skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some of us actually like distinguishing between URLs/bookmarks/history and an autocomplete-with-search-engine-spying search facility. I don't view the trend of combining them into a single text box as a positive one, whichever browser is doing it.
I'm at the point where I keep both Chrome and FF open. Chrome for work and FF for browsing, where I find Treestyle Tabs too valuable to lose. I've pretty much given up on there being a true Chrome equivalent at this point, but I would probably switch if there was one.
Panel says problem schools hurt nation's security
I think anyone interested in this whole matter would be well served by listening to Act 3. It lays out the facts that we know to be true, and provides the information necessary to make an informed decision as to whether or not you should be supporting Apple by buying their products:

To get a sense of what really is true of Apple's working conditions in China, Ira talks to New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg. Duhigg, along with Times reporter David Barboza, wrote the newspaper's front-page investigative series in early 2012 about this subject. And while Duhigg won't tell you how to feel about Apple and its supplier factories' practices, he does lay out the options for how you could feel, in a very clear and logical way. Duhigg is also the author of The Power of Habit. (12 minutes).
i'm too paranoid for chrome. stay with da fox.
How do you know that mathematically-secure cryptography can actually exist?
Why Systems Programmers Still Use C, and What to Do About It
Free tool for genomics pattern discovery with dynamic Bayesian networks
Unfortunately you can't start a robotics startup with almost no money (like sw startups) !
I think the only use for the search box now is to give people easy access to multiple (or a secondary) search engine. Sure, it's ugly, but it does give users a clear and simple way to search wikipedia for "widgets".

Chrome, on the other hand, only exposes non-Google search engines through the search engine keyword thingy, which means a user has to actually type "en.wikipedia.org widgets" into the omnibox. Sure, tab-completion will do half the work, but the user still has to remember to start typing "en." rather than, say, "wikipedia".

I know that Chrome (and, indeed, Firefox) allow you to edit those search engine keywords, but that is power-user territory, and power-users can edit their Firefox UI as well. http://i.imgur.com/mS5Ot.png
Used to be that all Ball made was jars. Now they are sending successful probes out into space and helping the advancement of science.
It's software, everything's a digital copy.
Ditto, mathematically, most of the users are not the early adopters. I'm also not one, and I'm certainly more typical "average" guy: my first iPod was Shuffle(!), the first iPhone the 4 and it's much more convenient than I was able to imagine even if I really, really miss the possibility to use it as a simple "flash disk."

I've bought an iPad 2 for my parents. I expected that USB will work with the "apple camera connection kit" but it doesn't. Still I'm going to order the new iPad. Even if I miss some things that competition has, I consider overall feeling really worth the investment both for the iPhone 4 and the iPad.
It sounds like you're trying to build http://mixrank.com for SEO. SEO is tough cause the results aren't immediate. Also, as a business person, most would rather pay for results (black or white hat) than a bunch of information that they may not be able to act on.
I'm curious if anybody has written something equivalent to CoffeeScript for C...
Gamification for Improved Search Ranking for YouTube Topics | Research Blog
I think he's just poking some sarcasm at the guy he replied to. Not at your article. But maybe I'm wrong ^^
Maintaining Hacker News Culture
Some time ago, I read/imagined a post about how Hacker News is not a news portal, but a discussion forum. By posting here, people encourage healthy discussion about those topics.

I feel that HN is loosing that focus because a lot of people are using it as a replacement for Google Reader. For example, today, Amazon acquired Kiva. On the Internet, there are a lot of sources that will post this news. It'll flow from top of the line news blogs (TC and GigaOm) to people who simply reblog stuff to gain traction on their blogs.

On HN, within a span of a few minutes, two people posted the same topic, one a report from ZDNet and the other from TC (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3726164 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3726172)

This is counterproductive. Both posters got a good number of points for posting those items, but HN is not a numbers game. Your value is from your comments and not how many items your copy paste from the Internet.

To that end, I propose that HN should implement a technique similar to StackOverflow where as you type in your topic or attach the link, the system searches for similar items and hints at those to alert the poster that they're just wasting their time. If they still insist on posting, HN stalwarts who have negative voting rights should exercise them.

Now here's the irony - Someone would probably already have proposed this exact method on HN, but since there's no easy search or StackOverflow style hinting, I have no way of knowing about it...

(n.b. A lot of people will say that that tech will need a major overhaul for HN, which in it's simple form cannot support such searches and we don't want to upgrade. Why not? Some extra functionality never hurt anyone :) )
"Very, very small PCs – the kind you could fit in your pocket – are starting to have the same amount of computing grunt as a high end desktop PC of, say, 5 years ago. And that was plenty, even back then, for a relatively inefficient general purpose operating system."

