skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Adobe has done a lot of work to make Flash "accessible," if the artist is willing to put some effort into it. And, once you make it "accessible," search engines (at least Google) will be able to index it.

Safari/Mac (really, any web browser) is a horrible for typesetting.

If you need a whole document to be predictable typeset, please give me a PDF. If you don't need it to be typeset perfectly, please give me HTML.
This approach for text rendering should really only be used if there were some sort of graceful failover whereby another browser, lacking flash, would receive the text rendered as standard HTML. It would be foolish to use it otherwise.
Good article. I agree with pretty much everything you said.

What I was really trying to address is how anyone who suggests that there may be innate factors that affect outcomes for groups of people is immediately tarred and feathered. There's nothing wrong with such hypotheses. What's wrong is when people use characterizations of groups to prejudge individuals.
The Sorry State of WYSIWYG Web Editors
There are a lot of cases where sifr doesn't allow copy and paste fine. Nowadays I run into it every day when I copy blog articles into Evernote. Depending how you do the text selection and what text you actually select, it doesn't work.

I will be glad when sifr is dead--hopefully it will be next year.
I thought so too when my dad purchased one for my college commute. However, its ride quality, comfort, and utility quickly won me over. After a few months, I actually began to like how it looked, too.

If they hadn't discontinued it a few years ago, I would happily purchase one for myself.
100 DVDs can fit on 1 disk
This reminds me of the single best advice ever given to me about how to learn a difficult subject: Pretend that you are teaching it to an invisible audience, lesson by lesson. It is amazing how much faster you can comprehend even very complex topics this way.

Preferably do this while wearing a bluetooth headset (it can be turned off) so people don't think you are crazy.
ah, but it's not. It's what lies behind the trinket sales. The passion for a great product, the passion for making sales, and the passion for success. If things like trinket sales or mundane businesses, we often laugh at in tech circles were just forgot about because theyre trinket sales, we wouldn't have much. Even someone has to be passionate about waste removal, otherwise there would be a whole lot of shit piling up.
Internet Explorer has supported @font-face for over 11 years. You can embed SVG into the other browsers and/or use Canvas.
Also see http://swineflu.ushahidi.com/

Ushahidi was designed for this very purpose. From the About Ushahidi page: "Ushahidi, which means 'testimony' in Swahili, is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008... The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web - and map them. It is being built so that it can grow with the changing environment of the web, and to work with other websites and online tools."
Apple readying "media pad" and "iPhone lite" for launch soon
Making Twitter Talk
Can't help but add Socrates' comments to Phaedrus in the Plato's dialogue Phaedrus (around section 274), to the effect that writing destroys man's faculty of memory, and bestows only a superficial sort of learning.

As Socrates relates it, the Egyptian god Theuth describes various inventions to the king Thamus:

"But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:tex...
You need bread... but that is easy, or else you just eat cake.
Would you please not submit comments of this type?

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Easy to Remember URLS
Was a great read. Also reinforces my interest in philosophy as a satisfying area to study one day in my retirement (if not before !).
A Beginner’s Guide to CDL Endorsements - Hazardous Materials
I am increasingly skeptical of these "new models of software development." It sounds suspiciously like the business school jargon another article mentioned earlier today. Some key excerpts:

"This is the book you must absolutely read...It identifies and covers in depth seven fundamental lean principles: Eliminate Waste, Amplify Learning, Decide as Late as Possible, Deliver as Fast as Possible, Empower the Team, Build Integrity In and Seeing The Whole."

"Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow and people- so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed and business alignment."

Yeah, they're both from the same book, but the author chooses to start his article with them.
Deeply ironic that this was vote weighted... I guess that's probably the general policy on repeats though.
You don't understand stereotype threat.

A white person's working memory will be significantly less affected by a prototypical derogatory race-slur than a black person subjected to a prototypical derogatory slur against the black race.

Social context is important.
I've mostly just put it on the major software download sites (versiontracker, etc.), although I'm planning on doing some AdSense investment once I get a reasonably accurate conversion ratio.
Understanding the outbreak: an influenza biology primer
Topical: I wonder how many epidemiologist jobs would be allocated in a society with a Rand-like religious adherence to the "invisible hand" of the free market.
Chicago Hacker News Meetup: 8pm 4/30 @ New Wave Coffee
Come talk, hack and play duck hunt.
1. You must have an idea whose value to the market should be expressible in a simple sentence, not a complex or a compound sentence

From http://www.infosys.com/about/what-we-do/default.asp

Six paragraphs, tiny font. This is the second paragraph:

"Infosys defines, designs and delivers technology-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. Infosys also provides a complete range of services by leveraging our domain and business expertise and strategic alliances with leading technology providers."
That's because they have tweaked the stream design quite a lot after the redesign. You no longer get multiple entries for every photo your friend has uploaded etc.
So, there should be a follow-up!

