skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What "new and exciting" is on the web?

After I dumped Windows, moved to Linux and especially after bought a Mac I actually started enjoying installing and exploring new (to me) software. I can honestly say that these programs changed the way I work or even think about something: ssh, gvim, quicksilver and (oh yes) multi-touch on the latest MBP.

So far there is only one online application I use: gmail (dumped POP3 clients long ago) and it isn't particularly exciting.

Everything else is the same old online stuff: ever-changing flavors of news reading, talking to people, humor, etc. Just like it was last year, just like it had always been. Always, even before Internet, when I was on FIDO.

Apple makes computers fun again: there is a lot of cool stuff to play with. Do you realize that while everyone is drooling over little piece of online advertisement money, Apple is actually milking the desktop? Sometimes I wish PG didn't do Viaweb, but rather did something in consumer software space, YC'd been much more interesting.
plz let me know if it does - i think at one point there were so many comments going in at the same time that funny stuff was happening with wordpress
Daring Fireball on Tim Bray on Mobile Software Development
UI design != UI function - I have had to explain that way too many times. Interface Design = Interaction Design + Visual Design + Information Architecture
Myspace How-To For The Sleazy | My Philly Network
and the firefox default homepage is techcrunch.com and yes, you cannot change it according to the EULA..

now you see it.. ah...
So sort of like a command line for web services?
Stop Email Overload and Break Silos Using Wikis, Blogs, and IM
Patronize sites that accept OpenID: http://blog.clickpass.com/2008/05/04/clickpass-in-more-place...
Hacker News is just Digg or Reddit without categories.
you can finish my sentences with whatever you want for however long you want. the conclusion is that no matter what anybody does there will always be people like you who find it easier to troll
our supply chain guys sourced it - we haven't set yet if we are going LCD or exact specific specs (we need to run power tests). the dual touch pad sitting behind it is coming out of a company that hasn't seen their tech integrated into a major product yet.

im sorry we cant mention company names just yet - we are doing this through proxy (ie. using a supply chain company, design firm and manufacturer). I am hoping I can publish the full tech details at some point in the next 24h and we can go from there
haha def not
Sounds like you're suggesting tackling verticals that Google is ignoring.

The celebrity gossip industry is huge as anyone living in LA or who has bought a Star/People/Enquirer can attest. I think that might fall under the category of news, however.

I think that there might be a strength in ranking sites that have great design as opposed to crappy design. All things being equal, I'd rather read an article on a well designed page rather than on a page whose design is non-existent.
Volcanic eruptions wiped out ocean life 93 million years ago
Clone Wars | My Philly Network
Why is it so very bad that this leaked?
As long as it's for fun and you don't plan on making money with this, it seems okay.
An Atom-based laptop, maybe? I don't think that the Eee or Wind are proper competitors, but even the most expensive versions cost around half what a basic MacBook costs. People are willing to forgive a lot for that sort of price differential.

It's nice to dream, anyways.
The iPhone 3G is Game-Changing; Game-Ending for Google Android, Blackberry?
great. I haven't made it through buffet's letters, but from the one's I've read I've always been very very impressed. Also worth reading are the writings by Buffet's business partner, Charlie Munger ( with this one being my favorite => The Psychology of Human Misjudgement => http://vinvesting.com/docs/munger/human_misjudgement.html).
New York Times, LinkedIn Enter Content Recommendation Partnership
Ask YC: what desktop software do you want?
After following the web sphere for a while I've grown a little bored of web sites: seriously, how many slightly different ways of "discover and share from anywhere!" can there be? Perhaps I'm not a typical Internet user: I have no issues with "finding relevant content", my email is not "overloaded" and I find it trivially easy to stay in touch with people I care about. Even downloading free music isn't that hard. I open about one or two accounts on various web sites every week but never use anything except for google services and a couple of forums (including this one). When I forget my password, or even feel lazy to deal with a login form, I usually move on.

