skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Instead of focusing why Joel should have used Google Maps, I think the real focus should be that Flash-type interactivity is not limited to Flash. I think the map created by Joel is a great work of ingenuity and thinking outside the box. Also in regards to Google maps, you can't customize the look of the map, not to mention you're at the mercy of Google to display the map properly and exactly as you wish. Doing it the way Joel did you have complete control over the whole project, not limited to a borrowed graphic.
Introducing Labs for Google Code
I've said this in another of my replies, but the major problem isn't that we need to invent something ( that is easy ). We need to change the world somehow.

Making an incremental improvement on a patent isn't allowed, (despite the disconnect with the real world). I suppose some of my problem is that this is an extremely high bar. We are trying to find a major problem in the world to solve that hasn't been solved that we could feasibly examine within the time frame of a few months.

Perhaps this isn't the best forum to ask this question in because everyone here is an entrepreneur. If they knew of such a problem, they would be working on it themselves :-). If someone feels generous though, I would welcome any advice on where to look!
Liked the show? Maybe it was the old commercials. The "Taxi" and "Happy Days" research appears to fail to distinguish between a program being interrupted by today's commercials versus yesteryear's commercials. Many people delight in old ads, whether they be newspaper ads, magazine ads, movie posters, or whatnot, because they're history. They show us the changes in design esthetics, cultural values & propaganda, fashion, and so on. (I happen to be keen on fonts and women's eyebrow styles.) That's why such things have value as collectibles. I can't help picturing the research subjects smirking at the "bad" ties worn by the Michael Brownstein lawyers.

Liked the show? Maybe it was the pacing of the program for commercial interruption. TV ads are not injected at random intervals. They're injected between scenes. But not just any scenes. They're injected after scenes which were written to be followed by a commercial break. In other words, the TV show was designed to be enjoyed with the breaks. For example, contrast made-for-TV movies (designed for breaks) with made-for-theater movies (designed for continuous viewing). Watch an adless video of a made-for-TV movie, and you can see the story build to a little climax every few minutes, and more frequent climaxes as the story progresses. The ever-increasing climaxes get so tiresome, in my taste, that they cry out for interruption.
A decade ago, I would've bought satellite TV, heck even 5 years ago. Since the original Xbox was hacked and broadband became commonplace, I have watched less and less TV. I watch anything I want to on my AppleTV. Youtube, iTunes and Boxee are an incredibly disruptive combination. Our TV has an FTA digital tuner built in, which died two months ago. We haven't replaced it, we just watch TV even less. When the switchover happens we probably won't bother at all.

For me, Boxee is the most disruptive offering I've seen and it's precisely a combination of the social and Internet-based elements that makes me try to convince everyone I know to use it. I don't see Boxee killing TV, but like XBMC before it, it's one hell of a disruptive concept.

I also agree that some sort of set top box combining telephony, TV, Radio and Internet will displace regular TV. Cable and telephony companies have already been moving towards this with 'triple play' offerings.

I on the other hand have had this kind of integration since 2003 with MythTV.
I doubt wikipedia's sources, but I can't read it cause the source is a californian book, and there is no link to read it and I don't own the book.
The guy was autoritarian, but he wasn't a dictator, and certainly not by wikipedia's own definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator
JQuery Q&A with Jörn Zaefferer
sry all had to re-submit as the url broke... must stop playing with WP_Admin
I just finished Atlas Shrugged(one hour ago) :-D
I think Marco's point was that he's created this site as a fun side project. Supporting IE isn't fun. The vast majority of the site's users aren't IE users so he wont get a lot of flack from its users.

I agree that developing for IE isn't the worst thing ever, but it's certainly not fun. I have to side with Marco on this, if I were to build a site just for fun, I'd probably never look at it in IE.
This is a really cool time waster. I typed a few keywords and it creates works of art based on the keyword i type.

