jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
My disappointments with Amazon DynamoDB
http://whynosql.com/my-disappointments-with-amazon-dynamodb/
I was really excited with Amazon’s DynamoDB annoucement. After developing for few days with it and using it in production, I was a bit disappointed.
Normal Mapped Photos Using HTML5 Canvas
http://endergen.com/labs/normal_mapping/me/
Normal Maps are calculated based on multiple photos taken from a regular camera. Then the photos are redrawn with dynamic lighting.

All of this is down using Javascript and the <canvas> element.

I'll refactor and release the code when I get some free time. As well I will write up an article explaining how it works as well as how to build your own.
Zoho Creator makes App Engine Apps now
http://blogs.zoho.com/general/zoho-creator-deploys-to-google-app-engine
Did anyone else miss this in December?
Show HN: LittleGift.co – Monthly curated gifts for busy husbands and boyfriends
www.littlegift.co
Google AdWords Can Now Track iOS App Downloads
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/24/google-adwords-can-now-track-ios-app-downloads-in-addition-to-android/
"Google announced today that marketers and advertisers promoting iOS applications can now monitor conversions – meaning app downloads – using Google’s AdWords. (...) However, there is a caveat: Google says that for iOS applications, it’s only able to track downloads driven by ads served within mobile apps – it can’t track iOS app downloads that originate from ad on Google Search or its Google Display network. That limits the level of insight Google can provide into the Apple ecosystem, but at least it’s a step in the right direction in terms of understanding which campaigns are most effective."
Stop using your RSS reader
http://helloform.com/blog/2009/01/stop-using-your-rss-reader/
Fred Oliveira writes about how ditching his RSS reader makes him more productive while staying in the loop.
Ask HN: How has bad technology impacted your life?
A few hours ago I missed a call from a woman I was once very passionately in love with. My first instinct was send her an SMS message, "long time no see". I texted her! The woman who made my heart skip a beat every time I thought about her in 1997. We regularly spent 6-8 hours per night on the phone if we weren't with each other in person.

Relying on Apple's iPhon 3G in San Francisco on AT&T's hideous service has trained into me an expectation that phone-calls are painful and to avoid them. I would have gotten a land-line, but Apple has managed to make me hate telephony, so I don't even bother.

Thinking through this a bit more, Apple isn't the only company who has managed to make me hate the entire core user experience of their product.

What other companies have done this to us?

Here are some of the notable examples I'm coming up with right now.

- Volkswagen, with it's 1999 Jetta, turned me into a
- Firefox trained me to write all responses in VIM and then paste them into a textbox (even this one)
- Adobe Flash has trained me to bookmark every website I go to that I haven't read yet as it consistently crashes all multi-tabbed browsers
- Linux trained me to over-build redundancy into network architectures
Show HN: mvSQLite v0.2
https://github.com/losfair/mvsqlite/releases/tag/v0.2.0
Hello HN! Today I published the v0.2 release of mvSQLite, the open-source SQLite-compatible distributed database built on FoundationDB. This release has gone through a few months of testing, benchmarking and dogfooding since v0.1 and is the first stable and performant production-ready version.
SAS is looking for a Bayesian Specialist
http://www.sas.com/jobs/USjobs/search.html
Description

Join the world's leading statistical software company and make a difference in the way that statistics is practiced! SAS is expanding its statistical procedures by incorporating modern Bayesian methods, and we are looking for a Bayesian specialist to accelerate this exciting development effort.

In this position, you will implement Bayesian inference methods in new and existing SAS procedures. You will select optimal sampling methods for specific Bayesian models and program the methods in C. You will also test and document the software and present it to professional statistical audiences.

Qualifications

Essential

*
Ph.D. in statistics, biostatistics, computer science, or a related field.
*
Experience with Bayesian statistics.
*
Experience with model fitting samplers, such as versions of the Metropolis algorithm and Monte Carlo methods.
*
Experience writing large programs in C, C++, FORTRAN, or a similar scientific programming language.

(note) I write MonteCarlo apps in Ruby. Does that make Ruby a "scientific language"?

