skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with some part of what you say but I think there are some subtleties that your comment ignores. His point isn't that simply volatility is a good thing. Rather, by looking at things are many levels, fragility at one level is anti-fragile at another level. By allowing small businesses to experience catastrophe the system as a whole becomes stronger.

I do agree with you about Black Swan as well. I couldn't finish and felt it was a big let down from "Fooled By Randomness".
A car has a simple goal: get you from one place to another. A computer does not. It's a general purpose tool that is near infinite in scope and possibility. The analogy is a complete failure.
http://i.imgur.com/bsKMZ1i.png
I have a criticism. I think most people are not fit to criticize the vast majority of the people they interact with. You are not a mindreader and who the hell are you to judge a stranger or acquaintance in some meaningful way?

If you think you're offending 95% of the people you talk to, then maybe that's some feedback you should consider.
* Dev tools get better and better, giving you better insights into other peoples websites than ever before. One-click to make a minified JS file readable? Awesome!

* Web apps get more complex, giving you the ability to work & create on the web, Google docs let you literally stop mid-sentence, switch the device and keep writing your essay on the go

* Tumblr, wikipedia, twitter, - all relatively recent additions to the web and definitely not "consumption exclusive"

I'm not sure where your "consumption exclusive" comes from. I'd call it just "inclusive". The web tries to be for everyone, and that includes people who couldn't care less about a 20 character hex id when they want to write up their great concept for developing rural areas in Rumania. Sure, you will always have more consumers than producers on the grand scale of things. But I'm failing to see any reason to see recent trends as anything close to what you describe.
So many words, so little sense.
> Do you believe the main big picture purpose of Ayn Rand's philosophy was to create the best possible society?

No, that was just a consequence of her primary goal. She actually said she had no deep interest in politics other than to define a rational base for capitalism so she (and those like her) could be left alone to create. That was the basis for the title of her novel that free individuals are the fountainhead of all the values we enjoy. Her primary stated goal was to present the ideal man in her novels. In order to do that she discovered that she had to define her own philosophy of Objectivism. A complete philosophy doesn't start with politics or society but more basic questions such as the nature of existence, consciousness, knowledge, reason and ethics which all have to be defined to intelligently discuss politics (the highest level).

In reading your article and replies to others I see that the goal in your article wasn't to explain or discuss Objectivism so much but to explain the cultural phenomenon of Ayn Rand's popularity. My recommendation would be to read some of her non-fiction works like the one I recommended on selfishness. BTW, she qualified her advocacy of selfishness as acting on ones rational self interest, not emotional indulgence as you implied. (This is a common misrepresentation of her view). Also, she thought that emotions were important and essential to the human experience but they are not primaries nor means to knowledge. If you are interested in what Rand was all about you should also read her books Philosophy Who Needs It and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
where is 'like' button :)
We're in the middle of "Over-Design". The carousels, slideshows, parallax scrolling effects, top screen loading bars, javascript animations, checkerboard image and text lists are all signs of designers who are trying to fit design in places where its not needed. They're shoe-horning design into pages where the content doesn't even call for it. I think this is because what designers secretly want (being creative and clever) and what users want (simple and working) are starting to mismatch.
I can understand the desire. But at the same time, I use Spotify while I'm driving and it would be really annoying to me that a crazy spacebat with a jammer blocked my tunes. But as is pointed out already, I feel certain this would actually increase distracted driving.
I don't see this change as doing anything but encouraging such behaviour. It really should not be encouraged; taken too far it would break the web.
I remember talking to a friend who owns a Mercedes recently and he was telling me how he had to take his car into the shop and they gave him a fancy loaner (an ML 63, IIRC). He talked about all the cool gadgetry in there like blind-spot monitors, side rear view mirror wipers, and such.

He also mentioned that the cars are pretty much impossible to work on on your own since you need to have the right diagnostic equipment, as opposed to a car one might have bought 15-20 years ago, where a good manual was all that you needed to get into the thick of it.

While I agree that knowledge of the inner functioning should not be required for using a product, I think that it would be nice if there was some sort of effort made to allow one to poke inside. I am guessing that with Chrome there will be some sort of setting that you can use to undo this change (I use Firefox, and rarely, but occasionally, use the about:config tool).

This concept is something I've been playing out in my mind and that I'm starting to explore in my programming. A simple interface that "doesn't make me think" (me being the user), and a well-tucked-away "Advanced" button that, having given the proper warnings, allows the user to poke around on the inside.
Why sir, calling out Taleb on his banality. What a rare criticism to be spotted in the wild.

He wrote a book, the swan one, which is a rehash of his previous one, the randomness one. The book contains very little scientific data. It's mainly about him sitting down and deducing things (which are probably true, I'll give him that). It's verbose, it's boring, it's irrelevant and, of course, it's a best-seller.
Let's take the automobile analogy further.

