Hacker News Reader

mrduncanon Google’s Mobile Search Market Share: An Estimated, Whopping 98.29%

I believe most (all?) BlackBerries default to Google also.

Make it easy for employers by indicating where you're located, whether you'd be willing to move, if you'd prefer to telecommute, etc.

mrduncanon Ask HN: Who's Hiring? (Summer Edition)

As always, please be sure to include your location and whether or not telecommuting is possible.

mrduncanon Beg HN: Share some ideas.

The best way I've found to think of ideas is to keep track of everything that annoys you. Periodically, sort through the list and think a little more about those annoyances which are so great you'd pay real money to make go away.

For example: 37signals - All of their products have come from their own needs

mrduncanon IE9’s Stunning Text Rendering Quality

Which is a perfectly legitimate source - my issue is that the javascript they're using to render it onto the canvas isn't available for me (or anyone else) to test with.

mrduncanon Top organizations in CS research

Indent by two spaces.

http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

mrduncanon IE9’s Stunning Text Rendering Quality

All of the text is rendered with the canvas .fillText command and there are no bitmap images…everything is either text or drawn to the canvas with vectors.

The NYT doesn't use the canvas element for it's front page - which is what this test is all about (even though it isn't very explicit about it).

mrduncanon IE9’s Stunning Text Rendering Quality

Not having the source available screams rigged test to me.

Edit: If only because I remember what they tried to do with this chart - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/compare/d...

mrduncanon Ask HN: Best Idea you never followed through on?

I distinctly remember having a very similar idea for Twitter after seeing how much people used their AIM away messages as statuses a couple of years before Twitter launched. Of course, I'm sure tons of others did also - there wasn't really a lot of magic in the idea, good (enough) execution and network effects is what made Twitter successful.

mrduncanon Introducing Campfire for iPhone

Thanks Jason! That's what I was assuming.

Is this the first time you guys have bought an app from another company like this?

mrduncanon What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D

Bad phrasing on my part, it was a serious question. It seems to me that a few minutes in the sun every couple of days would be very unlikely to have any long term impacts (obviously, I'm not an expert though).

mrduncanon Introducing Campfire for iPhone

The blog post is a little vague - did they purchase just the Ember application (as opposed to the company)?

mrduncanon What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D

Does 5-10 minutes 2-3 times per week actually represent a significant cancer risk?

mrduncanon Zach Klein Rethinks The Delta Sky Club Portal

In retrospect, I should have just linked directly to the redesign - http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachklein/4831151379/

Can a mod switch the URL please?

mrduncanon How we buy plane tickets and why it's ruining air travel

Very interesting. Even with a cellular based system, I'm sure there isn't too much bandwidth available but much more than with a satellite connection I'd imagine.

mrduncanon How we buy plane tickets and why it's ruining air travel

Last year, there was a Wakefield/Wi-Fi Alliance study that found 76% of travelers would choose an airline based on wi-fi availability.

I'd imagine Wi-Fi Alliance might have some biases here.

Since in-flight wifi is just a satellite connection, I'm sure the overall available bandwidth is fairly limited. Charging for wifi is a good middle ground for airlines as a way to make a few extra dollars but also to keep usage to a level that the uplink can handle.

Are their any airlines that currently offer free wifi? I know that SWA did during their testing phase a while back (which only consisted of 3-4 equipped planes) but they eventually started charging for it like everyone else.

mrduncanon Rails 3.0: Release candidate

The list of changes in Rails 3.0 is fairly approachable if you understand the basics of Rails. I'd recommend taking a look for yourself - http://guides.rails.info/3_0_release_notes.html

As far as whether 2.3 or 3.0 makes the most sense at this point, it depends. Personally, I have been working on a brand new project that I started with 3.0 beta 1 and haven't ran into any major headaches. That said, since you're new there is a lot more information out there regarding 2.3 (be careful, some is much older).

