skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I never said anything about not discussing mistakes. I never said to not deal with issues. I said that if you call my work "rubbish", I will be resentful, not grateful. Your comments elsewhere make me think that we agree on this. When you criticize someone, their absolute first instinct is to defend themselves. Even if you're commenting on a thread on a message board on the internet on something made by someone you'll never meet, saying "it's rubbish" 1) won't get your point across (because they will resent you for saying so publicly, for giving them bad press, for insulting their work, etc) and 2) won't improve the discussion.

We agree on basically everything you said. You're 100% right that phrasing and delivery matter quite a lot - which, and this is really the most important part, is exactly what the original post was trying to say. The tone and delivery of most of the comments on the original submission was just ridiculously hostile. And when you're giving someone feedback, that tone matters, whether you have to work with the person every day or it's someone you'll never meet.
Why is the comparison being made just between Steam and Microsoft's app store? MS hasn't yet launched their service and what it's uptake will be is yet to be known. Alternately, we have the Mac App Store. It's been around for a while, has a huge uptake, and many developers already have data on how successful (or not) they've been. While Macs are only ~20% of the desktop/laptop market, it's a very lucrative segment.

I would like to see a comparison with how Valve will compete or cooperate with an existing, proven desktop marketplace rather than speculation on something that hasn't launched yet.
agreed - the few coffee shops i frequent in Chattanooga are Square users.

as well as my haircut place, a few sandwich shops, and a drink spot.

I feel like the Starbucks is catching up with their more efficiently operating 'local' competition. But its still a great move.
Upvoting so it can still look #000.
Yeah, that's pretty much a webapp. Key point is the backend/data is on your side and users access it using a dumb terminal (mobile, web, desktop).

Users can save a javescript webpage and run it from their desktop, but they'd still need web access to get to that data you're storing. Would you class that as a "desktop" app? Or is a desktop app just software that works offline? Or has no other front end software (like a browser) dependencies?
Exactly. People would consider a mobile apps outside 99 cents mark as expensive, even more so if it costs you $50
It event doesn't require all that much. Sweat while doing some physical work, wait 12 hours without changing clothes and then do some physical work and sweat again. You'll smell to yourself like your fat uncle when he fixes the plumbing. Body odour changes so if you are younger than 30 or older than 50 you expeirience may vary.
I think users can be fickle about these things, MS just has to make sure their store tactically undercuts Valve's on some popular products and they could steal a lot of users.

MS also has a trump card here in the form of the Xbox, they can make their Windows stuff integrate with it very well for example allowing you to buy a game once and make it playable on both your PC and your Xbox, or to transfer save games between each etc. Microsoft can also demand Windows Store exclusivity for games to also appear on the Xbox.
As someone with professional experience in photography and a masters in design – I think this piece is seriously lacking.

First – the photo that is used as "evidence" caught my eye quickly because it is clearly poorly processed/improperly exposed. There is no black point and that's a bad thing for the image; which leads me to say – you can't make the sweeping generalization that black is always bad. It's not – and the work of one pop art painter and a bad bit of photography isn't substantiated proof.

If you want to actually make something meaningful out of this, you'd actually push hard on the idea that too much contrast is a bad thing. Black isn't bad. Heavy contrast can be. Instead, get down to the root reasons that we have issues with contrast – in short, we're wired to notice differences in color or brightness than we are for absolute values of color or brightness. As such, it's not about one color, it's about the contrast.

Check out Jeff Johnson's Designing with the Mind in Mind: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-In... or Colin Ware's Visual Thinking for Design: http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Thinking-Kaufmann-Interactive-T...

Both of those do a much better job at explaining the hows and whys of the average person's visual perception.
While the article is well presented, and contains many good points, I must take issue with a few of the ideas set forth.

1.) I'm not taking "design tips" from someone whose site takes so long to load on a slow connection.

2.) Obviously the author has never been in a cave and turned all lighting off. Cave darkness is a complete and total absence of light & color save for black. This color IS NATURAL!

3.) In the spirit of the "green" movement, doesn't the use of black equate to less power consumption? (Remember http://www.blackle.com/ "energy saving search?")

That said, I'm sure that the author is vastly more artistically talented than I, as I can't even color within the lines in my grandchildren's coloring books!
I wouldn't argue that lack of legal protection for "slide to unlock" would stop them including it. But I would suggest that had they had absolutely no legal protection then there is a significant chance that the entire R&D project that became the iPhone wouldn't have happened. Why invest that much time and money, playing with prototypes and ideas that might never come to market, invest billions in production lines, software development and be the first in taking a bold leap into uncharted waters if you have no recourse when someone simply rips you off at the end of the day?
I especially like the interviews that explain why they chose one service over another (even if their views may be incorrect or skewed).