But I do have computer-related problems that need solutions and web sites won't help. For instance I do a lot of photo/imaging work and RAW converters along with Adobe's monopoly in image processing is frustrating. I also haven't found a backup program that my friends could use without my help. Online "equivalents" of these two problems only make me think "are you serious?" I also always wanted to have a magical CD, that can, with a click of a button, convert a brand new Dell or HP computer into NORMAL tool, not infected by intrusive shitware beyond recognition.

Look at a typical non-technical user running Windows: the bastard is ALWAYS in some kind of pain: I get phone calls regarding some kind of computer problem all the time. People at large fight with their computers on a regular basis, isn't that a problem worth solving?

What I am seeing is that a whole class of real, everyday problems is being completely ignored and most of the development moved on to building online time wasters in pursuit of a piece of advertisement money. But what is happening around me is this: after wasting half day on reddits, youtubes and diggs, people just moan and get back to work - muscling their way through current crop of desktop software. This is why Apple kicks so much ass if you can afford it. But even Apple software often feels like a bare minimum they had to provide in order to avoid being just a browser launcher.

Am I the only one who feels that innovators got chased off desktop by Microsoft a long time ago and they never went back?

Is there some kind of software that you want?
no explicit mention of erlang, unfortunately. it must have been pretty low on the radar back in 2001.
I know that PHP isn't so popular with the hackers here (at least not as popular as Python) but does anyone know an App Engine style service for PHP?

I heard that Yahoo! was going to release something of the sort, but heard nothing about that from that point.
At the moment I have 9 desktop applications open and only 1 web application open (and I'm writing it!). Desktop apps certainly have their place.
There isn't much help or documentation available for this, but I managed to find the following pages:

http://codeigniter.com/forums/viewthread/75326/

on that page are listed some expanded examples

PHP example: http://sanderkorvemaker.nl/test/flexigrid/
RoR example: http://www.nickfessel.com/
I have no idea what this does on page launch, and the manifesto is unprofessional (a turn off).
Great idea. Most likely recipients of a streamfile dont know what a "stream" as opposed to a "file" so in the recipients email, the subj shouldnt be "you have a new stream..." it should be "You have a file...". This will help minimize users passing it over as spam.
This is asking for speculative work on an awe-inspiring scale, and I find it brazenness to be a bit hard to swallow. Arrington wants other people to build something he wants, and will not pay them for it. Instead, he is offering a promise to eventually open source the design specs.

Regardless of whether or not this project ever amounts to anything, and I don't believe it will without an individual at the epicenter with the talent and taste to make final decisions on all details, this is a scam for those who are contributing to it. I hate spec work posing itself as generosity, and the humanitarian effort this most closely resembles is King Leopold in the Congo.
Rate/review my start - vyew.com - web conferencing
We've been around for a while, but ui still needs work. Since theres been so much good criticism of other startups on HN, I thought I'd ask for reviews - specifically on product usability.
We've been around for a while, but the UI needs some work. Since there was so much good criticism of others' "rate my startups", I thought I'd give it a try. Im specifically looking for feedback on UI/Usability of the product. Thx.
Or using the checker on the side bar of Kaminsky's site: http://www.doxpara.com/
Very nice link. It's incredible how thin and flexible they are. Do you know what the time frame of launch is on these and the prices?
Quick SSD Windows XP startup sequence
I was trying Safari so I'm guessing it's only FF that's broken.
A Year of Blogging
I'm assuming because some DNS servers have not been patched and now more potential attackers have access to this information making an attack more likely.
It always seems like it works out this way. Secret sources to be named "soon". Untested near-products that aren't quite ready for release...

