Hacker News Reader

stevewilberon Twitter launches Fabric mobile app for developers

Hey, I work on Fabric and we recently added some new pages that could help. If you have trouble using our plugins with your project, check out our manual onboarding process at https://fabric.io/kits/ios/crashlytics/install

stevewilberon Is the Toilet Free?

Or try to predict availability based on recent queries. If there is only one stall open and someone checked its status 30s ago, respond that "maybe" a stall is free.

stevewilberon Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

There was also this[1] accident where a Tesla utterly destroyed an Accord in a head-on collision. Again, the fatalities were not occupants of the Tesla.

The Model S weighs roughly the same as a midsize SUV. I wonder if the difference in weight distribution makes it more or less dangerous for the other car in an accident.

[1] http://jalopnik.com/tesla-model-s-driver-veers-into-oncoming...

stevewilberon Verizon’s $20 iPhone Plan

The plan is $20 for 1GB/mo of LTE data, so you can make calls and use data on the go. I might not have been clear enough about that in the post.

stevewilberon In Almost Every European Country, Bikes Are Outselling New Cars

Unfortunately a huge number of those bikes are gathering dust in a garage. Europeans bike 188 km/yr vs 40 km/yr for the US [1]. It would be really interesting to see the rate of change.

[1] http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/jpah08.pdf

stevewilberon Coworking Spaces

Oficio looks fantastic. Those desks facing the window are just about the ideal spot for me.

Are there any coworking spaces like these around Palo Alto or Mountain View? Hacker Dojo has a great vibe but the lack of natural light is a bummer.

stevewilberon See Your Folks

No, I bailed out when I got to the third question. I appreciate the intention behind this though.

stevewilberon Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

Did Path destroy itself with questionable ethics[1] or is there really no way to compete with Facebook anymore?

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/path-uploads-your-iphones-a...

stevewilberon Introducing government.github.com

This is really cool. I sent a request to my City to join. I'd be happy to donate some time improving their website if the source were public.

stevewilberon Poll: How many Bitcoins do you own?

Major self-selection bias in this poll. People who don't care about bitcoin (and therefore own zero) won't click on the poll.

stevewilberon The San Francisco Exodus

It's really refreshing to see some intelligent commentary on the issues SF is facing, as opposed to the mindless tech-bashing that has been going on in the local media.

The only way to have a meaningful impact on housing prices is to increase supply.

stevewilberon Annual Income and Cost of Living for BART Employees

Bart serves most of the Bay Area, not just the City. As far as I'm concerned, a frugal life in the burbs is a good life. Most of the developers I know live that way.

stevewilberon Annual Income and Cost of Living for BART Employees

Bart workers pay $92/mo for health insurance. [1]

This post is comparing the income for one Bart employee to the expenses for a family of four. I'm not sure why child care is included if only one adult is working.

Subtracting those out, I get $54,912. This seems about right for a frugal life in the burbs.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-workers-pay-plus-...

stevewilberon Humble Indie Bundle 9 released

FTL has a fantastic soundtrack with a chill, electronic sound. Great coding music.

stevewilberon Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested

First: SUVs don't survive crashes particularly well

This is outdated information, SUVs are now far safer than cars. Death rate (per 1M vehicle years) for 4WD midsize SUV: 23. Midsize Sedan: 51 [1]

[1] http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4605.pdf

stevewilberon Quora's "India Problem"

Pretty sure this is satire, but Poe's law strikes again

stevewilberon Show HN: My First iPhone Game – can you beat it?

Nicely done, I'm on level 11 and having a good time with it so far. A question and some feedback:

I've always wondered how people do level design for puzzle games like this. Is there a formula or is it just experimentation?

I think the feedback when sliding the penguin could be improved. Sometimes it doesn't respond at all and when it does it either goes or doesn't move at all. I think it would feel better for the user if the penguin slid with your finger but would pop back into place if you don't pass a threshold.

stevewilberon Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years

Why does a drop need to fall in order to prove the theory? Isn't seeing the drip forming enough?

stevewilberon Gmail push notification no longer works with Mail on new iOS devices

Push notifications from the GMail app and Mailbox are not the same as what you get with Mail.app. With Mail.app, mail is downloaded in the background and immediately available when you launch the app. With the others, you launch the app and then stare at the screen for 5 - 10 seconds while mail is downloaded.

iOS 7 is adding a feature that will allow downloading data in the background and hopefully Mailbox and the GMail app will take advantage of that. But in the meantime: fetch, get Google Apps for $5/mo, or deal with the annoying wait

stevewilberon Stay-at-home dad

As a work-from-home dad with a very flexible schedule, I spend quite a bit of time at the park during work hours. My experience is closer to yours than most others in this thread. I find the moms/nannies/grandparents quite welcoming and friendly. Occasionally a topic of conversation will come up that may be a bit awkward, but otherwise I don't feel that I'm treated much differently. I certainly have never perceived that anyone felt threatened by my presence.

I'm not sure what would account for the difference. I live just a few miles from FB headquarters and am in the same demographic as OP.

stevewilberon How we perceive time: stop it slipping away by doing new things

I first came across this idea in this NPR article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/09/29/130221453/how-to-li...

I haven't been very successful in applying the suggestions. I tend to repeat the same few activities (building software, bike riding, spending time with the 10 or so people closest to me) because I really enjoy those things. I'm not convinced that having time pass quickly is at odds with feeling content with one's life.

stevewilberon Go read: fast Google Reader clone in AngularJS with Go on App Engine

This is perfect. It was incredibly easy to move over from Google Reader.

If you decide to run some simple ads, I would be happy to pay for an ad-free version. I'd say this has potential to do a lot more than just pay for itself.

stevewilberon The fanless heatsink: Silent, dust-immune, and almost ready for prime time

The video mentions that transferring heat to the impeller is a challenge, but it wasn't clear to me how they overcame this. Is the space between the CPU and the impeller so small that heat can be transferred efficiently?

If that is the case, I wonder how cheaply these could be produced given the incredibly tight clearance.

stevewilberon Video Games and the Human Condition - Talk by Jonathan Blow, Author of Braid

The talk is ostensibly about game design, but there is so much more here. I really enjoyed this.

stevewilberon Wal-Mart Participates in "See Something, Say Something" Campaign

A short video featuring Napolitano will appear on TV screens at select checkout lanes, asking Wal-Mart shoppers to contact local law enforcement to report suspicious activity.

"If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately," Napolitano said in the video. "Report suspicious activity to your local police or sheriff. If you need help ask a Wal-Mart manager for assistance."

Videos of govt officials educating me as I move through the check out line? This is incredibly creepy.