Ask HN: Guide/Tutorial for designing a WebUI from scratch? - <AUTHOR> I am C/C++ programmer (system programming background), and was experimenting with Web Application development in my spare time (using Perl).  Is there any Web UI development tutorial which you guys refer (or have referred in past), which teaches Web UI development ground-up??  Like making custom buttons, making custom menus, customizing backgrounds, screen resolution handling,  in short everything... <comment><USER2> This doesn't exactly answer your question, but you could take the contrarian approach and spend time learning Cappuccino, which abstracts a lot of the archaic and difficult web UI principles away.

Web UI is difficult to define (there is no standard, but there are a bunch of competing standards) - and from a RAD perspective it's behind where the desktop was 10 years ago.

You may also get some benefit from looking into web frameworks such as Catalyst (if you know Perl), or Django or Rails (for Python and Ruby respectively). Examples for those frameworks really are very good walkthrus of creating a webapp.

<comment><USER3> He said "from scratch", and Cappuccino will not teach him anything about the web, but about how Cappuccino _sees_ the web or thinks it aught to be.

Catalyst, Django and Rails will only teach you about themselves and how they do things. A cleaner and quicker approach to the web, its protocols and standards, would be by creating a modern app using CGI and struggling with it every step of the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check <http://www.smashingmagazine.com> for all things design related. They have a lot of articles, tools, and tutorials for this sort of thing..

</comment><comment><USER5> If you you want to write HTMl code from the scratch. Go to <http://projectdeploy.org/> and download complete Skeleton structure based on your requirements.Then head over to <http://speckyboy.com/> this has the best set of Tutorials and Showcases. Programming for web is fairly very simple.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the best tutorial/framework book for building a web app from scratch is Agile Development with Rails by David Heinemeier Hansson.

If you have a Java background, you should also look into Lift/Scala. The Lift web site is found here: <http://liftweb.net/>

There's an O'Reilly book on Scala which looks like a solid reference.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, do you know the basics? HTML and CSS? Pretty much all the custom buttons, menus, etc you see are just clever HTML and CSS, with some well placed images.

Are you asking how to design a button in, say, a graphics program? Or are you asking how to turn an anchor into a fancy looking button using CSS?

<comment><USER8> What he said - menu's and buttons are just links and lists of links with styles applied.

If you're doing fuller apps you might want to look at Yahoo's YUI?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> May I suggest looking at dojo <http://www.dojotoolkit.org/>.

It provides prestyled controls with some themeing built in. You will still need to know some html and css but you can get calendars, dialogs, tabs, accordions etc very easily.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's all done with html, css and javascript. Web UI development is all bag of tricks; the big frameworks try to unify these disparate tools and techniques under one API .. but it's not always clean.

Worse than UI is data management. Data model, layout, access, searchability, performance, distribution of the underlying system and its scalability, etc.

Worse than both is session management.

There is no one HOWTO for this. You will need to get a few books on CSS, clean HTML design, and a decent javascript library. JQuery is trivial to learn and its jquery-UI library will abstract a good chunk of the difficulty, but you still have to understand how everything works underneath.

If you don't get the web, you might be better off playing with HTTP as a protocol. Writing a screen-scrapper for various sites and dealing with cookies, hidden forms, authentication and similar, using Perl LWP, will teach you more about HTTP than any book, though you can keep HTTP The Definitive Guide nearby.

You will need to _grok_ HTML, get the oreilly HTML the Definitive Guide as well.

CSS? CSS The Difinitive Guide.

JavaScript? Get the Rhino book, JavaScript the Definitive Guide .. see a pattern yet?

The definitive guides on HTTP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript are the heavy tomes you will need on your desk(top). Nearly every other publication on the subject if frivolous and trendy. Those books are the meat; they're essentially guides to the specs themselves. You're C and C++ programmer, you will appreciate this stuff.

After that, get every book you can find on CSS. Buttons, menus are made with CSS and images. Buttons could be made with the <button> tag, but not always, there are also image buttons, along with "standard" button built into HTML forms (i.e. submit and reset.) Menus are made with lists, tabbed menus could be made with pure HTML but they are a pain, so some people use javascript for that.

The most important thing you will need to understand is the DOM. The DOM is what ties HTML, CSS and JavaScript together. The Rhino book actually covers all this ground.

Sessions tie a few loose ends together; you will learn a lot about POST and GET methods of HTTP trying to implement a shopping cart, for example. How do you persist user's shopping cart? does state stay on the server or does it go on the client side? Do you use cookie, session-side variable, do you rewrite URLs to encode the cart contents or do you put them in a hidden form input client side?

You wont be jumping into buttons and menus straight away; not if you want to understand _everything_. Play with web crawlers, learn to tweak websites with GreaseMonkye, get Firebug and have it open while you read the books, get the Tamper Data plugin for firefox and see what is being sent and back forth, get the YSlow plugin, etc. These tools will not help you learn all this stuff, but they allow you to peek into websites and show you how things are done. I use ColorZilla to copy nice color schemes from websites. The Firebug element inspector will highlight any screen element and show you how it's been coded in HTML, you can also inspect the CSS design and the javascript that makes it all alive. I learned most of this stuff by reverse engineering.

Welcome to hell my friend, it's gonna be fun.

<comment><USER10> Disclaimer: I have no relationship with O'Reilly. Further, I'm not myself signed up for Safari. (I have a lot of dead trees laying around.) But my recollection of comments made about it is that the overall weight of them has been positive.

Quite a few of the books mentioned are available via O'Reilly's "Safari" subscription service. It's not "cheap", but if you don't mind reading on screen, it can provide immediate access to these volumes as a group for considerably less than buying them all at once (new / latest edition, at least).

Then again, if you have access to a well stocked library or colleagues' bookshelves, better yet.

My concern with this approach, overall, is that the volume of information may be overwhelming/discouraging.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Inspiring visualization sites? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a Twitter/Flickr app. Got the data part working, but I'm drawing blank on how to visualize it. I was hoping some folks could recommend a few sites that have some interesting visualizations of photographs or data. <comment><USER2> Did some google searching and these sites had great examples of some cool stuff that can be done if you invest the time.

For Data Visualization: [http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great- examples-of...](http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of- data-visualization/)

For Photography Galleries: [http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best- photographer-w...](http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-photographer- websites/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a wonderful data visualization site: <http://www.gapminder.org/>

I know it through a few TED talks: [http://www.ted.com/search?q=rosling&x=0&y=0](http://www.ted.com/search?q=rosling&x=0&y=0)

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/>

<http://infosthetics.com/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Cool sites. Thanks guys.</comment>


Why You Should Stop Using ext/mysql (mysql_* functions) in PHP Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.brian-driscoll.com/2012/12/why-you-should-stop-using-extmysql.html

<comment><USER2> While everything the author says is true and makes sense, dumping the "mysql_*" functions seems more like "PHP grows up" rather than a "good thing".

I'm a newcomer to PHP, only having learned some of it last summer, but didn't the easy use of MySQL from inside PHP constitute the reason for PHP's ubiquity and success?

Using ODBC or any other way to get to a database is quite a bit harder, albeit allowing more control and security. Adding difficulty means not as many recruits to PHP, so I predict we see the PHP crowd becoming more conventionally professional. The other side of the "increased difficulty" coin is that newbies won't automatically flock to PHP. I predict we'll see serious rivals to PHP's place as the first refuge of the newbie web programmer.

<comment><USER3> >The other side of the "increased difficulty" coin is that newbies won't automatically flock to PHP.

It's worth the price if we never have to see another linear SQL query again.

I've seen innumerable times where people will build queries line by line with if statements, and then add the query variable into SQL or something. I'm not even aware of an easy way to refactor that without manually rewriting every single statement and every method or function they appear in. It's insane.

 _and yes I used to be one of these people..._</comment></comment>


Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/

<comment><USER2> _"But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet."_

It's even worse: it means that the government will be able to identify anyone whose face is visible in surveillance camera footage or any other photograph (e.g., a photo posted on Facebook). They'll be able to easily make a list of everyone who attended a protest, or a political rally for the opposition party.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sadly, some people are looking forward to the compulsory anal probes that are on deck.

<comment><USER4> And most of the rest aren't paying attention or don't care. Which is why the growth of the police state has accelerated at a breathtaking pace the last decade.

It'll take a fundamental, across the political spectrum, shift in the attitude of Americans just to stop it (much less turn it back). It's not going to happen, whatever control Americans had over their government is long gone. Now it's just a matter of buying time (defeat this legislation, new attempts get stuffed into legislation next quarter or next year).

<comment><USER3> I think it will get worse before it gets better. The momentum behind the security state will wind down through inertia as the economics of maintaining it will prove untenable but before that happens, many large American cities will be under increasing surveillance and more citizens will find themselves in police and prison situations worthy of Kafka.

