kaolinite

I'm not sure how the UI for this would work, and perhaps it's best left as an idea for a browser extension, but I like the idea of showing a selection of the five or so most recently submitted stories on the homepage, separate from the main articles. It wouldn't be enabled by default, only when an option is selected in the user profile.

I never visit the new section of HN. I really wish I did but I always forget about it. However, if there was a little section for new articles on the homepage (perhaps at the bottom or the side of the page in a box) I'd definitely check some out and upvote the interesting articles.

It would be interesting to have a map of this and explore a new city by going to the spots with the most photos. It'd mainly be the tourist spots but it'd be more exciting than regular sight-seeing as you'd never know what you were on your way to see.

David Smith is a very successful independent iOS developer - so yes, this would be a business expense.

Emoji is actually more Japan centric, hence the numerous sushi emoji, bento box emoji and various other Japanese items.

You can take it into an Apple Store and they will replace the battery and recycle the old one. Cost varies by device but I suspect it'll cost $200 or so. Far less than replacing the device.

This isn't a conspiracy. If you want a thin (and light) device, you have to make compromises. A user replaceable battery on a MacBook will add a slight amount of thickness and weight (same with soldered vs in soldered components). I totally understand if you're not a fan of it, but in that case you probably ought to buy a ThinkPad instead.

> Mmmh, what could possibly go wrong with that?

Honestly? Not much, really. As long as there's a backup in case you lose your phone (some have a regular key lock, some require a passcode) then you'll be fine. Thieves aren't going to hack your smart lock, they'll just crowbar the door or throw a brick through a window.

Critical infrastructure aside, hooking up every day objects like scales and other appliances (I'm looking forward to notifications such as "Your washing is ready" or "Your pizza might be burning") is potentially really useful. There'll be rough spots at first - configuring these devices right now isn't great - but hopefully systems like Homekit are going to help with the setup and administration of these devices.

Bathroom scales that log your weight to your health app automatically.

Lights that dim when the movie starts.

A front door that unlocks when you approach.

None of these are necessary, obviously, but they offer little conveniences. An iKettle is pushing it a little, but honestly, I'd quite like to receive a tap on my wrist when the kettle has finished or my toast has popped up.

There's plenty of utility to be had from IoT devices (although you're right about security being a concern) however, like remote controls and robotic vacuums, initially they are being dismissed as tools for the lazy. Soon I suspect they'll be part of everyone's lives.

If you read the article closely, it's pretty clear that it's Commercial Building Maintenance Corp that are in the wrong here.

Why would WeWork be involved with the staff of the company they hired? If Commercial Building Maintenance Corp laid staff off having lost a contract, it isn't WeWork's responsibility to let their staff know. Would WeWork even know to tell them?

Update: If you read the comments section, there's a reply from a WeWork staff member: "WeWork's contract with Commercial Building Maintenance Corp expired, WeWork was no longer a customer of theirs, and instead of CBM giving their staff the bad news in professional manner, they let their newly-unemployed staff members waste time and subway fare to be informed of this via disabled keycard."

During the initial production of a new iPhone, which seems to start a month or two in advance of the release, parts are regularly smuggled out of the factories - especially case backs. They're sold to case manufacturers mainly who want the specs so they can design iPhone cases that are out on launch day.

For what it's worth, I had the same experience with my parents. I installed Ubuntu on my dad's laptop and my mum's desktop. They loved it for quite a while - it was much faster, no security problems and no weird errors. I was so happy that I left a few comments online similar to yours.

A year or so later, they both use Mac. In both cases, the inevitable question came "so I bought this <peripheral/software>, how can I get it to work?".

My favourite story on a similar note is how a Marc Jacob's boutique was vandalised a few years ago. The vandal spray painted "ART" across the front of the store. Marc Jacobs responded by photographing it and putting it on a teeshirt and selling it for $700.

http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk/3721/art-by-art-jacobs-t-shirt

The problem with doing this, besides being incredibly unprofessional, is that it won't really affect the company much - besides reducing productivity for a little while - however it will annoy the hell out of your previous colleagues. Unless you're leaving because you fell out with your colleagues, I doubt it would have the desired effect.

I've heard good things about the Renew[1] by Herman Miller. The IKEA standing desk, as mentioned by others, is a good and more affordable option too - however it does have a motor.

[1] http://store.hermanmiller.com/Products/Renew-Sit-to-Stand-Ta...

One of the huge advantages of (high-end) designer shoes is customisation. Do you have any plans for this? I like the look of your shoes and was considering buying however I didn't like either colour of leather. One of the things I love about Berluti is that their off the shelf range can still be purchased in a huge variety of leathers (or patina) and can still be customised to an extent. If you're building these shoes from scratch, I'm sure you'll be able to do even more.

Ignoring my slight complaint above, I love what you're doing - it seems you will be able to really make a difference, good luck!

