Hacker News Reader

superkon Address Validation Using the Google Maps API: A better way to enter addresses?

Also... really only works for the US only. Canada is not half bad but Google returns an invalid postal code (due to licensing restrictions or some such). Outside of US/Canada accuracy falls way off to the point of being almost useless.

superkon Google Translate might not be as good as people thought

I'm just surprised that any engineer can be so lacking in foundational english. Are there any programming languages that have a vocabulary that is not english?

superkon SCVNGR’s Secret Game Mechanics Playdeck

How so? Many of the mechanics listed are "rewards in and of themselves" types:

1. Achievement 6. Blissful Productivity 10. Companion Gaming 17. Epic Meaning 22. Fun Once, Fun Always

etc, etc.

superkon [dead]

Oh man - a couple of days ago there was this one (Want to be a freelancer? Just punch yourself in the face):

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/09/07/want-to-be-a-free...

Now I don't know what to believe!!

superkon Zepto.js: jQuery-esque JavaScript library for mobile WebKit from Thomas Fuchs

You can add Symbian and Samsung/Bada too.

http://www.cloudfour.com/mobile-operating-systems-and-browse...

superkon The Hardy Boys - The final chapter (1998)

Totally! I hated Aunt Gertrude... if it was up to her there would be no more adventures! I disliked her very very very much.

superkon The Hardy Boys - The final chapter (1998)

I learned about the solar plexus (they were always knocking out goons by hitting them in that mythical spot)... never could seem to find it in real-life fights though...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/146656.Hardy_Boys_Complet...

superkon Capturing The Atom Bomb

I've seen most of these in "Trinity and Beyond" - a movie I cannot recommend highly enough.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114728/trailers

Recently declassified footage... digitally remastered... score by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra... and narrated by William Shatner -- so good in a horrifying way.

superkon Capturing The Atom Bomb

I remember hearing about "The Conqueror" from my parents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conqueror_(film)#Cancer_con...

"Among the 220 or so cast and crew who filmed the 1956 film, The Conqueror, on location near St. George, Utah, ninety-one had come down with cancer, with an unheard of 41 percent morbidity rate, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. The film was shot in Southwestern Utah, east of and generally downwind from where the U.S. Government had tested nuclear weapons in Southeastern Nevada, and many contend that radioactive fallout from these tests contaminated the film location and poisoned the film crew working there."

superkon What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered?

http://textpattern.googlecode.com/svn/releases/4.2.0/source/...

$html = parse($html); // the function so nice, he ran it twice

superkon What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered?

http://www.dillerdesign.com/experiment/DD_belatedPNG/

(a PNG-fix for IE6)

// PLEASE READ:

// Absolutely everything in this script is SILLY. I know this. IE's rendering of certain pixels doesn't make sense, so neither does this code!

superkon Future Searching

Wolfram|Alpha?

superkon Ultralight Javascript Templating

I use this rewrite of resig's microtemplating:

http://github.com/creationix/microtemplates

It's as versatile as I'll ever need - it evaluates any javascript between the tags. If you don't like the syntax it's really easy to change - just change the regexp on line 2. A complete templating engine in a dozen lines of code:

http://pastebin.com/QpacVLcS

superkon How the opening scenes of Blade Runner were made (video)

Pretty amazing website. He also built a scale model solution for the BP oil spill (while most people were just waxing philosophical about what to do):

http://douglastrumbull.com/bp-spill-fix-prototype-solution

Can't believe I didn't hear about this in the news.

superkon Ask HN: What habits made you a better programmer?

Discipline to not check Hacker News while I'm coding....

superkon The Real ‘Stuff White People Like’

Because religion is a choice based on personal beliefs and/or reason (but usually the former). Race is a state of being. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at.

superkon The Real ‘Stuff White People Like’

Scientifically proven with a reading test based on the lengths of words, and metrics I just made up

Actually they're using the Coleman-Liau Index, a computer readability formula going back to 1975.

superkon The Real ‘Stuff White People Like’

I thought it was interesting how the largest countries aren't the most nationalistic - no Brazil, Mexico, China, Japan, etc.. I also came away with an identity crisis - #1 good food (Soul) and seeing Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco and Talib Kwali in the top "stuff"... dammit I might be black.

superkon Ha Do That in HTML5

I think the "gracefully" part is misleading. This could be done with Javascript and a simple CSS class added to the <button> is both graceful and degrades gracefully. But if we're comparing apples-to-apples, what's graceful about the Flash solution - opening one (possible more - Photoshop, etc) programs, learning a proprietary language (Actionscript) and exporting a binary that's not accessible to users or search engines, etc...

superkon Rails Creator's New Custom Hypercar

But surely flames still do shoot out?!

superkon Rails Creator's New Custom Hypercar

Is that a rocket engine a la batmobile?

http://www.secretentourage.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/zo...

superkon This is a fully working chess program with graphics. In 1024 bytes of JS. o_0

Extra points for the function call:

X(c, h, e, s)

superkon India's red rain may contain life not seen on Earth

More speculation... but if a comet exploded in the upper atmosphere these microparticles could have been trapped up there for while. Still would expect winds and such to spread them around...

superkon Stephen Hawking: God did not create Universe

And yet nothing changes.

superkon Ask HN: How can you be rational and still believe in free will?

Since you've read both books would you mind just summing up the jist of it.

superkon Ask HN: How can you be rational and still believe in free will?

After reading the article... in a scenario where subjects have a single task (push a button) and no time limit, then unconscious trumps conscious thought. I don't see how the unconscious could have much affect over rapid-fire decisions involving extrinsic stimulation that could not have been predetermined. Life is much more the latter of the two experiences so I don't really get this as scientific evidence against free will.

superkon Ask HN: How can you be rational and still believe in free will?

If you don't believe in free will does that mean you will always win in Rock-Paper-Scissors?

superkon Motorola Snaps Up 280 North (YC 08) For $20 Million

Makes sense ;) Was there any reason why you went with Cappuccino instead of, say, SproutCore or Coherence or Dashcode? Or even GWT? Have you looked at Apple's PastryKit/iAD? It's _very_ similar to Cocoa development, just without the ObjC notation.

superkon Motorola Snaps Up 280 North (YC 08) For $20 Million

Thanks. That's awesome - gomockingbird.com is a great site, and if you did that in a week that's a compelling case for Cappuccino, although... I find it surprising you studied CS at Harvard and worked as a Software Development Intern at Apple and never used either Objective-C or Javascript.

superkon Motorola Snaps Up 280 North (YC 08) For $20 Million

Funny you should ask that because the internet is just now taking a big lurch forward with Canvas and everything in HTML5. Would Objective-J quickly adopt new features in Javascript or stay closer to developments in Objective-C?

Since everything gets compiled down to Javascript in the end (and Objective-J doesn't feature 100% browser compat either) I don't see how they can offer anything not possible with Javascript to begin with. Actually that's a question? I don't understand how it is different than, for example, CoffeeScript - but I would be happy if you could explain how it is.