I would argue that it's more than they need, that a service like OnLive is before its time but not more than a few years from hitting prime. I would say get ready for the Post Hardware Era.
If you're prototyping with JPlayer, what is your final product gonna be in?

I was thinking about using on a project, that's why I'm asking.
Those who are worried about the memory in FF, do you know there is an option that will not load the tabs until you click on it.

I have around 700 tabs open but at a time only 10 or less are loaded.

Tools/options/General "Don't load tabs until selected"
I gave up on any sanity in web standards when the people responsible for HTML5 seriously suggested making it some sort of living document that would evolve rapidly over time. That demonstrates such a spectacular misunderstanding of why reference standards are important in general and the need for long-term stability in many web-based projects in particular that I lost all hope. The glacial pace of W3C standardisation has rendered them mostly irrelevant, but a standard that can change as fast as new browser versions ship isn't much use for anything either.
Dude, read the article.
The lack of a decent point in this article makes me wonder whether Apple paid Atwood to write this piece.
HTML5 isn't a standard yet, so how can you be conformant?
Linux 3.3 released, restores Android components in staging
Overclocking Gameboy Color
Right-Click on Excel Taskbar Icon > "Microsoft Excel" > A new window opens.

Still crazy that it doesn't do that by default, but there is a workaround.
something to keep in mind is that my bet is that due to the high profile scrutiny that workers at that plant are most likely treated above average when put next to other plants in china. so the plants making products that nobody has heard of most likely will have the worst conditions -- but sadly the media will never care about that
You're wrong that the GPL prohibits one from selling software as software. It doesn't. It does make it harder, because anyone can come in and buy one copy to distribute to everyone else, but this happens very often in the non-open-source world too. Maybe you've heard of pirates?

The only difference is legal ability to sue, but then again when your unwanted re-distributors/pirates are the masses whose real-world identities are hard to discover, this difference doesn't mean that much. You can also gain some (though not all) of the same legal rights to sue unwanted re-distributors by trademarking your application, which forces any re-distributors to have to redistribute under a different name (CentOS instead of RedHat) which puts them at a marketing disadvantage.

Is your example of developing a niche feature for a niche domain really the traditional way? I guess so, but since the GPL has been around there have been numerous examples of what-would-have-been-proprietary features still being developed, released, and open sourced. e.g. if you own all the copyright to a GPL program, some niche domain representative can come along and you can sell them a non-GPL license to develop their addon for which they can then resell. As another e.g., look at all the companies who have contributed to the Linux Kernel. The company wants a particular feature because they can use it to make money for some other reason, so they pay developers to write the code which then gets GPL'd. The company still makes money from the code, the developers make money by writing the code, and the users directly, obviously benefit from the code being there as opposed to the company having estimated indirect guesses at how much value they could capture by selling the code for what the market could bear.

Edit: I do agree with you about the irony, though.
>> iPad 3 reviews that complain "all they did was improve the display" are clueless bordering on stupidity. Tablets are pretty much by definition all display; nothing is more fundamental to the tablet experience than the quality of the display.

While I agree that the display improvements are noteworthy, I would say that tablets are not "by definition all display." The tactile interaction is as much a part of a tablet's worth.
But they don't need to understand the mathematical details of the cryptographic protocol (do they?), which seemed to be what you were implying. It seems to me the details could easily be abstracted away into a sequence of idiot-proof steps, but I don't know much of anything about public voting systems.

Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted - am I misinterpreting what specialist is saying? For another example, look at HTTPS - it secures your communication without any need for knowledge of how it's doing so, you just need to know that if you see the green lock icon you're "safe" (though I'm aware of all the usability issues, like how everyone just ignores warning messages when something goes wrong). Is there something fundamentally different about public voting systems in this regard?
The pilot does sit in a sphere. It's just like the Trieste; it's not possible to make a sphere that is strong enough to withstand the pressure and light enough to remain buoyant. To solve this they attach the sphere to a larger buoyant vessel.

The non-spherical part of the Trieste was filled with gasoline for buoyancy, this submersible uses some kind of high density foam.
How Google Fights "Bad Ads"
I did pull the comparison out of the air. Space travel is probably less safe now than taking a ship 3000 miles across an uncharted ocean.
Are you planning on serving (or streaming with a lot of buffering) FLAC audio on a public site? Why not re-encode and save everyone bandwidth?
Audiogalaxy supports both those formats, and has an API you can use to play those formats as ogg using jPlayer, perhaps? http://www.audiogalaxy.com/misc/developer
These services are not VPSs. They're basically selling RDP access to pre-installed copies of Windows, where the service provider handles all the licensing and serial keys. The idea is to target non-technical users who want to run MS Office or Flash websites on their iPad without paying for a PC running Windows.
That's going to need some serious network infrastructure to back it up. You will essentially have every computer user in the world constantly streaming very high resolution video for 8 hours+ a day.