And you're right. Most aren't paying attention.</comment></comment></comment>


Unicode: The people who made the internet open to anyone - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@maggieshafer/unicode-a-story-of-corruption-connection-and-smiling-poo-598295e4af9d <comment><AUTHOR> > _These articles answered a lot of my questions, but they also raised a new > one. Every one of them mentions something called Unicode. Some of them in > passing, as if to say, "We all know about Unicode, right? Let's move on."_

Anyone who came through with a typical CS/CompEng degree: did you learn about Unicode in any depth? I didn't. We didn't even cover regular expressions. I grew to hate Unicode but only recently have learned to respect what a monumental achievement they were. I mean, I would hate buffer overflows (more) if I didn't understand pointers and memory...but after understanding why they (pointers and memory) are the way they are...They are painful, but I don't suffer :)

This remark by Chris Granger always bothered me:

> _We don 't want a generation of people forced to care about Unicode and UI > toolkits. We want a generation of writers, biologists, and accountants that > can leverage computers_ [1]

[1] [http://www.chris-granger.com/2015/01/26/coding-is-not-the- ne...](http://www.chris-granger.com/2015/01/26/coding-is-not-the-new- literacy/)

I don't think people should be forced to decode Unicode by hand, or even memorize little/big endian. But to not understand how fundamentally text translates into numbers? That, from now on, humans will have a normalized way of communicating with each other, whether by Internet or starship viewscreen, for as long as the standard exists?

Unicode is annoying, but only in the sense that going to France and not speaking French is totally annoying.

<comment><USER2> I think they mean it that Unicode as a technology should be invisible to the average user. Just as no one should be forced to think about whether numbers above 2 billion cause trouble, no one should be forced to remember the differences between Latin 1, UTF-8, UTF-16LE, etc. pp. Normal people just want to write their language and people expect to see what they wrote. If they see question marks, or diacritics next to their respective letters, or completely different scripts, then things failed. But I'd argue that normal people do not need to know how or why that failed. Even for developers with a bit of Unicode experience it's often not trivial to recover text broken in such ways.

Oh, and to answer your question: I never learned anything about Unicode in uni either. As for myself, I've been lurking on the Unicode mailing list since about 2008.

<comment><USER3> Sure, Unicode itself should be invisible, because Unicode is the _solution_ to the problem. The problem itself is having tons of incompatible encodings in use, and people _do_ have to understand what an encoding is if they're from a place where "legacy" encodings (i.e. ones that aren't Unicode encodings) are still in use. My mind usually leaps to Japan's continued adherence to SJIS, but I'm sure there are others as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For a dissenting view on Unicode, see:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6863824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6863824)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5362200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5362200) (warning: this page may crash some browsers)

Anything is better than the old mess of unpredictable, ad-hoc encodings, but Unicode is so academic and impractical that it isn't really all that much better. We don't know if it's safe; we do know it can crash browsers with plaintext (have fun with that second link!); and we _definitely_ know that Unicode isn't "the solution to conflict and corruption" like the article says.

For a case of corruption that could only be done with Unicode, see the first comment to this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10437619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10437619)

Unicode is better than nothing, where "nothing" is "webpages that can only display 256 characters" or thereabouts; but it has a lot of mistakes and clumsy characteristics. "I � Unicode" ("I Entity Unicode", using the Unicode glyph for "unrecognized character") is about as far as affection for Unicode should go; I used to have that on a bumper sticker.

<comment><USER5> The first and third dissents are dumb. Basically the attack is that, because the glyphs used to represent the character look the same but are actually different code-points they have potential to be abused.

But there's no reason why this would only be limited to Unicode. Any other encoding system that keeps a cyrillic alphabet in a separate code range from the latin one would have this problem. And it's much less efficient for your text chomping program that reads cyrillic to check all of a character range _except_ for the 2-3 that also have existing latin characters that look the same as the cyrillic ones.

And I really don't understand why "I Entity Unicode" is even a valid complaint. Or what it's even complaining _about_ If your font doesn't have a glyph that matches your character, it's not going to show up no matter which encoding scheme you use.

Unicode got alot of buy-in from publishers as it met all of their needs. The tech companies followed suit, eventually, which is a heck of alot better than the dark ages when each computer company had their own custom platform for these encodings in the U.S. alone. And then there's individual solutions to the problem overseas where the wheel was reinvented for each language there.

<comment><USER4> "Any other encoding system that keeps a cyrillic alphabet in a separate code range from the latin one would have this problem."

Then isn't the solution to put the Cyrillic alphabet in the same space as the Latin one when the glyphs are identical?

In general, Unicode should merge code points a lot more readily than it does; it shouldn't have some of the strange things it does have, which hog space that would be better used putting semi-common Chinese characters in the Basic Multilingual Pane; and the way it handles hangul is just embarrassing. It's better than nothing (and better than the Codepage-<Insert Number> variety of solutions), but that doesn't mean it's good; that's what I mean by "I Entity Unicode".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Non-alphabetic languages: Why we can't encode all text in 8 or 16 bits

</comment><comment><USER7> > Or this essay from from New York Magazine, which explores their evolution > and cultural implications.

Why is a link to an "essay from from New York Magazine" trying to take me to youtube?

How do you open your article with non functioning links and then immediately jump to criticizing the design of someone else's website which seems to work just fine?

</comment><comment><USER8> Everyone buy Klingons.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. Now that the Astral Plane has opened up, I think it is past time for Unicode to reconsider its decision on conlang alphabets and include things like Klingon, Tengwar, Aurebesh, and similar. I suppose coming up with criteria for conlang alphabet significance might be complicated, but certainly similar scholarship qualifications might be used as some of the dead languages.

<comment><USER10> They certainly have no criteria for emoji significance. Some Japanese handheld has an obscure character? Put it in the next standard for all to puzzle over.

<comment><USER3> You mean these ones? 🈶 🈚 🈸 🈺 🈷 🈴 🈵 🈲

Their names in the standard are kind of annoying, but actually helpful: "Squared CJK Unified ideograph NNNN", where NNNN turns out to be the hex code for the equivalent not-in-a-square character.

Now, I've taken courses in Japanese and Chinese, but you don't usually use characters on their own like this to mean things; so I would _guess_ the following:

• "🈶" is meant to be used as an emblem/badge to mark items you already own, and "🈚" ones you don't;

• "🈸" can mean "to offer", perhaps used beside e.g. bid prices on stocks—or could just mean "to report", as in a button to view the status of something;

• "🈺" seems to mean "to manage"—as in a button to modify the properties of something;

• "🈷" just means "month" (or "moon", but probably not in this case), and so it likely meant to be used as a button to open a time-picker to modify the date of something;

• "🈴" seems to mean "to close" or "to pass" (as on a test); I assume it could be used similarly to a "Done" or maybe "Apply" button on a property sheet, or to the "Submit" button on a form;

• "🈵" means "enough", in the sense of being satisfied; I guess this could be used for an "OK" button, or a back/up/out button when looking "inside" something.

• "🈲" means "to prohibit" or "to restrict", but also "to endure"; I would guess it would be used for a "Cancel" button.

I have a feeling these characters aren't used much now even on modern Japanese mobile devices; they're likely a legacy of the early Japanese mobile web and apps. If anyone here knows better...?

<comment><USER11> It is only now, after years of dealing with stuff that is not ASCII (I'm not american), that I realize the icons actually have the unicode codepoint in them. Thank you very much for making me see it.

<comment><USER3> Do you mean that they're boxes containing the hex digits of their respective Unicode codepoints? I think that's actually what happens on Windows when you don't have an emoji font installed.

They should render on most desktop OSes like this: [http://i.imgur.com/lFQoaQe.png](http://i.imgur.com/lFQoaQe.png)

Or, on on mobile OSes, more like this: [http://i.imgur.com/M3U6Ikl.png](http://i.imgur.com/M3U6Ikl.png)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


PayPal pulls North Carolina plan after transgender bathroom law - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-carolina-transgender-paypal-hld-idUSKCN0X21XR <comment><USER2> I'm so tired of businesses expressing a political perspective. I just want them to be a business, nothing more. It doesn't even matter if I align with the political views expressed--I just don't want business + politics. I let the CEO or PayPal know that I'm disappointed in the politicization of PayPal, and I'm going to start avoiding doing businesses with companies which are politically outspoken. I support the right of the CEO to express his _personal_ opinion, but not to imbue the corporate entity with that opinion.

I suppose this was the inevitable byproduct of Citizens United.</comment>


HTML5 boilerplate - <AUTHOR> http://html5boilerplate.com/

<comment><USER2> You guys should def take a look at the recently added Build Script..

it's Ant-based and does all the common tasks you're supposed to be doing: concat&minify css&js, optimizes jpgs & pngs, basic to agressive html minification, filename revving (to pair with heavy expires caching), and removal of development only code (console.log, profiling, test suite).

[https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/wiki/Build- sc...](https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/wiki/Build-script)

It's still a work in progress but combine this with the provided apache/nginx/lighttpd config and you'll be hitting 95 point marks in YSlow. Should save a lot of time with these common tasks/best practices.

<comment><USER3> This is an awesome effort, thanks Paul!

Do you know of any production teams that use The Boilerplate as the basis for their markup? I'm about to have a design sliced to markup and I'd like to have it start with this ...

<comment><USER2> I have heard people request boilerplate at the beginning of an outsourced project, yup.

As for sites that have launched using boilerplate: [https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/wiki/Sites- us...](https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/wiki/Sites-using-the- boilerplate) :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Already discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1592625>

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad, I thought I'd checked. What's the 'right' thing to do, delete this?

<comment><USER5> I hadn't seen it before and I found it rather interesting.

If noone else complains, I say give it a shot. Definitely a good resource which can take some word of mouth.

<comment><USER6> Also it's been recently updated after its first initial public showing. I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> HAML + SASS version: <https://github.com/himmel/html5-boilerplate>

</comment><comment><USER8> I use the bare-bones version of the HTML5 Reset: <http://html5reset.org/>

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a bare-bones template. I made a more sophisticarted two-column template I would like to encourage others to use: <http://www.getfreewebdesigns.com/preview/?template=802>

<comment><USER10> It's supposed to be bare-bones, so that it can be used for any design.