My favorite part, however, is the "What business software do you most wish existed" section. Once more interviews get posted (removing the small sample size), others can use these as startup ideas themselves.
"...paints a really bleak and hopeless future for Android."

Siri, remind enraged_camel to read this comment again in five years. Having a lot of money on hand doesn't mean you can easily spend all your competitors out of business.
I'd argue that writing a hash function is RealHardMathematics.
That's actually Paul Graham that replied, not one of the founders.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games"

That's an odd sentence. Is he saying 40 million gamers said they want more than games in their games platform? Or was it just a portion of the 40 million? If so, why not say that number. THE 40 million gamers are interesting in more than playing games? THE 40 million said this? I feel like I stumbled into the smoke and mirrors PR world of EA or Sony, not Valve.
I guess it's more acceptable to use #000 for text because the curves in most fonts are rather thin. Text with a larger font will appear darker than text with a smaller font. Just as a thin line will appear bright next to a thicker line, even though they have the same color. The examples are not about the color of text, the focus lies on backgrounds and shadows. In fact most of the text in the pictures is white.
How a 'social engineer' hacked Wal-Mart
Agreed. Steam has been something of a trojan horse, building a huge user base in gaming before rapidly switching direction into this market. Good luck to them I say, MS alternatives are nowhere near as polished.
My point is that improvement does not grow out of negative feedback. This thread is about how the original post had just a torrent of negative and hostile feedback - that kind of feedback is not useful to the submitter for a whole host of reasons that SelfishMeme covered quite adeptly above.

There's a vast difference between honest feedback and what was in that thread. Publicly taking someone to task for a design experiment is shameful behavior, especially given this community's standards of participation.
My best guess is that they're trying to say that whatever www runs off looks at the host header, and that they'd need to do some additional work in either 301ing requests, or set up a reverse proxy. In either of these cases, yeah, the headline is a little sensationalist.

Based off the wording, it sounds like they're responding to "why can't I browse http://nasa.gov/x without the www?" rather than "why doesn't http://nasa.gov/x take me to the NASA website?", but as they're a government agency, it's quite possible that there's so much bureaucracy / cost involved that it legitimately isn't even worth it to add a url-redirect server somewhere.
> from the video I saw, it does look like an impressive beginning. Perhaps if I had, my question would have been met with an answer without such disrespect.

One does need to take a bit of care to avoid looking like you're being snide and "witty." Something which is ambiguously a salient point or a bit of snark may be mistaken for snark. (If it might look like snark, it might look like snark?)

Or, one can just not care. If you have interesting things to say, long term you can weather a few dozen downvotes.

I took your comment to be "the elephant in the room." (I've been thinking of a "sub-sub-spreadsheet" app -- one that just totals columns of numbers.)
Steam also succeeds because it is cheap, unless a game is selling well they drop the price by a lot very quickly. I've bought games that are only a year or so old for as little as £7.99 (Saints Row 3, Deus Ex HR etc).

At highstreet stores it was very difficult to get games for less than £15 or so.
New human species possibly discovered
> Obviously this also insulated Solaris from any of the drivers in the Linux tree, so 4.5 years later it still doesn't run on anything but custom designed hardware and a handful of vanilla x86 server configurations.

I used to work on this stuff. I used ThinkPads and Dell laptops bought from the store, random white boxes I had lying around, and a particular Dell workstation. Custom designed hardware? Oh, and btw, my ThinkPad had a wireless card that was supported by Solaris. Never gave it much thought, except when I switched jobs and installed Linux, which at the time didn't have the particular driver...

It does not require custom hardware, it runs on any server.
After August 13, how much can the business model of App.net change?

Is it possible that a free-tier could be added that allows the average user to access and use the service without paying? Additional developer & other features would be available to those who pay for them.

In determining a business model for App.net, it seems they've never addressed why there isn't a free tier.
It looks like the optimal weights for AMZN and AAPL are negative. That doesn't seem possible unless you're shorting them, but that's a quite different risk profile than going long.
I second everything photon has said and would add that anyone using this model should acknowledge the risk they are taking by using past stock correlations to predict future optimal portfolios. While this approach is central to finance, recently (past 18 months) we have seen bizarrely correlated asset price changes due to macro issues (especially in Europe).

These macro issues may change the way stocks correlate in future markets. I would back test any portfolio with data from at least 18 months ago to make sure it still looks pretty good.
I think if you phrased it as less of a critical question e.g "Does this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app right now?" and/or perhaps "Will this feature be added eventually?" -- you may have received a warmer response. I do think the response was a bit sharp but I hope it's understandable.

Paul never said he wanted you to heap praise on the app. A simple rephrasing would have sufficed :)
... then don't read the article?
That is just another point of optimization he needs to add.
I think you're right. What people fail to realize is that there are on-going support costs (and in this case time to respond to general queries).

