems, in the self-help sense, then placing blame externally is bad and non-productive indeed (as it makes you passive).

But if you think about how society as a whole impacts the lives of most people, then it is an empirical issue, and I'd guess most peoples lives are rather much impacted by external factors... So considering them is sensible there (as it focuses attention on the most important factors).
Does this apply to whistleblowing? A whistleblower certainly strips others of some of their rights, eh?
Actually, "tablica" also means "licence plate". :)
New Jersey early stage startup is looking for locals. Show your NJ love. Paid internships and full time gigs. jobs@iqtell.com
They must have fixed this pretty quickly because my 16GB iPad wifi in perfect condition with all cables only got an offer of $283.
I am using the public transportation to get to work and every time I need to make a trip I have to look up the time of the next bus either in a paper schedule or on the site.

I would love to have an app that just shows the time left to the next bus for my special route right away. One can use google maps api to get the schedules and make it possible to set up a route once and for all.

There is a nice site for one specific subway route for a russian university that is a good illustration of this idea http://tutu.mipt.ru/
Did I suggest I had any such idea? Did I suggest limiting anyone's success or taking exorbitant amounts of money through taxes?

The problems in question are not that not everyone comes out on top - it's that "not coming out on top" involves a great deal of exploitation and coercion. More so than most will admit. The problem is that "coming out on top" now means you control a hugely disproportionate sum of wealth - and thereby exert a disproportionate influence on society, invariably to the expense of others.

"limiting the success of the people that are actually creating wealth."

And therein lies one of the problems - the rewards do not go to those who make the wealth, and that's exactly the point the author of the article was making.

If an engineer invents a radical new process for fabricating microchips, who is paid the huge sum of money resulting from it - the CEO or the engineer? Which one actually created wealth and value?

"When you've lived long enough, you realize that there aren't many ideas that are truly unique."

This is merely condescension. Age doesn't grant you any magical insights, and you don't have to reach a certain age to know there are no new ideas. I figured that out a long time ago. That said, you want to talk about defeatists attitudes? "There are no new ideas" is a cake taker in that department.

I don't have all the answers, and I don't claim to - but we have absolutely zero chance of addressing social issues if we as a society won't even acknowledge them. And just because I don't have a better alternative right now, doesn't mean that no one else does either - or that I won't in the future.
Revolutions've happened before Facebook. There was some anecdotal evidence that more people went on the streets of Egypt when Internet got shut down and they couldn't anymore just sit in front of the computer and read updates.
Caltech breaks 0 for 310 losing streak in basketball
In my opinion, taxing some fraction of people's income is the best solution to the problem he's mentioning. Although I am under the impression that USA is rather reluctant to tax high earners.
Thanks for your feedback. I'll make relevant changes soon.
These iPads ain't for you. Apple doesn't want two important kinds of customers: power-users and penny-pinchers. Simple as that.
Some days after having my butt in a chair for a marathon coding session, I'm happy to find that I can still stand :)
What a convenient URL to remember.
I don't want to get drawn into a really long debate, I just have two things to say: 1. People aren't born developers, plumbers, etc., it's a career you choose 2. The technology that enables these things is not going to disappear, of that we can be pretty sure
They are examples that it can be done. The entire tone of the article is defeatist with the author arguing that it cannot be done.

For example: "you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with"

No. You won't find yourself having to do anything like that. There are well known companies that don't do that and make tonnes of money. That is what I am arguing.

Just noticed (1990) in the title. I am not sure it was there before. Either the title was updated or I missed it. In any case, the article makes more sense if you take that into account.
NO! The WiFi model is $600, the 3G model is $800. The 3G model was released last week, the WiFi model is coming out soon.

