skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Think of the ant's progress as a percentage. Every step he makes will increase his progress percentage across the rubber band. Therefore, if he keeps walking he will eventually make it to the other side. Am I missing something?
For the record, I was playing with an experimental perl script (which I was in the process of concluding would not work), when lotharbot walked in and asked what I was doing. I explained the problem, and he had the solution within a few seconds.
What is so hard for people to understand ? Photoshop needs time to load, because that time is quite significant they give you some kind of feedback to let you know that 'hey the damn thing is loading, please wait', what's so bad with that? what would the alternative be?

The title starting with "Adobe employee" tries to make it sound like its a significant opinion regarding the matter, the author of the article doesn't seem to be a programmer or holding a position that deals with the process of making a program, what's even worst is the fact that he is completely clueless regarding the matter, he suggest "e.g., show a UI right away and let an instance of the program in the cloud operate against my gestures, until the local copy boots fully and can re-sync with me", seriously ??? I started wondering if i am being trolled at that point.

It takes 4 seconds to do a cold start of Photoshop on my laptop (which isn't a top notch laptop), on an older computer and with previous versions of Photoshop it would take 10-15seconds which would still be fine, the process doesn't block me from doing something else in the mean time.
Re: Sales: it's ok if you want to stay small, but to employ people and grow a business, sales is the lifeblood.
Seriously, he suggests using i as a variable? I couldn't take him seriously after that.
How Seinfeld's Productivity Secret Fixed My Procrastination Problem
https://gitorious.org/evil/pages/Home
Agreed. Though it would be really cool is Photoshop could somehow do progressive loading, so you can get the main UI + core functions up and running, and then bring all the plugins on in the background.

That's what it ALREADY does, actually.

It takes that much time for just the basic UI code (plus plugin registration etc). It doesn't load the plugins or filters in memory before they are first use.
This Week in Location Based Marketing #65: Amex & Twitter + XPERIA + Pressly
Read up on open graph
Scientist may have found a new weapon against pancreatic cancer
I'm not sure, but I have a notification setup so that I get an email whenever a 404 is discovered. I frequently review the notifications and try to redirect them to the right place.

Annoyingly, most of the 404's seem to be bots looking for known flaws in WordPress, Drupal, PHPMyAdmin etc.
“iFactory: Inside Apple” will give us a tour inside Foxconn
Considering the proliferation of software patents, with very general claims like the XOR patent, all non-trivial software "infringes" anyway, no matter how many fees are paid.

Politically it matters in that it means software patent laws are broken and punish the creators of software.

But I don't think Debian should regard some software patents more highly than others and refuse to distribute some software because of those. That gives third parties leverage to make the distribution much less useful (for example by selectively crippling multimedia on desktops), without breaking the illusion that the law is really applied.

If these parties tried to mount actual legal challenges, they would have to spend money, raise awareness of the law, publicly behave in an anti-competitive manner, and risk losing some of their patents for, at most, an interdiction of some packages in some jurisdiction. I don't see why Debian should give this away.
Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)
Microsoft quietly extends consumer support for Windows 7, Vista
Monit is a bit more than that. You can also use Monit to check remote hosts. Not only can it check http, but ftp, ssh smtp and more. You can use Monit to test your web-application via the HTTP protocol (404 or 50x) and use regex to check if certain content exist (or not) on a web-page. Monit is free, open source and does alerts for free.
Yeah, but look at the design - I mean I don't have a position on this, but in my opinion it LOOKS like a Facebook button... I'm sure they didn't intend opengraph to be a landgrab of sorts.
I once wrote a clone of Microsoft Word for a company looking to move away from Office dependency - I think you're really understating the complexity of something like Word when you call it a glorified textbox or say it should load as quickly as MSPaint because they both use the ribbon UI.
Pidjin - Endless loop
That's necessary but not sufficient for the ant to make it to the end. Imagine an ant walking on a fixed rope but reducing its speed, such that during the first second it covers one quarter of the rope, the next second covers one eight, and reducing its speed by half like this each second. It will never reach the halfway point of the rope, let alone the end, but the percentage of the rope that it covers always increases.

In this particular case it does make it to the end, just showing how the fact that the percentage always increases is not quite enough to show it.
Sorry, I forgot to mention: you need to open it in Chrome (or Safari), and specifically not in Firefox. The app uses localdb which Firefox doesn't support. (I hope this was in fact the cause of your problem).

As for constantly updating: no! The whole point of this app is that you only need to enter your current balance. From your balance and your recurring bills (one-time setup), it calculates when your next income is due, which bills need to be paid before that, and that leaves as a remainder your free-to-spend amount.
I agree with this.

