skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Spearchucker Jones is a character from M.A.S.H. ...

Without that context, it's also a racial slur. Just keep that in mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearchucker
Oh, haha. I wouldn't have guessed something that simple.

People could just name their network after an e-mail address if they wanted to be contacted..
> For 75% of its development, HTML has been taregeted at
> greater things than hyperlinked text.

Where did you get this kind of nonsense and numbers? Before Web Applications 1.0 which evolved into HTML5 were was little considerations for web apps.

> If you use HTML5, you're (eventually) dealing with standards that you
> can rely on so that you know your app will still work years down the
> road.

Oh my, where do I start… I rather not. You know, I've been making websites since 1996, I happen to know a thing or two about web standards and web browsers and I happen to be on HTML5 mailing list since before it was known as HTML5, so let me just say: you cannot rely on anything.

> The "standard" is defined as "whatever the documentation currently says".

As opposed to what? You do know that no browser implements HTML 4? You do know, that versions of HTML are basically meaningless?

> Apple or Google released a new OS version, and now your native app doesn't work? They phased out a feature
> without deprecating it first?

Except that did not happen. Your web app won't run on pure spec. It needs browsers. Guess who develops browsers. Guess who picks up which features to implement.

> Sorry, that's not a bug. Your software is outdated, and you need to fix it yourself.

I guess your up to date web app has better luck with broken Android browser of the previous versions.

> And that's to say nothing of the power that you lose when you write native apps in today's world of walled
> garden app stores.

I lose no power. Some people are scared by walled gardens because… well, because they are supposed to get scared.

> Did Apple decide that your app "contains duplicate functionality" or "is very blue, and I don't like
> blue today"?

Oh, those scary stories of the days past. There is a name for them: FUD.

> Well I guess you could always sell your app on ... oh that's right, there's no viable way to sell
> your iOS app outside of the App Store, and it won't run on any other platform.

As opposed to many many ways to sell your web app. Good luck with that.
I have no concrete evidence; here be anecdotes:

When I'm speaking a foreign language, I conceptualise what I want to say - language invariant, then find the correct words, and arrange them so what I say or write is grammatically correct. Sufficiently proficient (fluent or close to) speakers of a foreign language don't try convert their native tongue to a foreign one. I can personally attest that this doesn't work - idiomatic expressions and cultural markers do not correspond (for example, 'yellow' connotes drunkenness in some languages; not English). The point is that multilingual people have developed the ability to take what they want to say, as a set of concepts, and convert them to words in the language of their choosing at that moment. Try to think of it as analogous to how a compiler takes an AST (concepts in natural language) and traverses it to produce machine code (foreign language) specific to a processor architecture.

Learning a third language is easier than learning a second because your brain adjusts to become less tightly coupled to the words and phrases you already know. Having studied Hebrew, I have learned to communicate without the verb 'to be', 'have' (the equivalent is literally 'there is to me'), and indefinite articles (a, an). There is also a preposition (את) that I don't know an equivalent of in any other language.

It is my opinion that multilingual people have developed the ability to express their necessarily-not-yet-explicated thoughts (concepts and ideas) in the language of their choosing. Correspondingly, programming languages are a medium for expressing the programmer's ideas about computation. When I'm programming, I'm thinking about concepts, not language specifics, for example "abstract this segment of code to a function" can become

def removeVowels(target):

...

string removeVowels(String target) {

...

}

removeVowels :: string -> string

removeVowels target = ...

I don't think of language specific syntax. I have an idea about computation and express it using the idioms and syntactic features at my disposal. Further examples:

In English, when asking for permission, one would say, "May I.../Can I...", whereas in Hebrew one will often say אפשר - which translates to 'possible to [infinitive] ...'. Similarly, in the above example, the python approach might be:

for ch in target:
non indexed iterator

Curly brace type language:

for (int i = 0; i < target.length(); i++) {
}

Haskell:

map consonantOrNothingFunction target

but all of these approaches yield the same computational result even though fundamentally different in structure and nature. A good polyglot has detached their language facility from their conceptualisation faculties. I certainly think I have. Multilingualism fosters this detachment, making programming easier.

edit: code sample formatting
It's quite possible that profit (both margins and gross profit) could have been lower if they required a 1 cent minimum donation.
Why the hell is this comment on the bottom?

I started with backbone and was like...wtf is this. Then I went to knockout and it is what I am using now. I used Angular in a pet project a few weeks ago and was totally blown away at how easy it was. Angular is more suited to projects where you use it from the get go. I really like knockout because it is good to integrate in existing projects.
What I would do in this case is set up a eula that they need to accept in order to use the wifi. Even consumer-level routers can do this, if not out of the box than with Tomato/DD-WRT
The landing page did state the production costs (about $3).
Yes, that gzip result is unsurprising.

