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43,124 | mmaunder | 2007-08-16T17:43:09 | How to create a startup in 10.5 hours | I just launched FEEDJIT. It took me about 10.5 hours (4pm until 2:30am) from the first time my hand touched the keyboard until I fixed the last bug and went live. I got a question on the Seattle Tech Startup list about how I spent my 10.5 hours. So here's a brief summary.... | http://markmaunder.com/2007/how-to-create-a-startup-in-105-hours/ | 53 | 19 | [
43233,
43131,
43140,
43143,
43209
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,126 | danw | 2007-08-16T17:46:15 | Good reads on Ubiquitous Computing | null | http://liftlab.com/think/nova/2007/08/02/good-reads-on-ubiquitous-computing/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,144 | terpua | 2007-08-16T18:29:02 | Yahoo revamps local, but needs work - Google's door-to-door campaign | null | http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/16/yahoo-revamps-local-but-needs-work-googles-door-to-door-campaign/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,148 | prakash | 2007-08-16T19:08:06 | Digital Korea - The future exists in South Korea | New book from tomi ahonen. sounds interesting. | http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/08/ahonen-5th-book.html | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,154 | danw | 2007-08-16T19:15:07 | Debunking The Myths of Innovation | null | http://lifehacker.com/software/book-recommendation/debunking-the-myths-of-innovation-289069.php | 8 | 5 | [
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43,156 | david | 2007-08-16T19:18:09 | What contributes most to reading speed: letter-recognition, word-recognition, or context? | null | http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2007/08/reading-is-team-effort.html | 6 | 2 | [
43252
] | null | null | missing_parsing | Blogger | null | null | Not your computer? Use Guest mode to sign in privately. Learn more about using Guest mode | 2024-11-07T22:06:47 | null | train |
43,165 | danw | 2007-08-16T19:40:55 | Social Networks as a Mobile Device Enabler | null | http://www.antoinerjwright.com/2007/08/social-networks-as-mobile-device.htm | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,174 | dawie | 2007-08-16T19:52:35 | Mephisto: Elegant and Powerful Weblog-Engine | null | http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/17/mephisto-elegant-and-powerful-weblog-engine/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,189 | transburgh | 2007-08-16T20:17:51 | Question of the Day: Tortoise or Hare? | null | http://www.foundread.com/view/question-of-the-day133 | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,192 | pdsull | 2007-08-16T20:23:05 | How to Stay Motivated | http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/55-how-to-stay-motivated/ | 12 | 2 | [
43323,
43287
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,195 | far33d | 2007-08-16T20:27:46 | Number 3 Startup Hub? | So it's pretty obvious that the Bay Area is startup hub #1, and Boston is #2, but what is #3? <p>New York? Boulder? Chicago? Seattle? <p>Follow-up question - what cities that are not the top three seem to have the most potential to become #3?
| null | 15 | 53 | [
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43,199 | dawie | 2007-08-16T20:30:43 | 5 tools every PHP programmer should know about | null | http://immike.net/blog/2007/08/15/5-tools-every-php-programmer-should-know-about/ | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,200 | transburgh | 2007-08-16T20:35:05 | Bad News And New CEOs at Technorati And Podtech | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/16/watching-technorati-and-podtech-fall-apart/ | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,202 | jsjenkins168 | 2007-08-16T20:43:14 | AT&T cripples BlackBerry to make iPhone more appealing | http://blackberrycool.com/2007/08/16/005386/ | 8 | 1 | [
47550
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,214 | dawie | 2007-08-16T21:52:00 | Secret AdSense Online Advisory Council Revealed | null | http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/08/16/adsense-secret-online-advisory-council/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,222 | epi0Bauqu | 2007-08-16T22:09:10 | "We have broken the speed of light" | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml | 8 | 1 | [
43224
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,227 | ahsonwardak | 2007-08-16T22:12:06 | Classmates.com goes public. What about Facebook? | Is this possible? I think classmates.com is the prototype for a horrible social networking. Paid content, extensive privacy, horrible layout and design characterize this site that was good idea executed badly. Now, you can invest in it:) | http://www.allfacebook.com/2007/08/classmatescom-goes-public-is-facebook-next/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,231 | ahsonwardak | 2007-08-16T22:18:35 | The Pareto Rule for Social Networks | How many agree with this assertion? Twenty percent of Facebookers drive eighty percent of the content - i.e. posted items, profile changes, notes, interesting wall posts. I guess that the same could go for MySpace or LinkedIn. There's always a small collection of people offering content, and many more just stalking and reading it. It could even go for this: Hacker News. | 5 | 10 | [
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|
43,236 | horatio05 | 2007-08-16T22:31:43 | David Sifry Out as Technorati CEO, 8 Staff Too | null | http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000508.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,240 | dawie | 2007-08-16T22:38:15 | Has Facebook abandoned privacy? | null | http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=282 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,243 | mk | 2007-08-16T22:42:18 | Norvig: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years | Not sure if this has been posted here or not, but I just came across it browsing Norvig's site. Thought I would share it. | http://norvig.com/21-days.html | 54 | 7 | [
43320,
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Why is everyone in such a rush?
Walk into any bookstore, and you'll see how to Teach Yourself Java
in 24 Hours alongside endless variations offering to teach C,
SQL, Ruby, Algorithms, and so on in a few days or hours.
The Amazon advanced search for [title: teach,
yourself, hours, since: 2000 and found 512 such books. Of the top ten, nine are programming books (the other is about bookkeeping). Similar results come from replacing "teach yourself" with "learn" or "hours" with "days."
The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn
about programming, or that programming is somehow fabulously easier to
learn than anything else.
Felleisen et al.
give a nod to this trend in their book How to Design Programs, when they say
"Bad programming is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days,
even if they are dummies." The Abtruse Goose comic also had their take.
Let's analyze what a title like Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours
could mean:
Teach Yourself: In 24 hours you won't have time to write several
significant programs, and learn from your successes and failures with
them. You won't have time to work with an experienced programmer and
understand what it is like to live in a C++ environment. In short, you
won't have time to learn much. So the book can only be talking about a
superficial familiarity, not a deep understanding. As Alexander Pope said,
a little learning is a dangerous thing.C++: In 24 hours you might be able to learn some of the syntax of
C++ (if you already know another language), but you couldn't
learn much about how to use the language. In short, if you were, say, a
Basic programmer, you could learn to write programs in the style of
Basic using C++ syntax, but you couldn't learn what C++ is
actually good (and bad) for. So what's the point? Alan
Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you
think about programming, is not worth knowing". One possible point is
that you have to learn a tiny bit of C++ (or more likely, something
like JavaScript or Processing) because you need to interface with an
existing tool to accomplish a specific task. But then you're not
learning how to program; you're learning to accomplish that task.in 24 Hours: Unfortunately, this is not enough, as the next
section shows.
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
Researchers (Bloom
(1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes
(1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it
takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of
areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph
operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in
neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative
practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself
with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it,
analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting
any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. There appear to be no
real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took
13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In
another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a
string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964.
But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since
1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great
critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967.
Malcolm
Gladwell has popularized the idea, although he concentrates on 10,000 hours, not 10 years.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) had another metric: "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." (He didn't
anticipate that with digital cameras, some people can reach that mark in a week.)
