skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know the space of writing tools is very crowded. But I must say that I did not know most of the more "popular" alternatives before mid-way in development, with which I'm trying to say we did not seek their inspiration directly.

We just got caught in this idea of an text editor we both would love to use, and given the restraints of our respective platforms (Aaron: Mac, Martin: Win7, Me: Ubuntu) we chose to make a web application. Although I love many aspects of open source software, I didn't find a tool such as Quabel for Ubuntu yet - thats why I was very eager to create this.
Given HN is a part of YC, and AirBnB came out of YC, the chance of him finding someone on here who can help or point someone from the company to the post is much, much higher than if he was posting on some random forum. Plus it sounds like all the traditional options have been exhausted and in panic mode you pursue all avenues.
2. Overcome loud opposition to the idea of interfering with Mars until we study it further.

Mind you, I'm not advocating that position, but I certainly expect it.
Swiss spy agency warns U.S., Britain about huge data leak
I think they'll use Martian soil. That's what Elon was planning, and other commenters below speak to its practicality.
Have you never stood on a piece of lego? :)
Advantages Of Vitamin E
According to the US Department of Agriculture, most Americans don't have a sufficient amount of Vitamin E in their diets,
I'm going to repost this here, because currently it seems like the AFP article is misleading the heck out of everyone.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90786/8044143.html

The experiment was a closed biosphere life support system, 36m^2 involving two subjects for 30 days. The article mentions the moon and mars. As I understand it, this thing would be a sealed capsule that you bring with you. This forms part of the ongoing field of CLESS (controlled ecological life support systems). All the references I've seen point to the Russian Bios-3 project as being the first public example of this.

I am also interested to hear more about your ideas regarding the feasibility of martian agriculture :)
Any child who has the willpower to save for over two years would be crushed.
Ah ok, I didn't remember opting-in for the beta but I must have done it, because that's what SoundCloud looked like since a long time ago for me and I couldn't understand what were the changes in the design.
If this set means so much for this kid, his parents should have bought it. I'm not sure they cannot afford it when there are wireless headphones for $60 on the table
Probably the proper translation out of geek-speak and into reality is that there is almost certainly no real structure that can be made purely out of Lego bricks that will cause the lower level to mechanically fail. (I'm hedging for safety. I really want to say there isn't one at all, but I've learned not to underestimate people's ingenuity. But let me point out by "real structure" I mean one that can be reasonably built in the real world, not, for example, a structure a mile high with millimeter tolerances made out of mass-manufactured plastic bricks.)

For another example, one could try to create an inverted pyramid on one brick to crush it, but it will topple long before it crushes the brick.

The structural strength under that circumstance (pure Lego, nothing else) is so enormously high, as determined by this experiment, that there's no reason to ever worry about this eventuality.
Photo Compositing (chroma key) command line utility
It was an amazing learning experience.
The latest 'Friends' range targeted at girls has received some bad press. Not much construction to do, all nail bars and shopping sort of sexism. Not the most serious bad press but its something.
flagged, but the frustrating thing here is that i suspect hn is reluctant to kill this for looking biased.

i really don't want hn to become full of people complaining about yc companies in the hope that "a friend on the internet" will fix things.
> China tends to be a fast copier, not a leader.

What a huge generalisation. This appears to be true in the consumer electronics world perhaps, but look outside of that and it's harder to justify.

For example, China has been building a lot of infrastructure in the past few decades, including the longest and highest bridges in the world[0][1]. There was a story on HN a few days ago about a Chinese company's plans to build what will be the tallest building in only 90 days[2].

Granted there is a lot of press about these bridges falling down, and maybe their rocket will blow up half way to Mars. But you can't say that they aren't pushing things themselves.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_bridges_in_the_...
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_bridges_in_the_world
[2]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4807701
Checked - I cannot choose reservation option from the dropdown because mine was deleted and the system does not allow this.

I can only choose other question/option -

- Job Enquiry (nope)

- Partnership (nope)

- Press (may be later)

- Feedback (don't feel like that, want my issue fixed)

- Law Enforcement (yep, if money will not be returned ))
>Turning to the customer and explaining, "there is no problem because you passed the test" does not alter the customer's experience at all: the ghosting still exists

Yes, but you don't always want to do everything the customer wants. I mean, maybe this is a defect in the screen, in which case, you are right that apple should probably fix the test.

but, maybe this is just how those displays work. Maybe this level of ghosting is simply the best you can do with the technology Apple used to have the screen made?

In that case, it's really a problem of setting expectations.

The problem is that even if you provide the exact same product and support to 100 customers, you will have 1 who will demand more support time than the rest. At some point, you need to decide how much effort you want to put in to that customer.

I mean, the problem with those 1 out of 100 customers? they do complain to their friends, like this guy did.

