skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm currently in a blue room, however I don't necessarily feel anymore creative than usual. I used to write in a red room and I notice no appreciable difference in attention span, creativity or anything. In fact my best concentration (how efficiently I completed a project) was best when I was actually in a yellow room.

I do use a program called darkroom for typing, it allows you to change background color and font color easily. I usually use the old school neon-green on black, however I think I might try the equally old white on blue before a white on red and see if there's actually an effect.

I do prefer the green on black. However, the white on blue feels quite comforting when I look at it and white on red gives me a strange tingling at my forehead, which kind of disconcerts me for staring into it for hours on end.
No shit. It focused attention away from the brand, it was weird, and it raised a lot of criticism that attracted people who wouldn't have heard of the ad anyway.

I'm all for "edgy", and I love CP+B's work, but they were competing against Apple, and that means competing against possibly the best advertising machine on the planet. Apple has excellent reputation, they've got beautiful products, they were competing against a heavily-criticized product, and they had a brilliant two-pronged ad plan. Part of their ads only discussed product, and nothing else. No "Let's see people using this." No "Look at people using this in real life." It was, "We've made something beautiful." No more than that. It was the revolving iMac, the Macbook Air in the envelope, the rack of iPod touches, the chromatic Nanos, the many videos of the app store. Emphasis on "groundbreaking."

Meanwhile, they took out a heavy ad campaign against Microsoft. They made entertainment pieces. Slapstick. All of it gently teasing Microsoft. No hard edges: just two funny actors joking around. Even if it was unfair and imbalanced, even if Hodgman was the funnier of the two, it was fun, and it was fun like satire is fun. It didn't make the case that Microsoft was bad, it took that fact for granted.

Against this, CP+B put in an "edgy" ad. Weird stuff with Gates and Seinfeld joking. Only problem is, edgy is good when you've got two equal, generic products. CP+B's Burger King ads stand out because McDonald's has nothing. In this case, Microsoft is bland, but Apple is a hot product. It's one of the most fashionable brands on the planet, and even among hardcore tech geeks, it has a pretty good reputation. (Some people hate it, but some people love it.) Furthermore, it was a big risk, and Apple - seated in a comfortable niche - was able to launch attacks directed at the sole fact that it was a pricy and edgy campaign.

I'm interested in seeing how the "I'm a PC" ads end up doing. They're nice, even if they still have that feeling of Microsoft's avoiding talking about their product - and that, I think, is MS's Achilles Heel right now. They're a nothing brand. They're the biggest but they have no impressive positive reputation. Their computers are designed by other companies, none of which stand out. Apple, meanwhile, has an extremely tight product line and they control every aspect of their product, including ads.

Yeah, Microsoft is the bigger company, but they're at a disadvantage in this campaign. Apple has a definitive image. Microsoft does not.
Learning From Free Content… And why it’s Not Always Enough
Speaking of paint.

Yellow pigment is not the same as yellow light; nor is red pigment the same as red light; nor is blue pigment the same as blue light. :)

The light-oriented color names are fancier. (cyan, magenta, etc.)

Probably one of the most valuable things I learned as a physics student in high school!
What Would You Do if a Giraffe Stares at You?
Not a lot new here but upvoting anyway just for this line:

"UX is something that always evolves and gets better and better with data, user feedback and just availability of more time and is inherently an iterative process, just as is the core product development process."

Seems obvious but definitely is something I run into often - treating UX/Interaction Design as a standalone one-time thing you do, like taxes, rather than an ongoing process.
The future is Orange. /sigh
That's actually a good question. I watch a limited number of shows, and I wonder if simply buying the DVD's of a program would turn out to be cheaper than actually subscribing.

Edit: I mean I've seen boxsets in BestBuy for as little as $25 and they're shows I watch.

If I had all the series of Simpsons, Futurama, Mythbusters, Family Guy and American Dad I believe from then on I believe I would rather use the monthly subscription fee (about $150 here for all the channels we want; TMN is great to have as they're free of charge for a monthly fee, I get all the recent Stargate and Dexter episodes and most of the big movies not too long after they're out for rental) for buying more boxsets and movie rentals.
I have tried to keep notebooks, but I always end up filling them with random doodles. I will randomly start doodling on a page and try to stop, but I can't. Seeing a page with random drawings compels me to draw even more. My notebooks end up being like illuminated manuscripts, which looks unprofessional compared to the crisp, clean notebooks of my fellow engineers.

I guess it's a nervous habit.
She didn't say that. She said the reverse:
"Ultimately, it is the owners of a company who must determine whether a CEO's rewards are justified by a CEO's performance. And because the American taxpayer is now a partial owner in many companies, the government can get a vote as well -- in some cases a very sizeable vote."
Yeah, the journo didn't show any hint of clever/snide/haute/arrogant/dry/slapstick humor.