The 1GB/month limit most carriers provide is going to be nowhere near enough, you will need more like 1/2 TB per month and it needs to be provided reliably.
I think it might look slightly better if the buttons were moved to be partly off-screen, something like this: http://i.imgur.com/8T26g.png

The way it's demonstrated on the website, there's no visual indication that the window is partially offscreen except for the lack of a rounded corner, which isn't noticeable at a glance. The exact offset would have to be played with a bit, but letting the buttons push slightly off the screen makes it immediately clear that part of the window isn't visible.

Another visual indication you lose either way is being able to judge how much of a window is off-screen. Normally, the title is perfectly centered all the time. You can look at how far the window extends to the right, and assume it does the same on the left. My minor edit to the buttons above doesn't help with this one.

All in all, I think it's giving relatively minor gains in exchange for removing visual information about the size of the window. The effect is similar to Apple's choice to hide scrollbars in 10.7 unless you're actively scrolling. Sometimes you can judge from the context that there's more available off the screen, and sometimes you can't. Is it worth the trade-off?
They have a significant stake in the DMCA and what its legislation protects. If the DMCA is allowed to erode too easily by MPAA & Co., Google's many businesses may be threatened either directly or indirectly.

Google is looking out for their own well-being (which is perfectly fine), it just so happens their action happens to shield certain other companies at the same time.

Still, this may actually be even more beneficial than "do no evil" (which would only be ascribed to Google's own actions). This is much more akin to "do not let evil occur."
Simple functional programming in R
This really is a fascinating problem. If Guise Bule gets his way the the maximum number of software licenses sold would be equivalent to the maximum number of concurrent users. I don't think that's particularly desirable for either developers or users.

A similar situation exists with video games. The market is going pure digital and gamers want the ability to sell "used" digital games. If that were possible then a middleman service would appear which would instantly "buy" and "sell" the game as you launched and closed a game. A wildly successful game such as Skyrim sells millions of copies but only had ~300,000k concurrent users (on PC) at launch. A couple of months later and that number is only ~50,000. Suffice to say this will never be allowed to happen.
If amazon wouldn't have offered EWS to netflix or have stopped offering it to netflix, netflix could have easily use some other cloud competitor. Maybe netflix would had to pay a bit more , but i don't think it would have been a big difference.

I don't know much about kiva but if their service is hard to replace and is a unique competitive advantage(and looking at the purchase price,it seems so), amazon would use this advantage.Amazon is known to play hardball.
Can we make it part of the midwest mentality to discourage linkbait overgeneralizations?
Internet Explorer 10: "fast" and "native" has gone to other browsers
Well, presumably there will still be some Internet Explorer around to keep those open source goons honest. :-)
Google: Actually, Meta Tags Do Matter.
> but "phones" have not been the business of "Apple Computer" as well.

I don't think of the iPhone as a phone at all. It's a computer I always have with me.

Now, the main reason I always have it with me is because, rather than being an additional thing I need to carry in my pocket and always remember, it replaced a thing I need to carry in my pocket and always remember, but the "Phone" feature is the least used feature of my iPhone by far.

This is how Apple approached the iPhone, too. It was initially thought of as an iPod that had the sweet feature that it could replace your phone rather than require you to carry an extra device.
CitySync is a New Civic Portal for City of Portland
I have have better luck with awesomebar personally. My searches tend to hit words in URLs and titles of history before I actually want to duckduckgo. Omnibox also breaks my usage pattern for intranet (no tld) URLs.
What is missing is not technology but a reason to go.

"At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (0.99 mi) contains more than 20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals." [1]

Spot-checking (pun not intended), those metals are currently up as much as an order of magnitude over their 1997 prices. So that same small-ish asteroid could be worth something more along the lines of a quarter petadollar.

If that's not sufficient reason to strip mine the asteroid belt, I don't know what is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
iOS devices have had there tactile interaction down since the beginning. They are so responsive compared to Android devices (from my experience), and so I don't see where Apple could have improved in this area.
Daily Deals Aggregator Frugalo Acquired By TwitVid
> it looks very much like the path towards where Apple is, where maybe I have to install a custom Cyanogenmod build on my Android phone just to have the option to install non-'Play' APKs

I find it very difficult to believe that Google will remove sideloading. Things have actually moved in the opposite direction. For example, after preventing sideloading for years, AT&T made the decision to enable it last May[0]. Apparently that was thanks to Amazon. So since there are already 2 dominant markets, I don't think it'll happen going forward.

