skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I downvoted your original comment as well, though I will admit that I was somewhat conflicted in doing so. My reasoning is that the crux of your argument is based on the statement you just made -- "It's as if they think their customers are dupes," -- and I think that's a strawman.

It's common knowledge that companies offer sales to move product. It's also common knowledge that is a benefit to the companies. My opinion is that affect does not, or should not discount the news of the sale. It's like critiquing a television ad for being self-interested. Of course it is, it's an advertisement, as this is. That doesn't mean that we should dismiss it any more than we should dismiss any product that has a price attached (unless that's the point you're arguing -- I don't mean to rule out an RMS-style argument here).

For what it's worth, they are losing millions of dollars on this deal. You're right, it's a loss-leader, but they are losing revenue by offering the sale. That's how a sale works. You offer a discount to get people in the door and hope that the quality of your product can sway them into becoming loyal customers. If they are unable to convert those prospects into customers because their products aren't strong, then they will have simply lost the revenues otherwise entitled to them had they not offered this sale.

In summary, you took the obvious point and made it sound much more negative than it is. On a more meta tangent, I recently posted something like "Now that I know what a middlebrow dismissal is, I'm worried that every dismissal I make will be categorized as one." -- I made that as a joke, but I'm honestly concerned about it and now that I'm aware of it, I believe that it is a problem on HN. I believe there are numerous problems on HN, and through downvoting, comments and my own behavior, I would much prefer it be fixed than abandoned. My personal fix against the middlebrow dismissal is to not be dismissive, which happens to fall under my own personal HN guideline of "assume good faith."

By 'assuming good faith' of all parties and not being dismissive without being constructive, I think we'd have a much better environment, though I do worry that it would become too 'vanilla' (as my own posts often tend to be when I reread them.) Regardless, the easy fix for you at the moment is to just quit caring about karma altogether, and then you can probably ignore these meta-discussions outright.
And this is a needle talking to you
"a blank (white) page with a single button in the center for everything." -> http://google.com
Keiferski that link you referenced is relating to the interview stage.

I think the purpose of the application demo is to provide a visualization of what you wrote in the YC application. They say they only view demos from the most promising submissions, so if they're viewing it you already piqued their interest. Short of a live working prototype, I'd create a page that can most effectively show 1) how your app will generate revenue, 2) key differentiators of your app from similar ones. Regardless of the demo format, their time per submission is minimal so be clear and concise.
I didn't know he was a programmer.

I discovered him in 1995 on a mixtape (by Tom Simonian Thump) a friend brought back from San Francisco the year before. "Dancing Girl" was an incredible piece and it still gives me goose bumps every time I hear it.

That song was a shock for me and another friend: we were both into crate digging and we spent countless and fruitless days looking for anything by Terry Callier. At the time, nobody knew about that guy here in France and it took years until we found anything. Until he did a come back in the early 00's.
If you want to learn about the evolution and operation of Mission Control, "Failure Is Not an Option"[1] by Gene Kranz (Ed Harris in Apollo 13) is fantastic.

For more Apollo geekery, check out "Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module" [2] by Thomas J. Kelly, the Grumman Program Manager. His guidelines for making the LM reliable are just as relevant today:

* Specify the highest quality systems and components the current state of the art could achieve.

* Provide system-level redundancy whenever possible, preferably by dissimilar means...

* Provide component-level redundancy at the highest component level possible...

* Strive for simplicity and ample design safety margins.

* Test extensively and exhaustively in various environments and stress levels, including stress to failure. Document all failures and investigate until the specific cause is found and design, manufacturing, or operational corrections have been made.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Not-Option-Mission-Control/dp/...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spac...
I probably overdid the solder a bit, but there's no way most of the pads had enough solder on them for SOICs without my adding any. I've soldered SOICs before, but this is by far the largest volume I've done in a sitting.

As I mentioned briefly in the post, the autorouter was something I used largely as a result of time constraints - with 200-odd wires to route and very little time to do them in if I wanted the PCBs back in time, I decided to give it a go. That said, I was surprised with the quality of the results - I'd be surprised if I can find any easy-to-remove vias left in its solution. The tool is also very good for assisted hand routing, since it lets you nudge traces around without ripping them up every time.
Content Marketing - What You Need to Know and Do
While I personally love touchscreens and want to see them everywhere, I think we can't ignore the limitations of this type interface. For instance, it would seem that Bret Victor doesn't like Jeff's touch future, and has some interesting things to say about it:

http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
It also offers the opportunity for precise delivery of medicine, so that you can get some growth factor there (like extracellular matrix pixie dust) and get tissue growth there as well.

Calling it quackery is absurd, thousands of people have treated with it already and companies like GE are investing in it. You must be retarded.
I like to help people working on projects like these, not only because it could do what they think it will do, but because in playing around with unexplored regions of physics, they may accidentally stumble into something far more than they could have imagined.