When I think of HTTP I think of a text-based protocol not binary. I fully understand that SPDY has essentially been ratified as HTTP 2.0 given that the charter has been updated to be so close to SPDY itself. Thus at some point what I think if as HTTP will need updating to simply include SPDY and what I currently think of HTTP will be moot.
Peronsally I think crowdfunding is a huge innovation and has the potential to comletely change the game of everything.
http://icancer.org.uk/ is an exmaplte of crowd funding cancer.
Slightly off topic: You use "enough to be dangerous" with a positive meaning, as in enough to make a real difference in the world, while Alexander Pope quote you use is probably negative: "A little learning is a dangerous thing." as in, someone who knows little can do more harm than good.
I ordered this pack and paid the default $5 by mistake (with a bit of laziness), and would bet quite a few others had the same experience.

When ordering, you had to enter your amount before adding it to the cart, with $5 as the default. There wasn't an option to change it later that I could find. By the time I realized it couldn't be changed, I was through most of the ordering process and didn't feel like starting over.

It would be interesting to see how much better they would have done with either a more intuitive checkout (assuming I missed an option) or had more options in the process.
Well why would they pull the chip if they launched it like that?
Not true. A reasonably large subset of HTML/CSS/JS is perfectly cross-platform if you:

1. Use industry standard libraries (jQuery or a lightweight alternative.

2. Can ignore pathologically broken browsers (<=IE7 mainly)
they have managed a solid second place sales showing because of their dedicated distribution channel, heavy marketing, loyal and affluent base and reputation for customer service.

And pricing.
Use the phones that all intelligence agencies use: Blackberry.

Give a CIA tech an iPhone, Android, or WinPho, and he'll have access to all of your data (on the phone) before you've finished putting the phone down. Comparing the security on these devices to the security of a Blackberry is like comparing picket fences to the shield walls of Mordor.

Blackberry's may not be hip, but they were designed from the beginning to be secure.
They did, several times (breaking it down in to the $1 for production and $2 for processing/shipping like on that page). They also suggested $5 as a fair price, and pointed out that it cost them $3 to make the set one last time on a nag screen if you tried to pay $0 (fun fact: the site wouldn't let you donate anything greater than 0 but under fifty cents, since they would lose money on credit card fees).
One comment: Myself and others were initially confused by the layout of the page into thinking that CAH had turned a massive loss. It's only when you get to the bottom that there was any indication of sales.
Haha this is very true. I like to think of it as an easter egg.
Let's replay this for a minute:
You: get rid of automatic weapons
Me: he didn't use an automatic weapon
You: doesn't matter get rid of semi-automatic weapons then
Me: He could do it with a revolver or bolt action gun just as easily
You: No he couldn't
Me: Yes he could, with proof
You: Something about experts, it's complicated, let's get rid of all guns...

>It may be complicated but we're still the ones called to clean up your mess. That entitles us to have an opinion. My opinion is that guns actually kill people.

Sure, guns kill people. So do knives, and bombs, and trucks, and and and and... These things also have lots of legitimate uses.

top 10 school killings before last week - http://listverse.com/2008/01/01/top-10-worst-school-massacre...

Note that only 3 of these were in the US.

We have, a flamethrower, a lance, a mace, bolt action rifle, revolvers, knives, machettes, bombs, and cars in addition to the semi-auto guns that you think we should get rid of. This is a problem has been around for a long time, and it is something that has been done with lots and lots of different things. People kill people. This has been true since the beginning of time. If you actually have a solution to this problem let me know. Saying we should take away the guns and everyone will be fine is absurd.

Getting rid of the guns might make you feel better, but it doesn't solve anything. It does however take away my liberty, my freedom, and my rights.
Even with multi-browser support, it isn't that bad. But we're not talking about websites here, are we? We're talking about using HTML/CSS/JS to build native apps for mobile devices - which are by and large webkit-based. This greatly simplifies everything.
YouTube launches Capture, a video recording and enhancing app for iOS
The site even made you feel guilty (in a "please reconsider" way) if you put anything less than $3, explaining that the cost for them to create, produce, and mail a single pack will cost them $3, meaning they're taking a loss. That really speaks to how selfish people are (especially considering it's the "most wonderful time of the year").
Yeah, it's not like I want to tattoo the source code all over my body or anything.
Developer for the site here. We definitely talked about this in the post mortem. Do you have any specific changes that you would have made to make the process more clear?
Lol best graph ever, "% of the chart that looks like Pacman"
>PLEASE GET PROFESSIONAL HELP FROM ANOTHER DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY.

Seconded. There are also hotlines that you can call any time of the day or night if you are desperate. SEEK HELP. New help if the old isn't working.
Show HN: online picture-based head modeler
thanks, that's a good idea. the historical accident of how things ended up connected as they are means it's non-trivial to do right now. but i guess i should have it as a long-term goal.

