skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree. Apple fanboys are like Porsche aficionados. They buy it because it's sexy and elitist, therefore, the consumer is also sexy and elite by association. It doesn't mean that Apple's products are better than any other, just more stylish. Do I even have to mention the huge number of flops that Steve Jobs had prior to the ipod? Do people remember the NeXT cube? The Newton? That mac that looked like a toilet seat?

I myself read your article and saw the ketchup bottle picture on the page prior to reading your thoughts about it and thought to myself "Oh yea, that upside-down ketchup bottle - that was a good product change, I never have to tap the side of the glass bottle again to make the ketchup come out! Yea!" But hearing your comments on the futility of the design change made me think that perhaps you just aren't the typical user of the product and you're the exception that's not satisfied with the design, not the rule.

I think that companies are making changes that work well with the company's 'vision' and sometimes the company's vision needs to change. The whole thing about Dodge/Chrysler is that they make larger vehicles - gas hungry, 2-ton trucks that are still very popular. Fiat bought them thinking that they can re-tool the assembly lines to make cars and parts for smaller, fuel-efficient cars which will be more popular (see Europe,France,... - people drive those crappy, little 2-cylinder cars everywhere and big trucks and minivans are not even heard of for the typical customer). Chrysler/Dodge made great changes for their trucks - I own one and it's more reliable than my wife's Honda Minivan, but the company's focus was on large cars, which are not in favor anymore by the general public. They made a good product and I'm sure that the CEO of GM probably owns and drives GM cars (as well as some luxury cars) on a very regular basis. The problem is that they were not seeing the big picture, that's all.
In the past, having seen sizeable fraternity archives of Physics/Chemistry 101/201 tests, I can attest that professors reuse problems on tests all the time. Even if they change the initial parameters, its the same problem.
This is a bit old (as featured in Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence), but I haven't seen it on HN, and SearchYC only brings up a few comments on this old submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362657

I'm thinking about starting a project to put together a homebrew version, but I have zero hardware experience. Any hardware hackers in the NYC/Brooklyn area willing to get together to act as a mentor on a cool project? I'll probably start heading out to Resistor on Thursdays for their craft nights to get started.
It's certainly fascinating, but I'm not convinced it's sustainable. I'd like to see someone who has held this schedule up for a period of years.
It sounds like a fun experiment, but hard to control for the fact that your decisions, your "effective IQ", etc. are all greatly affected by being tired. This would let you do more stuff, but you were doing it all sub-optimally.
I don't see how that matters. Theft is theft, isn't it? The flip side could be that, since Trent Reznor is an important name, he could feel the need to stand up for all the little guys who get their content stolen yet can't afford to do anything about it.
And maybe I need the source code to Windows just in case they change something that I didn't want them to change.
Doesbarclayssucktoday.com
User Experience / Price / Design / Exclusivity / existing infrastructure / external pressure (see legal reqs, etc)

A product / service can create value in all of those areas.. some are either mutually exclusive or at least practically so.

To even use Apple as an example.. Great Operating system - unless you want a netbook. Or want to play games. Or create blu-ray disks.

Put it this way - I'm sure you can make a better hamburger than mcdonalds. But I'm sure Ray Croc made a whole lot more money than most of the people on HN ever will.
I met my girlfriend on OKC!
Actually, I really appreciate the assignments and solutions on the Stanford Engineering Everywhere courses. It's probably just as valuable as the lectures.
Twitter Flips the Bird at La Russa, Previews Verified Accounts
On the unfiltered internet -every- audience gets quickly dominated by antisocial malcontents.

So there's no way to infer from their presence whether they're a representative sample. I mean, people troll and spew racial slurs on -home improvement sites-. I don't think that means Whirlpool and Bob Villa themselves attract the dregs.
But the professors aren't stupid (one would assume). They're going to know about this guy, remember his site, and very easily compare the work?

(Edit: I don't have all the answers, or an opinion on this piece, just playing devil's advocate)
Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web
Kevin's blogging has always impressed me, great 20min video.
My brother was the brand manager for a dying food brand (well known national brand). The first thing he did when he was hired to improve the brand was to improve the quality of the food (better cuts of meat, fresher veggies, lower sodium, etc.). You know what happened? The customer complaint line was jammed with pissed people. He did a complete 180 and removed the higher quality items (the healthy stuff like vegetables), increased the quantity and sales started to climb.

That is a clear case of people wanting crap... in fact demanding it instead of the better quality product.