Can anyone spot if he hit his objectives despite The World Changing around him?
Please don't resort to personal attacks.
In my youth Ayn Rand and the Rational Man ha great appeal to me, but as I grew older I learned that man is not rational. In his core man is emotional and often works against his own self interest. Being rational is hard work and most people most times are working off different motivations.

I think you're taking her term "Rational Animal" and applying your own definition to it. Being a rational animal doesn't mean "Rational all the time." It means that, in order to survive, man must be rational. The extent to which one survives and is happy is the extent to which that individual is rational, even if it means only rational now and then.

Logic and reasoning are more recent inventions and used even less frequently.

Logic is as old as advanced civilization. This is not a coincidence.

I actually think civilization works better than individuals.

It seems like you're also misinterpreting Rand's message here. She doesn't advocate the destruction of society and civilization, and she is not an anarchist. Indeed, she speaks volumes of the value of society to the individual, and she has multiple essays on the role of government. And not that government is a "necessary evil," but that a proper rights-respecting, rights-protecting government is good because it is of value to the individual.

The collectivism (with respect to government) that she opposed is that of the majority voting away the rights (including property rights) of others. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for lunch.
So you CAN get it from pork if it isn't cooked properly. Why are you twisting the truth? Didn't you notice this?

Actually, there is no evidence that you can, and you're twisting the truth by saying the paragraph says the exact opposite of what it actually says.

The "cooked properly" thing is pretty much always included in mentions of pork by the CDC and other government entities, because of trichinosis, e-coli, and salmanella, and it is intended to further make it clear that not only are you not going to get swine flu from pork because it just doesn't work that way, when it is cooked it would kill off the virus, anyway.

If you aren't cooking your pork properly, you're risking your life every time you eat pork, regardless of whether there is a swine flu pandemic underway. Undercooked meat is dangerous, nobody is arguing about that, but I've seen no reputable source say that the flu can be contracted from eating pork or any other meat. And, you have provided none.

I just cannot understand why you are so dismissive of the notion that pork could have something to do with this. Perhaps this subject is more taboo than I thought.

You can't understand that every reliable source I have at my disposal tells me you can't catch swine flu from eating pork. What do you hope to achieve by getting all riled up about something that simply is not a vector of infection for this disease? Take your crazy scaremongering over to twitter where people eat that kind of nonsense up like candy.

Surely you can see now the the subject is at least worthy of discussion and should not be automatically shut down.

Surely you're joking. You've provided no sources. There have been no cases of swine flu that are attributable to eating pork. What is there to discuss? No cases. No connection. Nothing but some random nuts on the Internet with a bone to pick.

As I mentioned, I've been a vegetarian for over 15 years. I have zero interest in defending the meat industry. But, you're talking like a nutcase, and I don't find paranoid fantasies an interesting topic for discussion. Unless there is some evidence of a link between eating pork and the swine flu, it is a subject that is not worthy of discussion.

It's just not interesting to argue about all the things that might (despite lack of evidence) cause someone to get sick. The rays from your monitor might be causing you to get cancer of the eyeball as we speak, and the use of a mouse might cause Parkinson's. There is no evidence...but it could happen. Shall we discuss that, too?
Technology, Not Outsourcing Is The Biggest Threat To Jobs
Yes... finally some Canadian love on HN.
I think you're partially right, but I think there's also something else going on here. The key about the memory is recall. Just writing multiple times (ie reading the book over and over) doesn't increase the reliability of memorization as much as reading the address. It seems the act of forcing the brain to find the information makes it put more effort into indexing that piece of info. I think that's apart from the effect you are talking about which is about how you integrate information when forced to explain it in a coherent way.
Well, first off, they already offer 100mbit lines. Which as far as I know, no current telco does. Secondly, the answer to your question should be obvious: if the private business is doing it better, switch back to them. There is no exclusivity here; the local government has just shamed the shit out of the telcos (for now) by offering a far better product. I guess you could masochistically choose the worse provider...
Wow, this would be my third event of the night. Any way to move it?
I agree with others. You definitely need to spruce up the site. I expect good software to have good websites.I would never buy anything from a site which looked like that simply because I would think how much effort went into making the software work well if the website is shoddy. Good websites also create a desire. Whenever I open this product page http://culturedcode.com/things/ I'm tempted to buy.

