skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is probably going to cause a bit of a stir, but I read that article and saw the same arguments I used to see about "rich Flash applications" and how much better they were because they offered a more "delightful" user experience.

Some users need to be delighted. Other users just need to get stuff done. I appreciate the author's conclusion more than his article. His conclusion focused on using the right tool for the job. The rest of the article focused on native being the right tool for the job.

Native apps aren't more delightful than web apps. They're not better either. The developers make the difference from what I've seen. PivotalTracker's official app is painfully slow to update compared to the web application, which I've used on my iPad for a year. The web app doesn't handle touch gestures well. Both of these are flawed implementations.

The Twitter app on the iPad is insanely well done. Its android counterpart, however, looks like it was developed by a green intern on the cheap. On an Android device, I find the mobile app to work better.

Don't believe that native is better than web or vice-versa just based on web or native. I've seen amazing people do amazing things with both.
Http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pubid=motribe
Seconded. Even if you don't know anything about DF, Bravemule is a wonderful read.
Agreed. This was announced 8 months ago and widely covered by the tech media. It's just irresponsible reporting if people are covering this story and don't know the reasons why.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/21/apple_threatens_to_k...
correct. I played with this for a while and couldn't find a way to mount. You're booted in as a non-root user and don't know the root password. There's all sorts of stuff you can't do with this. I this may be primarily being developed as a counter-intel tool.
Agreed, I myself feel that an idea is worth nothing if there's no real life demand for it. It has to be tested.

Reminds me of the basic programming rule of thumb where if you haven't tested a piece of code, it is to be considered broken.
I remember someone noting that "If the world ended, I'm confident it would be covered immediately on HN."

I think this qualifies as something of sufficient importance that it should be here just so everyone is aware. We could do without the comments though. Maybe a "no comment" sort of link for events of vital importance that are off-topic? It would make a lot more sense than disabling comments for YC job postings.
I found that this was good, but a little buggy in apps that already support full screen. Plus, I don't really like SIMBL for some reason. Wonder when/if CydiaSubstrate will be released…
Looks like this update is available over-the-air. Glad to see that.

Although I seem to be getting an error when I try.

Anyways, full changelog here (without login): http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/22/apples-full-change-log-for-ios...
Didn't you try to counter their offer again. Like "my current employer has offered me more to stay, if you could make the 70k then we could still be on?"
How is this different from using Google Apps for your domain? You're simply giving your email hosting to tuffmail as opposed to google.
That's exactly my day job at work. It is intranet based. So I can't show you. Sorry.
I worked at Google for 5 years. 9-5 is possible, though most people work extra hours. The more important issue is the mental energy. 8 hours at Google is different from 8 hours at a low-key tech gig.
ITunes 10.5 Beta 4 for Developers is Now Available for Download
Android phone, iPod Touch, iPad, MacBook Air
Not just looks, it solves certain big usability problems I have with regular selects or checkboxes for values. However the few non-native problems are indeed problematic. We got brainpower here, lets make it work!
Most of the people I know on Google+ got their invite after asking on Facebook or Twitter.
3D video causes extra eye strain, fatigue
I hope I'm wrong, cause I really love email, but I don't think many people will care about it in 10 years. Most don't care much about it anymore today.

How can I reach you? You don't have Facebook!
once you have it locally you have all the time in the world to retag it.
This is simply the definition I was given in business school. If you type in "purpose of a corporation" on Google, this is what you will get (which is comedically ironic in this situation).

"Efficiently organizing work" is what must be done as a by product or failure is ensured in this survival of the fittest capitalistic system.

I agree that the ethics are not what they should be in the corporate culture today, but that doesn't change the nature nor the purpose and definition of corporation.
Third or fourth time someone's cracked this, this year.

Couldn't find those. Where did you read about them?
that's refreshingly direct and personal in tone.
- Were you not aware of Cocos2d / Unity when you started? Or did you think you could do it better?

I was aware of it, although not to the extent that I am now. Awareness wasn't the reason for the decision however. The decision was a mix of naivety and a desire to learn as much as possible about game design/development. Writing my own engine was therefore a bit of a self-learning process. It certainly was beneficial but not a process I would repeat or recommend for a commercial/releasable game - especially for indie devs.

- What sort of feedback did you get and how did you go about getting it?
Prior to release I pestered friends, family and strangers. I would make a concerted effort to mention what the game in conversations (if the other person reciprocated with interest). This often led to a description of the concept, mechanics and a short demo/play test. I did this from day one - when there was literally a ship on screen with a control pad. Immediately I was told that the controls were too sensitive - but as I alluded to you become blind to these things when you spend your days play testing your own game.