True expertise may take a lifetime:
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) said "Excellence in any department can be
attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at
a lesser price." And Chaucer (1340-1400) complained "the lyf so short, the craft
so long to lerne." Hippocrates (c. 400BC) is known for the excerpt "ars longa,
vita brevis", which is part of the longer quotation "Ars longa, vita
brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium
difficile", which in English renders as "Life is short, [the] craft
long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment
difficult."
Of course, no single number can be the final answer: it doesn't seem reasonable
to assume that all skills (e.g., programming, chess playing, checkers playing, and music playing)
could all require exactly the same amount of time to master, nor that all people
will take exactly the same amount of time. As
Prof.
K. Anders Ericsson puts it, "In most domains it's remarkable how much time even the most
talented individuals need in order to reach the highest levels of performance. The 10,000 hour number just gives you a sense that we're talking years of 10 to 20 hours a week which those who some people would argue are the most innately talented individuals still need to get to the highest level."
So You Want to be a Programmer
Here's my recipe for programming success:
Get interested in programming, and do some because it is fun. Make sure
that it keeps being enough fun so that you will be willing to put in your ten years/10,000 hours. Program. The best kind of learning is learning
by doing. To put it more technically, "the maximal level of
performance for individuals in a given domain is not attained
automatically as a function of extended experience, but the level of
performance can be increased even by highly experienced individuals as
a result of deliberate efforts to improve." (p. 366)
and "the most effective learning requires a well-defined task with an
appropriate difficulty level for the particular individual,
informative feedback, and opportunities for repetition and corrections
of errors." (p. 20-21) The book
Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday
Life is an interesting
reference for this viewpoint. Talk with other programmers; read other programs. This is more important
than any book or training course. If you want, put in four years at a college (or more at a
graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require
credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field,
but if you don't enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get
similar experience on your own or on the job. In any case, book learning alone won't
be enough. "Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert
programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make
somebody an expert painter" says Eric Raymond, author of The New
Hacker's Dictionary. One of the best programmers I ever hired had
only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub. Work on projects with other programmers. Be the best programmer
on some projects; be the worst on some others. When you're the best,
you get to test your abilities to lead a project, and to inspire
others with your vision. When you're the worst, you learn what the
masters do, and you learn what they don't like to do (because they
make you do it for them). Work on projects after other programmers.
Understand a program written by someone else. See what it takes to
understand and fix it when the original programmers are not
around. Think about how to design your programs to make it easier for
those who will maintain them after you. Learn at least a half dozen programming languages. Include one
language that emphasizes class abstractions (like Java or C++), one that
emphasizes functional abstraction (like Lisp or ML or Haskell), one
that supports syntactic abstraction (like Lisp), one
that supports declarative specifications (like Prolog or C++
templates), and
one that emphasizes parallelism (like Clojure or Go). Remember that there is a "computer" in "computer science". Know
how long it takes your computer to execute an instruction, fetch a
word from memory (with and without a cache miss), read consecutive words from disk, and seek to a new location on disk. (Answers here.) Get involved in a language
standardization effort. It could be the ANSI C++ committee, or it
could be deciding if your local coding style will have 2 or 4 space
indentation levels. Either way, you learn about what other people
like in a language, how deeply they feel so, and perhaps even a little
about why they feel so. Have the good sense to get off the language standardization effort as
quickly as possible.
With all that in mind, its questionable how far you can get just by
book learning. Before my first child was born, I read all the How
To books, and still felt like a clueless novice. 30 Months later,
when my second child was due, did I go back to the books for a
refresher? No. Instead, I relied on my personal experience, which
turned out to be far more useful and reassuring
to me than the thousands of pages written
by experts.
Fred Brooks, in his essay No Silver Bullet
identified a three-part plan for finding great
software designers:
Systematically identify top designers as early as possible.Assign a career mentor to be responsible for the development of the prospect and carefully keep a career file.Provide opportunities for growing designers to interact and stimulate each other.
This assumes that some people already have the qualities necessary for
being a great designer; the job is to properly coax them along. Alan
Perlis put it more succinctly: "Everyone can be taught to sculpt:
Michelangelo would have had to be taught how not to. So it is with the
great programmers". Perlis is saying that the greats have some
internal quality that transcends their training. But where does the
quality come from? Is it innate? Or do they develop it through
diligence? As Auguste Gusteau (the fictional chef in
Ratatouille) puts it, "anyone can cook, but only the fearless
can be great." I think of it more as willingness to devote a large
portion of one's life to deliberative practice. But maybe
fearless is a way to summarize that. Or, as Gusteau's critic,
Anton Ego, says: "Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great
artist can come from anywhere."
So go ahead and buy that Java/Ruby/Javascript/PHP book; you'll
probably get some use out of it. But you won't change your life, or
your real overall expertise as a programmer in 24 hours or 21 days.
How about working hard to continually improve over 24 months?
Well, now you're starting to get somewhere...
References
Bloom, Benjamin (ed.) Developing Talent in Young People, Ballantine, 1985.
Brooks, Fred, No Silver Bullets, IEEE Computer, vol. 20, no. 4, 1987, p. 10-19.
Bryan, W.L. & Harter, N. "Studies on the telegraphic language:
The acquisition of a hierarchy of habits. Psychology Review,
1899, 8, 345-375
Hayes, John R., Complete Problem Solver Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989.
Chase, William G. & Simon, Herbert A.
"Perception in Chess"
Cognitive Psychology, 1973, 4, 55-81.
Lave, Jean, Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday
Life, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Answers
Approximate timing for various operations on a typical PC:
execute typical instruction 1/1,000,000,000 sec = 1 nanosec
fetch from L1 cache memory 0.5 nanosec
branch misprediction 5 nanosec
fetch from L2 cache memory 7 nanosec
Mutex lock/unlock 25 nanosec
fetch from main memory 100 nanosec
send 2K bytes over 1Gbps network 20,000 nanosec
read 1MB sequentially from memory 250,000 nanosec
fetch from new disk location (seek) 8,000,000 nanosec
read 1MB sequentially from disk 20,000,000 nanosec
send packet US to Europe and back 150 milliseconds = 150,000,000 nanosec
Appendix: Language Choice
Several people have asked what programming language they should learn first.
There is no one answer, but consider these points:
Use your friends. When asked "what operating system should
I use, Windows, Unix, or Mac?", my answer is usually: "use whatever
your friends use." The advantage you get from learning from your
friends will offset any intrinsic difference between OS, or
between programming languages. Also consider your future friends:
the community of programmers that you will be a part of if you
continue. Does your chosen language have a large growing community
or a small dying one? Are there books, web sites, and online forums
to get answers from? Do you like the people in those forums?
Keep it simple. Programming languages such as C++
and Java are designed for professional development by large teams of
experienced programmers who are concerned about the run-time efficiency of
their code.
As a result, these languages have complicated parts designed for these circumstances.
You're concerned with learning to program. You don't need that complication.
You want a language that was designed to be easy to learn and remember by a
single new programmer.
Play. Which way would you rather learn to play the piano: the
normal, interactive way, in which you hear each note as soon as you hit a key,
or "batch" mode, in which you only hear the notes after you finish a whole song?
Clearly, interactive mode makes learning easier for the piano, and also for
programming. Insist on a language with an interactive mode and use it.
Given these criteria, my recommendations for a first programming
language would be Python or
Scheme.
Another choice is Javascript, not because it is perfectly well-designed for beginners,
but because there are so many online tutorials for it, such as
Khan Academy's tutorial.