Capote. Sedaris. Darling. Sweetie. Patsy, darling.
SEO At the Enterprise Level–A Major Flop
The only HBO show I've bought myself was The Wire, on sale for $90 the entire season. That's less than $2 an episode. iTunes sells shows for $20 a season? That would be $100 for all of The Wire.

How much does HBO charge a month?
Beautiful Architecture (new Oreilly book ala' Beautiful Code)
Check out this original tetris-like game I made.
Numbrosia has been shut down, but at least you can play this original tetris-like game when you visit the site.
I work for an HP spin-off and am told all the time about the terrible job she did as CEO. That being said, this article is very well written and makes a lot of sense.

The reforms she is advocating are far reaching and would affect more companies than just the banks. They would create much needed incentives to look beyond just the next quarter. I think encouraging long term vision would be good for the country.
Hey, I've NEVER met anyone who's as picky as I am about his scrolling on OSX browsers!

I always get blank stares when I try to explain why I abhor OSX Firefox; Count me in for another vote ;)
Apple's Design Process
In Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky the main character complains at one point that the low ceiling in his apartment is constricting his thoughts. So Dostoyevsky had this notion right quite a while ago.

(Then again, the main character had also recently murdered an old lady, so the main problem is not in the apartment.)
The future is orange or no future at all
With all this crazy talk about the validity of these orange names I wanted to take a moment and attempt to view this from the other side of the table.

HackerNews is great. It provides a decent community from which YC can pull good ideas from, help innovation, and maybe if they are lucky make some money on their investments.

Particularly in the US market. As many of you know we are in some sort of a recession. This has caused countless articles to be written on "how to survive a recession as a startup" and "what all companies should be doing" and "what kind of tin cans allow the best storage of money in your backyard". You get the idea. Everyone is tightening their belts. YC is no different.

YC closed their Boston operations. This has caused a small downtown in population in the community as many have become disenchanted with the YC model. I would wager that this disenchantment is a good thing as the YC model is not a good fit for all ideas, companies, and/or people.

So what does all this hub-bub have to do with orange names and our future or lack there of? Well the orange names, like progress bars on linked in, and that burger king advert on Facebook that ate your friends, are a way of gaming users to providing more stimulus and/or content.

In HackerNews' case the orange names will give those who are "achievement whores" something to achieve. Its worked out very well for XBox360 games. I'm told World of Warcraft keeps adding more of them. I'm sure there are countless websites that have some form of achievement system. It is a proven model for increasing community involvement.

While this has worked in many other areas it will be interesting to see how it affects the community at large. Those who are more active (not me) will probably take more notice. Those who are less active (me) will probably continue on like this feature was never added. Although to its credit it will let me spot potential community leaders.

The downside of this whole thing. Is that without the orange names. The incentives. The community could slow down just like the recessions and potentially become unable to recover. Such is the case in fashion driven markets like technology.

Finally a more personal note. Orange on tan is not that easy to spot.
great article.

slashdot is awesome. reddit and hn became popular because of the communities, despite the loss of technical goodness each time.

at the very least, i wish the quantifiable part of karma was kept strictly private.
Except that he didn't pitch the site hard at all for the first nine months (in fact he repeatedly denied being involved with it). And he wasn't all that famous (host of a dying show on a dying network). It was only after the VC money arrived that that started.
I can see the need, but I'd rather google wasn't the one filling it. One company doesn't need to know as much about me as google would..
Hobbyist to Game Development Company: Five Realistic Steps
Yeah - although I'm starting to find that sites using OpenID 2.0 to have a good user experience. e.g. http://www.plaxo.com

I'm not really a heavy user of it, I probably wouldn't have joined - but they make it ridiculously easy to register.

We're taking on OpenID 2.0 as part our our development as a consequence. I know it has it's drawbacks, but as you say, getting the penetration up front is key.

Either way - hopefully a sign of things to come.
why Seinfeld anyways? The guy is a has been. I can see them spending all that money when the show was in full swing...but now? Whats the point?
Traders are actually one of the hardest professions to measure. They are risking other peoples money so for example making 50% in an up market at the risk of drooping to 0% in a down one are easy with leverage. It's the choice of when and how much to leverage that takes skill. And this skill is only demonstrated as markets move. This past mess was built from people making a bet with high odds and low payoff with a lot of other peoples money and skimming the fat of the top. Basically, no earthquake today you get 50k until the day when there was an earthquake and they are down 100 billion.