- Are you not planning to develop any more games? (Based on your first sentence.)
For me the process was about two things - 1. the challenge and 2. the experience. Games are difficult and they involve some fairly complex design/coding problems, that was the attraction for me. I don't have a particular affinity/interest in games development - so I'm not sure I would jump into another game immediately.

I would however love to remake the game using a framework and with some more polished graphics. I actually really enjoy playing it and think the concept works well. Unfortunately my own decision to custom design the engine has potentially hindered the enjoyability and limited the functionality.
But you own your domain. In your case, if Google disabled your Gmail or Apps accounts, it'd be just a minor annoyance, because your e-mail address would still work after a DNS change.

Google owning your data is not the problem here, while you can backup it. The real problem is them owning your identity.
Cool piece.
Dwarf Fortress has a level of micro-complexity that I wish Civilization had.

I think there is a niche -- albeit probably a very small one -- for more super-hardcore strategy games in a variety of settings and genres. Folks like me would love to play a game like Civilization and have incredibly rich, complicated diplomacy and trade and other issues that simulate, as closely as possible, real-world geopolitical issues. (In some ways, for instance, I'd love to be able to fight a cold war with an AI opponent, rather than an actual war).
I wouldn't doubt they could win if it came to issues in JS. The problems I've seen with JS are real. Like implicit semicolon insertion just seems like a really bad idea.

People who disparage JS aren't attacking Eich -- in fact I'd hope Eich would agree that semicolon insertion is a mistake in retrospect (but if not, I'd love to know why). But as users of a language we can react to inadequacies we see in the langauge, even if we couldn't necessarily design a better one from scratch.

With that said, I feel like a dynamic scripting language makes sense. As an application language, I'd personally prefer a statically typed language, but that's an argument that no one will win (from either side).
"Global Jihad" group says it's behind Oslo blast - CBS News Investigates
What made you choice Vienna?
As an an example, right now (17:23 EST) the three top tweets for Utøya are from five, three, and three hours ago. One of them contains the unconfirmed/unofficial number of 20-30 dead on Utøya. The best official information available now (retrieved from a specific user's feed) is 10 dead, expected to rise.
These guys look close:

http://www.backupify.com/
One of the sources is Mercury News.
Has anyone ever been convicted for just downloading MP3s?

Besides, there's obviously a difference between receiving a random essay from a person who claims to own the rights (that's obviously in their TOS), and asking to download an MP3 of some band. In the latter case, the downloader obviously knows the copy is illegal and it can be argued that (s)he's abetting the infringer.
I hope so....
Yep. Also in this class of ideas are little chips floating around in your blood that automatically release drugs when they recognize a pathogen, and stuff that makes your poop change color when it notices bad things happening (seriously, this exists).
I bought put options to cover the (extreme) downside. We were up about 30% YoY, so I wasn't too concerned.
It in no way illustrates that, for the reasons programminggeek provided.

Google+ is making a huge splash, that is about the only meaningful statement that this graph illustrates. It doesn't suggest that they could dethrone facebook because there's a hell of a lot more to making a good social network than how quickly it gets ten million users.

For me and my friends, google+ is a dead zone. I signed up to check it out, and barely have looked at it since. I would like to use it some day, when more of the people I really want to connect with are on it, but there's really no certainty that it will make it to that point.

Until then, be very wary of false extrapolations.
> Do I consider [Lulzsec's actions] vandalism, on par with graffiti? No.

You speak of your disdain for them, though. Why do you even know about them? Banks are hacked regularly and it's not news at all, but leak a few documents and you become public enemy #1.

> If you want to talk about "horrifying abuses" by the government "with its boot on my neck" then lets talk about that. What does LulzSec have to do with it?

Nothing, mostly. That's sort of the point. They're really nothing at all and they're getting a completely jackbooted response - far beyond what an unsolved murder would get.

> Please give me one piece of evidence (hell, I'll even take conjecture) that these acts of "vandalism" are even related to the "horrifying" injustices the big bad government and security forces commit.

They've leaked some documents from Arizona because of their dislike of the new identification laws. They hacked PBS because they didn't like their coverage of Wikileaks. They hacked Sony because of Sony's previous unfair dealings.

They clearly are politically and accountability motivated, even if you don't agree with their goals or perceptions.

> Parading them around as heros of a cause they clearly have little concern for

Heroes? No. But to be commended for putting their comfort on the line to do something they believe in.

We're only hearing about them because of the disproportional response to them. Other than making work for a few web admins they hurt nothing that didn't need hurting - like the reputation of a company running an insecure service. The passwords were already leaked to anyone who asked. If they were legally treated as the 'trivial vandals' they're denigrated as there wouldn't be misinformation and ham-handed raids in response. The story is the government overreaction.