But your
circumstances may vary, and there are other good choices. If your
age is a single-digit, you might prefer
Alice or Squeak
or Blockly (older learners might also enjoy these). The important
thing is that you choose and get started.
Appendix: Books and Other Resources
Several people have asked what books and web pages they should learn
from. I repeat that "book learning alone won't be enough" but I can
recommend the following:
Scheme: Structure and
Interpretation of Computer Programs (Abelson & Sussman) is
probably the best introduction to computer science, and it does
teach programming as a way of understanding the computer science.
You can see online videos of lectures on this book, as well as the complete text online. The book is
challenging and will weed out some people who perhaps could be
successful with another approach.
Scheme:
How to
Design Programs (Felleisen et al.) is one of the best books
on how to actually design programs in an elegant and functional way.
Python:
Python Programming:
An Intro to CS (Zelle) is a good introduction using Python.
Python: Several
online tutorials
are available at Python.org.
Oz: Concepts,
Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming (Van Roy & Haridi)
is seen by some as the modern-day successor to Abelson & Sussman.
It is a tour through the big ideas of programming, covering a wider
range than Abelson & Sussman while being perhaps easier to read and
follow. It uses a language, Oz, that is not widely known but serves as
a basis for learning other languages.
<
Notes
T. Capey points out that the Complete
Problem Solver page on Amazon now has the "Teach Yourself
Bengali in 21 days" and "Teach Yourself Grammar and Style" books under the
"Customers who shopped for this item also shopped for these items"
section. I guess that a large portion of the people who look at that
book are coming from this page.
Thanks to Ross Cohen for help with Hippocrates.
Translations
Thanks to the
following authors,
translations of
this page are
available in:
Arabic(Mohamed A. Yahya)
Bulgarian(Boyko Bantchev)
Chinese (Xiaogang Guo)
Croatian
(Tvrtko Bedekovic)
Esperanto
(Federico Gobbo)
French (Etienne Beauchesne)
German (Stefan Ram)
Hebrew
(Eric McCain)
Hindi
(Vikash Tiwari)
Hungarian
(Marton Mestyan)
Indonesian
(Tridjito Santoso)
Italian
(Fabio Z. Tessitore)
Japanese (yomoyomo)
Korean
(John Hwang)
Persian(Mehdi Asgari)
Polish(Kuba Nowak)
Portuguese(Augusto Radtke)
Romanian(Ştefan Lazăr)
Russian(Konstantin Ptitsyn)
Serbian(Lazar Kovacevic)
Spanish (Carlos Rueda)
Slovak
(Jan Waclawek)
Turkish (Çağıl Uluşahin)
Ukranian
(Oleksii Molchanovskyi)
| 2024-11-07T18:20:40 | en | train |
43,258 | rms | 2007-08-16T23:25:35 | The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect: post-singularity fiction, freely available online | null | http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ | 4 | 1 | [
43372
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,260 | rms | 2007-08-16T23:28:56 | The Industrial Revolution due to a change in the English population? | http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html/?ex=1187409600&en=e007fbc0160d2ca1&ei=5070 | 16 | 9 | [
43341
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,261 | dpapathanasiou | 2007-08-16T23:34:44 | Sims Creator Will Wright Demos "Spore" (TED Video) | http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/146 | 11 | 1 | [
43340
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,267 | bct | 2007-08-16T23:47:24 | Neal Stephenson - "The Great Simoleon Caper" (short story about digital currency) | http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982610-1,00.html | 3 | 1 | [
43392
] | null | null | http_404 | Page not found | TIME | null | null |
Your browser is out of date. Please update your browser at http://update.microsoft.com
| 2024-11-08T07:50:05 | null | train |
|
43,274 | mitch | 2007-08-17T00:01:09 | How quickly we forget. - TvByDemand | Forums | Iraq | null | http://www.tvbydemand.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=762&FORUM_ID=25&CAT_ID=6&Topic_Title=How+quickly+we+forget%2E&Forum_Title=Iraq | 1 | -1 | [
43275
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,295 | drm237 | 2007-08-17T00:35:44 | A promissory startup promise gets enforced | Every time I hit TechCrunch, my start up buttons get pushed. Being both a tech and law geek, I naturally did a quick search for any caselaw related to startups in Washington. I found many, but guess what else happened. One of the named defendants, specifically Mr. Rood, from InstantService.com v. Rood (see here), showed up on the very first case I found, this time as a plaintiff. | http://www.coderights.com/2007/08/stonebridge_securities_llc_v_d.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,297 | drm237 | 2007-08-17T00:38:02 | Music p2p startup Groovershark preps for launch | P2P music sharing startup Grooveshark today launched a big-better new feature laden release, as it preps-up for it's open beta launch later this month. | http://startupsquad.com/2007/08/16/music-p2p-startup-groovershark-preps-for-launch/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T12:29:45 | null | train |
43,303 | jamiequint | 2007-08-17T00:56:14 | Map of Internet Usage By Country - Country size proportioned accordingly | http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/storysupplement/worldinternet/index.htm | 7 | 3 | [
43508,
43441,
43501
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,304 | jamiequint | 2007-08-17T01:00:32 | YC West Coast Demo Day Roundup | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/16/y-combinator-demo-day-the-summer-startups/ | 41 | 10 | [
43311,
43344,
43418,
43346,
43450
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,314 | david | 2007-08-17T01:35:35 | Freaks, Geeks and Parents - An analysis of the High School Ecosystem | null | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs-H-VJj8eA | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,321 | pg | 2007-08-17T02:11:35 | YSlow: Yahoo's problems are not your problems | http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000932.html | 14 | 1 | [
43465
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,322 | jyrzyk | 2007-08-17T02:14:22 | Physicists discover inorganic dust with lifelike qualities | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070814150630.htm | 4 | 1 | [
44205
] | null | null | no_error | Physicists Discover Inorganic Dust With Lifelike Qualities | null | null | Could extraterrestrial life be made of corkscrew-shaped particles of interstellar dust? Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space have been revealed in the New Journal of Physics. The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks. They also point to a possible new explanation for the origin of life on earth.
Life on earth is organic. It is composed of organic molecules, which are simply the compounds of carbon, excluding carbonates and carbon dioxide. The idea that particles of inorganic dust may take on a life of their own is nothing short of alien, going beyond the silicon-based life forms favoured by some science fiction stories.
Now, an international team has discovered that under the right conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organised into helical structures. These structures can then interact with each other in ways that are usually associated with organic compounds and life itself.
V.N. Tsytovich of the General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Science, in Moscow, working with colleagues there and at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany and the University of Sydney, Australia, has studied the behaviour of complex mixtures of inorganic materials in a plasma. Plasma is essentially the fourth state of matter beyond solid, liquid and gas, in which electrons are torn from atoms leaving behind a miasma of charged particles.
Until now, physicists assumed that there could be little organisation in such a cloud of particles. However, Tsytovich and his colleagues demonstrated, using a computer model of molecular dynamics, that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organization as electronic charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarized. This effect results in microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew shapes, or helical structures. These helical strands are themselves electronically charged and are attracted to each other.
Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers. They can, for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours and they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma.
So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive? "These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter," says Tsytovich, "they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve."