I don't know whether you have any experience in web development but polish is essential in making people try out and buy products.

If you need further convincing check out the story of convertbot and weightbot (iPhone apps)
4chan founder moot 'most influential person' - Time Poll
Please submit the destination link, not one generated by a URL shortener. (There's a reason HN shows the domain next to the link title.)
Thanks for reminding me that I have that post on "How do I find and hire a lawyer" that I've been meaning to write at some point.
Edward Tufte on iPhone Visual Design
I don’t quite understand Rand’s relevance in this current crisis. Where is the connection? All I can see are contradictions to what is actually happening.
Mathematica has completely blown me away with its power; both in the environment and the programming language. I am, however, slightly disconcerted by the separation of interpreter level Mathematica code and the compiled C code that it links to. The description on the internal implementation given in http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/note/SomeNotesOnInt... leave me questioning whether a language with pattern matching at its core can ever be made to be fast enough. Perhaps that's not necessary -- a compiler is incorporated and it does give quite a boost, but I would like, perhaps just aesthetically, that a language just be that language all the way down.
1. Save up lots of cash
2. Get rid of any junk debt like car payments, store cards or credit cards and cut your expenses way down
3. If you have a significant other, make sure they are very understanding and supportive, because times will get tough
4. Read and understand all the legal stuff and get it right from the get-go
Yeah, TechCrunch got the "big sites" wrong as well as the importance of being an issuing party. Being a relying party is useless to FB's 200+ million users.
Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)
How to create offline webapps on the iPhone
Why don't you look into ISO 17799 and its accompanying certification (ISO/IEC 27002)? I don't know about the certification, but I did read the equivalent UK standard (BS 27002) a while back and found it quite reasonable. It will surely help you with client reassurance and also clarify your thinking.
Yes you can make a lving, and it can be a good one. I make a fulltime living selling my own software. I have no boss and set my own hours, which are either insane or lazy-to-the-bone, depending on how I feel.

The thing you have to remember is that the 80/20 powerlaw distribution seems to be welded to this area. 80% of the money in your niche will go to 20% of the apps on sale. 20% of your products will make 80% of your income. 20% of your problems will cause 80% of your support load. And on and on. So when you find yourself on the wrong part of the 80/20 distribution, take steps to get yourself to the 'right' part.

Oh, and discard your hackers 'everything must be perfect' mentality. Get it professional and stable, but most customers will probably not care how elegant the code is, or which platform you use. To make money you need to be solving their problems.
It's interesting to note that the author plans to release a book regarding the same subject later in the year: http://www.amazon.com/Management-Myth-Consulting-Present-Lar....

While it should be a good read, it's bit too opportunistic IMO, given the current economic climate. Heads will roll, and MBA's are a juicy scapegoat (nonetheless, deservingly so).

I guess not everyone can be like Shiller. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_Exuberance_%28book%2...)
This kind of mustered venom typically indicates a deep seated fear on the part of the complainant, and it isn't hard to imagine how this might be the case in this particular example.
Imagine something you thought was more important than anything else was being sidelined in preference to something like the cited massive test based design?
I imagine priestly castes often have the same kind of reaction to hard science which exposes the lies of their particular brand of theology.
Of course they fight, this should not be a headline, but it is a foregone conclusion that they lose in the end. You can no better argue a subjective position with objective reality than you can indignantly disagree with gravity/call Newton aspergian and hope to survive a long walk off a short cliff.
If a hundred thousand people like shade 35 of blue and design dogma says you should instead use shade 15 and only a thousand people prefer that shade, design dogma is simply wrong.
Ah well, natural selection will kill this type, sooner or later.
I don't understand why the first thing you say on your website is you are small. Is that really a selling point? As a former ad copywriter, let me tell you that ad copy is not the place for self-deprecation.

Why don't you tell them what an awesome product you have and how awesome a programmer you are, instead of saying you are a one-man band that could disappear at any moment.
China Faces a Grad Glut After Boom at Colleges
That may be the theory, but believe me, in practice it's not always true. I ended up with a reprimand on my service record when a technician working for me in the Air Force did precisely this, cutting the ac cord, with a pair of uninsulate scissors, which then went flying across the room. The reprimand was because I hadn't put measures in place to stop technicians using uninsulated scissors for technical work - fair enough.