Note: Sorry for being vague about the brand but he is still there and might not want the full story public.
Yeah, but why make it harder for the prof? What's the upside to allowing students to publish the answers?
This was largely inspired by Thomas's blog post yesterday about AES vs. RC4 -- he started me thinking "gee, someone really should sit down and tell people what they should be using so that they don't keep doing dumb things like using RC4".
Do Bing.com ads work?
We check for an MX record associated with the domain, and leave it at that. I'd rather deal with spam than lose a customer.
>> they want widgety, simple applications that do one thing well.

Oh my - THAT is a familiar phrase! I think as the general population become more tech-savvy and networking becomes vastly more important, that philosophy will be a big deal. Go UNIX!
Analyzing the Design of Websites: Apple, Microsoft & 37 Signals
Professors should already be using new problems in each instance of the class. In particular, frats and other student societies often pass things down, and you don't want to advantage them. Trying to stop people from posting knowledge on the web that is already public is ineffective and unfair.
This is a crazy thought but bear with me here.

What if the expenses could be cut by, oh, reducing layers of crufty bureaucracy in, say, web site interaction design? And hiring designers and developers who will make it happen, and then... trusting them?

If there are 15 committees that must be appeased, that's Very Very Bad.

And this is just the web site. The web site cannot cause planes to fall from the sky.

But it can cause customers to have heart attacks... Look at this stinking pile, I mean, testament to the power and usefulness of multiple stakeholders:

http://aa.com/women
Mercurial: The Definitive Guide
I had a good teacher at UVM who took time out of class to discuss this subject one day. He made it crystal clear that as a student, you own everything you code. As a professor, or paid person of the university, that is not necessarily the case. But as a student, what you write is yours. From the other side, I could see how the professor doesn't want people posting code (most likely solutions) online.
I tried this two years ago with a friend. We weren't able to do it for very long, and we had a lot of trouble staying to the schedule (and not oversleeping).

Eventually, you reach this sort of zombie lucidity where you're awake and conscious, but you're not 100% there, in my opinion. I'm not sure if that affected my critical thinking skills, but certainly some part of me was always asleep on that schedule.

Hey, maybe this would have gone away if we'd been able to stick to it for longer. It was absolutely one of the funnest experiments I have tried and I want to do it again sometime.
Could tribal Owned Media Save Newspapers?
There's lots of evidence that the best leader usually is the founder. For example, Henry Ford made his company possibly the biggest and best auto-company in the world (especially at the time) because he had a vision and the vision was to make vehicles cheap enough that anyone could have one. He paid workers the equivalent of $105 dollars an hour and sold vehicle the equivalent of $7,000 by the time the Model T was retired.

He was then forced to switch to the annual model that other companies were doing, which is currently credited with severely damaging the car industry due to the severe lack of brand cohesion. At the time, everybody knew the Model T was a very sturdy vehicle, but today you've got to rely on a models previous generations. Now car companies are considering Henry Ford's original model, instead of releasing a new model every year, you release a new model say every decade so that it gets progressively cheaper and more reliable. People with less money will buy a reliable model later in the cycle when it's cheaper, where as people with large disposable incomes will quickly switch to the new expensive version, which is evidenced by the iPod phenomena.

I have mechanics in my family, in fact my father owned his own shop at one point, and when you hear people discuss vehicles they invariably end up saying things like "The 92-95 were good cars, but the 96-97 were disasters". Apple wouldn't have turned the iPod into such a needless necessity by having bad models; the iPod Nano 1G was at serious threat of this with the whole easy screen breaking because they reduced the surface coating too much, however after a bit of a rough start the Nano is now of the same standard as the classic, you don't have to worry about the screen breaking (even though I think they still have to ship with a case because of the EU's 5 year lifetime law for electronic products).

The whole founders leaving the company appears to be a Web 2.0 invention. Creators now can get enough buzz about an idea for someone to pick it up and run with it. However, back even twenty years ago if you failed so did your company. IIRC Henry Ford had two failed automotive companies before he started the current company, I believe he also had a third which he used to get majority control of the current company from the shareholders; I believe his second company was a partnership with the Dodge Brothers. The Dodge Brothers Company was sold almost 5 years after their death, by their widows, and it was the biggest monetary transaction in the world, at the time. If Henry Ford had had the buzz around the mass production of the automobile, I doubt his first company would have gone out of business, however I doubt he would have had the knowledge and experience to run the business himself, famously without a single accountant during his lifetime and IIRC the longest period for a large company in the US to not be audited for taxes.
Notes from my experience:

http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/polyphasic-sleep-e...

http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi...
Webbynode (Hosting for Developers) Launches
I was referring to the bottle that has liquid-reduction technology you are talking about. There appears to be some mechanism that only lets the viscous liquid through, but it keeps jamming and preventing anything from coming through. Not a big deal, but still annoying.