He adds that the plasma conditions needed to form these helical structures are common in outer space. However, plasmas can also form under more down to earth conditions such as the point of a lightning strike. The researchers hint that perhaps an inorganic form of life emerged on the primordial earth, which then acted as the template for the more familiar organic molecules we know today.
| 2024-11-08T18:09:06 | en | train |
|
43,324 | mynameishere | 2007-08-17T02:19:42 | No, no, no, you fools. The worst mistake in human history is the INDUSTRIAL revolution. | In response to this:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43118" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43118</a> | http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm | 4 | 1 | [
43358
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,326 | amichail | 2007-08-17T02:28:27 | Significant funding leading to worse startup outcomes? | It seems to me that if you receive significant funding and are expected to hire software engineers that you may end up with a worse result.<p>After all, these employees are not as driven as the cofounders. Even with equity, it's not the same.<p>Moreover, in a place like Silicon Valley, there's enormous competition for highly skilled software engineers.<p>So it might be the case that having the cofounders do much of the coding may result in a better outcome.
| 1 | 2 | [
43422,
43345,
43327
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
43,337 | darius | 2007-08-17T03:15:50 | PSP 2 Launch: Details and Photos | http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/005161.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,352 | toffer | 2007-08-17T04:20:17 | The "I Have 250,000 Users, Now What?" guy just sold his Facebook app for $3 million | http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/08/16/biggest-facebook-app-acquisition-yet-tripadvisor-acquires-where-ive-been-for-reported-3-million/ | 43 | 21 | [
43388,
43521,
43385,
43369,
43368,
43370,
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43451
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,379 | jcwentz | 2007-08-17T05:27:52 | VentureBeat: The Y Combinator List | http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/16/the-y-combinator-list/ | 22 | 12 | [
43399,
43419,
43491,
43447,
43444
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,382 | jcwentz | 2007-08-17T05:37:24 | Animoto: the end of slideshows | null | http://animoto.com/ | 8 | 2 | [
43408,
43396
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,389 | null | 2007-08-17T06:26:03 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
"true"
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,390 | nickb | 2007-08-17T06:28:56 | Richard Stallman safe after Peru earthquake | http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Reports:_Richard_Stallman%2C_founder_of_GNU_Project_missing_in_Peru | 8 | 11 | [
43391,
43747,
43401,
43405
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,403 | s_baar | 2007-08-17T08:13:57 | Knex computer at Olin College | "The K'NEX calculator stands over 10 feet tall, and can perform 4 bit addition and subtraction operations in about 30 seconds. The slowest part of the operation is the user entering the balls. From there the balls trickle down, computing the result of the operation, and then sending that through a 4 bit decoder, which flips a flag that tells the user the answer. Since it is 4 bit, we can add and subtract numbers from 0 to 15."<p> | http://knexcomputer.blogspot.com/ | 13 | 2 | [
43506,
43583
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,406 | danw | 2007-08-17T08:38:18 | 5 iPhone Apps I'd Like To See From Apple | null | http://phillryu.com/2007/08/16/5-iphone-apps-id-like-to-see-from-apple/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,407 | danw | 2007-08-17T08:42:14 | Two Social System Design Trends That Should Really, Really Stop | null | http://www.brianoberkirch.com/2007/08/14/two-social-system-design-trends-that-should-really-really-stop-like-now/ | 14 | 2 | [
43558
] | null | null | http_404 | 404 — Page not found | null | null |
Page not found
Go to the front page →
| 2024-11-08T11:27:18 | null | train |
43,411 | andreyf | 2007-08-17T09:09:33 | New TED talk: Jacqueline Novogratz on roles of markets and charity in Africa | Charities and markets must cooperate in Africa, personal dignity is more important than wealth. | http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/157 | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | missing_parsing | Patient capitalism | null | Jacqueline Novogratz | NewslettersGet the latest talksGet a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy | 2024-11-08T02:38:58 | null | train |
43,412 | null | 2007-08-17T09:27:55 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
"true"
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,413 | rms | 2007-08-17T09:28:46 | Techcrunch: Techstars demo day | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/17/techstars-demo-day-class-of-2007/ | 9 | 2 | [
43454,
43461,
43414
] | null | null | missing_parsing | TechStars Demo Day - Class of 2007 | TechCrunch | 2007-08-17T09:04:23+00:00 | Michael Arrington | Y Combinator wasn’t the only incubator to demo their most recent startups today. Colorado-based TechStars also brought their startups on stage – ten of them – to give the audience a first look at what they’ve been up to all summer. Each startup gave 5% of their equity in exchange for $15,000, operational support, office space and mentoring.
Most of these companies are unlaunched and seeking additional angel funding (exceptions are noted). Here are our notes on each – and see Don Dodge for his take:
EventVue builds social networks around conferences (see confabb, an existing competitor). The idea is to let people connect before, during and after conferences in an online space, to add to the physical interaction at the conference itself. The company plans on generating revenue by charging an affiliate fee for each new registration. They are currently looking for $150k in funding.
Intense Debate – see our previous coverage. Intense Debate is a souped-up blog commenting widget that adds a lot of features for publishers and commenters alike. Currently installed on 30 blogs. Installing the plug-in on your blog (WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad) adds threading, comment analytics, bulk comment moderation across all your blogs, user reputation, and comment aggregation. They are looking for $500k in funding.
socialthing! is an ambitious project that simplifies the management of digital content (blogs, photos, music, friends, social networks and links). Users can also synchronize information from and to various social networks from their profile page. Strong viral component. Revenue from advertising. Raising $500k.
J-Squared Media has launched their “Sticky Notes” Facebook application. It has 1.7 million users after six weeks, who have sent over 4 million sticky notes. They are working on several other related Facebook applications and are cash flow positive with $30,000/month in revenue from cost per action advertising. Not seeking funding. More here.
Search-To-Phone is a mobile search service via voice. Call and leave a voicemail asking about a product or service. The request is then routed to the appropriate business to call you back with information and/or a special offer. Built on TellMe and Gold Systems technologies for voice recognition. They’ve signed a business development deal with Excell Services to provess 10 million calls. They are looking for a small capital investment and more partners before launching.
Villij is a recommendation engine that analyzes your online life (social networks, blogs, bookmarks, etc.) to find people who may have similar interests as you. Raising $500k.
MadKast has the honor of being the first TechStars startup to launch. Our previous coverage is here. They’ve made a dead simple way to increase distribution for your blog with one line of javascript or one click for Blogger and TypePad. Once the widget is installed, readers can send a blog post via email, mobile MMS, or social bookmarking networks to friends. They are raising $300k in capital.
FiltrBox is a content monitoring and filtering service for blogs, news sites and other websites. Content is filtered by topics, keywords and context and then delivered to the user via RSS, email and/or text messages. Filters can be adjusted via sliders and will learn what you like over time. Raising $500k in capital.
KBLabs is developing Facebook applications and widgets. Wah! Cool was their first application, which launched four weeks ago. It now has 100k subscribers and is generating 1.5 million page views per week. Other applications include Post Secrets, Motivate Me and Track Bot. The founders are going back to college this Fall but will continue to consult and build Facebook applications. They are not looking for funding.
BrightKite serves location based notifications (“place streaming”) over email, instant messaging of text messages. The idea is to stream content about a place, from a place. Friends are alerted when you are nearby. You receive offers from local businesses. Etc. Targeted towards conferences, bars, parties and public places. It is also a platform for third party applications. Raising $500k in capital.
