skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was at the event yesterday and they showed a bar with two cameras in the middle, which you can see in the video.

The nice thing about the Xbox 360 and PS3 for these kinds of input devices is that they're multicore, so the budgeting is pretty straightforward if they simply consume one core at all times.

I was cringing when they had the live avatar using the motion capture, though. It was gutsy and impressive, but seriously, guys, probabilistic kinematic constraints. People don't usually have their wrist twisted all the way around when they're standing in place, even if it's physically possible.

I'm very pleased with Microsoft's vision, though. I think it's a great step in the right direction for the industry. I do tend to wonder, though, if there is a fundamental difficulty in an input device that would seem to be inherently more fuzzy than the Wii controller.
Requires software install? XP only? WinAmp only? 15-days trial? Guitar only? I don't think so. 90-s called, they want their software development business model back.
Coding Horror initially attracted me as a reader because it had some interesting anecdotes. Since then, I've been growing more and more disappointed, but this post reached a new threshold.

Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I find it condescending to imply that Steve Yegge decided to stop blogging because he can't handle criticism. Furthermore, the whole Susan Boyle reference seems like sensationalist approach to criticizing sensationalism.

With this post, Coding Horror has just jumped the proverbial shark. Or maybe it did so a long time ago and I didn't notice...
Buddy,

I think you already asked for feedback a couple of times. You should improve the site based on those then come back for a second review.
No, not all compiled languages are statically typed. I wouldn't use those languages.

The time spent compiling is a red herring. I know that I've spent dozens of hours chasing down weird runtime bugs in Ruby that a C++ compiler would have caught for me during static analysis. That time more than makes up for the 15 minutes a day I might spend waiting on a compiler (I waste more than 15 minutes a day on coffee breaks!)
Newspapers don't have the outreach of modern media. Modern media don't have the journalistic quality of newspapers. Solution: Bankrupt newspapers and move journalists to modern media.
You get to travel, meet new people, learn new languages and make a lot of money. Why would I NOT want to start a business in those places.
Make it an iTunes plugin and you'll have a business.
I find it ironic that he mocks "the losers who don’t know how to code and instead just pontificate endlessly about the hippest new blog post that totally changed their way of thinking"

Isn't that exactly who is writing to? Doesn't he WANT people to pontificate about his post and change our thinking?

So why is he mocking his intended audience?
At a certain point, if it's that hard for me to reason about naming something, I like to step back and make sure I'm thinking about the problem at hand the right way.

Of course, I don't work on very hard problems, so I'm sure that's different for everyone.
I stand corrected. I just remember reading about Viaweb using C on your website. But I was right in that the cart used it.
"And if we could convince enough people to ignore her, she .. disappears."

I am long past trying to figure when atwoods joking or completely missing something.
That sounds like a bad idea to me. Arduino electronics are not designed to withstand vibrations, and they will go kapput very quickly.
Absolutely! Just for the record -- since people seem to assume otherwise -- I'm not agreeing with the article. I'm just disagreeing with the idea of ignoring "scalability and performance" and then expecting to solve performance problems by "throwing hardware" at them.
Great idea, but I agree with the rest, you should focus on iTunes or have a web service do it.
The finished product will just use an AVR, not a whole Arduino.
With the Pre's iTunes sync, Palm is tugging on Superman's cape
It doesn't sound like a press release really. The site has been banned, so it's not like he has any other way to make a post.

I respect what he's trying to do, as most other sites would not come and try to apologize for any past wrong doings. They probably wouldn't give a shit.

Maybe this message should have been personally addressed to PG as he decides the ban list, but I don't know PG's preferences.
I thought the first line only contained the absolute path, not the host name. I assume it's checking the host: parameter?

Just checked and twitter.com will accept an HTTP/1.0 request (which doesn't require a host to be specified). So one way to get around this block might be to set up a local proxy that uses HTTP/1.0 to connect remotely.
The success or failure of C3 is a contentious point. However, I'm also wary of the testimony from people who have a stake in XP being successful rather than C3 being successful.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WasChryslerComprehensiveCompensationS...

http://calla.ics.uci.edu/histories/ccc/
For that matter, it's not like daily newspapers have been around forever. They've only existed for a few hundred years.
Elegance was the last thing on my mind. I was referring to maintainability.
From Terrible to terrifying: 35mm film sales have plummeted.

Newspapers aren't going to disappear. Specialty newspapers like the financial times will always have their place on my breakfast table, but the boring, almost-pointless local news?

Thats going on my kindle in a hurry.
Great comment from "Wells" posted on techcrunch:

"yawn Are we going to keep bemoaning the death of VHS too? What about 8-track? Newspapers are dead. People don’t want them. News is not dead, people want it. Figure it out."

Sadly, times have changed. We need to "bail out" any failing business, no matter how ridiculous:

The Ridiculous Newspaper Bailout Begins
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ridiculous-newspaper-bail...