My favorites so far.

http://penguincares.no-ip.org/cgi-bin/flicker2.cgi?p=sadness

http://penguincares.no-ip.org/cgi-bin/flicker2.cgi?p=blood

http://penguincares.no-ip.org/cgi-bin/flicker2.cgi?p=kiwi

http://penguincares.no-ip.org/cgi-bin/flicker2.cgi?p=tacos

anyways, back to work
I started a startup oriented around a new way of listening to your music and sharing new stuff with friends. We found one of the best lawyers in the industry, and he pretty much said "Don't do it. You're too young, and there are better things to spend your time on."
Microsoft To Grassley: We're Still Using H-1Bs, No 'Moral Imperative' To Hire Americans
If a pawn shop in my neighborhood carried 80% legally sold items, and 20% stolen items, there'd be zero doubt that the owner was intentionally acting as a fence, and was helping create the demand that was causing local burglaries.

20% stolen content is HUGE.
It absolutely is our job as engineers to change the world. We're the experts. We've done the research and have the evidence to support our positions. From there it's our duty to show the rest of the world the best solution for the problem. In this case I think the problem is number of developer cycles that go into IE compatibility. Imagine if all that time went to the actual product.

Often rubbing something in someone's face is the only way to evoke change. To degrade the experience and let the user know why it's been degraded gives them a clearer understanding of the problem. Being struck with the same problem enough times tends to get someone to act to solve it.
Not sure I'm expert enough to comment, but doesn't this make it easier to extend a class - because what you can and can't use/rely on is clear?
Zimbra: Entrada (3)
A Python/Ruby/Perl/PHP/SQL/LISP/C/C#/.NET/CSS/HMTL/JS/Ajax/COBOL/ARM assembly/INTEGRITY OS/PMP/Oracle/Solaris/Forth/FreeBSD Rockstar Ninja!
I noticed the recent demise (right-wing swing) of the WSJ coincides with their acquisition by News Corporation.

Now we can finally enjoy unbiased editorials by the likes of Karl Rove and friends. Sorry, couldn't resist.
http://thepiratebay.org/top/all
Instapaper’s browser usage for February 2009
I'm your man! If hired, my remuneration should be $100.000 a year/25% bonus/matching 401k contributions/limousine service/catered lunch/flexible work hours/office with window/personal secretary. But really, the $100,000/year is fine too.
If you adopt a strategy where you need to spend less time supporting IE idiocy, you'll have more time to spend working on making your site more user-friendly.
Gah, I only got my 15" MBP two weeks ago :(
It's decent of them to license it to people, but are they providing source, or is it (as seems more likely to me, based on the lack of information I could find on the developer page) just a binary blob you can link against?
Here are some more "business ideas" for your enjoyment:

- Buy tons of those fancy interactive visual advertisements, embed the worker into them and perform mapreduce jobs in the browsers of unsuspecting users

- Run some of the analytic/batch processing related to a popular social network on CPUs of your customers.

- Have a popular site? Sell CPUs of its audience just like one sells impressions via AdSense.
Original source:

http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/innovation/building-a...
Agreed on lack of RAM. It's really depressing to see a machine like this without at least 512MB. I've been waiting for a device just like this for a long time, and I want to hack on it, but I'm looking more for a heavy multimedia mobile, so the lack of RAM may nix that.

Oh, and does anyone know if the screen is capacitive or resistive? Resistive would put it right out of the running.
So losing 'utter dominance' is the same as 'lost'? I agree that it takes time for giants to fall, but I don't really believe the race is anywhere near over.

That said I would bet on Netflix or Amazon (or even Microsoft) to give us the next generation of TV before any of the networks do.
seems like everyone and his sister wants to start a dating site, someone should just come up with a CMS solution and sell it for $299/mo.
user: kyro, created: 708 days ago, karma: 1505

Eh, a little over the top on that ad, but he's actually a an active member of the the community, so the ad's not just another drive-by. Cut a little slack?
Yep, great points. The HTTP workflow definitely adds a lot of overhead, but I think it is still usable for a whole class of aplications. For example, anytime you can saturate the CPU, or outgoing bandwidth (use clients machine as a spider), this works really well.

