skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
But the fact is that it really is not as severe as you seem to think.

Let me put it this way: I'm willing to bet that, whatever deficiencies you have, I have worse. I'm an overweight, short-ish, East Asian, culturally western, engineer, dating in NYC. The only way to get it worse than me is to be all of the above, except Black or Latino. According to popular perception of my demographic I am a creepy, misogynistic, effeminate loser whose redeeming quality is mathematics.

My demographic is among the least replied-to on OKCupid, according to OKTrends.

But yet I do ok for myself. I've gone on dates with about a dozen people in the last year, all of which originated online.

This isn't about which one of us has it worse. It's about the fact that all handicaps in the dating arena are correctable to a large degree. You may never be a Brad Pitt, but you sure as hell can have a good time.

No doubt you've tried to improve your situation. If you aren't having luck with it, may I suggest that it's because you're not doing the right things, rather than you being a hopelessly lost cause? It is after all not about working hard, and all about working smart.

BTW, if you are in a place where you have serious self esteem problems re:dating, dont't go online. Online dating is an extremely low yield, spammy game where everyone (both female and male) are 10x pickier than they are IRL. Until you're in a place where you can take hundreds of rejections in a row without hitting your ego, keep it IRL.
I find it hard to have sympathy for Christopher Tolkien, who hasn't exactly been a model steward of his father's imagination. I'm reminded a lot of Brian Herbert, who really hit left field with the posthumous Dune stuff.

Given some of his actions, calling the film franchise an "evisceration" is the pot calling the kettle black. Yes, let's film a 16-hour word-for-word rendition of each book, because that will work on film. I've liked everything Jackson has done, and I think his work can coexist with the source material without issue.

I'm in the minority; I enjoyed The Hobbit even fully aware it suffered from First Film Syndrome. (Just had a thought: Peter Jackson should film Dune next, so he can annoy two posthumous estates.)
What's easier to do? Change the world or change yourself?
A bit more generic than that; there's no global setting where user says "this is my preferred App.Net app". When user hits Share in any app (many apps provide such a feature), a menu appears with all available apps user might want to share to. Any app can opt in to be in the menu, based on MIME type of what's being shared.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-with-in...
Funny, me and my friends certainly belonged to 15-25 age bracket when we got into Tolkien books.

As to literary qualities of Hobbit, well. I like it quite a lot less now than when I was 15.
I imagine in that space most of the money evaporates into the machine, instead of going to a single person.
http://www.walletkit.com/
WalletKit is a SaaS platform for businesses to create,manage and deliver to its customers digital Boarding passes,Tickets,Store cards and Coupons for mobile wallets like Apple passbook and Google Wallet.
Usually people open source their projects when they want to stop working on them.
Related read: Apostolos Doxiadis' novel "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's conjecture", an entertaining account of a mathematician's effort to prove the result.
SkillGrind is a marketplace where video gamers can teach other gamers what they know. Teachers can set any price they'd like and can teach whenever they'd like. Lessons are held within our Flash classroom and happen in real-time.

https://skillgrind.com

We handle all of the booking, listing, and payment processing (through our PayPal integration). We support screen capturing software such as XSplit and OBS.

Please excuse the rough edges, I am the only engineer and the list of things to get done is long. :)
Been working with a couple of friends on a new CMS which works without a database:
http://www.statamic.com
Can Social Media Sell Soap?
Breakouts -- applying the TodoMVC approach to game engines
We're differentiating through our focus on social and collaborative features. Groups, collections, following users, and a personal bookmark feed all make it easy to share research with a group, or discover bookmarks and highlights from others in our network with similar interests.
Exploring InnoDB page management with innodb_ruby
Thanks for reminding me of TaskWarrior, I'll take it as my annual reminder to check it out :-)

My entire life--from work and home projects, to future someday/maybes--is in OmniFocus, and it's been irreplaceable so far.