.
| 2024-11-08T20:39:08 | null | train |
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43,417 | arto | 2007-08-17T10:11:20 | R6RS Scheme ratification vote results (preliminary) | http://www.r6rs.org/ratification/preliminary-results.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | body_too_long | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T17:40:51 | null | train |
|
43,423 | mojuba | 2007-08-17T11:21:26 | Skype network is down, possibly under viral DoS attack. Lessons? | If this is true, there are lessons to learn: (1) be open and (2) leave a door for emergency upgrades. | http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=683 | 5 | 1 | [
43424
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,426 | fad | 2007-08-17T11:57:19 | How To Make a Funny Talk Title Without Using The Word "Weasel" | he's blagging about branding this time<p>has a link to a video with his speech at OSCOM at the end
| http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-make-funny-talk-title-without.html | 27 | 3 | [
43500,
44304
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,428 | terpua | 2007-08-17T12:04:13 | Ga-ga for Groups? LinkedIn is Lame, Facebook is Fantastic | null | http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/2139/Ga-ga-for-Groups-LinkedIn-is-Lame-Facebook-is-Fantastic.aspx | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,429 | jgamman | 2007-08-17T12:13:58 | Scariest cephalopod you'll see today (and i'm gonna guess all week) | just cause it's interesting. and it's got vampyretoothus for a name...
| http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/friday_cephalopod_wicked_cool.php | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,433 | dpapathanasiou | 2007-08-17T12:40:54 | Banks in Trouble: Good Summary of the Credit & Liquidity Crisis | http://economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9659733 | 3 | 1 | [
43437
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,439 | markpeterdavis | 2007-08-17T12:44:39 | The Objective Of The First Meeting With A VC | The purpose of the first meeting with a VC is to get a second meeting. The purpose of the first meeting is not: 1) to secure an investment from the VC after the conclusion of that meeting, or
2) to tell the VC everything there is to know about your company.
| http://getventure.typepad.com/markpeterdavis/2007/08/the-objective-o.html | 3 | 1 | [
43674
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,440 | jkush | 2007-08-17T12:48:15 | The Internet Is Down: All Data Lost | http://www.theonion.com/content/video/breaking_news_all_online_data | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,442 | transburgh | 2007-08-17T13:02:59 | Facebook Takes Action Against Black Hat Apps | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/16/facebook-takes-action-against-black-hat-apps/ | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | Failed after 3 attempts. Last error: Quota exceeded for quota metric 'Generate Content API requests per minute' and limit 'GenerateContent request limit per minute for a region' of service 'generativelanguage.googleapis.com' for consumer 'project_number:854396441450'. | Facebook Takes Action Against "Black Hat" Apps | TechCrunch | 2007-08-17T02:49:11+00:00 | Michael Arrington |
Some of the most popular Facebook applications are using highly questionable tactics to spread themselves virally. Users have noticed and complained, and Facebook took action today to put stop the most egregious behavior.
There are two ways application developers are breaking the rules to get new users. The first: When a user looks at an application on his/her profile the application can show something different than when other users view the profile. So a user adds an application that looks nice to them. But everyone else sees, say, a big yellow box with an advertisement that says the user wants you to add this application, too.
The second and more devious scheme is being used by many of the largest application developers. They all involve some sort of notification fraud. Generally, you add an application. Then, every one of your contacts is notified that you’ve “written on their wall” or “have asked them a question,” even though you never did. To view the content the contact must add the application. They then find out there is no wall comment, or its a canned question like “is it ok to kiss on the first date?”
Super Wall (RockYou, 4.5 m installs), My Questions (Slide, 6.9 m installs) and FunWall (Slide, 3.6 m installs) all do this (and users complain loudly in the comments area to the apps – see here and scroll down).
Facebook Hits Back
Facebook took measures today to stop these kinds of activities. The first is dealt with in the new release (1.1) of FBML, the markup language used to build Facebook applications. Developers will no longer be able to show a different profile to friends than the one the user sees him/herself:
One of the key parts of the success of the design of the Facebook profile is that the user is always aware of exactly what their profile looks like to their friends who stop by to view their profile. This enables users to understand exactly how they are expressing themselves to others by simply deciding whether or not they like an application’s profile box and the content that the developer has decided to put into the box.
Right now, we have made a few FBML tags available that are causing users to not trust the content in the profile box. Tags such as: fb:if-user-has-added-app, and other fb-if tags. These tags are currently being used to deliver content to profile boxes which users are unaware of. Content such as big yellow boxes which say “ADD THIS APPLICATION!” or “ADD SOME OTHER APPLICATION!”.
Starting today, these tags will no longer be available for use in profile boxes. We will be migrating FBML to version 1.1, and adding a new set of tags called fb:visible-to-. They are:
fb:visible-to-owner
fb:visible-to-friends
fb:visiible-to-user
fb:visible-to-added-app-users
fb:visible-to-app-users
Facebook also notified developers today that they will be blocked from sending misleading notifications to users. This will stop Slide, RockYou and others from mass spamming users with false notifications:
Over the last few weeks we have noticed several developers misleading our users into clicking on links, adding applications and taking actions. While the majority of developers are doing the right thing and playing by the rules, a few aren’t – and are creating spam as a result. Going forward, if you are deceptively notifying users or tricking them into taking actions that they wouldn’t have otherwise taken, we will start blocking these notifications. The bottom line is that if the notifications you send are the result of a genuine action by a Facebook user and that action is truthfully reported to the recipient so they can make an informed decision, you should have no problems. If you do find some notifications blocked, it was probably because this wasn’t the case and we will be happy to inform you of some best practices by other developers that have prevented this issue.
Facebook has done a great job in managing their platform since opening it up to developers of applications. They have had to accommodate application developers while at the same time protect users interests and the general security of the site. The changes that Facebook have made today, while they may inconvenience some application developers, have clearly been done to protect users from spammy tactics that some applications have employed.
Most Popular
Michael Arrington most recently Co-Founded CrunchFund after leading TechCrunch to a successful exit with AOL. His venture investments include Uber, Airbnb and Pinterest. Michael was the Editor of TechCrunch, which he founded in 2005. In 2008 Time Magazine named Michael “One of the World’s 100 most influential people”. Michael also practiced securities law at O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.Michael graduated from Stanford Law School and
Claremont McKenna College.
