skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
* Mapping the physical world

Ever wanted a floor plan for your home? Just wave your phone around.

* Visual annotation

Add direction overlays, see the plan for a play your team is executing on the helmet HUD, highlight "dangerous"(weaving, too fast, whatnot) drivers on the car HUD.

* Integrate sensor data to extend human perception

Add an IR overlay. Sample sound across the room, do a volumetric display of noise levels. "see" the strength of your WiFi signal.

* Image post processing

You have a 3d map of an area, plus pictures of all textures - rearrange to your hearts content.

* Alternate Reality

Completely change the look of the world around you, just because you can. (Semi-useful application: Interior decoration. See that couch right in your living room before you buy it)

There are tons of applications there. It mixes the "reality" of physical space with the malleability of the digital space.
Flappy the pipe – my try at flappy jam
Hi, my first game just got published on flappy jam page. Enjoy this hardly playable beauty.
Ask HN: How do I sell an iOS app to a local dentist's business?
I recently began working as an iOS app consultant and in a few days I am meeting with the owner of a recently opened local dentist's office (someone I know referred him to me), who could potentially be my first client.

How do I convince him that an iPhone app will be worth more to his business than what I charge ($4,000/week)?

Most of the ideas for apps that I come up with for his business are neat and gimmicky, but they would not directly benefit his business by making/saving money, which would make it harder to sell to him.

What is an app idea for this local dentist's office that would save/make his business money?
Some back-of-the-envelope calculation leads me to believe that for a given location in space and time, its past light cone contains 1/8th of the spacetime between the beginning of the universe and the location.
That movie is more of an AR HUD.

Instead consider you won't see the actual items in the room. Polygon shapes will replace "real-space" items (coffee table, sofa, bed, doors) but can be dungeon items (for D&D) or items in an evil corporate waiting room (a la Mission Impossible or Metal Gear).
FCC: No intent to muzzle press
Telling someone with attention/focus issues "you just have to WANT IT" is like telling someone with depression "first you have to WANT to be not depressed!"

It doesn't work that way.
Rafting ants use babies as floating life-preservers during floods
Wow, this is an amazing application. I love olympic weightlifting, and seeing somebody build a training aide using computer vision in an app makes me feel like living in the future. What a nice contribution to this beautiful sport.
Business As Usual In The New Silicon Valley
Pig Advantages and Disadvantages
Scientists Reveal Secrets of Pain Sensor
You haven't seen the full effect of the "Controversy Penalty" kick in yet; it'll be coming your way shortly. To quote "A "controversial" story gets severely penalized after hitting 40 comments." -- http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really...
Sure, I had to sacrifice some of that "in the moment" happiness while getting myself to a manageable state, but I don't regret a single moment of it.

It's such a cop out to say that you're living in the moment. Few people, I'd even venture to say that no one looks back on self improvement with regret. Discipline contributes to happiness. Don't try to demotivate people to justify your own unwillingness to improve yourself.
That's the point of the article. Markets can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent, the saying goes.
There's gotta be some viable way to "rent" the services of a small, forward-thinking bank (or, better, Utah industrial loan comp/corp) that would let you control most or all of the customer-facing aspects, no?

We went down this route at X.com (PayPal pre-cursor) but the intent was to eventually buy FWNB (http://www.netbanker.com/xcom/).
>I really don't know where the airlines are going to get the next generation of pilots from.

The military. As usual.
Massive Linked-In Fail Beware to users
I... can't see how this is legal. If I were Amazon and I heard about this, you'd have a cease and desist order at your doorstep the next day...

If this is legal, though, please do explain.
The better part of this quote is the sentiment that follows;

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
How to choose a great freelance client
It's great to see mobile 3D scanning receive validation from a major player like Google. My company, RealityCap, is working on bringing 3D scanning to mobile devices without the need for specialized 3D cameras. We use the sensors already present in smartphones: the camera (monocular), accelerometer, and gyroscope. That means that we can bring 3D scanning to millions of mobile devices that already exist. http://realitycap.com
Damodoran is known for his value investing analysis. He is an academic, and value investing is the only form of investing proven to work.

However, he does a good job of wearing hats of other types of investors, which is why I enjoy his analyses.

Bottom line is that social media companies will either have to sustain these valuations forever, or they will eventually fail. When times of turmoil hit, user base and engagement will not be enough save a company. Cashflow is the only surefire metric that indicates a company's success.
John Resig's "Hacking CS Education at Khan Academy" Lecture  RIT MAGIC Center
by the time startup reaches 19B valuation i'd say it either have created such product or there is no chance for it to happen.
Do you really care about the interest rate on your checkings account?
Flood screening
It is fairly obvious to me why FB believes WhatsApp is worth this extraordinary sum.