Imagine our current crop of politicians at the turn of the (20th) century: "Save the poor horse and buggy! Just think of the crumbling equine economy!"
I sketch stuff in a notebook (a whiteboard is better, when I have the luxury). If I'm doing graphical stuff (e.g. UI), it's mainly crude layout and interaction diagrams. If it's something more logic, I try and describe the high level view, then informally break it down.

Either way, at some point, I find a good place to start hacking and I feel the urge to say it in code (mainly Python, currently).

When coding, I start by doing the smallest thing that I can run and verify in some way. I keep adding stuff in small increments. I only get back at the notebook when I can't think of, or decide, what to do next.
the variation on that is "a psychopath with a chainsaw will maintain this code. he knows where you live."

then you do pop quiz-style code reviews. let someone's code get reviewed by his peers.
Your variable "vendEmail" contains the keyword "end" and is forbidden according to your rules (depending on your language of choice, of course).
I, American student working in China for a while, had a chance to take a look at Bing just before it went under (and Google itself is operating at maybe 25% tonight) and noticed that it had highly localized search results. I feel that Bing probably was trying to play along with the Chinese government but with June 4th just around the corner it's a very tight ship.
An Authoritative Study of Ewoks
Indeed, I would have to say that Javascript is the dominant language right now.
IE8 vs. IE6: Rise of the new machine
Not done yet... but near Food dispenser :)

http://andres-leon.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-first-arduino-pro...

comments always welcomed!
I think this is the first time that the top NY Startup talent will all be in one place demoing. I'm really looking forward to this.
I think it'd be cool to hear some HN anecdotes as well. What's been your experience with Mibbit?

Although we don't have any advertisements on the main TicketStumbler site, we've seen the price of tickets, on average, plummet. Some Major League Baseball tickets are selling 80% below face value.
Why do Coding Horror links have to disappear from HN for you to not look at them?
How about a web-centric programming environment that compiles web page code to DLLs, and changes pages "dynamically" by unloading the DLL, recompiling, and reloading? Base the language on a modified Ngnix as an execution environment and generate C as intermediate code. Use TCC to compile web pages very quickly. The modified Ngnix would have a big hashtable of dynamic methods, which would be pointers to functions in the DLLs. Make it concurrency-friendly like Erlang by using isolation and green threads.
They were just cheapo (but new) windshield washer fluid pumps. Apply 12v and they go. One of the pumps died after I demo'd it at Rubyconf and served 30 or so drinks during a talk. $10 a piece. You can Google around to find similar pumps.
I know from experience that Winamp plugins are hard to make money from. I also know a guy who put out a CD burning plugin. To distill his email:

X 30,000 downloads and 10 copies sold

X The French don't pay for software

X On average, more Americans pay registration fees than other people (eg, French)

X Have a time-limit (which you have) so people have to pay

X (my own experience) Cracking groups rarely pirate Winamp plugins

[additional]X There is a store for Winamp plugins (and has been for years). If you list there, you get a spotlight for a week or two, and you have to make the most of that - it usually gets a few 1000 downloads and then trails off.
I'm probably with you on the relevance of this on HN; By the way if you really don't care about people downvoting you, then you won't bother mentioning it :)
Does not go far enough....
My reading of the graph is that the IE6 attrition rate is pretty near constant and seemingly unaffected by the launch of IE8. IE8 is growing at roughly the same rate that IE7 is decreasing - what one might expect if you think about the demographics.

Windows user who like new things are switching to IE8. The "rump" will probably wait until they upgrade their PC and get a later OS pre-installed.

I notice that you might need to right click on the graph and select "View Image" to see the right hand edge where all teh action is - it looked OK in my RSS feed....
I believe the framework discussion is of a compiled C "Rails" type MVC framework, I'm not familiar with Smalltalk Server Pages but from an initial google search it doesn't seem to be on par with what rails provides?
> the imperative changes from ‘preserve the current institutions’ to ‘do whatever works.’ And what works today isn’t the same as what used to work.

What a brilliant article! It's an especially fascinating commentary on how people can be willing to go to such great lengths to deny a stark but simple and obvious explanation of what is happening.
The $35+ Arduinos usually have a USB port. Some Arduino (non-USB) clones are now less than $20. It's still a fair bit more than $5, but when you don't know what you're doing, a kit is better than trying to acquire all the parts yourself.
Apple Rejects EFF Updates App, because it links "objectionable" youtube video
i suspect he doesn't want feedback, he wants users/eyeballs/traffic/SEO, and has a clever way of getting it (ask for reviews).
Yes, for now there is AdBlock.

AdBlock basically works by blocking inline ads loaded from offsite - eventually someone is going to figure out how to get around it.