<comment><USER9> The body contains a container div enclosing an empty header and empty footer. That's more bare-bones than some people will want.

There is value in a template that correctly uses nav, section, article and aside. You stand a better chance of making reusable CSS starting from such a template.

<comment><USER10> The HTML5 boilerplate doesn't get in my way - it includes some commonly needed stuff like jQuery, a CSS reset, etc. I can use it as the base for anything, not just a blog with a tree menu and a particular layout. (I'd also disagree with your use of the aside tag for archive navigation)

<comment><USER9> I'm not saying the HTML boilerplate is useless. I'm saying that something less bare-bones is useful.

Something less bare-bones can also be used as a base for anything. Deleting unused elements is easy.

The aside was intended to hold a variety of content. You're right that the sample content is navigation. I will look at making it a nav within the aside.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Unveils Mango, the Latest Version of Windows Phone - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/05/24/windows-phone-mango/

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty impressed by the path MS has taken with their mobile platform — rather than simply aping iOS or Android they're trying new ideas and it seems like they've put a lot of legitimate thought into how people interact with their mobile devices.

It may wind up serving a different consumer space than the Android or iPhone app-heavy consumer, and that's why it's interesting.

<comment><USER3> Not to imply anything, but are any of the iOS or Android UI / interaction models patented?

If so, that may have forced Microsoft's hand in their completely different UI.

<comment><USER4> I think it was more like "Apple is eating our lunch and we need to have something FAST" or we will be dead on mobile.

Apple and google(they bought the company Android) spent a lot of time designing their mobile OSes.

MS would have to spend the same time designing the UI, they do not have time, so they created something very simple(drawing simple vector shapes with orthogonal pictures is extremely easy and fast to do), and will use money to force their product into the market, buying whatever they need(just Nokia deal took MS BILLIONS vs Android taking tens of millions from Google, add the money they will give to carriers) because they CAN'T LOOSE THE MOBILE WARS. If they do they loose the train of the future.

<comment><USER5> Achieving simplicity in design is more difficult than just throwing a ton of buttons, gradients and drop shadows at the problem. I'm an iOS user, and a huge fan of that model, but Microsoft is doing a good job of crafting an experience that differentiates itself from the iOS (and Android) paradigm of interaction.

Don't mistake a lack of "flashiness" for a lack of taste. Windows Phone is a pretty classy product with a decent chance of success as long as Microsoft doesn't shoot themselves in the foot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My thought: Microsoft should try to capture the low end.

I know, it sounds dumb, but right now they have a terrible history of competing with Apple and Android. If you're going to shell out hundreds of bucks, are you going to risk it on another Microsoft device?

On the other hand, if you were going to get a free phone anyway, and somebody tells you that the new MS "smart" phone is free, why not try it? If they can get wide adoption there, get a lot of user feedback and keep improving, they can start releasing nicer handsets and work their way up into the premium market.

Of course, all this assumes that they can make a phone with cheap hardware which performs decently and is truly a step up for flip-phone users, and that they can get adoption there. But at least those folks have lower standards and less to lose by getting a Microsoft phone. (Which, by the way, should NOT be called a Windows phone.)

It's the "a smart phone in every pocket" strategy. :)

<comment><USER7> Problems I see with this:

\- Low end phones tend to be crappy. If everyone who gets a "free" low end Windows phone hates it because the phone isn't very good, they're going to trash talk Windows phones, even if the OS doesn't suck. Windows phones already get trash-talked quite a lot (I don't know anyone with a Windows phone that actually likes it). I don't know anyone with a WP7 device, so I don't know if it Windows still sucks on mobile devices, but there's already a bad reputation to overcome. I know you've addressed this with this sentence: "all this assumes that they can make a phone with cheap hardware which performs decently", but you can't really wave away the limitations of the technology. In a year, feature phone priced hardware will be smartphone capable...but Windows Phone will be even further behind Android by then.

\- Windows Phone is not, as far as I know, a resource light OS. Putting it on an underpowered phone in order to keep the price really low is likely to lead to an even worse user experience than normal. Again, trash-talking end users would be the result.

\- To make phones cheaper than Android phones, Microsoft would have to give away the OS for free, and try to make the revenue back through app store purchases or something. Microsoft doesn't have a history of giving away the razor and selling the blades at a steep markup (XBOX might be a counterpoint, since it reportedly was a loss-leader in the beginning).

\- There is already a solid low-end smartphone market built on Android. The Optimus line, for instance, is available for free with contract from several providers, and for under $200 without a contract, and is a very serviceable smart phone; roughly comparable to a Nexus One, though not quite as nicely constructed. With a contract, even the iPhone is now close to free ($49 for a 3GS).

Feature phone users have already mostly begun migrating to smartphones. The only people I know who still use dumb phones are people on pay-as-you-go plans, that didn't offer smart phones when they bought their phone a year or two or three ago. Smart phones are now common on pay-as-you-go carriers, and most of the people I know on those plans are upgrading or planning to upgrade in the next few months.

So, to summarize: Beating Android to the bottom seems untenable. Beating Apple for the aspirational market seems untenable (since nobody aspires to use Microsoft, as it was historically the value choice). Microsoft needs to find a niche in the smartphone market, but I think all the good ones are taken. Blackberry had a good one in the enterprise market...but they've lost it by falling so far behind technically. Maybe Microsoft can win in the enterprise niche and fill the hole probably left by Blackberry (though both iPhone and Android are reasonably capable of serving in that role, neither has focused on it).

<comment><USER8> Minor nitpick:

>> \- Windows Phone is not, as far as I know, a resource light OS. Putting it on an underpowered phone in order to keep the price really low is likely to lead to an even worse user experience than normal. Again, trash-talking end users would be the result.

WP7 is actually a ridiculously light OS. All of the current WP7 phones uses the older generation Snapdragon processors, but they are still faster then most of the newer Android handsets with dual-core processors. MS went to great pains to make sure that everything was optimized (and the UI is hardware accelerated), which is why their hardware specifications only had support for one SoC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whilst I really don't enjoy having to make websites compatible with IE (mainly 8 and below), I'm really glad they're sticking with IE as a browser. WebKit seems to have a monopoly on phones and so many mobile sites (and tutorials) don't think about other browsers.

I'd prefer more phones to ship with Gecko (Firefox), like my Nokia N900 but anything non-WebKit adds to the diversity.

Edit: I don't really have anything against WebKit and understand that it makes sense for mobiles as it's easily embedable but the fact that it has a monopoly in the mobile space really gets to me!

<comment><USER10> Monopolies are ok if they are created and kept through legitimate means. And I think WebKit's monopoly on phones is legitimate and well deserved. If Microsoft put together a comparable engine (and it is very possible they have, I haven't tested it) then I would be happy that there is competition. But diversity for diversity's sake is not a good reason to not use WebKit. In fact it is very possible it would do more harm then good.

I am hoping* that Microsoft drops IE (the rendering engine not the browser), and throws it's support behind the Gecko engine. With Microsoft supporting Gecko, and Google and Apple supporting WebKit, we should see nice growth browser's capabilities.

*I know this won't happen, but who says a man can't dream.

<comment><USER11> The issue is not whether the monopoly is good or bad, but rather that its existence creates what is essentially a monoculture. I'd rank that as more of a concern, especially when we're talking about consumer devices.

<comment><USER5> A monoculture where developers aren't hindered by supporting a mediocre browser with a breadth of missing features? Count me in.

<comment><USER12> You do realize that everyone said this in support of IE6 taking over the market, right? Don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

<comment><USER13> IE6 is single vendor, single platform, it is closed source, so it does not at all compare to webkit which is cross platform, open source and on top of that multi vendor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/05/microsoft- unve...](http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/05/microsoft-unveils- windows-phone-mango-at-least-in-part.ars)

A bit clearer information. I've had one now for a while and I do enjoy the phone. It seems slightly limited but hopefully Mango will push it further, and we'll see tighter integration with Windows 8 next year. Zune software looks better than iTunes, but some of its configs are lacking. The current phone is probably between the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, but you don't have that feeling of App Silos, however I use the Facebook integration less and less. I think I will be leaning towards iPhone 5 instead though, as the apps are significantly lacking in this phone (and app development API/SDK access is terrible). Marketplace needs a big overhaul and move to something different than an App Store mimic.

The worst feature is Bing Maps. Last night I typed in location X and it said not available. So I typed in located X suburb Y and it still said it could not find it. So I typed in location X suburb Y and state Z. It then relocates to the centre of the state Z and points out that state Z is here.

<comment><USER15> So we're waiting until October for limited backgrounding and an integrated sms, facebook, and messenger experience? Yeah, I can see ppl holding off on iOS and android upgrades for this;) Seriously, win7 is so unbaked it can't even connect to a hidden wifi network. And with this fall release they are not going to be at parity with last year's OS's. They have continued to loss market share. They need to leapfrog the competition:(

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't say the wait is optional, more financially restricted(2 year contract).

Is your Win7 experience a personal one though? I haven't yet required to connect to a hidden wifi network. And now that cut-and-paste has arrived, I have used it all of twice.

I'm always of the state of mind that the differences between Android, Iphone, and Win7 aren't that big; I wouldn't say that win7 is unbaked any of those phones, except when it comes to apps, and iPhone always wins.

I just hate being an Apple user. I want to have an iPhone with out the Apple fanboy stigma

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Mango sounds really close to Meego, doesn't it.