> only serves to weaken your position

My position being that the government is beholden to special interests, allergic to transparency, technically incompetent, vengeful, willing to hurt many bystanders to get a perceived enemy, etc? Nope. I think that point is doing pretty well, thanks.
On being an ethical affiliate marketer
Roger McNamee says social is over
great video. thx for the link
A review of government and society prior to about 1600 (ie, the bulk of human history) does not suggest that people are inherently very nice.

A notable example is Ivan the Terrible and his society.
$7,500/signup + $750/mo e-mail Address
"Norwegian newspapers reprinted the famously blasphemous "Mohammad cartoons", for example. We may not imagine that such a thing is important". Actually they did. That was the entire point of reprinting the cartoons- to show they would not cower in fear and gag themselves because a very small minority threaten violence. If you are willing to sacrifice free speech, art and rational civilised debate for fear of offending people because of "blasphemy" then those terrorists are already winning.
firstname@lastname.[com|net|org].

Mine is bertjw@regeer.org for example.
like any skilled precog :)
I imagine this is similar to the controversial I Am Rich iPhone app[1] in that it makes no rational sense, but there would be some people with more $ than sense

[1] http://www.google.com/search?&q=i+am+rich+app
I lost very important data to stikipad.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2423821
He's ignored me on facebook when I've asked about it. When my inheritance comes through I'll see him in court.
I made the games Chain World, Sleep is Death, and Passage. Ask me anything.
On eBay, a bid is considered a contract to purchase, so it's probably a good idea to verify your identity before bidding.
I know of several people who have gotten history degrees because of an interest sparked by the Europa Universalis series (usually either EU2 or EU3), and of course some people have become fighter pilots after playing flight sims. But the sheer breadth of DF is different from anything I've seen.
My parents’ problem is more that those 4M are the limit for the house, their DSL line just isn’t any faster. The connection also seems somewhat flaky (this might be an illusion, though). My parents must be really far away from the next DSLAM, close to the limit of what’s possible.

It’s certainly noticeable, there are really annoying slowdowns when someone watches a YouTube video and someone else tries to browse the web. The problem is probably that in my parents’ house the internet connection is often used by more than one person. When I’m downloading something I can sort of deal with a video that takes longer to load, but when someone else causes my video to take longer to load, well that’s annoying.

Maybe they should switch to cable.
When Steve Jobs gave ESPN president George Bodenheimer a piece of his mind
Update appeared and worked after plugging my iPhone into a computer. Hard to know if that was a coincidence or a prerequisite, though.
Here is Ali G pitching a hoverboard to a VC.. great stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc - go to 5:20 on the video.

Ali G: "Its a hoverboard" (holding a skateboard with no wheels)
Investor: ".. but it doesn't do that"
Ali G: "Well, it doesn't do it yet. Thats where you come in - with your science"
Jason Rohrer is a solo developer whose game "Chain World" was the subject of a popular HN post a few days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2778458

He already weighed in on the top comment from that thread, about Chain World branching into multiple copies.
Google Plus Now 3rd Biggest Referral to My Blog. Ahead of Facebook & Twitter.
You can do this on Google already: http://bit.ly/mWaKBy
I wonder why google lets that happen. They don't have blog monitoring or something? Or are they too arrogant to fix a problem even when it's clearly there (for one person, anyway).

Or is it that you just can't find the one person responsible and empowered with the ability to fix?

Everyone have bugs (another use for blog monitoring), but this one seems pretty loud.

Same for facebook.
Social Networks - bubbly business?
I keep hearing this argument over and over again but the fact is that when I was using Google AdWords and had problems, I received zero (0) support and response from Google. Nothing. And I was a customer in the "I'm paying money for this" sense of the word.

Obviously this is just anecdotical evidence as the only "data point" I have is my own experience and it's possible that everyone else in the world receives five star support from Google right away. None the less, it made me lose a lot of respect for them and in the end I ended up cancelling my account and asked for a refund (which is automated).
"We currently accept no further applications for the following countries, since the country quota has been reached:

Bahrain, Malaysia, Germany, Monaco, Gibraltar, Argentina, Uruguay, The Bahamas, Switzerland.

If you are interested in an Elite750 Membership and come from one of these countries, we can put you on our waiting list and contact you in case an account becomes available."

Great Bluff! - Would be interesting to see, what special Features, except it`s Exclusivity, the Site/Service has and if someone really pays for it.
"A second gunshot wound entered the right side of Harding’s neck and the bullet remained in his head. This bullet was removed and released to the San Francisco Police Department Crime Lab. Medical Examiner’s staff also found a second, unfired cartridge (.380 caliber) in Harding’s right jacket pocket. This cartridge was also released to the SFPD Crime Lab.