Also, keep in mind that Google has a dominant position in the smartphone market, so such restrictions could draw interest from antitrust regulators.

0: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/att-sideload-android-...
Microsoft aiming for October 2012 release of Windows 8, tablets and PCs on deck
I like the idea of moving them slightly off the screen to show that your window is clearly off the screen... but it might be better to indent the buttons further into the screen so that the close button is still the same size.
Oh, fascinating. I'd read about that in the late 80s, but didn't realize it was still in use.
Both Mike Daisy and "Kony2012" really ask the question, "why do we need a character actor to tell us facts when we could be using journalists?"

When people are addicting to having situations digested into entertaining pap, we should be surprised that truth suffers.
I think I prefer to see a faster and complete standard implementation for C++11 and C11 than to see a modular GCC.

Making the project more modular, while not a bad idea in itself, could potentially delay the implementation of the latest standards.
I thought he did a good job too, but I think that lying at all, even about little details in order to have a more coherent, compelling story about an important topic poisons the whole thing, because it brings into question the author's credibility. You have to decide for yourself when he's finished lying and is now telling the truth.

In this particular case, I think it's safe to just take his story as fiction (even though some of it is true), since there are plenty of other journalists covering the same topic. It's just a shame that he felt he couldn't just tell Ira from the beginning what was storytelling and what was reporting, since his piece was so well done, and he really did not need to mislead or lie in order to be compelling.
The important thing is trying to get corporations, like Apple, to take charge in human rights. There is the saying "vote with your wallet" and Apple has the power to get people like Foxconn to live up to expectations, just by using their (Apple's) wallet.

What is unfortunate, and hopefully going to change is that some corporations are not interested in human rights, but instead their bottom line - which is understandable, as they have shareholders etc -. However companies like Apple do have a moral obligation to make sure that their products do not negatively impact the well being of human life, and this should be a part of Apple's business plan/strategy.

I think what woz is talking about is that human rights should be included as a factor of the bottom line, and Apple should be taking charge in making this happen, lead by example.

Another company that does this, is Patagonia. Their mission is:

"Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis."

This obviously relates to environmental concerns, however "cause no unnecessary harm" also has human elements. Personally I would like all corporations that I do business with, have this idea ingrained in their business philosophy. One can always dream.
Ending the mass assignment party
Who's Responsible When Robots Kill?
In Elon Musk I Trust.
3 months is light, I had a client not pay when I was using the 3 month rule and it was a bad situation. 6 is a better rule of thumb. I would not jump with at least 6 in the bank.
The NASA remote sensing budget is being cut by 30%. That's very bad news for Earth Science and the validation of climate models, let alone for the exploration of space.

Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/07/house-appr...
Web Designers Love Chasing Trends
Google's motto, BTW, is "Don't be evil", not "Do no evil". The first describes an ethos, the second analyzes a sequence of events.

(Officially, Google's mission statement is "Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.")
Looking for very capable programmer(s) for existing venture
Hello,
I am looking for a programmer(s) for a very worthwhile, existing idea that I could also provide to Y Combinator for Summer 2012. I have already provided an application with an idea, however, I may continue with this venture.

The focus is media distribution (made easier) and I'm looking for someone able to help with the technical requirements of the idea.

The person(s) needs to be a very capable programmer, however, the idea could see mainstream use (and become very popular).

I am also available at jehns@hushmail.com

Thank you,
Jehns
Absolutely agreed. Daisey lied about some relatively minor stuff (in the big picture), so the attack is against Mike Daisey.

The straw man is dead. Long live the straw man.
JMS and web services are BOTH scaleable
Subpoenas to be served via Facebook and Twitter in Estonia
From the article: "We do know from Microsoft's blog post that vendors can only host Windows 7 desktops in a virtual desktop infrastructure setting if the customers buy their own licenses from Microsoft. Even if this requirement is met, the vendor must host the desktops on separate physical hardware for each customer, ruling out a multitenant arrangement."

You might be able to enable the client to load an ISO of Windows and have him enter his serial key but you'd have to separate hardware for each customer making any virtualization completely pointless.
Sure notify:

You're right. I don't consider myself an expert on HN at all.
I was truly trying to be helpful, as I could tell you were wandering into an ongoing conversation that you didn't know existed.

I have seen similar topics about SV (sometimes it's there are too many people from India, not enough women, age discrimination against 50 year olds, Europeans not happy with immigration).

I actually DID answer it, so Let me give it another try:

No. Silicon Valley is not racist. Not at all. They would hire an eskimo if he could produce something promising.

Have you had a negative experience in SV that you would like to share?
Windows 8 to Debut in October
How much would you pay for privacy?