As far as centralized servers & data storage.. I didn't cover this in the post, but I've been thinking a lot about using bittorrent to address this, and I think it's totally feasible. All you need is several thousand seed servers and you'll have a worldwide file system / job tracking queue. ;)
Helios Voting System
you can trade it in if its under 28 days
Amazing HTML to PDF Converter
No need to install any applications on your computer. The simple interface allows you to save web page as a PDF file in 1 click without registration!
Then what did you do?
If I had a nickel every time I had a conversation clearing up the US tax code just a little bit, explaining that each bracket gets taxed individually, I'd be making money in a very weird way.
Voted up for developing Twiddla for IE.

I share your sentiment.. I develop against IE first then test it against the "good" browsers... which rarely screw it up. IE sucks for script debugging.. I mean EPIC suck. You're not even told what line of what file is screwed up (IE seems to concatenate everything into 1 file when giving the error report), but I've learned to rely on myself not to make common scripting mistakes, and created a cross-browser "console" object to aid in debugging.

Safari has the worst script debugging on the planet. It essentially tells you whether or not there was an error. Oh, wait... and how many errors, total. Thanks, Safari!
Assuming all of that material is in fact illegal to distribute in that jurisdiction (I have no idea about their copyright laws) that still says nothing about what percentage of the overall torrents are illegal material, just that the illegal torrents are far more popular.
Ah, yes, the sweet sweet sound of FAIL!
As entertainment moves online, shows will no longer be constrained by the 30/60 minute time frame. This should help remove filler and/or add additional useful content. This, in turn, should drive an overall increase in quality, at least at the margin.
There are several. Dolphin is one: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/
PG, where's the etherpad stream? (There's probably an ironic reality TV show joke I'm missing here.)
The big budgets in TV production I presume are the result of formed habits, similar to getting used to driving a gas-guzzling GMC T-Rex SUV. I have trouble imagining companies like Pepsi handing over their ad budget to Internet guys. But sooner or later exactly this will happen. Just like the Obama campaign was not managed by a large advertising company but by dedicated Web guys, who understand "social" communication involving real people (grassroots).
You'd think after all that time he would have learned something about the community.
Let Start-Ups Bail Us Out
hmmm

A "designer" "knowledgeable in Python/Ruby/Perl/PHP/SQL/LISP/C/C#/.NET . . . JS" sounds interesting. I think what you are looking for is a developer. Also, watch the "simple" in the title, the word "simple" in a description like that usually translates to "we are scum, and want to rip you off by suckering you into believing the job is straightforward, which it will be be anything but, and even if it was, we will make sure it isn't, I mean, we want to see you work for the pittance we will eventually pay you, you technology people have it too easy! what do you mean you are going to charge me FIFTY DOLLARS to just sit there and press a couple of keys?"
If you make more than $250K and donate a lot to charity, you could be hit pretty hard - you can only take a deduction equal to a tax bracket of 28% rather than the higher tax bracket you fall into.
You can get an Airport Extreme for $179 and a 500GB USB external on Newegg for $60, the combination of which would provide all the features of a Time Capsule for $239. Granted you have to deal with two devices and a decreased throughput to the disk, but for casual use it may be enough for some people.

(you can also get 1TB externals on Newegg starting at $95, for a total of $274, a significantly lower price than the $499 1TB Time Capsule)
Most people I know do as well. I think the article has many such flaws.
Well, I sure hope someone uses these processes as they are meant and as you describe. This was not aimed at you personally, I just have never witnessed it.

In fact the words "Agile", "XP" and "SCRUM" have pretty much turned into red flags for me. My immediate reflex whenever someone feels a need to mention those to me is to bill by the hour - because anything else would probably come back and haunt me iteratively ...
I can think of several right off the bat.
This is many years premature. It may come to pass, but is nowhere near that now. TV is still by far the most common way of watching television shows (and watching television shows is still the most common way of wasting time) and overall viewership is increasing every year. This trend doesn't seem to be changing for a few reasons.

