skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have to admit, I default to tables for layout (not a designer, obviously). Hopefully once all of the major browsers support CSS3 (and more specifically CSS tables), this argument will be moot. Of course, the only major browser that doesn't is IE (prior to 8), so we probably have quite a while before IE 6 & 7 disappear from general use.
Anyone know when AppJet with Comet support be released?
your math is wrong:

"We charge the seller a final sale fee of $3.12 which makes $1.56 available to the "active advertiser pool". If 5 people bid on the item from your site and 3 people bid from a different site. You earn 62.5% of the $3.12."

So there is only 1.56 available, but I earn $1.95?
Nature is asking for help with summarizing abstracts
Out of curiosity, how do you become a "confirmed" liberal Democrat? Is that like becoming a confirmed Catholic? Is there a process?

And you are right that the most successful interest groups are ones that can get their policies pushed by both parties. I would love to see intelligent technology policies pushed by 2 parties, instead of about 10% of a party like we see now.
The CSS/Table argument has been settled, and tables won (by absorption): http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/tables.html

The CSS standard has already conceded the point that tables can do things that pre-table CSS couldn't do. It's over. The pro-CSS side, at least in the way it is being argued (as if the IE subset is CSS, rather than the standard), is just wrong and totally out of date. They've been abandoned by CSS itself. Quite a long time ago, actually.

As for their assertions that this is for "tabular relationships between data" in the standard, who cares? Table support is implemented as certain boxes with certain behaviors. If you need those behaviors in your layout, use them. They are well defined. And since content and presentation are so darned separate, it's not like it actually hurts anything, right?

(That's a critical point. If you move all the table stuff into CSS, that's fundamentally different than using the standard table tag. That's presentation in CSS and content in HTML, exactly as it "should" be!)

Getting all huffy about the fact that somebody declared that some behavior should "only be for tables" is really missing the point. The behavior simply exists, regardless of what it was "designed" for, and if you need it, use it. Besides, just read about the table support... if you can't see how that stuff might be useful in a layout, I can't imagine how your mind works.

The CSS table support is actually pretty rich, better than the conventional table tag by a lot, or at least, more flexible.
Google selecting your cookie for the test run.
I wouldn't...it would make them think: why should I split affiliate revenue with these guys?
you're welcome. Another idea, not sure if it is feasible: Get your users to place an ad tag on their own pages with their own items that they have for sale. That would build you a ton of backlinks in no time at all. And possibly they'll leave the tag up even when they have no items for sale.
I'm glad you like it. Thank you for the idea! We already have a few site using our banners but its going to be a challenge getting products, affiliates and bidders :)
regardless of the process, the implication seems to be the same.
Not really no. If the web browser isn't sending the information, then take that up with your browser... it's the one that has the information and is dropping it.

Then again, I should point out that I'm not seeing this behavior, so this may be much ado about nothing.
sorry, maybe a bad example on my part, my point is that querystring parameters being passed should include the search terms used on that search engine is something of a rule of thumb more so than a standard... but i don't know that there are any standards built on top of the http referrer other than this is how google and many others operated, so these reporting companies wrote code that relied on that, rather than coding to a standard.
it doesn't seem like you guys know that eBay has an affiliate program that pretty much does what you are doing
Jesus, what a boring topic. Making something is so much more important than how it is made.
Image Spark released
A creative tool - FFFFOUND with tags and screenshot capabilities.
I was not talking about americas "wealth" - I was coming from the context of the article in that the way people are treated is leading to an overall economic downturn.
I apologise in advance. On reflection, the title sounds much more offensive than was intended. The point of the entry still stands, however.
actually it doesn't seem like anyone proofread the actual site, since there are a ton of other errors all over the place

"By signing up for a fee account"
Scan down page for heading: Should The Times Charge for Online News?
I'll up date that! I guess I need to practice math. Thanks for catching that...
I'm sure there are people who will gladly move to India for a few years, but if they are improving their careers, which is not necessarily (although, in practice, it usually is) mutually exclusive with a pay cut. However, no one talented is going to travel to a foreign country for the same job, much less a step back. Also, giving enough pay and perks that they can afford to see family in the US for at least 4 weeks out of the year is a must.
I spent some time in Gershenfeld's lab while at MIT. He's on to something in that the machinery and know-how needed to engineer a new kind of robot or sensor are ready to spread far and wide.

The title is overly provocative, and brings to mind other discussions, some provoked by PG essays, about the role of universities, the efficacy or applicability to the real world of different levels of education as they're currently taught, the practical difference between a good school and a bad school, whether you should go to grad school, etc. Such discussions tend to bore me.

