skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think this is likely more due to the change to LED for back lighting.

What the problem is with glossy displays is that they act like a half-silvered piece of glass. If the brightness on the outside gets too high, they turn into a mirror and it's near impossible to see through. However if the brightness remains high on the inside, you can see through with perfect clarity.

So long as the back lighting can get brighter than the fore lighting, the glossy screen can be amazing. It has a few problems, like glares (where reflections and such cause light levels to peak higher than the back light), however these are really only a problem if you have to max out your back light.

Apple should be designing their laptop screens like they do their iPod screens. My brightness on my iPod is set to ~0% and inside it is perfect, even for most tv shows (no dark moody movies though), and outside I rarely need to put it up to 100% on the sunniest of days. This would be the ideal, but until laptops actually become ultra-portable I don't think this is a huge concern.

I think it's a trend of the new-geek to want to be outside in nature when working, so hopefully some ultra-powerful back lights are going to be available on high-end laptops for use outside.
That general principle is wrong. We are more than 95% certain that cancer and radiation sickness can be caused by prolonged exposure to radioactive substances, but that doesn't necessarily imply we can do anything but reduce cancer and radiation sickness by reducing exposure to radioactivity. Likewise, just because we understand that releasing excess CO2 into the carbon cycle increases the average temperature of the earth doesn't mean that we can do anything but reduce that effect by reducing the amount of CO2 we release.

Climate change is a result of unforeseen consequences. So instead of reducing the activities we already know lead to these consequences--activities that are already unsustainable and bad for us whether or not they cause climate change--we should bank on some longshot, never-before-tried geoengineering project with unforeseen consequences of its own?

That's the equivalent of saying, "instead of eating better and exercising, I'm going to lose weight by doing drugs and having liposuctions".
Basically what they are proposing is the system of education currently in use in Germany. Once you hit high school you have the choice of preparing for a white or blue collar job. Blue collar jobs gets you out of school and into an apprenticeship at 15 or 16, white collar gets you into high school, or further education at least.

Seems to work quite well.
Cool, checking it out now. Do you have to use the arrow for shortening? I think it can be confusing.
The guilds in medieval Europe had this figured out very well. Also Terry Pratchett is portraying the same situation very nicely in the Discworld novels (assassin's guild, tomb raider's guild etc.)
I just finished cycling across America yesterday. I didn't go on my own, since researching the route would have been very time consuming, and I'm too weak to push both myself and my luggage up a hill. I went with a touring company, America by Bicycle, instead. I highly recommend them. Their website's www.abbike.com. It doesn't look professional, but it's run by a bunch of cyclists who know what they're doing.

(But given the nature of this site, I wish I could post something really intellectual or otherwise related to hacking instead.)

-----

Addenda:

very frequently asked questions:
What was the mileage per day?
About 80 miles. The shortest day was 38 miles, the longest was 120.

What was the group size?
About 50. The average age was 58, which surprised me. I expected to see a bunch of retired people, but I was the only recent college grad. The youngest person was a girl who had just graduated from high school; the oldest was an 80 year old man.

What was your fitness level prior to the ride?
I ran at the gym for maybe 10 minutes, perhaps every other week. I was not especially fit, had never done any sports and was generally unathletic. Imagine my surprise when the tour booklet came two and a half months before I was to leave, recommending a year of training prior to the ride. =( Anyway, I put in about 1000 miles of training in those two and a half months. I was so afraid they would kick me out for being unfit that I didn't even dare ask them if they had that policy, lest it be true. It was pretty dumb of me to worry, in retrospect, since they'll just pick you up in a van if you can't make it to the next checkpoint, but I wanted the trip so badly that I avoided the thought of failure as much as possible.

How fast did you ride?
The strongest riders probably averaged 20 mph. I think the 80 year old man averaged 12-13 mph in the hilly places like Oregon. He was terribly slow at going up hills, but the descents made up for it a bit. I started out averaging 11-12 mph, but with lots of help and mentoring I moved up to 14-16, depending on the terrain and wind.
Hey, I found a security hole! Seems like the logical thing to do is go use it on a bunch of random websites.
If any one of you get paid for journalistic writing and at any time need a pseudonym for your byline, I beg of you, use Wolfram Alpha.
>for him gratis.

No, not for free - for trade. He's offering all the publicity that he can generate as a return gesture. If you think that is a worthy trade, great. If not, great too.

Stop forcing people to negotiate their deals on your terms. It's called a free market for a reason.
Congratulations! I'd highly recommend this to anyone with a few spare months.
You have some time, but you must know that when all is said and done, your grades and your classes won't matter to land you a job, your side projects will: http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/13/being-a-new-cs-grad-...

In the meantime, keep a good balance between study and social life. College is a great time to reinvent yourself and be someone new, no strings attached. Make mistakes now, so you don't make them later.

