skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
How exactly is the xbox an exception?

Im not a console guy, my favorite desktop OS is Linux. But i like to play games, so i had a windows dual boot, and a Wii. But Windows requires way too much maintainace. And dual booting is annoying: i am an impatient guy.

So i got an XBox. Because consoles are hassle free, right? Boy, was i suprised. The interface (metro) is horrible with a controller. Voice commands are not available in Holland either (not even in English). The thing boots slower than every other device in my house. Xbox live is flaky, and the thing has daily updates.

It was the worst user interface experience in my life. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe the name itself should have tipped me off (this is aimed at 16 year olds with too much time, that like to tinker).

Maybe Apple sand Google spoiled me, with iOS and Android, proving that a device could be simple, with low maintainance. Maybe i expected just a faster Wii.

Or maybe, Microsoft is just very very incompetent.

Maybe the PS3 is better, i would not know. The general consensus seems to be that xbox live is better than psn, but its hard to imagine, just how bad the ps3 would have to be. But seriously, how can anyone bring such a confusing pile of horseshit to the market. Its beyond my comprehension.

In the end, it was just a slower booting windows, with a worse controller, and more updates, bullshit dialogs, and bugs.

I hate the thing. It was the biggest purchasing mistake in my life. Oh, and kinect does not work. Not that i care about that much, but its a complete deception.
I agree, but this can be a great tool for MVPs, POCs and anything you want to build fast (unless you just copy paste your previous startup's code base and change the logo, but you need to have done it before to copy, or spend money to build it, even a weekend saved is worth sometimes...)
We are all Jonah Lehrer.
Here's A 3D Video Of The iPhone 5 Based On The Latest Rumors
@rmc Interesting, I have been doing research on Kindle publication, and most information online suggests that they sell only kindle file format, which is DRMed. Is there a way for publishers to sell and distribute PDFs and ePubs via Amazon?
You could but it didn't get you very far. Explorer uses the same shell as everything else so it was hacked as well.
Another option for Valve to explore would be to check the current state of the DX games in Wine and work with interested publishers on improved compatibility. Then throw money and developers at Wine. When they're happy, wrap it up in the Steam client somehow so its seamless for the user and problem solved. The only real issue would be the spector that MS might figure out some way to sue if it gets too popular.
money ≠ happiness
Textmate 2 and why you should never rewrite your code
All his friends are pestering him about when he's releasing this book - he's under no pressure to publish and rather enjoys the process of digging up all this stuff and writing the code to process these images.
If you pay by case or commission, expect someone to stick around only if they're making as much or more than if you paid hourly.

I think you should look into a service that sells you minutes and takes calls from several different companies. I recommend CallRuby (http://www.callruby.com/pricing.html).
Hi all,

A few replies to the questions raised.

Difference between Seedrs and Kickstarter: Seedrs is equity investment, Kickstarter is non-monetary rewards. If you invest through Seedrs, you get shares in the business with full upside (and downside). If you contribute through Kickstarter, you get whatever product or other reward the company is offering (no upside or downside). Both great businesses but very different.

Difference between Seedrs and AngelList: Seedrs is a transactional platform where people make direct investments; AngelList is a source of introductions, after which you go and do an investment off-line. Also, Seedrs is focused on idea-stage, pre-revenues companies and open to a wide group of investors; most deals closed following AngelList intros are at the next stage (because that's generally where traditional angels invest) and only involve accredited/HNW investors. Again, both great but different.

As for whether there is a Seedrs equivalent for the US: not yet but there will be lots soon. As of now equity crowdfunding is not legal in the U.S., but as soon as the SEC and FINRA implement regulations under the JOBS Act, it will be, and loads of platforms are lining up to do exactly the sort of thing Seedrs does in the UK.

Hope that's helpful!

Jeff Lynn
(CEO and co-founder of Seedrs)
As cool as I think this whole thing is, honestly I think they're going to need a lot more money than that what was raised on Kickstarter to be a serious contender.
This is disgusting, but everything is fair in love, war and business :(

I don't think any domain registrar will willingly not do it. There should be some kind of law, that makes this practice illegal - both the registrar doing it themselves, and giving the data to others so they could do it. In fact, there should be a law prohibiting the sale, sharing or even saving of this data completely. If I search for a domain at a registrar's site, that shouldn't be logged anywhere.

Not directly related, but - it would be nice if there is a law that says "any domain name can be sold only for a maximum of 10 dollars" - that would prevent the disgusting domain squatters. It would upset those who spent millions already, but it might have some affect on the future squatting of domains.
-vo caca <video_file>

to have it in color. :)
Part of the reason people use gifs is because they're easier to edit and remix.
This is just a great concept. It's surprisingly frustrating to try and find relevant movie quotes on YouTube, download them, convert them, clip them, re-convert and upload back. I tried doing this for a funny tumblr I was putting together in my spare time - moviequotesaftersex.tumblr.com/ - and gave up because it was just too time consuming. So good luck to the team and I look forward to using the product, but how will this make money and stay sustainable?
> I tried Textmate many times, but single-character undo was always unforgivable.