I respect Apple as a company. Making the assumption that I would blindly follow every move Apple makes just because I mention Steve Jobs is a good CEO is a low attack and also incorrect. Why are you attacking me personally?
So, let me make sure I understand... If I had deployed my app on EC2 in two or more availability zones AND had tested it to ensure that it would continue to work if one zone became unavailable, then my users woudn't have noticed, right?

If this is the case, I'd interpret this outage as a testament to how good AWS is!
To encourage students to take pride in their work?

Nowadays it is hardly any extra work for the prof either, any coursework of substance gets put through plagiarism detection anyway.
Yeah, but you don't have people denying that gravity exists do you?

There is no consensus on the exact mechanism for climate change. That's clearly way out of our realm of knowledge right now. However, people going around saying "humans have absolutely nothing to do with climate change, so just keep doing whatever you're doing and stop worrying about the potential consequences" are doing a great disservice to humanity.
Maybe you do. That's solidly among the reasons some of us use open software.
Disaster Recovery External Hard Drive Withstands Fire and Water
Agreed. I think it's up to the interviewer to redirect the responses towards something more meaningful. For example, "what criteria would you use to evaluate what you find on Google?" Or "how would you determine if the information was up to date/accurate/etc.?" I've found that a person might jump to the "I'd Google it" answer but still have a good knowledge of the problem domain.
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Evolution Can Occur in Less Than Ten Years
I'm interested in sleep hacking as well. Please report back here what you think of the device. Thanks!
Bullion and Bandits: the Rise and Fall of Another Visionary
During the campaign to get Rick Astley voted as Best Act Ever for last years MTV Europe Music Awards, I started receiving large volumes of hate mail from one or two of Astley's fans (I've never seen anything quite like it before or since... and I've seen some pretty angry emails).

Nice rant, and that line is particularly striking. You'd think the fans would be favoring such an award for Rick, given they were his fans. They were jealous some new groupies would get to him first, likely. But to be such strong fans for Rick 20 years later: indicates added lunancy. Sheesh, you got Rick Rolled and a half: why would you want Astley to receive such an award? I mean back in the day Rick's music was commercially successful, today it's scene style-wise as a caricature to be mocked. Bizarre to the max.
Is this Official Google merchandise site?
Where to buy original Google merchandise online?
Can we get rid of this howtoforge spam?

People look for tutorials when they need one, we don't need our newsfeed clogged with them.
The best way to read a book (Kindle/Iphone/Paperback/Audio)
I wanted to buy Official Google merchandise (especially the Rubik's Cube and a few wearables). The only site which pops up in Google search is the link above. But I am skeptical. Is the Google Store official site by Google? Doesnt look like that. Also where can I buy official Google merchandise, online?
Online Advertising In Europe: 2008 Was Tough, 2009 Will Be Worse
It seems they are banking on the brand Google, it really doesn't have anything that makes it look like a Google Inc. website... something's wrong!!
Sorry if my comment came across as attacking you. I was trying to state that your "attack" on Heinz and it's CEO.. is unwarranted. I'd don't work for the company but I am a fan.

You are absolutely correct about bureaucratic crap getting in the way of innovation. I even agree with your point.

But I must say I am tired of hearing about how great Steve Job's is... He is great but Apple can't be the only company that has a focus on design and innovation.

Once again - sorry if I came across as attacking you - I didn't mean to...
Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified
The article linked by OP is just plain wrong on so many aspects. The one linked here, OTHO, seems to get things quite right.

I am a neuroscientist and I study sleep (genetics of sleep, to be precise); I am amused and intrigued by the amount of threads concerning sleep I found on HN. Only in the last week I think I could find 4 or so.

May I suggest few hints on the matter? As a general rule:

- there is no a common "minimum amount of sleep". Sleeping time, sleeping needs and ability to cope with sleep deprivation are different in different people. By the age of 30 you should definitely be able to know what your needs are.

- the accepted rule is: if you need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, then you are sleep deprived. sleep deprivation is detrimental for your performance

- if you cannot achieve a night of resting sleep you might be experiencing a sleep problem. sleep apnea is very frequent and very likely if you are overweight.

- don't believe of self-reported sleeping patterns, especially if they come from eccentric people or even worse if they date back centuries. Italian dictator Mussolini used to have one person staging in his office at night: he would leave the lights on and move around occasionally so that people looking at the window would believe the Duce never slept. The idea that sleep is for weak and superhero don't need sleep is just BS, of course.

