instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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How do you think about programs? | frig: This is cocoa-specific, though some of it generalizes.I'm not a huge fan of the Hillegrass book for actual beginners, but sadly there's not a better book out, yet; it's almost easiest to learn some other, better-documented GUI application framework, then come back to Cocoa (assuming you have time).Assuming you don't have that kind of time, though, here's my recommendations:Cocoa development also depends heavily on the workings of NSApplication, and it's a good idea to stop and read up on how that works; it's super helpful to actually know what's going on between the points where the code you wrote is being used, and to understand that you need to have a working understanding of how NSApplication is structured.Apple has ok docs on this (I'd start by reading up on NSRunLoop, then looking up anything you encounter you don't understand), but nothing amazing.Once you've gotten that understanding, you'll have a much easier time understanding what you have to do to make an application do what you want.Now we move on to handling specific applications.I suggest the following design algorithm:"Simultaneously", start figuring out your application's user interface and its data model. I say "simultaneously" but it's really a bit of a back-and-forth.For example, you decide you're going to write a blogging client (I think this is an example in Hillegrass's book?).So, ask yourself what data items does a blog post typically have? Provisional answer: title and body.What user interface elements do you need for a blog post? The data model dictates those: right now, a text field for title and a larger text field for the body.If we were going to be more realistic we'd probably want a richer data model (some "authored by" field, some field for "tags" or "categories", etc.) and a more-complicated user interface to match.If you hit a "stopping point" in this process -- meaning, a point @ which you are satisfied that your data model covers everything it needs to and your user interface elements are complete -- we can move on to the next step.The next step is getting a sheet of paper, or a whiteboard, etc., and putting up some representation of each user interface (eg: each type of window or dialog), with lots of space between them.Next, you go through each user interface item and ask- "what information does this item need to display itself properly"? (eg: a blog-post-editing view needs the blog post's data object.) You should annotate each user interface item with some representation of the data item(s) it needs to render itself.Once you've done that, you make another pass through each user interface element, asking the question:- from this user interface item (say, the blog post editing window), which other user interface items can I get to? Which other user interface items can I be arriving from?Once you've done that, you go back through and ask the following question for each "entry path" into a user interface item:- for each entry path into this user interface item, what information would I need to set up this user interface item correctly? (for example: if you're editing an existing post, you need to have the data object corresponding to the post you're editing; if you're creating a new post, maybe you need nothing, or maybe you need some kind of placeholder reference to the post-to-be-created)Note this is DIFFERENT from the step where you listed the data item(s) the user interface item needed to render itself. For example, to render itself, the blog-post-editing-view needs SOME blog post data object; however, if you're moving from a list of all blog posts to editing a specific blog post, the blog post editing view needs THAT SPECIFIC BLOG POST.Once you've done that, you make a final pass, asking the following question for each "exit" path:- for each exit path from a user interface item, can I supply the information the user interface item I'm entering needs? (ie: if you're leaving the "blog posts" listing view to go edit a blog post, the blog-post-editing-view needs the blog post's data object; can you supply it?)For example: if I'm leaving the "blog post listing view" and heading into the "blog post editing view" to edit a specific blog post, then the "blog post editing view" needs to be given that specific blog post to render.Is it possible to get that information from the "blog post listing view" to the "blog post editing view"? Yes, b/c the "blog post listing view" knows which "blog post object" you selected.You'll find yourself answering "no" when you have what I'd call a long-distance dependency in your user interface workflow: to get to view C from view A you pass through B, but the naive implementation of B doesn't let you pass along some needed bit of information from A to C; this is probably the single-most-common source of frustration/head-slapping when you're first learning Cocoa (or any GUI app).Hopefully, you'll finish all this work and have found no unpleasant surprises (ie: you have exhaustively analyzed your program's workflow using the above information and all information you need can be delivered to where it is needed).If you've got some gaps -- user interface modes that can't get information they need -- you should fix your diagram (adding extra data-items to user interfaces as-needed).Once you're done with this you should more or less have the "Model" and "View" tiers of your application figured out -- the "model" objects are all the data model objects, and the "view" tier is all the user interface items you've made (eg: all the separate .nib