> It's also worth mentioning that the developer of Cheddar works for the author's husband as seen in the footnote.

Yeah, I guess it's just a silly fluff-piece.
I had somehow managed to never read or see any of the Tolkien books or related films, until going to see The Hobbit a few weeks ago. I greatly enjoyed the movie, and have thus far greatly enjoyed reading the book (about 2/3 of the way through now).

I suppose I can understand how he feels though, as he is probably closer to the original material than anyone else alive today.
http://www.handwritr.com/

A site to convert your handwritten documents to text.
Localbitcoins.com, location-based bitcoin-to-cash marketplace. Been running for over 6 months now, almost 10k users and growing.
Great to hear! If you have any feedback, please let us know. Any killer features missing in your opinion?

We have got some big and fun things coming in the next few months.
Old (as in 1990's old) Nokia phones were more uncomfortable than the flat Nexus 7. They didn't fit in pockets due to how thick they were. So yeah, your 4.5 phone is actually quite comfortable when compared to what I used to have back then. And it got better signal. ;)
I'm bootstrapping (almost done!) WiseCash, which brings cash-flow peace of mind to freelancers and small business owners.

https://www.wisecashhq.com

A video presentation is available here too:

http://wisecash.wistia.com/medias/zz6rn5n4v7

Free to use while in "private release", and early users will have a discount on the coming monthly subscription.

Feedback most welcome!
for potential resuscitation of mathematical campaigns using future technology

What does this mean?
Maybe we should change protocols. The main problem is not the awareness (or even the pain). The problem is the unknown. So if you open your eyes, they should not be taped and there should be some psychologist that just talks to you, explaining what is going on etc ... that is even while you are under just in case you come over. They should also detect and if you are over to have some contingency procedures. Also some psychological training and consultancy before the operation seems like good thing too. And better monitoring after the operation for behavior changes after.

On the top of my head. Although I suppose anyone with medical degree will laugh my suggestions away and with good reasons, but there should be some good ideas over there.
And more choices mean less satisfaction. For example, if you give people more chocolate bars to choose from, the story tells us, they think the one they choose tastes worse than a control group who had a smaller selection.

Huh. It's the opposite for me -- the more possibilities I can check out, the better I feel about my choice in the end. (Maybe that's one reason I didn't marry until age 42 :-) HN readers -- do you agree with this study, or not?
You should be able to see other users' highlights and notes on pages even without signing up. We made sure to include this in case you'd like to share your annotated pages on Facebook, email, etc.

Click on a few of the bookmarks in this collection and you should be able to see my highlights if you want to try it out: https://annotary.com/collections/33/startup-marketing
Review Mailer (http://reviewmailer.com/) is a tool for iphone developers. You tell it which apps to watch and every time there is a new customer review for that app (on any app store in the world), it will translate it and email it to you. Simple and useful.

Roger That (http://rogerthat.com.au/) is an Australian catch of the day type eCommerce site that is launching soon. Thought we would try for a niche that is not tech!

I have also started a blog that is going to outline how to build a web app that generates $5000/month. First post is here: http://devcomsystems.com.au/2013/01/the-web-app-challenge-ac...
I am happy to do some cross promotion of your website if you are interested. Let me know.
Just because Apple didn't have the sense to keep a broken maps application away from users doesn't mean it's the end of the world if Google does. Mobile Google Maps does not work in Mobile IE10. If anything they're protecting their brand.

I'll happily concede that they should display an opt-out-able "your browser is unsupported" message.
Favorite thing I like to remind myself day to day is:

Everyone is unique, nobody is special.

It really helps to put things in perspective.
What's First Film Syndrome?
all the greats get criticized
> Humans do not get offended when their car doesn't start because it's out of gas and doesn't offer an apology.
> Humans do not get offended when they click to a cable channel that they aren't subscribed for and an expression of sympathy isn't displayed.
> Humans do not get offended when the hold a hammer by the "business end" and try to drive a nail in with the handle, and an "I'm sowwy!" flag doesn't pop out of it.

