skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem is that the limitation is physics, not engineering. There is little overlap between what characteristics make a good airplane and what make a good car. Additionally, many of the characteristics that make a good [airplane|car] directly work against your efforts to make a good [car|airplane].

Let me give you some concrete examples: You want an airplane to be light, have good impact protection from the front (because airplanes very rarely get run into by a mountain from behind), and not require long runways. A car, on the other hand, must have good impact protection from all sides, fit inside a lane on the road, and good acceleration so you can merge onto the freeway.

The second car requirement and last airplane requirement together necessitate folding wings, which are heavier than fixed wings (and also more complicated and more expensive). Short of a powered-lift design (which is going to be even more insanely expensive), there is no other way around the physics. It doesn't matter how good your engineers are. Physics puts limits on what you can do with a wing.

The side and rear impact protection on a car do nothing beneficial to the airplane, but add weight. Again, clever engineering can only do so much within the limits of physics with regard to material strength. I don't care if you use the most expensive quantum-dot-infused titanium-nanotubes: Real-world materials have strength limits.

As part of making an airplane light, you're probably going to want to put a small, air-cooled engine in it (the Rotax 912, used in the linked aircar, produces between about 90 and 110 HP, depending on the variant). Even a light car is going to have very poor acceleration with that engine. Again, this is a matter of physics: F=ma. Some sort of continuously-variable transmission will help a bit, but you still only have 110 HP to work with.

Smartphones have improved radically over the past 10 years because the problem was not physics, but rather engineering. Software engineers made better software (which is really what made the iPhone different from Blackberries when it was introduced) and hardware engineers made better CPUs to run the software at a decent speed.
From TFA:

>Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room?

>If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.

The third announcement will be the controller Valve patented some time ago. This controller replaces a thumbstick with a trackball, and might let you swap out input devices for different games. Regardless, it'll be painless to set up with SteamOS.
What "science" has he contributed?
I agree regarding the nausea, and I never get motion sick normally.

Games where you're not directly walking around are much better. I expect racing/flight sims or MechWarrior style games will be more popular than FPS initially.
Not my project, but I wanted something like this a few weeks back. The idea is simple, yet effective. Considering the nature of HN, I figured others might be interested as well.
Ah! Multiple tunnels is great, my biggest issue was piping multiple services.
Technically you are supposed to pre-inspect your car before driving every time also. Remember the DMV course taken in high school?

Also you don't need a flight plan, that is completely optional (it is essentially a SAR service if you crash). With modern avionics you can dynamically recalculate flight paths on the fly in the cockpit.

You really don't need clearances either, unless flying into class B airspace (which you don't really want to do that with a small plane anyways). You can fly across the country without ever telling anyone.

Also having separate planes and cars has real disadvantages. What about when you arrive at the destination? You always have to rent a car. Not only that you have to store the plane which can be quite expensive. There are many advantages to this.
Twitter Alerts: Push Notifications From Emergency Organizations  During Crises
DEA: “No Constitutionally Protected Privacy Interest” in Your Prescription Rec's
Anti-drone activist detained under 'anti-terrorism' laws
Too many unsynched traffic lights in a grid formation often results in you sitting at a red light with no traffic moving in front of you, which is infuriating and inefficient. (Case in point, besides LA, is Toronto which seems to be designed this way on purpose.) This situation is alleviated by stop signs or traffic circles that give you the ability to advance when there is, in fact, no cross traffic.
We just have to upgrade Google's driverless car. And the drawbacks you mention are the same drawbacks when we stopped using horses. Why do you need a dangerous car when you can use a more safe horse without a drivers license?
Why would anyone be hurt/surprised that people don't necessarily like donating hundreds of hours of their time to their employer for no additional pay?
You sure you want the same standard of living as 1950? No A/C, high-maintenance car (1, if any), fast-perishing food, data bandwidth orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude (not a typo) lower, half the living space, health care by which I'd be dead four times over by now, 45RPM records, etc.

