skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I understand your point and I agree that software could make or break a company. That can be true and you could still make the argument that IT is strictly a cost. That IT departments can enable other departments to reduce their own costs does not change the fact that IT itself is a cost.

In your customer service example IT has clearly had a positive impact, but you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that the IT department is generating revenue for the company. If you walked into the CFO's office trying to make that case you'd be laughed out of the room. Good customer service does not manifest itself through good software.

A better approach may be to walk into the CFO's office and show how your IT department is helping the company realize it's goal of providing good customer service at an acceptable cost. It's a very subtle distinction. This is what I was getting at when I said not thinking of IT as a cost can be a roadblock to advancement.
Actually, IE being a hideous browser should make it better as it makes it easier for competition to succeed and gives people more reason to investigate and accept alternatives.

Consider if all manufactured cars came with a really crappy "default" radio with horrible sound. The majority of drivers would choose to upgrade the radio to a better one, thus making the marketplace for car radios a healthier, more competitive one. If the cars came with amazing radios built in, hardly anyone would switch.
So he says that games are becoming more realistic in most aspects, but not in the lighting. That is probably true, but there is no reason why that should cause the game to become grey and washed-out.

Most CG movies and effects (from Pixar, Dreamworks, ILM, ...) also do not have anything close to photorealistic lighting (i.e. correct global illumination), but they do not look grey.

One common mistake that leads to washed-out images is to apply gamma correction (which is the right thing to do) but not apply inverse gamma correction to your textures. That way your surfaces are essentially gamma-corrected twice, which is clearly wrong. I don't know if they're really making such a simple mistake, but who knows...
Also on blip.tv: http://blip.tv/file/2232410
I'm not sure how someone can say that in the era of TF2, Portal, HL2, GTA series, WoW, Mario Galaxy, the Wii itself, etc...

Games like TF2 are difficult in a much more complex and intelligent way. It's not just a reflex test, it involves strategy, decision-making and coordination.
Dude — Dell’s Making Money Off Twitter
Celery: A Distributed Task Queue for Django
That's an imposed limitation, not a limitation of the various cabling. Component cables readily support up to 1080i signals. Personally I use HDMI because I prefer the single plug and the all-digital signal path but I do agree that HDCP is a crock. I don't think that HDMI vs. DVI-D is a truly valid issue though - the formats are electrically compatible. If your TV has support for 0-255 RGB signals it doesn't matter which physical plug you are using.
Perhaps in the 90s a Web browser would have not obviously been part of an OS, but nowadays it's one of the simplest, yet most used, applications going and it makes sense to bundle one with any desktop-based OS.

Come to think of it, I can't think of any current desktop-based OS that doesn't come with a Web browser installed by default..

The whole anti-competition lawsuit over this stuff was based on early 2000s assumptions. It's time to forget all about it now and let MS get on with it.
Yahoo Distribution of Hadoop
Google Web Elements: Essential as Fire, Water, Earth, Air | Linux Magazine
Who get paid to bundle certain applications on their machines..
Uh-oh, I smell another lawsuit. Think of the damage that's doing to all those FTP client vendors!
This shouldn't be news, since nothing about the original flaw --- which is years old --- involved Javascript.
Review my project: tweethegame | stream the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup on twitter
i made this at night while watching the first few games of the NBA Finals. i found it to provide some pretty good commentary while watching the games. pretty simple, but let me know what you guys think. any feedback is appreciated.
So... this browser thing, actually -is- gathering analytics from anyone who visits it. :P
Exactly,movie studios use pretty much the same lighting tricks as games - direct illumination with some ambient occlusion and color bleeding hacks here and there. Yet they do not look brown/gray. I think it might be because they have armies of artists (they call them "technical directors") that tweak the materials and lighting for thousands of man-hours until it looks good. Game companies probably invest much less in this kind of tweaking.
You may have missed the point. Building an application around this would be a mistake, since this is a vulnerability that needs to be fixed. There is no way it can be OK for random site visitors to disclose a profile of other URLs they've visited.
What the statement suggests is that online advertisement is not a viable business. Try telling that to Google. Nonetheless, I'm sure there are going to be tons of sites offering paid, relevant services, but that's an easy prediction because there are tons of sites offering paid, relevant services today.
I saw someone made a version of one of those "Share It!" links that only showed ones it sniffed (with others accessible by a one-click menu).
I hope it does go this way...