The Xoom is $600! Really, it honestly is. Here, I'll cite the CEO of Motorola as proof!

http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&...
I'd side note that estimates are still 1 billion people work in agriculture (ref: grain.org/world bank) and many more are in the transportation, processing, and selling of said agricultural products. The vast majority of these people still only earn enough or little more than enough for a day's food (not a huge surplus of wealth). Furthermore, lack of capital (lack of machines as you will) is still prevalent in many industrialized countries, even in the U.S. Disclaimer: I work for Kiva now, so my perspective is skewed to focus on this group of the world.
If you'll be adding a pre-population feature, I'd love to see this as one of the choices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral
In Praise of Luddism
Seven Thoughts On Start-Up Culture (by some guy)
None of the Lisp OO systems make objects feel second-class.
Fractal Landscape Generation
Steam doesn't have the overhead of creating, advancing, and supporting an entire hardware infrastructure. Which means less costs relative to Apple. So no kidding they take a smaller cut.
>Our app has to be chosen and downloaded just like theirs

Yes, but when I bought the iPhone4, the salesperson demoed downloading an app--on my new phone. Guess what app she chose? iBooks.

I wonder how many other iPhone-buyers experienced this. Perhaps Apple salespeople have a script to suggest or "help" download iBooks for new phone buyers.
If Apple gave iPads phone functionality, how could they sell you both an iPhone and an iPad?
Yet another option is to get married, have children, and then realize that starting a startup is still possible.

More generally: Never listen to anyone who says your demographic can't start a startup. They're wrong.
I think the author intended the post to be a macroeconomic critique, with personal details given as analogies.

Macroeconomic reasoning by analogy, especially personal ones, is not very rigorous, and can sound defeatist; the same article could perhaps be more rigorously written from a more academic perspective with statistics rather than personal analogies.

However, there is a certain subset of HN who don't seem to get macroeconomics - every time anyone discusses it, people come up with microeconomic solutions that wouldn't scale.
If programming is now attracting more mainstream interest as you said, I wonder if the pedagogy of disseminating programming knowledge will change. Will the educators (I can't think of a less formal word for this, but basically refers to anyone that wants to share knowledge, whether pros or amateurs) now approach teaching in a way that does not assume someone has been tinkering with Unix since they were 5, but instead cater to an audience of post-secondary and/or adult learners, including those of us that are career switchers? A section of O'Reilly's materials certainly serves this segment, but will the greater tech community cater to this new group of learners?
My son have jumped on it stood on it and stamped on it. Not a single scratch or loss of performance. It is a pretty sturdy piece of hardware
People aren't going to run their own server.

Why do people keep repeating this fallacy? People won't have to. None of these projects are focused on single-user P2P approach. For all of 30 seconds, Diaspora insinuated that, but that was before they had actually written any code.

If you feel these projects (including mine) is a joke, I'd love to hear feedback why, but please don't repeat falsehoods about how the software is meant to be used.
Oh, for the good old days when the only movies Hollywood made were westerns, cop shows, and slasher films.
Curious that the Verizon version is lighter.

Weight: 1.35 pounds (613 g) (AT&T)

Weight: 1.34 pounds (607 g) (Verizon)
And the NYT only needs a few hundred journalists and editors
Think of all the jobs for town cryers and handbill printers that it destroyed.
> Formal systems will usually tell you when specs are outright contradictory.

Right, and I'm sure they're useful when designing avionics software. But how many web browsers have specifications, let alone specifications that can be subjected to that kind of analysis? Doesn't every user have a potentially self-contradictory and possibly insane 'specification' for 'web browser' in their head, and don't they think it's a bug when that 'specification' is not adhered to?

Maybe I should have just said there are two kinds of software: Software that is an implementation of a mostly-stable specification, like a POSIX-compliant OS or the aforementioned avionics software, and software for which no specification, or at least no stable specification, exists, such as web browsers and text editors.
North Korea is almost entirely dark at night
I think Apple went out of their way to make it seem like iPad2 is a long-running product:
- end of video, Ive saying "iPad2 will define the category for years to come"
- 2011: the year of iPad2

Both of these are, I believe, explicit attempts to make people NOT think a new iPad3 is coming soon (so people won't wait, and will buy now instead), but in reality these two things perhaps support the iPad3 in September rumors...
FMV killed adventure games
Imperative vs Declarative Scenarios in User Stories
Sure, he earned his right to say it. But pretty much everyone has a right to speak their mind. That doesn't change the fact that this is an opinion, albeit one from a creator of the field.