- Let me conclude with a thought. I like to hear your opinions about this. I do research for living and I have learned that putting way too much effort in a very risky business can be very dangerous for your motivation. If you work 80/90 hours a week on something that will fail (and startups, like research, have a high risk of failure) you may end up being so demotivated that you will likely not give yourself a second chance. What I want to say is: if you work so much that it gets to the point when is not fun any more, maybe you should consider slowing down.
A Bull Market in Social Entrepreneurs
So does bash.

http://bash-completion.alioth.debian.org/

It's extensible to boot.
I thought that Steve Pavlina ended up writing some additional follow-up articles to his polyphasic experiment - make sure to read those, too. It didn't sound like something that would work for most people IMHO.
Ten of the coolest and most powerful supercomputers of all time
And yet, he's wearing headphones.
I meant to add kudos for that as well, thanks for mentioning that trickjarrett.
One Math Geek's Plan to Reform Wall Street
In the Q&A:

"Q. Help! I searched for ?????? on Google.com and cant find what Im looking for/get wrong results! A. Im afraid we can ONLY answer questions relating to the Google Store. Our friends at help@google.com will be happy to assist you in any other Google related enquiries."

Google would not use punctuation so gratuitously and miss apostrophes.
This seems like in our diurnal world to be living against the natural rhythm of things, but for space travelers, this seems like perfect prep for a trip. Maybe Steve should consult with NASA.
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Rich Schefren Reveals The ONE Thing That You Can Easily Change In Your Business To Unlock It's Full Potential...
Me and most people I know are skeptical of actually finding a significant other in a bar. It's difficult to get to know someone in an environment like that - particularly when it's that noisy.

But you mentioned the pick-up artist community, and they are focused on sex, not relationships. It seemed to me you missed the parent post's innuendo.
Microsoft kills Money: More evidence of the end of shrinkwrap software.
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The same would be true of startups that become big companies. For example I'm sure it would be a nightmare at somewhere like Google to make UI changes to the core search listings.

I think someone who has worked on both sides would provide a better insight into the problems faced at large corporate companies compared to the startup environment.
By the age of 30 you should definitely be able to know what your needs are.

Well, except that it was around 30 that my needs started changing. Until then I often needed 8-9 hours a day of sleep, but sometime after 30 I noticed that I wasn't sleeping as long (and I'd long been out of the habit of using an alarm clock until last year, because I worked for myself and never scheduled anything in the early morning). Now my average is more like 7 hours a day, and it's not uncommon for me to wake up after 5 or 6 hours feeling just as rested as I used to after 9.

Talking about sleep schedules with my father led to the interesting revelation that this happened to him about my age, and it continued decreasing right along, so that now, in his 80s, he's only sleeping about 4 hours a night, and doesn't feel that he needs more. So, I guess I've got that to look forward to. :)
New, superheavy element to enter periodic table
Intel claims desktop market will be around for the long term while mobile rises
The Google about page (http://www.google.com/intl/en/about.html) links to googlestore.com, without the hyphen. The site is similar in appearance, but not the same; I would assume that the linked site is a fake.
Um what does simple, widgety applications have to do with UNIX?
Does anyone have experiencing programming those things using Linux?
Stern letters from ISPs not enough to stop P2P use after all
yes! it is the official Google store IMHO.

Searching for the "Google Store" brings it up as an ad or highlighted result.
http://www.google.co.in/search?q=google+store

Google would have removed it if it was unofficial :P

Also http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=715 links to it.
Registered to Merchandise Mania Ltd, Borehamwood, UK.
Introducing Trample: A Better Load Simulator
Definitely agree. There is no "Web 2.0" app that allows me to do the advanced reporting and graphing I can do with Money. The web-based apps definitely don't allow any detailed review of historical transactions.
This guy, yes. What if other people do the same without telling the profs?

Although, honestly, people are going to hand down homework answers no matter what. Professors simply should assume that if the question isn't new, an answer has been made available to the students somewhere at some point.
The overall message is: I trust human intelligence -- and this is positive (iff you're actually using your intelligence).

In contrast, most crypto rants fall into the "laugh at them, as they're all equally stupid" trap, which is not going to change humans into better...
This is the best ad that Lego could ask for Mindstorms NXT. I had absolutely no idea that it came with touch, light (color), sound, and ultrasonic sensors. I really want to buy a kit now and see what I can do with it.
Spam is automated, trolling isn't. So it makes sense that spam detection is easier to automate than troll detection.

A different way to say just about the same thing: Trolling can be customized to a specific context, it can rely on sarcasm or social references, etc. I don't think there exists any NLP system that can pick up e.g. written sarcasm.
No. Check the WHOIS.
The googlestore.com links to google-store.com if we click anywhere on the map except the North American continent. So is the hyphenated site kind of official?
> How can applications like Mint (Mint reviews) and Quicken, which Microsoft is now chasing to replace MS Money, come years after MS Money, and take away its market share?

Umm Quicken came before Microsoft Money.

1991 is the first year I can find for Money 1.0 vs Quicken which was already a product by 1988.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit
http://www.googlestore.com is the real address.