files).You can go ahead and write the data model classes and create the .nib files now.From here, building out skeletal controllers is pretty easy: for each user interface item, you build out a controller class, making sure it has fields for each user interface element in your user interface item (eg: it has one field each for the "title" text field and the "post" text field) and one field for each data item it has to know about (eg: a "post editing view" controller has a field for a "blog post" data object).You now have to add the actual logic to the controller. This comes in three main forms:- you add code to synchronize the user-interface with the data item (ie: if I've got this "blog post" data item, write a method that makes the on-screen "title" field == the "title" field in the "blog post" data item, and so on)- you add code to synchronize the data model with the user interface (ie: if the on-screen "blog post" has such-and-such title and such-and-such post, this code makes the "blog post" data item's fields the same)- you add code for handling each "entry" and "exit" from the corresponding view (eg: one method for setting up a view to start editing an existing blog post, one method for setting up a view to start creating a new blog post, and some methods to handle closing-the-view-and-saving-your-work)If get through with all the above, you're going to be pretty close to finished with whatever application you're writing; the last steps are dealing with stuff like the "startup" code (when the program starts, how does it bootstrap itself into a user interface state?) and similar tasks.The above process is extremely heavyweight, and I don't pretend to use it anymore -- I might sketch out particularly-complicated parts, but not the whole app -- but I do recommend mocking up at least your first few progs with it; it's a good learning exercise, and it's a little more "obvious" than a pure "object diagram". |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | wigglywonk: No.I would pretend that I was seriously considering it, and then would find something that was nearly as good and never come back.cf. Salon.com (despite the fact that it went free years ago) |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | vivekamn: Yes. I would also pay to get more attention for my questions. Sort of like many game worlds, where you can earn points either by activity or by paying hard cash. |
Financial Sector Shrinkage Good? | noodle: its a multifaceted problem. while the financial services firms multiplied, yes, it is also a byproduct of the fact that the global pool of money also grew by a similar factor over that time period.the things that the institutions did to break the economy were definitely bad, with their poorly planned investment vehicles, but i don't think that the number of firms reflects anything beyond the existing wealth. there became enough money and interest to support more firms. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | GeneralMaximus: Nope.I just turned 18. I have no bank account, no credit card, no PayPal account, nothing. Charging for HN would mean asking me - and others like me - to leave. HN is a valuable website, and I don't want to lose it.Here's an idea: make HN invite-only. Members get to invite others only when they reach a certain karma level (say, X). Once they reach level X, they get to invite 3 people. After that, they get to invite one more person per Y karma points, where Y < X. Moreover, inviting others would mean losing those Y points.Diligence on the part of existing users would ensure only people who post insightful content get karma. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | grouchyOldGuy: I flat-out refuse to use PayPal for anything. I am reluctant to use my credit card except for shopping sites that have a decent track record of security. A small site with a Comodo certificate won't get my business. If HN used Amazon for payment, then I would consider it since I already have CC info on file there, it's no additional risk to me. Like some others have said here, I don't think it would do much (if any) good for this site. It won't deter trolls, at least not dedicated trolls. I think moderation is the only way to keep this from degrading to Reddit, then Digg, and lastly 4chan. Delete posts that don't conform to this site's goals and TOS. Ban users that violate TOS more than 'x' times. I think this site is pretty good at self-policing itself already. The tone is much more business-like and adult than any of the other techie news/social sites that I frequent. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | gcheong: No, but I might be willing to go through some kind of hazing ritual. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | merrick33: $5 is not much of a barrier to entry for someone with an agenda, say troll or marketer. |
Favorite board games? | anthony_barker: List of nice games
