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5lon Why Can't Developers Estimate Time?

There's another way as well; specify a range of time within which you expect the task to be completed. This also communicates your uncertainty about the estimate at the same time.

5lon [dead]

I left Slashdot to get away from these kinds of stories. Anything to do with politics especially and most of the time you would read the linked article or the comments to find the summary was just hysterical nonsense.

5lon +1’s: the right recommendations right when you want them—in your search results

The problem with 'liking' something, which would be especially acute on Google, is that it just sounds downright wrong for some things. Perhaps you're looking for news on the Japanese Tsunami. No, I don't 'like' it. Yes, it's relevant to what I'm looking for.

5lon I Told You RIM Was in Trouble

And yet Apple also trumpeted the numbers of apps available for the iPad on launch, despite the vast majority of these being iPhone or iPod Touch apps not optimised for the tablet.

5lon CAPTCHAs decrease conversion rates

Think he probably means spammers are searching for the phrase 'post a comment below' on Google looking for forms they can spam. You'll see this search term in the HTTP referrer header.

Edit: obviously you could just avoid using this phrase on your site instead.

5lon CAPTCHAs decrease conversion rates

The really blurry word is the word they're trying to OCR; generally it doesn't matter what you type as it'll accept it provided the other word is entered correctly.

Of course your 'game' is hurting reCaptcha's goal of digitizing books.

5lon Readability-inspired Wikipedia Beautifier for Chrome

I use Sublime Reader [0] for Google Reader. Without a dark background I get instant eye strain these days.

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jbhkdhkngalchoobjf...

5lon Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply

Why is this getting downvoted? It was the first thing that came to my mind too. Not only is the country prone to earthquakes, but as I understand, several of their power stations are built right on the east coast.

It's possible to make a building like a skyscraper fairly earthquake proof, but is it really possible to make things like nuclear power stations earthquake proof? Assuming the building is made to 'wobble', wouldn't that wreak havoc on the cooling systems and other gear inside?

5lon HackerBuddy

A github link as well as twitter/hn would be good as well