skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I like the Idea and will definitely contribute when I get a chance.

Please note that folks at Rosetta Stone are pretty aggressive on copyright matter, watch out!
A true Jedi favors composition.
Ask HN: Please Review Our Project, TwoTruths
Hey folks,

This is my first post for anything other than scattered blog entries or news article.

Two friends and I created TwoTruths over a weekend (46 hours + a few since then), using a custom PHP framework and integrating with Facebook and Twitter. Apologies upfront, because our login requires one or the other (questioning whether to add email sign up given the social element of what we do).

http://www.twotruths.me/

It is basically a conversation starter for you and your Facebook friends or Twitter followers. When you don't speak to people for a while, it can be intimidating or awkward to start that catch up conversation, so we built this to make that easier. Surprisingly, you even learn new things about friends (or significant others) you thought you knew well.

We'd love some advice or thoughts on the UI/UX. We've thrown around whether game mechanics could work (adding points or making it competitive to see "who knows their friends best"), whether comments should be included after you take a challenge (thinking this would create an ongoing conversation as more and more people take that particular challenge), etc. Again, we're trying to help drive conversation between friends, so any ideas or thoughts in that area would be great.

Thanks everyone for any feedback!

Chris, Michael & Elenor
If the people as a whole (i.e. the government) sell something they own to one individual person, that cannot be theft. The nation cannot rob itself.

Jesuitry.

If the US Congress sells its entire collective political power to Warren Buffett, who then becomes Fuhrer, nothing has been stolen from anyone?
Living Room Sets
Living rooms are not considered a living room without living room sets! They are a major thing in a living room. They not only serve their function as a resting area, but they also decorate the room.
One of the topics I cover the most there is the difference between startups and agencies/freelancing.

While startups tend to look at results (the ones that survive), agencies tend to look at the customer, at least most of them.

I actually believe that most designers coming from an agency would be eaten alive in a startup, along with their "photoshop skills". This people don't even know what UX means, never conducted a usability test (usability = I look at the website and say what I think), and definitely don't read HN.
True. Love the minimalism but the "aol-esque" feel is lacking. Truth is, being socially revolutionary, not technologically revolutionary is what made FB dominant.

So, I need to really rethink the social problem. Maybe I should be asking "What Social Problem Needs to Be Solved to Reach Critical Mass?".

And, thanks for the suggestion. Looks like my solution will involve better ad execution or none at all.
Google Is in Your Wallet
From the FAQ:

> Can I use Google Wallet with my phone?

> Google Wallet with tap and pay will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint®.

Now I know they have to start somewhere, but I have doubts about their ability to gain traction when they have compatibility with one device on one carrier at launch. They'd better ramp up quickly if they don't want this to be another Wave.
Scooping the Loop Snooper — Dr Seuss and the Halting Problem
I actually liked the layout in your balsamiq mockup better than the final version! Overall, dramatic improvement though. Nice work.
As an application developer the VPS/cloud model is very appealing. So much so, I think you'd be nuts not to build a datacenter that doesn't target this market. I'm not interested in floor space, dedicated servers, or supplying my own hardware. I'm really interested in how easily I can launch, update, and manage my applications -- everything else can be abstracted.
How Social Media Is Impacting Search With Rand Fishkin
Great points. btw http://minimsft.blogspot.com/ is a great resource for things that Microsoft should be doing. Ironically its written by someone who works at Microsoft and several people from Microsoft participate in the comments section.
Private registration is unlikely to be the reason why your site isn't ranking, modulo fairly specific past events prior to the private registration. (e.g. "I bought an expired domain for it's links, changed all the content, and then switched on private registration. Now it doesn't rank for anything.")

I sympathize with "I made a change, something happened, this whole field feels like voodoo, please tell me my change mattered." You're trying to black-box guess emergent behavior of a very complicated algorithm. In some circumstances that's the best alternative, but for this specific issue, the weight of past experiences personally or known to me is not in your favor.
Agreed 100% and I would just add this one point. Social networks are a winner-take-all game. You're either dominant or nothing. Nobody wants to use a social network with only 400 other people on it. That would defeat the whole purpose. Of course, there are specific niches such as Twitter, but Twitter dominates its niche.

In a way, social communication and network sites are anti-competitive.
it's bullshit, there are plenty of private registration websites ranking #1 for plenty of competitive keywords
This is legit advice.

I'd like to offer some names for your project: ConnectBook.com or conbook.com maybe even facecon.com
> Our difference of opinion appears to be that you believe a government which collectivizes property to be automatically illegitimate, and one which privatizes formerly collectivized property to be automatically legitimate. You define the act of nationalizing property to be one which leads to loss of legitimacy.

