skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thanks. We toyed with the idea of charging different prices based on age. The problems we encountered are.

1) difficult to verify age online
2) creates a weird step when registering [who asks for my age when I register for a site?]
3) impression it gives to older users.

We realize that this is standard practice in the insurance world (likelihood of a young person passing away is significantly lower than an older person) but we don’t think this is something we should be doing with an online service… What do you think? How can we make it better?
Yeah I can't figure out if "end of the low-cost startup" means that VCs are going to have to pay a lot since there have been so many big investments recently, or if it's about the infrastructure costs you noted.
A new way to read HN a la Flipboard
Right up until you have nothing to plug it into.
Review My App: WhoMails.Me. Scrape Your GMail Account For Contacts
Mary Meeker's USA Inc Turnaround Plan
In short, agile, user-centered design tends to ignore the aesthetic, intangible, ambient qualities that good experiences are all about.

This is an interesting statement. It sheds light on the fact that different internet sub-cultures value different things. I think your stereotypical "startup guy" will not think twice about throwing up a prosaic, uninspiring website. If it communicates the value proposition to the prospective customer, then it's done it's job.

But if you look at great brands (Nike, Apple, Coke to a lesser extent) - they create an emotional experience that makes you care about something. They appeal to values. It's not about utility, it's about identity. The more you can get people to identify with your brand, the more you can drive demand. At the base level, what is demand other than an emotional drive?
Yeah, being able to restate an argument you've called crazy is a "trap". Give me a break.

Seriously, the goal here is to have mature discussions. If you aren't even willing to back up your assertions, just don't post.
Can you describe how a market would work if everybody thought about it the way you're thinking about it?

Why should I bother? Can you describe how the world would look if everybody just used drove diesels, or everyone stopped driving SUVs? None of these things is ever going to happen.

That's a fallacy you're using there, BTW.
Last sentence of the article has the phrase "sufficiently intelligent compilers". :) Intentional in-joke? Wikipedia's definition: "Sufficiently Smart Compiler, any of a family of theoretically possible compilers able to perform sophisticated but unrealistic code optimizations"

> Given sufficiently intelligent compilers, Itanium could begin to make economic sense in fields that couldn't previously justify the high cost of optimizing for the chip.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22sufficiently+smart+compiler%22
This is all really cool stuff, but I can't help but thinking they've got a dozen or so separate packages here. They've also re-invented the wheel at every turn. All new wrapper for the Twitter API and every search engine? All new graphing library for JavaScript.

Don't get me wrong, this is all awesome, but a lot of it could have been re-used from better sources without having to spend time working on random API wrappers and the like. I would definitely like to know the reasoning behind creating everything from scratch.
+ Interesting interface and grippy buttons.

o How about let users see (and probably take) a few example questions on the frontpage?

- The categories page looks the same, whether I am logged in or not. If I'm not logged in the "Go" buttons won't work. That's friction, get rid of it.
Ha. There is always paralells and win xp if you want to be slow. But for the rest of the time i am so fast on os x. I had to do some automation programming and that was the only way to do it.
Yep, Apple charges royalty on the 30 pin conector, which varies in cost depending on what it's used for. You have to be enrolled in Apple's MiFi program too. Apple makes money everywhere.
I'm getting the 15" for just that reason. The extra weight is worth having two vim buffers side by side.
OS X definitely starts to nag if you dont update in awhile.
PCB Crafting
IMO, nearly all of the icons on the side of the laptop don't make sense. The headphones are clearly recognizable, and the rest are just pretty shapes. I'd argue that the headphone jack is the only place you actually need the icon, since it shares the same shape as the goatse-plug next to it (whatever that's supposed to be).
very true - my mistake.
I could, however, be very much on the mark - if we account for the frequent coupons that Dell puts out.
A/B test anything with Var.to, a link shortener with variable destinations
JavaScript, Python, and Ruby project index
simple = good.
Google adds collaboration support to Microsoft Office
CamanJS- Javascript Library for Image Manipulation
Finally, a way to delete your facebook account without that impossible to pass 2-week grace period.
Startups != great brands. Most startups have products that are not finished, means they suck for the most part. Hence it's more important to get the message right and have a product that works. The examples that you gave have websites that take a lot of energy and resources. Both are in short supply in startups and much more needed on the product side.
The IDC prediction chart is a thing of beauty. I'd love to have a webpage just for seeing data like this (predictions vs reality). Must be one of the best charts I've seen in a while.
when the 11" Macbook Air gets Thunderbolt and a newer generation of processors, I will be first in line to pick one up.