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | yan: Idea and implementation look good.A similar site exists for all dot files (configuration files under unix,) which might be helpful: http://www.dotfiles.orgRegarding the actual site, there are a few design comments:* Yeah, we get that it's supposed to look like a terminal, but the novelty of harsh fonts/colors wears off very quickly. Either having the ability to change it to something else or making a more pleasant default would be nice.* Make it possible to increase the number of command lines per page. I doubt it is very tolling to generate and submit the pages, but I find it more convenient to just scroll rather than keep clicking 'next.' The way I use your site as of right now, is just keep going through commands, glazing over those I either know or don't find useful until I find the gems. Clicking next continuously is unproductive.* The "minimize, maximize, close" buttons over the terminal are, as I see now, just a static image to simulate an actual terminal window. This is very unintuitive as I tried clicking them to, what I thought, will make the terminal either span the entire page or load more commands. Either add functionality to buttons or make it obvious that they aren't buttons.* Finally, it'd be really nice if you don't have to sign up to vote or submit commands. Sometimes I just have one or two commands I'd like to contribute and would not want making an account in YetAnotherWebsite just to do so. You might be missing a lot of useful contributions by making sign-ups mandatory.Otherwise, well done! |
Recommend science experiments and videos for unfortunate school students | TrevorJ: I don't know about India but in the states you can get model rockets or those pop-bottle water rocket kits. Maybe some creative rigging with a postage scale to measure forces and demonstrate the equal/opposite reaction of throwing matter (water) out the back of the rocket at high speed?Electromagnetic stuff: here's instructions on making a motor out of some wire, a magnet and a double-A battery.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4422383_make-battery-motor.htmlOther thoughts would be to check out instructibles.com, it's not geared towards science but a lot of the projects outlined could easily be used to demonstrate principles. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | thorax: I would be happy to pay (much more even), but I don't think it's necessary to help the community. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | cturner: I think in time we'll see communities based on membership where you do pay a fee, and then if you behave badly you'll get nuked and kicked out of the community. And it needn't be limited to one site. You could have a site goodcitizen.com and then people would have accounts with it, and their membership there would allow them to participate in blogs, etc.The trick will be in who finds a good way to do the 'justice' system right. I've thought about this model quite a bit..Another problem is payment systems. Part of the culture of the internet with payments is that you have to work with parties who have a business model based on bad faith. Google checkout seems to be changing that though, and now is the first time I've thought about the model since evaluating them. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | floozyspeak: A troll would totally pay to manipulate and pee in your sacred pond. |
Financial Sector Shrinkage Good? | gaius: IF all they did was skim money, then the economy would have simply routed around them (just as discount execution-only brokerages did to traditional stockbrokers, or Internet banking did to branches on the high street). That it didn't suggests that they did create value, and that the premise of your question is flawed. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | lecha: I would pay if you find a way to avoid excluding people who are assets to this community, but don't want to or can't pay.Maybe there could be a system of free trial that would extend to a free yearly subscription for people whose karma is high enough by the end of the trial period? |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | dreur: Yes without a thought |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | lgriffith: I find HN a mixed bag. Some things are very good, most things are so-so, somethings are really bad. Just like real life.The simple act of registration is enough to keep me away from most sites. At least this one is good enough that I thought it worth registration. Add a charge? I don't think it would be worth it for me to continue with it. I can find what it gives me elsewhere.Like it or not, the Internet is a jungle.The good thing about a jungle is that its full of all kinds of living things. The bad thing about a jungle is that its full of all kinds of living things.When you live in a jungle its eat or be eaten then you die no matter what. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | jherdman: Isn't this the same thing that Metafilter does? How's it working out for them? I know I paid my $5 for them, but I haven't been back there in a long time. |
New Feature Request: Participation Acknowledgement | jacquesm: time-out...The number of meta posts on this subject is causing a serious overload, there is a 'request for features' feature and there is a thread dedicated to the subject on the front page, I'm sure this could have been blended in there.Enough meta discussion for me for today. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | TweedHeads: A thousand people will pay, a hundred thousand won't.HN will be an elitist forum of jerks in an echo chamber with fewer posts and two or three comments per post.There goes the fun down the toilet. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | tphyahoo: I had to think about this for a while, but finally: no.It worked for something awful but it pisses me off that if I have something valuable to contribute to a thread I have to cough up ten bucks. Just feels wrong. I'm doing the work right? Something awful still gets paid when someone reads my post and clicks on an ad. So, I have a negative feeling about something awful and never go there.I might pay $5 for something that was truly value added for me, such as a secret list of "best of" content or something, or the ability to join a community of meta-moderators, or like that. |