And as far as "too intrusive", that will only last as long as people let it. It'll be the "slowly boiling water" technique, adding more and more intrusive ads slowly enough that there won't be an immediate backlash.

Any company wishing to create content will have to figure out how to monetize it somehow, or else they'll have no reason or ability to create/provide the content in the first place, and right now, the current ad model just isn't enough for the level of profitability that traditional media are accustomed to. If YouTube, one of the most popular sites on the planet, can't come up with enough ad revenue to be profitable, the current status quo just isn't enough. Either they will need to scale back their site, or add a massively increased volume of ads.
I think there are two pieces to it - "making things exciting for the user" and "making it easier to share the excitement". A "tell your friend" link here, "post to facebook" there - this sort of thing.
People not interested in wasting their time probably didn't bother clicking into the comment thread on a post they had no interest in.
Yes. Don't be afraid to post your real URL here. A TinyURL looks unprofessional, shady and gives the impression that you're not quite sure about the success of your startup.
"I just ignore Susan Boyle."

Except obviously he doesn't ;-)

Reminds me of that Zen story about the monks who help a woman across a river.
I find it very interesting that in every forum where I've read comments on this article (here, BoingBoing, and Guardian) most people's first assumption is that when Cory says 'public' he means 'government'. Government is never mentioned in the article and the main parallel he draws is Wikipedia, which seems to indicate that by 'public' he means open source.

I'm not sure how well an open source philosophy could be applied to search. Most successful open source projects that I can think of are things that you download and run your own copy of, whereas search has to be centralized, to some extent. And centralized means resources -- Google has a huge number of datacenters all over the world and stores many petabytes of data. How could an open source project do something like that?

It's an interesting problem to contemplate, but I think the solution would be very difficult.
Ask PG: Really interesting articles on Page 1. Has Anything Changed in Rating?
After a long time, majority of articles on HN today are very interesting and I am hooked. Wondering if PG deployed any of his new trails in ordering/weighing/aging the articles.
It's just that wom is the best marketing. It's free. It's credible. If you can make it work, do it.

"Crossing the Chasm" claims wom works better in smaller, specialized niche markets, because everyone in it has similar needs. Though it takes your point that they do need to actually be talking to each other for wom to work. There are trade-shows and trade-magazones for every industry you can imagine (not saying you should necessarily use them, but it indicates communicativeness), and I believe (without proof) that when people of related industries bump into each other, they'll talk shop, sharing their news and common concerns. hey, what do you think of this new thing? Isn't it terrible what's happening with that new issue?

In practice, I've seen wom for my developer software product on mailing lists, websites and blogs. Someone even targetted it as an AdWords keyword (cool). My product doesn't target a tightly communicative market - it's not specific to an industry, but cuts across them; and it's not a whole solution to a problem, but a tool that's part of a solution. So I think its wom is fairly diluted. And yet... there is wom.

EDIT hmmm, perhaps I'm really targeting the "IT" industry (even though its members work in other industries.) And, I guess, it is by far the most "tech-enabled". I still like "Crossing the Chasms" idea of crafting your product in a way that fits in with those shop-talk conversation: the shared concern +cool solution, in a short, memorable, interesting soundbite (like a joke that goes viral.)
I have to give Jeff some serious props for directly linking to Joel's criticism of CodingHorror, which remains unrefuted: that Jeff a) gets things wrong which it is possible (nay, easy) to get right, that b) this happens due to his tendency to speak about things he doesn't know (such as reviewing books he hasn't read), and c) this isn't the way to move science forward.
I think Mibbit, much like twitter, is one of those apps that is a non-traditional webapp. While its a web based frontend the traffic and distribution of chat messages is a much different beast then what most webapps do. Java is very likely a much better choice for these reasons.
Seemed really overly slow for me. Sticking with gedit with plugins and added syntax highlighting
Police return BC student's computers
Do what I say, not what I do. (Guilty as charged, bad example.)
"Your comment adds less to an intelligent discussion than does the article you're calling a troll."

Sometimes the truth is very simple. It can be considered a troll because it is in the tone "if you don't do as I say you are an idiot, like everyone else".

Second: not all scripting languages are interpreted on the fly. In fact, many of the most popular frameworks load objects once and keep their compiled forms in memory. Even for languages that run under VMs, some of them run under JIT that, in the end, results in machine-language-like times.

Third: I have profiled a lot of web applications and most of the time they are either waiting for the pipe to deliver a request or waiting for the database to deliver the data. Very few web applications I know of do heavy processing. For those, I agree compiled code may help.

and, finally, by the time the guy finishes his C code, an equivalent competing application that uses Rails will be approaching the millionth registered user.
Pete Peterson is a Wall Streeter who's spending millions trying to convince people that Social Security is in crisis (it's not) and that we should privatize it. Giving a billion dollars to promote the prosperity of future Wall Streeters ain't charity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/iousa-failed-scare-...
Add in some 5 to 1, 2, and 3.
When announcing your new web framework, don't be a douche
But in modern AJAX-y Web 2.0 usage, "markup" doesn't even exist as a distinct storage format any more. To the extent that it does, it's stored in wiki or bbcode or some other cooked "markdown" format. HTML exists in the modern world solely as the presentation layer for a data format defined elsewhere.