(note (note)) What do they mean "scientific language"?
I’m done changing my passwords
https://medium.com/privacy-security-policy/cc7c13b6639a
Screw it
Tell HN: There should be a retract option
When I post something flawed, I should be able to retract my post signalling that I no longer stand by it and have changed my opinion.
Show HN: Sylver – a language agnostic source code analyzer
https://sylver.dev/
I spent the last few weeks playing with the idea of language agnostic source-code analysis. In my experiments, I ended-up building a query engine for source code, along with the necessary infrastructure to turn queries into small reusable linters.

The project is still very rough, but it's enough to build realistic little linters !
How Extreme is your Startup? - Our Journey Through a Canadian Accelerator
http://blog.kera.io/post/36826627638/how-extreme-is-your-startup-our-journey-through-a
http://blog.kera.io/post/36826627638/how-extreme-is-your-startup-our-journey-through-a
Sudoku solver in 1-line of CoffeeScript (with explanation)
https://gist.github.com/3863614
suggestions to make it shorter/cleaner welcome
Ask HN: Why Don't YC Alumni Pay It Forward? (My Personal Plea)
There's well over 200 Y Combinator companies these days. All of these companies receive investment to run their own business. All of these founders subscribe to the belief that "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss" ( http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html ).

Yet to the best of my personal knowledge, none of these companies pay it forward ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward ). Many of these companies have platforms for developers to build on. Yet I can tell you having personally asked a few YC founders about investing in other companies that no YC company pays it foward. The response I've gotten from these founders is "I have no idea how that would work." I call B.S.

These same founders, however, seem to want people working for them. Yes, more people need jobs than need to start companies. But I don't understand how founders can subscribe to the belief of being one's own boss and then turn around and ask everyone else to work for them. It's as if to say "What's good enough for me is to be my own boss. What's good enough for you is to kiss my ass and beg for a job."

So why don't YC alumni pay it forward? Why don't those of you that are founders with funding make a conscious effort to invest in other companies yourselves? At the very least, for those of you that have platforms and API's, why don't you invest in companies to build on your platforms and API's?

BE THE CHANGE.
Ask HN: Collection of Hacker News Meetups 
My friend Jonathan who runs the Hackers & Founders group here in Mountain view (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=iamelgringo) put together this google doc of all the Hacker News meetups and groups he could find:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmQExXr67OcTdDBZZl93MXZwaE4tWlQwTENVMnVQalE&hl=en#gid=0

Is there a HN group near you that isn't on the list? If its not be sure to submit it or add it to the comment thread.
Ask HN: Could domain name registration be the killer app for NFTs?
I have paid hundreds of dollars to basically lease or rent the right to use a domain name. It seems to me that this entire market could be disrupted by a decentralized public blockchain and a browser plugin. Maybe I am missing what value DNS registration companies provide other than an another invoice being sent to me every two years.

Is anyone currently working on something along these lines?
Ask HN: How do you get to be really good?
There seems to me to be an endless supply of "how to learn a little" about almost every programming language there is.

But these things have limited usefulness to me. I know how to get really good at certain things. I've had along habit of being very good at things. I did not go to school for comp sci. I studied violin, music theory, philosophy, and statistics.

But how do you get to be really good at software development?

I've studied Python as a language extensively. I feel like I know it extremely well. I know the idioms and patterns. But I don't know what to use them for.

I've read all the normal books. I've read about design patterns. I feel like I've read all the things, but something just isn't clicking.

I just have no real clue about building software. I feel like I have all the tools and no idea what to do with them. Give me a specific task, great! I can do that. Tell me about a feature you want! Great, I can do that.

But I just don't really know how to get to the next level. I don't know how to get to that place where you can say, "Yeah, I want our api to look like this!" I can make the api look like that. But I don't know how to make that decision.

Not sure if this makes any sense. But there have got to be some HN readers that either currently feel the same way, or have in the past and have some thoughts.