Compact size, internal SSD, and only two cords to plug in each time I sit down - power and data - and data happens to also carry video to a large external monitor setup.
Also, it looks like they're now selling software as well as HW solutions. That's potentially more interesting than when it was just an appliance solution.
I would have preferred the title, "Recognize who you're working with"

I have worked with many programmers and it's not always readily apparent who is better than me and who is not. And of course, some are better than me in some things but not others.

We don't always have the luxury of choosing who we work with, and have even less chance of only picking those better than us. So it's probably more practical to learn which habits to emulate and which to avoid in those we actually do encounter.

For example, that database whiz may suck at algoritms, so just because you learned one great thing from him, it does not necessarily follow that you should learn others. Also, I have often found a big difference between the perceptions of others (especially bosses and users) and my own assessment of their skills.

There is something to be learned from everyone. Just get good at figuring out "what" from "whom".
also simple. also good.
Begin Nomad Mode
I sure hope the auto-save "feature" can be disabled...
this is not a rhetorical question - would you say that a similarly priced Dell warranty cover (what we call CompleteCover in Asia: it includes accidental damage protection) is worse than a walk-in Apple Genius support ?

Dell's coverage is usually next day onsite.
At my last job we were allowed to spend the occasional day at home, but we were generally expected to be in the office. I have a few friends that work exclusively remotely, but they didn't begin that way. They worked for a few years at a company, and for one reason or another moved to a new city. Their employers decided to keep them, so they let them work remotely.

Inc magazine had an article a while ago about working remotely (http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100401/the-case-and-the-plan-f...). Thought it was interesting. I'm curious as to whether or not more people are starting new jobs exclusively as a remote employee.
https://www.readability.com/bookmarklets

The version of the bookmarket I use [edited to code, because its length was mucking up the whole page]

javascript:(function(){readConvertLinksToFootnotes=false;readStyle='style-newspaper';readSize='size-medium';readMargin='margin-wide';_readability_script=document.createElement('script');_readability_script.type='text/javascript';_readability_script.src='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability.js?x=+(Math.random());document.documentElement.appendChild(_readability_script);_readability_css=document.createElement('link');_readability_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability.css;_readability_css.type=text/css;_readability_css.media=all;document.documentElement.appendChild(_readability_css);_readability_print_css=document.createElement(link);_readability_print_css.rel=stylesheet;_readability_print_css.href=http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability-print.css;_readability_print_css.media=print;_readability_print_css.type=text/css;document.getElementsByTagName(head)[0].appendChild(_readability_print_css);})();
Having just bought my third DVI adapter for my MBP, I am underwhelmed that Apple is building an external i/o bus around this connector. They wear out very quickly.
What's the best platform for a high score on Canabalt?
It's perhaps worth noting that Motorola has a rather dismal track record when it comes to updating their Android products. The Droid doesn't have 2.3, the Milestone still doesn't have 2.2 -- and those were their flagship products.

If the Xoom is open and hackable, go nuts. I'm sure people will create good custom ROMs (just don't expect any official ones beyond 3.1 or so). If it's locked down like the Milestone, I'd stay far far away.
Strange. I never had any problems with my Thinkpads, but my Macbook has had several. The plastic casing is brittle and just breaks off after a certain amount of time, the battery died and needed replacing, the hard drive died and needed replacing and the power supply died and needed replacing too.

