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arroganton Show HN: Arrow Hero

It'd certainly play very well if it works well. Looks like it's based directly on the Ouendan series (Elite Beat Agents) for the Nintendo DS where the games are played with a stylus.

I didn't know about osu! but I love Elite Beat Agents so I will definitely be checking this out!

arroganton Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

I played with an old Asteroids Deluxe machine just last weekend! They have one at Barcade in Manhatten on West 24th.

The vector display sits face up in the bottom of the cabinet, and the game is reflected on a one-way mirror set up in front of a backdrop. Those super-bright vector graphics are even more impressive when they look like they're floating!

arroganton Show HN: HearthSim, an AI and game simulator for Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft

While this is true in the general case, The Coin is an extra card added to your hand at the beginning of the game and is never a part of your deck. It is purely beneficial.

arroganton A most bizarre and mysterious cocoon

Another interesting cocoon, linked to from the comments: http://blog.perunature.com/2013/06/the-incredible-urodid-mot...

Instead of hiding, the caterpillar builds an open-air net-like structure which hangs by a thread from the bottom of a leaf. The video hypothesizes that the structure both protects the pupa from ants and allows rain to flow through it (both of which seem like critical features in the Amazonian rainforest).

Also, it looks really cool.

arroganton Microsoft Is Removing Xbox One DRM

That FAQ is from last month. The update from today specifically states:

> After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update

arroganton Gangnam Style Becomes World’s Most Watched Video With 1 Billion Views in Sight

Except PSY himself rejects that explanation: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/120oqd/i_am_south_kore...

arroganton Amazon.com criticising new iPad on homepage

No longer the case. They started renting/selling 1080p content with (or perhaps before) the release of the 1080p Apple TV.

arroganton Ruby 2.0.0 feature freeze

The title at the time of jfaucett's comment was just "Ruby 2.0.0".

arroganton Pie charts in your favicon

In case anyone else hasn't seen this: http://favris.info/

arroganton Elon Musk of SpaceX: The Goal is Mars

Our team needs leaders. Nobody said they had to work alone.

arroganton Pay To “Highlight” Your Facebook Status Updates To More Friends

This is exactly how okcupid's premium membership operates. You can always anonymously visit profiles, but unless you're a paid member, it'll no longer show you your visitors. Paying the premium lets you "stalk" others while still seeing who is visiting you.

arroganton Stallman: Facebook is Mass Surveillance

I think the point is that the simple presence of a Like button tells Facebook that you've been there. You don't have to click it, you just have to load it. HN comment history is active participation.

arroganton Wozniak praising Android over iPhone limitations

Not entirely true. You can jailbreak the iPad 2 using http://jailbreak.me/ if you're running iOS 4.3.3. iOS 5 is still unavailable, and I wouldn't expect it to be available until the corresponding iPhone 4S jailbreak is out.

arroganton Dan Benjamin of 5by5 talks about his equipment, business [audio]

Yeah, it takes a while to get to the interesting stuff; he was also interacting with the chat room during the show. There's good information in the FAQ portion of the show as well, like his reasoning behind NOT doing double-ended recording (anymore).

arroganton Dan Benjamin of 5by5 talks about his equipment, business [audio]

Dan Benjamin, creator of 5by5 and host of various shows on the network, talks about his home studio's past and current equipment, and then answers questions from the chat room. If you're at all interested in producing podcasts, or in what it takes to host a successful podcast network, this is worth a listen.

arroganton Spotify launches in the US

eEp6Lq23VwW98wTu used. Thanks!

Since I didn't see an obvious way from the front page, the place to sign up for a free account if you have an invite code is: https://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/overview/

arroganton IPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking

Johnny Lee's version was definitely cool, but it was more of a clever hack. It took advantage of the fact that the Wiimote is basically a very cheap IR camera, which normally tracks the IR light coming from the sensor bar. By using the Wiimote as a stationary camera, and wearing infrared LEDs on his face (attached to safety goggles, iirc) he could track the position of user's head. I'd imagine the Wii hardware would definitely be up to that task, as it is basically just the inverse of what it does already.

