skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Linux vs. BSD on EC2
After reading the prior thread about whether or not startups should use EC2 for hosting, I was left wondering what the leanest possible approach would be to hosting an OS image... and do we have a truly optimal image for this purpose yet?

From a strictly computational perspective, which OS platform is better suited for this? My guess is that this contest would be between Linux and BSD (Solaris has too fat an ass?). From what I understand, the BSDs are tightly engineered with the goals of performance and efficiency in mind (still has the best networking stack, or so I hear), whereas Linux may tend to be more hackish (I am not an authority here!). However, Linux's advantage could be its modularity, making it easier to shape it to specialized puposes (like cloud computing).

I've heard a lot of geeks say that although Linux makes for a better free desktop, a BSD would be their first choice as a server.

So, in the cloud computing landscape, who will perform better? A tight BSD image, or a tight Linux image? Which will be more efficient in terms of computational resources used?

BONUS QUESTION: Do you think virtualization services like EC2 will drive the creation of new *nix variants that are optimized for max price/performance on cloud services? If you know of any that exist now, please post links!
That is ABSOLUTELY correct!
Nonbelievers.
my middle name + a color as a prefix
No degree, but 990 GRE in maths, and 3 top 200 scores on the Putnam. First programmed in '63, unless you count wiring a Brainiac, which I did some years earlier. Finally getting around to studying Lisp <(+ grin groan)>.
Zen and the art of building a tech industry
So, a program that loads certain text, then recognizes the primary points of the text, and prints it the filtered version?

I'd think that there would be much better uses for it than as a BS-O-Meter for political literature.

Think about a program that could generate the summary of an essay or book, or assist novice writers in writing concisely. Maybe use it as a service that takes news items and abbreviates them for busy people who want to stay on top of things. you could call it, snapnews.com or something.
In sports photography you tend to take a burst of images. This means the ball could be removed by copying from a previous frame and not leave a cloned section.
Spielberg quits Olympics work to protest Chinese inaction
So I'm interested in everyone else's response at the end. Would you have sat down? What would be your response to the second command to sit?
On the show, he sat. :)
FreeBSD doesn't run on EC2 yet. I'm working on it. :-)

Leaving that minor detail aside, I (unsurprisingly) think FreeBSD is much better than any variety of linux for this purpose. The first rule of running servers is "apply security patches", while the second rule is "don't break things" (some people reverse these two...). FreeBSD works with a concept of "stable branches", and as a general rule, FreeBSD does not break APIs or ABIs except across major version upgrades. In contrast, security patches to linux have been known to change kernel/userland interfaces, as well as kernel APIs -- either of which can result in system administrators needing to run around fixing things after applying a security update.

This is even more relevant in the context of cloud computing, where the patching (or not patching) of the operating system is performed by someone (e.g., Amazon) other than the people actually using the virtual machine instances. I don't think Amazon has really figured out what to do with linux here; but for FreeBSD the right answer is simple: Update images as soon as security updates are released, secure in the knowledge that doing so won't break anything.
I like the idea, though if it became in widespread use, writers would do as spammers do--write to get past your filter.

One concern is that it'd be labor intensive for you to build up a large enough corpus with some metric to compare to so you know how well you're doing. Marking it by hand is labor intensive, and if you use a lot of humans, it might be a little inconsistent.
Clothes That Produce Power
The only reason for that speech was to get him to say, "Sit down."
I think Conway needs to expand his metaphor repertoire a bit. Buzzwords as well - I think I'll be pretty good if I don't hear the phrases "added value" or "ocean's 11 team" for another weeek.
This is a great article, even though I disagree with most of it. I think it's a great article because the conventional wisdom about college does need to be challenged. Just like the notion that you have to attend a prestigious college to be successful needs to be debunked, the notion that you have to attend college at all should be challenged.

I'd agree wholeheartedly with anyone who said that college should not be a default choice. There are all kinds of amazing opportunities for learning now that don't require a degree. He had me while he was arguing that college can be a big waste of time for a lot of people - but he starts to lose me when he starts to argue against college.

Personally, I have my doubts about anyone learning advanced math or physics without an intellectual environment similar to the one you'll get at college. I learned from my peers in a study group at least as much as from my professors. I suppose you don't strictly have to be enrolled - and maybe you could view webcasts and form a general study group outside the university - but that would be an argument against a formal degree, not an argument against a college education.
Nice paper!
Well, if I was him and I just made that fantastic speech, I would have proceeded to pack up my things to drive home the point that "I'm not staying unless you convince me I'm not wasting my time."

