Hacker News Reader

LyleKon Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

Why do we even have a save icon function anymore anyway? Just to torture people who forgot to save their file? Google Docs doesn't have a save button because it is saving all the time. Why would you not want to save what you are doing? Why is not saving the default? (Alan Cooper made this argument in About Face in 1995.)

Also, if you want to talk about outdated terminology, theres "disk" and "drive". These are being incorrectly applied to flash/solid state storage. They do apply to hard disk drives, and optical media.

LyleKon JQuery knobs

Very nice!

LyleKon Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

Most people are not going to be able to follow the classes from MIT and Harvard. (Certainly, there are a lot of people who can't get into the schools who could follow the material just fine.) Remember, this material is already available in books, but that didn't put the universities out of business. But if you look at how many people are struggling with math classes and having to hire tutors, I don't think it is fair to assume that by watching videos from MIT lecturers would suddenly make it all make sense.

LyleKon Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

So much for all the professors on food stamps. Now they have to compete with free classes from Harvard.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

LyleKon Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

Agreed. If they thought it would put them out of business, would they do it? It makes more sense to ask if it will put community colleges out of business.

LyleKon Gmvault: gmail backup. Liberate your emails

Can this store mail in mbox format? In what header do the gmail labels go?

LyleKon MIT and Harvard announce edX

There's nothing in the article that says the classes will be free.

LyleKon Death by a thousand great ideas

It baffles me why someone would want to start a business when they don't have an idea. That's backwards. You should only desire to start a business once you have had an idea that is burning in you so badly that you can't do anything else.

LyleKon Show HN: Beautiful Visualization of Agreement Groups in the US Senate

Best use of SVG I have seen yet!

LyleKon How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

Staying on track with a goal or two is easy. The hard part is that when you have enough goals, they all compete for time. So choosing which goals you want to follow becomes the ultimate problem.

LyleKon Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

Sounds like a good start, but not a replacement for SugarSync. You have to put everything in their special Google Drive folder, can't sync existing folders. So I can't use it to back up configuration files that need to stay in their own directories.

LyleKon Cops Would Be Liable Arresting Citizens For Recording Under Approved Conn. Bill

Does this mean you no longer need a permit to film in Connecticut? Ought to bolster the movie industry there.

LyleKon NameCheap Overtakes Go Daddy In Google

Crud. There goes my hipster cred. Been using NameCheap for years, now they are too mainstream.

LyleKon Haskell School of Music by Paul Hudak

Are you referring The Haskell School of Expression? I don't think this new music book has been published in physical form yet.

LyleKon I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

Great tips! Another fascinating (Creative Commons-licensed!) framework I have heard about recently is Language Hunters. http://www.languagehunters.org. Their methods involve playing games with native speakers, in person or via Skype. They claim someone can reach fluency in a few months.

LyleKon From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

Why is it a PIA to ask your friends? And why would you trust a web site more than your friends' recommendations?