I think the main peeve is the way people find $4 coffee an afterthought, but find the $2 app worthy of being disproportionately discretionary.
Obviously, yes, this is a long standing flame war. But your analogy is wrong. FreeBSD can use GPL code, legally. They just can't release the combined work under anything but the GPL, so they choose not to. The CDDL is itself a copyleft license, it's simply not possible to deliver a license to code that derives from both CDDL and GPL components.

Obviously it was better for Sun to release OpenSolaris under the CDDL than not. But it was a very poor choice, and again in my opinion a great harm to the community.

And frankly I don't see the Linux people complaining about anything. The linked article was written by a ZFS proponent...
Pauly Shore.
Could you explain? From the screenshots I see, it doesn't seem that different from behavior enabled by wmii, xmonad, etc (even if the defaults vary).
There's a .dmg on the Steam download page people.
None of the criticism was of the flavor "Wikipedia must not be redesigned." The hate was directed toward the actual redesign presented there, not the general idea of a different design.
Well, I'm using a BSD system right now (that 'feline' one). Too bad it's got something messed up, hopefully it will get better with the latest version.
FinFisher "Lawful Interception" Spyware Found in 10 Countries, Including U.S.
I know, but he invoked the founder(s') reactions as a reason negative feedback is a drag on innovation.
Just installed it. Compared the IOS version and Android version side by side. Some views look really nice on Android as compared to IOS. For example list view for each individual board- I felt that Android version does a better job of showing the relevant content. On IOS the same view has 40% of screen for content rest is covered with options, paddings and bottom bar button.
How will Unity hinder your work, other tan having to get used to a new interface? I've had plenty of success using the latest Ubuntu as an engineering workstation desktop. It's better than everything else I've used.
Avoiding black definitely causes you to make color choices that add more dimension and realism to your interfaces. Interfaces, after all, are representations of reality.

One helpful tip: "warm" colors jump out at you, and "cool" colors recede away from you. You can use this to your advantage when designing buttons, or even when working with typography.

More detail in this article, "Why Monet Never Used Black": http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/d4h-color-theory/
PHP as a First Language
They would be better off just publishing NaCl applications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Native_Client
Valve wants Steam to be like Kindle. It's heavily DRM'ed, but available on any platform you can imagine, and therefore you are not restricted by the OS, only by Steam.
Nicely done SteliE. I particularly enjoyed the part towards the end where you discovered meditation was a useful tool. I discovered the same thing a couple years ago; recently, I haven't been meditating enough. The value of it being able to clear all the things from your mind and to try hard to just exist without everything else is extremely calming and, in my opinion, necessary.

I really need to start doing it again and you've inspired me to start.

Being happy is the only thing that really matters at the end of the day.

Thanks for sharing.
I lost respect for valve after they slam windows 8 as garbage without merit and now we see it's because microsoft's app store is a competitor.
> open

yeah ... if only there wasn't that problem with valve not accepting everybody on their platform :)
It's really cute how you guys think this is even remotely possible. Heard about peak {oil, coal, gas, phosphorous, rare earths, iron} and AGW? It'll make his and your dreams short-lived. Sorry!
> It sounds to me like people are not using it correctly

Funny, you never hear about people using regular ol' conspiracy deodorant incorrectly.
I assumed Bane had found the best hackers in the world with inside knowledge of the system, as a supervillian would, and had them write something that would obfuscate the origin of the trades in the "paper" trail. Basically anyone who lost money that day would blame the break-in, some of them probably did just as stupid stuff as it looked like Wayne did. So how would they know Wayne's complaint was legitimate?

What didn't make sense to me was that they were able to continue the program's execution after the outside connection was cut off—if they didn't need to physically be there the whole time, why'd they need to go in guns blazing? Heck, even if they need to be there, why not just slip the program to someone on the inside along with a hefty bribe or threat or both? Other than to give Batman someone to chase for plot purposes, that is...

I'm surprised how much more discussion that plot point generated than the magic identity eraser, though.
In my account, I am seeing a message that timeline will be auto enabled on Aug 16. Has timeline resulted in an increased user interaction/revenue for Facebook? or it is being pushed because it's challenging to continue supporting 2 types of layouts?
> If it was that bad, then you do not upvote it. if it was good enough for a discussion (upvote), then discuss politely.

Why can only goodness be cause for discussion? The top comment by tptacek actually goes into a lot of detail about what's wrong with this. That's useful discussion. It's not positive, but I thought his comment was very high-quality discussion, even if the tone was not positive and happy.
> 4.5 years later it still doesn't run on anything but custom designed hardware and a handful of vanilla x86 server configurations

Oddly enough, I have a laptop that runs OpenSolaris better than it does Ubuntu. 12.04 wouldn't even find the ethernet controller...
It's high time that unjustified (unjustifable) takedown notices induce a high penalty on the people who submitted it.

