skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The deterministic nature of computer hardware used to be apparent during interaction with the computer.

Novices would quickly learn to carry out common actions 'blind'.

You could memorize a sequence of keystrokes and experiment with changing parts, or leaving out parts, to develop variations, or shorter but equivalent sequences.

The user interfaces of older computers were also orders of magnitude faster. If you were to time travel back to the 1980s and try to show off a smart phone to 8-bit hobbyists, I predict that they'd frequently attempt to remove the battery: "It seems to be stuck in a loop!"

Some might blame multi-threading, some might blame storage and communication latency... I blame planned obsolescence and the 'Halloween Documents' come to mind.

Most users were not introduced to real computers. They were introduced to products, products engineered to optimize for profitability.
3 posts about this in less than a minute? Jeez HNN, get some dupe filtering set up already.
If you're travelling and eating in a lot of questionable restaurants, grilled cheese is supposed to be one of the safest things to order. This article seems to agree.
Can you elaborate on your problems with FTDI? We're refactoring some hardware with FT232, smallest package I think, and alternatives are welcome. Would CP210x allow for lower latency/less stalls on Windows or are the FTDI limits on that point just the limits of the usb stack on Windows?
This used to be published as "Survival, Evasion, and Escape" with the same field manual number. I have an old printed copy dated 1969 which includes the missing Evasion and Escape sections.
More like visit the skeletal remains of teh late 90's internet...
Google really knows how to toy with my emotions with these videos.
Looks like I am in the minority but I don't like the drag to share action. You would need to long press the message as you need to do right now in the current app. Pressing the forward button and then tapping on the person/group's name (the current implementation) is much easier to me. Specially with the ever increasing size of phones. I would be always worried about dropping the photo/message on the wrong group/person's bucket.

As others have pointed out, the double check is not read confirmation but is delivery confirmation. I like the way FB messenger does it right now instead of the colors that you have. I don't think it would scale very well. The average size of the groups that I am part of on WhatsApp right now is about 10.

Notes/bookmark feature is fine but I don't know how much would I use it until I start using it.
Yes. I had RadControls inflicted upon me once.

I, like many people here by the looks, spent a good deal of time removing them. We had one issue where the page response with an AJAX Manager (or whatever it was called) was 5x as slow than a full page refresh. Turns out it was POSTing 2Mb of crap for some reason.

I'd rather eat my own poop that use their software again.
Sailing between the Scylla of hype and the Charybdis of reflexive skepticism
Its worse than that. Don't buy a board from Ebay or Alibaba.
If you choose a dictionary word to name your startup or library or whatever, you're just asking for a collision.
inbox.google.com mentions iOS
Couldn't have happened to better people!
And actual fabric: http://cbsphilly.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shopping-style-...
I'm one of the organizers of this retreat. Let us know if you have any questions! greatergoodretreat@gmail
Yet you still need a Mac to make iPhone apps.
The Concrete Battleship
Is it too much to ask interested job seekers to use our product first?
I am a solo founder of a startup company "Buy From Farm" (http://buyfrom.farm) - a marketplace for farmers, neighborhood producers and buyers.
I am looking for a co-founder in marketing and sales, so I posted the job info at angellist.com. I got quite a few emails. I asked the interested party that it's better download our apps and sign up before we talk.
By the time we talk, I realize that some of them just downloaded and played a little. The most fun part of this app is to become a vendor.

I have also worked with a few developers who wanted to be part of this project. And I got the feeling that they don't like to play this app either.

I am actually disappointed.

For the fairness of the discussion, the app itself is solid with decent UI and UX.

So did I ask too much? Or I expect too much?
FYI the "Uncle Who Works For Nintendo" game that made the front page on HN last week was created with Twine.
A Physical Key to Your Google Account
Wow, this is actually pretty amazing, fluid user interactions, non-intrusive, and very easy on the eyes.

Great execution -- it's an idea a LOT of people have tried to do (check app store for "chat with users on same page" or something, you'll see what I mean), and you guys really do a great job of it.

I'd love to see some assertions/information on what you do with data accrued on the app. Who are you sharing what I'm looking at with? are you deleting it as soon as you get it? are you storing it?
The counterfeit FTDI chips are apparently reimplemented from scratch using a completely different design, one based around a USB microcontroller of some kind. They're a commodity because they're really easy to create.
Why is this downvoted? Would the author not like to know if a commenter purchased his work?
We've spent a lot of time optimizing for 60fps for the Web, it's not quite there yet for all browsers, due to different rendering/layout engine "gotchas", but we're working on rock solid 60fps everywhere.
you are the minority, and so am I. I hate that stuff in most games, and rarely fork over my cold hard cash.

But the middle aged women demo does not think like your typical HN reader. And that demo is orders of magntude larger than the HN community.