Hacker-Friendly (and Cheap) Places to stay in Cambridge, MA? | diN0bot: send me an email. i live in a 9-person coop with a guest room. i'm back in town on feb 23rd and would be happy to host you. diN0bot bilumi org. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | randomtask: If it meant that this place doesn't go the way of reddit/digg/etc. then sure. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | pneill: I'd pay. I left Digg because the signal to noise ratio got so bad that just felt it wasn't worth my time anymore. |
how to start my own business? | noodle: you just need two things, really: a good idea, and the ability/will to execute your idea. everything else is bonus. |
New Feature Request: Participation Acknowledgement | tokenadult: There is already a list of leaders, which I see you are on. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | Alex3917: I'd pay ten dollars a year for HN if everyone else had to pay five dollars a year. :-)In all seriousness, K5 provides a pretty good example of what happens when you do this:http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/9/10/13920/3664 |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | alexandros: [Since I can't update the post itself anymore, I'll write an update with a reply]After the great discussion that has followed, a number of good modifications has been proposed that could significantly reduce grievances. The fee could be one-time, and proceeds donated to charity. Also, uers with a lot of karma could invite other users (in case they cannot register due to no cc/no paypal/underage etc.) This would probably require an area for users to request invites etc. but even the process would certainly make users more mindful of their posting. Additionally, the new users could be mentored by the one inducting them, further increasing culture preservation. Keep the thoughts coming. |
How much transparency for an online reputation system? | ErrantX: > so that everyone knows it's on the up and up and we're not secretly favoring people?Trust has to start somewhere. The people that think the above will in the most part either a) not be using your site or b) not convinced by your "open algorithms" anyway.On the other hand opening them up fully makes it easier to game the system: unless it is a bulletproof system I would avoid full disclosure. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | adamo: I would gladly pay $5/year |
How much transparency for an online reputation system? | subpixel: These Clay Shirky articles might interest you. In fact one of them might have been linked to from HN recently, I'm not totally certain:http://is.gd/iv84http://is.gd/NZu |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | weegee: no, there are too many other free sources for articles like this |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | pclark: Sort the UI out :Green and Black? argh :) Black on white will suffice, thanksEither make the widgets [maximize, minimize, close] do something, or remove them.The block on the right is too large, there is barely enough room to read the actual content -- consider moving all that sidebar into a nice JQuery slider at the top.Do we need to know who submitted it and when on the front page? Can't we see those details when we click a command?"You must be signed in to comment." ++ "or register"I think you could order these nicer. Consider having tabs along the top: UNIX | WINDOWS | ALLClicking a tab shows you the relevant snippets. Allow me to sort each category by popularity or recentness. |
How much transparency for an online reputation system? | diN0bot: reminds me how i prefer rating schemes over point accumulation ones. especially if the rating average is based on latest actions more than older ones. point accumulation with exponential experience levels (think rpg) is better than linear point accumulation.i vote for you to keep the exact algorithm secret. make it work. that's more important than transparency. your real goal is trustworthiness, which i think you can accomplish in other ways. (i will never get used to voting on the quality of a post rather than in agreement/disagreement, which is what voting is historically intended for) |
how to start my own business? | asimjalis: You need another person to pair with. Everything else follows. This is a hypothesis that I am currently testing. I tried following ideas -- and executing alone is hard. I tried using techniques for staying focused and executing, but those fizz out after a while. Then I noticed that the only things I have completed and released have been things I have done with other people. So now I am testing that out. Will keep you posted. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | hs: now hn has orange, why not extend it further? like belt-color levelssay a new user is of white belt and can't post after s/he of age one week (then automatically get yellow belt and can post 1 post / day max) ... higher levels can post more per dayand maybe a penalty function like temporarily giving 1 day noprocrast for trolling |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | cellis: I would pay $5/month. |
how to start my own business? | diN0bot: just try it. i share your sense of doubt and confusion. until you actually build [a bike/massive user community/iphone app] it will seem like the most magical and mysterious thing in the world. you can't grok it until you've built it many times.just go for it. it's easier with a team of collaborators or motivators--that is, you need both mentors to learn from and n00bs to learn with. shoot me an email if you want to bounce some ideas around. diN0bot bilumi org. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | sfk: Use w3m:http://w3m.sourceforge.net/For reading, I find it much more pleasant than Firefox. Posting is perhaps a bit awkward. |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | gregstoll: Very neat - I like the "Commands using <whatever>" feature.The "Popular functions" box on the right has some command names running together ("perl" and "ping", "uname" and "uniq") for me on Firefox 3.1b2 on Windows. |