Excuses like "oops sorry that takedown notice was a mistake" just won't cut it. Every mistake should cost them dearly. That's the only way they'd ever try to fix their system.
Giant 3D Printer Builds Homes in 20 Hours
Please show me some research, or even anecdotal evidence supporting the claim that black makes people uncomfortable.

Furthermore, the idea that designs which deviate from physical counterparts, are "strange" or "uncomfortable" is completely unsupported by vast amounts of highly popular and effective designs. Indeed it is often the goal of many designers to deviate from and simplify any physical artifact it may reference.

https://www.google.com/search?q=emil+ruder&tbm=isch
https://www.google.com/search?q=edward+tufte&tbm=isch
https://www.google.com/search?q=josef+muller+brockmann&t...
https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+rand&tbm=isch
http://www.pentagram.com/

I haven't seen any claim substantiated by evidence of any sort. All claims appear to supported by the concerns of representational artists, this blog post, and some huge assumptions made about the human mind.

Graphic design is too complex, sophisticated to be subjected to these maxims you and others seem eager to impose.
The reason why it would be difficult to add a CNAME is simple: They need NS records for nasa.gov, and a CNAME record precludes any other records for the same name.
That's how game purchases work currently. If the game works on PC and Mac, you can install either or both.
How can DANE ever work if DNS (including DNSSEC) is an unencrypted protocol? Doesn't this mean that the moment you get a response to a DNS query the a malicious network could return orchestrated nonsense?

It looks like something like DNSCurve [1] would be needed, though Paul Vixie stated [2]:

[...] the problems DNSCurve actually does solve are pretty well solved by UDP source port randomization and will be entirely eradicated by DNSSEC [...]

How does it solve the encryption problem?

[1] http://dnscurve.org/

[2] http://www.isc.org/community/blog/201002/whither-dnscurve
> Ask everyone in the world if they "don't want to be tracked, understanding that is the economic foundation for almost all of the content they enjoy and thus they will either need to directly pay or go without" and somewhere approaching 0% will say yes.

That is pretty strong hyperbole. Individual tracking is not an essential component of an advertising business model. The print and TV industries both created tremendous economic growth with an advertising model, despite not being able to track individual users. Instead companies developed a wide variety of statistical tools to analyze their markets and advertising ROI.
Look closely at what you wrote, you answered your own question :-D
they're more qualified in passing judgement over someone who hasn't touched both phones

I would argue that it isn't true at all: People who are accustomed to one thing (whether it is taste in wine or acclimatization to an interface) tend to go into another thing from the basis that the things that are new are unimportant, and the things that are different are wrong. See: Every Facebook interface change. Actually simply see almost any interface change ever.

Coming from an iPhone is not an enlightened position, and it only holds relative merit in discussions with other people perhaps moving from an iPhone. To the general population it is meaningless.

However what I was speaking specifically to is the odd belief among the iPhone community that they have been exposed to what is right, and their subjective opinions are henceforth objective instead of just personal opinion.

Let me give you a perfect example -- the design of the Galaxy S III. It was openly mocked among the iPhone community as being a device designed by lawyers: It is unlike the iPhone, therefore it is a wrong design that must have been compromised to differ as much as possible. I'm not really terribly sensitive to designs of devices, so I had no personal opinion, but I have noticed that I keep hearing everyday normal people calling the Galaxy S III sexy. Isn't that bizarre? It was objectively called an ugly device by the people in the know, or so it seemed, only actual consumers think otherwise.
Thanks! Both the camera and SEM photos reminded me of my grad school days doing CNT research :). Kind of serendipitous and awesome to find out that I had already seen the "very very black" material with my own eyes just four years ago!
"Why does the Facebook Mobile interface feel so nice?"

I didn't know that, looks horrible to me.
But either way a somewhat good read in general.
Direct link: http://www.glancet.com
Maybe Steam-for-Linux is really a stalking horse for Steam-for-Android, and Steam-for-Android has a lot more leverage if you don't have to get your apps somewhere else but can just get them through the same channel you're already getting your games through.
I love your idea of a global spotlight, incorporating APIs from all the services I use. I wish there was a service that provided this, it would save me ton of time. I suffer from the "where did I see that?" syndrome all the time.
Its a cool api, and I mean no disrespect to anybody involved like the guy said above, I just believe the business as a whole is a kneejerk reaction to a couple of well connected people and sites getting the rug pulled out from under them. It would be cool if they could get enough people to use it, but the API is only useful if there is useful data to pull from it.
It was trivial for me to choose a computer that would work well with Ubuntu out of the box.

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/
As I've previously mentioned, cave darkness is completely black, and natural.
Rich Kids Of Instagram
Something I'd like to see is also the personal setup of the interviewee(s), for example, coding environment or Mac/PC preference.