Methinks you're getting your 4x standard of living's worth.
What a relief. Can I invest in his company? Does he take bitcoins?
Not so fast:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/low-status-workers-are...
Java fills a particular niche (code with an emphasis on readability)

I'm a bit skeptical of this claim. While Java does remove many of the opportunities other languages provide for making a small piece of code do something unexpected, I've found that Java's verbosity makes it hard to see the big picture.

Of course, good programmers manage in spite of any limitations of the language, and bad programmers manage to write incomprehensible code no matter how much a given tool tries to guide them in the right direction. I suspect it will always be this way, and that's not a bad thing.
I have a wired XBox 360 controller that I use for Big Picture, and it works out of the box on both Linux and Windows. It's also a fairly comfortable controller (Microsoft can make good hardware, it seems).
StrongLoop | Developing a Mobile Backend Using StrongNode – Part 3
I think that they're just playing it a little safe. If Valve can't convince me to buy a steam machine, despite the large steam library which I'd be able to play on it, how are they going to convince my XBox playing cousins, who would have to buy all new games.

Some of the biggest fiascos in gaming have come when company took its fans for granted while trying to expand into a new market (e.g. Ultima 8). The usual result is losing your existing base while not building a new one. Once Valve is sure that the PC gamers are on board, who should be their easiest sell, they'll start going after the console players.
I'm actually gearing towards a more comprehensive overview of the current options for HTML5 development including more detailed comparison on size , intended use, e.t.c
Hmm. Interesting. I recently incorporated Groovy into an existing legacy (web) app. As the app is still under Java 1.5, I could not get the static/strict stuff to work - it needs 1.6 or better support.

So, there's consensus that this feature is not ready for prime time? (I don't want an answer from people who hate Groovy in general)
Literally. Source: I live a few miles from his old compound.
Elop needs the Microsoft $25M bonus to pay for a divorce settlement
Nice Leimi! Great API. If anyone is looking for a similar but hosted solution, give vinci.io a try. You can turn off any tools you don't need and leave the drawing tools enabled.
I've used MTurk before to find emails and I know that part works. The Google news API to get leads is ingenious!
I think this also exposes a problem with most tech sites who issue fifty-billion gadgets a decimal score from 0 to 10. This won't help people decide on a controller, if there are thirty products out there.

With mice, you can usually just buy Logitech and be guaranteed to get a great product, but with controllers, you'll probably end up relying on word of mouth.

This is why The Wirecutter is so important, but people who play videogames will go to videogame websites for advice instead - and won't be any wiser for it.
I've really loved using this service in the free beta, but I've often wondered whether I'd be willing to pay the delivery fee on a regular basis. We'll see!
I believe that you will find this interesting...

https://www.google.com/patents/US8241126

Video game controller having user swappable control components

Original Assignee: Valve Corporation

Abstract:

A game controller is provided. One or more main control input interfaces on the game controller consist of generalized sockets. A variety of modular input interfaces can be plugged into these sockets. Hardware specific to the input type of the modular input is contained within the modular input itself, and plugged in via an interface. This allows for dual analog sticks, a combination of analog and trackball, or further any combination of touchpad, directional pad, or additional components.
Discovery Showdown: iTunes Radio, Pandora And Spotify
Maybe they are saving that for their Unity3D competitor :)
Reality has a better scheme: you can quit any time and work somewhere preferable.
Installed it on my iPad and tried to set up a credit card. Total failure. The UI is hideous and doesn't render properly on iPad. JavaScript validation error on page load disables the user -- can't go back, can't cancel out, and closing & re opening the app returns you to the frozen page. Who needs this aggravation? Uninstalled and wandered off. Back to shopping on Amazon.
Just the hotkey for Alfred. I use Cmd-space. No app-specific shortcut. But after you press a key in the search bar, you can press alt-1 etc to make your selection. Repeat it a few times for the same key and the order of the results will be updated.
Your pricing data are wrong.