Seriously considering getting one of these new Thinkpads and sticking Ubuntu on it. Maybe the T420 or T520.
Looks like that's gonna be the case. Finder in 10.7 apparently hides $HOME/Library/, so you will have to bust out the terminal to remove b0rken settings.
I am still waiting for a 13" Macbook Air with an Apple ARM processor, 10 hours of battery, RAM upgradeable to 8GB and 512gb SSD drive by default, for less than $1500. Hopefully it'll be out in a year. Maybe two.

Lugging around my Core2Duo MBP weighing at over 2kg does get quite tiring. :( I need its battery life though.
1) true
2) true, but keep in mind that this bandwidth is shared by the entire bus.
Thunderbolt may work thru the 30 pin conector, needs four lanes of copper. We should know Tuesday if they do it with the iPad 2.
It sounds great but most places seem to hire based on current abilities or previous accomplishments, not potential, so how does one go about implementing this advice for anything other than an entry level position?
My co-hacker and I have a solution for IM conversations that we love: http://yootles.com/nims
I dug around for some cached files and found the following:

Why:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H52osT6...

Getting it:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0I8CMo0...

from the second link I found it's hosted here:

http://www.infochimps.com/collections/million-songs

where you can download a subset as well as the whole thing. I'm downloading the subset now, so I can't comment on the cleanliness or schema yet.
Yes. Whenever you enroll, all current member benefits are available to you.

You'll also be able to download the latest 10.6.7 build if you'd like.
Thanks. I haven't experienced the problem with the Go-buttons. I will investigate that.
Without wanting to be too pedantic, I'd need to see a privacy policy before you get past the "A third-party service is requesting permission to access your Google Account." page.

I'm also not 100% what the content of the email you send me will be. A list of people who email me? What format will the export be in?

Nice landing page though!
Thunderstruck?

Snarky I know but I just couldn't help myself.
I am pretty much the same way. I got a 13" mb a bit before the unibody was announced and the got the 15" in late 2009. Great machine and still very fast. I LOVE it and am amazed at how useful it is to have a computer that you trust to come out of sleep so quickly and that has good battery life. I only wish I have the 15" with the higher resolution screen.
Space might be an issue but it's also strategic. I need the higher-resolution screens and have bought (and will continue to buy) the 15" versions even though I don't really need the better CPU or GPU. I'm sure there are many others like me who grudgingly or not will fork over the extra cash.
Show HN: My script to get all iPad games on sale from the App Store
Decided to use the weekend to play around with the iTunes API so I made a site just for iPad games.

I'm always looking for a good iPad game (love the iPad as a gaming platform) so I've been pulling iPad games from the app store nightly (for last 3 nights) and comparing their prices.

Out of roughly 9K games that I could find 20 go on sale every day.

So far I've saved a whopping $4 on games and it took me 3 days to write it. If I got a weekend job anywhere else I'd probably make much more money than I saved and be able to buy more games than I did but where is the fun in that.

I know appshopper does deals but I just wanted a way to get discounted iPad games every day.
And The Rural Juror.
CamanJS - Image Manipulation in Javascript
Most programmers would, but any non-technical people would think that you could hire a programmer to do the same thing for $1000.
An extreme version is to work for energy, not money. Instead of choosing clients, customers, markets, suppliers, angels based on profitability (or future profitability), base it on energy.

There's a reasonable probability that energy will translate into value creation and then into money, anyway.
And even if not, would you rather be full-of-life and poor, or half-dead and rich? (to dichotomize for dramatic contrast.)
$50 is also too low. Price according to the value you generate. You generate obvious value in three ways:

(1) Company operators waste tons of time coming up with names. SWAG the number of hours you think people typically take to settle on a name (it took us several days). Back that out to a dollar figure by dividing the typical yearly salary of a funded company operator by $2000 and multiplying by hours.

(2) Companies frequently rename. Put a dollar figure on the cost of a company rename 6 months in, then multiple that by the percentage risk you think the typical company has of renaming (how many renames do you see? how many companies do you think there are in your market?).

