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Stories from January 11, 2013
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31.Ruby inline assembler (github.com/seattlerb)
64 points by lawl on Jan 11, 2013 | 14 comments
32.Revolutionary paper tablet computer is thin and as flexible as sheets of paper (humanmedialab.org)
63 points by joeyespo on Jan 11, 2013 | 36 comments
33.Silicon Valley Can't Get Transit Right (theatlanticcities.com)
59 points by blackjack48 on Jan 11, 2013 | 102 comments

I was born with pretty severe strabismus and underwent a few major eye surgeries throughout my life.

One of the side effects of being born with this condition is missing lines when reading a book. Growing up with computers, I always found it a little difficult to follow long lines of text or the next line as I scroll.

I'm a lot older now and hardly have these problems, if ever at all. I've pretty much perfected guessing varying levels of depth perception, I guess, as this effects my stereoscopic vision. I'm not sure what goes on at the neurological level or 'lower level', however.

Anyway, you don't know how natural it felt to read this. It almost worked too well, so I would like to test it out a little more before, just because I'm a natural sceptic.

Regardless, kudos on this great work and creative thinking.

And yes, it almost did feel like words 'moved' a little sometimes when I was a child and was still developing strong optic/extraocular muscles. It is difficult to explain/articulate, especially since it happened such a long time ago and I'm working from memory, though.

35.How our users exploited concurrency and how we fixed it (eviltrout.com)
60 points by EvilTrout on Jan 11, 2013 | 39 comments
36.What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor (hbr.org)
58 points by ecounysis on Jan 11, 2013 | 29 comments
37.BitTorrent announces Chrome Extension for torrent discovery and download (thenextweb.com)
61 points by Pr0 on Jan 11, 2013 | 12 comments
38.Why is the C++ STL so heavily based on templates? (stackoverflow.com)
59 points by hamidr on Jan 11, 2013 | 56 comments

In my field (ecology and evolutionary biology) there's a small but concerted push to get people to publish "executable papers" where all code and data is available via GitHub, on an iPython notebook, etc. so that all figures and test cases can easily be reproduced by reviewers and researchers. If you're publishing research, it shouldn't be the reader's job to parse your paper and reimplement the research you describe; it should be on you to make your results replicable, and I think this is a standard we need to insist upon. I can't count how many papers I've read lately that were missing either crucial methods or underlying data so that replication was impossible.

edit: Here's an example:

https://github.com/weecology/white-etal-2012-ecology

    Run portions of the analysis pipeline:
    Empirical analyses: python mete_sads.py ./data/ empir
    Simulation analyses: python mete_sads.py ./data/ sims
    Figures: python mete_sads.py ./data/ figs
40.Groupon acquires Glassmap (YC S11) (glassmap.posterous.com)
59 points by geoffwoo on Jan 11, 2013 | 15 comments
41.Facebook Charging $100 to Message Mark Zuckerberg (mashable.com)
57 points by rustc on Jan 11, 2013 | 67 comments

The KHTML library (as wrapped by KFM) was surprisingly usable back in the day on Linux. But who'da thunk it'd turn into one of the most important pieces of code in the world? Congrats to all involved.
43.Results of Bruce Schneier's experiment in trust (schneier.com)
53 points by TallGuyShort on Jan 11, 2013 | 28 comments
44.Hacker Fair 3 (hackerdojo.com)
54 points by bluehat on Jan 11, 2013 | 10 comments
45.Betrayed by LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
48 points by SandroG on Jan 11, 2013 | 58 comments
46.Apple blocks Java 7 Mac plugin in OS X (9to5mac.com)
48 points by tcskeptic on Jan 11, 2013 | 51 comments

Be careful not to confuse IDEAS with OPPORTUNITIES.

With caveats, you can generally be loose with ideas.

Opportunities are a very different matter. Opportunities represent an immediate or near-immediate path to revenue. They are stolen every day.

What's the difference?

IDEA:

Let's make a new toaster oven to sell at Walmart.

OPPORTUNITY:

I just met with a Joe Buyer at Walmart. They need a toaster oven with a digital timer to retail for no more than $59. They are willing to issue a PO for 100K units. They are actively looking for one. If they can see a viable prototype they'll issue the PO and close the deal.

I hope you can spot the difference between the two. Which one would you steal?

48.How Lenovo became the world’s biggest computer company (economist.com)
45 points by JumpCrisscross on Jan 11, 2013 | 46 comments

To me the whole copyright extension issue is a good argument for justification of piracy. If the copyright industry side can just replace the social agreement (protection of works in exchange for them going public after a reasonable amount of time) with one they like more, why would it be immoral for the content consumers to to the same?

I'm talking about the ethical side, not legalities. The fact that said consumers lack the lobbying power only makes their actions illegal, not immoral.


I have a Crossover 27Q (similar to this, probably sourced from the same place as other brands on ebay: Catleap, Shimian, wherever Monoprice is getting them, etc). Gorgeous minimalist metallic shell. Swivel display. Adjustable height. $375 from Ebay. Pixel perfect. I can't exaggerate how amazing these displays are. They're the same LG panels used in Apple Cinema displays at nearly a third of the cost. It's wonderful to be able to have three files up side-by-side in Sublime without feeling cramped and have a Terminal and VLC stuck to top.

So, yeah, if you're bummed about these not being available, there's tons on eBay, alibaba, etc.

A few other tips:

First, Intel HD4000 can drive these displays but it must be over DisplayPort. Yes, this means that my Macbook Air (2012) with the Apple Dual link DVI adapter works fine with it. However, my desktop with HD4000 mobo does not have DisplayPort so I'm now driving it with an NVIDIA GTX660 over Dual-link DVI.

Second, many of these displays output incorrect EDID information requiring that you manually modeset in Xorg to get it to work with Nvidia's proprietary drivers. (Nouvaeu seems to figure it out on it's own, but it's a bit of a dog at that resolution).

Third, most of these lack upscaling support meaning you must be able to output at its native resolution; no hooking an xbox up to one.

edit: Sorry to link downthread, but turtlebits stumbled upon one that might not have these limitations/faults: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5040906 before anyone jumps on the ebay link below.

51.Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
47 points by duck on Jan 11, 2013 | 44 comments
52.We're a group of HS students going to NYC to learn about startups (rafflecreator.com)
44 points by jwoodbridge on Jan 11, 2013 | 12 comments
53.Coding Freedom: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Hacking [pdf] (gabriellacoleman.org)
43 points by Tsiolkovsky on Jan 11, 2013 | 15 comments
54.Judy arrays are patented (wikipedia.org)
42 points by CesareBorgia on Jan 11, 2013 | 56 comments
55.The Case for a Teacher Bar Exam (theatlantic.com)
41 points by kevinalexbrown on Jan 11, 2013 | 64 comments
56.We are in the final years of our internet (stupidiswinning.tumblr.com)
40 points by toomuchblah on Jan 11, 2013 | 54 comments
57.Data-Intensive Text Processing with MapReduce (csail.mit.edu)
41 points by sonabinu on Jan 11, 2013 | 8 comments

There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition.

This is not a very thoughtful comment. There are obvious reasons why properties zones for permanent residence aren't appropriate for transient residence; the latter type of occupancy is accompanied by crime and abuse.

You seem to be falling into the trap of considering "consumer protection" only from the perspective of the tenant.

59.Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive? (theatlantic.com)
38 points by arjn on Jan 11, 2013 | 69 comments

That's why I utterly loath the stupid new trend of having fixed headers. They mess up my reading experience and honestly I thought we all ditched iframes a decade ago because even then we realized that putting frames everywhere isn't usable.

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