skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Microsoft needs to explain WHY the Surface should exist. It's not immediately obvious to the market why yet another tablet with a different os should exist. Microsoft failed to answer that (and their so-so presentation skills only hurt their efforts).

The big thing here is developer mind-share. Microsoft is trying to leverage their large pc software library, but that seems like a mistake here. Tablet users want touch specific apps. A large library of nearly unusable programs isn't a winning move. They need to get developers engaged with the platform and give them a reason to support a third OS.

It's a chicken/egg problem. They need to convince both consumers as well as developers WHY they should care. That's a tough sell, made all the more difficult by poor presentation skills and no good answer for the question. If Microsoft wants to disrupt the tablet market (and they'll have to if they want to gain any significant market share), they have to do better than just living off their name. They need a game changer and I'm just not seeing it (and that might just come down to their poor ability to communicate).
Not only is the website down, but it seems the entire API is as well.
Ip phone Scanning Made Easy (ISME) v 0.4 Released
I agree that slides should not be the whole story. Whats the point of having slides if the speaker is basically reading them? Whats the point of the speaker if the slides contain everything that is being said?

On the other hand, I do love when slides act as a brief summary of the talk because I often don't want to spend 45 minutes to listen to a talk when all I want is a summary or if I don't yet know if the talk is interesting to me, or if I can't watch a video right now for whatever reason and want to know if I should bookmark it for later. But thats not the real reason I like slides to be made available.

The biggest reason of all for you to put your slides online is that I have seen countless videos of talks where the slides are unreadable (too small, too blurry, too low resolution - whatever) or the camera focused completely on the speaker and never showed the slides at all. Not all videos make the slides available (eg if its on vimeo or youtube, rather than something like infoq) - in these cases, often the video is worthless unless the speaker makes the slides available on their website.
A Sad Lesson in Collaborative Innovation
I think I have to agree with that. Doing one thing well is good and all, but for an app like this it might've been prudent to do the web site well first, and pending the success of that move onto devices.

Warning - Rant:

This strikes me as typical of two things that seem to be trending -

1). Build platform-specific (be that HTML5, Windows, or iOS or whatever) that cuts out otherwise interested users.

2). Make sure it's "social". That word right there is starting to turn me away from apps. I have enough "social".
easy, but what's the point? you can already get this content via non-legal means if you want. Any website scraping these urls and offering them for download will just get shut down or blocked. The streams are delivered in a way that makes it sufficiently difficult for normal users to just right click and save as, this is Good Enough. The people who can get around this can already get the music for free elsewhere.
This is pretty cool, but it's like "breaking and entering" a house that has no doors. "Hacking" is a bit of a stretch. I like his self-deprecating humor at the end, I'm sure he recognizes this.

This brings up an interesting question: what incentive does Rdio have to actually protect their data? If the record labels don't know, and 99% of their users don't know, it's probably not even worth their time to protect the mp3 data at all. They can just tell everyone "oh yeah, we're a streaming service, we don't allow downloads," then use some general obfuscation (AKA don't make the download link readily available to non-programmers and music industry execs), put a clause in their license that says you can't store the music you play, and bam, problem never existed in the first place. The most annoying thing for them would probably be the bandwidth usage of people trying to script this and download high volumes of data, but even then only a minor annoyance.

The even larger point is: even if I were an Rdio subscriber (I'm actually a Spotify subscriber), I'd still prefer to use their app and service rather than download the files just so I can "have" them. Their value is in the service, not in the data they stream. The value is not in having music files, but having unlimited access to unlimited music. This is the business model we always wanted from online music, and they're finally getting it right. Music to my ears.
Inside Minority Report‘s ‘Idea Summit’
I'm not able to sign in. It happened when I tried to send a tweet from my blog while I was signed in. So, yeah, even the API is down.
Maybe it's me, but the suggestion that someone is getting short changed because they're different, and that it's easier to justify short changing someone because they're different, implies that the problem is their difference, not the short-changing.
Nobody understands Twitter replies
Is iTunes Store for Asia coming soon?
I've been doing the same and the lag isn't the issue. The real problem is high CPU usage. I can only use the usb monitor for looking at text, anything more (like opening a webpage or watching a video in youtube) and the computer slows to a crawl (I'm using the first unibody macbook pro, pre-thunderbolt).
For controlling your computer while you slam your head on the desk in frustration?
Yup, one way of doing each action. Was designed to be used by primary school children and the networked versions administered by primary teachers.
ScriptPad Prevents Your Doctor’s Bad Penmanship From Killing You
But he wants his posts to be available to anyone who (unbeknownst perhaps to him) might be interested in tech. The setting should be something like "Public, but only spam my tech circles."
TED: Peter Norvig: The 100,000 student classroom
http://mobile.twitter.com is working.
It probably did. Long time ago. IE on RC build of Windows 8 does not crash.
Known for a year with no fix in sight :(
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=626963
These two podcasts are good:

http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/

http://www.lifestylebusinesspodcast.com/
It's true. I've also caught a stop ID with a space in it, which seemed kind of non-standard. It caused an error that I was able to fix.