(3) Better names generate business (or, they ostensibly do). By the way, I'd probably use Mint vs. Wesabe as my primary example here, since both sides mentioned Mint's name as a key asset.

There is no way these three factors add up to just $50.

A side benefit of charging something closer to your value is, working with people who think $20 is OK but $50 is too much will absolutely inevitably cause you heartache. The people that think $50 is too much are going to be bad customers (as a group). For any business, be it outsourced order management for prop trading firms or hobby figurine sales, $50 is a rounding error.

Geeks have a hard time remembering that pricing isn't just about optimizing customer acquisition vs. customer value. It's also a key component of your positioning. If you charge hobbyist rates, you will serve the hobbyist market. Look at graphic design. It is very possible to get good-looking illustration done near your price point, but impossible to get it done by anyone with a reputation. Designers that serve real companies charge multiple orders of magnitude more just for piecework. And real companies wouldn't dream of slumming with the $50-$100 illustrators, even when those people have more talent. Pick the market you want to serve, and then tailor the price point to that.
The dock connector is actually wide enough to allow the device to dock! So don't expect it to go away while docking is a priority for Apple's design decisions.
The article makes some excellent points with regards to not throwing out existing/working code and knowledge. There's quite a few good articles about the problems of full code rewrites.

Regarding the "glue" reference, given the increasing popularity of JS on the client-side and server-side this is clearly becoming more true. Beyond business logic of your app (the one area where PHP can hold you back on large projects) more and more code is moving to the client-side. For a small to mid-size web app, it's entirely possible to write everything on the client-side and use PHP only for DB / Model interactions (and there are some excellent MVC frameworks to help with that -- Kohana for example).
The Dell XPS is a desktop-replacement laptop. Fast, but bulky. I doubt it has wonderful battery life. It's probably got a cheap case. Resale value will be low.

Comparing Apples to Apples, you might look at high-end Sony laptops. The MBP 13" close to the S series, both in price and quality. The F series (big, bulky powerhouse) is much cheaper, and has much better specs - but it's a desktop replacement (like the Dell XPS 15).

Apple doesn't make desktop-replacement laptops. It doesn't even make desktops! I wish it did - I'd love a $1500 Apple mini-tower, and a $1000 MacBook (not Pro) 17", but it's just not going to happen.
good call, I'll add in a TOS. In general, it's "we're not touching your data"

And you receive back a CSV of names/emails
Inside Sina Weibo -- China's Twitter
You're just annoyed that you made a bad decision with your money, and feel that someone else should shoulder the blame. Yet somehow it isn't the fault of the active investors who take all that expense cash in return for consistently unperforming; no sir, blame the indexers! Is this what your "Financial Advisor" told you while he was skimming 1-5% off the top?

In other news, Buggy Whip Owner Considers Cars Harmful (Possibly Evil).
You're showing your disconnection with popular vernacular with your assertion. I'm 22 and girls around me call each other bitches casually (in a friendly, fun way) all the time.

You certainly don't speak on the behalf of any women I know.

Anyways, holla out to my HN bitches.
Strangely you show Ruby 1.8.7 but not Ruby 1.9 or JRuby ;-)

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/which-programming-lang...
That's probably only true because you hear about it here, which is a very self-selective group, who tend to lean towards Ruby, Python and the "popular" trends. In the PHP community being like ruby, or rails is not necessarily a plus and can in fact may be a negative depending on what you're trying to accomplish.

Frankly I'm sick of articles such as these, as if the author is pleading with this selective community that it's OK to use PHP. Somewhat sickening. They should feel confident in the tools they use without having to justify it to anybody.
Yes. It looks like you would have to implement USB on top of PCIe in the monitor, though.

> Intel's Thunderbolt controllers interconnect a PC and other devices, transmitting and receiving packetized traffic for both PCIe and DisplayPort protocols. Thunderbolt technology works on data streams in both directions, at the same time, so users get the benefit of full bandwidth in both directions, over a single cable.

http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm
Decided to use the weekend to play around with the iTunes API so I made a site just for iPad games.