SEEKING FREELANCER - Experienced Ruby on Rails Developer - Manchester, UK - Either remote or on-site fine

We're an online music retailer selling vinyl, tapes, CDs, downloads and merchandise. We're currently rebuilding our site to use Spree (so Spree experience preferred although not required) and we need an extra developer as soon as possible. You will need to be experienced building systems with complex business logic (there's a surprising amount) and working with integrating third party protocols, APIs and file formats[1].

We test heavily using Rspec and Cucumber. We're using the AWS stack (EB, S3, etc) and whilst knowledge of these would be beneficial it's by no means a requirement. Postgres and CoffeeScript experience would be nice too. Lots of Rails experience is the main thing.

If you're interested, please email bang@boomkat.com for more information or to apply. If applying, please include your CV / Github / links to any projects you're proud of / etc, as well as your availability and your day rate.

[1] Example of this is DDEX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Data_Exchange

Boomkat.com | Senior Ruby on Rails Contractor | Manchester, UK | REMOTE and ONSITE | 2 - 6 months

We're an online music retailer selling vinyl, tapes, CDs, downloads and merchandise. We're currently rebuilding our site to use Spree (so Spree experience preferred although not required) and we need an extra developer as soon as possible. You will need to be experienced building systems with complex business logic (there's a surprising amount) and working with integrating third party protocols, APIs and file formats[1].

We test heavily using Rspec and Cucumber. We're using the AWS stack (EB, S3, etc) and whilst knowledge of these would be beneficial it's by no means a requirement. Postgres and CoffeeScript experience would be nice too. Lots of Rails experience is the main thing.

If you're interested, please email bang@boomkat.com for more information or to apply. If applying, please include your CV / Github / links to any projects you're proud of / etc, as well as your availability and your day rate.

[1] Example of this is DDEX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Data_Exchange

I'm surprised you say that thinness doesn't matter for portability. I couldn't imagine going back to my previous ThinkPad (currently using a 13" Macbook Air) - it would take up so much space in my bag. Remember that by thinning a laptop, you also make it lighter too.

Thank you - that means a lot, I'm glad you find it useful :-)

> Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier.

There's the problem you need to fix. It should be just as easy (easier, frankly) to build this as an add-on. I recently built a small extension[1] that targets Firefox, Chrome and Safari (with the same code-base) and found Firefox to be - by far - the most annoying to deal with. It's sad that the browser that championed add-ons is such a pain to develop for now.

[1] http://github.com/timdavies/hnprofile

No, it's 100% local. Even ignoring the privacy concerns of uploading everything you say, it would simply use too much data.

You also need to opt-in: it's turned off by default and can be enabled by going to Settings > General > Siri > Allow "Hey Siri."

Clever? There are plenty of completely valid uses for having a phone on whilst driving - such as navigation, streaming music or using CarPlay. As an iPhone needs to be plugged in to use "Hey Siri", this will pretty much entirely affect people using their devices legitimately - whereas people driving with one hand whilst they make a phone call with the other will be unaffected.

This seems like it would be more likely to cause an accident as people have to divert attention from driving to mess with their phone so they can get navigation back (and having listened to the advert, I know I would be very distracted by it).

Finally, is this even legal? I have no idea of the law in Sweden (and IANAL) but I feel like you could make the point that this advert is interfering with your device without authorisation.

If you get onto the front page of Hacker News, you can show that to other publications (such as Ars Technica or Techcrunch, for example) and they are more likely to write an article about your company. Then you can take the Ars Technica post and show it to Business Insider, etc, and then show that to The Guardian technology section and then, if you're lucky, show that to CNN or whoever.

Getting a front page post on Hacker News shows other news outlets that people are interested and that it might be worth covering. It can be the first rung on the press ladder.

There's nothing wrong with designing custom UI elements, so long as they're done properly on each platform. For example, Safari's tabs are completely custom (as far as I know) - they can't be used in other applications, they aren't part of Cocoa - but they're tastefully designed and they work well.

Could not agree more.

Firefox has traditionally not been very popular on Mac for this very reason. They've gotten better at imitating OS X slightly, but even today it's still out of the question for me (and I suspect many Mac users) to use Firefox. It feels really awful to use. Whilst Chrome and Safari have nice native scrolling, rubber banding and smooth zooming, just like any other native app, Firefox feels jarring. It only just supports gestures (there's no nice animation like in Safari or Chrome).

My day-to-day browser is Safari. Not because it's faster or technically better (it really isn't) but because it's fully native and integrates properly with the system, e.g. it integrates properly with the downloads folder (showing the progress bar on the file and on the folder icon) and it looks and feels like any other Mac app. Chrome may be faster, Firefox may be more extensible - but I choose Safari because it works properly with the OS.