Terrafugia Transition, new: $279,000

Cessna 172 Skyhawk, new: $289,500

The Transition only seats two while the 172 seats four, but I'd personally rather have the plane that also drives.

http://www.terrafugia.com/aircraft/transitionR‎

http://www.cessna.com/single-engine/skyhawk
"Roadable"? Really? I was unaware road was a verb.
Yeah, they're not gonna sell any copies if they try too hard with their obscure language parodies on that one street in the game.
A horse can do better than a Jeep, when the terrain gets rough, you don't have access to fuel, you don't want to make too much noise,...

Horses for courses, as it were.
A richer hashtag experience in Google Search
So, according to the last answer, the 3rd announcement will probably be about a gamepad or an input device of sorts. That's a bummer. I know it was very unlikely, but HL3 announcement would have made me so happy. I'm still hopeful though, since it's been confirmed that Source 2 is in the works. Valve usually shows off their new engine with a new HL game.
Thanks a bunch for the bug reports. Will fix them.
It's also time to take into account those who don't have a G+ profile...
My #1 Lead Generation Tactic | theAdmin
15% of Americans don't use Internet
1. Will look at it
2. Possibly fb's implementation. I just use their standard like button.
That number is a hybrid number for EMT Basics and EMT Paramedics (- and admittedly I'm guilty of doing the same thing in my original comment)

http://www.indeed.com/salary/EMT.html

Shows EMT-B salary at $19,000, and EMT-Paramedic salary at around $41,000.

Source Two: I worked as an EMT-B. Starting salary was $9.60/hr ($19,200), with 3% annual pay raises.
Yes, they do. The question is what happens with the heat from the UV - it will need to be transported away somehow. If we don't have significant heat conduction or convection it will have to be radiated off.

Sunlight does not bring in a lot of IR, and almost all of that is absorbed in the upper layers of the atmosphere. What you have to consider then is ambient IR radiation from the surroundings due to thermal emission. The process is the same as the one we're assessing for the PVs, and the wavelengths are not too different. PVs are normally warmer than the surroundings due to their higher temperature, so less energy will be absorbed that radiated off in the IR.

Hm, maybe I misunderstood how you want to remove the IR? Let's consider some sort of reflectant shell around the PVs but not part of them. On the inside it would receive the heat from the PVs and of course, also reflect great parts of it back, letting it accumulate. We built an insulation. Not good. Maybe you can explain your idea in more detail?

The mechanism I discussed above is of course not the only relevant process, things like heat conduction and heat capacity of the material are also important.

In conclusion: Yes, there would be a net loss of incoming energy, but the mechanims that let energy be transported off might be severely hindered by our alteration. Thus, an accumulation of heat.

There might be ways to make it happen nevertheless, eg with water cooling, but it would require more infrastructure. (But then, I'm not an engineer..)
Why do they never mention full specs on that page! Some of the Kindle devices don't have a compass and/or GPS.

This leads to endless frustration with app users.
Wow, thanks for putting this together. I really liked seeing the image of the press pack. It seems like a excellent example of what to do.
Oh, yeah. Good old C-m M-x M-generate-hyperlinked-documentation.
And overlooks that a "scripty" language helped get a minimum prototype done much more easily than COBOL-esque Java coding.

Of course, if your site becomes popular, performance matters later.
The hardware manufacturers will love having a chance to compete with consoles in the living room. It opens up an entirely new revenue stream for them. They'll be marketing this new hardware, and helping to push it into homes. For example, DELL running a marketing campaign, 'Faster than a Playstation 4, more games than an Xbox One, and half the price. Check out the new 2016 Dell Steam Machines.'
Look through the pre-iPhone pre-3G "smartphones" and the number of years they were in production to from the late 90s onward

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#History

They were shitty "computers" and very expensive phones. People had been predicting that they would happen for the longest time, and until the iPhone it pretty much seemed like nothing more than a geek dream.