1) TV screens are much bigger and cheaper. They don't need the resolution a monitor does. Watching on a small screen is something you're happy to be able to do on a plane, but would never want to do on a day to day basis.

2) Bandwidth is still not there, especially for HDTV, and progress seems to be stalled. I still have pretty much the same connection for the same price that I did 5 years ago, and I'll likely still have it in 5 years from now. Mark Cuban talks about this a lot. Fiber to the premises may solve this one soon for some subset of the country, but by no means everyone.

3) Live television is nearly non-existent online. It can't handle it. The bandwidth to stream the Superbowl to everyone who wants it doesn't exist. Sports are a huge part of the TV viewing audience.

4) Many people like to watch shows as soon as they're released. The internet is terrible for this. I personally download mine, but I do so knowing that I'm always going to be watching the Daily Show from 2 days ago. If I were a TV addict (i.e. normal American) that would be unacceptable.

5) Content quality is better than ever. Single camera sitcoms, pay channel dramas, reality tv (if you're into that). Almost everyone agrees this is a golden era of television.

If you really think that more people are watching TV on a computer than on a good old-fashioned TV, you need to come down from your Silicon Valley mountain for a while.
How to save money, even on personal shopping, with Inkling prediction markets
...as to whether The Pirate Bay is mostly used for copyright violation.

That's irrelevant. The question is whether TPB is breaking any laws. One can provide a technology or service which users use as a means for illegal activity without being held responsible. In the US, as far as I know, one has to "distribute a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright" [1] in order to be held liable.

As I understand it, Swedish laws are a lot more lenient.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_....
IMing or twittering on iPhone is not the same as watching a TV program simultaneously with millions of other people.

There is something here with the simultaneous viewing concept, or maybe we can call it collective experience. There is something amazing about sharing in an experience with millions of people at the same time. For instance, election night, 9/11, the Super Bowl, or even finding out who shot JR. Granted we do this today through many mediums (e.g. Twitter during the inauguration), which only serve to augment to core TV experience.
A comparison of Silk vs. LD-AAC is noticeably absent.
You can make a TV show and distribute it to everyone easily. That's not the problem. The problem is getting together the budget to make a good TV show, then making the ad revenue off of that show you need to make that profitable.

Hulu might make that possible, but it hasn't yet.
> The repackaging and reselling of worthless loans, creating money out of thin air, seems pretty immoral to me, and was arguably one of the triggers of the crisis.

The loans aren't worthless now and weren't worthless then. They're just worth less.

Combining loans into a fund doesn't "create money". It merely allows folks to spread their risk over more loans, to diversify.

What happened was that the collective risk was misunderstood. When folks figured that out, they stopped buying those packages. Since US regs require mark-to-market, 0 buyers means 0 "value". Since US regs also require that banks have sufficient assets, marking huge portions of their portfolios to 0 made them technically insolvent.

Note that most of these loans are still performing and the funds are still producing cash, so they're clearly not worth 0.

The other thing that happened is that a lot of folks decided to insure that risk. These folks thought that being paid to cover losses beyond some threshold was free money. Since they didn't get paid enough to compensate them for their actual risk, they're losing gobs of money.

Which is as it should be. If you're willing to take the profit, you should take the loss.
Hmmm, but you don't have any SAP or PeopleSoft experience, so how do we know you can handle real enterprise apps?
Doing Science Online
The Pirate Bay is not literally holding 'stolen items'. They are merely providing a roadway to them. The analogy would be a person who gives directions to pawn shops. Giving directions isn't illegal, right? However, I don't know about the rules for crime by association in Sweden.

> 20% stolen content is HUGE.

What are you comparing it to?
Not to mention that IE's box-model (in quirks-mode) is actually sane compared to the W3C standard.

see : http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCPWYFoWaMIC&pg=PA289&#...
Quote from article: "Incidentally, the .com bust happened because the same banks that are screwing up our economy were making illegal pump-and-dump schemes using technology company stocks."