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| 2024-11-08T03:01:02 | null | train |
43,443 | transburgh | 2007-08-17T13:03:40 | Skype Knocked Out By The Algorithm | null | http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/17/skype-knocked-out-by-the-algorithm | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,445 | dedalus | 2007-08-17T13:04:13 | The Elephants of Neptune | Nice story that actually does whet the appetite for the "intellectually curious" :) | http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0202/elephantsneptune.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,446 | transburgh | 2007-08-17T13:04:41 | Does Skype Matter? Calacanis: Not really; TechCrunch Riley: Yes $1B Worth | null | http://www.centernetworks.com/does-skype-matter-calacanis-techcrunch-riley | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | timeout | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T00:49:43 | null | train |
43,449 | Tichy | 2007-08-17T13:24:44 | Why fund managers have an incentive to take overly high risks | http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/business/24scene.html?ex=1337659200&en=5cbb330f07f907a4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 2 | 1 | [
43542
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,458 | Keios | 2007-08-17T14:16:10 | 12 Important US Laws that every blogger needs to know | Applicable to more than just blogs. | http://www.avivadirectory.com/blogger-law/ | 5 | 2 | [
43667,
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,463 | dean | 2007-08-17T14:32:09 | Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak | http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1743638820070418?sp=true | 7 | 10 | [
43488,
43482,
43504,
43467,
43518,
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,466 | amichail | 2007-08-17T14:37:56 | Replies to your submissions should go under threads | Currently, only replies to your comments are shown under threads. I think it would be better to also include replies to your submissions. | 1 | 2 | [
43469,
43476
] | null | true | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
43,478 | ivankirigin | 2007-08-17T15:13:14 | Skype and the GNU Affero GPL | null | http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/08/skype_and_the_g.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,479 | jkopelman | 2007-08-17T15:13:17 | Fuck Facebook Conversion: Be platform agnostic and use your own APIs. | http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2007/08/fuck-facebook-c.html | 18 | 2 | [
43627
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,480 | ivankirigin | 2007-08-17T15:13:18 | Mapping API Comparison | null | http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/08/mapping_api_comparison.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Radar - O’Reilly | null | By Ben Lorica and Claire Vo |
Now, next, and beyond: Tracking need-to-know trends at the intersection of business and technology
Areas we’re focusing on:
AI/MLFew technologies have the potential to change the nature of work and how we live as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
Future of the FirmEverything from new organizational structures and payment schemes to new expectations, skills, and tools will shape the future of the firm.
Innovation & DisruptionStay on top of the emerging tools, trends, issues, and context necessary for making informed decisions about business and technology.
Next ArchitectureSee how companies are using the cloud and next-generation architectures to keep up with changing markets and anticipate customer needs.
Next EconomyWe’re charting a course from today’s tech-driven economy to a “next” economy that strikes a better balance between people and automation.
| 2024-11-07T22:48:41 | en | train |
43,481 | ivankirigin | 2007-08-17T15:13:52 | FuturePundit: Scientists Use Accelerated Evolution To Develop New Enzyme | null | http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004492.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,483 | ivankirigin | 2007-08-17T15:14:05 | FuturePundit: Depressed People Cannot Control Emotional Responses To Negative Images | http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004485.html | 4 | 1 | [
43595
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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43,484 | bmaier | 2007-08-17T15:14:49 | Chicago News.YC Campfire | just set up at ycombinator.campfirenow.com so that we can work out a meetup or just talk more directly than in the comments here. If you want an invite mail cubend#gmail.com | 8 | 8 | [
43648,
43555,
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] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
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43,485 | ivankirigin | 2007-08-17T15:15:06 | Design at a crossroads | null | http://birdahonk.com/home/archives/2007/08/design_at_a_cro.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,489 | darragjm | 2007-08-17T15:27:27 | Daft Punk's Magical Pyramid/Spaceship: Infiltrated! | Figured I'd try to spice up the music-related hacker news a bit...<p>Here's some more pics during construction:
<a href="http://www.erolalkan.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4048" rel="nofollow">http://www.erolalkan.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4048</a> | http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/44892-daft-punks-magical-pyramidspaceship-infiltrated | 1 | 1 | [
43490
] | null | null | timeout | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-07T23:00:18 | null | train |
43,493 | byrneseyeview | 2007-08-17T15:42:44 | Genetically Capitalist (.pdf) | http://econ.binghamton.edu/papers/clark.pdf | 2 | 1 | [
43568
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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43,499 | dawie | 2007-08-17T16:04:46 | 404 Error Pages: Reloaded | null | http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/17/404-error-pages-reloaded/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | How To Create A Helpful And Better 404 Page — Smashing Magazine | 2014-08-12 21:47:38 +0000 UTC | About The Author | 11 min read404,
Coding,
Errors,
MaintenanceIf the 404 doesn’t help your visitors, then what’s the point of having carefully crafted memes, funny GIFs, or odd interactive games? A visitor could find themselves on a 404 page for one of many reasons: a mistyped address, a bad link from somewhere else, a deleted page or content that has moved elsewhere. While you can prevent errors from moved pages with redirects, you can’t control people’s mistakes. In this article, Donovan Hutchinson will show you how to have a better 404 page.A lot of funny 404 pages have been shared recently: carefully crafted memes, funny GIFs, even the odd interactive game. But if the 404 doesn’t help your visitors, then what’s the point?A visitor could find themselves on a 404 page for one of many reasons: a mistyped address, a bad link from somewhere else, a deleted page or content that has moved elsewhere. While you can prevent errors from moved pages with redirects, you can’t control people’s mistakes.Being HelpfulPeople who land on your website are looking for its content, usually via a link. They would have clicked that link expecting one thing, so why show them a hand-drawn panda? Instead, your 404 page should get them to where they need to be.This problem isn’t new, and we’ve seen a lot of ideas on how to handle it. Showing a search form or linking to the home page is reasonable. Yet those are passive solutions that don’t solve the visitor’s problem. A more direct approach would be to guess where the visitor intended to go and suggest that page.Suggesting The Right PageOne way to suggest the right page is to search for it yourself and present the result. Luckily, we don’t have to write a search engine to do this (although, if you have one handy, good for you!). Instead, we can use Google’s Custom Search API.We can use Google’s Custom Search API to suggest the right page.Google’s Custom Search API is a tool for searching within an individual website. When set up, it enables you to retrieve what it considers to be the best match from your website. It does need a search phrase, though. So, to give Google something to search with, we’ll use the path of the URL that the user is currently on.Caveat: Limits AboundBefore jumping into the “how to” part, it’s worth noting that the free tier for this API has a limit of 100 calls per day. You might want to go light on the testing while working on it. I managed to burn through the 100 calls in less than an hour, and I had to wire part of it together without seeing the result till the next day.While someone with a small website might be fine with this limit, paid upgrades are available. Google’s API documentation mentions a price of $5 per 1000 queries and up to 10,000 queries per day.Setting UpBefore using the Custom Search API, we need to let Google know who we are and get some access keys.Search Engine IDWe need to go through a few steps before we can fly through those 100 API requests. First, register your site-specific search engine.Select “Add.”Input your website’s URL (yoursite.com) in “Sites to search.”Hit “Create.”You now need to find your “Search engine ID.” Click “Edit” on the search engine that you created, then the “Search engine ID” button. Take note of that code!Setting up the Google’s Custom Search API. (View large version)Developer API AccessNext, go to the Developers Console.If you don’t yet have a project, select the “New Project” option and fill in the form.Under “APIs,” activate the “Custom Search API” by switching the “Off” button to “On.” Then, select “Credentials,” then “Create New Key,” and choose the “Browser Key” option. Take note of the API key!(View large version)JavaScriptArmed with both a search engine ID and an API key, you can now start hitting the API. The code below requires jQuery. It does some AJAX JSON stuff, so I’d rather lean on the framework to ensure that it works across browsers.Before creating functions, we should consider the environment that our code will run in. Because we’re writing JavaScript on the front end, our code might run alongside other plugins and scripts. So, let’s build a little space to cleanly separate our functions from everything else:
function createCustomSearch() {
// Private variables and methods here
}
Within our customSearch object, we can define methods and variables safely away from the global context. First, let’s set up some variables to use later:
function createCustomSearch() {
// Some private variables for this object
var context = this;
var dialog = document.querySelector('dialog');
// Your keys
var engineID = 'YOUR_ENGINE_ID';
var apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
}
Replace the keys with those we generated earlier.Initially, we establish a local context by storing this in a variable. We’ll use this to access a showDialog method later.Trying A SearchFirst, we’ll add a method that tries a custom search:
function customSearchConstructor() {
// Some private variables for this object
var context = this;
var dialog = document.querySelector('dialog');
// Your keys
var engineID = 'YOUR_ENGINE_ID';
var apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
this.trySearch = function(phrase) {
var queryParams = {
cx: engineID,
key: apiKey,
num: 10,
q: phrase,
alt: 'JSON'
}
var API_URL = 'https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?';
// Send the request to the custom search API
$.getJSON(API_URL, queryParams, function(response) {
if (response.items && response.items.length) {
console.log(response.items[0].link);
}
});
};
}
This trySearch method takes a phrase and sends it along with your keys as a request to Google’s API. The response is then checked, and the first link that it finds will be logged to the console. You would call it like so:
var customSearch = new customSearchConstructor();
customSearch.trySearch('cat');
Assuming that your website contains pages about cats (and whose doesn’t?), you should see something logged in your console.Getting The Search PhraseNext, we’ll write some code to get the path from the URL of the page. This path will become the search phrase.