So? How do you get to the next level?
Are You An Egomaniac? 10 Questions with Author Steven Smith
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/09/are-you-an-egom.html
Guy Kawasaki does a quick 10 question interview with Steven Smith, author of "egonomics: what makes ego our greatest asset".
Using location based applications to save real lives
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/25/new-initiative-harnesses-smartphones-to-help-keep-heart-attack-victims-alive/
The San Francisco suburb of San Ramon, California, is holding a press conference right now to launch a new version of the somewhat generic sounding iPhone application 'Fire Department'. The twist; This app will use geo-location to potentially save heart attack victim's lives. Read more...
NoSQL Asia Manifesto - Observations of a Brit in Asia who fell in love with a DB
http://nosqlasia.org/blog/nosql-asia-manifesto
My name's Mark Smalley and I want to help organize a NoSQL conference in South East Asia. I've been living in and around Malaysia for the past 15 years and believe that Kuala Lumpur would be an ideal location to host such an event. At the very least, I would like and plan to transform NoSQLasia.org into a place to help consolidate and organize the flow of information, cross-promotion and marketing of the events and communities that are promoting NoSQL throughout South East Asia.<p>With recent reports suggesting that the NoSQL Market will be a US$14 Billion business in 2013 - 2018 and with almost US$100 Million in recent funding to just 10gen and Neo Technologies alone, it is quite clear that the NoSQL mindset is not just a temporary fad. This is why I also believe that now would be the perfect timing for such an event, so propose that this conference takes place in September 2013<p>The story that proceeds this introduction merely helps to explain why...<p>http://nosqlasia.org/blog/nosql-asia-manifesto
Ask HN: What are pros and cons of using an LLC holding company in startup? 
Let's say you have a company with a launched product. The company is incorporated in Delaware. The founders that started the company all have shares in an LLC which owns 80% of said company. The company has raised a decent amount of seed money and debt. Shares in the LLC can be redistributed at any time with a unanimous vote by all founders (6).

There are only three active founders at this stage, one of them technical.

What are the pros and cons of the above structure as the company pushes for a Series A? Or, how should this company ideally be organized.
Social Graph Persistence: Graph Database Tutorial
http://blog.stavi.sh/social-graph-persistence-in-a-java-graph-data
GraphDB how-to, creates a large synthetic social network to analyze.
Show HN: SoV0: a fixed-supply zero-fee cryptocurrency
https://github.com/sov0/sov0
Hey, we (a team with past experience at the Facebook Libra project and MIT) are unveiling SoV0 into public test today.

Our motivation for SoV0 is to achieve the platonic ideal of a pure coordinated store-of-value asset. As in, take the value prop underlying gold, and push it to its logical conclusion:

- Value is fundamentally a coordination game, and gold is valuable because it's a natural coordination point, owing to: [1] limited supply growth (i.e. scarce) [2] persistent (i.e. doesn't decay much), and [3] compellingly due to... being shiny.

- Similarly, SoV0 aims to be an even more natural coordination point by satisfying all of these properties to the maximum extent possible:
[1] fixed supply [2] zero fees (basically fees = decay), and [3] compelling elegance of being the simplest possible thing that can satisfy fixed supply & zero fees.

In terms of design, SoV0 is about as basic as a blockchain can be: just a text document detailing who owns how much of the asset, plus some basic support for sending & receiving assets. The main challenge here (and SoV0's core novelty) is how to enforce proper operation of such a system without monetary incentives. This requires that SoV0 be intentionally limited in functionality (e.g. slow, no smart contract support, too coarse to be a currency). As a result, there's no need for fees to regulate the system, and consensus can be directly maintained by users rather than explicitly paid for (as in rewards in proof of work / stake). More details in the whitepaper: https://github.com/sov0/sov0.

More broadly: Our interest in the blockchain space is strongly motivated by an aesthetic preference for building 'ideal' institutions that can eventually exist in a fixed form forever, and thus feel more like fundamental aspects of the world than typical human constructs (so, more like Bitcoin, less like the Ethereum or other modern general-purpose L1 blockchains). SoV0 is our first attempt at applying this approach to the simplest possible case: a pure store coordinated value store.