I'm guessing that the ground wire in the cable hadn't been correctly hooked up to the ground pin in the plug, a not uncommon flaw in cables...
Is the map right tho? There are thousands of reported cases in Mexico and that is definitely not reflected on the map.
friday might be better..
People like you make me laugh because they remind me of my younger self. And I'm not even old.
Maybe the city needs to have it's own puppet corporation that would be more resistant? I wonder if that would work at all.
Actually, Mach and BSD have bupkis in common. It simply so happens that OS X uses a reasonable amount of BSD user-land code in OS X to make compatibility easier. This probably makes porting FreeBSD to clang easier indirectly--the user-land tools and libraries from the BSDs are written in the same style as the kernel, and so supporting them likely makes supporting the kernel easier that much easier--but saying Mach is similar to BSD is like saying Windows NT is similar to DOS simply because it can run DOS programs.
South Park? What do you mean? I don't quote SP. I never watched it.
This after the $1B fund in the UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/07/nesta-plan-te...

Can any UK folks comment on progress there since the announcement?
Wow... that's crazy.

I feel like these kind of stories come out a little too often though. What ever happened to IBM's super memory prototype?

I hate to be skeptical, but I will believe it when I see it.
Thanks a lot for the input! I'm really not too experienced with design, so every little bit helps :)
I think building cool stuff, even on the side is a kind of career. It's just an unconventional one.
Yes and no, but you need to have passion to care that much. I find it hard to believe how many really smart people, lack passion in what they do. It's merely a means to an end. Passionate people enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
It was done to get around the dupe filter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=580816
Wow. This is huge.

And on a personal note, I'm really happy my company is incorporated in Quebec.
"Socrates wasn’t wrong—the new technology [writing] did often have the effects he feared—but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom)." - Nicholas Carr (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google)
Just signed up, and from browsing the message boards, there are some genuinely skilled and interesting people on there even though the activity level isn't very high. Maybe I'll get some work
No really, money is one of the easiest resource to get (as compared to other things needed to succeed).
Also see http://www.programmermeetdesigner.com/
True. But physics (and particularly the entry-level physics that's taught in elementary through high school) includes a lot of easily applicable general knowledge, and sets students up for a lot of other topics later on.

I don't think you could say the same thing about entrepreneurship. It's not a building block of a subject in the same way that physics is.
Best use of bluetooth headsets ever (I hate them)
Money for Nothing - Paul Krugman
1999: Yahoo buys GeoCities for $3.5 billion

2009: Oracle buys Sun Microsystems for $5.6 billion (net of cash).
Wow, short notice, eh?
Well, I used to be super trigger happy about filing disputes, but not anymore. Most of the time when there's been a mistake the business has usually been open to fixing it. I deal with inventory for a small business and buy/sell a lot of stuff, and I've only disputed one charge this year - personal, to boot - because the business wouldn't get back to me about the issue.

Anyway, if it's about the alarm company, we didn't pay them but they wouldn't stop sending us bills since obviously we stopped paying them after terminating the service on our end per the contract we had signed originally. This soon added up to a lot of money and threatening to send to collections, and I just got really super tired of the BS of not picking up their equipment and sending us those stupid bills. I sued them for what I thought was a logical amount of money in small claims court, then the owner stopped being a dick after I ended up having to get a sheriff to serve the papers to him, and then we had to meet in person in the court and he was AWFUL but the whole process was worth it to get him to finally go away.
So you CAN get it from pork

Nonsense. This particular flu strain has never been detected in pigs. It's called "swine flu" because the virus itself is similar to previous swine flu viruses. Your quip about pork bans is taken out of context. Every article mentioning the bans goes on to criticize them for being unscientific.
This is why Democratic orthodoxy on healthcare policy is to allow citizens to "buy into" Medicare. Premiums at every private firm would plummet and coverage would expand.
Get on that. I am both interested in reading what you will produce, and expect you to produce it.
It seems the ranking system is bugged, if you sort by rank, the #1 developer has 3 stars, while there are people with 4 stars right below him
Circos - an information aesthetic for comparative genomics
Mathematica's speed (or lack thereof) rarely bothers me; personally, limitations caused by not having the turtles go all the way down tends to be a bigger issue.

With that said, I find the lengths to which Mathematica takes pattern-matching fascinating. There's something beautiful about having

Fold[f, 0, Range[1, 5]]

evaluate to

f[f[f[f[f[0, 1], 2], 3], 4], 5]