Kind of like the story of Alexander Fleming where he was trying to find some enzymes to kill bacteria, and accidentally figured out that mold in his sink kills the bacteria, and invents penicillin.

We need something like that, again, for electric engines.

http://www.essortment.com/alexander-fleming-discovery-penici...
This is the first step to true open hardware.

I am concerned how fast IT evolves to DRM-locked devices. The PC will become obsolete by tablets so we will lose control over our computers. Currently DRM looks harmless but when you consider the long-term consequences it doesn't look good at all.

First we fought TCPA and Trusted Computing, now we have the first global players (Apple, Microsoft) put DRM into their gadgets to get maximum control and minimum competition. And the customers buy, consume, and play, without considering the consequences.

Our technology today is the foundation for the political systems of tomorrow, and when you consider the global demographic development you know what I mean. Within the next twenty years we will have a completely different global political and economical system, and I don't want to have them total control over us with their super-safe cascaded DRM chips which nobody will be able to break.

Unfortunately we can't stop Apple, Microsoft & Co. from using DRM. That's why I appreciate pioneer projects like this selfmade FPGA very much as they help to jump over the big hurdle from open source to true open hardware. Someday when all commercial chips will be DRM-locked I hope we will be able to 3D-print our own processors and RAM chips.

I am convinced that Open Hardware will become vital for the survival of our freedom of speech and liberty in general.
Ask HN: what would you pay a 50$/m subscription for?
Could be personal, or (perhaps more likely) work related. What tool, app, service would you pay $50/m for?
Kim Dotcom Finally Reveals The New Megaupload, Mega
For some reason, I thought 2.2x was a version of rails, a really old one at that. Now I know that it's the speedup. My brain is weird sometime.
Mr Bool is seeking for new authors
Mr Bool is seeking for new authors, if you believe you can write a good, clear and interesting article or record a video, please let us know. All approved article and/or video will be paid. Send an email to mrboolteam@gmail.com or go to http://mrbool.com/portal/publish.asp.
Rails tests that takes too long are also painful too. If you try to speed them up, you might run into the problem of having to restart from scratch when you write stuff that need restarting to take effects.
Enough parts for 20 boards cost me about 100 pounds; the board fabrication cost about $60, but a lot of that was because I wanted it in a rush. All up, that works out to about 8 pounds, or 13 USD per board. It'd be somewhat cheaper - around $10-$11 - if you're not in a rush for the boards, and of course cheaper again in larger quantities.
Patents Remain Too Big a Barrier to Collaboration & Innovation
You could perhaps look at "developing" in terms of economic growth - most "developed" countries have relatively low growth as their economies are mature.

That's not to say that all countries with low growth have mature economies of course, just that "developed" countries are at the economic forefront, and that "developing" countries need to make an effort to catch up or be forever "developing".

In terms that most people could understand "rich" and "poor" may be more accurate, but in terms of cell phone usage there are quite a few African countries that have widespread mobile phone networks, but few wired telephones.

You could perhaps come to think that the above sort of labels are very generic, but I do think that for a start that talk of a third world/first world split is not useful when the second world - communist russia and its ilk - doesn't exist anymore.
"People in the US spend much more time working than those in almost any other developed country."

To your point, you will find this paper interesting:

Europeans Work To Live And Americans Live To Work

http://people.hmdc.harvard.edu/~akozaryn/myweb/docs/final_wo...

Abstract:

This paper compares the working hours and life satisfaction of Americans and Europeans using the World Values Survey, Eurobarometer and General Social Survey. The purpose is to explore the relationship between working hours and happiness in Europe and America. Previous research on the topic does not test the premise that working more makes Americans happier than Europeans. The findings suggest that Americans may be happier working more because they believe more than Europeans do that hard work is associated with success.
Kim Dotcom announces Mega, successor to Megaupload
Sad, and typical.

I have lived in India for the last 3 years and at first I was angry, then disgusted, but now it's just sadness.

To see a country with so much potential throw themselves into such a quagmire of ridiculousness stirs my soul to mutiny!

There is a culture of corruption, and this article just highlights one of thousands of daily acts of corruption that happen on macro and micro scales.

India needs a cultural revolution, someone to suck the apathy out of the people and make them demand responsibility from their leaders.
Exactly.

The next and easiest 'upgrade' from sole proprietor for most people is likely an LLC. As a sole proprietor, your personal assets are at risk in the event of a lawsuit or class action and such. Incorporating in some fashion will protect your personal assets in such an event and is arguably a more direct upgrade from sole proprietor tax-wise.

