hackly

Free version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.akeel.baseg...

Source: Contacted Amazon.ca

If you're still in school, like to teach CS concepts and have some time on your hand, you'll be able to grow the site and complement it with more modules while leveraging the already existent user base. Plus an opportunity to make some ad $ on the side.

Your side project is pretty neat. I worked on something similar once that involved the Open Text Summarizer (OTS).

I did something similar this past summer that I called the Wisbit App (wisbit for wisdom-tidbit). The idea behind the project was to collect the most important passages (or wisbits) from books and present them as summaries. Users wanting to save time on reading books simply browse the curated passages and rank them. It was my first ROR app, so it leaves much to be desired, and I've only added my own readings to the collection of books thus far. Anyways, here it is in case anyone of you finds it useful: http://wisbit.akeelali.com/

I was referring to the _relative_ treatment. I thought this was clearly implied. Syria's regime is definitely not above blame. But neither is Saudi Arabia and it deserves an equal share of 'demonization' by the government and the media.

>> Sigh, so Saudi Arabia is pro Israel? :-)

You musn't mistake public policy that carries no weight with actual behavior. Egypt under Mubarak was trumpeted as anti-Israel, but was clearly colluding with them in Gaza affairs. Saudi Arabia is unique in that there is a strong powerful extremist movement that needs to be placated by the ruling family. This makes for more empty talk that confuses many.

>> North Korea sells/sold nuclear tech to Syria/Iran; are you really claiming they have "neutral" relations with Israel?

They too have had their share of trouble as we all know, but I may be wrong on this one.

>> please don't write this kind of thing on HN

What kind of thing? When you see remarks like those of noduerme being upvoted, it's important that people understand that our governments are just as responsible for sustaining the abuses going on in the MidEast so that they don't misdirect their hate towards muslims/arabs.

I think this hacking incident is a mere accident, and the ruling Saudis will be quick to repress it and assure Israel none of this will happen again.

As the budgets of governments worldwide become ever tighter, it is more important than ever for scientists to be able to explain — and in some sense justify — their research to a wider audience. Yet few have received formal training in writing at all, let alone in popular writing. There are many forms such writing can take: press releases, perspective pieces for magazines, or even blogs. In Nature Physics, although we strive to ensure that everything we publish is as accessible as possible, this is of utmost importance in our News and Views section, for which we commission practising scientists to write about research that is published in Nature Physics or elsewhere in the scientific literature. On the whole, physicists do a pretty good job of explaining these advances to colleagues in other fields. Yet there are a number of aspects of popular writing that our writers find challenging. We'll describe the most common pitfalls.

For a writer, the most important person in the Universe is the reader. And the most important thing to know about the reader is that you are subject to his or her whim. Every sentence you write must maintain the reader's interest, grip them and keep them reading to the end. As veteran reporter Tim Radford points out in his widely circulated journalists' manifesto (http://go.nature.com/JGVCyi), “This is because, although you — an employee, an apostle or an apologist — may feel compelled to write, nobody has ever felt obliged to read.” And given half a chance, they will stop reading what you have written and turn the page in an instant.

The most engaging writing tells a story. A good story is a journey, and most people won't follow you on this journey unless you give them some idea of where it's headed. So before you even start, you need to decide where you want it to end. Ask yourself, what is the most surprising or significant aspect of the work you're writing about? When you first heard (or read) about the research, what about it made you think, “Wow, I didn't expect that!” It needn't be what the scientists who conducted the work think is the most important aspect: indeed, for a Nature Physics News and Views, a blog entry or similar, it is your unique perspective that readers (and editors) are interested in.

“Remember, the piece needs a beginning, a middle and an end — and, unless you're Quentin Tarantino, it needs to be presented in this order.” The structure of the piece should reflect the journey that you've set out to describe. Remember, it needs a beginning, a middle and an end — and, unless you're Quentin Tarantino, it needs to be presented in this order. The first paragraph is the most important of the piece. It sets the stage, addressing the cardinal questions: what, why, who and how. It introduces, briefly, the wider context and motivation for the research and identifies the key challenges it is to address. It doesn't need details — that's what the middle of the piece is for.

On any journey, it's tempting to stop at other attractions on the way. For long journeys this can break the monotony, but for short journeys it's usually a distraction. Pick one key idea, one destination, and stick to it. Sometimes in writing you can set out for one place and on the way discover yourself heading towards another — that's fine, and if you discover that the new destination is more exciting than the original, don't be afraid to change your plans. But don't try to include both destinations, unless they're closely neighbouring towns, like Buda and Pest. You only have the time to reach one.

Hype doesn't help, neither do hyperbolic adjectives such as 'very', 'extremely' and 'remarkably'. It's not enough to simply assert that something is exciting, notable, novel or useful — explain why. Don't begin any sentence with 'interestingly': it is for the reader to decide whether something is interesting, it's your job to persuade them that it is. And before you describe anything as ubiquitous, pause and consider: if everyone knows it's ubiquitous — as is usually the case for ubiquitous things — there's probably no point. Cement is ubiquitous; silicon is ubiquitous; organic molecules are ubiquitous; vector calculus is ubiquitous; so what? Analogies, on the other hand, are great. But anthropomorphisms are usually terrible. Silicon doesn't have a few tricks up its sleeve: semiconductors don't perform tricks, neither do they have sleeves.

At the opening of A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking notes that his editor warned him that for every equation in the book its readership would be halved, and so he included only a single equation — E = mc2. Writing for physicists is less constrained, but not by much. Few physicists are afraid of equations. But most equations — apart from those presented in any undergraduate physics course — represent a short-hand that only specialists appreciate. Consequently, formulae are usually a waste of space, unless the implications of every index and every coefficient is explained in long form. Equations in popular writing are not efficient, they're lazy. It's usually much better to describe in words the key relations that they embody.

And finally, when you've crafted some beautiful prose, be ready for the edit. Unless you're writing for your own personal blog, it's unlikely that every word in your initial draft will make the final cut. In the world of professional journalism, most submissions are edited substantially; even seasoned writers regularly see their copy transformed into something quite different from their original draft. The reason is that an editor is closer to the reader than a writer. Editors set the tone and the scope, and it's the editors' vision that ultimately determines the success of a journal. So if an editor has made a change that you're not happy with, don't just change it back — it's been edited for a reason. Explain why you're not happy with the change, and try to rephrase in way that still chimes with the editor's version.

----

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/09...

Also, OP is definitely helping them spread the word ;)

That said, the statement, however, may not be completely relevant to this particular story.

Maybe there's a way that you guys know of (besides reading cues from the title)?