A lot of it is people using your space to say random things that have little to do with the blog post they're responding to.

At one point I realized that's just another form of spam.

Why not post your screed in your own space? Because you have readers and I don't. Oh. Thanks soooo much. :-)
A conversation with John Glenn
ACTA is part of a multi-decade, worldwide copyright campaign
f or x will do. If your function grows, rename the variable.

Why would you just not give it a reasonable name to begin with? Why not call your variable frobber? The only possible reason for not doing so is that you're using an editor that makes you type it every single time. I insist that calling your Frobber variable frobber is strictly easier to understand than f or x. Why not t? Or sdfsdg? None of them make any sense to someone reading the code, and it increases the amount the reader of the code has to keep in their short-term memory, making it more challenging to understand.

pg writes about this in On Lisp: long names feel heavier. They might be super cheap to call, but because the name is long, you're less likely to call it.

Even if pg wrote it this is patently absurd, and it's endemic in lisp code which contributes greatly to the famously write-only nature of lisp. Again, if you're using a decent editor, there is no reason to call your UserDetails object anything but user-details (or maybe details if you're in a context only relating to users).
Prototype touchscreen recognizes touch from different users
If the rubberband doubled in length every minute, the ant would still make progress in terms of percentage, but never come close to the end of the rubberband. He would approach the 2% point -- the sum of 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...

In this case, he will eventually make it to the end -- the sum of 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + ... is divergent.
Of course Blender is lazy loading as you like to call it. Why load features the user is not using atm? The base of the program is just way better than lets say Photoshop.

Ever checked an online Photo editor? (http://pixlr.com/editor/ for example after a quick Google).
Open the page and there it is: your interface ready to use.
I've been working on splines all day.

The client's requirement: to move the control point of the front of a series of splines, in such a way that it interpolates between the N nearest splines, where the nearest splines are filtered at the opposite end of the point the user is manipulating. Basically, you move your control point where you want, but the other end of the curve moves as little as possible. When you stop moving it, it interpolates smoothly to the spline whose equivalent control point is closest to the one you were moving.

I had no idea how long this would take, but I wasn't at all surprised that it's taken me all day just to write an implementation. Tomorrow I need to test it. It's so complicated that it's actually impossible to tell if it's working just by looking at it. My brain feels fried.

It's times like these when you hope your project manager will be sympathetic :)
Why you should add Image on your Business Blog Post: Pinterest
Those are useful comments, and I wish there was a way to just limit it to that. In any case, thanks for your offering of corrections and help. I still have an email address for that kind of stuff.
PS: Please open the app in Chrome (or Safari), not Firefox. In Firefox it will break due to a lack of localdb support.
40+ Simple Family Photography Ideas
Pakistan vs England 4th ODI Live
The author is absolutely right.

It's a fundamental rule of human computer interaction—the user should be in control of the relationship, not the computer.

If we spoke to people the way computers speak to us, we'd be considered rude beyond belief. Whether it's our operating systems or web sites, they're constantly haranguing us to stop what we're doing and pay attention to them.

Let me be clear. There is NOTHING a computer needs your attention for that can't either be handled on its own or that can't wait until you're ready to pay attention to it.

If you're interested in being notified about an event, whether it's a new message coming in, a process completing, or an error that's happened in the background, you should be able to have that notification appear when the event occurs. But that should be your choice.

The distinction between "important" and "unimportant" notifications should be made by the user, not the machine.
But his speed would only slow down until he hits the 50% point. After that, his speed will increase until he hits the end.
Someone just submitted a patch that uses curl on OS X. Also, no need for root, because julia will run out of the directory it is built in. Hopefully, someone who knows more about mac packaging will build a drag-and-drop installer.
I doubt that would make things a lot safer. With permission to modify only the stylesheet, one could already change the login form to phish your password.
Brainstorming Doesn’t Really Work
What's the difference between Text, Text - MS-DOS Format, and Unicode Text?
Thanks, that's very interesting. Why do you believe that Clojure/Scala are on the cusp of high demand? Those would be the most interesting directions to go on that list.
Ha, this is exactly what I came in to post. I understand that pursuit of perfection is what drives the industry to become better, but at the same time I have a hard time not laughing at the someone raging about a load-time measured in seconds that will be seen, what, once a day? Once a week? Given that the budget for any software is finite, I can't work up any fury that they didn't shave seconds off a once-off operation instead of dumping it into new features, or performance on longer-running or more-often-used functionality.
“Graviboard 2.0” jailbreak tweak, make your Home screen of iOS devices cool
3 Reasons CRE doesn't do social media
Really? The only two options are that Apple doesn't care or that it is a conspiracy? How about:

3. That most people will look at the situation with the same lenses they look at Apple with. Those that hate Apple will see their internal monitoring cynically as a PR move with little substance, and those that love Apple will be glad to know that it is doing more than the competition and will believe Tim Cook when he says he takes the problems seriously.