$(document).ready(function() {
var customSearch = new customSearchConstructor();
var path = window.location.pathname;
var phrase = decodeURIComponent(path.replace(/\/+/g, ' ').trim());
customSearch.trySearch(phrase);
});
Within the jQuery ready method, we’ll pick up the pathname part of the current URL and create a search phrase from it. We’ll decode the URI, replace any forward slashes with spaces, and send the result to the trySearch method.Replacing Strings With JavaScriptOne handy thing to know is how to replace a global regular expression in JavaScript. This one is a set of matches separated by pipes:
/\/+/g
The first and last forward slashes (/) are there to contain the expression. Within it, we escape a backslash character (/) so that it is treated as an actual character. The + will match any instances of multiple slashes, and the g then tells it to replace every instance in the string.Showing The RedirectIn my first version, I had the page redirect immediately. That was fun but not a great experience for the visitor. The page would load, flicker and jump elsewhere.An alternative approach is to present the option as an overlay and as a link that the visitor can click. This way, the visitor better understands what has happened and sees a clear way to proceed. And they will have the option not to proceed if the result doesn’t suit them.Other ApproachesShowing a single result is one way to go about this, but it would be worth considering more than the first result. If you wish to give the visitor more options, then your 404 page could show all of the returned pages as a set. Depending on the quality of the results from the custom search, this might be better.For this example, let’s assume that the first result returned is always the most relevant, and we’ll present a single option in the form of a dialog overlay.Also, consider cases in which no results are returned. Ensure that your 404 page contains some helpful message or content.Starting A DialogIf we find a result, let’s show it as a modal that prompts the user. To help with this, we’ll be able to use the new dialog element in the near future. Originally intended for dialogue from movies, the element is back and can now show any content that needs to be popped up in front of other content. In other words, we now have a native HTML5 modal element.Let’s define the dialog in HTML:
<dialog>
<h2>
Hey, is this what you meant?
<span class="suggestion"></span>
<span class="nope">No thanks</span>
</h2>
</dialog>
Polyfill For Older BrowsersBefore calling the JavaScript that will show and hide this dialog, we need to consider older browsers. The dialog element is very new and so isn’t supported everywhere. To fix this, we can use the helpful polyfill provided by Google.This polyfill requires a little JavaScript. The following external script will need to be called before we create the dialog:
<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/GoogleChrome/dialog-polyfill/master/dialog-
polyfill.js"></script>
This script includes a registerDialog method that wraps the dialog selector with a few handy functions that reproduce the native API. We can use it in our customSearch object:
function createCustomSearch() {
…
var dialog = document.querySelector('dialog');
// Apply the polyfill
dialogPolyfill.registerDialog(dialog);
…
}
Showing And HidingWe now have a dialog element, with extra methods added by the registerDialog polyfill. Let’s add some methods to show and hide the element:
function createCustomSearch() {
…
this.showDialog = function (url) {
var suggestedLink = $('<a></a>');
// Verify that the suggested URL is from this domain
var hostname = new RegExp(location.host);
if (hostname.test(url)) {
suggestedLink.attr('href', url);
suggestedLink.text(url);
$('dialog .suggestion').html(suggestedLink);
dialog.showModal();
}
};
this.hideDialog = function () {
dialog.close();
};
}
We’ve got two methods here. The first, showDialog, takes a URL, places it in the dialog element, and calls the showModal method provided by the polyfill.To protect ourselves, we’re verifying the URL. Because we’re expecting this script to return another page from the same website, we verify that the returned URL’s host name and the local website’s host name are the same.The URL is then used to generate an anchor, which we place in the dialog HTML.The second method, hideDialog, hides the modal using its own close method.Styling The DialogLastly, let’s add some style. The default modal style is a bit too boxy. We’ll make it subtler and give it a dark background with some CSS:
dialog {
display: none;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
right: 0;
left: 0;
text-align: center;
color: #fff;
border: none;
background: none;
}
dialog[open] {
display: block;
}
dialog[open]:before {
position: fixed;
z-index: -1;
top: 0;
right: 0;
bottom: 0;
left: 0;
content: ’;
background: rgba(0,0,0,.8);
}
dialog span {
display: block;
}
dialog span.suggestion {
font-size: 1.75em;
line-height: 2.5em;
}
dialog h2 {
line-height: 1.5em;
padding-top: 2em;
}
dialog a {
padding: .25em;
border-radius: .25em;
background: rgba(200,200,255,.9);
}
dialog .nope {
font-size: .75em;
cursor: pointer;
color: #aaa;
}
We’re referring directly to the dialog in this CSS. For more flexibility, you might prefer to refer to it by a class.Tweak the various styles to fit your design. The main goal of this CSS is to define how the dialog looks, and have it display: block when given the class of open. The other styles, from position to color, are entirely up to you.Wiring In The SearchNext, we need to adjust that trySearch method from earlier to use the dialog. We do this by placing the showDialog method call within the JSON response callback. Here’s the full script:
function customSearchConstructor() {
// Some private variables for this object
var context = this; // Keeps the parent context available so that we can call local methods
var dialog = document.querySelector('dialog');
// Apply the polyfill
dialogPolyfill.registerDialog(dialog);
// Your keys
var engineID = 'YOUR_ENGINE_ID';
var apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
this.trySearch = function(phrase) {
var queryParams = {
cx: engineID,
key: apiKey,
num: 10,
q: phrase,
alt: 'JSON'
}
var API_URL = 'https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?';
// Send the request to the custom search API
$.getJSON(API_URL, queryParams, function(response) {
if (response.items && response.items.length) {
context.showDialog(response.items[0].link);
}
});
};
this.showDialog = function (url) {
var suggestedLink = $('<a></a>');
// Verify that the suggested URL is from this domain
var hostname = new RegExp(location.host);
if (hostname.test(url)) {
suggestedLink.attr('href', url);
suggestedLink.text(url);
$('dialog .suggestion').html(suggestedLink);
dialog.showModal();
}
};
this.hideDialog = function () {
dialog.close();
};
}
$(document).ready(function() {
var customSearch = new customSearchConstructor();
var path = window.location.pathname;
var phrase = decodeURIComponent(path.replace(/\/+/g, ' ').trim());
customSearch.trySearch(phrase);
$('dialog .nope').click(function() {
customSearch.hideDialog();
});
});
Live DemoYou can see this code in action on my 404 page. Typing something like …/mac/plus/article/ will result in a 404 that recommends the CSS Mac Plus blog.Fallbacks And Other StrategiesAPI limits aside, it’s possible that a match isn’t found for the mistyped URL. In this case, showing the visitor some helpful content would be a good idea. Depending on your website, you could show recent articles or recently updated pages or perhaps even a custom search box.Google’s Custom Search Engine gives us the option to get some embedding code. Select your existing engine and then the “Get code” button to find this. Whatever content you decide to show as a fallback, it will be better for your visitors than showing a funny picture. It might not be as much fun, but it will help visitors find what they need.I hope you’ve enjoyed this article. If you want to share it, please double-check that the URL is correct. Or don’t. I’m sure it’ll be fine.Front page image credits: OpenSource.comFurther Reading404 Error Pages, One More TimeEffective Maintenance Pages: Examples and Best PracticesOptimizing Error Pages: Creating Opportunities Out Of Mistakes15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website