how to start my own business? | hs: perseverance ... you will have failures (bugs, disks, networks, customer complaints, etc) |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | ewakened: Yes for sure |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | thorax: Nice work!This goes very well with some of our company's long-term goals of making things easier for techies (e.g. http://bug.gd and http://featurelist.org )If you're interested in talking about partnership opportunities (at a minimum we can help with hosting), drop me a line at matthew at bug.gd.Nice work again! |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | ratsbane: Nice idea and execution. I've bookmarked and twitter-followed. The autocomplete search is excellent. I'm not too keen on the black background. I'd like to read about the server-side design. |
How much transparency for an online reputation system? | CalmQuiet: I think there's a fine line to walk: tell enough about the principles that you use for contributors to earn reputations, but not with too precise a detail. Not necessarily to keep people from trying to "work the system" - but because you may need to tweak how things are weighted without always having to make a formal commitment to weights, etc.Besides: telling people which factors will affect reputation ratings is a powerful statement about the principles and values you want your site to support. That make sense? |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | alabut: I haven't seen a rationale for it yet but I'd guess that it's a subtle way of encouraging descriptions to be short (like the one you just wrote), it's probably intentional that it's hard to read long rambling posts like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=468139I read a pg comment somewhere that makes me think that's his design decision - he already weighs "Ask HN" type of posts differently than the standard one with links, for example. Maybe it's to ward off too much navel-gazing. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | Dilpil: How about a two tiered system, whereupon we maintain both and open and invite only board? |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | jderick: How about a karma floor for upmodding? |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | nickathens: The content is what makes this site interesting. So I understand the concept but submit doing anything to discourage content is a bad business model. I am primarily a reader or "lurker", but am also an ANGEL investor and CEO of my own self funded start up.So I would propose you develop a model that has a charge for reading that can be waived by posting credits. So announce 6 months from now it is $5 a yr but by being active you can reduce the charge. I realize lots of loop holes, but basically charge readers not content creators. |
What Would You Do If You Had 3 Years to Live? | alabut: This is an interesting question, not because it's from a Mayan calendar (I'm a flying spaghetti follower myself) but because the standard line of "live like today's your last" is a bit tired.If I had 3 years to live, say from a slow cancer, I'd probably pull a version of a Randy Pausch - work up to a big presentation in front of friends/family and videotape it. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | gr366: I'm reading this thread while drinking a latte that cost nearly $5. Yes, I would pay $5 for a year of HN... even if there were still trolls. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | known: I'd pay $5/yr for HN. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | ram1024: it's not so much the grey as it's ON GREY BACKGROUND as welllooks like the same color as the link text so maybe it was just something that fell through and never got addressed |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | kennyroo: Light gray text is a DTD (designer-transmitted disease) that's rapidly infecting sites across the Internet.(When it's really light, I use Firebug to modify the CSS.) |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | jwr: I would pay and I think it might be a good idea. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | jorgem: If you use firefox, you might want to look into STYLISH or GREASEMONKEY.Both provide ways to change the look of any website. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | vaksel: why not let people pick their own color schemes? Like we do with the top bar. |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | sam_in_nyc: Isn't this type of site an ideal usage for a SlinkSet or a Sub-Reddit?Regardless, I like it... and it looks like you have a hit! I'd suggest a "flag as dangerous" link... and I think "example output" should be required upon submission.Great work! |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | flexterra: yes, I would pay $5/yr |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | fizx: Bookmarklet:javascript:var%20l=document.getElementsByTagName("TD");for(var%20i=0;i<l.length;i++)%20l[i].style.color='#000' |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | mk: The idea is great, and I actually don't mind the terminal look. I could see where some people might be annoyed