At best, OP should pray to monetize 2% of their audience. Of that, only maybe 15% end up being repeat customers.

and remember, 37% of all stats quoted on the internet are made up. but you get my point ;)
You have your work and personal email in the same account? How do you separate it? Standard Filters?
Andrew Plotkin has released a few IF games for iPhone http://zarfhome.com/ He has a new one coming out soon, Hadean Lands. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zarf/hadean-lands-inter... He wrote his own interface for playing IF games on phones. It's called IosFismo and it's open-source, if you want to make your own text-based game for iOS. https://github.com/erkyrath/iosfizmo/

Edit: Some of those games are also playable online. The browser-based IF interpreter is called Parchment, and it's open-source too. https://code.google.com/p/parchment/
thanks for the feedback, i'm glad you got something out of it. i think proximity in IM-apps are a really interesting topic.
Any word on the price paid?
Any details on what exactly it is and how it's different that existing platforms?
The truth about torture is Obama never wants you to find it
You could always just use libusb to talk to your device (e.g., an AVR w/ V-USB or another microcontroller with actual USB support) from user space, instead of fooling around with fake COM ports.
They shouldn't be competitors-- one is a "portal" and one is a "brokerage." Much of the industry has regulations preventing brokerages from being portals, and vice versa.

Redfin is actually competing with the brokers/agents who use Trulia and Zillow.

It's an unfortunate issue of Redfin's that they're confusing the public by presenting themselves as both (portal and brokerage). It's more so that they're trying to compete, for some unknown reason, with Trulia and Zillow (Zulia).

They definitely are just another brokerage, like Century 21 or Remax and nothing more.

Note: I work for Househappy.org so I'm rather well versed on this issue in particular.
Definitely. You want confirmation it got to someplace same until delivered to the recipient. 1 check for got to server, 1 check for delivered to recipient device, and then "Read" underneath the furthest part of the conversation that has been read. Or I'm just crazy and niche.
Company Claims To Have Developed Working Hoverboard
Does this qualify as a CFAA violation? I think so and for monetary gain, no less. I would like to hear why wouldn't the DA that leaned so hard on Swartz wouldn't do the same FTDI's CEO.
>If you go look at Plan 9 rc shell scripts, you'll see how much cleaner they are.

I used rc as my interactive shell and for very light shell scripting for over 10 years, and I consider it only slight better than the other Unix shells. In fact, the fact that rc's rules for escaping (quoting) characters like hash and space are incompatible with Emacs's shell mode's file-name completion was enough to cancel out any benefit I have derived from the relative "cleanness" of rc.

the (minor) advantages of rc for me: not having to remember the more complex quoting rules of bash, etc. unlike with bash, etc, no part of an rc commandline is ever interpreted twice except for when the double-interpretation is caused by an explicit use of the "backquote" (eval and substitute) operator.

I know this is just my subjective opinion, but I find Unix shells, including rc, inferior to almost any other programming language.

I always got a little sad when I needed to write anything requiring an if statement or anything but the simplest loop in rc (or any other Unix shell). I have come to realize that I would much, much rather write such things in Emacs Lisp -- and have transitioned to doing so. (The start-up time of Emacs --batch is fast enough on modern hardware not to be an impediment.)
Digits sounds like a good idea in theory, but relying on SMS for password security is like relying SMS for anything. Even if SMS were secure on its own (meaning traffic was encrypted - which it isn't anyway) you still have the problem of people gaining access through a person's cellular provider account. AT&T for example, will allow you to send and receive SMS from your account on their website - an account which is accessible after "verifying" that you own the account by entering your mother's maiden name or dog's birthday (more or less). Point being, this is no more secure than sending my password in plain text to my email.
Its worse than that. Don't buy generic electrical goods w/USB from East Asia (they might be tainted by this, unbeknownst to you).
Yes, I think that's asking too much in this case. How many farmers do you know that are actively pursuing a programming job?
heads up indeed, might even get some heads rolling.. The FTDI chip is the sole means of communication in a major product of a startup I know. If the chips are fakes and customers are left with useless devices that's going to seriously hurt reputation and income.
Heh. This title brought back memories from 2009.

http://readwrite.com/2009/05/28/google_wave_google_tries_to_...

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/09/google-w...
The gmail app has had the swipe to archive thing for a while now.
Technology changed product placement
Why is this worrisome? I read difficult articles many times during the week. I want to relax with an easy, entertaining read. I don't think you cannot gain life lessons from YA Novels.
How to Turn an Archaeologist into an Underwater Iron Man
This is kind of awesome. Really great landing page. Great testimonials - makes me feel like if I use it, I know many others will already have it (or will easily adopt when I share it). Screenshots are perfect - I know exactly what I'm getting myself into. You guys turned some great insight into a great product. Can't wait to use it myself.

quick edit - have you guys seen Spot.IM? I know this isn't exactly a competitor, but it's probably good to check out: http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/22/spot-im/
Exactly.

