skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This article reminded me of a trend I noticed when reading the book "Masters of Doom," which discussed (among other things) the graphical improvements that made games like Wolfenstein and Doom so impressive. Very often, the book's prose would start sentences something along the lines of "though the graphics were crude, etc etc etc."

These sorts of lines, constantly repeated, irked me, not because they weren't technically true or anything, but because it's such a "looking-backward" point of view. At the time, that's not how people saw it. It was all about pushing forward the state of the art, and we miss something when we look back on it in that way.

I guess in a similar way I've had the same feeling about "modern" pixel art, where it often seems to miss the point. By treating it as just an art style, it turns it from an exercise in conveying a vision despite limitations, into an effort to simplify and downsample because those are the most easily-recognized surface-level hallmarks of that period.

For me, the magic of that era comes from seeing techniques like color cycling ( http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/?sound=0 ), where the desire to get a certain effect led to interesting workarounds, rather than being satisfied with limitations because it's "retro."
20 minutes should be plenty for skiing, and should cover more than one descent in most cases.

The airspace is going to be pretty hilarious at Killington on a weekends if half the people with GoPros upgrade to drones.
I am inclined to use a headlamp for this almost always.

However, if you are walking with one or two other people, their light depends on the direction of your head. And also on your relatively close proximity to them.

I dunno. It has occurred to me several times.
Please give me the url that contains that text string in the body, because I can't find it. I followed those links.

I did find this though(directly tapping companies networks in the past):

In 2011, when the FISC learned that the NSA was using similar methods to collect and analyze data streams — on a much smaller scale — from cables on U.S. territory, Judge John D. Bates ruled that the program was illegal under FISA and inconsistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. [0]

[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...
Well, I can only speak for myself, but I promise you, there's at least one animal sitting right at this keyboard who rarely, if ever, shits on the ground.
All you did is make a list. Can you expand this into something coherent?

Office uses a documented XML format now, Silverlight is dead, and I don't see how Xbox One is in any way relevant.

Not sure how making Windows free is "embrace, extend, extinguish." Most operating systems are free.

People make new languages based on old ones all the time, so you're going to have to expand on the problem with TypeScript.

I could go on, but I'm not a teacher running through an essay with a red pen. You won't convince anyone with a comment-free list of events.
this reminds of a recent episode of Silicon Valley, the eccentric billionaire Hanneman says, "If you show revenue, people will ask how much, and it will never be enough, It’s not about how much you earn but what you’re worth.....”

Initially i didn't see the sense in the Whatsapp acquisition, i think it was purely defensive, as well as the data FB could get their hands on.
Centsable Mom's – GIVEAWAYS
Many pixel games today take it further by adding shaders, lighting, semi-transparency, HDR, particle effects, etc. so a lot of them share this hybrid old-new look. It's charming if a) done tastefully and b) the animation/art is solid e.g. Towerfall Ascension.
found some hourly cost of ownership data: A-10 17k per hour, G3 32K per hour. (compared to <6K for a civilian G3)

http://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/
This is relevant: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/
As much as you might loathe it, learnings is now a word (and has been used intermittently for a new centuries [1]) so deal with it.

Additionally, Indian students do the best they can given the limited resources (we have). And even when they do have broad education it's not going to be about Mozart and effect of WWII on the western nations - they will always be out of context when it comes to western culture. It's the same kind of lack of ability to think (or express without getting eyebrows raised) about everything else that you might be showing here.

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/learnings
And also that four day work week the news likes to talk about.
Except when you look at the development methodology of the best-of-the-best pixel art games (BlazBlue, King of Fighters), the teams did 3D Animations for all of the characters and then re-traced them into 2D Pixel Art.

Everyone who actually _does_ high-quality pixel art understands. Good Pixel-Art is much MUCH harder to do than good 3D.