by it though, so making it optional would probably be a good idea. What I do not like is the min/max/close icons in the top right of the terminal window that have no functionality.Another little thing is search. Before I submitted my command which wassvn st | grep "^\?" | awk "{print \$2}" | xargs svn add $1I searched for it and came up with no results. After browsing the popular page though I foundsvn status |grep '\?' |awk '{print $2}'| xargs svn addAlso I noticed that commands that have no whitespace after the | are not being picked up and added to the tags. For example, that last command only xargs would be listed but not grep and awk.Here are links to the examples:http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/153/add-all-unver...http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/36/add-all-files-... |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | drsnyder: Yes. I would pay $5 per year. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | pg: I'm pretty sure this is not the answer. Metafilter does this, and I would not want the kind of culture they have there. What's prized there is sounding clever, and I wouldn't be surprised if the $5 fee was partly responsible-- if people were more willing to pay $5 to hear themselves talk than to e.g. answer a question someone had asked. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | skmurphy: I pay $20-30 a month for LinkedIn and find HN at least as valuable. I would be willing to pay the same for the knowledge that's available in these forums and the ability to take part. I find it extremely thought provoking. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | babo: So back to coding! :-) |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | nostrademons: Probably yes, but think of all the budding college & high school entrepreneurs that that would discourage.$5/year is absolutely nothing now that I'm employed. But for a kid who doesn't hold the purse strings, it's much more than that. It's not really the money - most parents also have no trouble sparing $5/year. It's the hassle of convincing the parents that it's worth it, and not just a random time-waster.Plus, as soon as the 'rents are paying for it, you lose the sense of "this is something I'm doing for me, and it's my own identity and not my parents." For me, one of the reasons I got into computers was because my parents knew nothing about it, and I was overjoyed when I started getting jobs based on connections I'd made online instead of ones my mom had setup for me. |
If you got this assignment back, what would you do? | spydez: Talk to the grader. Tell him your handwriting sucks and that's why you typed it. (Show him your handwriting sucks, if you want.) Tell him you've talked to classmates with similar work who got full credit. See what he says.If the grader gives you a reasonable answer, accept it. If not, go to the professor and repeat what you explained to the grader.You won't be labeled a "troublemaker" unless you make trouble, usually... so just be honest and courteous. Profs and graders get students all the time that have questions about their grades.Lastly, in the grand scheme of things, an A vs a B doesn't matter all that much when you're getting a job. All the companies I interviewed with at my college's job fair were more interested in my projects and extra-curricular stuff than my GPA. I wish I had been on some open-source project that I could've put on my resume, because that would have opened many more doors than a 0.01 GPA bump. |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | jhancock: nice. I am working on a website redesign for my startup, ShellShadow http://shellshadow.com. Its a collaborative terminal client...there is a linux client to be published in the next week.I decided a while back _not_ to provide a "Knowledge Base" section of the site and instead to partner with others that are organizing content such as what you have done. Please get in touch if you have ideas for me or want to link up somehow. |
If you got this assignment back, what would you do? | TrevorJ: It seems that the prof finds some value in the type of thinking that going back to pen-and-paper can help engender.I would comply with his wishes even if you don't see value in it. I've forced myself to work on paper even though I am a computer nut and I absolutely beleive it is a good habit to have. It engages a different part of your mind, and is very valuable even when you do go back to computer-based work.The best you can hope for when paying through the nose for college is that some prof you run into will have some subtle but deep insight that you couldn't, or wouldn't have stumbled on through self-directed learning. Those gems are rarely intuitive and never make sense on face value. True, this guy may turn out to be just a kook, but to me, it seems worth humoring him because who knows, you may find out there is real value in it. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | indiejade: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156530P.S. Here are the screenshots of "before" and after:http://www.zentu.net/open-space/hackernewsbefore.pnghttp://www.zentu.net/open-space/hackernewsafter.png |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | fizx: As a potential user, I'd love to subscribe to a human-edited "fu of the day" RSS feed. Don't really want the firehose. |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | jkmcf: Green and black take me back to my standalone terminal days...Two comments on presentation in addition to the aforementioned wrapping of the columns in a div:1) More space between entries. The list looks very cramped.