The San Francisco Police Crime Lab conducted analysis on the bullet recovered from Mr. Harding’s head. It was determined that this bullet was of caliber .380/9mm and shared similar characteristics with the unfired cartridge located in Harding’s jacket pocket. San Francisco Police Officer’s are equipped with .40 caliber handguns. The bullet that was recovered from Mr. Harding’s head could not have been fired by police officers. "
This reminds me of color for some reason, although admittedly it's on a smaller scale (for now)
I still can't get a grip on Nethack. I think I need to print out the list of key bindings in order to actually play.
> It's probably frowned upon by my employers

Too bad for them. Your eyes are more important.
Oh wow ads would be a fun project to hack on.

How do you gain traction in that, though? There seems like a huge barrier to entry. I don't suppose adbrite or google like hiring college dropout python hackers, do they? :(

Something I'd love to see in ads is the ability to give feedback on them.

I like advertisements. One of the things I'll do if there is a new industry that I want to learn about is pickup trade magazines and read all of the ads. My brain has gotten good at filtering out the marketing fluff, so the ads end up being a good piece of information to use.

Unfortunately, online ads seem to be taking a bit of a shotgun approach. I'm never, ever going to be buying weightloss pills online, and I wish there was a way of letting content creators know this.

I'm also never, ever going to buy anything with a talking ad, or a popover ad.

But little boxes with a picture and some text? I'll look at those all day. There is still an ad I saw on slashdot 4-5 years ago that I remember, and have actually tried to find again because the information on it was valuable to me.

It said something along the lines of "colo that box under your desk". It was clever, because I had a box under my desk, and I would have liked to have colo'd it.

If I could see ads for stuff like that all day, I'd probably buy things from them.

If I'm completely honest, I'd probably even willfully give an ad network information about myself so that they could serve me more relevant ads. Make the relationship a mutually beneficial one.

I live in Phoenix. There are a number of bars that I go to pretty frequently, and there are a number of areas of the city that I like going to. Tell me about concerts happening in those areas, or drink specials at those bars.

There are certain genres of movies that I like, tell me when they're coming out, and take me to a place where I can buy tickets to them.

I like DIY electronics stuff. If sparkfun is having some EL wire on sale, I'd love to know about it.

Pandora for ads, I guess. I'd love that.
There are interviews to Eich and Zawinski in the "Coders at Work" book that tell a lot about the context were Javascript was developed. They are very interesting, and that book is almost obligatory read to anyone interested in the history and current state of sofware development.

Crockford is also interviewed there and asked about language subsetting and the thinking behind Javascript: The Good Parts.
Social Network 2: You Don't Get To A Billion Users Without Circles
Similar in concept, the Robot Hash generator: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2742367
If you read the article and didn't watch the video, go back and watch it. The text doesn't really do justice to what McNamee is saying.

At the same time, I disagree with many of his conclusions.

Listening and reading this I was surprised to see a Dell laptop on the podium.
> The purpose of a corporation by definition is to
> maximize the bottom line for the shareholder

That is a definition without qualification. What is the bottom line for the shareholder? The stock price tomorrow? The stock price in 10 years? The dividends paid out this year? The dividends paid over the next decade?

If I push up the stock price $100 over 2 years, but in the process destroy the brand in a way that causes the business to drop in value and eventually close over the next 3 years, have I increased shareholder value?

What if I cut the customer-service budget, saving money and causing customers to hate the company? What happens when an incumbent shows up in the market, and steals away most of my customer base? Did that create shareholder value?

Reciting "money++ is the only thing that matters" as the definition of a corporation is brain-dead.
I wonder what techniques Tarn uses to manage that complexity. Does he write extremely clean code? Use test-driven development?
Serial cable for iPod approved by Apple
Remember, what one person can program when they're truly dedicated is a pretty incredible feat.

And I wonder if the level of dedication he has demonstrated requires Asperger's. He has all of the classic symptoms, down to the the involuntary rocking. I've worked hard, and I've sacrificed a lot of my time to my work. But I'm not willing to sacrifice as much of my time as he has. And it's quite likely his life's work will be both larger in total and have more impact than mine.

That all leads me to my question, which is if his level of dedication requires Asperger's. Before people bring up people like Einstein and Feynman, consider that they had personal lives. They pursued personal lives.
Unless the notes were a large portion of your portfolio, it's not a problem. Given the relative size of Greece to the rest of the EU, unless you were running the "Greek Debt Investment Fund" you're still probably better off helping to prevent contagion and your lenders are too.