The application is inherently social. Obviously, it is a texting/sms/chat whatever you want to call it, application.

a) I read somewhere that they (WhatsApp) add 1,000,000 users a month.
b) They have group chat.
c) They have grown by 200% YoY iirc
d) Their execution on the engineering side has been great
e) The ubiquity of the application and the execution of their marketing efforts, no manner how small, have worked tremendously and they know how to replicate that effect.

If those five things are not the impetus for establishing a serious competitor to FB I do not know what is. 19bln to fend off what could become a serious competitor is a pretty sound strategic maneuver. Especially since FB revenue per user of the platform is around $4.00 - $6.00. Add 400,000,000 more users to the platform and you bolster the power of the FB brand, get more ads in front of 400mln users and expand your reach into unpenetrated markets that do not have internet access reliable enough to use facebook. App or otherwise this is a great step for the WhatsApp team. They sure didn't get it for a discount but the potential consequences of letting WhatsApp keep getting users and not addressing that directly would have been rather risky.

There is my armchair analysis.
You don't understand it because it's beyond your comprehension, Morty. Because the world is full of idiots that don’t understand what’s important. And they’ll tear us apart, Morty. But if you stick with me, I’m gonna accomplish great things, Morty. And you’re gonna be part of them. And together, we’re gonna run around, Morty. We’re gonna- do all kinds of wonderful things, Morty.
Pictures/info of every computer from the 70's to early 90's
I don't know Sam, but I really like this experiment he's doing with writing. Lot's of decent articles being written a a high speed.

It's almost like he's trying to replicate Paul Graham circa 2004- 2008.

I haven't seen an article yet that breaks any new ground, ie he's still looking for his "blub paradox" article, but all his articles generate discussion.

Just look at his article on AI from yesterday. It didn't really break any new ground in the AI conversation and it got 260+ comments.
Schwab has been the only bank I have ever dealt with, and I have no intention of moving away. They are a professionally run outfit with focus on all the right things.

As mentioned, the customer service is stellar. I have never had to be on hold much more than a few minutes and the person on the other end has always been engaged and knowledgeable, all the while remaining totally professional. I think this image of them was cemented for me when I found that their hold "music" was that Friday's jobs report!

The website is not great on the usability front and some things are placed in questionable locations. The search functionality is also frustrating and obtuse many times. The same is true of the mobile app. However, they are functionally more than sufficient and work perfectly fine. And, worst case, you can always just call them or do the online chat.

I think they are on the more expensive side as a brokerage, but their integration there is satisfactory (that being said, I am not an active investor)

They also don't nickel and dime you on things. I was amazed when I found out that other banks charge for getting extra checks and a checkbook. Admittedly, checks are in less and less use these days, but you still need them sometimes. Schwab offers unlimited checks for free. Spare debit cards may be charged, but I am not sure. I have not lost my debit card (yet!)

The bank side is located in Reno, NV, so any checks have to be mailed there. However, this isn't entirely true. Schwab does have physical locations to serve their brokerage clients and since the Checking account requires a brokerage account (although it doesn't require it to be funded), you can still use their physical locations to deposit and withdraw money, and then move it around online or on the app.
Hi, I work on Route 53, can you clarify; are you seeing a problem from your registrar when you try to move to Route 53? We're also always keen to hear about features customers would like.
Merging isn't collaboration.
No autocorrelation with excess return can also be explained with randomness.. it demonstrate that the markets are not stupid as much as they are.

markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent

- Warren Buffet
The app Fixed can help you go to court and fight parking tickets
Seattleites gonna ... seat?
Interesting. I swear I recently had an idea of creating a chrome extension which will give me an alert every time I am on a checkout page of some site/product and tell me if I could save more due to coupons etc. that I am not aware of for that particular item. So before I click on "Purchase", I will get a small popup that says "You are paying x for this item but you can only pay x-y if you use this abc coupon". This seems similar even though it goes the extra step of ordering on your behalf.
"Also, it's not a "slight chance". All these major innovations HAVE been used for evil, from mobile phones to wide-area networking to the web. It's not just fearmongering."

This is precisely my point, these technologies have been used for evil, but would we be better off NOT having them in the first place? Everything has been used for evil, including pencils. If we loose sight of perspective and only play on the fears, then it's very much fearmongering.

I agree with you on your solution of decentralized collection being better. But I would argue that data analysis involving many data sources, including yours, is what makes a lot of the services being built USEFUL. Google Now being a good example of that. I would also argue, that targeted advertisement is much more useful to me, than non targeted advertisement.
Can't the 12B of shares be sold for real money?
You are correct; I had actually meant 0.05%.
"Looking for feedback on iphone app"
Brain Scans Show Striking Similarities Between Dogs and Humans
Stackicons
"The fundamental problem with banking is that it hasn’t changed or reshaped in centuries,"

Why is that a problem? Change for change's sake is stupid.