Stroustrup says things all the time that I do not agree with. It's important to remember that appeal to authority is a logical fallacy -- just because he's well known doesn't mean he is necessarily correct.

Also, as you mention, he is coming at things from a totally different perspective. He probably couldn't care less if everyone is unable to be productive in his favorite language, as long as it met his standards (which do not seem to include many practical or productivity concerns).
Interesting. Is this similar to CouldLinux? http://www.cloudlinux.com
Innovations in UI Design
Yep, just your average Pole.
HarperCollins imposes lending count limits on library e-books starting March 7
Yup, you're right!!! Fixed my comment, I get mixed up because I love those companies and both of them have ex-lucasarts people
Until there's a Free Utilities Foundation, or even a Free Infrastructure Foundation, there won't be a 'free' facebook.
"Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom"

This is correct. The idea is to keep out non-liberal and opposing viewpoints. I wonder how many left-leaning media outlets in Canada are viewed as the "truth"?

This entire article is about vilifying fox news and completely leaving out organizations such as: NPR, CNN, and MSNBC (which are all left-leaning).

It's a little ironic that an article that is so against partisan news outlets is.....partisan.
I'm sure someone who has studied politics way more than I have will come in here and point out that I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground, and that's fine.

Hello! :)

Socialism, Communism, et all are very broad terms. It would behoove any points you make to not use them pejoratively, because they are simply too broad to use in the way you're using them. Especially utopianism, which no more describes socialists than it describes many capitalists.

You could make an argument that the FSF follows the ideals of a very soft libertarian socialism, but that's a stretch.

The FSF is very single-issue, they don't talk about social equality, they don't even have a critique of capitalism and wages. If they're communists, they're particularly undeveloped ones.
Unless I'm writing training material for novices, I write code with the assumption that anyone else maintaining it is reasonably competent with the languages, libraries, and tools in question. That to me is a minimal requirement.
Speaking of Steam - the OMM authors Chet and Erik have been working at Valve for years.
New Jersey early stage startup is looking for locals. Show your NJ love.

Hiring software engineers and mobile app developers.

Java, JavaScript, AJAX (JQuery, Prototype, ExtJS) with a working knowledge of Spring MVC Framework and a sprinkling of C# wouldnt hurt.

jobs@iqtell.com
Gary Vaynerchuk Coming to Dallas May 25th
Any corporation is a very large organisation, the people who design the phones aren't working two jobs .. there are different departments which create and depend upon different revenue streams. In any case, the hardware is SOLD to the consumer, not given away. I don't understand your point.

I was simply stating stream would make a better comparison than a console manufacturer selling games on physical media.
Have you ever read up on ILOC and ELOC? I'm not sure if it's just pop psych but I found it a good example to explain to people the importance of owning your life and outcomes.

Basically people with a high internal locus of control drive change and own the outcomes (good or bad). People with an external locus of control accept change and blame external factors for the outcomes. Distinct difference in the happiness / satisfaction between the groups, if I recall correctly.
Don't look now but Adsense and every other ad network can track your movements online too! In keeping with their Facebook stance, FSF should block the GoogleBot and get off of Google too.
The percentage of good movies coming out of Hollywood has always been low. This idea that there was a mythical time when movies were great is nonsense.

The problem is, we tend to only remember the handful of great movies made back when. Nobody recalls the acres of dreck.

The other issue that Hollywood can't recognize a hit in the making was always true. Nobody ever thought Casablanca would be anything other than a throwaway time filler. Star Wars was a completely unanticipated hit, even by the people who made it. Etc.
This is the core difference between information manufacture and real good manufacturing.

Real goods, such as the Chevy Malibu, have a pyramid of raw materials starting with ore mining, through smelting, through plastics creation, through tooling, to piecework to sub-assemblies, to assemblies to product.

Information goods on the other hand start with generally lower value information which gets collected and distributed and refined into higher value information. An inverted pyramid if you will.

And unlike ore, which once its in a Chevy Malibu is locked up 'forever', the information that is created can be re-used in an infinte number of additional products.