It's only your call when to 'upgrade' if ever, but the answer is generally somewhere between 'getting traction' and 'getting sued', with the real kicker that you obviously can't incorporate after getting sued so, y'know, there's that.
Thanks for sharing these links. Honestly, charity isn't something I think much about, but have a poor opinion of. Nice to be reminded that good applications of it exist, and that it's measurable and assessable. The 80,000 Hours site in particular looks like a great resource.

Also quite a recommendation coming from you - never fails to amaze me the people you find posting on here.
Does new instances work with regular paravirtual AMIs or do you need to build an HVM AMI like for cluster compute?
Some extensive background to the speedups that occurred in 1.9.3 with regards to loading so far along with the Xavier Shay work that didn't get included: http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-1-9-3-faster-loading-times-re...
The thing that frustrates me most about these devices with keyboard covers with or without kickstands is that I can't sit on the couch and use it on my lap. It isn't a LAPtop replacement, it is a portable computing replacement.
indeed, the person only doesn't have any clue of being a programmer and the views he formed are of a non-programmer
What an arcane law!

Section 66-A deals with messages sent via computer or communication devices which may be “grossly offensive,” have “menacing character,” or even cause “annoyance or inconvenience.” For offences under the section, a person can be fined and jailed up to three years.

If you cause "annoyance" or "inconvenience" to someone, you can be fined or jailed up to three years!

Edit - He has also clarified that he has just cited media reports and not made any new revelation. He just has 16 followers on Twitter. His arrest has got more to do with his involvement with IAC(India against Corruption) than anything else.
If you're not a 'working programmer' (i.e. improving things by being there) you may just be a 'Bad Programmer'. IMHO.

Unless you happen to work for a company/department with awesome, stable practices and quality output I guess.
Why didn't it get included?
There used to be a time when rails community used to diss Java for large startup time and look where they have come :)
Ask HN: What's a good dev laptop for outdoor use?
After reading the minimalism story the other day <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4721645>, I got to thinking: until laptops with an e-ink screen exist, what is the best laptop for outdoor development?

I've been trying to get healthier recently, and a big part of that is spending time outdoors. However, without a laptop that's difficult, since much of my time is spent developing websites and web apps.

Does anybody have a recommendation for a good laptop, or class of laptops, that would be ideal for outdoor, in-the-sun, disconnected development? For example, going to the urban woods in my area, I can already guess that I'll need ample battery life and a cellular connection, plus some sort of screen that won't completely wash out in the sunlight.
Technology Is Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say
I don't recall seeing a definitive reason given but I'd always assumed it was because Xavier's patch was very large and the Ruby core team are usually conservative with these things. The solution they came up with was merely a few lines of C. It was a bit of a cheap hack but provided much (but not all) of the real world benefit, so they went with it as it was easier to audit.
Thought the same thing at first.
What's that all about? The fact that this story has been voted so far up the front page indicates that HN's readers believe it's a serious issue worth reading about and discussing.
This is interesting considering the recent spate of Apple drama. Apple is in a funny place. RIM is in a bad place. This is nothing more than jockeying for position and Google is behind it. Do no evil... hahahahahaha.
well... thanks, we will for sure go with it all through. Hope we don't need to return back at one stage !

thanks
Most Open Source Android Flashcard Application
Links below are of an Android application with a functioning sqlite database for a flashcard app. Shameless plug with my first foray into open sourcing development. The code-base is yours to browse, forage, or contribute to.

GITHUB: https://github.com/abettisworth/flashcards
Why my favourite person to discuss startups with is my 80 year old Grandma
"I tried a couple of solutions and settled on jCrop as well. It's pretty easy to use, though there was an odd quirk in getting it show an area as precropped (i.e. if someone has previously cropped an image and you want to let them edit it) which I hacked like so http://stackoverflow.com/a/11958515/5958
If you actually want to see it in action, try the real jCrop homepage: http://deepliquid.com/projects/Jcrop/demos.php

Nice hack, in the jCrop official page you can see a lot of more examples and demos.

"If you want to use this with Rails, here's a screencast showing how: http://railscasts.com/episodes/182-cropping-images-revised

Thanks for sharing.

"'ve made an alternative, with a different UI approach.
jWindowCrop: http://www.tmatthew.net/jwindowcrop
Specify a target width & height, and users will have a frame that size in which they drag/zoom their image to make it fit. Very much like how Facebook's profile image cropper used to work."

Wow, nice work dude! Thank you so much for sharing.

"I've used JCrop pretty extensively, and my only issue with it is that it returns slightly different coordinates on different browsers. It's even possible to coax it into returning coordinates outside of an image.
Aside from that, it's pretty awesome, easy to use, and customizable."

I like to use jCrop too, thanks for your feedback.

"Where is the demo?"

You can copy and paste the full source code at the end of the article, or see in the official plugin page.
Grammar is not the problem. Hence the word "poor" and not "bad".
I kind of agree. Personally I have no problems with drones being used where police helicopters are now. It's cheaper, safer, and probably more effective too.