Agreed.
Would <joke></joke> tags have been more appropriate ?
I can handle real enterprise apps because I'm a lean six sigma black belt, clearly.
Surprise Quiz Puzzle
The professor for class Logic 315 says on Friday: "We're going to have a surprise quiz next week, but I'm not telling you what day... if you can figure out what day it will be on, I'll cancel the quiz."

The students get together and decide that the quiz can't be on Friday, as if the quiz doesn't happen by Thursday, it'll be obvious the quiz is on Friday. Similarly, the quiz can't be on Thursday, because we know it won't be on Friday, and if the quiz doesn't happen by Wednesday, it'll be obvious it's on Thursday (because it can't be on Friday). Same thing for Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. So it can't be on ANY day, so there's no quiz next week!"

They tell the professor, who smiles and says, "Well, nice to see you're thinking about it."

On Tuesday, the professor gives the quiz, totally unexpected!

What's the flaw in the students' thinking?
This behavior is not classically rational, but as experiments like 'The Ultimatum Game' [1] show, people aren't rational in such matters. They will accept less for themselves if they feel they're being treated unfairly.

Some people feel progressive taxation is unfair. Even if you think it's fair, you might have objections to tinkering with the level of progressivity to buy votes, or in times of crisis, or in times when the politically-favored (be they defaulting homeowners, too-big-to-fail banks, or those running agencies and projects fortified by stimulus spending) are drawing extra billions (trillions?) from public funds.

So while these >$250K earners are not being hyperrational after-tax income maximizers -- and hardly anyone is -- they are behaving in a very typical human way.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game
I think its fair to say that this looks pretty interesting. The domain reads like a bad spam domain, though. Did someone skip the chapter on branding?

I did walk through their mortgage evaluator. The process was pretty straightforward, and they didnt ask for any upfront personal information like most of the scam mortgage sites out there.

I'm not sure I'm ready to pay $10 for mortgage assistance, but this might be an interesting thing to do if I was actually buying a home. I'm definitely going to keep it in the bookmarks, but I'm curious how they plan to keep people paying the $10/mo over the long haul. Traditionally, real estate services, and also paid review sites like Angielist have very high churn rate. People sign up, get the info they want, and then unsubscribe. Rinse repeat every 12-18 months when they need something.
Depends on how focused you are on corporate users and the undsutry. In some industries 30% of ALL traffic is IE6. That's trending down, but slowly. Perhaps 1 or 2 points a month.
> The past couple of weeks have really been a lesson in FUD. I have politically active family members on both sides of the line, and its amazing to hear how different every policy sounds from each of them.

The fact that different people see the same thing differently does not imply FUD.

An elephant from its rider's perspective is very different from an elephant as seen by an ant.
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If you see it from the perspective of, "for every dollar I make over $250k, I have to give $2 to the liberals", the issue isn't one of perspective.
My feeling is that when Jobs comes back he is going to 'bring something dramatic with him.' The fanfare surrounding his return would be the perfect opportunity for Apple to release something significant that would ride the publicity wave.
Agreed; much of the appeal of TV seems to be that it removes all need to make any decisions. I have two younger sisters in their mid teens, and although they both have facebook and MSN etc, I'd say that for every hour they spend on the internet, they'll spend 3 hours watching TV.

For the most part, though, it won't be anything specific -- they'll just sit there and watch literally whatever's on, including even the really awful daytime game shows and the like. They're not very bright, but neither are they especially stupid -- they're both at grammar schools (~top 20%). Neither are they poor, friendless or isolated -- they just enjoy the utter mindlessness of watching whatever is put in front of them. To have to choose what to watch would ruin the experience.
That's plausible and interesting, but it's not what the story says. The story says these people believe that if they gross less than $250k, they will somehow net more money than if they grossed more than $250k.
Why do you use your control key down there? It's hard for any finger to reach it... you should be using the control key where the caps lock key is, your hands will thank you for it.
TheFunded Founder Creates A Startup Camp For Young CEOs
Google Code Labs Overview