If I was me I probably would have never made that speech, and I would have remained sitting.
I think you'd find that usefulness dimishes pretty rapidly as the problem domain expands. The reason spam filters work as well as they do is that most spam pretty much looks alike. Likewise, there are only so many ways you can phrase soothing platitudes that will get soccer moms to vote for you.
One thing to add - he's not totally off base about the 400K price tag. If you could earn 50K/year as a high school grad, that's 200K in lost earnings (though it would be taxed). Stanford's tuition is about 40K/year now, right? So there's another 160K. Not too far off (I wouldn't count living expenses, because those would be incurred regardless of whether you were in college).

A high school grad with no skills isn't going to earn 50K a year as a dishwasher. But someone smart enough to get through Computer Science at MIT might easily blow through the 50K/year estimate. So the opportunity cost could actually be much higher than 400K.
Ask YC: Is Y Combinator itself a startup?
Having said so many things about startups, to what extent is it recursive?
I'm "researching"/teaching myself knowledge representation and knowledge management at the moment. I read a lot about the Semantic Web and how it will be the most wonderful thing, but I suspect that we will just end up with "tag soup".
Huh, that's interesting. I had saw it as a pissing match between the two guys. It seemed like if the younger guy sat, he'd be conceding command. And yet, the mere fact that he was asked to sit down means the older guy concedes his point. That's why I was wondering.
Having grown up in a family business that was retail sales, I find myself doing this quite often, without realizing it.

I suppose part of it is just having social graces and putting someone at ease, but I feel like a bit of conman if meeting people who are very different from each other in quick succession and changing my behavior with each one.
I don't think they'd do that. The purpose of the fluff is not (usually) to deliberately conceal their beliefs. It's there because it's what some people want to read. They want a candidate who "cares". I don't think the people who write the fluff would have any motivation to try to beat fluff filters.
You are not trying to pick a name. You are trying to build a brand. The canonical text on the subject is The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.

The name, logo type, mascot, tag line etc should all be coherent and consistent.

Here's Steve Yegge on branding:
http://blip.tv/file/319044/
Byl jsem narozeny cech, spravne prazak, ale ted jsem american. Prominte, muj pocitac nema hacky a carky, a moje cesina je detska.
he should stick to making movies - we want a minority report sequel!
I'm guessing that post-IPO Google stock is looking really good now compared to Yahoo.
I found my application name, Tasko (http://taskodone.com), from esperanto. (mean 'task').

http://www.itanda.com/dictionary.php?Dictionary=EnglishEsper...
http://www.kisa.ca/vortaro/
I can understand that. However, my target audience is not the hacker news readership :-D

My target was people who don't want to set up a streaming server from their desktop computer, so they can upload the music.

I wasn't actually aware of anywhere.fm. It seems to be written all in flash (or flex) and I really don't like that. So mine is mostly javascript and css/html.
http://www.amazon.com/Fit-Life-Harvey-Diamond/dp/1567315194/...

http://www.amazon.com/80-10-Diet/dp/1893831248/ref=pd_bbs_sr...

http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Live-Revolutionary-Formula-Sustain...

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020121horne/02...

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020125shelton....

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020126shelton....
We consciously try to operate as much like a startup as we can. Except for Jessica, it's the side of the business world we have the most experience in anyway.
Yes...I saw this article a few days ago and immediately thought of my project. The psychologica reasons people do the things they do is fascinating...and I think if you want to have a successful website/startup/etc you need to understand the human spirit and what makes it tick. I know I've thought a lot about incentives and what gets people hooked on a process...what rewards are available if a user follows a particular behavior. If you look at successful social networking sites you can see how these factors contribute to its success.
My head hurts now. I should have prepared for this with more sleep.
I agree, I'm glad I haven't wasted time on college, learning everything myself has been more beneficial. In certain cases, like that of doctors or lawyers college is essential!
yeah I named him remindsyou.com
Thanks, Jmorin, that took me back.
I actually tried polyphasic sleep for a while (6-7 weeks), and it was great after I adjusted. It was a little creepy being up all night, but I wrote a lot of code, and felt fine.

The only problem is the nap schedule makes it impossible to have any scheduled commitments. As soon as school started, I just couldn't keep up with the naps.

My advice: polyphasic sleep is great, IF you don't have any scheduled time commitments.

(If you're curious about polyphasic sleep, I suggest you try it. It's an interesting experience, regardless of whether or not it's practical.)
The only way to make it work is to have a computer model that represents human concepts (this was why we started our company actually) None of the current representation schemas do the job, so unless someone comes up with a new model, the power of the programming language you use won't help much. I think with the right model, though, deploying in Lisp could be pretty powerful. It requires serious epistemology work and also logic. I think Fred Sommers has the right logic for the job, but the conceptual model is still needed.
I didn't even obey the command to install Flash 9.
I would suggest they break those new items into "extended features" and let customers add them in for a fee.