And +1 for travel abroad at least one year. It will change your perspective on life.
I think if a 15 year old was put into the position of having to make adult decisions and behave like an adult they would be perfectly capable.

It's just that they either don't have the chance or given the option, prefer to cruse through and muck around for as long as possible before being force to get serious.
I think he meant that they can't afford to sell them. The financial condition of an issuer dictates the yield (i.e. interest rate) that investors will require to buy the bonds. California's condition is so poor that the required yield would be very high, so they have decided to force feed this debt to people who are already their creditors (in short term payable/receivable sense) but were expecting to be paid in currency.
Ask HN: What email client do you use?
Wondering what email client people use?

I have 3 or 4 different gmail accounts and it's a pain keeping up with all of them. I have an email address for support, one for feedback and a personal one.
Exactly the nerdy answer I was expecting. Make sure you clear out the bugs and get a clean build early on, it'll save you a lot of trouble later.
technically, helped build products http://www.sensage.com and http://www.zenprise.com ... two very good software development experiences with some great development (and business) teams.
So are netflix for that matter, I guess.
> He's offering all the publicity that he can generate as a return gesture.

No he's not. The author of the article addresses this specifically - he's saying that too many people looking for spec work promise this ephemeral, vague notion of "exposure", which really isn't worth as much as the client thinks it is.

And he brings up the Harry Potter example. EVERYONE has seen the cover to the Harry Potter books, but does anyone here actually know the designer's name?

> Stop forcing people to negotiate their deals on your terms. It's called a free market for a reason.

I wish the real world can be as black-and-white as yours. There are certain types of behaviour that is, in the long run anyway, a net negative for nearly everyone in an industry. There is nothing wrong with being in opposition to these things. It's not like we're hiring thugs to beat up people who are willing to do spec work.
One good strategy is to break the tasks down into categories, and automatically delegate all tasks in that category to a certain person. For instance, you could assign someone to be the PR person, and automatically delegate any issues with customers to them. That way, people start to specialize in a certain area, and you don't need to worry about who is best to deal with it. Just make sure those people are aware that from time to time, when you deem a certain issue important, you may step in and do it yourself.
Apple's Mail.app, which is Good Enough. I have five accounts, all of them are checked with a single click, and I don't have to worry beyond that.
Interview with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao author Junot Diaz
Got myself well when that's not supposed to be possible. Now living my life-long dream of a "normal" life: working for the weekend, saying things like "TGIF" and doing other ordinary working stiff type things.
Developed a sales forecasting algorithm that turned out to be within 5% of actual sales numbers over a 18 month period.

Note: I don't know how its performing now because I switched jobs.
By practicing writing good code, getting better, and then having a portfolio to show.

This type of contest really is just the same for designers: If you don't need practice, don't participate. If you do, it's a great way to hone your talent, and possibly win something (although that's really just a bonus).

When you're getting started in any profession, there's a certain amount of pro bono work performed to gain experience and build your resume/portfolio -- how is this any different?
After years of dealing with Apple, I've learned that the only thing that gets their attention is negative press.

It's pretty clear that they're listening.

This is why I find comments disparaging those who complain about the App Store to be remarkably silly and short-sighted. Complaining -- publicly -- is exactly how you get a corporation like Apple to change. Unless you disagree with their aims, why disparage those that voice their negative opinions in an effort to enact change?
High Voltage is a new Rails engine from thoughtbot for static pages
Well, he did mention that even non-winning entries now belonged to him. This strikes me as overreaching - why would you want the rights to something you didn't pay for, and allegedly have no intention of using?

The point of the argument stands. If someone asked you to do a week's worth of work for free as a trial for, say, a 5-year contract, that strikes me as a pretty worthwhile deal.

Now if someone asked you to do a week's worth of work for free as a trial for, say, another week's contract, that strikes me as abusive and lacking in respect for my work. Worse if it's just working gratis for the possibility of another contract.
Ask HN: Tips on how to drive a blog
Hey guys, I have a blog that I write seldom, even wanting to write often.

Few time ago I figured out that it happens, because I don't know in which subject to focus and I'm "afraid" to mix subjects like enterpreneurism, marketing, startups and technical articles in a single blog.

From you opinion, is it a good idea write about all this subjects in a single blog? Is it better to focus in some of them?

Thank you guys for you help.
The core of the argument, IMO, is that, by 15, the damage has already been done. On the other hand, if kids were set up in a system that expected them to be self-sufficient by 15 and started towards that at 8, then they would be self-sufficient by 15.

If you look at the last 60-70 years, you see that kids become adults later and later. My grandparents were married and on their own in their late teens (15-17 years old). My parents were in their early 20s. My generation seems to average around the end of college. The current generation (my sisters) are approaching 25 and still not making the transition.