Lets do it with stuff we can get and see what happens:

Main Board: (truly open, schematics and all) : http://beagleboard.org/ ($149)

Screen : Lilliput 8" 1024x768 touch screen (http://www.case-mod.com/lilliput-809gl80npct-lcd-touch-scree...) ($259)

Network : 802.11g wifi (http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Wi-Fi.html) ($30)

Battery: 7.4v LiIon 5200mAh (4 hours run) http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&... ($50)

Case: Injection Mold plastic (http://www.emachineshop.com/molding_machines/injection_moldi...) ($10)

Cost to build a single one, ignoring volume discounts and cost to assemble: $498. Being able to make one without a proxy (ie. using a supply chain company, design firm and manufacturer). : Priceless.
Web applications are certainly important but especially on the Mac there is a nice collection of well designed applications that people actually pay for.
Flowers by Botanical Names
East of the gfhfghf
Two assumptions:

A) The profit margin will stay at 35% until this new product is released.

b) This product won't be announced until August 19th at the earliest.

That means if the plan is to have a 30% unit margin at the end of the quarter, they are going to have something like a 25% margin for the second half of the quarter. Now since they are reducing the margin, we know they are planning to increase the volume. An atom laptop, while it would be cool, just doesn't have the potential to move several million units within the first month, which is roughly what it would take to lower the margins by that much. In fact, there is literally no new product that Apple could introduce that would sell enough units within the first month to lower the per unit margins by 10%. So the change must involve some existing product.

I think there are two realistic options here. First, they just reduce plain reduce the price of the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. A real possibility. Second, they add an expensive component to one of their existing products. While Blueray or DDR3 would cost enough to make the numbers add up, there is no way either of those would generate enough excitement to create the extra volume Apple is looking for. So I think if they add a new component to an existing product, the only real option is SSD. Either they make SSD standard in all MacBooks, or else they replace the normal iPod with an iPod touch with way more SSD than it currently has. At least to my thinking, either a price cut or SSD are the only ways I can see the numbers adding up for Q4.
Interesting. My original iPhone became very unstable after being jailbroken. So far I haven't had any problems with the iPhone 3G.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with all the other features like GPS, a brand new contacts app, a better calendar app, push support, etc. Yes, it must be the DRM.
Awesome graphical demo written in 8.5k of Atmel assembly (vid)
YC is not optimized for iphone
the vote buttons are so small! And in non wide screen it's tons of accidental headline taps .... Arrgh
this is too slow, but it costs $6. http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php#ts-7800-seri...

What can you get for $50 worth of embedded mainboard?
Ask HN: How do you know if you're becoming a better hacker?
Do you rely on the input of others, or do you just trust yourself to make a fair assessment?
I'm seeing

"x.x.x.x is POOR: 26 queries in 2.1 seconds from 24 ports with std dev 135.99"

Is this good or bad?
Getting laid (geek comic)
Amazon S3 - When in Doubt Reboot
Don't sweat it too much... we all make mistakes. What matters isn't if you make them or not, but how you respond when you do - and so far, you seem to have done great :)
There are quite a few open source guitar effects pedals floating around...commercially successful? probably no.
Keep in mind I'm looking at this from a mainstream consumer angle, not a hacker angle. This also means I have a much, much longer definition of "new".

The way I see it, the main killer apps for computers throughout the 1980s and 1990s were business software: Office, Quicken, etc.

Web-only killer apps for mainstream audiences: Google, Wikipedia, MySpace/Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, EBay, Flickr.

Some of those are Web 1.0, but all the same, I can't think of any home runs for the mainstream audience since the late '90s that have been desktop software. In fact, the last one I can think of is instant messaging clients, which are now moving onto the web.

Your "same old online stuff" is the main thing people are thinking of when people say "I'm buying a computer to surf the web".
They are doing much better at iterating the OLPC than making peace in the Middle East...
Mitchell Baker: Mobile Web may drive forward the web of tomorrow
I believe he's Swedish. While Swedes are excellent at speaking English, you can't blame them for the occasional mistake in English's inconsistent spelling.
Wild guesses:

* Bigger-but-still-pretty-cheap iPod Touch -- falling somewhere between today's 'TechCrunch Tablet' and the foldable OLPC dual screen [1]. Perhaps cheap because of some sort of non-AT&T carrier subsidy (Sprint/Verizon?) or built-in adware (Google).