So yeah, you don't want those customers? but you also need to fire them in a reasonable way. "I'll give you your money back if you go away" sort of thing.

If you are a company that really values your customer service reputation? maybe you don't want to fire the 1 out of 100 customer. Maybe you want to eat that cost. but you do want to fire the 1 in 1000 customer. There is a point at which you need to say 'no, enough' just because of how much money one user can cost you.

(Again, I think the best way to handle it is to apologize sincerely (because, after all, it could very well have been an undetected defect in your product) give them a full refund, and point them at your competition. I think Apple may have a hard time doing that, though.)

> Worse, passing a test doesn't magically change the state of the world and make these problems disappear. Turning to the customer and explaining, "there is no problem because you passed the test" does not alter the customer's experience at all: the ghosting still exists.

The point of the test is to determine if your problem is with the customer, or with the product. Maybe there is a certain amount of ghosting on all of these screens, and most people just don't care? in that case, the test is a way of saying "this guy is so sensitive that we don't want him as a customer."

What I want to know is what the hell OP is doing replacing the screen? I mean, clearly, this is within apple's tolerances, so why does he think a new screen would be better?
Call your CC company and ask for a chargeback now.

You can book a hotel for free and get a reservation for your visa, you can deal with ABnB later.
I'm not dismissing that either. I love Bitcoin, and I believe in its abilities. That's why it's really annoying when those with certain philosophies try to ascribe them to Bitcoin.

BTC can work without trusted 3rd parties, and transactions can be performed in a completely anonymous way. Not every transaction requires or even benefits from these qualities, however. For Joe User's grandma to use BTC, there are going to need to be trusted 3rd parties (e.g. banks) to manage the minutia of transacting. These 3rd parties will make things simple for grandma, and ensure that she doesn't get screwed.
How People Change
I think there was a piece on hacker news attacking them a few months back for a shift in their advertising from being relatively gender balanced in the 80s to being very boyish today.

Other than that though I completely agree with you. They seem like a great company.
Yes for single player games.

For mulitplayer games that require a server, you only allow them to connect and do the multiplayer bit if they have paid. Simples.
Sad but sometimes posting on HN is the only way some people manage to get any attention to their issues it seems like when they've exhausted other channels to no avail. Of course HN isn't the only major source but its definitely one of them. On top of that, AirBnB is a YC company. Not that it changes anything but still worth noting. Its not exactly irrelevant.
I'm unable to change my password.

When attempting to do so I see

"Current password can't be blank" despite it not being blank.
I heard an interesting story that Lego faced a crisis where they were losing market share and profitability and so they decided to do some licensing deals which have had a very positive effect on their bottom line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lego
a simple music site : http://www.cloud-vibe.com
Adobe Scout released
I really wish they'd team up with the Open Pandora guys. The Pandora "Next-Gen" seems like its exactly what Valve needs ..
What is wrong with developers tinkering with code outside the scope of their project?
A collection of blog posts is a common book format these days. Serialization in magazines was common in the past, but blogs are probably better for an aspiring author because they provide direct feedback from the audience. In addition there is no editor as gatekeeper between the aspiring author and publication.
Accessible Mozilla: Tech overview of Firefox 19
But the article he was responding to included the web as one-platform publishing: "Publishing for a single platform, whether print, web, or the iPad, is a foolish move,"

So in that context, his response makes sense.
I know AirBnB is a YC-funded company, so I understood why OP posted it here. I didn't flag the post for that reason, and my comment was just trying to explain the reaction.

This post in general reminds me of a lot of a criticism of many AskReddit posts, where the poster is accused of trying to relate their own story while tacking on a "Whats your best $topic story?" question on the end to try to make the post relevant.

More specifically, these customer complaint/"bitching" posts illicit a 4chan style "not your personal army" response in a lot of people. While the post might to some good for the OP in getting a response from the company, to most readers it's just noise drowning out the signal they come here for.

I'm not normally one to complain about these types of posts (and again, I'm not trying to do so right now either), but I do understand why some readers might be less than enthused by their presence.
Exactly, you nailed it man. Very valid argument. Cheers!
Zip car's founder finds New Gear
Brings me back when I was a kid. Playing my new set of Lego every single minute of the days following Christmas.
Actually in Spain we have Teide, a mountain taller than the Lego tower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide
The artist in me wants to smile, but the RF guy inside says, "Hey, they recreated the radio signal coverage map with fewer dimensions and less useful information!" (chuckle...)
Can you please stop posting news of the previous years?
That's because this happened to me.