Otherwise the API is a nice service. Previous versions of TCTransit relied on scraping. Dirty, but it still performed nicely.
It is not really cutting the benefits and wages that affect loyalty. Seeing my parent generation, they all understood that there were good and bad time in a company and that sometimes you needed to work for the greater good (of the company). The major difference, they had their job for life.

Now you are a despised resource. If you are not in sales, you are a "cost center".
A previous boss of mine, during a company meeting QA summarized it like that: "Q: Are you thinking about outsourcing our project X dev team ? A: There is no immediate plan, however we are a development company, and we are continuously investigating outsourcing opportunities to stay competitive." That is something that the new generation know very well: you current job is only training for the next one.
Does not crash IE10 on Release Preview 64-bit. Neither desktop or Metro version.
It's a great story however skeptical of these retrospective views. I wonder how much of her motives were driven by protecting the mortgage holders and the economy; or protecting her career prospects.

Saying this, Hunt seems much more deserving than the former banker in this article:

http://gawker.com/5553737/
Not sure I'd be comfortable hiring someone who claims to be able to "understand undocumented libraries and code bases in a day".
I work for a competitor of Rdio/Spotify/etc.

At least, in our case, the record labels (at least two of the majors) are quite strict and we had to go through a whole validation process to prove it wasn't easy to download the songs playing. Not doing this would mean the labels wouldn't send us the songs to stream.
I think they are.
I can't connect from here nor from a VPS.
Twitter's down?
منتدى تونيزيا دريم بوكس - التسجيل
The EFF will represent The Oatmeal creator for free in fight against FunnyJunk
Well, there now seems to be case law on the topic: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/20/tetris-clone-...

This could be interesting given the sheer number of clones on the app store. I wonder how many game developers actually have trade dress protection on their game?
Gamatria: A Mystical Deconstruction of Fez
I just read the article, "Why even buy a camera?" because it's a subject near and dear to my heart, one I've debated with many photographer friends. Many insist that you should learn on a camera with manual controls, and some insist that it's all in the light and any camera will do.

You handled this question perfectly. Not even kidding. Down to every finer point of debate, you nailed the balance and gave the best, most helpful possible answers, including visual backup to express the true differences.

Absolutely fantastic. I'll be sharing this with other photographer friends and those interested in learning more. Great work. Thanks for posting.
>> I don't know how this would work out ergonomically. My dad is a cab driver and he often complains that pressing the clutch with his foot often giving him RSI kind of pain.

I think the car clutch is more related to the force required to press it - it's kind of a long, slow push with lots of pressure AND control at the same time. This seems like a button, on/off-type deal - more like tapping your foot than squeezing a clutch.
This is actually really easy.

"but I need to go out a lot (every day, or more, if I can help it"

Therefore, you are an extrovert.
Is This PC Gaming Chair Too Much?
I'm not quite sure what "the fundamentals" are.

As far as I'm aware there isn't some universally recognized "right" way to teach people how to use computers. I remember 10 years ago everyone was certain that teaching kids to use MS Word was the most important thing in the world, now it seems to be avoiding creeps on facebook.

I'd be thrilled that they are actually learning something, especially something designed for "grown ups" rather than kids.
Apparently that is what Microsoft is trying to solve with the unified core. If the developers have ability to write code one time and target both the phone and the tablet/desktop, it is quite appealing proposition.
Project GameOver - OS for Practicing Web Security
It'll load, but it won't allow you to sign in, Tweet, etc.
I created something similar ..check out http://www.peeqshare.com
I keep hearing about how much fear is involved in pre-publication sharing ... I'd love a giant list of those individuals who have ACTUALLY experienced this and the context in which it happened.

Clearly this is an area which could be capitalized on... and as we're talking about truly novel information the value is almost guaranteed.
" and even if they try to repair it I can never forgive them for ie6."

You can never forgive them for making the absolute best browser on the market at the time it was released? Don't blame Microsoft because there are people out there are still trying to use IE6 today.
What's happened to Twitter?
In my opinion, save the configuration, XMonad is simpler to use than mouse-based window managers.

You can open and close programs, change their layout, move between and resize them. All with, what, 7 shortcuts?

With mouse-based WM's there's click to focus, click and drag, right click, lots of buttons and icons everywhere and you have to constantly work to make the relevant information visible.

There's a reason why people don't go back after using tiling WM's - they're easier and more efficient to use than their mouse-based counterparts.