I've heard this complaint before. On the other hand, I can't forgive multi-character undo. I think it's just user preference.

Furthermore, I still use TM1 all day every day. When people call it sub-par or compare its features to other editors it often reminds me of the checklists comparing the first iPhone to other (crappy) phones at the time. You can check all the boxes you want, but if the product doesn't get the details right it doesn't matter. TM isn't for everyone, but it's certainly for me, and I shopped around. (I don't mean to imply all other editors are crap.)

edit: I'm a life long Mac user, 15 year emacs user. I think it has a lot of appeal to non-switchers. That said, it definitely rode the Rails wave.
The problem with this model is that you harm both the followed and potential followers if the user doesn't upgrade.

Twitter's value (to everyone involved) is in its network effects, damaging that by adding a paywall just brings net value of the service down.
The fact is that authors just don't understand that they are needed less. There is a transformation from printing on dead trees to the freedom that the Internet gives people without copy restrictions. Its cheaper to build a computer network than it is too print a book in many places!
Business owners, like the general working population, are a mixed pool of those with degrees and those without. Given how many business owners earn less than $100K, including those with degrees, it further highlights my point that having a degree doesn't really give an advantage to finding financial success.

> (lawyers, dentists, etc.), college seems the more scalable way to wealth.

Less than 1% of the population have professional degrees. Those with them may have an advantage due to the artificial supply limits created through legislation, but the fact their numbers are so low demonstrates again that it really doesn't scale.
Tips for Hiring Great Engineers, Faster
From the article: "... the installation of a special font called Palida Narrow, and the purpose of this action is still unknown."

Would this perhaps be a tracking ability, as described at https://panopticlick.eff.org (specifically, the list of "System Fonts")

It would require the users to visit a site that is collecting this tracking information, but it isn't impossible to imagine a popular site among the target audience being strong-armed by a nation-state into installing something to do this.

The tracking is practically invisible to end users.
> And once Trolltech/Qt was part of Nokia, why would Nokia fund Qt/Android or Qt/iOS?

Actually, I expected they'd do exactly that, and was disappointed when they didn't. It's basically the same reason why Sun created Java. They made Java so that software developers could make software that ran on Windows and Linux. Oh eh, and on Sun computers. Which were very much losing the server OS wars at the time. You might say that Java didn't save Sun, but I like to think that maybe instead Java postponed its demise by many years.

I think the same could've happened with Nokia. If Nokia sponsored the best way to make fast, snappy, great apps, in little time, that work comfortably and with a native feel on iOS and Android (oh eh, and also Nokia's current OS hobby), people'd churn out Nokia versions of their apps without much extra work. This might've significantly increased the app ecosystem for Nokia phones, which might have made more people buy the phones. A lot of people (and very much not just the geeks) do care that their favourite apps are supported and decent on a particular handset.

I never understood why they didn't do this. At the time when many developers were still a bit nervous about learning Objective-C just to support one single platform, a good, company-supported Qt-for-all-phones could've made Qt the leading app toolkit by far. Qt sure had the head start, Nokia sure had the resources, and the Qt team sure had the skills. Sad.
That is part of the mission, giving the average person the power to remix and create.
This comment is like a double edge sword. The problem with "someone truly has demonstrated that their decisions and opinions are genius" is that often it never gets the chance to go that far. This is especially true for non-technical guys. And if I had to make a bet, while Steve understood technology, he probably couldn't actually code it himself. Putting others in that position in the modern day without a track record, and even if they were genuinely a genius in decision making, the likelihood of them being shut down by upper management, biases that exist, and several other things make the scenario bleak.
4moms Raises $20M To Bring Robotic Baby Products Worldwide
Making the web safer by making people smile
You can develop a Windows 8 app in 30 days - and we’re here to help.
The Healthy CTO
Awesome, you can embed clips directly into blogs or tumblr so make sure to send me a link so I can check it out - sounds funny.

We actually used to sell this as a service so there are some valuable pieces... stay tuned :)
I agree. You couldn't go to court with this type of evidence, but you have to admit that for the site to be available, then within minutes of you searching for it on GoDaddy, it then becoming anonymously registered would raise eyebrows.
Hmm, I can only speak from my experience where I checked domains with GD and when I came back one week later to register them I was greeted with a "this domain has been registered. but you can buy it for $50"-type message.

This was around 2003 and since then I'm avoiding godaddy.
Really enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling:

>>It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.
>The sender is someone we'd expect to deny this.