This way you they wouldn't throw a bunch of new stuff at people too fast, which seems to be what is happening. They are getting a "mini-revolt" because people seem to be saying "hey just throw in one more feature and this product is the same as that other one... why should we pay twice?"
until a great hack comes along and get that rgb in your life
PG's On Lisp translated into Japanese
whose reality?
My advice: hire a graphic designer. the ui is way too cluttered and just plain unpleasant.
4-6 hrs + amphetamines for my ADD. on the weekends when I don't take my speed I can sleep for about 12 hours.
heh, I guess that's what I get for trying a different video sharing service. :/
+1 for Raymond Smullyan's books. Lots of fun.
You don't like flash?
Taking a Look At Spottt - Hey, At Least They Have A Cute Dog
13 Sure Signs Your Landing Page is a Turn-Off
Of course I'd sit. I just convinced him the worthiness of my idea, and in dealing with someone so prideful, you have to show some face to get the business. When arguing with such stubborn and prideful people, the best conclusion that can happen is proving your point without humiliating that person (again, only if you want do business). That is, if you can swallow your own pride. I'd sit and say "I'm listening".
I agree 100%.
I'm curious if you started taking those as an adult or a child and if you wish it was one way or the other.
Who is a good beta test target?
So I have a site i2drive.com and I am adding a new major feature which will become an add-on product. I want to release it as beta and get some feedbacks before it’s done. I don't know who I should test this on?

1. Some users that have free accounts

2. Some of the paying customers

3. Some business customers

4. None of the above and test it with friends etc and release the final product to the customers?
It's the same as the "guess how many jelly beans are in the jar" contests with a baseball in the middle. Even if you mathematically figured out how many should be in there, you'll still be wrong.

(I actually won a jar of skittles that wasn't loaded by mathematically estimating the number of skittles. I wonder if this counts as a non-computer system that I hacked for the YC funding application.)
Just invert this:

http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
The cluetrain manifesto
it is easy, you take a bunch of popular sites and combine into one mega name.

Myfacebookinrtube.com
Odd that poker sites wouldn't wait for checks to clear. I guess that would hamper impulse gambling. The traditional way to do this sort of thing:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_n11_v62/ai_15...
There are a couple of things to consider:

Paying and business customers might not want a beta service that is likely to be buggy. They may want a solid system that is as reliable as possible. On the other hand, they may like the idea of getting new features "first" even if it is going to be a beta. It depends on who your typical customers are: Techies, business types, college students...

Don't give it to the free accounts unless it's already been tested and proven reliable. If someone signs up with a free account to test the waters and then has to deal with a potentially buggy product they might be turned off from your service.

If you have friends who are representative of typical customers (both free, payed, and business) then it would be a good idea to release it to them first. If they are not representative of your typical users you will probably find that you encounter other problems that you weren't aware of during the beta.

If it were my decision, I would alpha test it amongst friends and family until the functional bugs are worked out, then offer it as an option to select (randomized between free, paid, and business) customers to see if they want to sign up for the beta for free (Limited time only!). Make sure they know that the beta is from for x months only. Then when it's time to move it into an add-on product, make it publicly available and offer those who alpha and beta tested it a discount on the service if they want to continue with it.
This is dead on. A site has to be extremely innovative and useful for me to sink even the time to register into it. Conversely, even a decently useful-looking site with an overly complex registration process usually gets bypassed as well.

Extremely fast-registering sites (like Hacker News, for example) have spoiled me. ;)
Recently... ~7 hours

Unfortunately those 6 hours have usually been 6AM to 1PM...
Tivo Phone Home...
An obvious solution that comes to mind is to rent virtual hardware and let customers do the patching.
Going to a small, private college is also a completely different experience than attending a large state school. The entire pedagogical style is difference: small (<15 students) conference courses and one-on-one meetings with profs are the norm, rather than the exception.

I'm not saying that private schools make sense a strict cost/benefit level; if you read my other posts in this thread, you'll see that I'm nearly as dubious as the author of the original article about the real economic benefits of a four-year degree. I just don't think that $200k is an unusually high total cost for four years of college.
I guess this is why they have been unable to understand the internet, they live in an era were software was written by big groups of people and getting them to communicate meant having meetings.
How to design a system that everybody hates
First Look at Firefox 3.0 Beta 3
I too would be interested (pending acceptance of course); I think the most effective technique would be to provide some kind of networking ahead of time (not sure how that would work, but a wiki is always a good first step).
Don't Turn Your Back on Your Brain
How many people showed up?
Don't go using any of your NLP voodoo juju on me!
Definitely interested, would be great i think...ofcourse, i got to be allowed to be there :-D
Does my Company Love Me?
Very good suggestions. I think that's what I'll do; the sampling, limiting the time and giving discounts are all good points.