Consider that mobile phones use a similar approach by getting rid of the concept of windows and they are, by a long shot, easier for most people to get to grips with. Tiling is a similar concept except that more than one application is visible at the same time. The lack of a window stack helps. Navigating a big physical table covered with pieces of paper (i.e. all applications on the same layer, where the table split into segments - aka desktops) is infinitely easier for a human than a stack of paper (i.e. finding something in a binder or book is more annoying and slower).
Ask HN: What impact does a Truste seal have on user confidence and adoption?
I'm a big fan of Zack Holloman's approach:

Something I’ve been doing recently is making a screen recording of my talks using QuickTime on my Mac. It’ll record both my voice and my slides as I flip through them. It’s a much better experience than just posting contextless slides.

http://zachholman.com/posts/what-they-dont-tell-you-about-pu...
Agreed. I'm one of the most loyal employees you'll ever find ... as long as I'm treated fairly. In exchange for good work all they need to provide is ample benefits, flexible schedule, satisfactory compensation, work with challenging/motivating problems - or some healthy mix of those.

Once the balance shifts to (my personal feeling of) inequality, I have no problem (or choice?) but to move on. Gone are they days of "lifers" with company provided pensions that could possibly make that decision (to move) harder (a la IBM full term careers).
The Long and Winding Road: How Your Email Does (or Doesn't) Get to the Inbox
It’s down, apparently.
ICANN is wrong
That's totally fair. With the types of slides I try to make, they're usually legible on the video, but if they aren't, and there is video to accompany them, I'd be happy to share.

The point is just getting the whole story, together. And, personally, I prefer something like a blog post because I can read faster than I can listen to the whole talk. Even if I miss out on some of the funny or other moments.
> ..."sl" launched steam locomotives...

:) I never though one second about "sl" being an acronym. I always thought of it as the program I install to punish myself every time I misspell "ls"!
I think their metrics of success are silly (zero discussion of revenue, only caring about VC perception, etc.), but the other conclusions don't surprise me.

What I've noticed from copy-cat incubators and accelerators is that they incorrectly observe what YC is and apply something very different. Many of these programs are more like a class, with structured lessons and methods to success. Attendance might as well be required. YC is more like college: you get out of it what you put in to it. "office hours" are named that way for a reason.

Independence is a strong part of being an entrepreneur. Of course inexperienced entrepreneurs need help, but having no experience at all is an indicator of probable failure. I can only imagine this is amplified when the mentors and investors lack real startup experience.

It also needs to be said that the fallout from failed incubators in smaller cities can be negative. I've heard stories of damaged relationships, investors picking "favorites" and turning groups against each other. Unfortunate stuff.
I'm ok with algorithm patents. It seems like the vast majority of abuses involve business method patents. I'd like to see those abolished.
I too have a website that does regex testing. It supports Java, JavaScript, .Net, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby & XRegExp, though some are more complete than others.

And it supports sharing & a cookbook too.

http://www.regexplanet.com/
That is an awesome idea, I had missed that post of Zach's--which I count as a personal failure.
Looks like that just went down too, while I was using it!

Edit: Nope. Just slow. My tweet appeared.
question for the founders I'm really curious about because you probably get asked it a lot (and it probably has a great answer): why would I use this over CL?
Microsoft Surface & Internet Explorer Presentation Epic Fail [video]
So it's not just UK based then.
A Tale of Two Cities - A short walk with Mary-Alice Brady of mosaicHUB
It's a USB video adapter if I'm reading the product page right

http://plugable.com/products/uga-2k-a/
Are people really downvoting because you pointed out that other browsers have bugs too? Amazing!
Go is a fine language for the most part but has some oddities. For example, Russ Cox is proud in the video that printf is not builtin (it uses language reflection features), but programmers can't even write their own maps/fancy data structures due to the lack of generics.

Also, I found that pointers and references get mixed up all the time and lead to subtle bugs (at least in my code).
for me it works
I think independent invention is really key to the whole issue. If a particular problem is solved in a similar way by multiple independent parties, then the solution on its face should be unpatentable due to obviousness. Independent invention should always be permissible evidence in overturning any extant patents.

The whole idea of a patent is "but for my ingenuity and investment you never could have solved this technological problem. Therefore you must pay me to use my solution."

If it is not the case that nobody could have solved the problem but the patent holder, then the patent is invalid.
The 3rd party app criticism is in my view an outdated one. One year ago would have been premature to make a declaration on the availability of 3rd party apps for the Windows platform since it was still relatively new.

Windows Phone has been catching up and can probably do so more quickly now that the phone and desktop OSes can use similar code.

Edit: Since I am being downvoted for my opinion, I will add some evidence

"An app for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 can share the same code and the same basic user interface, since both platforms use the Metro design language, according to Wissinger."