</comment><comment><USER17> MS's strategy in my opinion mostly hinges on 3 points:

1) Enterprise Integration

2) Skype integration

3) Senseless (A communications network that runs on whitespace)

If MS integrates well into the enterprise it becomes the natural phone for enterprise developers (eg. the people who already know C#)

With Skype integration MS has an excellent platform to bring Skype to the enterprise and start cutting desktop phone costs. I know we'd all bemoan a 'managed' skype solution but corporate america would love it, and they trust the MS brand.

The third prong is the final nail in the coffin, if MS can deliver senseless and make the carrier's irrelevant then some massive innovation can take place in the space and MS will be the natural leader having both the spectrum and the handset, the only real question is whether they make a boatload of money by offering competitive pricing, or they use cut throat pricing to take the whole market. Knowing MS's embrace, extend, extinguish strategy my money would be on the latter, especially now that they are free from DOJ oversight.

</comment><comment><USER18> The deep links to the home tiles is pretty awesome... no need to fiddle with an app to get the QR code out at the airport, for example.

The app integration from search is good too. It feels more like a Windows Phone 8 or atleast 7.5 but they're still calling it 7.1

<comment><USER19> I agree, "8" would be better for their new mobile platform which desperately needs hype. And it'd be appropriate, too!

Guess they've got the idea that users associate Windows for PCs 7 with Windows Phone 7 which seems to me ought to only be a minor consideration.

<comment><USER20> They probably want to align versions for Windows and Windows Phone. It looks much nicer when you say Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

<comment><USER19> That's exactly it - I don't think the userbase cares. (Hell, I think to much of their userbase, "Windows" is as much of a liability as it is an asset.)

That tying-stuff-together mentality is something that has served Microsoft well while they've dominated, but is increasingly a weight around their necks as areas become important that they can't extend domination into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a question for winCE geeks....

Why could this not have been winCE 6.5 several years back?

Seems MS wasted a lot of resources in buying Danger INC and than not listening to them..</comment>


How I went from stay-at-home-mum to landing my first web developer job - <AUTHOR> https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-i-went-from-stay-at-home-mum-to-landing-my-first-web-developer-job/ <comment><USER2> > _There was no white-boarding, no solving difficult algorithms on the spot > and no trick questions._

> _I got through to the second stage on one job I applied for which was a take > home coding exercise. The other interview I was offered the job on the > spot._

This is how you interview. She obviously is very self-driven and a good communicator. If she were hurled some leetcode, there's a good chance she would have failed (as do so many devs with years more experience than her) and yet even reading this post made me think she's a great hire.

Managers: fight to change your hiring process. Throw out coding tests, leetcode and white board shenanigans. _Invest_ in your own skills so you can quickly and accurately identify talented people. Take chances on unusual backgrounds. Not only will you save a bunch of everyone's time, you'll have a more organic culture and pick up diamonds that places like Google will pass over every time.

<comment><USER3> My favorite interviews are when they give me a take home project that takes 2-3 hours and then during the technical interview you go over the solution and talk about ways to improve it. It gives applicants a chance to actually prepare for the interview in a meaningful way and I personally am much less nervous for this type of interview.

<comment><USER4> This is our approach. Choose one of five assignments, we ask for 100 lines of code, take it home, take as much time as you need. When you come back, we do a code walk through with the team.

We've hired only great people with this approach, and they've told me after the fact that they really appreciated that it tested them in a natural manner, rather than a type of competition.

<comment><USER5> > we ask for 100 lines of code

Why?

<comment><USER4> We don't want them to spend too much time. I tell them we don't expect them to spend more than 2 hours, and we're looking for 100 lines. I don't think it's reasonable to ask for much more of their time than that. Turns out they all wind up spending 8+ hours and most really get into the task.

<comment><USER6> I love a rough lines/size guide and will be stealing that idea :-)

The biggest risk with those take-home projects is that you'll lose out on the "2-3 hour project" because someone else spent 5-6 hours and had time not to just finish it, but to make it look _very_ polished—unreasonably polished for 2-3 hours. So you either do it as directed and worry, or spend way more time on it (enough that I'd probably just pass unless it was one _hell_ of a job)

Keep it small enough and you don't run into the thing where you're excluding the semi-happily employed, competent devs, because they don't really _have_ to put up with your shit to find new employment, which is the case with those defined time (but not really) larger projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Stories like this really make me how such a beautiful platform like Freecodecamp is often underrated. Where I come from, India, making money by running training centers is a huge business. Given the upskilling industry and the madness about data science, everyone's making money with that tag (for those who forgot Siraj Raval issue recently). But Freecodecamp is amazing that it stuck to web development. It's zero cost - simply completely free. Yet it can impact a lot more - like giving a social circle of programmers, a community and ultimately a job , career.

Kudos to Quincy Larson and the community of FCC. His Indiehackers podcast is an inspiring listen .

[https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/056-quincy-larson-of- fr...](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/056-quincy-larson-of-freecodecamp)

</comment><comment><USER7> I did the same a few years back but took a different route. I did a few classes at community college, then an MS during which I did a bunch of internships before landing a full time opportunity. It was disheartening and frustrating at times, but the trick that worked was sticking to it!

</comment><comment><USER8> I love the interview questions. I, probably more than other devs, Google a ton of stuff and iterate out to an efficient solution. My first idea is never great, and I know it.</comment>


Orbit.js – a framework for orchestrating data access and synchronization - <AUTHOR> http://orbitjs.com <comment><USER2> When you have this:

        store.on('transform', (transform) => {
          return backup.sync(transform);
        });

And then this right after it:

        store.on('transform', (transform) => backup.sync(transform));

You're writing meaningless documentation. The project looks cool, but I can't take it seriously when the Getting Started guide panders to the reader.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find that a lot of developers will use the briefer implicit return form (`transform => backup.sync(transform)`) of a function without focusing on whether the returned value has significance.

I wanted to write out the explicit `return` form of the handler to emphasize that returning a promise in an Orbit event handler has significance. It delays resolution of the event, thereby allowing listeners to participate in that resolution.

Perhaps it was unnecessary for me to _also_ include the implicit return form in that example. However, that's the way I would normally write this function, and I'd like to present "best practices" and show how concise the code is typically.</comment></comment>


Down Economy + Scrappy eCommerce Startup = low-budget video gold - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlcktWLVft4

<comment><AUTHOR> Having followed news.ycomb since launch I wanted to share this little nugget, even though I suspect I might catch some flak for this not being the most topical piece, hopefully some of you will be entertained ;)

We launched November 07, 100% bootstrapped by myself and two co-founders. Finally getting the resources in place to be able to do fun things like this. Not sure if it was worthwhile monetarily yet but we had a lot of fun in the office making it!</comment>


Ask HN: do you have any mobile app ideas? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I've been developing mobile applications on iOS and Android since last 3 years. I have worked with 5-6 start-up for their mobile applications.
I don't have much work nowadays and looking for
1. If you have any idea that you would like to use and haven't found suitable app for that.
2. If you happen to know API for a company for which there is no mobile apps out there. The reason I am asking this because of the post (http://ghost.teario.com/how-not-to-write-an-api/) like the author was going to build an Android app for criticker.com but I can't use that anymore.
3. If you want to hire me as a freelancer. I am also up for that. I will be happy to show you my previous work. <comment><USER2> I could use a universal message medium translator so I don't have to remember who uses SMS and who only uses facebook. Here's my year-and-a-half old proposal...I'm shocked and surprised that no one has stolen it already:

        http://schip666.blogspot.com/2012/09/there-might-be-app-for-that.html

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, where are you based? The only reason I ask is because I'm looking to (potentially) collab with mobile devs on a project in Asia in the coming months.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Drop me an email at email@example.com and we can speak more about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> am talking to a designer friend about an easy way to resell unwanted concert tickets in a transparent way, to sort of try and avoid touts [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/24/online-...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/24/online- ticket-reselling-sleazy-capitalism)

would something like that be of your interest?

</comment><comment><USER5> An app that tracks the prices of a certain product across several website, so you can buy it when it's cheap, where it's.

</comment><comment><USER6> iPhone alarm all that opens another app as the alarm (the other app is an audio streaming app that would automatically start playing when opened). Doesn't seem to exist which makes me think it might not even be possible).

</comment><comment><USER7> Could you post an email or twitter handle in your profile? Or share it here?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can reach me at email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Post your links to your Apps here! Would love to see them :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can look at some of my work here: [http://pulkitgoyal.in/portfolio](http://pulkitgoyal.in/portfolio)

<comment><USER8> Nice work dude!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What platform do you use? Native? or something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Native development</comment></comment>


Startup conferences are (mostly) a waste of time - <AUTHOR> http://zaman.io/startup-conferences-are-mostly-a-waste-of-time/ <comment><USER3> Another little secret is the first priority of those speakers who are telling you their startup story and giving you advice is to impress you, not actually give you any useful advice.

Whatever stories of their startup they tell you are whitewashed, and any "juicy" details they tell you are exactly the type of wants they want to tell you because it will reflect some particular quality they want it to. There is nothing wrong with this, that is their incentive. But obviously for you this is a giant waste of time, and kudos for figuring it out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Conferences are almost always just another business venture. While they often look like friendly get togethers, it's more often than not just somebody making money off of you, some with better value, some with less. When I worked for one of the big four, I was sent to conferences costing $5.000 a ticket and wondered who would ever pay for this craziness other than the big corps? - <USER2> there I met so many young CEOs from various early stage startups with mostly mediocre ideas trying to make the most of it. And all they could do was talking to other startups. Usually, best advise is to fly out to a conference but don't attend. Arrange meetings for breakfast or dinner with those attending and meet them outside, that's where you'll get close to most of the big guys - not at the conference. Had my best meetings always outside the venue.