I really love Mozilla and I would love to use Firefox. I really hope they go with a OS-specific native shell - although I suspect they'll go with building the UI in HTML/CSS. But if they do, there's a good chance I'll switch.

That's why I included Swift. Now that it is going to be open-sourced and available on Linux, it will - hopefully - become a good replacement for Go / etc. Will have to see how the community evolves, of course. Currently I use Go in certain situations but I'm hoping to eventually be able to replace it with Swift - will just have to see how things progress.

Disagree though about Ruby being icky at scale. Whilst some companies have moved away from it as they have gotten bigger, there are tonnes of companies that are still using it successfully.

I also disagree that the other languages cover Ruby's uses. It is an incredibly flexible and powerful language and has an incredible assortment of very well written and very well maintained libraries - far exceeding any other language I've used. Plus, having used many other web frameworks, I'm afraid nothing is as good as Rails. Some, such as Django, come close - but nothing quite beats it.

That said, it all depends on your use cases. I'm mainly a web programmer, building web apps, APIs and the occasional mobile app. I'm not dismissing other languages by any means, but these are the languages that I would personally keep if I had to throw away my knowledge of all programming languages but three.

Ruby, Swift and Javascript. Assuming Swift, once open-sourced, gains popularity outside of Mac/iOS development, these three languages have you covered pretty much completely (besides really low-level stuff, of course). These three let you build server-side apps, web applications (including client-side code), mobile apps (iOS) and desktop apps (Mac).

That said, whilst programming languages are fun to learn and tinker with, I find a lot of people give them too high a priority (hence you hear stuff like "now that Swift is open-sourced and available on Linux, iOS developers will be able to easily write Android apps"). Compared to UI frameworks like Cocoa, etc, a programming language is very quick and easy to learn.

But Apple has done exactly that. The core (Darwin) is open-source since the beginning - but other newer parts are open-source too. A great example is Grand Central Dispatch[1] which Apple open-sourced and has been since ported to FreeBSD. Another example is launchd, a replacement init system, that was open-sourced too.

Even if they didn't do any of this though, it's silly to treat proprietary software as if it doesn't exist and doesn't provide any benefit. Personally, I would be thrilled if Apple (or any other company) used any of my open-source work, even if they made a proprietary fork, because as a result I'd end up with a better OS. Yes, it would be even better if they stayed open-source and contributed back - but if that's not going to happen, I'd rather software, whether open or proprietary, keeps on improving. If a proprietary fork is what it takes, so be it.

Some of my favourite and most useful software is proprietary but contains open-source libraries. If those libraries restricted the use to only open-source applications, and the developers were unwilling to open-source, those applications might not exist - or at least might not be as good. If that were the case, we'd all have lost out.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Dispatch

I would love an open-source Heroku. Yeah there's OpenStack, Dokku, etc - but they're nowhere near as easy to use as Heroku (not knocking them, by the way, they have a place and are great projects). Presumably such an application would run on a server of its own and you would give it an API key for DigitalOcean, Linode, etc, and then push your repos to it as you do with Heroku. Massive undertaking, of course.

Something else I'd love to see is a server that's as easy as an iPad. Sandstorm is doing some work in this area, although I'm not convinced that the end result will be great. I want a server I can connect to, install apps from an app store as easily as on an iPad, configure as easily as an iPad, etc. Linux/FreeBSD/etc will always be needed for high performance websites and intensive or innovative computing needs but 95% of people just want to host a website or some email. I should be able to log on, go to the App Store, download the Minecraft server and be playing my game within minutes (with a nice GUI for configuration). Don't believe this is needed? The existence of SaaS is proof that it is - software is too hard and too complicated to install, configure and keep updated on your own server.

I used this recently when exporting my Spotify playlists for my switch to Apple Music. It worked pretty well. You still need to copy and paste but it grabs all the correct information for each track.

https://github.com/jlund/spotify-export/

If Apple used motion (or solar) to recharge the battery, people would complain (even more than they are currently) about the thickness of the device. It currently only just fits under the cuff, any thicker and it would be far too thick. In a dress watch, thinness is truly very important.

But whilst I've heard this argument a lot, I'm surprised people are even considering it. Do they really think it will make a big improvement to the battery? I feel like the space used filling it with automatic charging tech could be better used if filled with extra battery. In addition, it turned out that the reported poor battery life of the Apple Watch was just FUD and that since launch, there have been very few (if any?) complaints.

Notification spam is another common false complaint. If you are bothered by notifications, that's your fault. The settings are very granular. You can use VIP in mail, if you're getting too much email, and disable as many notifications as you wish - there is no problem here.

Finally, the author complains that the Apple Watch will never be timeless, then straps on a Casio G-Shock. Enough said, really.

Pieces like these are exactly like the pieces we saw after the launch of the iPhone - how reporters were going back to their dumb phones or blackberries, etc. I suspect we will chuckle about this article too in years to come.