Suffice it to say that without MIT, there would be no Fab Labs. Even viewing MIT as purely a place to educate students, or purely a place to do research, or purely a place to do engineering, none of which it is, MIT is not in danger of becoming obsolete any time soon, even with its curriculum publicly available and its technological resources becoming less scarce.
Reasons I prefer Tcl over Python
I'm kind of over the language war phase myself, but it's been a while since we've had a good one here, I think.
That's for a TV company. As a consumer, I find Bittorrent perfect for all my TV needs - I don't even own a TV set -, but then I only watch japanese stuff so YMMV.
I'm sure there are more errors. I've been working on finding them - but you are right I am the writer, coder and proof reader - and I'm not great at writing - won't mention my dyslexia :)
This is a good list, but freelancers should beware of writing off "home office" expenses. It's a lot more complicated than is presented in this article.
That's actually a great idea. We're working on a way to have users request a certain category of ads on their ads that they post on their site, but having them post their own products is a great idea.
Probably (and hopefully) it's just being bucket-tested...
You can override the ordering by using absolute positioning. It has some drawbacks though, for example you have to define sizes explicitly.

But I dont really see your point in favor of tables, since CSS is strictly more powerful in this case.
Feature Request: Footer on permalink pages
I'd love to see Hacker News add a footer to the bottom of discussion pages, even if it's just an orange bar (like at the top) with no additional text. The reason for this is that as I scroll down the page by pressing the space bar, it's not immediately apparent when I've scrolled to the bottom, and when this happens, the spot where I stopped reading (before scrolling) is somewhere in the middle of the page, not at the top. It's a little disorienting to re-read the same comments again and not realize that you're doing it.
> learn selectors!

The grand majority of those selectors are not available in IE6, which most of us still have to support, so this is a non-starter. Nobody is arguing that we wouldn't be much better off with better CSS support. The argument is that with CSS support as it is now, most non-trivial changes to a sites design are nigh on impossible without changing the markup.

> You can't radically change the flow of the pages but that's not the point.

You know, sometimes it is.

> once you learn CSS properly

Can we quit with the "you probably don't know CSS" schtick?
How Facebook Connect Could Make Facebook Millions
really my first impression is "Don't call me a founder unless I have equity" - personally titles don't mean shit to me.
The examples mentioned in the article seem to be steady-state issues that would be there in boom or bust. You would be hard pressed to establish any causation.
The one question I have deals with how much data you'll have at launch. Right now, when I search for anything in MA, there's nothing there. Are you planning on either:
a) just focusing on CA for launch
b) preloading some data so there's at least something there
c) connecting to an API or other service like Yelp, etc. to display some local listings, allowing users to select those businesses to add to the feedbackjar listing

My other question: Are you purposely staying vague with your categories? When I go to add a business, there are no category selectors, though it feels like there should be (could just be me).

Hope this helps.
A data visualization of Super Bowl tweets picks Fitzgerald over Holmes for MVP
> you can do it without changing your templates.

...

> I sometime edit the markup to change classes or add the occasional <div>.

Case in point.

> I guess table-base layout would be easier to experiment with using a wysiwyg editor.

Christ on a cracker, if a person is using a wysiwyg, they shouldn't even be in this discussion.
"They're both wrong. You can order your content how your like. You are restricted only by your knowledge of CSS and not its ability as a styling language to render your documents. It took me about 30 minutes to knock up a demonstration, which you can see for yourself: columns in order and columns out of order."

I think the fact that it took you (a CSS pro) 30 minutes to come up with a simple 3 column example that's hard for me to understand, reflects poorly on CSS. Just because something is possible doesn't make it a good technology automatically.

I might be able to make a Turing machine out of my blender, some rubber bands, and chewing gum (note: haven't actually tried this). It might be Turing complete, but I'm not going to be able to program anything useful with it (an admittedly extreme example)
Ask HN: Review my side project: Sqrt(2)
Hey there, HN! In our spare time, we've been working on this side experiment: what would happen if a social news site required people to demonstrate intelligence in order to submit / vote on news stories?

Thus is born Sqrt(2), here's 100 invites:

http://1.414214.com/login.html?m=newsyc

We're really concerned about scaling, so we'll increase the ceiling on the invite code as quickly as we can confirm our server's not going to explode. If you can't get in, try again in a few hours.

Heading off a couple of things:

Yes, our presentation sucks. How can we make it better without annoying everyone with a long-winded description every time they log in? We've agonized over trying to make the WTF page clear without wasting anyone's time, but you guys are the test of whether it actually makes sense. Remember, the audience is smart, cool people such as yourselves, not grandma.