A browser that doesn't show the exact URL of a page is like a car with a built-in GPS that doesn't show the exact location where it's at. After all, who cares about street addresses? The address is occuplied by a Starbucks and we're in Mountain View, so let's just show a Starbucks logo surrounded by a shape that vaguely looks like an outline of Mountain View. You want to go someplace else? We'll show you your destination and the series of turns you need to make to get there, but we won't show you anything else on the way.

If you think a preschooler doesn't need to know how URLs work, you are vastly underestimating the curiosity of a typical preschooler. If you show him a bar with a bunch of letters in it, he'll start typing random letters into that box to see what happens. Likewise, if you show him a detailed map of the town, he will want to explore parts that he's never been to so far. Tinkering and exploration are the foundation of every science, including computer science. Therefore, I don't think it's a good idea to discourage tinkering and exploration, whether in a car or in a browser, unless the benefits greatly outweigh the long-term costs.

With cars, the benefits are probably quite large, since complexity is exactly what makes modern cars so safe and efficient. With browsers, I'm not even sure what the benefits are supposed to be, other than the obvious financial benefit to Google. People who don't want to tinker with the URL bar will just ignore it most of the time. Also, we're talking about the desktop browser here. There are plenty of pixels to waste.
Historical aside: during the 'Troubles' in my part of the world, the creators of radio-triggered devices soon became wise to jammers and inverted the logic so that they detonated when a continuous signal was lost due to jamming.
Same reason as some browsers started to grey out parts of the hostname - if the only thing a user sees is "bankofamreica.com" or "bankofamerica.com.foroigs.io" they have a better chance of catching the thing that's wrong. Noise/information ratio etc..
Old cars: you could fix it yourself. Modern cars: rarely need fixing; also much more efficient. I know which I prefer.
I thought you meant it was a known best practice in JavaScript in general. I know have kept an eye on React and it's intriguing, but I have yet to hack with it because I mostly work in an ecosystem of libraries that have an alternative, which is pretty much literally an independent implementation of Backbone.View, but without coupling to the rest of Backbone like Model or Events.

I generally deploy these modules together to the web, and I want to keep the file size of my base layer small. I think React looks cool but I haven't gotten to the point where I want to send my users 30k more code when

It does seem promising for new projects. I hope to give it a go soon.
Who needs the URL when you can search Google (instead of remembering a site's name /url) and see some ads first. This is the real reason, not usability.
I take your point, but I would argue that it's not comparing apples to apples. Some time ago I read the Douglas Rushkoff book Program or Be Programmed, wherein he puts forth his view (if I may paraphrase) that this last communication revolution based upon the computer is a very important one, because now we’re actually getting to the point where the tools we are creating are starting to take on the characteristics of living things and the people who program these almost-living tools will continue to take on an increasingly important role. Conversely, in the years to come those who do not at least have a basic idea of how programming is done will be at an acute disadvantage (politically, socially, financially, culturally) much like the illiterate following society’s adoption of the written word.

Potential hyperbole and the fact that Rushkoff was talking about programming more so than general computer knowledge aside, I still think there's a relevant point there. I personally feel that giving up all pretense of needing to know how my computer works would put me at a far greater disadvantage in the coming years than were I to do the same with my car. My car is very useful yes, but I don't use it to view the world, my country and its politics, my culture, my future, my finances, and make decisions based on those views.
Cars are physical objects that are difficult and expensive to reconfigure. This is not the case of software.

My smartphone has a "simple" mode that people can activate for their hypothetical "computer illiterate grandmothers". The option to enable it is even presented to the user during initial setup, so people who feel intimidated by their phone can enable it themselves right out of the box. However other users are not forced to use the interface optimized for the computer illiterate.
A lot of japanese ads just have a little search bar with the name of the company in it, instead of a URL.
But Ipads and Iphones are very consumer focused, in the same way the television is (with more interactivity of course..)

With our editing and creative capabilities getting away from us..(with the keyboards/mouse as last frontiers) we are ending in the same bi-class system of the TV/Radio.. a class that creates the content, working for the monopolies of the industry.. and us only, consuming..

Thats not how the Web was supposed to be.. the idea that we can be both, independent, create novels, music, programs and publish ourselves in pure freedom .. thats what we are loosing by every move of the tech monopolists of our time..

Usability is one thing, being teached to be just a user or a consumer of something is to get back to the XX century, just with a new powerful medium..