I'm always looking for a good iPad game (love the iPad as a gaming platform) so I've been pulling iPad games from the app store nightly (for last 3 nights) and comparing their prices.

Out of roughly 9K games that I could find 20 go on sale every day.

So far I've saved a whopping $4 on games and it took me 3 days to write it. If I got a weekend job anywhere else I'd probably make much more money than I saved and be able to buy more games than I did but where is the fun in that.

I know appshopper does deals but I just wanted a way to get discounted iPad games every day.
Launch: Livestream; open to public (SF)
Design of a(n unusual) Reporting System
Really funny joke taken from Apple's Thunderbolt page !
Super simple, and really useful. I can imagine a few different use cases for this!
Red Dirt Rubyconf 2010 Videos Free Online
As soon as I have an idea. Some ideas don't get far, and I therefore have no few one commit repositories floating around, but so what?
…but it doesn't install updates and restart your computer without permission.
98% or 99% uptime isn't good enough for the people you know? Or are you suggesting that their uptime is significantly lower than that?
AOL Exec David Eun Out – Here’s His Email To Staff
The Hyperpublic Programming Challenge
I'm with you. On the other hand, considering that I had just bought a top-of-the-line 17'' MBP 3 months ago, the frugal part of me was actually dreading the prospect of an MBA-like MBP sans optical drive, because that's pretty much my dream machine right now. Would have been pretty hard to resist doing the foolish thing and upgrade again after just 3 months. As it is, I look forward to upgrade next year, pretty sure that's gonna be the date then. Personally speaking, makes that much more financial sense now. ;-) Now I just need to decide whether to spring for an optibay in the meantime...
Why is that a boneheaded move? I think that 1280x800 fits plenty of information on a 13" screen. I usually run an external display for more space.

If anything, 1400x900 on the new MBA seems a little bit small (and Apple doesn't allow you to bump the size of everything up like you can in Windows). It's interesting that 1680x1050 is still an upcharge on the 15".
I think they use s-ips screens in the 15" and up. Not sure about the newer 13" but the older one was tn which is junk. A lot of manufacturers use tn which has probably the lowest quality of the different types of screens.
Transphorm improves AC-DC conversion efficiency
I could see this being really useful for contact emails addresses (like contact@mycompany.com). This would be perfect to pull out all those addresses of people that have contacted you to include in a newsletter or update.
Any news on the resolution on the 14" models? I'm still looking for a competitor for the display on my three or four year old sony: 13.3" with a 1600x900 display. The new Sony laptops do full 1080p at 13.3", but Sony really doesn't like linux, so I'd love to get a different brand. If only there were somebody else making high-DPI laptops...

UPDATED:

Noticed the Tech Specs PDF. Looks like the 14" does offer a 1600x900 resolution, so that's really cool. I'll have to see what the configurations look like once that part of the page is working (in late march, apparently). Thanks for the link!
Lenovo needs to get its head out of it's ass and release anything so I can upgrade my 4:3 X61s. I hate widescreen.
Psychologist Clarifies Bulletstorm Comments
Yah, I am pretty sure in the next year or two we will see that most typical use case for tablets will be vi/emacs, not
web browsing, e-books and consumption of information in general.

On the serious note, I am pretty sure single-app-for-single task will be dominant paradigm on tablets.
And just take a look at some features of OS X 10.7…

Are you seriously suggesting that switching apps makes you more productive?
Put the "Add New" form on your homepage. Burying that form behind three pages creates way too much friction.
Cool. Small copy change you might consider is something like "We export your Gmail contacts. And email them to you." Maybe also a sample of what the email's going to look like.
You'd use AJAX to load the elements, so it doesn't show as loading. And you make sure the user never sees the empty space, given normal scrolling speed, by loading the area around the visible screen. Certainly not worse than extending the page when the user reaches the bottom, as some sites do.