I am not a journalist or consultant to post about cool start-up or how to set-up a proper customer support process across markets.
I know you, so, I'm not sure. I'll leave that as an exercise for you :)
While often seeing so many posts with a negative connotation on HN, I love seeing posts like this. I realize some of the negative posts need to be heard, but it's optimistic/awesome posts like this that can brighten the past 100 negative articles I may have read. Well done, LEGO. This is the definition of a great company with great customer satisfaction! My faith in humanity has been fully restored, for the time being. ;) Ha
I also had a bad experience with airbnb, just last month. I am officially done with their service. I'd rather pay the extra to actually deal with a human at a hotel. It's what I ended up having to do anyway, while in England. Airbnb's fine print apparently allow them to keep what every they want, even if you don't stay at the location.
I don't know work at Adobe so I wouldn't know, really.

My only guess would be based on "The Innovator's Dilemma", at least roughly... so acknowledging the disruptiveness of HTML5 would imply refocusing their priorities in a mid/long-term strategic move: maybe rethinking how Flash should be used (i.e. game creation platform instead of RIAs) and buying startups involved in the disruption.

More a sane, opportunistic move for the business, rather than a judgement over the objective quality of a product.
Most cities in the US have had plenty of foreign taxi drivers for many, many years now without any noticeable incidence of rape. I don't know that the taxi regulations include any "likelihood of being a rapist" in their driver screenings (whatever that would entail), so I don't see how services like Uber would increase the probability of any given driver being a rapist.
Sorry, I misread your post as you complaining rather than explaining the complaining.

It is a bit of noise to signal, but if I was in the guys position I'd probably leverage as much as possible to get the problem solved.
Well, obviously all PCs are Steamboxes, technically speaking. However, if it's a streamlined box that plugs right into a television and boots right to steam, I could maybe see them putting up a stink, even if the branding was sufficiently ambiguous.

The MistBox ;)

I don't know, though. To be honest, I'm kind of shocked no one has tried this yet. It seems like such an obvious winner, even if there is a slight chance you would go to court with Valve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdDU_BBJW9Y
Wow. Must have been a pretty bad experience to warrant switching languages and frameworks!

Care to elaborate? I've always found South pretty straightforward.
Why don't you just try the Feedback? What could possibly get worse..
Hi Daniel, thanks for your thoughtful considerations. Due to my experiences, I think privacy laws in Germany differ in one main point frome those in the UK or other EU countries, which is enforcement. As you probably know, we have had some data scandals which created a sense for data privacy in large parts of the population. On top of this, big internet corporations such as Google and Facebook are often portrayed as "data hungry" molochs by German media outlets.

Coupled with our own "bad feeling" when replacing the local OpenOffice or Word installation with Quabel.com for writing documents, we've decided to clearly state data privacy as a feature on our homepage. We hope this emphasizes the user-oriented aspect we have had in mind when creating this application.
If I understood correctly what est meant... For non coders, maybe an actual WYSIWYG? Or even for coders, as a rapid-prototyping tool?
While you may have had a point you were trying to make, that point was buried in one paragraph of a seven paragraph post, sandwiched between a "rant" about a personal experience and a call to action directed at a specific company.

I can understand why many users could misread your intent, and I was just trying to explain why you received the reaction you did.
AirBnB typically has great customer support. They have helped me out with a few bugs in the past and are quite prompt. I agree with the others, chargeback your CC, and deal with this later since you are on a time crunch with your visa. However, I'm sure they can get this all resolved for you, once you get ahold of them.
This is not a complain.

This an example of how not to do roll out across intl markets prior to thinking through the basics, customer support process being one of this.
>Don't feel like that

What the? This is your support channel; Even if your inquiry is unrelated to feedback (or any of these), it would be the place to start.

The fact that you 'don't feel like' contacting them and instead come here to moan is absolutely incomprehensible. It shows that you are simply trying to throw dirt on them!
I guess you'd fill the capsule with 'locally sourced' air and soil, though, perhaps supplemented with some nutrients brought from earth.

A sealed chamber could be pumped up to around earth pressure, making it easier for the astronauts to go in - although with high CO2, they'd still need oxygen tanks. On the other hand, the pressure difference would require a much stronger capsule, so perhaps farmers in spacesuits is the way to go.
Good job LEGO. The kid looks thrilled.

On a related note, when did LEGOS become absurdly expensive? I've noticed that most of what they market these days are themed sets with price-tags well beyond what I can imagine the plain blocks used to cost. For instance - their Lego Ninjago series can command anywhere from $10-$30 for a little miniature figure - you know - the guys that are about 3/4 of an inch tall. What am I missing? Have they just figured out how to create artificial demand by playing the "limited edition" game, or have plastic toys suddenly got more expensive to manufacture?
"Apple-like fanboy" really? I come here to avoid idiocy like this. Your point is valid, but you've rendered it moot by behaving like that.
That's my fault; I could have been clearer.