But if GoDaddy is front-running, and they outright lie and deny front-running, then it adds to their liability. Fraud is far less defensible than front-running itself (which could be defended as a good capitalistic use of asymmetrical information, after all).

Given the increase in liability the denial presents for GoDaddy, my sense is that it lends credibility to the assertion that they are not, after all, front-running.

This, plus the rather weak evidence that they're doing so (the lone assertion of a single blogger) makes me believe that there is reasonable doubt about whether they are doing it. Hey, if there are more people stepping forward, then lets see a class-action and get the proof in the light.
Oh yeah, Facebook keeps enough resolution now to make acceptable postcards. Now if they would just keep basic metadata, they'd be an acceptable import source for all kinds of other services.
Interesting read.

I certainly agree that Comic sans nudges me towards disbelief (and I'd never read a full article written in this horrible font :-)), while Georgia seems more 'professional' and believable.

Baskerville in my mind is instantly associated with all the books I read - most of those on scientific topics had this or a very similar font. Don't know whether it affects my judgement of what's written compared to any other normal fonts.

Typewriter-style fonts do make texts seem older and therefore, more believable (since they've been around for so long, there must be some truth to them - the standard logical reasoning).
I had EXACTLY this situation with GoDaddy earlier this year. I was looking for a good domain name, found it (intelface.com), but decided to sleep on it. Next morning it was gone. I know you can't prove anything, but it looked very suspicious at that time.
Well, but I thought it isn't wise to use an US registrar today, because it's easier for the US feds to seize a domain?
How Valve Made L4D2 Faster On Linux Than Windows
They should eventually release a series of regular-quality images taken sequentially as the camera pans left and right, and have a competition to see who can squeeze the most resolution out of them using image enhancement and fusion techniques. There are lots of interesting stochastic methods out there (e.g. "compressed sensing") that have application for this kind of thing. It would make a great academic competition.
Fat client apps are fantastic for making some kinds of UI interactions trivial.

The simplest example is the checkout form, or any kind of wizard linking multiple pages together. In a fat client app, all state for all N pages of your checkout cart are in the same page, with 5 lines of code to switch between them. Doing that in standard MVC "fat server" model is annoying, and about 10x more code.

> Why does the world want app-ify everything?

Think about GUI applications pre-web. They weren't written as servers that generate PDFs, with an embedded scripting language. The current webapp technology stack is a complete accident, and if we had actually sat down to design the "optimal" stack, it would look nothing like what we have.
Just read the same thing [1] - that does seem to be a logical use for a 'custom' font

[1] http://blog.crysys.hu/2012/08/on-the-palida-narrow-mystery-o...
Well, I'm glad I don't use GoDaddy - I'm always paranoid when searching for a domain name, though - if I find a good one, I tend to register it right away out of fear that it might be taken right after the search. Guess there's some truth to that.
Not to be that guy but it's like the author is writing a novel. What's the tl;dr here?
This is an intriguing idea, but I see two fundamental problems:

1) Isolation through cliques can be a bit of a double-edged sword. While the prospect of being able to battle spam (and a wave of unsolicited mentions) is probably immensely appealing to the 1%, altering the fundamental contract on which the protocol is based is almost always a bad idea.

2) Even if this accounts for a non-trivial fraction of overall revenue, they aren't going to stop pursuing advertising dollars. Which means that they still need to own the stream. And that the third party client massacre will, therefore, continue unabated.
I would write integrations for both, use last.fm (since it's free) in production, and if last.fm decides to start charging you you're in a good negotiating position. Single-sourcing api's in general is extremely dangerous.
It does not matter what registrar you use if the TLD is managed by a US registry (.com, .net, .org, .name, .cc, etc). The government goes straight to the registry, not to your registrar, to change the records. Gandi would have no power to stop that.
OK, MDN is good. So I just have to add "mdn" to my Google searches. But the others really are awful.
Can it be ported to run on GNUStep?
Wait, so I know people on Craigslist aren't linking an eBay Buy-It-Now w/ offer listings to sell their stuff -- I'm assuming CL gets unhappy about that.

What's the differentiator between BidKat and that option?
Google Olympic Doodle beaten with 22 lines of Python code
Someone literally just posted this not too long before you did: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4361136
>Despite the harsh conditions on the surface, the atmospheric pressure and temperature at about 50 km to 65 km above the surface of the planet is nearly the same as that of the Earth, making its upper atmosphere the most Earth-like area in the Solar System, even more so than the surface of Mars. Due to the similarity in pressure and temperature and the fact that breathable air (21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen) is a lifting gas on Venus in the same way that helium is a lifting gas on Earth, the upper atmosphere has been proposed as a location for both exploration and colonization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
Which parts need improvement?
I know this isn't 100% on-topic, but does anyone know if you can choose your own user agent when using PhantomJS such as Firefox, or IE?
10 Performance Wins
With Spindle, Ex-Microsoft Engineers Rethink the Social Discovery App
When the survey initially came out I was randomly given Computer Modern. The day before, I had painstakingly converted Computer Modern it to a webfont for a friend's blog (http://www.krisjordan.com) and I was shocked to see it on nytimes.com.