"In fact, it should be so far removed from what we call “Banking” today that it should not even make sense to some people at first. "

That will make it so easy for me to trust your bank.

"The next generation of banking should start off as a data company. "

Why? Because so-called big data is "in"? How exactly does making my bank a data broker make it a better place to keep my money?

Hey, you know the old saying... if it ain't broke, fix it with data.
I'd love to pick your brain. I've chatted some with Roelof and Dana about x.com but I think it was actually before their time. I'd really like to unpack that history a little bit and understand the problems. One obvious difference in our vision and it's is that we'd prefer to start on the commercial side.

More generally, we've just found it difficult - in the current regulatory environment - to find a small bank that is also forward-thinking.
Sigh, survivor bias taints this analysis so hard it hurts. There are lots and lots and lots of innovative startups that don't get acquired and go through the whole process without all that much press. You don't see them, it's boring to read "Startup that changes the ways machine tools are stocked at machine shops turns in another year." The really crazy ones (either crazy funding like Color, or crazy exits like WhatsApp) get lots of press, and so one things "oh they are all like that."

Acquisitions are a way that investors get their money back, so they encourage investors to invest in startups, and by its nature that encourages innovation. Perhaps not as much as random $100K grants given out on the street corner would, but it does encourage company formation and execution. IPOs do the same thing.

What investors don't like is a company they invest in, own a big chunk of the equity and it never goes anywhere. So called "zombies", companies that are nominally profitable, but not not enough cash flow to support M&A, too much cash flow to just roll them up. Those companies need an innovative way to 'cash out' their investor over time so that they can get on with their lives.
Ubuntu Unity Locally Integrated Menus(LIM)
Tip calculators all go the wrong way (well, all the ones I've seen do). Suppose I order a pizza and it comes to 16.12. A typical tip calculator will tell me that with a 15% tip, this would be 18.54, and with a 20% tip it would be 19.34.

I don't want to screw around with that .54 or .34. I want to give the delivery person an integral number of dollars. Probably hand him a $20, and tell him how many dollar bills to give me back.

I made a tip calculator Dashboard widget to calculate tips from that perspective. With this widget, I enter 16.12, and it gives me a little table that looks like this:

$17.... 5.5%
$18....11.7%
$19....18%
$20....24.2%
$21....30.5%

I can glance at that, and see that $19 or $20 for combined $16.12 pizza plus tip are reasonable options. If it were summer, I'd probably go for $19, especially if I could do that without breaking a $20. If it were winter, I'd probably just go with a $20 bill and no change, to get the transaction over with as quickly as possible so I could close the door and stop losing my precious heat.
Confreaks.com seems to be having some troubles, I'm guessing this is the same talk:

Ruby Conf 12 - Y Not- Adventures in Functional Programming by Jim Weirich (uploaded by Confreaks):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs
Is the user making a purchase from ZincSave (are you becoming the merchant?) or do you passthrough the user's credit card information to order on Amazon?

Interesting model given how often Amazon marks up/down prices to arbitrage if you believe you can buy at a lower price within a reasonable amount of time. Case in point, I had added a carbon steel frying pan to my cart for $26.97 on sale and then a day later, it jumped back to $38 and I didn't want to buy it anymore.
Whether it is possible to proactively mitigate a circumstance has no bearing on whether the circumstance exists. I met plenty of people through sports and work. The Freeze is a local, cultural ambient background of social norms. It's an impression that each person is, more than usual, in their own private world. It's a lack of friendliness. It's strangers never looking at you or saying 'hi' - and there are places in the world where it is normal to look at strangers and say hi when you pass them. People don't say much. When they do they don't emote much, and it tends toward mealy-mouthed politeness. I could theorize about potential factors - off the top of my head I'd guess it's partly due to an unusually high population of affluent introverts. By now, even second-generation affluent introverts (e.g. the grown children of the people who made Windows). It affects me as a constant general background of insularity and alienation. It's quite apart from the issue of whether I've made friends through activities - I've done that. Obviously, nobody is saying that no human being in Seattle ever associates with any other, ever.

It also occurs to me that it's maybe a sort of social tragedy of the commons. There's nothing wrong with being a locksmith, but an entire society of locksmiths would probably run into problems. Likewise, it's not a sin to be introverted, but a party (or a city) where everyone is introverted is going to be missing something, and become very dependent on the presence of Guitar Hero or Settlers of Catan stations for fun.
It is a bubble. There is nothing that really drives the market except gut feel ( rationalised in various "strategies" ).