To give you some better advice, why are you getting into Rails? Are you trying to get a project started/out the door/etc, or simply looking to learn it because it looks interesting/fun?

mrduncanon How we buy plane tickets and why it's ruining air travel

I feel your pain, I'm 6'4".

A tip for flying Southwest (who doesn't assign seats): Don't be scared to hop into one of the exit row seats, they are fair game like all other seats. I notice that a lot of people will walk right by them (who are traveling alone and could obviously use the extra leg room) just because there is a flight attendant standing in the row. Just ask if you can slide in, they are just standing there to get out of the way waiting for the rows to fill up so they can give the exit-row speech.

mrduncanon How we buy plane tickets and why it's ruining air travel

Just another illustration of how vastly different flying experiences can be on the exact same airline.

If you're not already aware, seats that have their backs to an exit row never recline. So, your best bet (until an airline offers you your wish) would be either an exit-row seat or a bulkhead seat.

mrduncanon Please check out our side project, OhLife (from MeetingMix, YC S08)

First of all, fantastic design!

Is there any way to export posts - for example, if I wanted to share them with a significant other or another family member?

Also, and this is mainly curiosity, how do you handle sending posts from the past for the first few days where there really isn't much history?

mrduncanon -2000 lines of code

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight. - Bill Gates

mrduncanon Ask HN: Your "Keeper" articles.

I've found myself referring back to Evan Williams "Ten Rules for Web Startups" (2005!) on many occasions.

http://evhead.com/2005/11/ten-rules-for-web-startups.asp

mrduncanon Google takes the FTC to school

I'd never never heard of Amdahl's Law before so I looked it up on Wikipedia.

Essentially, Amdahl's law is used to find the maximum expected improvement to an overall system when only part of the system is improved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahls_law

mrduncanon WakeMate: The Home Stretch

I'm not one of the pre-order customers, but I'm curious if the bracelets are washable, or how they can be cleaned. It seems like it'd need to be laundered just like sheets if you're wearing it every night.

mrduncanon Ask HN / Review my startup: Transloadit

I checked both Chrome beta and Firefox 3.6.3 and they're both showing the same thing.

mrduncanon Ask HN / Review my startup: Transloadit

Very interesting!

My first impression of the homepage is that the graphics are a little all over the place (in terms of consistency, not layout). Your logo has a pretty slick look to it, while the large balsamiq image is rough and 2D, and the "Let us do the processing" images are somewhat rough and 3D.

The forgot password page layout looks off to me, the recover button is displaying to the upper right of the email label.

The signup link at the bottom of the login page directs to a different account creation form than the signup links on the plans/pricing page.

"Proceed to enter credit card" seems a bit rough or robotic (can't really think of a good word to describe it honestly), maybe it could be changed to something like "Proceed to finish signup".

Although I didn't look too deeply, the docs look great!

PS: I'm not a designer, I only pretend to be one on the internet, so take all of that design advice with a grain of salt.

mrduncanon Twitter feed of Hacker News stories as soon as they reach 20 points

Twitter has always included trailing parens in links (even though, it seems more often than not they're not supposed to be). On the bright side, bit.ly ignores them so you still get the originally intended link.

I'm pretty sure trailing square brackets are ignored - anyone know for sure?

mrduncanon Murder: Fast datacenter code deploys using BitTorrent

Context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tujqM2u-BVo

mrduncanon Apple to hold iPhone 4 press conference on Friday

Another interesting theory from Dan Rubin:

$10 says Friday's Apple press conference is the announcement about Verizon, to — in the words of Don Draper — change the conversation.

http://twitter.com/danrubin/status/18565906020

While probably not too likely, it would be an interesting move on Apple's part none the less.

mrduncanon My experience as the first employee of a Y Combinator startup

It was less flexible, and every year, we "don't have enough money" for a raise. Eventually it was very stressful, my input didn't matter at all, and I got paid nothing.

As always, it depends on the company you're working for (it sounds like you're working for a great one!). I'm sure there are plenty of people who could claim the exact same thing while working for a big corp.