Why?

Because I will continue offering content for free.

(tip: I'm being snarky. If this does happen, there will be a LOT of people who still offer content for free.)
Half Life... cool for the first couple levels.. Bioshock and portal just plain suck. Never played System Shock 2.
Let's say you're a staffer for a Republican congressman, and I'm an innocuous web page you've visited. Oh, look! You've visited a lot of gay pornography sites! I think I'd like you to start paying me $50 a month now, so I can "protect" you from negative publicity.
An arrogantocracy?
Actually, in targeting, user's short term interests are much more valuable than the long term interests. If a visitor is on HN, you would already know his immediate interests. Knowing that he came from a Python tutorial site, that too you can't say if he is regular there or one and off, would provide marginal value which is hard to justify.
Adobe also experimented with ads in PDF files, but shut down the beta program after just a few months. Are there some unsolved problems preventing anyone from doing this successfully?

http://hansakoch.com/cancelled-yahoo-ads-for-adobe-pdf-beta-...

Perhaps it's too obvious, but there's always the HTML format, published on the web, with ads provided by Google Adsense et al.
just because it shouldn't be done...doesn't mean people aren't going to use it to make money. and how long have browser people known about this and done nothing? this will be a privacy issue for many years to come.
It's hard to fix without breaking things, so, unfortunately, we're going to have to wait for something very bad to happen before it gets fixed.
This is the most useful use of Augmented Reality I've seen to date.
can someone explain why Zak is +14 while i'm -7 and we basically said the same thing. it was a joke guys.
Ah, I see, I didn't even know there was a difference, thanks for pointing it out. I've always like the word "bar graph" more (it's more transparent), so bar graphs they are now!
This article seems to be written from the standpoint of a certain kind of feminism. Particularly it is the assumption that women need to make money and be financially successful to be valuable. The women I know who are interested in Etsy are very interested in what some would call being "traditionally" feminine. They want to be mothers and wives first, and they find joy in that, but they also want to make things. The men in these relationships are happy to be financial providers while the women fulfill other needs.
Her father is blaming someone else's child as being the 'bad egg', just like is frequently seen when a parent denies their child being a bully.

He's an incompetent parent who doesn't want to admit his daughter has turned into an eSlut sending multiple pornographic images and videos to multiple people at the same time. I'm sorry, but sending nude pics to your boyfriend is acceptable, sending it to a non-boyfriend is trashy, but 4 guys at the same time is just slutty.
Funny, I thought that only the left could be gay.
you should have read the entire thing...
I would assume this means access to a phone and/or TV is a basic human right as well? Since one or both of these older technologies is a good approximation to the internet...
... No, not so much. They are abiding by at least the letter of the GPL, as long as they do send the code at some point. The GPL doesn't specify that they have to ship you the source code immediately, just that they have to ship you the source code.
wow, isn't that a good idea!!! Startup idea for anyone who wants it.
That's not the point. He is warning not to build an application on this vulnerability as it will be patched soon, rendering the application useless and your time wasted.
Even if the US had mandated GSM I think we'd still have the same locked, crippled phones and such from the carriers.
I'm no expert, but I'll chime in with my thoughts. I'd look into doing something like the following, which is largely what you've already thought of:

- umbrella corp

-- project corp #1

-- project corp #2

I'd be working on new ideas (incubating, so to speak) within "umbrella corp" itself, and then spin off a "project corp #" when you're ready to start looking for/making money.