I'm not thinking in such absolutes. Any government must balance individual rights against society's interests. Sometimes collectivization is reasonable. However, collectivization involves coercion and therefore should be employed only in extreme cases.

On the other hand, privatization is a deal between two willing and legitimate parties, with no coercion involved. Specifically the government is entrusted by the people to manage its assets, and selling an asset is a legitimate transaction.

The problems with privatization lie with the execution rather than the idea. Many governments don't properly represent the interests of the people in such transactions, either because of incompetence or because of corruption. But with governments' conduct, incompetence and corruption seem to be the rule rather than the exception.

> There are excellent reasons to believe that most Soviet citizens opposed privatization. In that case, the Western "democracies" lie through their teeth when they claim that "the will of the people was done."

In representative democracies, what "most" citizens think about a specific government decision carries no weight. If the citizens are unhappy with the government, they can protest and they can vote to replace the government. But it is crucial that making unpopular decisions does not revoke the legitimacy of the government.
I've been doing SEO for 4 years (with some success) and this may be the first time I heard that private registration is bad for search results.
Great question. S4 came out right around the time we started designing Storm.

The projects share similarities. The biggest difference with S4 is that Storm guarantees that messages will be processed, whereas S4 will just drop the messages. Getting this level of reliability is more than just using TCP to send messages - you need to track the processing of messages in an efficient way and retry messages if the message doesn't get completed for some reason (like a node goes down). Implementing reliability is non-trivial and affects the design of the whole system.

We also felt that there was a lot of accidental complexity in S4's API, but that's a secondary issue.
What's your opinion on FogCreek's front page being left intact? Aren't a lot of marketing/sales opportunities being wasted by the huge "philosophy" block? Why isn't it more product and sales oriented. After all, I don't think customers are primarily interested in FogCreek's philosophy.
> I downvoted you because your post has nothing to do with the parent's original assertion (that privatization is viewed by many people as unfair - what does privatization in the UK have to do with communism?)

I linked to how the Mongolian People's Republic (ex-Communist) privatized by giving shares in state companies to their own citizens, on their own locally-run Stock Exchange, which has nothing to do with the UK.

It was a pretty good way to privatize without just giving company control over to the former communist leaders. Click the Wikipedia link if you didn't, it's kind of interesting how they did it.

> and your constant use of the word "seriously."

That's valid, though. Touché, comrade.
Urban Outfitters rips off indie jewelry designer
Does anyone have an iPod cable handy? My wallet's battery is dead!
What about frid.ge? It seems to solve all the problems Altly has with Facebook. And the execution seems fine aside from leaning heavily on the refrigerator theme.

http://frid.ge
You can just as well use XML.
The XSD list data-type makes for great building block for structured arrays. For example:

Schema:

<xs:element name="series">
<xs:simpleType>
<xs:list itemType="xs:double"/>
</xs:simpleType>
</xs:element>

Document:

<series>1.0 2.0 1.2 15.6 3.1 4.5 3.2</series>
Moon's interior water casts doubt on formation theory
Google Wallet: The end of anonymous shopping
How would it cause a subclass to break? The ancestor is explicitly specified -- this could only break if the MRO was modified to exclude that particular ancestor.
Great tool, especially the bookmarklet and the cool api - Love it! ;-)
What is the worst case scenario of lots of YC clones? Zero successful startups, zero investor exits, a bunch of people who have tried at least one startup, and slightly fewer programmers working in industry? Is this really that much worse than the alternative, that all these founders work for BigCo?
as this is only several hours old I don't think the evidence is in place to really give an informed judgment on whether it will languish or not
Two problems. It favors links in the sidebar over article links. I was in "Human" and your script picked out Pre-Cambrian when it should have been Taxonomy.

Second, capitalization matters. It couldn't find "the black keys" but it found "The Black Keys".

It's pretty obvious in hindsight when you think about it. You start with something specific and then get more and more vague until you hit Philosophy.
I think its rather early days to reach this conclusion. A social network is just a network of people. In the real world small networks of like minded people have often had a disproportionately large amount of utility. The one thing for large social networks right now is that they provide a global namespace of people which helps discoverability. But perhaps in the coming years we shall see social networks emerge for vertical talents where likeminded people can work productively (Mendeley etc come to mind). You could arguably make the point that within each of these verticals a single player will dominate.
OT: None of my coworkers recognized the "dying of the light" reference. [Insert rant about how nobody reads anymore.] It's Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Elite Weight Loss Package| Weight Loss Calculator| Seo
Wanderfly seems to do this pretty well.

http://www.wanderfly.com/
I used this info as the basis of writing some assembly of my own: http://blog.reverberate.org/2011/04/25/upb-status-and-prelim...