That's what it is. You can't use regular metric for the same reason you can't use regular metric playing the slots. Even though chances say you won't, you can win big and there is a new jackpot winner every few months to remind you that.
If I can SSH in and have full read only access on the server what's to stop me seeing what other users are doing, thus ending user privacy?
This is very interesting and sounds simple enough to get started. It seems to solve my long-poll problem fine. The other issue I'm dealing with is high-latency network iOS holding up the process/thread. Does push-pin have a solution for that? I'm dreaming but this is what I want to tell push-pin: "I want to invoke this out-bound API...Hold this http request, go invoke this API and call me back when the call is complete...". Basically an out-bound proxy with similar benefits. I looked at gevent/greenelets to make python concurrency work but it all seems a bit unnatural to me.
For me it's not really about difficulty, it's about extra time. Is it going to take me extra time to find, download, install, and learn how to use your unusual build tool? If so, that sucks. Using the most standard/common build tools saves packagers headaches.

Autoconf/Automake are more popular so it's going to be a lot easier on packagers if developers use them. But if they use them incorrectly, packagers will have to hack on the Makefiles when they could have run a bootstrapper like autoreconf.
Time to break out one of my pet peeves: Inactive account fees.

If I stick money in a bank account and just leave it there, does that cost the bank money? No. (Transactions cost the bank money; non-transactions don't.) The inactive account fee looks a lot like "If you're not looking, we'll see if we can take some of your money". It would be quite reasonable to look on that as stealing.
BancBox tried this with Four Oaks Bank in North Carolina. This is where Four Oaks is now:

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/index.html?id=5178849

BancBox is now applying for a California money transmission license.

Bancorp was the path for Simple and WePay, and Clinkle is reportedly talking to them as well after Zions Bancorp pulled out of their agreement (which was probably wise). None of these companies have had any impact on the financial system. It's not an easy thing to pull off.
Shame it wasn't by Coinbase.
Changing the Face of Digital Signgage, Interview with Nanxi Liu of Enplug
Payments. Loans. Corporate Finance. Those all sound necessary, ya. I think the product plan and it's rollout is really the secret sauce - even in a world where execution is everything.
this is a silly article. re-write the headline and it is an explanation of reality:

SV's innovation fever is driven by acquisitions (or the possibility anyway).

People launch companies, iterate like mad, in the hopes of a payout of some kind. willing to go without revenue to prove out a concept quickly. the endless trial-and-error results in a lot of interesting outcomes. the reward is the acquisition.
I think I'm a neo-luddite.
My point isn't that startups shouldn't have profitable exits. It's that I'd like to see more of those exits be IPOs that leave the companies independent, rather than acquisitions.
What if I need to make a return on an item? How does that work?
Same for me. First time I ever got declined for a checking account (out of at least 20). And no help from Simple support.
Simple is a great example of how someone can go into an old, broken industry, make a company that would not be considered a tech startup, and still scale rapidly and change the industry. Bravo!
The Napster production server engineering team was just me for most of it. Early on there were two other engineers, but one left for management and the other to start a company.

I'm personally not familiar with Erlang to know if it would have worked for us. A lot of our scaling was about being very efficient with memory (the whole thing ran on little Pentium 2 machines with 2 GB of RAM each and part of the protocol unfortunately relied on MD5 hashes of files for file transfer which took up most of the memory).
Your boring, old data is actually sexier than your newest technology
That's true, but so what? Google, Facebook, Apple were all startups and they never got acquired.
Docker Desktop enables you to create virtual desktops
Based on their FAQ, they act as a proxy, in which you pay them to order goods from Amazon. And you will use this proxy because they will do the heavy work of finding the lowest price for you.

If anything, Amazon will punish Zinc rather than the receiver of the goods.
I can't imagine a life wherein a joint account is not insanity.

Why not have one account for each of you? Simple has instant account-to-account internal transfers.
Help me out here, I'm not sure if I'm following: Is it _not_ possible to transfer money from Bank A, your account, to Bank B, your brother's account with that system? I.. guess I'm missing something, because that surely cannot be true - that's how I pay my bills.
I recently used trigger.io on a project. It doesn't seem much different to phonegap. Their Reload feature was useful because we had a tight deadline and many iterations but documentation was sparse. Most documentation links 404'd or referenced older versions so I end up having to manually search. If you're on the cheapest plan like I was then you only get community support, which was no good. Stackoverflow based but many questions are unanswered. There's just no community as far as I could tell.

Also their trigger toolkit interface was messy. Browser based. Sometimes I'd enter data into one field only to have it clear other fields.

They compile remotely so if you're looking to tweak configurations in xcode (like you can with cordova) you'll need to opt for some of their modules (like plugins are to phonegap/cordova).

Just so frustrating.
I hear that becoming an actuary is nintendo-hard. So despite whether or not society overpays our financial sector, I imagine that risk management isn't as worthless a pursuit like this article suggests.
I have a 40+ message support thread comprised of me and Simple support sending gifs back and forth to each other.