I think there are some disadvantages to this, depending on how your local state/provincial and federal grant systems work. For example, here in Canada, we have SR&ED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) which helps companies that do R&D by offsetting expenses. I believe that any R&D you did in "umbrella corp" applies only to expenses made within that same company - NOT after you had spun the idea off into a "project corp #".

Regardless of what country you live in, if you're looking to protect your other ideas/IP, you are certainly well advised to isolate the investment-worthy idea in its own corporation, and likely with ownership of the "project corp #" held by "umbrella corp"...

... unless you're looking to give out dividends to yourself from "project corp #" in the future. If you yourself don't own shares, I don't think you could get dividends - only a salary.

Ok, obviously I'm digressing. Final advice - don't listen to me. You'd do well to discuss these particular topics with both an accountant and lawyer. ;)
I recently left my full time job to concentrate on developing a prototype application for my idea. What I intend to do is to complete a kick ass prototype and website, run it by a few potential customers, and THEN scout for angels if there's a need for it. My principle is that if you're a half-decent programmer, then your prototype should be your pitch. More than a way to get rich, I am treating it as an acid test of how good a developer I am.
Is there any A/B testing that backs this notion up?
@DellOutlet nets dell $3million
Here is the usual human algorithm for that sort of big question.

a. What should I be worried about?

b. What is everyone else worried about?

c. I'm worried about $b.
We are a serious board. We do not take kindly to irrational thought here on HN. When its a serious news post, its most likely taken serious when leaving comments. You were not serious and therefor got voted down. I almost consider you a troll for doing so.
Yes, humans are very superficial, most of the time.
worth noting: tweetthegame.com was taken
I interviewed with them, and let them know I was concerned about the reputation they were starting to develop, partly over the same issue. That was two years ago.
No both sides can, it's the Left that admits it.
I've seen a lot of this in the programming world. Certain ideas/libraries/techniques will be created and professed so emphatically by their proponent that people accept them as gospel and "the right way." In reality, they're no better (or are sometimes worse) than the alternatives (testing framework, "best practices/agile", and source control standpoints are recent such issues).

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, since overly confident people can often be stretched into living up to their claims and genius can often result from that. I'd actually consider David Heinemeier Hansson an example of this. He has admitted his lack of experience when he started programming in Ruby and building Rails (as part of Basecamp) but his emphatic delivery of its benefits back in 2004 led to him picking up followers, gaining marketshare, learning a lot and becoming the genuinely gifted visionary we have today.
What do you mean by JSON+callbacks?
I normally would never pimp a product or site on HN. However I'm going to take this chance to talke about RiteAV (http://riteav.com).

RiteAV is probably the BEST source I've ever found for cables and adapters. Everything I've purchased has been of great quality and very inexpensive. I've placed several orders and they were all shipped same day. What's better is that shipping costs are super-cheap (they'll even ship via first class mail if it makes sense). In my last order I got 2 cables and an adapter for $6 + shipping ($6.50).

Don't take my word for it: google them. They seem to have amazing reviews elsewhere: http://www.resellerratings.com/store/RiteAV

Note: I'm not affiliated with RiteAV outside of the purchases I've made and they're not paying me for this. The only reason I'm writing this is because they seem like good people.
Probably going for another meaning of the word, like dull or boring. Not that it's strictly correct, but in headlines, sometimes it's the thought that counts.
This has to take a toll, right?

Maybe not, if he's getting some benefits of ad-hoc polyphasic sleep?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652650

The theory is that one should be able to train one's body to enter deep sleep immediately (that's the kind of sleep that matters) and get along with just several 20-minute naps throughout the day.
Genuine confidence comes from expertise gained by experience which is probably why, when people rely on information from a person with expertise that they do not possess themselves, confident experts are preferred over hesitant ones. However, like all cognitive shortcuts, it is not a perfect proxy.
Firefox plugin extends Google & Wikipedia with "1-Click Web Explorer"
Fez is made out of cubes; does that count? :-)
Ready or Not, Analog TV Viewers Lose Their Signal
it was republished on reddit.com/r/pics a couple of days back. I lol'd then just as I've lol'd now.
The easiest way to find an idea is to target a big company, research it, figure out what are its potential next moves, then do it before they do it.