[edit: i do understand what you mean; but currently this is implemented just as a wifi endpoint (no router - just wifi) on an internal network and some iptables rules.]
No, the talents are orthogonal.
See my other comment regarding weapon choice - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4934021

http://listverse.com/2008/01/01/top-10-worst-school-massacre...

fwiw - semi-auto rifles are actually only used in 3% of shootings. but lets not let facts get in the way of anything.
The truth is that there is no one single metric that rules them all. You have to look at a suite of metrics to fully understand how users are using your product. It might be nice for YouTube to measure numbers of views a video has, but what if the majority of those views come from the same person? What if that person doesn't come back to YouTube? It might also be tempting to just measure the retention of users. But that doesn't give you the whole picture either. Is a user who comes in on Day 1 and drops $99 but never comes back again worse than a user who uses your app everyday but never pays?

For real businesses (read: those with actual business plans) the closest single metric of importance is Customer Lifetime Value. And the equation is very simple. Make your cost of customer acquisition less than your LTV and you will be making money.
Sounds like you need a process management consultant, then.
YouTube Capture for iPhone released today
Still quite happily playing Assasins Creed on my OnLive box here.

If the business model failed that isn't a point against the technology which worked very well.
I have worked 100% remote in the past six months, worked onsite for 2 years before that, and 100% remote doing contract work for 10+ years before that. Most of my adult working life has been in remote contract work.

Remote contract work doesn't quite count, but because of it, I have never been attached to working onsite.

Working remotely in a non-contract situation, though, does need some connection with the rest of the employees. It helps if the rest of the team is also remote. The whole team had to figure out how to work with each other.
Yelp’s Stock Dips After Facebook Barges In With ‘Nearby’
I don't really disagre with you on gun control, but... You're still hammering on that one word of my original comment. Since you've said nothing against my real point, that the end (that is freedom) doesn't necessarily justify the means, can I assume I've gotten it across? We need to actually think about if and how access to guns improves people's lives overall.
> Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer.

You mean like the UK? The UK has a horrendous violent crime rate - four times that of the US. So if people were "afraid" in proportion to actual risk, they should be more afraid there than in the US, no?

(random news story about that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-... )

Or do you mean like Sweden? Sweden's reported rape rate is about twice that of the US.

I actually do live in a country with gun control laws. I live in New York City. And I don't own a gun. But that doesn't mean I have to accept unfounded claims about how bad guns are.

The truth is that the statistics are ambiguous. Every time gun laws change in the US, partisans claim it'll have a huge effect but the actual effect is hard to measure. Florida didn't become "the gunshine state" when they liberalized CCWs. (Rape rates did somewhat decrease there, but it's hard to connect that reliably to the change) On the margin, neither tightening NOR loosening gun laws is a panacea.

I'm not sure whose "consensus" you're referring to, but it's not the consensus of criminologists. The gradual loosening of CCW restrictions nationwide came only after very careful study repeatedly determined there's no significant increase in violence when more people are carrying hidden guns. You're free to believe there's some sort of "threshold effect", that if we got gun ownership levels below some magic number X, that suddenly everything would be better then, but at this point that's just an article of faith - there's no math supporting it.
Can't argue with success? Looking for “bad math” that “gets away with it”
Correct -- we used Stripe, which has a minimum charge of $0.50.
Edit: Please note that this pay what you can was just for the holiday-related expansion set, not the full game

That's good to know. Did you offer any suggested pricing for the expansion pack? i.e $10, like the other packs? Or did you only list the cost price?
This is our first donation. We have a lot more we plan on giving, but for user queries, for example, the privacy issues are a lot more difficult to work through. We have no interest in being the next privacy scandal.
Mobile Apps or Fool's Gold
For the infographic?
Absolutely. I think I was originally trying to say something about how the other factors were very apple like but they combined it with a pc vendor mentality (rock bottom prices, licensed os) and got lost trying to make sense of it.
Its a little thing, but i like how you literally don't need to click on any buttons to save / create a new one / etc. I also like how you can create your own customized path to help you remember the link... just type in a new path and start editing, and you now can share that custom URI.

I think its important to create as little friction to usage as possible, and you've done that.
Ha! Guns are the problem for crazy people in the US, but in places without guns and lots of gun control, it's then a "terrorist" that finds a gun and kills people.
> HTML/CSS/JS is exceptionally good at building user
> interfaces.

Except they are not. Even with all the nice tools we have now: backbone.js, CoffeeScript, CSS preprocessors it is still a mess. Just take a look at all those struggling to get sane view management, event binding, notifications, callbacks:
it is years behind mature native frameworks which has very little cruft.
I really doubt all this mess can be solved with HTML, and I really doubt that web can now have any alternative to HTML.