Even in the future if conditions improve, Apple lovers will credit Apple, and Apple haters will credit the increased demand for labor or the Chinese government for improving worker conditions.

The reality, like so much of the real world, is a complex grey area that is difficult to analyse just from what you read on the internet.
Pallet covers for long shipments and forwarding services 
pallet covers protect goods in pallet transportations against temperature fluctuations
Imagine my disappointment when I got this response:

"Searching:\> Sorry I couldn't find anything for 'Lionel Richie'. Try again."

Opportunity for an easter egg?
So I started building this as a coding exercise for an interview, I'd particularly be interested in getting feedback on my approach to Operational Transformation: http://gpickard.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/my-approach-to-oper...
Isn't this one reason for the existence of http://debian-multimedia.org ?
> what is the software/hacking scene in Iran really like?

For indie developers and those who want to use cutting edge technologies (think of a web service created on Node.js + MongoDB), pretty grim. People use those kind of services, but it's hard to make a living making them (because of lack of widespread payment systems).

But the government invests heavily on software technologies (security/blocking/MITMing!), and all corporations/big businesses have to rely on home-made solutions (banks, hospitals, universities) Those areas are usually dominated by Microsoft technologies (.Net and SQL Server).

> Do most computers use Linux?

Absolutely no. It's easy to crack Windows, Photoshop and Microsoft Word! And many (including myself) don't consider it unethical, as you can't buy them in any other way (I buy a lot through Mac/iTunes App Store, but mainly to support fellow developers and not because I consider it more ethical for my situation).

> And if trading with Iran is illegal how would you buy an Apple or Dell machine anyway?

I think it's called black market (though I'm not sure if it applies to our situation or not). What I mean is that a guy buys 25 MacBooks in Hong Kong and ships them to Iran (they're all registered under his name) and then sells them independently of Apple, usually with a tasty premium (Apple products are really popular, but also more expensive than other brands.

> Can you have gmail/blogger/twitter accounts or are US companies forbidden from giving you free accounts?

You usually can use them, but you can't register from Iran (you have to choose another country). But in case of most social things it doesn't matter, because they are blocked by the government anyway. Stuff like sf.net, code.google.com, and like of Oracle are more problematic; as they block Iranian IPs.

> What languages are popular?

C#, ASP.Net, PHP, Java (for businesses). Hackers and hobbyists use whatever they feel like.

> Is there a large internal market for software?

For end users? No. But for corporations and businesses (those I mentioned above), I don't think it's different than other places.

:)
Yes, and that should be your choice, not the system's choice. If you decide that some notifications are important enough to be displayed, then you should see them.

Sometimes, a person doesn't want any notifications at all—for example, when they're working and "in the zone," or watching a movie, or playing a game.

Sometimes, you want to be notified about pretty much everything.

The decision about when to be notified or not, and what's important vs. unimportant, should be your decision, not your computer's.
Alternatively we just need more people not trained in formal math who also happen to be geniuses: http://jeffjonas.typepad.com/jeff_jonas/2011/04/data-beats-m...

Seriously, Jonas demolishes the "'deep analytical expertise' is simply extremely high mathematical ability" interpretation. It's about creating the right algorithms, which sometimes involves math and sometimes doesn't (I like the insertion sort because it's intuitively how humans sort things--it could have been discovered by a middle schooler). It's not about being able to do hardcore math and liking it.

This is the first time I've heard of MathCounts though, was this really just blogospam for that program with this site just plucking Big Data Analytics out of the spectrum of possible link-bait subjects? Are the kids there doing hardcore math that other math competitions do? (The video never really focused on a particular problem.)

Edit: here's a link to their handbook. http://mathcounts.org/handbook Doesn't look very fun to me.
Prevent snooping on Facebook groups using a Chrome Extension
It would be interesting to see a statistic about web vs. mobile regarding "decisions made" instead of simple page views and unique visits. Browsing stuff and even small updates are a natural fit for small portable devices, but I wonder how this translates to e.g. web shops.

Also, the whole "mobile" moniker is really somewhat misleading. Sure, there's quite a difference between someone using a specialized iphone app to access a site vs. someone sitting in front of a 20+ inch desktop monitor. But considering laptops vs. tablets, the distinction isn't that big anymore. An ipad-like device is basically a full-fledged browsing environment, so the need to deviate from your usual "web" app for convenience's sake becomes less pressing.