</comment><comment><USER5> _And one odd thing I noticed with these conferences is that some of the speakers are serial - meaning they do conference after a conference, which makes me wonder if that 's a full time job - if so, are they not practicing what they preach?_

This is a good question.

<comment><USER6> This might be a helpful explanation:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7842312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7842312)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Absolutely agree with this. The $400 and two days are much better spent growing a business.

I've always found that the local meetups and events consist of more wantrepreneurs than actual entrepreneurs. I've stopped going to them.

<comment><USER8> Yeap. I've been invited to many events, and I never went. An event where most people think they'll change the world (which is not bad per se) but who also think they're smarter than "the others" is kind of crap.

I often see that this crowd is addicted to the "movement" itself, not to getting things done. Meaning they like stories and knowing who bought who, etc. I've talked to too many, and they have crappy ideas they would've known are crappy if they've ever talked to another person about it.

They like to use jargon (A/B testing, alpha gamma shit rays and what not, to seem like they're really doing stuff).

There's someone who posted a blog post that his website is now open to the public and that beta testing has ended and people don't need invites to sign up. I tried to sign up, and I got prompted for an invite code. How dumb must someone be, to take care of the blog before taking care of the actual code?

I emailed him telling him his site still prompts for an invite(what's worse, is that he managed to take off the input field, but didn't change the code to account for that).

He didn't reply. He wrote an API that used a non HTTPS website, flagged by myWOT as malicious.

The app he was trying to make was about a wallet, to handle payments.

How much retard (excuse for the word) one needs to have in himself to manage that combo?

I saw him bitch about life on TV, that the authorities don't do anything to encourage inventions and young entrepreneurs. Um, yeah buddy. It's the others' fault, always. (And I sent emails to him warning him about these things: site flagged, impossible to register to the site, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's only one conference I've found to break this mold, and sadly, they shut it down. It was called LessConf, and it was the only conference experience that left me inspired and happy with the money I spent.

The anecdote I share is that it was the only conference I'd attended where people weren't looking over your shoulder for someone 'more important' to talk too.

Bring it back you bastards, and I'll volunteer to help.

<comment><USER10> Are you sure they shut it down? It seems like there's a LessConf happening in Savannah, GA Aug 22-24 2014.

[http://lessconf.lesseverything.com](http://lessconf.lesseverything.com)

<comment><USER11> try clicking for a ticket. it's an april fools joke

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The organizers and all the speakers left the event. For the speakers dinner."

Fwiw, the speakers at microconf (more of a bootstrapped conf) are assigned tables during lunch. You just pick whatever table to talk a bit more closely to a given speaker.

</comment><comment><USER12> Your post reminds me to this scene of the beatiful mind [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d_dtTZQyUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d_dtTZQyUM) . Basically you all wanted to go for the blond.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey folks - Organiser of the conference here.

I am kinda in a wtf-state right now because until this very moment i only received off-the-charts positive feedback for our event - even from people who try to complain about everything (quote: 'the benches were a bit uncomfortable, but otherwise best event in the region in years').

So naturally i am kinda shocked that this is how google will remember our event. To make sure an other side is heard - here my 2c:

 _1) I agree with the OP that almost all startup events are a waste of time and money_ \- imho you should only go to events if you have a very clear objective and be very pro-active about getting what you want.

But he is right about the fact that most startup events are useless PR stunts - but that's why we organised Foundertalks - it is meant to be different and until this moment i thought we succeeded

The main idea of the event is - everything is off-the-record, screened list of attendees (invited), no vip rooms, no vips, intentionally small audience. Btw the event had nothing to do with YC - just a lot of YC people were speakers.

The ticket price of 200 eur was only to cover costs - not for profit btw.

Main goal of the event: Being able to give real talks and answer audience questions honestly.

We even had attendees who sneaked into the event and afterwards wanted to give us the ticket price.

 _2) No juicy bits? Same as every other conference?_

 _Sorry i don 't believe this._

We had founders naming no-go VCs, talking about fallouts with previous founders in details, telling about things done in SF no one likes to admit. We had one speaker bordering the line of what he is _legally_ allowed to tell. Obviously i can't name half of the stuff here but i am a bit confused right now to be honest.

Half of the speakers came to me just to verify that the audience is clear about the non-disclosure.

It's clear that people can't break their NDAs and it is clear that speakers won't share stuff that could break their business - but it was hundreds miles away from the PR bs you usually get fed in startup conferences.

 _3) Group mentoring sessions_

we had 10 tables a 12-15 people. We couldn't do more tables because didn't have more international speakers. But honestly a 10:1 ratio of international speakers to attendees is more than enough.

I had off-the-charts positive feedback for those sessions.

I am sorry the OP didn't "get" what he was hoping for.

 _4) Speakers leaving early_

I agree with you on this one - we heard it from 3 other attendees and this is definitely something we are going to improve for the next conference.

The main issue was that several speakers were really exhausted and wanted to leave earlier - they were constantly talking with attendees. Because of this we left 40 minutes earlier than planned (also the rest of the event took longer than expected). Next time we will try to keep more energy buffer - maybe we can fly them in earlier to fight the jetlag.

 _TL;DR_

I agree with the OP on the leaving early part but i CANNOT agree on the main premise that only stuff was shared that you would here on normal startup events - sorry i have been to a different event in this case.

In any case - thanks for the feedback - i am personally a bit sad that after all the (surprisingly) good feedback this one negative is in google.

Let's see how we can improve this at the next event.

<comment><USER14> I don't think you will be improving much for next event based on this blog post (I am sure you will otherwise), since you just went through all the criticisms and basically just said "Nope, I don't agree." You didn't take it as constructive criticism, you are just completely denying the validity of OP's experience. Maybe you are right, maybe not, but it is absolutely clear that you are not actually thankful for the feedback.</comment></comment>


Wordnik's swagger api framework - <AUTHOR> http://swagger.wordnik.com

<comment><USER2> This makes API management a breeze for developers and non-developers alike. Reminds me of AWS, in terms of internal innovation turning into major benefits for the developer community. Except it's open source, so even better.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Creating an easy mechanism for declaring a web service signature AND it's models makes this work. Does this pick up where WADL left off?</comment>


Python NLTK Bayesian Classifier for word sense disambiguation - 92% accuracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.litfuel.net/plush/?postid=200

<comment><USER2> 92% accuracy, unfortunately, isn't good enough.

Bag-of-words models perform pretty well at classification and search, and the main thing you need to improve search is to boost scores when words are close together.

You might think you could improve performance by using semantically better defined features, but even 92% accuracy adds enough noise to foil your plans.

It's a big problem in A.I. systems that have multiple stages. You might have 5 steps in a chain which are each 90% accurate, but put them together and you've got a system that sucks. Ultimately there's a need for a holistic approach that can use higher-level information to fix mistakes and ambiguities at the lower levels.

<comment><USER3> 92% in general would actually be really good for word sense disambiguation, but..."Apple" is a really easy choice. I'd like to see how he does with a trickier word like "right" (as in civil, vs. not wrong, vs. not left).

<comment><USER2> Yes, it is good, but not good enough for many applications. You're also left with the issue that one kind of "apple" is more common than the other kind of "apple" so the baseline accuracy of something that always assumes it's one kind of apple might be surprisingly good.

That said, text-to-speech is a system where it's important to do disambiguation of a particular set of words. For instead,

"I read the news today, oh boy", "read" sounds like "red"

"I read the news every day", "read" sounds like "reed"

You need to be able to disambiguate the word sense to be able to correctly read the world "read". There are maybe 20 or so very common words that are like this, so a modest amount of work in this area would be part of a good TTS system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time studying NLP, I have to say that this post outlines a pretty naive approach when it comes to disambiguating words.

Here are some questions:

\- What happens when we change the language model? \- What happens when we intersperse language models (English phrases within Chinese)? \- What if someone were to just say "i love apple"?

This post title is also __very __misleading. The 92% accuracy reflects only one particular use case. How about attempting to disambiguate hundreds and thousands of terms?

<comment><USER5> > As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time studying NLP

I'm quite interested in how will you approach this problem ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A blinking favicon? Seriously? I couldn't finish the article because my eyes jumped to the tab bar every 5 seconds.

Has anyone else seen this elsewhere? It's new to me and I was surprised by how obnoxious it was given that the web isn't exactly a stranger to obnoxious flashing content.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't blink for me. (In case you're wondering why you're getting downvoted -- though I didn't downvote you myself.)

<comment><USER6> [EDIT: Can't edit the top message anymore, but the problem was broken browser and amusing 'blink' vs ' blink' confusion as detailed deeper in the thread. Also in chrome it doesn't appear to animate, removing the annoyance entirely.]

Interesting. I asked a few coworkers if it was just me and they confirmed it. The actual favicon doesn't blink for you? <http://www.litfuel.net/favicon.ico>

It reports itself as a 6 frame gif for me. Maybe your browser is just more sane than mine (Firefox 3.x) and refuses to honor animated favicons?

I figured I was getting rightly downvoted because I wasn't saying anything about NLTK.

<comment><USER7> I tried Firefox 3.6 out of curiosity, and it doesn't blink, even when I open the favicon itself in a browser tab. I think you must have changed your browser config at some point and forgotten about it.

<comment><USER6> So this is actually pretty funny.