Perhaps even the radio/TV revolution of the XX should be free back than, in our own hands.. so people could create tv and radio stations (on free frequencies of course).. but the olders missed this train

It's happening all over again, and it has something to do with this capitalistic nature in formation of big monopolies and their neurosis for controling their results, and create loyal consumers to their products.. when we accept the label of consumers, we giveup our natural right of being human beings.

Technology must create the channels, not BE the channels themselves.. i think that's the original comenter's point
Burying the URL makes it less likely that a beginner will ever advance to be a power user.
One other trick is to advertise as a cell and accept connections, then just black-hole them.

Full signal strength but no calls.

Edit: may be illegal in your jurisdiction if you require a license to transmit on cell frequencies.
This neglects navigation, passengers, calls for roadside assistance, and dozens of other legitimate uses for phones on roads.

Don't know about you, but I am orders of magnitude more dangerous when I'm uncertain about where I'm going.
Oh, my apologies! I made the wrong assumptions based on how confident it sounded.
> Bartle has gotten a lot of mileage over the years with the MUD1 story

It's not really his fault, considering how often he points out how unspecial MUD1 was by doing the same kind of rattling-off you did. He does leverage his fame; I'll agree with you there; but I don't see this as a bad thing considering what he does with it. (Namely, he puts all his effort into advancing game design as an academic.)
How to win at Rock Paper Scissors
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/527026/how-to-win-at-rock-paper-scissors/
I always fix Amazon product page URLs before sending them to others. It's incredible how much useless stuff they put in those URLs. I don't want peoples' screens to fill up with a whole paragraph full of garbage.
> Modern cars: rarely need fixing; also much more efficient.

That really has nothing to do with what is being discussed though. The reliability and efficiency of modern cars are consequences of advances in technology and engineering, not user interface redesign.
It can happen, but increased presence of symptoms is not the same thing as developing an allergy. Exposure does not cause a nonexistent allergy to become existent, it causes a mild allergy to become an aggravated mild allergy. The allergy was already there, it just wasn't presenting noticeably until exacerbated by prolonged exposure.
Calm down and read it, actually read it, see the
problem, which is HUGE, and begin to see the
importance of the problem and the need for a good
solution which is just a short lesson in Technical Writing
101.

My first post was short, but apparently was too short
for everyone to 'get it'.

Apparently some people actually like in-group jargon and gibberish.
It's not a 'special' kind of interview in the type of questions or the general format. I'd say it's special in the little amount of time you have and how you get cut off mid-sentence. I've also never pitched to Paul Buchheit before which made it special.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Every payphone I've ever seen in my lifetime has been removed.
There's a few tools. There's some built-in JavaScript on Wikipedia, plus I use https://reftag.appspot.com/ a lot and a few Vim snipMate snippets.
I made an Aaron Swartz Timeline some time back: http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/
This reminds me of a discussion with a university professor back in the mid-90's, when the Internet started to reach the common user.

He was exactly doing a research in how to remove the URLs from the user view, without changing the HTTP protocol.
What a great writeup!

I also interviewed at YC last week but didn't get in. Our product is fairly simple -- we make it easier for anyone to book a service and we're starting w/the massage industry vertical. Here's part of the rejection email we received:

"This wasn’t an easy decision because, as you pointed out, there’s clearly a lot wrong with the systems that people use to book massages. It’s a similar problem to the one in many other appointment based businesses, and solving it would be valuable. Given the nature of the market and competing products, though, we could not quite see how you’d build a defensible product. Additionally, based on the way you’re planning on structuring your fees and relationships, it isn’t clear how you’d be able to lock your customers in for long enough to recoup your expenses and profitably acquire new customers."

We also applied for and/or interviewed at other incubators. What sets YC apart from those other experiences is the great feedback we get from them.
I suspect the opposite would be true. Non-power users are more likely to be fooled by the (arbitrarily-chosen by attackers) URL path-info. This focuses relatively more attention on the domain and secure-indicator.
Congress happened.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2454
Save the chil^H^H^H^H seniors.
It's not just "bits of computer code". A URL is almost exactly like an address in the physical world. In fact, the reason that it's called an "address bar", and although the browser used to actually label it "Address" but that has - unfortunately - disappeared, is because that's precisely what it is.
Please don't complain in HN comments about being downvoted. It's against the rules for good reason.

Most of the time, someone will come along and correct it (as happened here).
Nest Learning Thermostat Appears for Sale on Google Play Store
Also hoisting.
You can submit a url instead of text :)
For most people, "A to B" means getting stuff done, not hacking around with the system.