The fundamental advantage of a startup is that you can move faster than most big companies, and you need to use that to your advantage where it matters.

Here is a tip: if you can, try ideas that stay away from "advertising" as the main source of revenue, companies like that rarely become profitable quickly.
The planning fallacy
Having just hacked together an ugly threaded task queue for scraping and multi-stage data processing in Django, this looks like a breath of fresh air. I need to work my way out of the self-inflicted mess I've created.

Does anyone have experience with this library or anything similar?
Ask HN: Laptop recommendation?
for someone who spends 8 to 20 hrs in front of a laptop each day, purchasing a new one is a huge decision. i need some help.
Here's where I stand:
macbookpro: wanted one but the new gen have a mirror where the screen should be and the old ones get hot enough to sear your skin

priorities are
1)screen (LED, matte, 14 x 9 or bigger)
2)touchpad/clit
3)linux compat
4)compact form

suggestions?

thanks in advance
Nifty. Not at all what I want to use Git for, but nifty nonetheless. I like seeing my mistakes and reasons for doing things.
It doesn't have to be either/or. It can be both anchoring and cartel pricing.
I wonder if this is related to iphone 3.0 software being released that day as well.
"It's stupid to think your brain needs an external stimulus to be creative. You can be creative and withstand by just willing it - it's just not the easiest way out. When you take drugs you're either lying to yourself and pretending there is no harm in fucking up your brain - losing sense of priorities, time, yourself, and the world around you - or afraid of how it would feel without them."

Can't agree more. It's pathetic when people try to use drugs to succeed, steroids is no different. I don't even drink coffee and I've never needed drugs for anything.. It's just an excuse used to cope with incopetance.

Personally, If I was the job manager, anyone who uses drugs would be kicked out. I've met far too many people who use narcotics who are much too incompetant to excel.
Maybe a screenshot or something would help? I'm not grokking what this does (though I may not have my caffeine yet).

Edit: Tracked back to the homepage and I have a better idea now.

http://www.webzzle.com
Google Fusion Tables for Data Visualization
"As somebody who has never used drugs you are unqualified to argue from experience about how they affect creativity and performance."

Correction: As someone who never used drugs, he is qualified to think straight and within the scope of reality.
stupidsiteforjerks.com: I thought it would be funny if you could upload pictures of people and let them know you think they're a jerk. It would also be funny (to me...) to sell merchandise from "The Jerk Store".

That this is the best start-up idea I've ever had would explain my current day job...
I can't say I've ever met a gay republican... Anyways you simply aren't a republican if you're gay.
If human beings can't recognize nuanced, tentative conclusions as a sign of expertise, they definitely have a problem.

Well, I can recognize this statement as an unsubstituted, cocky declaration rather than a nuanced, tentative conclusion.
Sturgeon's Law somewhat applies here. 90% of everything is crap. We need to look at the best-in-class entries to see what's actually good.

In my mind, games really peaked in 1998. They were innovating back then. StarCraft and Half-Life are still near the top of their respective classes (RTS, horror-themed shooter). We also had Baldur's Gate (singlehandedly revived the PC RPG genre), Thief (basically invented stealth in first-person games), Starsiege Tribes (popularized the sort of role-based team gameplay that's so popular in multiplayer games today), and Pokemon (say what you will, it popularized the so-called "collecting" RPGs), among others -- '98 was a very good year for games.

Compare 2008. Spore and Assassin's Creed are the big "original" properties here. For me, though, these don't make me think of innovative gameplay: they make me think of DRM.