Regarding the roadable car - I can imagine a fantastic use-case for commuters [on okay-weather days]. Let's say you want to live 100 miles from Boston or SF but would be looking at a brutal morning commute. But if some future-model was safe/fast/efficient/less expensive and there was infrastructure to land, all of a sudden you have a real use case.

Now the one in this video looks positively dangerous. But it doesn't mean down the road there can't be one that flies completely autonomously in most weather and can land on short runways in convenient locations in the middle of a city - that you can just drive off into a parking spot. Maybe it starts by costing as much as a tesla roadster.

I don't imagine any of this will actually happen, but if somebody can get you a roadable airplane for $100,000 that flies itself, it becomes a lot more interesting.
I said maybe. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're just not fit to use a "revolutionary product" that requieres dozens of lines of JS that requieres modern browsers or worst anything else.
I hate this "x hates y" template for titles.
First Computer Made From Carbon Nanotubes Debuts
Just sickening.
work ethic, n: A word used by those trying to guilt others into doing what the selfish person wants.
A little project for writing jabber bots
I wonder if there's a big project to fix script writing...
Going Database Free Feels Great
And I've never been able to play Super Mario Bros. with a keyboard. It goes both ways.
Link to source code: https://github.com/songz/OpenTokRTC
Beer v/s Coffee : How your brain responds.
overtime payments are guaranteed, on an increasing scale

Shades of Dilbert's "I'm gonna write me a new minivan!" http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-13/

You're encouraging workers to slack their 40 hours to compel the employer to require overtime. National productivity would crash.
If you pay for it, it's a Pro version.
SteamEngine would've been rather cool too... unless there is something already called the Steam Engine... or if it didn't confuse the connotation too much with other software types of "engines"
Thanks, the point of the video is to help our brains to visualize the surroundings. Even if you look at the video for just a few seconds, the image will remain in our minds.
I didnt realize they were still in business
Yes, though I think on public benchmarks this is still not the case. There's a dog-breed classification problem in this year's Fine-Grained challenge (https://sites.google.com/site/fgcomp2013/) so we'll see in December!
What Makes a City Great?
How is it stored when using the undo/redo buttons?
Best feature request! Will put it in.
I recently went down the WAS rabbit hole for "The Harder I Practice, the Luckier I Get" and came back up out of it with an earlier version which I actually like more:

"The more you know, the more luck you have."

Which is attributed to the fantasy author L. Frank Baum, creator of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in a small collection of maxims from the book “The Burman: His Life and Notions” dated 1896.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/14/luck/
Very importantly, CPI does not hedonically adjust health care or housing (two of the major drivers of inflation). The main categories that are hedonically adjusted are clothing and appliances.

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpihqaitem.htm

This is a major omission. To see how glaring this is, consider a back injury I suffered in 2012. I paid a pretty penny for surgery/scans which didn't exist in 1980 [1], and it was worth every penny and more. If the injury happened in 1962 I'd be disabled in 1963, and probably 1973. In 2013 I deadlifted 1.5x bodyweight. Without a hedonic adjustment this looks like inflation.

[1] It was actually pretty cheap since I was in India, but in the US it would have cost a lot.
New Chrome Dev channels brings ChromeOS to Windows Metro
It drowns the voices of my co-workers talking around me..
Nice job, guys! This could seriously put skype and webex (ughhh) out of business.
I think DropBox wants to improve its ecosystem: The more and the better apps/3rd parties are integrating DropBox the more reasons people have to use DropBox.

The Datastorage API makes Dropbox a "copy" of iCloud: You can sync stuff between devices. This was possible since the beginning of Dropbox but it was a lot of work for developers. Syncing is not an easy problem to solve.
That could be consistent with reports of the 3DS. There was a huge outcry that people were feeling ill, and the furor died down after a bit. Going back and hearing from the same people who had complained, they either had adjusted the effect to acceptable levels, turned it off completely, or got used to the effect.