"But I don't have time to solve crappy puzzles!" I'm busy too. But I enjoy solving little puzzles as a break from coding. If you don't "have time" to do X, it's because you don't make time to do X, because you view X as inferior to whatever else it is you're doing. Which is fine. But I want news from people who occasionally make time for logic/critical thinking, so if you don't, I don't particularly care for your news. No offense. Complaints about the specific nature of the specific puzzles are, of course, perfectly valid. I've coded some things that interest me, but I would love suggestions on what interests you.

Is this going to work? Has something similar been done before? We have no idea! It just seemed like a neat experiment and it was painless enough to code. What do you think?
I recently read a book called "Tribal Leadership" by Dave Logan and John King. It talks about 5 stages of individual attitude and organizational culture, basically:

1 - Life sucks.

2 - My life sucks (but maybe there's something better).

3 - I'm in it for me.

4 - We're in it as a group with a core set of values; there is a higher purpose. We're great.

5 - Our values are everything. We're not fighting competition, we're fighting for a cause.

Admittedly, this list sounds pretty straightforward, possibly even obvious, but reading the examples in the book of the kind of thoughts people in each of the five stages think was eerily like having my mind read.

First they convince you that they know what they're talking about when they describe the possible cultures. Then they proceed to tell you how to elevate yourself or your group to the next stage. They give plenty of examples along the way, including what to do in situations of growth like you mention.

It's an excellent, well researched, book. It significantly changed the way I look at myself and my organizations culture.

You can get the audio version for free from here:
http://www.zappos.com/tribal.zhtml
Yes, Master (The Only Brand Strategy for Startups)
Here are some domain names me or my associates have purchased recently. There are good ones left:

trailbehind.com (also thetrailbehind.com)

greathive.com (also thegreathive.com)

loudmountain.com

darnnews.com

agent1099.com

photosensate.com

surelogic.com

These are all fine domain names made of real words.
I'm working on an unfamiliar system, with unfamiliar tools, and doing several things at once - all whilst dribbling snot over my keyboard - but I'll be sure to narrow it down to 10 mins next time. :)
Big deal -- if you are not a CEO or a CTO who can afford a $25K fee, or a graduate student who wins a scholarship, but instead work as an entrepreneur or self-employed, you can't go.
In the source of csszengarden, do you also see this

> There are more classes and extraneous tags than needed, and in a real world situation, it's more likely that it would be much leaner.

and this

> <!--extra div for flexibility - this list will probably be the trickiest spot you'll deal with -->
<div id="linkList2">

and this

> <!-- These extra divs/spans may be used as catch-alls to add extra imagery. -->
<!-- Add a background image to each and use width and height to control sizing, place with absolute positioning -->
<div id="extraDiv1"><span></span></div><div id="extraDiv2"><span></span></div><div id="extraDiv3"><span></span></div>
<div id="extraDiv4"><span></span></div><div id="extraDiv5"><span></span></div><div id="extraDiv6"><span></span></div>

The HTML guy could not be "nearly clueless" about the designer's needs if CSS Zen Garden's flexibility is what you're looking for.
Only if the power goes out for an extended time, there is a battery backup. Not that it's a big deal, home phones are dying off rapidly.
Is The Kindle Outpacing Early iPod Sales?
Can't you just come up with some two word combination? None of these names stick with me, and none strike me as easy to remember, and moreover, none give me an idea of what your company does.

I used to get paid to think up these names. Here's an exercise you can do. Think up words that apply to your company, and write them down. For example: money, profit, ads, auctions, etc. And also, you don't need to just stick with words that physically describe your company (though I think these are best). You can also look for words that describe your value proposition, and why you are better than your competitors.

Then, go over the list and see if you like any of the combinations. Also, just start free associating with words on the list and words off the list.

Another thing you can do is come up with imagery that you think might be good for an ad campaign or in the design of your site. With this sort of approach, you end up with names like monster.com.

Don't be afraid to use the dictionary, thesaurus, and to do hundreds of searches on Godaddy.com or similar.

Also, don't be afraid to seek out a friend who is good with words, or who tends to say funny or memorable things. I've long since ceased to work in creative at an ad agency, but my friends and colleagues ask me to come up with names for them these days.

And one final thought - it's not that important what your name is, as long as it's not confusing (which misspellings all are).
Bigtimebids.com is available.
The Curious Case of the Giant Scrollbar
oh christ here we go again, another blogger telling me that choosing tools is pointless, if i have a brain i will excel with any tool, regardless of it being mishapen and dull.
What's optimal depends on your objective function. For Ron Garret, it appears that his objective function was "most intuitive." When smart people are on both sides of an issue, I consider it undecided.

I personally prefer using CSS for layout, not because it is more intuitive than tables, but because I prefer to remove the table-cruft from my html. I think it makes php and rhtml files easier to read. However, in the limited freelance work that I've done, I've run into more than one client that preferred I use tables because they couldn't or didn't want to maintain their layout with CSS.