Consider a contructed example of company A which makes their money selling the current stock ticker from the NYSE, to company B, which takes that data and does analysis on it to create trading strategies for resale, which are purchased by company C which uses the trading strategies combined with capital acquisition from clients to make their money.

A completely different company, Q, might take the same stock ticker information from company A and make a large LED sign which can display it and sell those.

So the same 'information ore' is used in two separate product streams. There can be dozens of such streams. So evaluating the value of Facebook's information by the number of people Facebook employs really misstates the economic impact of a company like Facebook.

"The argument that the information world is the first to stack industries on other industries is fallacious, and misses the point entirely: Information doesn't take labor for every instance of product."

I don't believe I made either of these claims.

To be clear, the claims I make are;
1) Evaluating the information economy using the 'rules' of the real goods economy fails.
2) The information that Facebook and Google create is more analagous to the ore someone might mine out of a mountain than the end product of vehicle brakes. (the real goods example used in the article).

I will grant you an example of someone making money off creating after market products for the Chevy Malibu as a valid post production economic activity, I know of no examples where people have collected Chevy Malibus and then turned them into a product that itself had mass market appeal.

It is the distinctive characteristic that information can be combined into new information which has its own intrinsic value, without losing or consuming the source information (ie removing its ability to take part in additional economic activity) that, for me, differentiates the two economic models.
Yeah, where's the Apple logo, right?
Syberia I & II, The Longest Journey/Dreamfall are a couple of amazing adventure game series. Neither are exactly recent (2004 and 2007 respectively), but they're still full of atmosphere and enjoyable to play.
Hey Jon, good to see you on HN. I guess that's one draw back on a descriptive name, it is much harder to change your branding.
I don't know why there's a general "mentorship" trend recently and I have a visceral dislike of that particular term but I do know that my efforts to learn programming became dramatically more effective when I had someone helping me. There are so many unknown unknowns for a new programmer, having someone to just help nudge you in the right direction occasionally is tremendously useful. If that person is also a good coder, then you're more likely to start out with good habits. Bad habits in general are difficult to unlearn and if you're learning by yourself, you're unaware that you're even forming habits.
> I'm not holding my breath on Hollywood. If movies have hope, it's from the indy scene doing interesting things on small budgets.

Yes, and foreign films from some of the worlds great directors like Pedro Almodovar, Michael Haneke, Claire Denis, and Fatih Akin. Some of the best of cinema is coming from as you mentioned independent projects, and foreign titles like A Prophet (Un prophete) and Dogtooth (Kynodontas).
I think the key here is set some short-term goals. Although it's important to have some long-term, you need to get the ball rolling. Set some short-term/easily attainable goals that way you'll have some successes to build off of.
As an employee, you have to do what your employer tells you. If you do not, you will not have the means to continue feeding yourself and putting a roof over your head. As an employee, the vast bulk of the wealth you create will never end up in your hands - it will end up in the hands of people who did not do your work.

How exactly is that not exploitation? What would you call it?

"The market helps that happen."

The market helps whoever has the most money, or the most of a scarce resource.
The families have a right to a certain level of privacy, but this took place in public and protests were given restrictions on how close they could be by local authorities.
Promoting cross-cultural understanding through food and art
Plus, Telltale just announced the revival of the King's Quest series. It doesn't get a whole lot more adventure than that.
The Facebook crowd is 500m people. The number who even know what BitTorrent is compared to that is a rounding error.
I've been meaning to buy one of these for my parents for some time now. They rarely do anything other than email, surf the web and photos. The improvements (especially the speed bump and cameras) finally give me a 'features' justification for buying it for them.
This, more or less.

A couple of additional notes:

1) It's been demonstrated, statistically, that most studio development executives perform worse than random chance at picking hits.

2) In absence of any proven system for picking winners, studios have entered a game of risk mitigation rather than benefit maximization. What does this mean? Fewer gambles on unknown IP, less new IP all around, and so forth -- essentially, fewer chances taken on unknown commodities. More bet-hedging on sequels and reboots, and more rehashing of formulaic content.