Well, I think you should reevalutate that info. Except for the second case, if people know they shouldn't get the show, people do in fact get offended by those innanimate objects. To the point of yelling to them.
> Free.fr was once a real game changer, but that was 10 years ago

What about Free mobile? We have the lowest price in the world now.
just because you have money doesn't mean your looking for press
Honestly, I think the only thing you need to know to understand how the books and the movies differ is that, in the books, the ring is destroyed half-way through the last book...
Nice, will definetaly write about it!
To freeze the brains of our best and brightests in hope that future tech could let them live much longer, and possibly make some more discoveries.
Sorry, it's weird to me. More power to the author for finding a revenue stream but it certainly brings out my cynicism. The revenue stream is on a house of cards since there is no "service" being paid for and the fact the author is asking $125k for such a fragile revenue steam is just strange.
No one will ever bother to read this work. There are millions of claimed proofs of various conjectures. If you want to prove Goldbach or P=NP (etc...) you either need a very simple to verify proof (not a 1,000 page proof) or you need to prove a set of interesting conjectures along the way to give yourself credibility.

In the pages of this mathematician's proof, there must be a few smaller proofs he could publish that show genuine insight, which would give him credibility. Otherwise it's just another sci.math sideshow.
The best thing about failing at a wide variety of things is in learning how much they are "the same" in that there are rarely any tricks involved - you just have to find, understand, and practice the fundamental ideas a lot to become more skilled.
BoxedCircle makes it easy to connect with like minded people wherever you go.

http://www.boxedcircle.com

http://twitter.com/BoxedCircle
How to brainstorm a successful idea
All the things I have read about Christopher Tolkien have done anything but make me sympathetic to him.

He reminds me of what happened to the estate of James Joyce, which is a very sad tale: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/01/james-jo...

I don't know whether a series like A Song of Ice and Fire could every be adapted well, but the TV show has definitely ensured that more people will read, and most important remember, the work of R. R. Martin.

Whatever you may think about the artistic merit of LOTR and The Hobbit, I think Tolkien has still benefitted immensely.
Judging from web traffic, it looks like this post got flagged by HN mods.
It was not required by law. I wanted insurance, because the shrink wrapping process used an open flame to shrink the plastic. It reacted to heat. I could have continued without it, but it was too much risk (for all involved).
Unlike The Matrix, The Hobbit was created knowing it would be the first of a trilogy (early in production, a two-part series). As such, it spends all of its frames laying the groundwork for the next film. One reviewer, I forget who, described the experience as "all foreplay with no sex", which I agree with. That said, still a rousing ride and a lot of fun. I enjoyed it, particularly the Thorin/Bilbo story that concluded near the end.
"Mathematicians who make big claims are obligated both to be right and to make themselves understood."

I spent most of this academic semester struggling with the material in MIT's 18.404 (Theory of Computation) class taught by Michael Sipser - at the end of one of his lectures, he mentioned that he keeps a large file of proofs on hand from people claiming to have resolved the P vs NP conjecture, but has little time or faith to read them... he calls this the "crank" file. It seems to me (and I'm just a lowly undergraduate math student, feel free to discount/discredit this) that solutions to many of the large, imposing academic challenges of our era might be found in the depths of other such professor's "crank" files.

Then again, there is definitely something to be said for establishing credentials - there's only so much time in the schedule of someone capable of verifying claims to be spent on verification, and it seems obvious that they should spend that time on solutions that come from people who have a track record of competence.
You see, the producers discovered J.R.R. Tolkien belonged to the Lucas and Rowling school of thought, and named Kili — or should I say… Kill-i — after the role he was meant to play in the story.
Best age for Hobbit is probably 6-8, and re-read at 13-15, with the LOTR...
Followup on yesterday's "well-calibrated interviewer" post
http://gibbon.co

Gibbon allows you to learn from those who have already reached your desired goal. We enable experts to share their knowledge by creating channels containing articles, books or videos that they found most valuable. By following their channels you have a rare insight in the mind of an expert and you are presented by a curated, high quality, treasure trove of knowledge. We also enable you to further improve your understanding of a subject by discussing it with fellow
readers.
I'm a little torn on this.