It lothes me to say it, but the blogpost is correct. Very few people understand this fact except for the artists who actually do go pixel art.
That 808 tho
I'm not discounting having a warranty. You can get a warranty on a used car from all sorts of places. Certified Pre-Owned is defined by Honda (and many others) to specifically have the advantage of not having specific things broken when you buy a car. That's what the "certified" part is. That's the whole reason they mention, specifically, the 182 point certification check. It's one of the main reasons my friend paid all the extra money for a certified pre-owned car vs getting the same basic car "used" elsewhere. My point is that the "certified" bit is mostly BS. And not just at Honda. You're still likely to get a car with a bunch of broken stuff when it's "certified".
I fail to see why Mozilla chose this direction. Firefox now looks more alien on all platforms with no real functional benefit.
> At some point, some SEO figured out that random() was always returning 0.5. I'm not sure if anyone figured out that JavaScript always saw the date as sometime in the Summer of 2006, but I presume that has changed. I hope they now set the random seed and the date using a keyed cryptographic hash of all of the loaded javascript and page text, so it's deterministic but very difficult to game.

I don't get why the rendering had to be deterministic. Server-side rendered HTML documents can also contain random data and it doesn't seem to prevent Google from doing "duplicate elimination".
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft font drivers could allow remote code execution
Wouldn't your wish require that most board members be fired, then?
Getting a Job at McDonald's Harder Than Getting Accepted to the Ivy League
I never understood why complaining about foreigners taking real-estate is okay but complaining about foreigners taking our jobs is thought of as (IMO rightfully) xenophobic.
Aral Balkan's opening words immediately isolate our otherwise allies
and turn them against us. This is a non-starter in my book. The cause
of online privacy is too important for religious politics / bickering
to get in the way of things.

I can understand your standpoint of viewing others as potential "allies", but I don't share it.

People have different opinions in different topics. In some topics they may share my opinion, in others they maybe don't.

I don't like stop representing my opinion in one topic just so others help me with another topic. It'd be selling part of my opinions to buy other peoples support. That's Realpolitik and I consider it as a kind of dishonesty.

Aral Balkan chose to state his opinion in more than just one topic in the same talk. He could have hidden his convictions about religion, but he did not. It may not be the most pragmatic approach to solve this one specific problem of online privacy, but maybe it advances us in other ways. Even if it was of less value overall, I value his honesty a lot.

You aren't misinterpreting it because you agree with him. But if
you start off hostile (ie: if an especially religious man was
sitting in the audience at the beginning), they'll interpret these
words as hostile later in the speech.

I consider strong religious belief a psychological condition, though, it often doesn't require treatment. If you'd consider me hostile and we couldn't rationally and constructively discuss anymore another topic because I stated this last sentence, then I believe we'd have bigger problems than online privacy to solve first.

I genuinely doubt that people would not get that Aral Balkan is cynically repeating the words of Mark Zuckerberg as a warning. Therefore, besides the critique of religion, I don't see why his talk would be considered disparaging.

If his talk was disparaging for someone, then maybe the problem is with that person, not the talk.

Looking at the goal of online privacy, this debate (apart from the question whether he was hostile or others are too sensitive) boils down to pragmatism versus idealism. Are you willing to silence other maybe even more important
critique you have to advance one point? I am not.
Are you suggesting that the remarkable disparity in performance was DOM specific?

Strange because I used a very common method appendChild() and I was under the impression that both browsers had optimized their respective inner workings a long time ago to the point that we should not notice such divergence in performance.
They want "people like us" as L & S did CS degrees therefore their recruiting is slanted that way.

Same for top 10 Law schools and big Law
It is the duty of an artist to fulfill their vision, not someone else's. For this reason, many prominent artists go unknown in their lifetime. The masses are attracted to "bad" art like Thomas Kinkade (I use quotes because the art is not actually bad, just lacks the originality that art connoisseurs seek). I would actually argue that you will have to make a choice between being a popular artist and being good artist (there is some overlap though). And it may well be the case that you don't have the luxury to make this choice.