PS: One of the secrets to creating mutual funds is to make 100 of the things with a few million on hand and take lot's of risks. Over time some will preform better, you use their past performance to gather more money and you end up with a small number that have a lot of money and have made the early movers lot's of money but have not necessarily generated a lot of profits for the late adopters. It's like a legal pyramid scheme, but when it stops working they can move you to the next fund with a great track record, and the next, ...
Gmail Adds Support For Multiple Pane Viewing
Having done something similar, it's not necessarily taking the trouble to write two versions. Sometimes after writing one version, you mellow out, have a change of heart, or just realize you might not have been completly right (that "W" word :-), so the post on a complementary site is more thought out and polite.
"Really, you find this impressive? I find it sad. 20 years of GUI evolution leads to faking round buttons and color gradient with a ton of CSS and HTML?"

Google is pioneering in the UI design area here, and they have a track record of supporting standards, sharing their technology and being developer friendly. To improve the usability of the web they are introducing controls that unleash the capability of the web. After trying out these buttons, I found that they are bliss for a keyboarder. Labeling and archiving before was abysmal, and different across browsers. Now it is a pleasure to use.
Nothing is saying they cant give them 1 billion in stock, the point is they can't suck money out of the company until the government get's their money back. The government has a long and successful track record of turning companies around that have say mob connections where people cooking the books. In some way this is basically the same thing. Companies payed high dividends and passed out bonuses and stock options like candy while ignoring the risks they where taking.

Some of these company's would have been fine if they had not increased the dividend they had payed from what they where paying out 5 years ago. Every time they sent a dividend / bonus out the door they where hiding just a little more of their profit from the type of risks they where taking. So, if the company is run into the ground again the CEO will get 500k/year, but if they pay back the government their is nothing preventing that CEO from walking away with 100 million / year which seems reasonable.
Available online via Safari, I only just started browsing (it was just released) so I can't say much except "yes, I am fairly sure I am going to read through this entire book."

Part I is essays on general architecture principles in software, Part II on enterprise/integration systems, Part III on systems architectures (OS/virtualization), Part IV on end-user applications, Part V on programming languages.

There are less essays than in Beautiful Code, but they are longer.

An overriding thread is "seven principles upon which all beautiful architectures are based":

- Versatility

- Conceptual integrity

- Independently changeable

- Automatic propagation

- Buildability

- Growth accommodation

- Entropy resistance

"All royalties from this book will be donated to Doctors Without Borders."
Is there a way that you can close the floating widget on the map. When you are looking for something in an area it would be nice to be able to remove it.
Interesting - particularly the difference between the type of benchmarks. I shouldn't be too surprised I guess.

It's also interesting how little what we used to call "layout" is a performance target any more.
At this point, I could care less if it was all owned by Microsoft or even Dick Cheney, someone's just gotta fix this problem. Jim Clark failed to fix it with Healtheon. Steve Case blew it with Revolution Health, and everyone else who has ever tried to fix this problem has gotten nowhere.
For some reason, I'm reminded of the scenes from 'Being John Malkovich' in the company office 'fun-house'. Was it intentional?

http://thepilver.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/2cx6luf.jpg
I've never heard of a single case where a startup made a claim against anyone based on such information. Nor is it necessary to protect oneself; commit logs should be fine for that.
it isn't learning from the past and not being influenced by it. It's learning from the past and knowing when to apply that knowledge and when not to. The future doesn't always look like the past so you have to be judicious about when to apply lessons you've learned and when to be creative.
"This time I'm pretty convinced that when I go back to work I want to work in a real startup, as a founder."

Later that year, Fog Creek Software was born. Pretty interesting to read his thoughts at the beginnings of entrepreneurship.
There is a scene in 'The Legend of Bagger Vance' where the golfer is playing an important championship hole and the camera strips away all of the championship environment, the crowd, leaving Bagger Vance with himself, the ball, and the hole.
> Ceiling Height Can Affect How A Person Thinks, Feels And Acts

It certainly can. I've hit my head on several low ceilings. Causes spontaneous verbalisation and a tendency to duck a lot.

More seriously, does it have a different effect on tall-vs-short people? Is it ceiling height-above-floor or height-above-head?
Anyone used these with Amazon EC2?
PayPal 1.9% - 2.9% + $0.30 USD
(https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-compariso...)
What's CP+B?
I've actually written about JavaScript benchmark quality before:
http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-benchmark-quality/

(I've since re-written Dromaeo - and the current version that's live is taking in to account all the problems that I outlined in this post.)