I quickly went over to a different (Windows) machine to try it out because I couldn't believe my eyes. That one was given Georgia, so I mistakenly assumed that Errol Morris was such a type hipster that he included Computer Modern in his type stack if it was installed locally. It was pretty funny to see this today.

One thing I will say, is that the Computer Modern webfont they used is a disaster. It had tons of aliasing issues. I wonder how they sourced it since natively it isn't in a normal font format. (Knuth!) That certainly would skew the results.
I wish that I had enough karma to downvote this.
If a Google Employee Dies, Spouse Gets Half of Salary for 10 Years
He went to Startup Riot, saw a bunch of consumer internet startups pitching their product.

Complained about the names, the language used to describe the ideas ("content" vs "text", "consume" vs "read", etc) and the ideas themselves.

Half of the article sounds like sour grapes, half is legit criticism.
shaaaaark tank
7 Design Tips for your new web startup
Back in 2008 I did a test on a couple of sites. I found that Easily.co.uk claimed a made up domain name "nobodywantsadomainnamewithlotsofnumbers1231891904817401" - used as a one time test string for this registrar alone - was already taken on 3 TLDs (I've got a screenshot saved) ... the chances of that being a random collision seem pretty low.
How to Get Traction for Your Projects
ReelSurfer vs HoloKlip
Last year I created a virtual video clipping tool from a Baltimore education hackathon I participated in:

http://holoklip.blogspot.com/

How's this different from YC funded reelsurfer.com?

Besides aesthetics and perhaps education vs consumer focus.
Here's the author's bio and picture if it helps put this article in context: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/paul-constant/Author?oid=...
At least from my perspective, a major problem is maintaining control of your information. How does Chartulo.us store the data? Where? Can it be removed immediately post retrieval?
The problems that startups are trying to solve are too small and too uniform, possibly because marketing language used to define those problems sounds good but means little.
Just run the numbers. For one, there are approximately 3M people with 1k followers or more. If they charged an average of $5/month, many (most) would simply not pay.
A significant number of those people are international. Many of them did not even try to get followers. Even if all of them paid, $200m/year does not come close to justifying Twitter's valuation.

Trust me on this, Twitter doesn't want to mess with the head of the distribution. The backlash would be terrible, and it would destabilize their ecosystem.
Zynga Gives All Employees New Stock Awards To Keep Them From Fleeing
The author attended an "American Idol" for startups. It's hip to have a startup. The names of said startups may as well be gibberish (yet they attempt to explain the meaning behind them). Pitches consist of ridiculous buzz words and maketing speak to cover up the fact that none of these ideas are solving problems or something that people want.

tl;dr of my own reply: Have you seen that movie Idiocracy? It's like that, but startups.
I don't see how you get "sour grapes" out of this unless you know some backstory.
Apple isn't suing Google directly over Android. Why? Mutually assured litigation hell. Apple likely isn't suing a lot of companies because those companies have a strong enough set of patents to cause real damage to Apple if they fought back.
Well thats true as well. I think the best choices for TLD's are .is, .ch/.li and .eu. However, .is is quite expensive(39 euro).
I'm not sure why anyone would listen to you when you make a sweeping accusation and refuse to back it up with a link or evidence of any kind.

Neither am I. Nor do I particularly care. You're free to believe what you want to believe. This isn't a formal debate and I don't owe you, or anybody else, links, citations or anything else.
What do you want to work on? ankit<at>pulse<dot>me
The thing I got in trouble for ... is not something I should be writing in a public forum yet :P
I bet these dudes were there http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-sta...
I completely agree with you that in some (many) cases it's useful.

But your checkout example proves my point; you wouldn't want a bot crawling through there.

Bots should be crawling content-rich pages (blogs, articles, marketing pages), and IMO those should rarely be handled by fat clients.
Sure, some people disagree, but you'd be farfetched to find anybody in history who proposed a new way of thinking who didn't have people arguing against him.

Furthermore, something being "unproven" (which is what his Wiki says about his propositions) is very different from it being "disproven." Even the most brilliant scientific breakthroughs of our time were, at the time of their inception, unproven.

Whether or not you agree, I still highly recommend watching the whole video. It's rife with good material for discussion.
Most of the photos taken by government-operated equipment are free for use - take advantage of that now, while there are few private companies operating the telescopes and rovers :-)...