For me personally, I think that good pixel art is timeless (emphasis on "good"). It gives an artist a limited canvas and forces them to be creative. You can instantly deduce an artist's skill based on how well they can convey a concept with a limited palette and resolution. An unlimited palette and high resolution actually magnifies the flaws in art, IMO (leaves less to the imagination). I find that in many modern 3D games, the suspension of disbelief is destroyed when I walk up to a character and see blurry textures and pointed polygonal edges.

For an idea of what good pixel art looks like (at least according to my opinion and many others), check out Henk Nieborg's work:

http://www.henknieborg.nl/gallery_pixels.html
The car as a platform. Self-driving cars means cars will provide entertainment, news, and a work environment.
Maciej Kuciara: The Concept Designer of Jupiter Ascending
Also with abbreviations and codes used by ham operators communicating via CW:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code_abbreviations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_code
I just sent in this PR, is this helpful? https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/25348

Specifically I ended up rewriting most of the enum page:
https://github.com/geofft/rust/blob/trpl-fix-enums/src/doc/t...

I think there's more that can be done (e.g. the book doesn't document that if every variant of an enum is data-less, you can cast it to an integer), but hopefully this is a start.
Patent-pending.
How to push the boundaries of Pushbullet with FireRTC
I'm not a cheerleader, you don't need to cherry-pick words to off-handedly dismiss. If you don't see the potential advantages that Docker brings to the table in terms of parity, immutability and performance, then you are being intellectually dishonest and there's no point having a discussion.
That method's mentioned in the article. See the section 'The Obvious Problem'.
Yeah. It's like 24fps in film. In 60fps (HD) every flaw is apparent; film props of the wrong weight look fake, and insincere facial microexpressions give it away.

Whereas in 24fps (pixelation), creators can get away with more as your brain fills in the gaps. There's also the bonus that it feels dream-like; larger than life.

There's also the question of pixel-perfect platforming. HD platformers can feel sloppy and untrustworthy if not done right. It's easier to trust a pixelated platformer. (And yet I've never felt cheated by a jump in the polygonal New Super Mario Bros.)
Crooks use iPods to steal card at ATM machines
My annoying neighbor has this exact same doorbell. Oh Hacker News, how you tempt me ;)
that would be a much safer setup but don't see these consumer drones implementing all that!
Secret Delivery – iPhone App for Data Protection
The few times I went through them in the southwest (2009), I think they asked if I was a citizen and upon answering yes that was the end of it. They probably saw my uncooperative face, and didn't feel as entitled because it was earlier in the program. If my face had said "being hassled by uniformed thugs makes me feel safe" they would have probably given me a better molestation. And these days I would think they would feel more entitled since it's been going on for some time.

In reality any such stop is a detainment, and it is being done without any suspicion whatsoever. Exactly like drunk driving checkpoints (think of the children). But of course that's ignoring that our legal system has been turned to Swiss cheese by contradictions.
I assume the ability to sell these floors out as a tax shelter / investment property factors in heavily to the financing and scale of the entire project to begin with. Does NYC get to have a One57 Tower without duplex condos selling for 9 figures? Probably not. Do duplex condos sell for anywhere close to 9 figures if the annual property taxes are 7 figures? Certainly not.

When Mayer Bloomberg talked of the ultra-rich moving in, he didn't mean so that the city could literally confiscate their assets, but rather, the city can benefit from the investment that follows. There are great arguments to be had about how much NYC actually benefits from massive infrastructure projects like One57, but the property tax structure is intentional because the city benefits in other ways.