On one hand, the estate is clearly a victim of "Hollywood accounting" (as was Peter Jackson, I believe, which is why he refused to direct the Hobbit movie for such a long time). That's a downright criminal practice and "victims" perfectly describes those unfortunate enough to be targeted.

On the other hand, JRR the man passed away years ago, and his son is almost 90. Copyright law says one thing, but at what point do we as humans say that the creator has died long ago, and his work should now pass to the public to retell as it sees fit? How long should his children, and their children, and their children, expect to control and profit off of the work of a long-dead man? (Yes C. Tolkien did some original stuff with Silmarillion and Hurin but we're talking Hobbit and LotR here.)

That's a loaded question and obviously C. Tolkien and companies like Disney think copyright should be eternal. (And no doubt New Line now wishes its own copyright on its little gold mine would remain eternal too.) But personally I think stuff should enter the public domain much more aggressively for the good of culture and society.

In such a world C. Tolkien might have made a little cash for a while, perhaps been happy that his family created a cultural touchstone, and maybe went on to do something original and no doubt productive with his own talent. But we'll never know, and now he's spending his last days growing increasingly embittered because he feels that he's lost control of something he didn't even create in the first place.
Google "working to remove" the redirect from Google Maps on Windows Phone
I experimented for a while with a data-only setup on my Galaxy S2 since I got sick of juggling SIM cards when I traveled. The goal was that as long as I had IP connectivity, my phone worked as it always did, so everything routed through voip, etc.

What forced me to switch back was the latency involved in VOIP calls. It was mostly okay, but sometimes it was downright horrible. I'm super excited for a Nexus device with nice, low-latency true 4G so I can take another run.
In the dating world, yes she is.

It is not fair, of course, but it is the truth. Just as short guys like me are at a disadvantage, so a women with children, people with disabilities, ugly people, people who live at home with their parents, people who are unemployed, old people (but this bias is mostly against women), people who are addicted to drugs, people who have STDs, etc.

Again not fair, but the dating world is a market -- we all try to sell ourself for the best possible offer.
Two annoying usability flaws about this website (for me).

1. The article is over 6 pages, each page is too small. 1 - 3 pages would be preferable. There are no next/previous page links, which would provide a larger area to click. There are no print or 'all pages' options. Nice would be a keyboard shortcut to go to the next page.

2. The Olark chat box is positioned right over the main text, which makes it very distracting. There is no option to close it. It would be preferable though if I didn't have to close it, and it was in an area of the page where I could just ignore it. This is a problem with many websites these days, where the user has to find and click a close button in order to use the website.
http://qatab.com/

It's not mine, it's a project of one of the guys in my area. Embed a tiny little tab on your site, and users can easily send you feedback about problems with your site. His software automatically collects information about the user's browser, environment, and configuration, saving you the hassle of trying to figure all that out on your own.

He's done a really nice job on it. We ended up using it on the site for our recent hackathon, and found it was also an easy way to post a quick message to the webmaster about an update.
Based on what people attempt, the world.
Where do you live and how much do you pay for what connection? I've lived in China, Canada and France and France was by far the cheapest and the fastest (with Free) connection I had in my life.
Which is in my opinion unfortunate, because this a good way to get to know new startups and to give some constructive feedbacks where possible.
I sympathize with Christopher. I won't even say that he's wrong to feel the way he does.