In my local version of firefox, the entire icon vanishes for about 5 seconds, every 5 seconds. Causing a notable visual disturbance. In Chrome on another system the _eyes_ blink every 5 seconds or so. So yeah, my browser is being broken.

But when I asked people if it blinked ... they, of course, said yes.

EDIT: Also, as noted in an edit above, when viewed in Chrome it didn't animate unless the image was accessed directly. So for you it may blink, not blink, or really blink, depending on your browser and configuration...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Terrible choice of words to use, since the capitalization (or not) of the word carries so much information. It's hard to take this seriously given his apparent obliviousness.

<comment><USER9> It may not be the best choice of words, but capitalization plays no role in his tests as everything is transformed to lower case on line 30: <http://pastebin.com/4B1xHHht>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> He did it for one word. Bad article title.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was actually a method of using wikipedia to build your corpus for any ambiguous word to automatically build some word sense disambiguation in your application. One word was just a simple example of using that data.

<comment><USER11> \- The article does not add anything new. Using Wikipedia for word sense disambiguation has been a hot topic for some years. [1]

\- The article title implies that this is somehow a spectacular finding. Doing word sense disambiguation for one word is not that interesting, and there is no comparison with existing methods to show that this is actually a high score. I suspect that it is not that spectacular, since 'Apple' is relatively easy to disambiguate using a few context words.

[1] E.g. see:

\- Using Wikipedia for Automatic Word Sense Disambiguation, R. Mihalcea, 2007, for a discussion of using Wikipedia to train a word sense disambiguator.

\- Integrating multiple knowledge sources to disambiguate word sense: An exemplar-based approach, H.T. Ng and H.B. Lee, 1996, provide a good overview of types of features that can be used in disambiguation. They use features that go beyond simple 'bag of word' and 'bag of n-gram' features, e.g. by using syntactical patterns.

There is a whole lot more research of course, but just to show two examples that describe far more sophisticated approaches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an interesting exercise in building a very specific word disambiguator ('apple' the company vs 'apple' the fruit).

It is a testmanet to NLTK that this can be accomplished in less than 100 lines.

<comment><USER11> Maybe apart from stemming), it's not hard to implement this in ~100 lines without NLTK.:

\- In naive Bayes classification, model parameters can usually be estimated using relative frequencies in the training data.

\- WordPunctTokenizer is a very simple tokenizer that makes anything matching \w+ and [^\w\s]+ a separate token.

\- Extracting Bigrams from a list of tokens is trivial.

Of course, using NLTK will be very helpful in many situations, but this is hardly a testament to NLTK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I always prefer to see these things in context (how well does a naive rule- based classifier do? what's the P/R/F-score i.e. how many Apples are apples and apples are Apples? What about Apple Records?)

It's still fun to remember how quick and easy something like this is though. Any interest in similar articles on named entity recognition, sentiment/topic classification and spam filtering? I've been meaning to do a few for a while, but you know how it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to see some more articles on the subject out there, definitely take the time to post something. Entity or sentiment would be my first choices :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised that no one mentioned this paper that first evaluated this approach to using Wikipedia data: <http://www.aaai.org/Papers/IJCAI/2007/IJCAI07-259.pdf> That said, the major drawback of using Wikipedia is the size. If this approach is to be used for all words (not just Apple) then the total training corpus will be several GBs. Definitely not practical...

<comment><USER15> What's not practical about it?

GBs of data are pretty easy to handle these days

<comment><USER14> GBs and TBs of data is common, not for this task. All you are doing is Word Sense Disambiguation and there are algorithms to do WSD that work with much much smaller training sets. Just don't think that the exponential increase in training data is justified...</comment></comment></comment>


JQuery finds its way into Microsoft and Nokia stacks - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/jquery-finds-its-way-into-microsoft-and-nokia-stacks

<comment><USER2> Wow, that's a pretty big deal. It's totally unlike Microsoft to ship a not- invented-here API set, as-in, in the box.

<comment><USER3> Scott Guthrie's team is one of the most forward-looking groups at Microsoft, and I think the developer division makes the best Microsoft products to begin with: Visual Studio and a few essential plugins is a much better IDE than Windows is a consumer operating system.

<comment><USER4> What plugins do you consider essential for Visual Studio?

<comment><USER5> Resharper

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At a high level, jQuery has two main things going for it:

1) It has awesome functionality. 2) It's indistinguishably close to being browser-independent

It looks like MS has adopted jQuery for (1), and their developers will get (2) for free.

Of course, (2) may also have figured into MS's (apparent) decision to adopt. If that's the case, more power to 'em. Nothing would please me more than seeing (one division of) MS get a clue.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great news! I was just about to post this but you beat me to it.

A good follow up post about it: [http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/09/28/jquery- and...](http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/09/28/jquery-and- microsoft.aspx)

<comment><USER2> And a post from Scott Hanselman about it: [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/jQueryToShipWithASPNETMVCAndVi...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/jQueryToShipWithASPNETMVCAndVisualStudio.aspx)

And the original announcement on the jQuery blog: <http://jquery.com/blog/2008/09/28/jquery-microsoft-nokia/>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Congratulations to the whole jQuery team. They are constantly amassing success stories and they could not be any more deserving. They put out a great library and foster one of the nicest developer communities on the web.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think Microsoft is offsetting the pain developers face in trying to make web pages work in IE/JScript by promoting jQuery. Without a library like jQuery/Prototype its really difficult to get IE to do what you want. Good news.

I really hope they make IE conform to standards.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very cool. JQuery is one of the primary reasons I really started to enjoy JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic news. MS's libraries are crude and far behind the existing open source alternatives.

<comment><USER4> What 'libraries' are you talking about in specific? Or are you just rehashing stuff you read on slashdot?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: "Add to Home Screen" webapps - <AUTHOR> Has anyone here built or supported "Add to Home Screen" mobile-web apps? I'm curious to hear people's experiences, especially for apps that have logged-in experiences.<p>I've a site that uses passwordless magic links to log you in, and strangely there seems to be very little online about how well logged-in experiences work, and best practices to implement them. <comment><USER2> I've made a few of them; there are some tricks -- especially if you want them to stay authenticated. AddToHome trick will reference the page they are currently on, so I only allow it on the /home or /dashboard like pages -- if they add to home from a deep-link it will always land them there.

And there's like a dozen meta tags for the Apple/Android systems to get right.

It basically creates a hosted-web-view with less "chrome" around there -- no address bar and stuff like that -- so you'll need to solve the 'back-button' problem too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you share those tricks around staying authenticated? Since cookies aren't shared between regular browser and "HomeScreen" app, how do you make that happen?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm having some trouble with this right now. Just posted a second ago. I can't figure out the right way to cache your web app so chrome would prompt the user to install it.

If someone could help, take a look at my repo:

[https://github.com/victorqribeiro/create](https://github.com/victorqribeiro/create)</comment>


The first creature in space was a dog. She died miserably 60 years ago - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/sixty-years-ago-the-first-creature-went-into-space-a-stray-moscow-dog/ <comment><USER2> The first mammal cured for cancer of XYZ was a mouse and it died miserably like thousands of his friends.

Not that I'm against animal experiments, but that dog-loving title is a bit too much for me.

It's like saying "I like that steak, but this butcher is horrible : he kills cows !"

</comment><comment><USER3> If the US had been the first to launch a satellite, would the Soviet Union have objected to the principle that satellites can fly over foreign countries without permission?

I read this was kind of a consideration during the Eisenhower era and one reason the US didn't push so quickly to space.</comment>


Facebook management moves around but people don't leave - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2018/5/22/17340694/facebook-hiring-executive-management-team-mark-zuckerberg <comment><USER2> I know a few earlyish employees at Facebook, and they are easily the happiest people I've met at any company. In some respects this can be credited to joining the right company at the right time: they got in early at a company that makes insane amounts of money and has a huge influence on the world. But this seems to be the icing on the cake to them. Everyone I know at Facebook who got in before 2010 credits Mark Zuckerberg ("Zuck", ugh). They call him a friend and say he never wavers in his passion or mission. They seriously look up to the guy and won't work anywhere else, even though they have built up generational wealth.

Honestly I don't care much for Facebook's methods and I think they are a net negative on the world, but I still really look up to Mark Zuckerberg as a leader.

<comment> aaron-lebo Just interested, what's impressive about Zuck as a leader?

Money will make people do crazy things. I think he's shown time and time again in his handling of situations that he's been pretty ineffective and his primary strategy is to say "we're sorry we have to do better". It's lots of excuses, that's not good leadership material in my book.

There's also crazy stories like the time he gave a speech proclaiming "Carthago delenda est", casting Facebook as Rome and Google as Carthage. Then everyone went into lockdown over the weekend so they could dig through Google+ and copy whatever they could. According to the same book (Chaos Monkeys), Zuck's inner circle is basically a bunch of sycophants (aka Friend of Zuck). It also repeatedly refers to Facebook as a cult. Why do you think they had major failures like the most recent one? Sycophancy is not a working strategy.

Surely he's made some great choices (Instagram acquisition), but how can you begin to separate his actual ability with the power/wealth he can bestow on anyone, biasing their view of him? The guy could fail 1,000 times over at this point and still be a billionaire.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/facebo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/facebook- zuckerberg-apologies/?utm_term=.e09f48b4f2dd)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/16/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/16/facebook- moderators-identity-exposed-terrorist-groups)

The stuff that happens there is kind of comical. Would effective leaders really run an org like that?