A more interesting analysis would consider the myriad costs and benefits of the construction and upkeep of One57. Obviously there is very significant tax revenue and expenses to the city generated through various channels for a building at that scale. They are not and should not be taxed like single family homes or condos.
I suspect that what Michael Crichton actually objects to is when the media publishes things that contradict his personal and political biases. Obviously any paper that would do so is either entirely incompetent or outright deceitful.
That was clearly implied.
Homeopathy and the UK’s National Health Service
Group housing may become popular when we get AI surveillance that can watch over the common areas and identify abusers. But that's probably more than 5 years out.
It is still referenced frequently in rap music.

"That 808 bump makes you put your hands up." - fly like a g6
Yes, there's complete symmetry between signing and encrypting, thus your proposal is exactly equal to the article's.

The solution is quite simpler. Do not sign text that you didn't create. You create a random timestamped text, encrypt it, and send both to the server.

Or use the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, that as a bonus isn't vulnerable to men-in-the-middle attacks (that both the article's algorithms and the one I just wrote are).
An Apology from America OffLine (1994)
But if I'm on their site reading their content and linking to their other content and looking at their ads, how am I not fulfilling that "contract"? Attention is what they wanted, attention is what they got.

That contract I never was given a chance to read, or sign, or agree to in any way, mind. Given that, i'm not sure how you can say refusing to do something I never agreed to do in the first place is morally wrong.

This is my whole point - the distinction is entirely arbitrary because WSJ obviously values the attention more than they value the money, else we would be having this conversation right now.
Agreed. It's like the tacky buildings in Las Vegas that mimic other buildings, or Disney World, or those faux-European cities built for tourists in China.

I sure would love to see some new cathedrals built using the methods of centuries past, though.
I think pixel art by itself is rad and has an audience that appreciates it. For games though, even beyond the problem of the audience not getting the point, in the age of retina displays there are many technical roadblocks with getting the pixels to stay blocky and render the way you want.

If one was so inclined to stick with blocky pixel art, one could always render the bitmaps' pixels as filled vector rectangles and the target display would autoscale those rectangles without blurring them (unless they became subpixel-sized.)

But, I personally think a high resolution pixel art style in games is just going to confuse the consumer. Box shots no longer sell a game, trailer videos do. Are you going for high detail but low color count and 24fps animation? That does seem like a strange choice when I write it like that.

Low resolution pixel art (320 pixels wide or tall) makes a statement, and I think the consumers get the "retro" style the developer is going for there. But then why would an artist with a pencil and a budget ever want to restrict themselves like that?

I don't know what Ubisoft did in recent Rayman titles, but it looks like 3D or 2D vector art. The animations are super fluid, scale very nicely, and are super fun to watch! I suppose as the author suggests at the end, hand-placed curves could be a good substitute for hand-placed blocks.
It generates mixed feelings, some appreciate it, others think I'm a complete ass for asking. :-)
Criticism.
>> The Dutch can be horribly rude and argumentative...

As a Russian, so can I. It can be a useful trait under circumstances, but I generally try to keep it in control.

If I get an idea to work in Europe again, I'll pay closer attention to the Dutch opportunities. It's important for the people to "click" on a cross-cultural level in order to work well as a team, and I'm afraid I didn't click nearly enough back in Germany.

Anyway, no culture is perfect. We're supposed to learn from each other and work on our bad sides as recognized in others and by others.
Also, going to a coffee shop with a Chromebook is saving a lot of energy at home, I'd say ;)
BitTorrent Bleep Now Publicly Available Across All Major Platforms
npm 3 will adjust dependencies to flatten these things out as much as possible, only creating nested dependencies when there's a version conflict between modules.
> it's not that expensive

It's actually free. At least the first paragraph or so is. And a lot of the personal finance articles are totally free. About 99% of the time that's good enough for me.

So I don't bypass the paywall. I go to WSJ on a daily basis and simply read the free intro text.

I enjoy the WSJ enough that I would gladly pay them, except they play the usual pricing games, which I detest. I wish they just gave me their "best" price, and never tried to jack up that price to whatever they thought they could get away with at renewal. On a few occasions I've had a 1 year subscription for IIRC perhaps $99 but at renewal they tried to jack up the price substantially.