DynASM, which I used to write my JIT (also written by LuaJIT's author Mike Pall) is also an impressive piece of work. It makes writing a JIT so pleasant that I meant to write an article walking through the process of building a simple JIT. I was going to implement a JIT for the "Universal Machine" from ICFP 2006 as the example (http://www.boundvariable.org/), which is an absolutely delightful problem, but unfortunately discovered that it is heavily self-modifying, and thus would be hard to get a big performance boost from. But it looks like someone did it anyway: http://paul.bluereboot.net/um/
Unfortunately on PyPy super is less efficient than refering directly to the parent classes method, however it's fixable (and will be fixed).
If the citizens are unhappy with the government, they can protest and they can vote to replace the government.

How much good does this do you once the government has sold off the national infrastructure (and perhaps even its own sovereign powers) to mafiosi, foreigners, and their agents?

Where can you vote for reversing the destruction of industries which took 70 years to build?

Where is the voting booth where you can go to vote against having had your popular culture murdered through vulgarization?
http://pttrns.com iOS

http://cvparade.com/ CV / Resume
Hopefully if this gets blocked they'll do something about DHS arbitrarily seizing domain names.
That's a useful list:

- manual steps
- device pairing
- switched on/off
- incompatibility
- version incompatibility
- protocol incompatibility

If they've fixed these problems, it will succeed. If not, then it will be another failed attempt. On the plus side, a lot of scientific, technical, and inventory equipment already does NFC.
The problem is ultimately he's only securing the future until the next future - Microsoft has to stand on its own feet, he can't come back every 10 years to rectify whatever opportunities they missed in his absence.
I used to feel like you did about audio quality (and I don't even care about lyrics, I really am listening for the music itself), but once you get a nice set of speakers and balance them properly (preferably using one of the auto-balancing receivers that use a microphone and test signals), it really does make you appreciate it more. I find myself wanting to listen to music more when I hear on my nice speakers at home as opposed to my crappy-but-comfortable earphones at work.

However, I am listening mostly to music from the last 5-10 years, so there is that.
i think it time to start an incubator incubator or is such an incubator already incubated?
Voxeo's PRISM Studio lets you build SIP/XMPP/Java servlets in Eclipse
It seems well built and is actually a pretty cool idea. Unfortunately, I'm not sold on the concept enough to actually sign up and return every day.

Have your considered building this into a social network that's more focused on forming good connections? I think the concept might work better as an app or a feature than a stand alone site.
I'm really referring to the NFC chip in general, it's been available in the Nexus S since the phone launched in December.
I've been (almost) 100% paperless for a few years now using EarthClassMail.com.

For about $40/month they scan all my paper mail for me (this is a chore I wouldn't want to do) and I never see a physical piece of mail.

- the PDF's are all archived online indefinitely

- if you get something physical (new credit card) they can forward it for $2-3

- packages you get shipped to your current address so no forwarding fee

- if you move often (as I do) then you can keep the same mailing address indefinitely so you never have to update your mailing address with dozens of different institutions, miss bills, etc (this is a huge hassle removed)

Only downsides so far...
- the documents aren't OCR'ed

- their web interface in clunky, but useable

- hand written thank you notes/bday cards just don't carry the same sentimental value looking at a scan online

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with it. I started using it while living abroad, but decided to keep it since I've been back in the U.S. - I wouldn't want to go back to opening paper mail.
That's debatable, but it's not an argument against having government and business and non-profits and individuals able to keep each other in check. Again, competition and having organizations with cross-purposes having to work together to peacefully co-exist seems to result in better outcomes for most people. Again, nothing is perfect. But, unchecked power is scary, and a world with only one powerful organization (whether it be government, the mafia, a corporation, or a church) would be a terrifying one (and history provides many examples).

Also note: I have, nowhere in this thread, suggested the wholesale destruction of government and replacing it with corporatism (or whatever you want to call it). I have opinions on those subjects, but I'd rather we stay on-topic.
Not sure why you were downvoted. Your site is a little light on the details of your encryption scheme, would you care to elaborate?
Might as well reserve your username in case this takes off. Hilarious that the first thing you get after reserving your username is a Facebook like button.
A lot of people today don't bother with cash, and it's not that hard a thing. Worst case, they point you to a nearby ATM.
Voxbone To Work with U.N. To Deploy New 888 Country Code For Disaster Relief
OK, I'm now a fan. I was up in Oregon for grad school during the Senate campaign between Wyden and Smith. I lean libertarian/fiscal-conservative, so was rooting for Smith against the awkward, liberal Wyden. Funny to think about the consequences had my wishes come true: Wyden is taking a well-thought-out, brave and effective position here and I'm reasonably sure that, had my wishes come true, Smith would not have done the same. Go Wyden!