<comment><USER3> > his primary strategy is to say "we're sorry we have to do better". It's lots > of excuses, that's not good leadership material in my book.

Actually, to me, that is incredibly powerful. I can't really evaluate Zuckerberg's effectiveness, but you can't fix problems if you can't admit fault, and many in leadership positions never admit fault.

<comment> aaron-lebo It's only powerful if you actually change. Otherwise you're just using one of the classic tricks of manipulators.

"I'm sorry, it won't happen this time" is what abusive relationships are made of.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4zd7X98eOs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4zd7X98eOs)

Do people find this sincere? It seems fake/manipulative and too convenient. Facebook has been doing this for a decade+.

<comment><USER4> It's still powerful if it impacts people. Manipulation, is still powerful if it works.

Which is where you might be confused, you can be incredibly insincere and abusive (seems common in business) but still a great leader (great in this context not meaning just), as they've shown they can a) get out of sticky situations b) continue making money and c) have a relatively happy team. So in this scenario what would actually back up your argument would be demonstrations of the apologies having zero impact, the team hating the apologies and thus being less productive, and/or a general loss of revenue.

<comment> aaron-lebo Very well said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently interviewed there, and I definitely got this sense. Everyone in management had been there at least 3 years, and the directors / VPs had been there 8+. When I asked one person where people go if they leave Facebook, he didn't answer. He just said Facebook works hard to retain employees, and that if he ever felt bored he would leave. The campus is idyllic, designed apparently by the same person who designed Disneyland. Free food, arcades, ice cream, movies, etc. I think they try very hard to make you comfortable (no "stick") and keep presenting you with opportunities to have more impact ("carrot"). To the point where people don't appear to think as much about the bigger picture and who they want to be / where they want to go. I often heard that phrase "as long as I'm challenged and having impact, I'll stay here".

<comment><USER6> [https://www.quora.com/What-startups-have-been-launched-by- ex...](https://www.quora.com/What-startups-have-been-launched-by-ex-Facebook- employees)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/technology/03facebook.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/technology/03facebook.html)

"But a number of Facebook's early employees are giving up their stable jobs..."

[http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-former-employees- are...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-former-employees-are-funding- the-next-generation-of-startups-2012-4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "There are more could-be CEOs at Facebook than any other company".

This is such a meaningless non-statement.

"There are more could-be Picasso's at Facebook than any other company". Wow. #inspired. If only they picked up the brush.

Be less concerned about being a CEO and more concerned about creating things of value.

<comment><USER8> > Be less concerned about being a CEO and more concerned about creating things > of value.

Isn't that basically how the article is representing these people? That they don't care about being CEO and just want to be where they can create things of the most value?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Impact" is the new buzzword of the creative class, aka the knowledge worker. Also, it might be noted, someone else cleans the toilets, that comment from the social good person was just argument by example, and a strange example coming from the person whose title kind of most closely resembles advocating for working people. Because the people who actually clean their toilets don't likely talk much about 'impact'. For folks who are worried about groupthink and feedback loops at FB look no further than comments like these.

</comment><comment><USER10> Snap, Twitter and Uber have all had unprecedented amount of turmoil in the executive ranks of the company. Snap and Twitter's stock are both trading below IPO. Uber is not public yet.

It makes me wonder about the deeper causality. Do execs stay because of the mission and that causes stock appreciation? Or do execs stick around because of stock appreciation and then explain it through the mission?

</comment><comment><USER11> Call me cynical, but how many companies could they become a CEO where they would own more / more valuable stock and/or earn more from said stock?

<comment><USER12> Maybe I am atypical, but I would take a significant discount to run a company. I value freedom, authority, and responsibility more than money.

<comment><USER13> But money is the quickest way to get those things.

<comment><USER14> That has been the opposite of my experience. There's a sweet spot around $90-$110k where life is pretty good; below that, financial constraints are distracting, while above it, the sacrifices you have to make in terms of freedom, responsibility, etc. will rapidly drain away whatever satisfaction you might have been able to buy with the extra money.

<comment><USER15> I hope you're not talking about living in SV or SF with those numbers. Anything less than $120K salary out here usually means roommates, which, unless you are very good at figuring out good ones from bad ones, can lead to severe work performance issues due to lack of sleep from incompatible habits and schedules.

<comment><USER14> Seattle, actually. It's not so much the specific numbers I was talking about - that's just the range which works for me - but the idea that more money can be less valuable, because the time and energy cost of acquiring the money diminishes your ability to make use of it.

I have typically chosen to live with housemates regardless of salary, because otherwise home just feels sort of empty and dead, and it's a lot of work trying to organize all one's own social hosting single-handed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "When we learned our platform was abused and interfered with, that was super > shocking to all of us," said Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan in a recent > interview with Recode. "[I was] shocked that we were abused. Angry that our > platform was abused, manipulated."

Really? I am genuinely confused about how this would come as a surprise.

<comment><USER6> [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/)

"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It"

Nowadays, s/Man/Person/. Women of course have equal right to be hypocrites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If money is no longer a driving force and FB is a happy place to work at then power / influence / impact is what is left. Perhaps the execs simply believe that they will have more of this by remaining than starting a new company. Power can be a good or bad thing depending on perspective.

</comment><comment><USER18> I feel like they missed a Hotel California reference.

</comment><comment><USER19> TBH it does make sense that the "VP of Social Good" isn't going anywhere

<comment><USER19> No but seriously, who else wants a VP of Social Good trophy

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> so the message for new hires is: don't even try, you are not part of the old- friends-cloed-group

<comment><USER21> Your comment reads like you expect software dev or other entry level employee nagging he does not have a shot at C suite position right after joining.

You know that how life works, you hire people who you trust and you trust friends, colleagues you worked for couple years.

Sometimes you do not have option but bring in C level employee from outside, but that is huge thing. Probably that person will also be from network of biggest share holders, not person from the street.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sheryl Sandberg should run for President in 2020, not take a CEO role

<comment><USER23> If the democrats run Zuckerberg, Sandberg, or Eric Schmidt, they'll once again be losing my vote. I don't even want to imagine what the future would look like under an administration run by someone from the surveillance capitalism world.

<comment><USER22> Mark and others designed the total free for all that is Facebook data policy, I wouldn't vote for him or (especially) Schmidt, who loves surveillance. Yes I'd want to hear what she has to say about that.

<comment><USER23> Schmidt loves surveillance, and openly idolizes Henry Kissinger. He's probably the most terrifying possibility of the three people I mentioned.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Use more of your brain while programming by using less mouse - <AUTHOR> http://lostincolonisation.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/more-brain-less-mouse/

<comment><USER2> I remember in User Interface design (2002, Georgia Tech) the timing diagrams of menus vs hotkeys in many studies. Hotkeys took much less time in the perception of the users, but actually took more real time in measurements. Apparently time "stops" while the user attempts to recall the correct keys to press, however they notice the time that is required to move the mouse and operate the menus.

That doesn't mean all hotkeys are bad, but it always makes me wonder how much is perception and how much is real speedup in these types of articles

(I use gVim as an editor, even in XCode, don't portray me as a menu jocky in replies).

<comment><AUTHOR> As I mentioned in the footnotes, the improvement one gets depend on his/her level in the Dreyfus Model. When I started off using keyboard shortcuts more, I definitely encountered the initial slow down in recalling which keys. But once I internalized a number of most frequently used shortcuts, the time saved are actual as I described in the post.

<comment><USER2> I'm sure for frequently used tasks keybinds win, and for very infrequent tasks, menus win. I'm just not sure how to time moderate tasks to learn which is truly faster without actually timing them (nor how to actually time them in a professional, non-labratory setting).</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Connect to APIs in Google Sheets - <AUTHOR> https://mixedanalytics.com/api-connector/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, a couple days ago I released a Google Sheets Add-on to pull JSON API data directly into Google Sheets. You can enter the URL, query strings, and any required headers into the Add-on sidebar, and can make dynamic requests by referencing cells in the sheet. For example, the API request URL can point to a cell containing today's date, which is useful if you want to refresh the data every day.

I made this after working on a lot of reporting projects that required aggregating API data from multiple marketing & analytics platforms.

As a quick meta-example, here's a Google Sheet that checks the Hacker News API for current Show HN's and automatically refreshes every hour: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14RsAm8s5JtsH2ots79c0...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14RsAm8s5JtsH2ots79c0vhezcUdMlqA6iFVO_kCrtdQ)</comment>


12-13-14: Last Chance for Calendar Coincidence Until 2103 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/12-13-14-last-chance-calendar-coincidence-until-2103-n267281

<comment><USER2> Unless you're from one of the many countries that uses the more logical format of DD-MM-YY :P

</comment><comment><USER3> 12-13-14 15:16:17-1819</comment>


Google's got our kids - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/4436/google-classroom-education-free-software-children-school-tech <comment><USER2> This isn't a new angle for targeting schools: Apple was famous for it back in the day. The difference is now it's collecting data on kids.

My family is in a school district which has "gone Google", and Chromebooks are compulsory. It's so incredibly dystopian. Use Google or fail your education.

<comment><USER3> I don't really see how making them buy or use Chromebooks is more dystopian than compelling them to purchase or use anything else. That's just how standardization works, whether it's on the Office suite, a certain textbook, or a Chromebook.

It's easy to see why the schools want them using Chromebooks. They're easy to use, low maintenance, and compatible with the Google tools that they presumably want to use in the whole district. Those are all good reasons to me.

<comment><USER2> Using Microsoft Office doesn't send your data to a Google server. Using Google Docs does.