Why is the idea to craft an app for each platform using native tools so scary? Were all those desktop apps using cross-platform toolkits successful? Or do they look alien everywhere?

I do like web. I love web. And that's why I don't like to see it turning into frankenweb.
This will not happen. Individuals and corporations use these because they make them look better.

Should companies selling, say, food products be mandated to show pictures of the actual delivered product on advertisements, menus and packaging? That's not going to happen without additional legislation.

Should resumes of individuals highlight workplace weaknesses, medical conditions, personality faults, past failures, major conflicts, etc.?

The web is no different. Unless individuals and corporations are persuaded to do otherwise, they will continue to use metrics as they please.
Ask HN: Is this captcha concept any good?
I was reading the post about Minteye and was reminded of a simple captcha I wrote a few years ago.

Here is the image generation part (the full implementation requires the two words to be entered in any order): http://humbit.com/snippet/captcha.php

I've seen some really hard to read captchas in my day. Even reCaptcha often gives me problems. I've always thought this one was very readable. It also seems to be fairly secure for the following reasons:

-text is not in a straight line or even in an exact circle

-the font is not very distinctive. most letters looks similar

-as much as possible, I've jammed the letters together to prevent easy segmentation

I have a few ideas for improving it and maybe releasing it as a free service. But is it actually good enough to make it worth pursuing? I'd be content with someone pointing out why my thinking is flawed here.
Please at least open source the web design part next time so we can all contribute!
Twitter lets you download your entire tweet archive
I'm a fan of writing scripts and macros to add to your own personal productivity at work for basically any desk job.

When I was in a sales support job I went as far as writing an web application hosted on my machine so I could share it with my colleagues in the building. It let us do ad-hoc reporting on certain figures that weren't captured in the company's official data mart, but it wasn't very scalable or maintainable, especially once I left that company.

But building little tools that make you and your colleagues more productive can add to your value and desirability as an employee. For the employer, the tradeoff of tolerating an "underground" code base existing on your employees' machines, is the productivity gains that come from it, which can really add up. Just by writing a script that automates a report, I can gift my employer thousands of dollars per year in productivity. Employers love employees who figure out how to automate their own tasks.
The production + shipping costs were about $3 with a suggested price of $5. We also had an additional nag screen for people who put in $0.
> My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparable.

Assuming it could be carried out, what research would you find convincing?
The design/dev/video costs were minuscule compared to the production costs.
There have been rumblings for a while that advertising is one of Amazon's upcoming long-term bets like cloud services were 3-5 years ago.

I feel like this is a little bit outside of HN's normal areas of interest, but it's worth stressing that this seems like it has the potential to be a Big Deal.

That's for a few reasons:

1. The display advertising ecosystem has, for years, been talking about data-driven display. The truth of the matter is, though, that most of the data is indirectly inferred and extremely low-quality. Companies like Google and Facebook tread very lightly when it comes to offering data for targeting for fear of massive privacy backlash, but it seems like Amazon could sidestep that. If Amazon is allowing implicit/indirect access to Amazon purchase history, it will be far and away better than anything else out there. More importantly, the unevenness of the data and of performance has really held back broader adoption -- if they're smart they may be able to bring over many of the holdouts.

2. Advertisers and agencies have an extremely wary relationship with Google and are cautious about Facebook too. If they play it right, Amazon can be the major non-aligned player in the industry -- a technology without inventory.

It's also worth noting that I've recently noticed Amazon ramping up its own retargeting programs more aggressively. Assuming that retargeting performs for them like it does for virtually every other e-commerce site out there, I would not be surprised to see a significant jump in Amazon's revenue attributed to that over the next few quarters.

There should be some very interesting opportunities for startups to piggyback themselves on this when it comes out.
Flask Tie
That was my thinking as well. I saw the giant, red negative numbers and my initial reaction was "Oh, no."
This is exactly why my wife and I give home cooked food and preserves as gifts this time of year.

We are trying to declutter our life and everyone we talk to feels the same. Why give junk when you can give an experience.

For the same amount of time as going to the mall, we can cook up a chutney and can it for 20 people.

We've been doing this for the past 3 years and everyone seems to appreciate the various preserves and liquors we've created. It's also a lot of fun to make.
Debugging JavaScript errors on iOS, android and other mobile devices
I agree with what Bezos has been saying and doing, but the main gist of the argument against Amazon is that investors seem to be expecting Amazon to bump prices and margins at some point, completely the opposite of what Bezos has been saying and doing. Perhaps he means what he says, and simply wants to be like a grocery store making 1-2% margins. Now when your revenue is $100 billion a year, that's not a lot of meat to justify high P/E ratios. And just like Apple is experiencing now with having huge revenue rates, eventually your growth will have to taper off.
How the New York Public Library is embracing the art of video games