So what's wrong with putting layout in the presentation layer where it belongs? As it happens, our HTML presentation layer also contains this nice, intuitive mechanism for doing layout using "tables" that works better than pretty much anything else has (anyone remember the XmForm layout widget from motif?). So explain again why we can't use them?

Sometimes I get the feeling that the CSS layout nuts still think we're living in 1997 and that all web content is written by hand. That's just not how it is any more.
I wonder how many pre owners will rely on that feature. I am buying one this weekend (I hope) and I don't have iTunes on my pc. The iTunes experience on windows is extremely annoying to me and will probably just use explorer to move tracks I buy.

I think I would overall use Pandora and streaming more with that phone than as a straight mp3 player.
I'm curious: can you list the ways that the construction industry is communicative?
Heh.. the mood swings of HN users are just adorable. I got +13 for making the exact same remark re: jQuery recently. Either people are hypersensitive to "dick" or "C", either way.. very curious..
Then you are working too much. One of the tenants is "sustainable pace". Are you working more than 35-40 hours a week?
Auto rejecting tinyurl links would be nice.
mlton seems to be used for optimized compilation for releases, while general development is typically done in another SML environment, such as smlnj.

I don't have really concrete experience with SML, just OCaml, which also has its share of warts. It's a fantastic language in certain niches, though; generally, the sort of niches for which dynamic / "scripting" languages are usually a poor fit. (I wouldn't write a serious compiler in Python, for example.) They're very complementary.

I think the ML family has a lot of advantages, but the community is pretty closely tied to academia (much like Haskell, but without the buzz). While that in itself is probably neither good nor bad, in this case a lot of the terminology used is especially math-y; There are many features ML has that programmers would find tremendously useful, except they're usually discussed using Greek letters, which is insular. I got a copy of The Definition of Standard ML from Amazon, hoping to get further insight into the language's design, and found it completely impenetrable. (Then again, I'm not a grad student.)

Newer languages seem to be using type inference (finally!), but as far as I know, nobody has really ran with the design of its module system.
It's the same reason there aren't newspapers with one story per page and just ads around it.

Sadly, many newspapers seem to approach this today.
> A bash script is not an "icon".

At least on my machine, executables without an extension turn into icons that are run in Terminal.
So, about this Shopify Platform
> If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better

You might as well campaign for a general strike. "Vote with your feet" is the age-old leper's bell of market fundamentalists, who deny the reality of tough collective-action problems.

I wish there were some way to confiscate your diploma and force you to live the life of an average high school dropout. But of course, you surely believe that you are exceptional, destined from birth to live out a rags-to-riches tale no matter what. I would like to see just how far your GED and volunteer work would get you.

> you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed

What reason is there to believe this? As far as American middle-class society is concerned, someone without a high-school diploma is a non-person.
INQ working on a mass market ‘Twitter phone’
No, the solution is not to write web application in C, it's to make faster interpreters for higher level languages.

I like not having to worry about buffer overflows and memory management and such.

That said, I'll be interested to see what he comes up with.
Enough with the Spreadsheets
Really? Do those "click here to share" things make any difference? Has anyone seen a measurable difference?
Search is important but much more important is being able to switch search engines at will and without pain.

Today you can do that with google, yahoo, ask, etc.

So, one company offering the best search service is no threat at all, and competition is always good.

As long as Google offers the best service I'll be using them happily.
Actually, the one area that I think print has an advantage over digital is tangibility. I love the web and all things digital, but there's still something special about sitting in a coffee shop and reading a newspaper or paperback novel, or leisurely paging through an art book. The Kindle is awesome and I'll give up all my physical books when I get one, but something real and meaningful will be lost in the transition, I'm afraid. Something worth losing, but something just the same.
I would have bought this right now if it existed for mac/iTunes. I'm a music student when I'm not an entrepreneur. Sounds like a good idea just poor market selection.
How To Host and Build Your Own WordPress Blog - Part 1
If you think something sucks to the extent that it's actively harming the world and you want it to go away, leaving comments to that effect is not the way. I know, because I bear the psychic scars of a million online flamewars, dating all the way back to 300 baud dualup modems and BBSes. I've been doing this a very long time. I've seen what works, and what doesn't.

If you're giving developers terrible advice on, for instance, how to write secure code, with an audience the size of yours, you have transcended 'online flamewar'. It's not a game anymore. At some point, at some level of influence, you actually take on some kind of responsibility to be right, and when you're wrong, you should be called on it in no uncertain terms.