This is worrisome for me, since I've got my own kids coming through that process. I know my 15 year old could succeed, but there is no way the societal infrastructure would let him. I worry more about my other kids who aren't as self-aware as he his.

I can say that I totally agree that a huge part of the problem is that kids are kept in the kid group until, one day, they are just expected to flip the switch and be adults. They aren't learning how to be adults in school, that's for sure.
No he's not.

Yes, he is.

which really isn't worth as much as the client thinks it is.

That's a completely different argument, and I addressed this in my first post.

a net negative for nearly everyone in an industry.

Um, except for the kid who turns around in a week's time and can say: You know that new Tim Ferris book? I designed that.

Clearly, not everyone.

I'm always concerned when people start talking about benefiting industry. In almost every case, the "benefit to the industry" is at a loss to the consumer.

It's not like we're hiring thugs to beat up people who are willing to do spec work.

No, but you have no problem publicly vilifying them, do you?
Yes, I'm one of the two core contributors to/maintainers of the Greasemonkey Firefox extension.
StackOverflow for HTML and CSS
The mechanic will tell you, "Fine. Go to the average costing mechanic then." At that point it will be up to you to find him.

A busy mechanic will give higher quotes because he doesn't need your business. His worker utilization is high, and that is what drives his profits. Markup on parts is small, if not zero. Taking on the extra work means he has to bring a guy in on Saturday, usually his best and highest paid one, and pay overtime.

Now the idle mechanic knows the market rate and will quote that or lower, based on how much he needs the work. But there is a reason that he is idle.
Oh dear, I didn't mean to brag.
I came to the same conclusion (based on my own experience in teenage, and observations later) that there is a lot of talent waiting to be tapped in teenage years, and treating teenagers respectfully as young adults and giving them responsibility is good for them and good for society.

That is one of the reasons we like to hire 17 year olds in Zoho and combine education with work. Labor laws won't let us hire any sooner, but if it were my own family members, I would hire them sooner.
They didn't use Scheme because it was complex,
they used it because it was simple.
The Perseids are Coming
And he documented his "success" for the whole world to see. I wonder what the legal implications are.
No way, these things are clearly products of successive iterations. No waterfall technique here. :-)
Models that are based on "hope I get bought out" are not viable imo. All business plans are obviously dependent on certain favorable conditions (like finding customers), but it's a lot easier to find some customers than it is to convince one of the very few potential acquirers to first acquire a business that provides your functions and then second to acquire you instead of a competitor.
Interesting to note that the author drew inspiration for the principles of elegance from Donald Knuth.
Excellent advice. It has hidden bonuses as well - if you schedule your workouts for the mornings it might bias you towards getting a little more sleep at least 3 times a week.

Never underestimate the effects of being fit and well rested on your ability to think clearly.
Great start. You could definitely get a more musical sound out of it by mapping it onto a scale rather than just the full range of MIDI notes. Also, this approach operates on fixed note lengths--another interesting idea might be to use one of the compared numbers to determine note length rather than a second pitch.
straight up google apps gmail with gmail notifier. As far as multiple accounts:

1) set other accounts up to forward to your gmail/gapps email
2) setup a filter + auto label system for those emails
3) add it as an outgoing email that you can reply from (limited to 7 i THINK)
By that standard, probably half of the over-30s out there are not fully mature....
The problem with straight-up documentation is that much of it is unreadable technobabble that makes no sense until you, say, throw in a diagram or a chunk of sample code. Then you go "oohhhhhh" and are enlightened.

Apple's documentation is "complete" insofar as all the major bits are written down somewhere, but it's very opaque and hard to read. Their ridiculous lack of diagrams, visualizations, and sample code also makes your life much more difficult than it must be.

In fact, I do not think there's ANY sample code anywhere that isn't a "sample project". As in, when Apple does decide to grace your presence with sample code, it's a large, integrated thing that really doesn't help you learn a specific API or component.
istimferrisactinglikeanasshole.com is available!
I wonder if you would end up with tax issues when doing this? As a US citizen would I pay tax abroad, or in the US, how difficult would it be to get the requisite visa, and most importantly, how many idea spots have fiber internet?

It does sound intriguing though.
The inbox API is read-only, so that app can't currently be built.
Those are all good suggestions, and I would add:

4) Use Mailplane (http://mailplaneapp.com/). Disclaimer: Mailplane is not free and I'm not affiliated with it at all.
A blog should be a natural extension of who you are and what you're doing. If you have to ask about what you should and should not put in it, you should go back to the drawing board and make explicit what your goals are for your blog. Is it just eyeballs for the sake of eyeballs? Then mix everything. Is it to attract a certain caliber of people who are going to use your services? Then stick to topics of common interest.
Since when does my larynx do a goddamn thing when I read silently?
It would be interesting to see if/how this would change if their environment changed. The brain changes significantly based on its environment, so could the brain mature more quickly if the environment forced it to?