* A true Apple TV -- big screen flat TVs with Mac innards. (I thought this was due earlier this year. [2])

* Some massive Mac/iPod/iPhone 'switcher' cross-promotion -- like rebates or bounties on your old Windows/PC units when you go fully Apple.

* Something which brings MacOS to the legacy PC world -- not quite licensed clones like the 90s Power Computing experiment, but maybe a VMWare MacOS appliance that runs on PCs, or a MacOS lite, providing a way to siphon off even more of the business and low-end markets.

* The iSteve, a digital upload of Steve Jobs onto a custom "Go Chip" created by Apple's new PA Semi subsidiary, giving Apple an immortal CEO and an early lead in the posthuman platform race.

[1] http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/20/new-olpc-revealed-olpc-...

[2] http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2008/01/appletv-thats-really-tv-a...
Google may have lost some of its feel and culture as it has grown but for such a large company it is a really cool place to work.

You mention since they can't find smart people to hire fast enough they can either lower the bar or hire less. The third option is to work more on recruiting people and that is just what they are focusing on.
"... How do you know if you're becoming a better hacker? ..."

Maybe this article (Great Hackers: Recognition) might help ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html
Works fine on my N95-4. Maybe it's the iphone that's not optimized for HN. ;)
I disagree with the author. Well-designed systems have permanent state (in S3's case, user data stored on disks) and transient state (data in caches, gossip protocol state, etc), and are designed to be able to do a "clean reboot".

Obviously this isn't something which you want to be doing on a regular basis, but the very fact that Amazon was able to say "things are too screwed up, let's just do a clean reboot" says that they did something right. Yes, downtime sucks -- but seeing that S3 can be cleanly rebooted tells me that as far as data loss is concerned, I have far less to worry about... since I know now that if worst comes to worst, Amazon has a way of getting S3 back online without losing data.
Purchasing Another MacBook Pro / What is Dell Doing With Their Ubuntu Line?
Django 1.0 alpha released
Advanced Beauty
I'm not just trying to sound contrary here, but I feel like the battle to make the Windows OS usable is all but lost. As long as people have been trying, it hasn't and probably won't happen. You just can't build a palace on quick sand.

MS will come to a point in the next 5 years where it will either have to completely revise the core of its OS or eventually be diminished by Mac and Linux. Windows itself is one of the root causes of the SaaS boom...
Granted, there are bound to be other price reductions, but the article makes explicit mention of a new product. Also, unless they plan to take a significant loss on the SSDs, I don't see how making them standard will make their hardware more price competitive.

The Atom laptop is a total shot in the dark, and is likely wrong, but it seems like there must be something more significant in the pipeline.
> In fact, the last one I can think of is instant messaging clients, which are now moving onto the web.

Napster was pretty big.
Beware the Dunning-Kruger effect
Justin.TV Reaches 1 Million Users
Forget a down arrow; we need a trashcan icon.
Or software projects as relationships?

"Valentine’s Day Developer: Trail of Tiers"

http://www.cricketschirping.com/weblog/?p=1150
The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown Down: I’m Stepping Up to Paul Graham’s Challenge
If their margins are lower and they want to make the same amount of money, that means they have to sell more. But selling more could come from either lowering the price, or keeping the price fixed but adding value. Thinking about it more, DDR3 does seem like a possibility. I don't think there is any way they can sell it to the general public on speed, but it does use about 30% less power. I'm not sure how much power RAM uses in general, but if it increased the battery life significantly (combined with Montevina) then that would be a powerful incentive to get people to switch.