However, I do not think what has happened with the films is wrong at all. I think it is a fine and lasting tribute to Tolkien. It has done more than any single thing to introduce a vast audience to this fabulous world and to Tolkien's original work, millions of people that would never have picked up the books otherwise.
SecondMarket v. AngelList
Ritc (http://ritc.io) is launching soon. It's a rule engine as a service (platform + api) that allows you to efficiently connect cloud services together to bolt on functionality into your applications.

Think of it like an API that lets you build an IFTTT clone.

Please excuse the site...we haven't quite launched yet!
With regards to the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy:

Cathleen Blackburn, lawyer for the Tolkien Estate in
Oxford, recounts ironically, "These hugely popular films
apparently did not make any profit! We were receiving
statements saying that the producers did not owe the
Tolkien Estate a dime."

In "Hollywood Accounting", a $19 million movie can make $150 million and still not be profitable.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121018/01054720744/hollyw...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/the_friday_podcast_an...
Ah thanks. That wasn't on my path for some reason.
The post says that outsourcing is the only practical option, but does anyone have a ballpark of the scale where it becomes worth it? It seems like you need to have substantial knowledge to pull it off without wasting a lot of money on errors. I would guess for a run of, say, 10, you're better off sourcing things more expensively in the US/Canada through some boutique manufacturer, and for 1 million you're better off outsourcing, but not sure about in between.
I think you're being too hard on Christopher Tolkien. The first time I read through The Silmarillion I was disappointed by how much it resembled a history text book...then I realized: it is a history text book. This interview just cements what I had already suspected: much as the history of the real world is mostly mundane, punctuated by a few good "stories", the same is true of Tolkien's works. Surely, when you see the Mona Lisa your eyes are drawn to the face and slight smile, but da Vinci still had to paint the background for it to be the painting it is. In some regards, this is the difference between art and pop culture. Once you get past the surface, pop culture is typically hollow.

All that said, I think the original movies are artistic masterpieces (haven't seen the Hobbit yet, so I can't comment)...just masterpieces of a different sort, in a different medium.
Given how bad the discussion is in both threads, it kind of seems that the system is working. The info is interesting, but this is not the best of HN.
I was bummed when they changed the ending; I loved how in the books the Hobbits went back home and kicked ass.
A comment on the article from an anesthesiologist explains that taping the eyes shut is done as, while under, you have no blink reflex, so you will otherwise damage your eyes.
Christopher Tolkien can be called many things. He hasn't always done the best job stewarding his father's world, erring on the side of conservatism and disapproving of anyone else's work based on his father's (rightly or wrongly). And he's kind of a jerk.

But the Brian Herbert comparison just means you've never read anything Christopher Tolkien actually published (or you never attempted to read Brian Herbert's terrible terrible work). The only publication where Christopher Tolkien embellished or added to his father's writings was The Silmarillion, published under pressure from their publisher to get it out the door as soon as possible after his father's death and when he was younger (relatively) and less sure about his bargaining position to leave his father's work untouched. The added narrative was mostly connecting prose, meant to keep the story more coherent, and one full chapter replacing a version that was hopelessly out of date compared to the rest of the updates his father had added over decades. He's repeatedly expressed regret about changing The Silmarillion (including again in this article), and has even laid out exactly what he added to the story so you can mentally edit it out.

Every single other book (that would be 13 of them, I believe) that he's published has been literally a written guide to trying to piece together a chronological view of all the undated scraps of rough drafts and notes his father left behind. The only thing he adds are clearly delimited notes about why he thinks some scrap came next and summaries about how some minor change made elsewhere suddenly made ripples of changes through future drafts of other sections, which he then proceeds to include verbatim.

In other words, there's no way to get less respectful of his father's work, short of leaving it unpublished. Again, he can be called many things (he really does seem to be like a total jerk, and there's no way any adaptation would have pleased him, even a word-for-word dramatic reading), but comparing him to Brian Herbert and what he did with Dune is beyond the pale.

Yes, Brian Herbert's work is just that bad :)