2011-12-03 front | Hacker News

Stories from December 3, 2011

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1.		I too know the websites you visited (oxplot.github.com)
		187 points by oxplot on Dec 3, 2011 \| 93 comments
2.		Indian Railways stations, trains and schedules database in JSON and SQL formats (sramana.in)
		178 points by _i0tq on Dec 3, 2011 \| 28 comments
3.		The raster tragedy at low resolution (1997) (microsoft.com)
		170 points by anon1385 on Dec 3, 2011 \| 40 comments
4.		Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian' (yahoo.com)
		150 points by thomasgerbe on Dec 3, 2011 \| 194 comments
5.		NYC Man Earns $55,000 A Year Peddling Candy On Subway (aol.com)
		140 points by lchengify on Dec 3, 2011 \| 181 comments
6.		Paul Graham and not being as right as he could be in “The Age of the Essay” (jseliger.com)
		133 points by jseliger on Dec 3, 2011 \| 51 comments
7.		Email banned at 75,000-employee company (abcnews.go.com)
		107 points by ojosilva on Dec 3, 2011 \| 73 comments
8.		Mountains and buried ice on Mars (esa.int)
		107 points by IgorPartola on Dec 3, 2011 \| 15 comments
9.		Node.js 0.6.4 was blocked in China (groups.google.com)
		85 points by bmaeser on Dec 3, 2011 \| 42 comments
		keiferski on Dec 3, 2011 \| parent \| context \| on: NYC Man Earns $55,000 A Year Peddling Candy On Sub... Somehow, I feel like those being critical are posting from a SF coffeeshop, sipping a $5 latte, planning the next social-deals-crowd-sourced "startup". The man is more of an entrepreneur than most of the people on this site, myself included. What makes it even more inspiring is that he didn't have a 150k offer from Google to fall back on.
11.		I know the websites you visited (coredump.cx)
		84 points by ksri on Dec 3, 2011 \| 46 comments
12.		ME student discovers a unique fact about polar bears (coe.berkeley.edu)
		83 points by bane on Dec 3, 2011 \| 15 comments
		sskates on Dec 3, 2011 \| parent \| context \| on: If Everyone Else is Such an Idiot, How Come You're... If you've ever run a company or any sort of organization, you'll realize that walking around blind is the default. It takes effort to get information on what's going on. Because you can't wait forever for perfect information, you end up taking calculated risks like Netflix did with Qwikster where it's not clear in advance if it will pan out. As the OP realized, this results in Monday morning armchair quaterbacking from people who ask "why didn't they make the right decision in advance, are they stupid or something?" When in fact, no, they are not stupid, they just don't have perfect information about what will happen. Incidentally, this is the largest advantage of startups- the cost of a risky bet is much lower because you don't have to risk hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of customers each time you make a bet. As a result, you can take many more risks and come to a better solution more quickly. edit: downvotes? what?
14.		Windows Phone is currently five times more profitable for us than the iPhone (anlock.com)
		76 points by kenjackson on Dec 3, 2011 \| 33 comments
15.		Carrier IQ Detector is available on the Android Market - find out if you have it (android.com)
		74 points by dbin78 on Dec 3, 2011 \| 35 comments
16.		SAP To Acquire SuccessFactors For $3.4 Billion (allthingsd.com)
		70 points by tilt on Dec 3, 2011 \| 49 comments
17.		Apple's suggestions to Samsung to work-around its iPhone and iPad design patents (theverge.com)
		71 points by acak on Dec 3, 2011 \| 82 comments
18.		Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor (wsj.com)
		70 points by Antelope on Dec 3, 2011 \| 36 comments
19.		EA relaunches Tetris on iOS with a $30/year subscription (really) (joystiq.com)
		68 points by evo_9 on Dec 3, 2011 \| 17 comments
20.		Is Firefox Doomed? (readwriteweb.com)
		68 points by johnpaultitlow on Dec 3, 2011 \| 122 comments
21.		GNU Stow 2.1.0 released (lists.gnu.org)
		67 points by lelf on Dec 3, 2011 \| 14 comments
		harryh on Dec 3, 2011 \| parent \| context \| on: Facebook buys Gowalla Oh, I think that the team at gowalla is great, and I have mad respect for them. But in terms of facebook's overall hiring this is a relatively small deal. Don't really know how many folks FB hires a year but I'm guessing hundreds? Sorry if I was curt. Just trying to be clear and concise.
23.		How to create a biased coin and prove it with math (izbicki.me)
		66 points by jackpirate on Dec 3, 2011 \| 20 comments
24.		Solarized color theme for Emacs 24 (batsov.com)
		64 points by michaelty on Dec 3, 2011 \| 11 comments
25.		Realtime laser graphics (marcansoft.com)
		61 points by rohit89 on Dec 3, 2011 \| 9 comments
		pavlov on Dec 3, 2011 \| parent \| context \| on: Apple's suggestions to Samsung to work-around its ... As for tablets, Apple identified a similar list of alternative designs available to Samsung: Overall shape that isn't rectangular, or doesn't have rounded corners. Thick frames rather than a thin rim around the front surface. Front surface that isn't entirely flat. Profiles that aren't thin. Cluttered appearance. If Apple were a car maker, they would be "suggesting" that their competitors should design cars with non-circular wheels, thick body metal and a non-aerodynamic appearance.
27.		Welcome to Armageddon, USA: A Tour of America’s Most Toxic Town (wired.com)
		59 points by georgecmu on Dec 3, 2011 \| 12 comments
28.		Science Exchange (YC S11) Gets A $1.5 Million Boost (techcrunch.com)
		59 points by abbottry on Dec 3, 2011 \| 4 comments
29.		Repos.io is the del.icio.us of forges (repos.io)
		54 points by solitaire on Dec 3, 2011 \| 16 comments
30.		DARPA: Shredder Challenge Solved. See images from the winning entry. (shredderchallenge.com)
		54 points by petedoyle on Dec 3, 2011 \| 11 comments
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