Never mind that the statistics get even more blurry if you factor in all the "mobile apps" that are basically wrapped browser views with a few buttons sprinkled on top
It is now, but in 1995 it wasn't. Apple designed custom chipsets (apparently different ones for every model...) and then sold them to clone vendors at prices that didn't recoup their R&D.
Non-publicly-routable addresses are a hack that will cause you nothing but trouble, and are going away with IPv6, so you might as well move away from them now.

(Not that having chrome use 8.8.8.8 is a good idea either. As is often the case with hacks, either on its own works fine but the two interact poorly.)
Mono is Free Software [1]. You might be confusing licensing with potential patent encumbrance, perhaps on purpose since one of your activities here seems to involve spreading disinformation about that project [2]. Which perhaps is not surprising considering you also seem to be one of the regulars at techrights. [3]

[1] http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3347529

[3] http://goo.gl/8Xb4R
They didn't publish any button guidelines so it's a modified Subscribe button. I would think they'd be more for it as they're getting more eCommerce data. The post states this: Just to be clear, we were approved by Facebook to use these Open Graph actions but this is not a “partnership” with Facebook.

Unfortunately it's a bit difficult to get in contact with FB.
Seems like it's similar to physically going to conferences and focusing on some topic 100%, instead of just watching the same video streams and presentations at home.
Funny thing.

Isn't that how iPhone development was supposed to happen? Then everyone whined and complained that they wanted a native development system. Now that they have it (and it's a pretty solid one), we're supposed to whine that it's not cross-platform?

I'm guessing HTML5 and etc will help solve that problem, correct?
Well.. I tried to make two points =)

- there are no excuses for stealing property
- if your country is excluded from worldwide business, it is your problem first of all, not company's, which have problems selling in your country.
1998: The Year of Thinking Different
now this is interesting - it removes google ads.

how long until google blocks this? it defeats the purpose of their free gmail service after all...
What env currently supports mixed-mode editing well? They all seem pretty crappy at the moment.

Either way, the code looks/reads a lot cleaner if you include the JavaScript as a separate file referenced from your HTML. Solves 2 problems.
So you'd install a local caching DNS server that only chrome would use... and this is better than chrome doing its own DNS lookups how?
Codecademy vs. Scroll Kit
I'm quite sure that facebook would follow a lot of what is being advocated in here, but then css variables get expanded etc to give them 6498 variations.

For the past 5 years or so I've had an average an average of 8 base css files for most projects, normally along
the lines of page layout / typography / individual elements in different contexts / interactive elements & their mobile equivalents in separate files then a separate file for each ~type~ of content object within a page, sass gets expanded, then they get minified & cached as one file. Along with saving a hash of their internal paths to prevent the majority of cache misses, I've found this works well (for javascript also) & other than hand-tweaking a couple of homepages or high traffic landing pages haven't had to do much else.

edit: to be clear, the article is great advice but would have you end up with a monolithic common.css, don't do that, there are better alternatives
If you're a Sass user (and even if you're not), you should check out Compass:

http://compass-style.org/

Compass has CSS3 helpers, automated sprite generation, semantic grid system support and lots more. It's a killer power tool for front-end devs and designers.
Ask HN: Sortfolio for app development?
I love the idea of Sortfolio to help find designers, but there are tons of talented web & mobile app development shops out there. If I'm looking to have an app built, is there any easy way to find them? Most of the agencies on Sortfolio are front end/design only.
Thanks for sharing that, I learned something new today already :).

You can see the progression even over the last 10-20 years. We used to see the title of the movie, and then a few minutes of scenery with the actor's names on them. These days it's not uncommon for the movie to start almost immediately with the credits integrated into various background elements.
I agree with him, in principal, that apps should be lighter and faster. However, Photoshop is just a giant program to do lots of complex things. It's a burden I'm willing to put up with (for now) because I have yet to make a transition to a similar, lighter, program.
Mercedes Hacked Your Keyfob Into A Marketing Triumph
Adobe is the definition of bloat.
Perhaps because if they don't, the discussion tends to gravitate towards "you are breaking the law if you are pirating", instead of focusing on the main point they are trying to make.
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If you would like to get familiar with the application beforehand, sign up for our beta (http://trendslide.com).

Anyone interested send your top 3 ideas to improve trendslide (from what you've seen on the web or in-app beta) along with prior experience. Would prefer someone in the Boston area, but considering candidates from other areas too.

Send to: Jvocell@trendslide.com