I often play devil's advocate, and the risk of that is that you can be misinterpreted as supporting a position when you didn't intend to.
His blog is so awesome. Mosts posts are like a mini Adam Curtis documentary / narrative. Now if the embedded BBC videos only worked on my Nexus 7...
Wow! This is incredibly smoother here on Firefox 18! (slow machine)
Rentify is hiring
http://uk.authenticjobs.com/jobs/15124/top-notch-ruby-engineer

On the look out for smart software engineers of all shapes and sizes to join our London team. Multiple positions available.
Not quite so simples.

Your choice is either to do as these guys did and run all the servers themselves in which case you need to factor the lifetime cost of running the servers into the purchase price or charge subscriptions.

If you ever take the game servers offline the game then becomes unplayable and will preclude modded servers (which were fun in games like CS) and LAN play. There's till a risk that if your game is popular enough someone will reimplement the server.

So the other way to do it is to allow third party servers or build the game to work on a type P2P system (I think a lot of xbox games still work this way). At that point you are basically back to the original problem.
Some people [1] have linked the rise of Lego and the decline of Meccano [2] to the decline of manufacturing in the western world, as Lego doesn't teach Meccano's lessons about L section beams, diagonal braces, gantries in tension and compression, and so on.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1333215/Why-Britain-n...
[2] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Q-tdV67Suc/TfhcQxf63JI/AAAAAAAAAT...
Yeah, Hungarian Notation may have flowered in the Councils of Elrond, the mere sound of which would give men Knowledge, Wisdom and inflation-adjusted semi-annual raises, but out here on the edge of Mordor it's been horribly twisted into something only an Orc could love and look upon. If an Orc could love.
By that definition, the comment is an article. So what were you talking about?
If they allowed that, almost all sellers would do it for security, and then there would be no ways for buyers to get any feedback.

In fact, when I was placing my first bids on eBay, some buyers would cancel the auction or retract the bids because they didn't trust me. I understand their position, but how are you supposed to get feedback if sellers won't sell you anything?
Gunfire, Tape Loops, And More With The Web Audio API
Extracting binary relationships from English sentences with Python
Adobe demands 7,000 years a day from humankind
The JavaScript example uses CORS, which doesn't have universal browser support. (Older Opera, Old IE: http://caniuse.com/cors)

Any reason there isn't JSONP support?
There has been some criticism over their rather aggressive use of trademark to fake "patent" their designs after their original design patents had expired.

I also heard (so, unverified) that users of 3d-printers has gotten some of that attention.

So, great company to work with, great products, but clearly a bit overreaching in the legal department. How evil that makes them... meh, at least they are not trying to patent something that they themselves never created. Still wrong through.
From the AirBnB website

>> If you have feedback for us, please submit it via our feedback form. Our product team regularly reviews these submissions.
I guess it's all about having valuable brand, IP and tie in deals with movies etc.

See also Games Workshop.
Robots Taught To Lie After Researchers Study Deceptive Squirrels
I will admit I'd forgotten that, but mostly as it was complaints from consumer action groups rather than consumers, if I remember rightly Lego introduced it after parental request/requests from girls and saw a profit spike.

I don't particularly like the idea of Lego falling into gender categories as it's a toy for creative minds, but if the market wants something then the market wants something.
So could the time spent typing that message.

Fun science stuff like this can get people who aren't normally into science interested in it, including children. There's definitely value in that.
I tend to view support/contact options as suggestions rather than rules. If there is no option for your problem, you choose either the closest one or the most general one.

The worst case scenario is that you're ignored, so the only cost to you is the time it took to send the message. The best case scenario, however, is that the message gets forwarded to the proper department and someone fixes your issue.

The cost/benefit analysis here is pretty clear. If I were you, I'd send a message to the Feedback department.
The origin of rubber boots
When my wee boys stand on their Lego I see it as a wonderful teachable moment. Lego is a great company to provide me with so many educational opportunities.
> Go is compiled to native code in all major implementations

So is C#, bytecodes are only used as a storage format.

With Microsoft tooling you can JIT at load time, NGEN at installation time, convert to MDIL when uploading to Windows 8 App Store, or convert to pure binary with Bartok in Singularity.

With Mono tooling you can JIT at load time or generate binaries with mono -aot.

With Cosmos OS , it gets compiled to native code.

> This is not true. The level of control you get is extremely limited due to the fact that very few types are values in C#.

Please provide an example where Go compilers offer more control than C# ones.
I got my initial (entirely empirical) lessons in mechanics via Fischertechnik [1]. Absolutely the best toy, ever.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik

[p.s.: http://www.fischertechnik.de/en/Home/info/computing.aspx "programming is child's play" /G ]
Students for Free Culture
First RubyMotion Conference