2) Less items per page.Hardest part about Unix is learning the command line. I luckily had an unwilling, but unavoidable, roommate back in 1989 to answer my "read the man page" questions :) Which leads me to my next comment:C) Classify the entries as n00b, ..., guru. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | edw519: Ctrl-A |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | bsgamble: Yes I would. While I recognize that a pay for access methodology won't cure all of the ills of the virtual world, like a padlock on a door, it will serve as a deterrent to casual ne'er do wells. |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | thesethings: Good job. I like the idea, but I think what might be special is the execution, the design and karma system, making useful/common stuff a bit more high-profile than jokey aliases :D
The site's slow, but that's a good thing, congrats!
Nice work. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | fred: Validating the colors contrast/luminosity/readability should be done using this:http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/accessibility/webaccessibil...orhttp://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.htm... |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | mattmcknight: It does work well for MetaFilter, but voting seems to work okay here. What exactly would you describe as "a lot of problems"? What problems need to be solved?What if you could buy 5 whuffies (or whatever points on here are called) for $5, but could only post comments if your score remained above zero? Or maybe something in the stackoverflow type scheme, where the points are correlated with privileges? |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | giles_bowkett: google "clay shirky micropayments", kids. |
Hacker-Friendly (and Cheap) Places to stay in Cambridge, MA? | nathanblec: I'm co-founder of www.airbnb.com, a website that let's you find locals with whom you can stay while spending less money and having more fun. Our coverage in Boston right now is relatively sparse, but there are some places you might like.Here's one:
http://www.airbnb.com/airbeds/show/1130?nights=2&lng=-71...You can sort by distance, price, recommended, etc. |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | jeroen: For firefox, put this in your user stylesheet@-moz-document url-prefix(http://news.ycombinator.com/){
td { color: #000000 !important; }
td.subtext { color: #828282 !important; }
}see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467680 for more info. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | miql: Yes! HN is my main source of aggregated news. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | omouse: Easily. I'd pay more depending on what kind of content is shown. If there was a way to block 37signals, joel's blog, and some others then I'd be up to $10/month ;) |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | joanou: No. I'm too cheap. |
If you got this assignment back, what would you do? | RiderOfGiraffes: The fact that you have things like "In[5]" and "Out[8]" makes it look like you've used the computer to perform your calculations. Whether you did or not is moot - you are giving the wrong impression. (Unless you did use the computer, in which case you are giving the right impression and the grader is right anyway).It's not going to be the typing of your solutions, it's the impression that you've used something other than paper and approved calculator. And now you've created that impression, it may be too late to correct it.It's your responsibility to make it absolutely obvious. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | killingmichael: 100%. It is my main source of news :) |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | FredSource: Surprising to me to see how many would pay $5 per annum.
Personally I believe in open communication!"Stopping" anonymous users can be done with a little bit of design in the sign-up process.If money is required adding some ads down the RHS of the screen would easily make that much ...just my 2 cents... |
Financial Sector Shrinkage Good? | RobGR: I agree with this hypothesis. Furthermore, advances in computers and communication and electronic record keeping should have allowed fewer people to be employed in the industry, shuffling much larger amounts of money.I think much of the current economic "crisis" is actually a necessary shift or adjustment from certain industries to others. It was the veiw of many that the "panics" that occurred at the end of the 1800s railroad building boom were simply a necessary adjustment, society had employed many in building railroads, which were done now, so period of unemployment might be necessary as lots of people shifted to doing other things.I think the collapse of the housing market had that as a factor. The number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage per capita had increased a lot, as people's standards increased. It may be that many people feel they have enough house, or maybe even too much, and are shifting to other things. Such a shift of course exposes the shakiest business practices first, such as sub-prime mortgages and so on.I believe that there are two other industries that are also due for some shrinkage, and they are education and health care. Both of these are, like housing, heavily intertwined with the financial industry through loans and insurance. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | andrewconotes: I would not pay because the content on HN isn't so specialized that I cannot find the community elsewhere. Furthermore, trolls are easily identified and ignored, like SPAM.However if there were a subscription, I think you need to think about the value of this community. Charging just posters would unleash a backlash by the most active members of this community. Their thought would be, "why would I PAY to participate in a community when everyone else can obtain the value of my knowledge for FREE?" Using the email analogy again, if everyone who wanted to email me had to pay $5/year, I would probably receive no spam, but more importantly no emails at all -- not even from my mother who would just use a cheaper substitute (phone). |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | timf: Cool, added to RSS.I wanted to say: the uservoice feedback thing on the left makes it slow to scroll and maybe even more annoyingly gives unsmooth/unpredictable scroll time which means I can't ignore it.I've noticed this in many sites recently that have persistent buttons/sidebars off to the sides. Don't know if it's a problem specific to Firefox or what... makes CPUs jump into the ~20%s which is more than youtube videos etc.Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2009010220 Gentoo Firefox/3.0.5 |
What content do you pay for online? | floozyspeak: I think netflix, audible and itunes are different in that they provide tangible "taste-able" content in that you get real something out of it.The bigger question here is does anyone pay for news, informational content?My answer would be no. I only pay to have my content managed- backpackit, flickr, animoto |
Light grey text is killing my eyes. | silvajoao: Finally this gets to the front page. My very first post was exactly the same: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439399 |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | kuniklo: I'd do it. |
What content do you pay for online? | moxy: I do not regularly pay for any online service. Why? Because there are an enormity of free and open source alternatives. Granted, some "free alternatives" aren't entirely legal, however they're alternatives nonetheless, just with an associated risk.For movies and music, I use torrents. For applications, I go open source or free -- I can hardly think of any non-entertainment media whose function couldn't be replicated by a readily available free alternative. For storage, there are plenty of sites which offer gigabytes of online storage, gratis. |
What content do you pay for online? | robfitz: casual games mostly.. peggle, world of goo, etc.if hacker news is content, then basecamp & fixx probably also count (team & product news, respectively).apart from that, i would pay for some TED talks, for high quality game reviews (http://tinyurl.com/cn5guu), and for most of Andrew Chen's blog (http://andrewchenblog.com/). |
If you got this assignment back, what would you do? | rscott: Take your time and do your homework written on paper. Say what you want about it being the "same thing." It isn't, and you should get prepared for the tests using the methods you will have available then - and that isn't MATLAB (or Python, or whatever you used). |
Rate my webapp: commandlinefu.com | yan: I just realized what'd make a great feature, in my opinion: Add a "recommend alternate" option. For instance, if I see a command I know is suboptimal or there exist other tools that do the job better, I can submit an alternate way to perform the same action.For instance, I see something like: find $PWD -type f -exec grep pattern {} \;
I can suggest an alternate to be: grep -r . pattern |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | c1sc0: Sure I will. Where do I send the money? California or Boston? |
If you got this assignment back, what would you do? | cschneid: Tip: learn to write well. Don't do it for this class, do it for yourself.My handwriting use to be atrociously bad. I worked on it a little and it got to the point where what I write is legible (though, not neat).It's a useful skill to have, writing on paper.In the short term, just talk to the professor.... what's hard about this? Also, DO NOT "appeal to a higher power". The prof will find out about it, and the higher power will say "talk to your damn professor". Now you ARE the troublemaker. |
Would you pay $5/yr for HN? | twopoint718: Yes. I'd probably pay double that.I think that there is a huge difference between $0 and $ANY, in that it forces the the user to place a value on it. I think that the model to look to is MeFi, which has very high-quality comments, high-quality posts, and as others have stated, it seems to have more memory than your average site. Old posts are frequently referenced and there is a strong culture of DRY (don't repeat yourself).The main objection seems to be that the site will shed users that can't/won't pay. For those users that don't have credit cards or Pay Pal (I, for one, hate PP with all my heart) could there be other options to make payment more flexible? What else is out there if you don't want to limit yourself to payments of only those types?But I do think the $5 barrier to entry will improve, or maintain, the quality. If you don't want to pay, sorry, but I like HN more than I like J. Random Bozo's troll. |
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