apitaru

On a somewhat related note, my dad (a dentist and scientist) recently discovered that there are stem cells that are almost as easy to manipulate as embryonic ones .. in our mouthes [1][2]. He always wondered why our gums heal so quickly, even as we age.

[1] Sorry for the PR-ish link (I'll ask him for the actual paper) - http://singularityhub.com/2012/05/10/toothless-no-more-resea...

[Edit 2] Here's the original publication (free) from Stem Cells Journal http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/stem.425/abstract

I found a simple method that works really well: ask the student to invent their own language syntax on paper. We start with a simple language that can draw on screen, and proceed from there.

I'm noticing that Students naturally discover many of the issues and tricks that they would otherwise have to "study" (such as flow of execution, nesting, variables)

I occasionally teach at schools in NY, and this semester my students "invented" the smalltalk syntax. It was heartwarming to witness.

Oh I'm sorry! It was intended for this thread - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3204525

I found a simple method that works really well: ask the student to invent their own language syntax on paper. We start with a simple language that can draw on screen, and proceed from there. I'm noticing that Students naturally discover many of the issues and tricks that they would otherwise have to "study" (such as flow of execution, nesting, variables)

I occasionally teach at schools in NY, and this semester my students "invented" the smalltalk syntax. It was heartwarming to witness.

If I could drive one thing into the collective minds of FaceBook users, it would be this:

"If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold" *Andrew Lewis

Having been through the Director, Flash and now HTML5 fads, I dream of a day when this title would suffice on HN:

"Plink, a multiplayer music game"

This is just to say - I enjoyed Plink very much and would have just the same regardless of the technology.

Great job, it's a simple no BS calculator that does exactly what it sais it does. And good call not asking for registration, and going the way of a sharable url instead. I'll be using this. Thanks!

update: I can imagine wanting an account that organizes my urls. It would be cool that have that button on the side, but not push for people to register.

Reading this tutorial reminded me of the first time I realized how handy a bit of math can be for animation. I think it was this little ease-out snippet that opened my eyes (served me well for years to come):

posX += (destX - posX)/ slowdownRate

Moves an item like so: X....X...X..X.X

..And many years later, his son Tristan has made a few drawing machines of his own: http://www.tristanperich.com/Art/Machine_Drawings/

Kyle just posted a new demo video - he's playing around with the idea of the "Scrambler Suite" from A Scanner Darkly - http://vimeo.com/29391633

For those not familiar with Jacob Nielsen, take a look at his article - "Flash: 99% Bad"

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

It was written in 2000 - at the hight of Flash craze. He was right then, and he is right today .. UI/UX designers should pay close attention to this man's analysis.

I think you're off to a great start. Looking forward to seeing you grow the service.

I recommend heading over to the http://www.advrider.com/ forums - it's a great community of riders (mostly dual-sport) and I'm sure you'll get great feedback there. Also, try to observe how they set up meetups for rides - it might help you decide on which features to build next.

As for the site itself - I love the design, not as macho as other sites out there. I wonder how riders will react to it (I'm guessing the scenic riders might like it more then adventure riders - but who knows).

Good luck!

Is there a place we can learn more about the Nitro engine for Safari? For example, will it support webGL?

Just one - http://sws.cc/ , and a couple more on the way.

I'm using http://openframeworks.cc instead Objective C, and so far very happy with it.

Thanks for the library! It's always great to see new game-dev solutions for JavaScript coders.

It would be interesting to embed the game inside a native iOS app and distribute it through the app store...

http://ejohn.org/blog/iphone-javascript-apps/

I'm assuming it'll take a tremendous performance hit vs. native apps, but not all games need 60fps.

While this particular project seems like a novelty item, I recommend taking a closer look at Daito, one of the artist-hackers mentioned in the article. I enjoyed digging a bit deeper into the works on his site.

http://www.daito.ws/

I would encourage Maxwell to check out Chuck Hoberman for inspiration.. even get in touch with him.