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/258094/microso...
That sounds really fun. We build an internal application (which I was going to release publicly but instead keep rewriting and rewriting because I don't trust my code enough) that does a lot of this, but at much more nitty-gritty level (ie, use inference techniques to figure out block cipher modes, that sort of thing). If you're ever interested in more challenges like this, drop me a line; I have 'em.

(I watched some of the video stuff last night, and I agree, he's really engaging; moreso than Dan Boneh was for the Stanford crypto course).

How good was the block cipher coverage? Did you end up understanding what you might look for if you had to break someone else's (say) CTR mode stream encryptor, that kind of stuff?
Dos and Don’ts for Founders
Uh yeah, it's really easy to find code that crashes browsers with open bug trackers. Just go search them.
I am not finding title for this post
Ford (the car company) launches a really slick password manager
It's very rare that the situation isn't really "develop once, debug everywhere." You might as well promise me a perfect optimizing compiler while we're at it.

And even then, is the GUI actually appropriate for all of your deploy targets? Usually not.
Yardsale - San Francisco’s Marketplace App Goes National
If you are accepting advertising as emotional manipulation, then say your real point: advertising is immoral coercion.

Or are you seriously going to argue that McDonalds has ads that are considerably more emotionally manipulative than other typical advertisers?
Money is not the only motive for outsourcing things. Its one of the many reasons.

I am from Bangalore, India. I also worked at a major Indian IT firm for more than 5 years. I can tell you many more parameters apart from money matter regarding outsourcing. I see this with even more clarity as I work for a product company that outsources work.

Well executed outsourcing projects make life very easy for clients, that starts with cost savings and ends up going to many levels. I've seen my share of good and bad cases of outsourcing. And I can tell you that in many cases there are healthy relationships between clients and outsourcing firms lead to some amazing benefits for each other.

I've known a lot projects that are running for years without any complaints or interventions from clients. They are big massive projects, yet extremely well executed. When you look at it in its entirety the clients save a lot of money and other precious energy which they can focus on solving other problems. Its not just direct billing. But the clients save much on management, HR, infrastructure, IT and nearly every thing required to hire people and run the company.

I know there is a lot of negative impression about outsourcing in the US. And its pretty common for people to highlight failed cases or when some outsourced project went wrong.

You will be surprised if you actually come here, at ground zero and see those numbers are actually scanty and most of the outsourced projects actually run pretty well.
It was a totally expected, prepared, reasonable and truthy response that'll still not make people happy because it's not what they want. People need to stop assuming companies are there to make them happy, they're there to do what makes them happy and makes money.
eBay fees are variable. You can pay 25% for a $50 item or as low as 4% for a $1500 item. You can't compare the two easily.
DNSCrypt for Windows has arrived
Can someone link to a Craigslist post created by Yardsale? I'm curious to see one.
Thanks. That one line just stood out as a red flag to me on what looked like an otherwise very compelling product - anything that I think could even hint at a Google penalty is sort of a non-starter.
I can't tweet!
McDonalds was a major investor in Chipotle from 1998 until 2006. If I recall correctly, Steve Ells (the founder of Chipotle) has said that this was one of the major reasons for the success of Chipotle.

Personally I think the fact that Chipotle produce the food in front of you also contributes to the sense that it’s fresher than other fast food alternatives.
Sitewide Kickstarter Stats
Google I/O Q&A: Introduction to Dart with Gilad Bracha
Mobile is back for me now
Look, again, this is simple:

I said something to the effect of "I have a problem with the mentality that dictates other people's business models to them when we disapprove of the one they're currently using".

You responded with a glib comment to the effect of "You're suggesting we have to respect everyone's business models and make sure they work, so everyone should just run a Ponzi Scheme".

It does not take a cutting intellect to see the problem with your logic. Essentially what you're engaging in is the time-honored message- board- forensics tactic of "redefining words to fit your argument". If it makes you feel better to do that, so be it, but the only people you're going to persuade with that tactic are people who don't care what you say as long as it somehow supports file sharing. I wouldn't want to waste my time writing those kinds of comments, but I can't tell you how to spend your time.
I get a 403 - Forbidden page when I do this, not giving me access to the mp3
Friends don't let friends give money to microsoft.
Isn't that kind of the idea? It's a high-risk investment and most startups aren't going to go anywhere.
Twitter Status - http://status.twitter.com/

No news at the status site either, that beats the purpose of having a dedicated status site.
My son enjoys whatever I am doing, be it gardening, fixing something in the house. It amazes me that by just watching me he has become quite a handymanny himself
Thanks! I had completely forgotten about nickb!
I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't want to take VC money, to stay 100% in control of their idea, and try raising funds through saving money while working for others. Not being able to focus on a project is also a killer. And a lot of people keep getting new ideas while building a project which keeps on delaying their project. The latter is silly, determine what you want in your first release and stick to it. Additions can always be added later on.