However, and this is a big issue, drones are thus cheap making it possible to use them much more than police helicopters are now. It's just hardware, you can buy a lot of it. I dread thinking about a future where drones will be swarming everywhere, collecting information aspecifically, to collect and process and find every tiny violation, obliterating any sense of privacy.

I agree that's not a technology problem. And regulating technology won't solve it. But it should not be ignored either. Advancing technology does open a lot of debates about what we want life to be really like. A much-heard argument against a 1984-like scenario in the 80's used to be "it's too expensive". It isn't anymore. And drones are only a small part of that.
Polish man settles Race Discrimination Case against Newry business
They already said they are just going to put commercial airtraffic beacons on the drones.

Of course then certain law enforcement types who feel they are above any law (ie. most of them) will disconnect or disable them.

After they accidentally kill people it will be written off as the cost of enforcing the law, ala the nightmare of the TSA which everyone seems to put up with for some unknown reason.

Remember this phrase in a few years "drones, oh well what can you do, fact of life, they make me feel safer".

BTW, federal courts have already said it's legal for cops to put cameras on your property without a warrant, so a drone is just an extension of that.

Hopefully the video on the drones won't go accidentally missing after they raid the wrong home and kill your dog while they arrest you for resisting arrest.
I'm curious where Atwood currently scores himself on this scale.
>what is radically different about it compared to the other countless tries of putting a keyboard with a touchscreen ?

It is not one thing, it's multiple:

1. Software. In iOS/Android keyboard support is limited, most of applications are not designed with it in the mind and some don't work at all because of faked input controls instead of native. Windows superior in keyboard support over iOS/Android and in touch support over own previous versions.
Also almost full Office suite on RT is not such joke as any editor on iOS/Android.

2. Integration. Power is supplied over connector, I2C has lower delay than bluetooth and full n-key rollover support, there is automatic lock of screen orientation based on accelerometers in both keyboard and tablet and so on. It's impossible to leave it at home by accident.

3. Quality. Surface's keyboards are thin and better in quality than most of competitors. They have almost standard layout and key size.

>My question would be, my parents hated using an iPad with a keyboard, would they be better off with a surface?

Nobody knows. It's depends of reasons of their hate. Surface's keyboard is still compromise even if better than iPad.
Nanowrimo. And if I don't own the flat I'm trying to buy by the end of the month, it won't be for lack of trying. (Conveyancing, now there's an industry that needs disruption).
> And if they started using AMOLED screens instead of IPS, then that would really be the perfect screen.

Why? AMOLED would just make the colours ridiculously unrealistic without many other benefits.
There was a scheduler app for FriendFeed (ffscheduler.com), did all three. It was made by @alpb (ahmetalpbalkan.com).

I'm thinking about forking and adding that features to Circular. Need to add Facebook support to it first though. No promises.
> How wonderful it is to flip open the Surface and quickly type a 4 paragraph email response when I need to ... And switching between the two modes of interaction – sometimes typing, sometimes touching – is completely natural.

OK, let's assume that the Surface's keyboard completely solves the problem of not being able to write properly. That still leaves us with the problem of not being able to point properly.

I can't even imagine how the touchscreen could ever rival the precision of the mouse as a pointing device. The average adult human finger is simply too thick to select 5 characters from the middle of a word displayed in 10 points, or to drag a Photoshop layer 1 pixel to the right. Even a conventional trackpad on a cheap laptop has better precision than your finger does, though good luck finding actual graphic designers who prefer trackpads to actual mice. Styluses (styli?) aren't much better, unless your stylus is sharp enough to damage the screen. The fact that touchscreens don't allow you to fine-tune your aim before you click makes it even more difficult to achieve precision.

How do we address this issue? How do we make touchscreen devices useful for those who need spatial precision? What would be the most natural way to add precise pointing abilities to a tablet computer without compromising the advantages of the touchscreen? Carrying around a cordless mouse doesn't seem to be a particularly elegant solution. What do you think? Is touchscreen+keyboard the future of personal computing, or is there always going to be a place for mice as specialty items for graphic designers and some other professionals?
I wish I was this competent at that age.
Does anyone here also feel like an outsider because you - no matter how other people love it - just won't get used to touch (or for some reason you don't want to) ?

I wouldn't mind my current notebook [1] having a touch display (additionally), but i still wouldn't use it that often i guess (and i wouldn't pay extra for it).

I really have to try the Keyboard of the Surface though, but knowing me - very picky about keyboards - i don't think i could work with it.

[1]: Thinkpad T 520
No it can't. Those things aren't a "low level server toolbox". You couldn't, for example, build an application using WebSockets into Rails until it was built into Rails. Because Rails isn't low level.