I'll do my best to answer any questions here. Thanks!
How do I install an application on a Linux system from a zip file?
How do I install an application on a Linux system from a zip file? I find that many programs now are at github and they provide a zip file. I can not find the programs in the repository and they do not use a .tar or .deb file system.
Thanks
9 Reasons FlightCaster is the future of startups
http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2009/08/18/9-reasons-FlightCaster-s-the-Future.aspx
1 month + Hadoop + Clojure + Cascading + Amazon = Predicts when your flight will be delayed before it happens
Four epic meltdowns
http://pastebin.com/EmM6sZnR
HN contributor at-fates-hands mentioned he knew of five different cases of a developer "melting down" in epic fashion. I and others prompted him for the stories. The first story is in the original thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5577734
Ask HN: Did you get funds for your startup, being out of US?
Hi guys

I was wondering if any of you had success raising funds for your startup from US investors being on another country. If yes, can you share your experience?

I have a B2B SaaS company in Brazil already up and running with dozens of clients and I would like to expand it to US market. But for that I would definitely need some extra capital.

Thanks in advance!
Difference between JavaScript and Java?
The first thing people do when they are learning is think that these two languages are very correlated because of the Java prefix.
But, i've heard they are not?
I know Java, and i'm learning Javascript, and so far they are very similar at a glance...

So, what are the similarities and differences between them? Why the similar name?
And if anyone can give me an easy definition of script that would be cool..
Disconnect from your laptop 2 hours a day
http://toniowhola.posterous.com/disconnect-from-your-laptop-for-2-hours-a-day
my first post while I'm drunk. Don't take it seriously.
IPhone: Why a 4-inch display is to prefer over 3.5 Inches
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/10/gadget-patrol-bigger-is-better.html
It's not about one-handed phone use; folks who think in terms of smartphones as a one-handed device are still stuck in the telephone age). The real bone of contention is what to do about ageing eyeballs in the era of visual media. While the market for one-handed talk-to-me gadgets is declining, the number of folks with sub-optimal eyesight is only going to grow with time
Silicon Valley Startup Funding Map
http://fundmap.vc
Is the startup scene actually moving to SF? I put together some actual (SEC) data on this. The answer is yes. But contrary to popular opinion, the startup scene in Palo Alto is not declining, it's just flat (measured by funding dollars).
Facebook Significantly Improves Photo Viewing Experience On Timeline
http://www.redmondpie.com/facebook-significantly-improves-photo-viewing-experience-on-timeline/
The pressure on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to continue updating and improving the social network has perhaps never been so fierce, and as well as placing a lot of emphasis on monetizing and enhancing its mobile ventures, Zuck’s team has just revealed some significant changes to the site’s photo viewing capabilities.
Creativity and usefulness Re: Why smart people have bad ideas
http://greendestinyonyc.blogspot.com/2007/08/creativity.html
I think this is topic that interests most of us at hacker news. Please comment here and consider this a draft, I'll be happy to change the post based on feedback.
Is Mozilla Punting on Web Apps for Linux?
http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/is-mozilla-punting-on-web-apps-for-linux.html
From the 'Mozilla Isn't a Linux Vendor' files:
Ask HN: We Have Been Asked for a Price to License Our Online Game. How Much?
A popular online game portal wants to license our html5 game. They are a large company, one of the largest in the industry. What is an approximate value for a license like this? Any additional advice?
Show HN: Risky, a Chrome extension for 'risky clicks'
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/risky/epcggdncglpenbfnacnaedpgpknnekcd
Source on GitHub: https://github.com/JoelOtter/risky
JailbreakMe - It's out! (JB for iPhone 4/3GS iOS 4 & iPad iOS 3.2.1)
http://www.jailbreakme.com
Elegant jailbreak. No computer required -- jailbreak from the device by visiting the website http://www.jailbreakme.com.
Ask HN: Book recommendations for 2015?
I've just been going over all the stuff I read in 2014 [1], one of which was a recommendation from HN: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I've found some great recommendations in the past in threads like this, so any idea for the HN demographics? Might be a good place to share what you read in 2014, too!