This article repeats many of the exact same complaints that my parents and my friends' parents had about the Wishbone[0]
books (not the TV series). Fortunately, reading kid-friendly adaptations of classics neither rotted my brain nor destroyed my interest in the subject matter, and I remain an avid reader today.

My first exposure to Greek mythology came from (I kid you not) a reader in school[1]. It was probably intended for a 4th grade reading level. If anything, this only enhanced my interest in the matter - I read the entire D’Aulaires collection shortly afterward, studied Latin in high school, and still know many of the stories by heart.

I actually read the entire Percy Jackson series recently. It's a quick read for any adult, and like many kids' cartoons from the 70s, it's filled with jokes and references that only an adult can appreciate[2]. The writing quality is a little lower than Harry Potter, but if I may, I never thought Rowling was a stellar writer anyway (her talent is in plot development).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_%28TV_series%29

[1] Do they still even have these anymore? They were basically consumable workbooks that had stories that you were reading as you practice spelling, grammar, etc.

[2] I actually am surprised in some sense that children enjoy the books, because to me, it seems like much of the humor would fall completely flat without a solid understanding of the stories that Riordan is adapting. Apparently he manages to make it work, but I would say that his writing is about as adult-friendly/adult-oriented as the first few books in the Harry Potter series. (As opposed to the last couple of books, which are definitely intended for a slightly older audience, and contain much darker elements).
> I would have no mental qualms with killing my friends

What is the definition of "friends" that you're using? Presumably, people who think they are your friends, because they don't know.

> Although I liked them as people ...

... you would still have killed them if there were no repercussions, and some tangible benefit. Hmm, what is the working definition of "like" here?

Usually when normal people like something, a big element of what that means is wishing for its preservation.

Also, how can you say "like them as people" if you don't see the value of people beyond being a means to an end? By this reasoning, your use of "like ... as people" should be synonymous with "like ... as means to and end". In that case why use the term "as people".

The ordinary meaning of to "like someone as a person" is quite opposite to seeing them as a means to an end.
I don't know, but the sense I got is that those stakeholders were larger, more formal investors, in which case RegD doesn't help them --- they're assumed to be sophisticated.
Really, they made that argument? So when I'm logging into some website, I'm not going to have access to my email? Bad logic.
They pop up over and over again. The first wave of popularity I'm old enough to remember was back in '04 [0]

[0] http://www.perl.com/pub/2004/04/08/bloom_filters.html
I recently spent the better part of a day clearing out my work inbox because I'd heard too many people preach about inbox 0, and how the only things in their inbox were things they actively needed to work on.

This worked for all of two days for me. Now, a week later, my inbox is once again packed, with nothing being moved or deleted, just read. That's just a flow that seems to work better for me. My to-do lists that I actually need to pay attention to are in other places... I'm looking at Jira to see what needs my development attention and in what order, for example. I'm pleased with treating my email as a giant bin where everything gets thrown, but can easily be fished out again given the need.

While I imagine this is all dependent on just how much email you actually get in a day, systems like Google Inbox seem useful to me at first, until I realize I'm no longer following the system, or I'm spending too much time deciding on where an email should be filed instead of simply acting on it and moving on with my life.
Exactly, some carries drop sms on different occasions and you never know the status.

Also I would argue if you target ppl who don't have email you shouldn't require any authenticated accounts.
What is their track record?
Of Course Microsoft Is Rebranding Its Nokia Phones
Man, if you thought there were too many lawyers in programming already... just wait until we have retroactive protection of (corporate owned) APIs (and instruction sets?). Talk about a 'submarine' attack.
A Soldier Explains What It Was Like in the World War I Trenches (1916)
That's the arms race that's already in place. The new one will take place in a courtroom.
Count me in - I've been reading some of my daughters' books although I'm not into vampire/mythology stuff. My favorite: Dear Dumb Diary! They have outgrown it now but I'm still a fan.

Doesn't stop me from switching back to literature when I've had my fill.
This is almost already considered (as others have mentioned) in Etherium and related bitcoin-related thinking - lookup "Decentralized Autonomous Corporations". The part you're adding is the incarnation (or maybe "inferriation"?) of the DCA into a robotic body, which is a pretty nifty connection.
Ok, I didn't mean you literally have to become a psychopath, but that there are some parallels.

I think if you ask people who built a startup if they sometimes felt like a psychopath, I think many of them will not say no.

Some quick googling also gave a lot of articles, such as that even HN readers are more psychopathic than the average internet users. http://blog.statwing.com/starting-a-company-can-turn-you-int....

I'm not advocating in any way that college students should try to become psychopaths in order to start a startup, however, I don't think there is value in excluding a correlation between psychopatic behaviour and building a huge company.