They've been playing these pricing games on and off for at least 10 years, if not longer. I have been willing to pay them at least $1,000 over that time. Instead they've gotten at most $200. But they're not alone in this. Most newspapers and magazines follow that pricing model.

OTOH the NY Times is great. I always clear cookies and browse w/o Javascript and I can read all the articles for free. This is a deliberate decision on their part. Still, I probably don't spend more than a few minutes a day on their site, so it's not like they could get $100/yr from me.

For a while, the NY Times was hilariously free. News articles were free, while they charged for their "editorial" content. That was perhaps a good idea for their core NYC demographic, but for other people (like me) the opposite would have been more attractive. How much would it cost me to keep from ever even seeing a headline for anything written by Maureen Dowd? Alas, that pricing model has long since changed.
Looks like most of them ALSO allow a google user-agent, testing with this plugin, so I'm good.

Mostly various newspaper sites.
Trivial, not non trivial.
This end does not seem to be served by niche browsers which will be used only by the EFF-card-carrying subset of the tech community, people who are most able and least ethically inhibited from piracy anyway.

This is a good reason to keep the functionality out of mainstream browsers, but it doesn't seem to work if it's just us using deliberately hobbled browsers.
There is no such thing as "no one else was willing to pay for a use of that space". Maybe no one else would pay the exorbitant price they are sold for and, most likely, no one would pay that price if they had to pay reasonable property taxes on that unit. They are doing no favors to the city. Since property taxes are so low, it often pays just to withdraw units from the market to inflate prices further by creating an artificial scarcity.
You hit the two most important themes. It's a great biz, but not necessarily a venture scale biz. The supply restriction is really important. If there are only a few dozen frequencies in any metro, you can capture large numbers of people, and there are few substitutes (e.g. no iPods) and the cost to broadcast on is prohibitive, you become quite a bit more valuable.

Web advertising has a lot of problems, but it does have scale and plenty of sites are making great revenues. Even then, content is still a relatively tough business to get VCs excited about.
The "problem" with protocol-relative URLs, is that it's possible to include HTTP content if the parent was HTTP.

Since HTTPs is preferred for both security and privacy, we should give as little options as possible to use the insecure HTTP protocol and force HTTPs everywhere.

As you mention though, in dev-environments it's a convenient hack to use plain old HTTP. However, in production, preferring HTTPs would be considered the way to go.
Manufactured scarcity shouldn't count. ;-)

That space is being used to drive up the prices of the space actually being used.
Have you tried taking their names? They are not actual bots. They are images provided by the game when you take them, even from popular references like 9gag or Steam.
My rock climbing friends and I have been watching the drone market. 20m in rock climbing just wont cut it at all :\
I've been trying to explain to people why Fire Emblem sprites were better than modern 3D Fire Emblem animations.

Old GBA Game:
http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-Blazing-Sword/Update%2063/1...

Fire Emblem Awakening:
https://youtu.be/ls0Nn_-hv-8?t=3m35s

I showed this to multiple people, and a lot of them seem to think the 3D animation was better. :-(
if this isn't an exercise in correlation not being equal to causation then i don't know what is.
this is very cool, but i feel like playing heads-up is kind of a completely different game from texas hold 'em w/ 3+ players. when you see ties over that many hands that just makes me think that both sides could be playing basically "optimally" based on on their cards and both players' chip stacks. on the other hand, i don't know that there is any "optimal" strategy once the game becomes three or more players.

sort of like how you could argue that the only numbers that matter are zero, one, and infinity-- this setup is firmly in the "one" camp, whereas normal hold 'em (and, presumably, many aspects of life) seem to be closer to "infinity". or perhaps i'm wrong and adding additional players would only scale the complexity linearly for Claudico et al. (no idea how it scales for human players).
Little tricks: string padding in JavaScript