Hoberman studied Sculpture at Cooper Union, and Engineering in Columbia.

He is the inventor of the Hoberman Sphere (an expanding geometrical structure) which he leveraged into a very successful line of toys.

NASA later commissioned him to adapt it to future Mars missions. And I think his work was shown once at the MOMA.

http://www.hoberman.com/

Edit: Turns out that a close friend knows Hoberman. I think your work is great and I'll be happy to attempt an introduction if you're interested. pitaru.com has my email at the bottom.

I think google is actually easier (or as easy) to type compared to bing. Look at the position of your fingers as you type it.. the repetition of G/O and the close proximity of L/E respectively makes it a easy to type without looking at the keyboard.

Perhaps worth mentioning that the Arduino project is somewhat related to the http://processing.org/ programming language (basically sugar coating Java).

I've had the pleasure of introducing many artists to the world of programming via Processing, and am always amazed by the widely creative works that are produced, almost off the bat.

Arduino beautifully extends the same capabilities to analog and digital circuitry. Many artists are greatly appreciative of the new channels of creativity that these two project (as well as others) enable.

Plantly (Brooklyn) is hiring an engineer. We've nailed remote-working down to a science, and also have a great studio to hang/stay at when if you're around. Help us with our deployment stack, balance agility and security. We love Ruby & Python, mighty curious about Scala and Erlang.

http://plantly.com amit at plantly dot com

Check out Tristan Perishe's beautiful 1-bit symphony. He also builds minimal circuits by hand, and I'm always surprised at how rich and complex the music is.

http://www.1bitsymphony.com/

I also love this term. It reminded me of a wonderful post by Marc Andreessen from 2007, where he discusses "Luck and the entrepreneur.. The four kinds of luck"

http://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_entrepreneur

In the post, he skillfully dissects the book Chase, Chance, and Creativity (1978) by Dr. James Austin - a neurologist and philosopher.

True. By principle I'd rather see U.S. (SV) tech companies improve and thrive rather then die.

In this particular case - the web was ugly before Flash and it'll be just as ugly after it. And as waxpraxi writes, some good did come out of it (force me and i'll make a list : )

Flash is not a gun, it does not kill, and i don't wish it to die.

"I want flash to die"

Adobe and Macromedia were a startup once, just like many companies by HN members.

I want Adobe and its technologies to improve, not die.

"you can’t work on luck directly. You can work on everything else and improve the chances of getting lucky."

Well said, reminds me of a nice deconstruction of luck by Marc Andreessen: http://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_entrepreneur

Thanks for posting this great article.

I'm learning first hand that babying a startup while starting up a baby is an awesome challenge. Actually the two don't differ much in mindset - total dedication is the key.

So I try to do one thing at a time - and do it wholeheartedly. It's trickier then it sounds, requires constant tweaking, but pays off in dividends.

(I find that this related HN post deals with some of the practicalities mentioned above - "Self-control is a limited resource, use it sparingly" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1207136)

I’ve experienced what the article describes first hand when my son was born two months ago. For whatever it’s worth, here are my 2c for other HN readers who are babying a startup while starting up a baby:

Even after my sleeping patterns returned to normal, it was harder to deal with some of the more annoying parts of startup-life. Here’s what it took to get my work stamina back on track:

I’m now doing one thing at a time, wholeheartedly. I don’t think of work when with baby. I don’t think of baby when at work. Sounds trivial, but easier said then done. I use whatever self-control I have left on this.

I separate work and home with an indulging buffer activity. Preferably something that also nourishes the body like mild exercise (but even if not that’s ok). What works now is biking a few miles between home and work, with a short pit stop at my favorite coffee shop.

Took me a couple months to get this to work, and it takes energy to keep it optimized. But when it clicks right, be prepared for a powerful feedback loop of goodness.

It's inspiring to see entrepreneurs fill gaps that many governments leave behind when it comes to accessibility and the workplace. Thanks for the great post.