In fact, I think the founder of the largest companies we have to day are pretty insane and not in a good way. I think this helps bringing to the company to traction, but like Ron Conway was saying in the "How to start a startup"-lecture today about fundraising, what he found most impressive about the AirBnb founders is that the bigger their company becomes, the more mature they become, but also the more humble.

I think that's the mix of crazy and humility you need to build the most successful companies.
• He hired an alcoholic for a lawyer

• He didn’t know about Founders’ Stock

• He only ended up with 4% of the company after his divorce

• The board of directors took pity and helped him out financially, but they didn’t have to

Rereading this, I realize that this story might sound like sour grapes, and perhaps some of you are thinking, “What an idiot!” But, no, I’m not bitter in the least. That’s life; these things happen, and it was a valuable learning experience. I share it because, well, it’s a part of the history here. And yeah, I’m an idiot. If you keep reading this blog, you’ll see that proven again and again! But we’re all idiots. We do dumb things: we trust people we shouldn’t, we make decisions based on emotion without regard for logic, or sometimes logic without regard for emotion. It’s the human experience, and the story of Wizards of the Coast is a very human story.
Hahah thanks, jastanton. You just made my day :D
Nice story. This point resonates with me: "If you climb a mountain you are sure to have a few missteps along the way. But you keep going. You don’t stop and start over if you trip here or take the wrong path there. You keep going."
Probably not, or that already would have happened. It hasn't.

One problem is that a lot of people look at equity grants as a meritorious service award. But that's not at all what they are; they're compensation for risk.

Developers look at risk compensation and say, "well, I undertook a lot of risk to work long hours for a lower wage". That's true, but the market prices that kind of risk, and the market cares a lot about substitutes, and the typical developer taking basis points for their participation is eminently replaceable by other developers.

On the other hand, the market has no replacement for an entity legally authorized to trade $1MM for X% of the company, so that risk is priced highly. Similarly, the market has fewer substitutes for the people who actually start the company; or rather, those substitutes tend to react to the mispricing by simply starting their own companies, and thus aren't competing with the founders for equity.

Pithier:

* there's a lot of ground to be made up in how founders/operators promote startup jobs to developers!

* there's probably some marginal ground to be made up for developer equity compensation

* it probably won't dramatically alter the way startup cap tables look

* developers who genuinely (in a market sense) are poorly served by how startups allocate equity should start their own companies

* developers who can't start companies probably aren't being as screwed as we think they are by small grants --- or, if they are, they're being screwed by being persuaded to work at startups when they should instead work for larger companies that can pay them better wages.
I can't stand how little I can see at a glance in my inbox now. With the Gmail app on my Nexus 5, I could see 7 emails in the default inbox view. With Inbox I can see 3. Two of which do not include a subject line because they have been grouped "Social" or "Purchases" and will take an additional tap to view. I'm going to give it some time, but for now I find most of the content to be a horrible waste of space.
The introverted face
Google: Your Inbox for the Web
Ironically I was just listening to Geoff Donaker's (from Yelp) talk at Stanford. At the end someone asks what were the biggest problems they faced. #1 was sweating the terms with their investors.

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3301
I don't understand the insistence that robots in the future not be specialized. Quite the contrary, I think they'll be highly specialized, and the ant metaphor agrees.
Thanks! Feel free to point us @Point Team when you're on the app. Would love to hear further feedback.
Is that why Inbox requires Chrome?
My comment was only referring to Firebase as a standalone product/service.

If Google discontinues it yet incorporates the technology into their own products/platforms that is still a loss for developers who use/would have used Firebase.
Chromebook shipments leap by 67 percent
Just as YA fiction can encourage a reader to move on to more complex literature, strong sales of their YA fiction can encourage a writer to keep writing until they can produce more complex literature.

Compare JK Rowling's #1 versus #7. The first book is not very remarkable YA fiction. It is stocked with tropes from cover to cover. The last book actually seems handicapped by the need to maintain continuity with the first. The awesome thing that happened there is that the readers developed along with the author.

We need YA fiction of dubious literary value in the same way that we need minor league baseball. Some players never make it to the major league, but by playing at their own level, some can improve to the point that they can tackle a greater challenge. Is watching Indianapolis Indians versus Nashville Sounds as gratifying as NY Yankees versus Boston Red Sox? No, not usually. But the minor teams allow the pool of available professional and semi-pro baseball players to be much larger, which makes the top talent better.

In the same way, more readers support more authors, and more authors produce more bestselling authors, and more bestselling authors produce more literary masterpieces. To produce Shakespeare, you don't need infinite monkeys typing, but you do need an awful lot of them.
Some early Apple Pay users hit with duplicate charges
For my kids high school has changed that. My older daughter went through all the popular series but also had to read stuff like "secret life of bees" and ended up enjoying that.
Tip: Clean Up Your Code with Lighter View Controllers in Swift