Chromebooks aren't significantly lower maintenance than any other managed fleet of computers. Windows PCs can be quickly and easily imaged and configured just like a Chromebook. And the physical maintenance is about the same: Cheap trash laptops they give students tend to break a lot.

<comment><USER3> I personally think that managing Chromebooks is at least a little easier than other computers, but I see your point that Windows isn't that much worse.

There's something to be said for Chromebook specs, though. I still have a Samsung Chromebook with a Samsung ARM processor from 2012 and 2GB ram. Using Windows on that machine would be painful. ChromeOS ain't gonna break any speed records but it's actually quite usable still.

Also, they should be using G Suite for education which doesn't serve ads and don't use user data for ad profiles.

The privacy notice says that they collect:

\- device information, such as the hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number of the user

\- log information, including details of how a user used our service, device event information, and the user's Internet protocol (IP) address

\- location information, as determined by various technologies including IP address, GPS, and other sensors

\- unique application numbers, such as application version number

\- cookies or similar technologies which are used to collect and store information about a browser or device, such as preferred language and other settings

None of that seems egregious to me.

Plus, Office collects information about you too.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/compat/data- th...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/compat/data-that-the- telemetry-agent-collects-in-office)

[https://gsuite.google.com/terms/education_privacy.html](https://gsuite.google.com/terms/education_privacy.html)

<comment><USER2> If I type in a Word document, the data is on the computer.

If I type in a Google Doc, the data is on Google's servers.

There is no equivalency here. Sure, Google can claim that they won't use it for specific purposes, but they can still use it for a lot of other things, and most crucially, they can change their policy at any time.

<comment><USER4> But it makes it so kids can use whatever machine each day. They just log in and everything is there.

<comment><USER3> Back when I was in high school we just logged into a Windows account and stored our stuff in a private folder on the network that could be accessed from any computer.

<comment><USER4> Chromebooks make it much better. You can use whatever machine you want. Plus kept private from other users.

Google shared yesterday that CBs grew 50% YoY. That is while Macs and Windows machines sold less YoY.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


IBM's solar tech is 80% efficient thanks to supercomputer cooling tech - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/ibms-solar-tech-is-80-efficient-thanks-to-supercomputer-know-how/

<comment><USER2> This is the problem with stating efficiency in terms of energy instead of exergy (work). Capturing the low-temperature waste heat of the solar panels is not comparable to capturing the same amount of energy as electricity. It's a good technology if it can be made inexpensive, but calling it "80% efficient solar" is quite misleading.

<comment><USER3> My read of the article agrees with you: they are claiming the removal of the waste heat as "efficiency" without taking into account the efficiency of using the waste heat. I was hoping they would claim better cooling made the PV cell more efficient (I know, a silly claim- but by analogy that larger temperature differences make more efficient heat engines). And there may in fact be no use at all for the waste heat (who needs waste heat in the Sahara?).

<comment><USER2> In fact cooling solar cells does make them more efficient. It's just that the effect is small because the "high" temperature is already so high (the temperature of the incoming photons is effectively that of the surface of the sun). A Carnot engine working between 330K and 5800K, ie a reversible solar cell, would be 95% efficient. If the cell's temperature were dropped to 300K it would be 94%. So we can estimate the efficiency change for a 30 Celcius cooling of the cell at 1%.

<comment><USER4> Your comment seems to imply that the main problem with temperature is radiative recombination. Is that the case? I thought heat caused other non- ideal problems.

<comment><USER2> True, it will also increase internal resistance. I'm more of a thermo guy, though, so I can't estimate the remainder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Misleading, they heat the water but does not convert it to electricity (which would lead to further losses)</comment>


Library Music - <AUTHOR> https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2019/08/the-what-how-and-why-of-library-music <comment><USER2> I was exposed to library music once I started frequenting www.whosampled.com and started noticing a lot of DeWolfe music was sampled. I immediately started buying up all the DeWolfe albums I could find. I mostly agree with the article here. There is some pretty amazing gems out there, but most people will not be all that impressed with your "elevator muzak". I havent checked into it as Ive not done any commercial release music in a long time, but I believe the sample clearance is much easier/cheaper with this sort of thing as that is the point of it in the first place. Also of note DeWolfe is still alive and well and has tons of material to review online. [https://www.dewolfemusic.com/](https://www.dewolfemusic.com/)

<comment><USER3> I just finished remixing a great DeWolfe track for a client.

Here's the original, a solid jam: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WzMovyzUA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WzMovyzUA)

<comment><USER4> That just invokes early-80s sitcom closing credits in my head for some reason...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The second most surprising aspect of this is that there is such a thing as the Red Bull Music Academy, and the most surprising is that it has been around as such for 21 years!

I know they have been involved in "extreme" sports of various stripes for a long time, but I wasn't aware of any programs of theirs outside of that realm.

<comment><USER6> It's shutting down later this year: [https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/43548](https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/43548)

<comment><AUTHOR> >Notable alumni of the [Red Bull Music Academy] programme include Nina Kraviz, Objekt, Flying Lotus, Octo Octa, Courtesy, Black Coffee, Sonja Moonear, Palms Trax, Fatima, Violet, Marie Davidson, Mumdance, Nightwave, Krystal Klear, Lafawndah, Mano Le Tough, VTSS, Lucrecia Dalt, Flava D, Axel Boman, Tokimonsta, Dorian Concept, Akiko Kiyama, Sassy J and Hudson Mohawke, while guest lecturers include D'Angelo, Björk, "Mad" Mike Banks, Iggy Pop, Storm, Sheila E, Pearson Sound, Moodymann, Questlove, Goldie, Isao Tomita, Hugh Masekela and Laurent Garnier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not exactly library music, but I've found commercial music from "Extreme Production Music" to be very interesting. I love their Dark Country series. I guess the story is they hired Blues Saraceno to make commercial music, and his rock-inspired country tunes took off, they started releasing albums of it. Outlaw blues, Garage Blues series, Swamp Rock,etc, albums created for commercial sales, but they found record sales profitable, glad too.

Spotify has a Label: search, you can search entire label catalogs, and that lead me to get some really nice albums that are made for genres.

</comment><comment><USER8> One of my favourite mixes is DJ Mitsu the Beats' 'Library Mix' which is all library music. Seems not available digitally, but very much recommended: [https://www.rushhour.nl/record/cd/library-mix-dj-mitsu- beats](https://www.rushhour.nl/record/cd/library-mix-dj-mitsu-beats)

Promo video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLFyIdNvEb0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLFyIdNvEb0)

</comment><comment><USER9> While not as cool as 60s experimental stuff, library music still exists in the modern world too as subscription services for content production companies. It can be fun to browse in it's own way.

This particular track I've heard all over the place: [https://www.audionetwork.com/browse/m/track/last- dance_64740](https://www.audionetwork.com/browse/m/track/last-dance_64740)

</comment><comment><USER10> Soulwax did a one hour mix consisting of library music called "Librarian Girl" for their "Radio Soulwax" project a small decade ago. Definitely worth checking out: [https://vimeo.com/25861658](https://vimeo.com/25861658)

</comment><comment><USER11> Luke Vibert's Nuggets compilations have some excellent examples of this.

<comment><USER12> Easily my favorite library music compilations, excellent selections of enjoyably 'slightly-off sounding' tracks.</comment></comment>


Critics Call Delaware a Tax Haven  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/business/30delaware.html?hpw

<comment><USER2> expect the clamp down on so called tax havens to get worse as politicians get more desperate to credibly promise people free money.</comment>


'10-second' hack jogs Fitbits into malware-spreading mode - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/21/fitbit_hack/ <comment><USER2> Hmm… my sister has a Fitbit, but she only syncs it with her iPad. I'm guessing this won't affect her.</comment>


Blogging tools should archive in RSS - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2012/06/03/bloggingToolsShouldArchive.html <comment><USER2> i was thinking yesterday how great it would be if webcomics had a 'read the archive' rss feature. Where you pick a point in the past, and how many comics to feed you every day.</comment>


Guns don't kill people, puppies do - <AUTHOR> http://www.badscience.net/2010/02/guns-dont-kill-people-puppies-do/

<comment><USER2> For the tldr; crowd, its basically about how given a big enough sample size very unlikely things become a possibility, ex: you puppy shooting you in the face.

<comment><USER3> An interesting -- and sometimes dangerous -- consequence of this is that, whatever your position in a subject, you can practically always find an anecdote that will seem to prove your point, if only you look hard enough for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Summary: Having 3 children with the same birthday sounds like a 1/365^3 possibility, but it's actually 1/365^2, as the first can be any date, as long as the next 2 are the same.

Add to that the amount of births per year per country, and it's not such a headline worthy story anymore.

EDIT: fixed formatting

<comment><USER5> WTF? Where did you get 3652?

 _Their number is calculated as 365 x 365 x 365 = 48,627,125. But in reality, of course, it's out by an order of magnitude: one in 50 million are the odds of someone having 3 siblings sharing one particular prespecified birth date that the editors of the Daily Express sealed in an envelope and gave to a lawyer 50 years ago. In reality there is no constraint on which day the first baby gets born on, so after that, the odds of two more babies sharing that birthday are 365×365=133,225._

<comment><USER6> He tried to write 365-squared, but whatever he did didn't actually work and the 2 that was meant to be in the exponent ended up just glommed onto the 365.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I'm used to double asterisk from python...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Too many babies in the UK.

Too many puppies with guns in their hands.

Anything is possible.</comment>