So they won't care about the technology stack, as long as that spreadsheet, text document, 3D image, .... can be edited, saved and printed or a game played.
Instead of seeing a very-very-very long URL that may contain legit words and pushing domain name out of the view, the user sees only the domain name. And if the user came to the Bank of America, but the domain is some hackedtravelagency.co.kr, it's more likely to ring bells.
Does anyone know if it is illegal for the military to operate these within the United States? I'm not sure they're in use, but I did notice that an unreasonably high percentage of my phone calls were (perhaps coincidentally) dropped when I was on I-395 near the Pentagon.
Chrome developer advocate Paul Irish says:

this is terrible. From what I can tell only 6 people have been involved
in this so far. Going to do my best to stop it.

https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/461737936078123008
For those who have a difficult time believing my information I ask you to simply ask Google and their representatives the right questions related to my first release of information. Force them to answer those questions specifically. Ask them “is there a VIP status for publishers”, ask them “why do account bans always seem to occur just before payouts”, ask them “why do you fail to provide reasons and evidence of your allegations against publishers”. Keep asking such questions, keep digging, and you will come to find out by yourselves that everything I have stated is completely true. Like many have said, it will be difficult for them to hide it now.

This reads a bit too conspiratorial, I think. Damning implications usually have benign explanations. It's a transparency problem: Google isn't transparent about its actions, so that fosters an environment where people are inclined to want to believe this kind of story. But until there's some solid evidence, there's really no reason to assume it's true.
George RR Martin uses Wordstar, a dos based word processor:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/198534.html?thread=12461446#t124...
Trying to automate my mud play from aliases to scripting with triggers was how I got started programming.

My regex is still better than most ;)
This may be the reason I stop using Chrome even though I was a member of the team for 5 years.

I NEED TO EDIT URLs. I need to copy and paste URLs. It was already annoying enough with it's removing of the protocol because sometimes I make a typo, try to edit it and it messes up and removes the protocol forcing me to edit it a 3rd time only after it goes as searches for something.

Even as just a user I copy and paste URLs all day long. Into FB, into Twitter, into stackoverflow answers, into HN responses.

I don't even see how this is better for Google. Links make up pagerank no? Links are what Google uses to be the best search engine. How is making it harder for people to copy and paste URLs good for Google?

I'm sure I'm in the minority as a semi-webdev but dammit, don't fix what isn't broken. Or at least give those of us with different use cases a way to get shit done without getting in our way. Sure, this may or may not be better for my grandma but it's not for me. I causes me frustration daily already. This is only going to make it anger inducing.
Yesterday, there was a large thread on HN about why Firefox so stubbornly keeps the search box separate from the URL bar by default [1].

I think we found the answer. Chrome now looks like a half-burnt Firefox, with an emaciated URL in a separate box from what has effectively become a search bar. The same two boxes are there, only their sizes are reversed -- accurately reflecting the respective vendors' priorities.

Expect Google to make more changes along the same line. What, did you really think they were funding Chrome out of a kindness of heart? Now that Chrome is a leading (if not the leading) browser, it's time to make some money. Google is the new Microsoft. They have the power to change the web as it sees fit, but instead of safeguarding the open web, they'll try to replace it with a walled garden. After all, what good is a browser if people use it to visit URLs that don't begin with google.com?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7666688
Modern computers have also gotten... not more reliable exactly (they have, but it's not the point), but more robust against the need for manual configuration. When's the last time you had to defragment a disk, or figure out why some device in Windows Device Manager had a question mark next to it or what driver cocktail to install, or enter complicated settings to access the Internet? (Or XF86Config, for that matter...)

In other words, just like modern cars, it's not as necessary to pay attention to the innards for continued operation.
So what happens when both parties try to exploit this pattern?
Also gramma is gonna be sad when I give her a URL and she won't know where it goes.

It is not clear if they are dumbing the web down for users or just to get people onto Google search.
I don't think that sentence is worded wrong, but it's late and I may be missing it. In any case: no! The article was wonderfully on-topic and the thread was excellent.

Edit: Oh, I get it now. "This" in "This is off-topic" meant "this meta comment I am currently posting". The article was superb. Sorry for the confusion! I will edit the GP.
If I got a phishing email it might ask me to login to my Halifax Bank account and provide a link. This link could be to Halifax.com.sh.ly/login or some such thing.

As an end user I might see the Halifax part of the url at the beginning of the address and feel comfortable entering my credentials. If this was hidden and all I saw was sh.ly then I'd know I was on the wrong website.

You and I might be comfortable seeing that from the address bar right now but I expect 80% of users would struggle to see that.
A party which knows this pattern would presumably be playing at random, so I suppose there would be no advantage to either player.
I hope Carmen Ortiz gets adequate coverage in the movie to expose what she is and has done. I know its a bigger problem and all that but she shouldn't be let off the hook that easily. And I don't care if that sounds vengeful/mean/trolling - he was basically driven to suicide because of her cornering and bulling him using overzealous prosecutorial overreach.
JavaScript hoisting