Also, if you really want to be impressed with the iPad's rendering capabilities, check out Infinity Blade. That will blow your mind.

arroganton IPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking

I agree, there is. Stereoscopic 3D isn't an end-all solution, however, and this isn't just ordinary "old style 3D", either. Head-tracking 3D is still a pretty novel technique, adding the illusion that you can look around an environment just by moving. I imagine that combining the two you could create a pretty immersive experience, although I can also admit there might be some difficulties doing so.

arroganton IPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking

3D on a screen is always an illusion of some sort. The 3DS is just a different illusion (albeit a more technically involved one, for sure). It's not any more "3D" than this. Perspective not changing when your head moves is one of the things that breaks a 3D illusion; with this, you don't have that problem.

arroganton IPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking

I'm pretty sure that the 3DS isn't doing any head tracking. If you move your head much at all the 3D effect breaks; you have to be looking practically dead at it.

arroganton IPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking

http://kotaku.com/#!5541044/looksleys-line-up-micro+review-b...

Looks like it did come out in the US, although from the review it looks like we might not have heard about it because the effect just didn't work well enough.

Maybe this implementation will deliver? It looks fairly promising, and the effect looks like it might be more pronounced on the (compared to the DSi) large screen of the iPad. Of course, I'd like to pass judgement on it personally, so here's hoping for a demo we can hold in our hands soon.

arroganton 23andMe Genetic Testing Kit Free with a Year Long Membership of $108

This.

I don't even like going to Web MD, in fear of exaggerating a condition or, even worse, synthesizing symptoms. I can't imagine knowing several years ahead of time that I have a high chance of developing this or that unpreventable disease. I'd probably end up seeing "signs" long before they ever presented themselves or perhaps even worsen my condition through the anxiety.

arroganton Mockup previews of Appleseed 1.0, feedback appreciated.

As a final note, the Appleseed logo in the top left is going to cause some undesirable behavior if left like that.

I also thought this was kind of strange. It looks alright in the mockups, but I can't think of a behavior for that logo that would deal well when you shrink the view horizontally. The design seems to suggest that the left margin will remain empty space, as trying to slide it to the left would cause the profile picture to overlap the logo entirely.

Neither leaving the blank space nor covering up the logo seems ideal to me.

arroganton Mono for Android released with Visual Studio 2010 integration

I think the point here is that the developers themselves aren't generally the ones that are choosing to use XP: they're stuck on the platform that the IT department supports. Getting upgrades can be challenging, especially in a large corporate environment.

arroganton That’s it, we’re quitting

I can't verify this at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that you can assign the right and middle click actions on a three button mouse to do Cmd- and ctrl- clicks, so this is a nonissue for those of us with a standard mouse.

arroganton That’s it, we’re quitting

I agree with this. The fact that you can cycle through both applications and a specific applications' individual windows (in a consistent way) is definitely a perk of the way that OS X handles windows.

arroganton IPad 2 introduces new headphone jack

Yeah, there are definitely reasons to check out the competition. I don't know why this has to be a competition between owners. I enjoy the device I own but I acknowledge it has limitations.

arroganton Entire Japan coast shifted 2.4 metres, earth axis moves ten inches

Let the whole state go under. I'll be long gone by then. (All kidding aside, I haven't really heard anything about that, and it isn't a pleasant thought. Any particular articles on the subject that you've seen?)

arroganton Entire Japan coast shifted 2.4 metres, earth axis moves ten inches

I live in Florida, and I'll take the risk of hurricanes and tornadoes any day over earthquakes. Just the sudden and unavoidable nature of earthquakes makes them seem orders of magnitude worse to me.

arroganton IPad 2 introduces new headphone jack

You know, I didn't even notice the new headphone jack design, but that's very clever. The iPad 2 is a very thin device; it's frankly amazing how they fit everything into this case. It might not be the most technically powerful device on the market but it's the feel of the device, not the specs, that are impressive. There is a bit of the headphone plug exposed when you have some plugged in, but touching it doesn't produce any sound issues, so I imagine this is a nonissue.