(ds, il, al, mrn) | 2024-11-08T20:28:12 | en | train |
43,503 | eposts | 2007-08-17T16:10:46 | Scientists claim to have broken the speed of light | http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1295122007 | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,505 | sugarfree | 2007-08-17T16:29:34 | how popular are friends lists in social news sites? | I'm writing a niche social news site, and I'm wondering if I should bother including "friends" functionality. I've used digg, reddit & slashdot for years and have never felt it necassary to maintain a list of friends. <p>it's a news site, not a social network, so I'm not sure how useful it would be. what do you think? | 1 | 1 | [
43512
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
43,513 | dawie | 2007-08-17T16:50:10 | YC West Coast Demo Day: Can We Have More Info Please? | I am very interested in what went on at YC West Coast Demo Day. Except for the Techcrunch article and the Flickr photo stream I am struggling to find some good content about demo day. Did someone shoot some video or grab some audio content? Common YC graduates, blog your heart out. | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
43,515 | KeshRivya | 2007-08-17T16:53:03 | Top Ten Reasons To Avoid Venture Capital | venture capital's downside. | http://www.antiventurecapital.com/venturecapital.html | 10 | 2 | [
43634,
43532
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,517 | Keios | 2007-08-17T16:58:43 | Venture Voice - Podcasts of interviews with Entreprenuers | http://www.venturevoice.com/library.html | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,519 | dawie | 2007-08-17T17:02:09 | Keep it Simple, Stupid Applies to Your Landing Pages, Too! | null | http://www.copyblogger.com/keep-it-simple-stupid-applies-to-your-landing-pages-too/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,522 | iamyoohoo | 2007-08-17T17:07:36 | Top 5 SEO blogs to read to keep up with SEO trends for your startup | null | http://endorseyou.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/top-5-seo-blogs-to-read-and-review-to-optimize-your-startup-website-for-search-engines/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,525 | nickb | 2007-08-17T17:21:08 | OpenID: Great idea, bewildering consumer experience | http://miksovsky.blogs.com/flowstate/2007/08/openid-great-id.html | 22 | 6 | [
43602,
43607
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,526 | horatio05 | 2007-08-17T17:21:43 | Google AdSense Teams up with 'Family Guy' Creator | null | http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117970388.html?categoryId=1009&cs=1 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,527 | horatio05 | 2007-08-17T17:21:57 | Zivity, an adult social network, raises $1M before launch | null | http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/16/zivity-an-adult-social-network-raises-1m-before-launch/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,528 | horatio05 | 2007-08-17T17:23:57 | Updated: TripAdvisor Denies Buying Facebook App | http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-where-ive-been-facebook-app-sold-for-3-million-to-tripadvisor-report/ | 13 | 10 | [
43676,
43531,
43675,
43546,
43600
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,529 | horatio05 | 2007-08-17T17:24:47 | Advertising As Content Sites Proliferate, But Viewers Might Skip Altogether | null | http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-advertising-as-content-sites-proliferate-but-viewers-might-skip-altoget/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,530 | horatio05 | 2007-08-17T17:25:43 | Unneeded Upgrades | null | http://www.codesqueeze.com/unneeded-upgrades/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,534 | dpapathanasiou | 2007-08-17T17:36:35 | What is going on with the editing of submission titles? | Twice now, I've seen my submission titles edited by someone else (probably Graham or his admins, if he has any for this site).<p>Both times, the edits were innocuous (the first one improved the title ever so slightly) but unnecessary.<p>It's not a huge problem, but it is a bit annoying. | 32 | 28 | [
43562,
43544,
43977,
43537,
43992
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
43,549 | twism | 2007-08-17T18:11:28 | Time to stop coding and reimplement yet another JS framework | http://extjs.com/blog/2007/08/01/ext-v11-released/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,554 | dawie | 2007-08-17T18:26:53 | Microsoft Opens Up Windows Live ID | null | http://blogs.msdn.com/angus_logan/archive/2007/08/16/service-release-announcment-windows-live-id-web-authentication-released.aspx | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,557 | luccastera | 2007-08-17T18:31:18 | Videos that can change you (or your startup) | http://www.squidoo.com/videosthatchange/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,561 | budu3 | 2007-08-17T18:57:04 | Skype shuts down | http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/business/17ebay.html?ex=1345003200&en=cccaa6da8a8347fb&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 10 | 9 | [
43577,
43603,
43563,
43605
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,566 | eugenet | 2007-08-17T19:06:58 | Nick Black of Mappam on location based advertising | null | http://uk.intruders.tv/Interview-with-Nick-Black-of-Mappam-location-based-advertising_a121.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
43,571 | nickb | 2007-08-17T19:09:58 | JavaScript Model Objects (JMO) - An Idea | http://www.dennydotnet.com/post/JavaScript-Model-Objects-JMO---An-Idea.aspx | 2 | 1 | [
43579
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,574 | nickb | 2007-08-17T19:12:17 | Paul Hsieh on Hash functions | http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/qed/hash.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,576 | nickb | 2007-08-17T19:13:14 | Emacs visual cheat sheet | http://stevenchan.us/publications/emacs | 2 | 1 | [
43726
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,596 | dawie | 2007-08-17T20:00:20 | Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied | http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/44709?source=feed | 8 | 3 | [
43690,
43716,
43745
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,598 | nostrademons | 2007-08-17T20:04:06 | Historical Federal Reserve Data | http://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/h15/data.htm | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | missing_parsing | H.15 Release--Selected Interest Rates--Historical Data | null | null |
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Last update: October 11, 2016
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| 2024-11-08T16:28:45 | null | train |
|
43,608 | ph0rque | 2007-08-17T20:53:11 | Cringely: Surviving Immortality | http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070817_002727.html | 17 | 8 | [
43708,
43763,
43737
] | null | null | cut_off | Retired Site | PBS | null | null | Oops! You've reached a retired site page.PBS no longer has the rights to distribute the content that had been provided on this page.
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| 2024-11-07T22:38:55 | en | train |
|
43,611 | rms | 2007-08-17T20:56:06 | Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible | http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/ | 2 | 1 | [
43618
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
43,635 | jmpeters | 2007-08-17T22:16:03 | Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit. | It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. <p>PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!" | null | 48 | 67 | [
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