I think layout would be more of a performance target if there was a reliable way to test it across platforms - or even on a single platform (especially so from JavaScript). That's definitely something that I'd like to shoot for, though - it would be hugely helpful to developers.
The logical conclusion to be drawn from the second paragraph of that piece is that "college kids and UNIX weenies" were RIGHT!
I think with all the advances in scrip systems, social psychology, and game theory these days, there should be a way to quantify and award karma that incentivizes productive discussion.
Free Software Downloads - FilesTube.com
Sure, here's a drive I was looking at just recently - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=279

There are drives out there that support Macs but they are generally fairly expensive and are basically full file servers. I would just like a simple external hard drive that I could plug into my router.
$1500 is roughly what you would pay in Journal Square or the heights. The really nice areas you mentioned cost a bit more, of course.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/aap/jsy?query=jersey+ci...
EC2 doesn't allow random kernels so this won't be possible until a kernel that supports it is vetted into the user selectable kernel list.
Crispin Porter & Bogusky - http://www.cpbgroup.com/
whoa. took me a bit to figure out the controls. neat!!!
How a Blog Might Have Stopped Madoff
Depends on whether you're arguing that they don't push into new areas, or that they only do it by purchasing other companies, but I do see them pushing into new areas:

Google is pushing/has pushed out from their original search into ad sales, online video, webmail, domain hosting, online document and spreadsheet programs, desktop searching programs, browser development, health information, web analytics, a mobile phone operating system, iPhone software, location and tracking systems, a code repository, voice recognition, statistical language translation, price comparisons, online payment systems, photo editing and hosting, sketchup, feed reading, mapping, satellite imagine, astronomical imaging, local free wifi, Google Earth, chat and video chat, blog engine, app engine, book ripping... that's not all, either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products

I don't expect them to come out with a new kind of paint or an electric car, but they do a lot with information.
This is just awesome. Can you tell us more about how you engaged people on Twitter? Did you spend a lot of time building a Twitter following before you did this?

We've been doing guerilla stuff at conferences for a couple years now; clearly, it's better to book a room somewhere and pay for a bar than it is to buy a booth. But doing direct outreach with Twitter sounds even more effective. And my target market is very much on Twitter.
I dislike Plaxo. Just as OpenOffice is what I look at as an example of the worst of Open Source, Plaxo is my posterchild example of OpenID.

It adds nothing. First it was an address book in the midst of a sea of similar address books. It added OpenID to gain an "edge" and it got publicity despite its still having a meaningless featurelist. Plaxo 3 added Pulse, which is just a watered-down FriendFeed, which is a pretty watered-down site to begin with. It's ugly - it was obviously design-by-committee, which made it incredibly harmless and hideously generic - it adds nothing, and it has uglier ads than most of the sites it's ripping off. The name is terrible. It's the ultimate example of the meaningless short name.
Thanks for the link.

I guess my thinking was -- I hear a lot of anecdotal discussion about the FireFox codebase and how it needs to be re-engineered, etc, etc (ie. WebKit is tidier and so forth).

If the performance war is elsewhere, does that remain a factor? i.e. Assuming the above is actually true, does the codebase have legs as the performance war is elsewhere?
Japan’s Big-Works Stimulus Is Lesson for U.S.
Good idea, I can add that.
This is my take on karma: I don't care how much karma I have. I just make (hopefully) good comments. And if people disagree with me, it's okay, we're all entitled to an opinion.

But if I get really downmodded, I think about whether my comment was rude or something.

I don't need an orange username to feel good about myself.
Declining to answer is always a legal response. But it gets reported as data in different ways, depending on who is asking. For a person applying for a government benefit (e.g., food stamps), an application without race or ethnicity filled in usually has that filled in by "sight identification" by a caseworker. For a student applying to college, the response of not responding is simply reported as "race/ethnicity unknown." Some colleges have very high percentages of enrolled students who are reported to the federal government as "race/ethnicity unknown,"

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012037-post4.html

which I think is a good social trend. But, sure enough, the federal government has a regulation from a year or so ago, to take effect in the next school year (2009-2010) that will remove from college application forms the current notice many have that the question is optional. The feds want to gather the data. Students will have to know the law well to know that they may freely decline to answer the questions. The full federal regulation for Department of Education data-gathering on race and ethnicity can be found at

http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/10190...
Dupe. Exact same link as yesterday. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467509

See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136353

Also see also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135010

Also also see also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135208

http://searchyc.com/submissions/apple%2527s+design+process
A Ruby, Io, and Ocaml Programming Pattern
The value proposition wasn't in simply hiring a "Blub Programmer," it was in identifying individuals more likely to be intrinsically motivated to improve their mastery of programming.

The majority of Java hackers picked it up (directly or indirectly) due to its market presence. Myself included.

The majority of Haskell, Clojure, and Blub++ programmers are hacking away out of personal interest.

Edit: On review, cesqui pointed out downthread that pg already covered this premise in http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html
Thanks.

You are right that its not new per se, but I am not sure if founders are leveraging all the knowledge one can gain from archives of successful sites to learn from them. For example, I was looking at Etsy's homepage when they launched and I think it was very clever for a community/marketplace site that has the classic chicken and egg problem.
catch23 you should e-mail me! My family owns this office space and I want to combine forces for what you are thinking about — I just need this place to break even on mortgage, it will be significantly cheaper than renting a space elsewhere.