Anyway, that discussion is ancilliary to my point, which is that the benefits offered by the author aren't going to be convincing to someone who sees a 40-fold or so difference in time-to-production.
JavaScript Dollar Sign ($) - What is it for?
The name of a domain is as subjective as the proverbial eye of the beholder, eventually all that counts is whether or not you can make it succeed in the market.

That's not a qualitative assessment of your 'good' domains, just an observation.
I like RESTful APIs too, but it's silly to imply that anything else is wrong
Has anyone really looked into it? Does it provide anything that, say, opencongress.org/govtrack.us doesn't already have?
You're right I didn't know eBay had interactive ad banners that you can place bids from... Could you point me to the link - thanks.
"When you're young, you feel like you should ignore it, because it seems so arbitrary."

Of course different people will ignore this intuitive feeling for different reasons, but I suspect that people rarely do so because it feels arbitrary. Usually people tolerate mean behaviour because there is an asymmetry of power in a relationship. When you need someone more than they need you, they can make harsh demands and treat you like dirt and you will still cooperate. If people refused to cooperate with assholes, or imposed a cost on assholish behaviour then it would stop or be reduced. The fact there are so many giant assholes walking around suggests that being an asshole works, at least sometimes.

I don't think there's anything magical about these instincts. If you observe someone treating another person badly, it's entirely reasonable to imagine that they will do the same to you.
FYI, I found your blog's color scheme -- blue-on-blue with blue links -- and small text hard to read. Design tips that are hard to read are somewhat self-nullifying.
not interactive, but bidding is only a click away.

The interactive part isn't really a plus. How does a person know that the interactive banner is yours, and not some scammer phishing for information?
Ask HN:  Getting information about a URL or domain from other web services
I'm midway working on a sort of "reverse look-up" tool for domains and URLs. The idea is: you enter a URL, and then choose from a big list of actions. These actions should utilize the huge gamut of web services available, and should merely forward you to some other webpage.

For example, a user might type in "news.ycombinator.com" and an action could be "Find similar websites to this domain using Google," which would forward them to http://www.google.com/search?q=related:news.ycombinator.com

I'd like to get some ideas on which categories and/or specific web services you guys think would be useful. It doesn't have to be particular to any topic at all... anything goes. It should be something you would personally use or that the general population would find useful.

Here are some example actions I've thought of myself:

- Quantcast, Alexa, Compete, show stats on that domain
- Look up that domain on CrunchBase to view information on the start-up behind it
- social media submission (submit to Digg, Reddit, etc)
- find highest ranked Dugg/Reddit stories from that domain
- Find similar webpages to the URL or Domain (using Google 'similar' feature)
- translate page with Google Translate
- shorten the URL using bit.ly et al
- view tweets containing that URL using Twitturly
- search for blog articles linking to that URL using Sphere, Technorati, SocialMention, et al
- what was the website built with, using BuiltWith.com

Hopefully you guys can fill in the blanks.

Thanks!
It isn't an abstract thing, it's HTML, and it behaves like HTML. That CSS styles HTML is not an implementation detail -- it is dependent on the underlying document tree, not an abstraction of it.

As I said before, floats do not change that (from the CSS2 spec): In the float model, a box is first laid out according to the normal flow, then taken out of the flow and shifted to the left or right as far as possible. Content may flow along the side of a float.

What you're asking is to be able to modify the document tree, which modifies the normal flow, and then have something which explicitly depends on the rendering of the normal flow to not change.
CSS for layout [my two cents]
I can see your point, but if Google adds that capability to Google Analytics they will have a significant advantage over their competitors. So the question is not simply about following an unofficial standard.
Chicago Public Radio interviews me about my startup
...after the dogfood has already been eaten once.
That's a valid point but I don't agree that the interactive part isn't a plus. I agree and realize that some people will be afraid to use our banners because of phishing - but some won't... I hope :)
>> Unfortunately there are very few real words or even real word combinations that are not registered.

Problem solved... I'll plug my own site for finding good, available domain names: http://Hotnamelist.com

Or, go out and BUY a good one: http://sedo.com or http://Afternic.com
Design and coding are two totally separate arenas. I am useless at design. Nonetheless, I'll bear your criticism in mind. (Although you can resize the text yourself, it's %-driven.)
Langpop.com - now with IRC
Last year's "rock star" developer is this year's "co-founder".

Edit: Ok, that's a little snarky. Apologies. I think everyone's a bit tired of job postings that appeal to a false sense of ego. Can we call this position something factual, like "dev lead"?

PPS: In other thoughts, how does this affect resumes? Can you actually put "Co-founder, ClickPass" on your CV? What happens when your next potential employer asks about it?

Her: "What was it like starting a new company?"

You: "Well, actually, um ...."