I'm not in any way saying it would, but it would be hard to prove otherwise.
How to tell whether your code is running at C static-initialization time (MSVC)
Hackers like me would be interested in what they have done even if it made no significant difference to the end results.

I think there main go here is trying to position them self against all the new real time search offerings.
Got a reference for that? I hadn’t heard it before.
Is there a link on the site or an email account where we can leave customer comments/suggestions?
Outlook for my exchange based email (at work), Thunderbird for IMAP (at home).
Shopkick too, though im not sure how far they got
Rarely, yes. It takes a pretty serious storm, but I've seen service interrupted due to rain within this past year. This year has had record rainfall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/nyregion/01hot.html

"One reason for the record-breaking low temperatures was the record-breaking rainfall and accompanying cloud cover. The deluge of more than 16 inches (twice the average amount) made it the second wettest June and July on record, edging 1928. The wettest June and July was 1975, with more than 19 inches."

(First reference I could Google up.)
given me infallible icebreakers

Care to share? I've never had much luck on developing those ...
This site is a great example of how video content should be presented: With a short summary of the key points, and what you can expect to learn if you watch the whole thing.
How to Save Money With Debt Consolidation Loans
I said "mostly". I also use it in my dining room, my media room, out on my back deck, in my yard, at the local coffee shop, on planes (way too much), at client sites, in hotels, at friends houses, at my mom's house, in the car, and so on.

The only time glare has been a significant problem is when I'm outside (at my house or a coffee shop) and the sun is in the wrong position (solved this on my deck with a patio umbrella). For what it's worth, the same conditions where the glare is bad tend to make my previous matte 15" mbp totally unusable (washed out).

Again, I don't do photo work, but for e-mail, coding, etc... it takes a lot for the glare to get to the point where it interferes, and the matte screen is usually useless long before then.
Stackoverflow is already geared toward and full of css and HTML questions. What gap is this site trying to fill?
>I don't feel like I was a mature adult until about 22

Was that about the time you left college? I think a lot of feeling "mature" is actually having responsibility for yourself. If teenagers had responsibility for themselves, and didn't have the artificial environment of high school to pressure them in the wrong direction, I believe nearly all of them could be fully functioning adults.

I don't think mature brain connections correlates with mature decision making. People become adults when they're finally faced with adult decisions and have to deal with the consequences.

All one needs to make mature decisions is a sense of the consequences of actions and an ability to delay gratification to reach later goals. Both of which is fully within the grasp of teenagers, if they're taught properly growing up.
You might want to have a look at CEGEPs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEGEP
yeah, saw that. my thought is that if you query a message and its sent, fb would mark that read on their end? Couldn't you query all messages that are unread, execute a basic loop statement, and call it a day. Not sure how rate limiting would play into it.
> No, but you have no problem publicly vilifying them, do you?

Please to not be putting words in my mouth? Kthx.

Seriously though, I don't have a problem with people willing to do spec work at all - I see it as a symptom of a systematic problem that is encouraged by people abusing the spec work model.

As I've said before, the concept of spec work originally is so that the client can "try before they buy" - given that designers have such a high variance, and the product is hardly a commodity. You do a bit of leg work, show off your chops, and the rest of a sizable job is yours.

The problem here is when people start soliciting complete work for commercial purposes. This is not a try-before-you-buy, this is just give-me-stuff-for-free.

Material benefits (and lack thereof) aside, I think this model reeks of disrespect for the design community (disclosure: I am a coder, not a designer). I've issued these design contests myself in the past, and I no longer do so - and every single time I did, I felt like a jackass, since clearly I was trying to get something for nothing. I was trying to gain ownership for a volume of work that is worth far more than what I paid for it (in cash, "exposure", etc). This is not an equitable trade, and I knew it the entire time - and I think a reasonably smart guy like Ferriss knows this too.

By the way, since I saw a post somewhere in this thread... I issued the contests because I was too poor to pay for real design work - but that's a justification to myself and myself only, and does nothing to change the fact that I the trade was still not equitable.
Thanks for the boost on my YC application. When I was in university I made a short film and sold it to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and it aired nationally.
If you have an aspiring designer with no portfolio or references, how should they get started?

A lot of people go to art or design school. Which is to say: They pay money to someone to supervise them as they produce a portfolio full of work for which they will not be paid.

But once they graduate they get the Art School Seal of Approval, which is what they are paying for.
My thoughts exactly, and it also looks like they may have some bugs to fix like here: http://doctype.com/why-floating-elements-being-pushed-around

Notice how the image covers the right hand nav??