[1] http://danielhough.co.uk/blog/books-of-2014/
The Cost of Small Files in the Cloud
http://leifw.wickland.net/2011/04/price-of-files-in-cloud.html
I need to store 12 million small files totaling 6 GB in the cloud. Amazon's S3 or Rackspace's Cloud Files has wildly divergent costs. One is two orders of magnitude more expensive than the other.
Return first true-ish value in PHP
https://coderwall.com/p/h5t7rq
Duplicating what other languages have done for years.
Concepts removed from C++0x
http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=cplusplus&seqNum=441
Concepts, which were probably the marquee feature of the new C++ standard, have been dropped following a vote by the standards committee.
How do companies like this get funding?
http://www.powerbalance.com/australia/ca
Selling a product that doesn't work.
Anti-Fragility
http://curiouslypersistent.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/nassim-nicholas-taleb-and-antifragility/
I thought some of you might be interested in this, It's an enjoyable read. I hear echoes of many PG articles throughout.

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/176227/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb
An Opportunity for Borderlands to Stay Open
http://borderlands-books.blogspot.com/2015/02/an-opportunity-for-borderlands-to-stay.html
Discussion about Borderlands closing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8991899
What is the most reliable Hard Drive Brand/Model
I had some hard drive issues over the weekend and am in the market for a new drive for my server(24/7 use).

these are my current drives:

WD 250GB WD2000BB-00GUA0 @ 19700 hrs Still running

Seagate Barracuda 200GB ST3200822AS @ 3000 hr Still running

Seagate Barracuda 250GB ST3250623A @ 6200 hr works intermittenly/seek error/

Seagate Barracuda 250GB ST3250623A @ ~5400 hr dead as a door nail

Hitachi 2TB JK1101YBJESBXF @ 100 hr brand new & still working

--

What are your best and worst experiences with what hard drives?
Coming soon to GMail: See who is accessing your mail
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign-out-and-info-to-help-you.html
This is absolutely brilliant. It's been done on the web before but rarely and usually not so well. Of course, it's the same thing you get on logging into a shell account and using "w" or "last" but doing it on the web is really a big deal. Every web site with access control should provide some sort of log like this. It seems like a simple enough idea but why isn't everyone doing it?
VIDEO: Calacanis discusses job hopping pros & cons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9DUK_4fbg
In this video at the 1:34 mark I talk about the job hopping issue, loyalty, etc.
Notational Velocity now with Simplenote Integration
http://scrod.posterous.com/interesting-facts-about-simplenote-support-in
My favorite Mac notes taking application just got a major release!
Ask HN: Professional Services for Startups (Legal/Tax/Acct) for 2% Equity?
I've heard that a number of legal firms are offering interesting alternative payment systems for their professional services.

I'm wondering how interested the startup community would be in offering equity instead of cash upfront for these services. Many startups are unable to afford the cost that comes with professional assistance and push off the cost until later when it's to late.

I'm just curious as to how people feel about this practice and how many people are willing to take this type of offer.

In short (tl;dr)
You buy an internal professional services department (legal, tax and acct) for 2% equity.
Getting CherryPy Working With uWSGI
http://nileshgr.com/2012/08/27/getting-cherrypy-working-with-uwsgi.html
Getting CherryPy Working With uWSGI
Top mistakes of startups rising from Nokia's ashes
http://toughloveangel.com/2012/10/15/top-ten-mistakes-of-startups-rising-from-nokias-ashes/
A blog post series reflecting common mistakes by startups created by ex-Nokia people. Advices that are work for other startups too and especially for ex-corporate people jumping the bandwagon of startups.
Blogging as a Full Time Career? 
http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/22/technorati-full-time-bloggers-are-making-more-money-than-ever/#
Should catch on, particularly as a home office enterprise.
Ask Technical co-founders: % of time developing, sys-admin'ng?
If you are a technical co-founder: How much % of your time you spend developing, and how much as a sys-admin? Thanks
OS X Lion: Easiest OS upgrade ever? 
http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2011/072011-lion-upgrade.html#slide1
Assuming you don't use applications that require PowerPC, upgrading from Mac's Snow Leopard to Lion could very well be the easiest OS upgrade you've ever met. Here are the results of my own upgrade, with screenshots throughout the process.