There are a number of other good games, but they're mostly sequels, prequels, and spinoffs.
Python must be developed by the makes-Linux-frozen-in-time team then. And don't even get me started on KDE! If you're not running Linux as God intended, from the command line and programming only in C, you are part of the problem.
If you don't like macs, the Lenovo Thinkpad T series are great. Dells are also fine.

Otherwise:
http://searchyc.com/submissions/what+laptop+to+buy
I like that the article mentions the game Mirror's Edge. It immediately popped into my head as a counter-example when I read the article title. I hadn't known that the game's more sophisticated lighting solution was what allowed it to have the clean colorful look!

I've always preferred colorful games at the expense of photorealism. High quality consistent art direction can overcome a lot of the drawbacks which can be fudged by using the drab color palette so common currently.

I look forward to seeing the next generation of colorful titles enabled by more powerful lighting engines.
I'm one the founder of Webzzle and I'd like to get as many feedbacks as possible in order to improve Webzzle.
We want to build Webzzle with the community.
I also have:
10000spoons.com
autobooked.com
itsbeendays.com
slantless.com
A screenshot in the Mozilla addon page ?
I think it's time we all realize people who say stuff like this are just trying to get attention. The Internet is not a thing in and of itself. It's a designation we use to refer to an extremely varied group of things (web sites, Web applications, IM, etc...)

So no one can accurately say "the Internet is going to do [x]" because there are a billion different business models at play. Yes, some free content will be moved behind a pay wall but some content behind a pay wall will start being given away for free. Because every business will have a slightly different business plan.

So someone who says stuff like this is just trying to stir the pot and not trying to seriously engaged in a conversation.
Didn't someone get in trouble for "live-blogging" a MLB game a while back? Something about MLB's broadcast rights.

Not sure if it applies, but it might be worth looking into.
Mono lets me write stuff in C# to run on Linux. What's not to like?
Well, if research or education are aids, you are certainly correct. Are narcotic is not an aid.
I assumed it was going to be a v.irture.com
You can get the 17" MacBook Pro (which is a 14x9 screen) with a matte finish (extra $50). If you don't mind a 2.66ghz proc (vs. 2.8) and a 320gb HD (vs. a 500) you can get one of the previous gen 17" pros for $2300
Haven't we heard this 'You will have to pay on the internet' many many times before? Why is this time any different?
I doubt you would find the immutable aspect in Erlang a problem in practice. I don't know MzScheme, but Erlang has a its own very different philosophy. I suggest Joe's thesis as an interesting read.

http://www.sics.se/~joe/thesis/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf
Exactly! That was curiously one of the things that most surprised me from the article, I didn't know other fellow programmers put the same song over and over. I used to try to fight it, to expand my musical culture, but I see now that there are reasons why I kept doing it.
This is just a clear illustration of the fallacy of our legal systems. I had a 2MP camera phone at ~13 years old, even at that time it was fully integrated to the cellular network and internet. Any picture I took could be sent to another phone or emailed on. I had a webcam on my own computer and vast knowledge of computers; I started on DOS at like 3 and was online long before the mass adoption of IM.
Yeah, I also have experience in hacking together a multi-threaded task queue with ugly results. Try getting messaging in multiple daemon threads to communicate with the web client (who is spawned off early in the process, only to be reunited later), and you'll see how much of a bear this is.

It's not too hard to perform only one of the use cases that celery handles, but to get all of them? I'm installing celery this weekend and will see how it goes. Maybe if it goes well, I can give a before-and-after blog post and submit it to HN.
Also, this exact method (css background) was mentioned last time the js version came up on hacker news. How many more times will this be posted?
Yeah - the legal issues surrounding the live-blogging of spots games (or even making a blog post about a game while it's going on) are unclear.

In this case, though, it seems that the site is just a way of showing a pair of #search results side-by-side, without any organization (or original reporting) behind it - so that shouldn't apply.
You definitely need to change the colour scheme.
This further validates my longstanding theory that the winner of any argument won't be the person who's right, it'll be the person who thinks they are right the most.