Either way, my money is still on the new product being the redesigned MacBook, but I'd love to be proved wrong in a few weeks.
Which in part explains their Traffic Acquisition Costs - http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/images/goog2q1.png
Congrats! Anyone care to speculate what the cause of that spike is?
I love this post! Over on my "A Startup A Day" blog, I've decided to take the next 30 days and dedicate each daily idea to address the broad ideas outlined on this post. Should be a fun challenge, feel free to check it out over at www.astartupaday.com.
I was thinking of http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/django.html

Thanks for the reference to MediaTemple - they look a little like Heroku without the web-based editor.
Criticizing, too, is important. Without it, Twitter's stability would never improve. Hell, even with it, it seems unlikely to happen.
I'm in the same boat as you. The New York service is terrible. I disable 3G just so I can make phone calls. The majority of the time it get little to no reception for me, even in an open area. I would rather use the slightly slower edge network and enjoy battery life and reception. I remember why I switched to Verizon 4 or 5 years back now.

GPS drops out nearly as frequently as my service. God forbid you go to a populous area. I was at shea stadium last week for a concert. Didnt have reception the entire show. Could couldnt make calls, send texts or use the internet. I also found the phone trying so hard to keep up a connection that my battery went from 80% to completely dead in 4 hrs. I'm confident apple will get the dodgy software bugs fixed in the next few months. As for AT&T... I'm not expecting much from them anytime soon.
E-Gold Founders Face Prison for Money Laundering
Is Modern Mathematics Reliable?
The fourth option is to pay more.
illegal content
1 million in about 16 months! Congratulations!
Yes, but guess what? Craigslist ended up buying Craigslist.com because it was a porn site and majority of the people ended up there because of habbit.
wow you are way off
editor at tcit - we are running the design + software build etc.
I think that's fine, as long as it's not "1 ports".

The idea is that the patches randomize the source port, which the attacker won't know, so you'll ignore any responses that don't match. (it's still possible to guess the correct port number, but much much harder)

If you get "1 ports" for 26 queries then it's always using the same port (bad!), but if you get somewhere around 26 ports for 26 queries then it's using random ports (since it's random it won't always be 26 distinct ports, which is why it sometimes shows 24 or 25)

I'm no expert but this is what I understand of it. tptacek, feel free to explain it better (just kidding!)
#25 - A craigslist competitor.... used to be http://expo.live.com, but it seems like even Microsoft couldn't compete against them! If you log in today, you will see the following message:

Windows Live Expo will discontinue service on 31 July 2008. In preparation, the following features are no longer available:

* Create a new account.
* Post a new listing.
* Extend a listing.
* Upgrade a listing to a premium listing.

All current listings will remain on expo.live.com until they expire.
Study: IT jobs will drop in 2009 (including cloud computing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_FONE_F3
Testing Django Applications
Unfortunately, Adsense for video is only available to sites with 1 million video views per month.
Yes, that is what we are planning to do.
Guess we need to wait till we hit 1000 active daily users before we can use VideoEgg.
Yes, we are exploring speech recognition programs for contextual ads. I've heard that there is another advertising service that does this on the fly.

Good point on the broadcast TV for soccer games! Thanks for the suggestions.
pinch and zoom works for me. Then double tap to zoom it out
Chaos theory isn't really a girl, but is instead a drag queen. When people breathlessly ask you about that "girl" you know that they must be pretty confused about women generally.
FOSS: iPhone-native WordPress Client
Favorite IDE for PHP?
I'm just curious to see what everyone's favorite IDE is for PHP development (I'm specifically using the CodeIgniter framework). I'm just now getting into Eclipse, and it seems decent. Anyone know of good alternatives?
Vines and flames
Hi
I am interested - Please feel free to contact me at khurram@geniteam.com
I share your concerns. However, i moved to a GNU/Linux distribution over 2 years ago and never looked back.

I have always said that the Microsoft environment is a hostile one for developers. And that is without saying anything about the quality of their platform.

There are still a lot of problems to be solved on the desktop side for which online equivalents probably won't work right now. Its just a matter of who steps up and solves them...hint
I absolutely love Django and I'm happy they've been able to get toward a 1.0 "more usage" milestone so quickly. I'm also glad they started the Foundation so I could donate.
The new GNOME duality
On New news (#3):
http://ihobbes.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/attracting-mainstrea...