Separately and ironically, after bitching about "single-issue voters" and "litmus tests" involving abortion, it seems I'm now exhibiting the same traits with respect to the intarwebs.
The last thing Microsoft needs is Gates to come back.

Comparing Microsoft’s dilemma to Apple and Steve Jobs isn’t an accurate comparison. Apple was almost out of business when Steve Jobs returned. When a company is practically out of business you can do things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Like destroy whole product lines (Newton), screw over partners (all the MacOS licensees) and even toss out your main product (MacOS in favor of OSX).

Microsoft is still profitable. They still have tons of customers. You couldn’t, for example, replace Microsoft Windows with a whole new OS and get away with it.

There is only one company in modern history that has grown to the size of Microsoft, started failing and then come back to achieve greater glory. That company is IBM.

If Microsoft is to succeed they need to find someone like Lou Gerstner (who saved IBM). Gerstner succeeded not because he tried to return IBM to its former glory but because he saw a value in the individual components of IBM that no one had seen before. he saw that IBM could do everything technology wise and realized that opened the door to a successful consulting business.

Microsoft needs that. Someone who can see the individual parts of Microsoft and combine them in a way no one’s ever thought of before. Someone who realizes the old vision isn’t working anymore and can move the company forward without being bound to it. Because being bound to the past is exactly what’s killing Microsoft right now and Gates is just as guilty of that as Ballmer is.
So, this is another case of Sony's locking stuff down impacting its practical quality/adoption?

As a counter to one of the points in the article, I don't think people splitting 40/60 on 3D/2D is a "clear rejection" of 3D. 3D still gives a lot of people headaches or other discomforts, and it does cost more and look worse from bad angles (and you'll get the bad angles because there's less 3D theatres and they're packed). Maybe compared to a 3D event movie like Avatar, but that's not a fair comparison.

EDIT: Also, I finally some ammunition to use against people who insist that I should turn the brightness/contrast on my TV down to be "theatre" correct. It's supposed to look brightier, even in the theatre! :)
What We Can Learn from Footie: Lessons from Barça
The world does not seem to be getting over the "Facebook alternative" syndrome soon. Or in other words I should say that Facebook is being seriously underestimated.

While it's absolutely right to try and build a better social network; calling it a Facebook alternative is wrong. It's like calling Greplin and DuckDuckGo an alternative to Google. Facebook has done way more than any other social network till date. Don't we know about the Warner Bros. deal and didn't we read the article about spotify+facebook on HN yesterday!! And what an amazing achievement it has called as Facebook comments. No one has been able to find a spot in as many major blogs and websites as Facebook comments has (and Disqus). Not to deride anyone's effort, but it takes time to build a Facebook, and replacing it ain't easy. I believe Internet is big enough to accommodate more than one Facebook and its types.

EDIT: A little story. I live in India and it's known to everyone that most of the marriages here are still arranged. One of my friends was getting arranged recently and her mother wanted to see the picture of groom; and out of nowhere she said "why don't we check it on Facebook". I am pretty sure she has never used Internet before and probably never going to use it, but she knows what purpose Facebook can solve. I say that is a huge impact for any website.
What if someone developed pragmas and a compiler that could use that information with a different set of heuristics?
This is so true, software sites that invite you to call, just so you can get some idiot to tell you about their "value proposition" and discuss your "licensing estate" really get my goat.
Gmail takes on Rapportive and Xobni with new People Widget
Alipay Receives Chinese Electronic Payment License
InspiredBeta: DISCOVER beta/startup projects
I don't know if I'm like most people in this regard, but I'll carry my phone with little issues but I'd prefer to carry as little plastic in my wallet as possible. If I had an NFC phone and this service was available where I live, I'd be removing my Paypass Mastercard from my wallet the moment I got home.
News tickers at the bottom of screen on news channels make you less informed
Yeah, OK, but then I need either ATMs that support RFID smart cards (I've personally never seen one) or to carry my ATM/debit card, which is different from my credit card, although granted I could probably make do with just carrying the debit card.
Statelessness.

When I wanted to edit a text file on my Apple II, I booted it with Magic Window (later, Appleworks). When I wanted to play Airhead, I booted it with the game disk. There was nothing a text editor or a game could do that would carry over to the next reboot.
> ...sticky ringtone-festivals across town at $7 a pop.

I only wish movies were $7. The local AMC is currently $8.50 ($11.50 for 3D), and that's in Columbus which is generally cheaper than most big cities.