It takes a while to get comfortable with standing on a boat, as well.
I find the opposite on the error handling. The lack of exceptions is one of the few things I like about go. I just wish they had done error handling correctly instead of the stupid kludge they put in because "durr what is an ADT?". I agree that the lack of parametric polymorphism makes go essentially useless, I just don't understand how python is any better. It also lacks parametric polymorphism, and in fact polymorphism period. It is a unityped language.
All good points. But this is now a significant barrier to just casually checking out a book. The OP was fretting about ordering the book on Amazon because they "can't start reading it for a few days".

Suggesting he get the book via interlibrary loan and then OCR'ing it themself would surely take longer than Amazon delivering it. And then I still maintain that distributing it illegally over Pirate Bay is risky. Yes, you can take a few good security steps. But all they'd need is the public library assistant to notice you are uploading to Pirate Bay or something. Yes you can take steps, but this is already way beyond a casual look through the book.
Strange names are much easier to search for.
Games designed for the gamepad do work nicely on a gamepad, but they achieve this by slowing down the FPS gameplay so thoroughly that they functionally exist within their own genre, as well as providing substantial auto-aim. The PC-style of FPS gaming, which is substantially faster-paced than the console-style, is dependent on having a pointing-device for aiming.

Experiments in allowing gamepad and mouse players to compete directly have proven absurd to balance, since you either give the joystick players aim-bots or let them be crippled. Joysticks are meant to provide you with good control over a vector - you can comfortably select and gradually alter the velocity of something with a joystick.

Pointing devices are meant to control a position, not a vector. "facing", from a user perspective, is best expressed as a position. The player is thinking "I want to face this way" not "I want to turn this fast".

The main reason Halo and GoW feel bad on mouse+keyboard is that they feel glacially, frustratingly slow on a system where the conventions tend to be far faster-paced (because the interface allows for it) and because the games used heavy auto-aim to compensate for the difficulty in making precise movements on a gamepad.

Which is fine, I'm no snob. But at this point you've created a substantially different game with a substantially different experience.

edit: to take it further, notice the huge difference in the DOTA and RTS genres between PCs and consoles - places where auto-aim won't really fix the game. The interface has to be so fundamentally altered that they're a whole new genre.
Star Wars theme played on reprap 3d printer
Also, the l and the g are similar to Trebuchet too.

For me I wish more fonts made a clear distinction between 0 (number) and O (Letter), I, l, and 1, 5's and S's, and B and 8. Instead it seems to always be about a's and g's.
Announcing SAP BW on HANA Trial Offering On SAP HANA Marketplace
Would it make sense to try to get this to start on boot?
It looks like it barely lifts off and even then doesn't look particularly stable.
Actually you do need to install drivers for this to work:

http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/xbox-360-controlle...
Looks awesome! I need exactly this, but it needs to work for Safari/Chrome for the latest iPad. Any ideas?
Are people using a mouse and keyboard going to play against people using a controller? The results will be hilarious (in that anyone using a controller wont stand a chance). Everyone will be forced to use a mouse.
It's very relevant to the question of whether real wages actually did go down. If people live better than they did in 1950, and they do it on 2013 wages, then real wages did not actually go down.

There must instead be some mistake in the way real wages are calculated. (Hint: there are many, mostly in the computation of CPI.)
Seem to me the opposite, they are targeting existing steam users, evident by the streaming option and portable library.
I wouldn't call Yahoo new. It IPO'ed 17 years ago, barely 10 years after Microsoft and Adobe.

Red Hat IPO'ed 14 years ago. Even so, it only has a market cap of less than $9B, less than 1/3 of companies like Yahoo (and 1/30th of Google's). They do some neat things in open source and virtualization, but I wouldn't call them "hot".
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kanazawa/papers/eccv2012_dog_fina...

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~farrell/birdlets
Come on, I'm sure you can be more condescending.

I also like how you first imply that social institutions cannot be travesties, then you give an example of a social institution that is a travesty.