By the way I looked at your startup and it looks very good. I'm also In Los Angeles. If you ever needed any type of help or just wanted to get together let me know.
Please forward that question to the Department of Questions, where it will be reviewed by the Answer Board as part of the Quarterly Question/Answer Reconciliation Meeting. Your question record # is 176849847
i didn't say college is a waste of time, i pointed out one way the pro-college arguments are flawed. repeating myself in different words: some arguments advocate a lifestyle (college) in part for certain benefits, that are easily available from rival lifestyles. so they are not an advantage over college's rivals. so they should be left out of the discussion.
Clojure is the best Lisp yet
You post was generally palatable, but did not have the correct percentage of Ron Paul.
The article's picture goes great with the current top story (the mimicry one).
If they are actively interviewing and hiring people, then yes, that is exactly why.
Agreed. It really depends on the kind of travel. Watching other people commute is not mind expanding. That said moving somewhere totally different and working there for a year is.
Count me in as well. I'm in LA but always looking for an excuse to go up north.
TwoFish Announces Micro-Transaction Engine for Games
Here's a shorter version of the same thing:

http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html
like "mine," "moped," "moping," ...

or perhaps, "muzzle" ??

;)
It's really ugly. If you don't mind me saying.
Microsoft (dot) Alcatraz.

Great domain right there!
Ah, good point. But in that case, Microsoft still put their foot down, and it was decided in a Washington state court.

(I just did some research about this a few weeks ago. Had Google filed a case first, asking for a declaratory judgment, they likely could have gotten it handled in California courts, and the decision would have gone the other way. Seems like a rather screwy system...)
There were about 20 at the dinner on Friday night.
The one book you need to read to get in YC
Did I forget to say you may be quizzed on this book on the interview... ;-)
Use Automator to automatically send bithday cards to friends
I was using about eight Twinings' Earl Grey tea bags per day, five or six days per week.
Facebook for Colleges
Also, "before you leap" is a very strange way to spell "moar."
In such a setting, I would assume that nothing happens without reason; at least that is the marketer's motto...
For someone who funds a couple Flash-based startups, that's a little surprising...
Google's online ad market share slips
From the article: "I've had a chance to interview many cashiers and evaluate many Point of Sale (POS) systems for usability."

I've seen plenty of Point Of Sale systems where POS would more accurately mean Piece Of ####.
Nanowires allow 'power dressing'
No, I just didn't have Flash 9 installed on the machine I was using.

Some of the startups choosing between Javascript and Flash say that this is one of the problems with Flash. If you choose any recent version, some fraction of people won't have it installed, and faced with the interruption of installing it, will just click on Back instead.
Spore to go on sale in September
Hands on with Arm's Android
So why did he take the job?
Memo to Microsoft: Yahoo's A-list
Good point. There needs to be a good reason to get mandate an install. Sorta like desktop software.
Comcast to FCC: We block only 'excessive' traffic
Microsoft fixes 17 flaws in 11 patches; 6 are 'critical'
New Net neutrality bill frowns on ISP 'favoritism'
Microsoft seeing Xbox shortages in U.S.
Should We Educate Our Clients?
FreeBSD would be worthwhile in any virtual environment because it works well in low memory environments. I've got a FreeBSD server with 64MB of RAM. It has been running for years. It has been patched but it hasn't required a hardware upgrade.
Scrounging for bargains at CompUSA
Yahoo seen in News Corp talks but analysts dubious
ZTE says in talks with Sprint on WiMax handsets
Depression risk might force U.S. to buy assets
Bus Scheme - A Scheme interpreter written in Ruby
PHP makes it possible for people to use it poorly, yes. Blame bad developers, not the language that lets them write bad code.

If I want to write a widget that a majority of designers can easily plug into their own sites, I write it in PHP, because it's portable.

Maybe that makes me an amateur, but sometimes I can't just code in the pretty, pure languages all day.
Microsoft and Sony Ericsson create smartphone
BlackBerry network fails for second time in ten months
EBay abandons negative comments about buyers
there. is. no. box.
Beware Bogus E-Valentines
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names” – Old Chinese proverb.
Cellphone can read to you from pictures it takes
Yahoo buys Maven video service for $160M
Conjuring creatures in EA's 'Spore' (Pictures)
From the article: "nearly all real numbers are transcendental."

I'll put forward the facetious argument that only half of the real numbers are transcendental. Between every pair of non-equal rationals exists a transcendental. Between every pair of non-equal transcendentals exists a rational. Therefore, only half of the real numbers are transcendental.
Open-source software: It's the free coffee cup of today
Sun's super supercomputer to launch
Intel Offices Raided in EU Antitrust Probe
Starbucks Brews WiFi Deal With AT&T
RIM May Offer Touchscreen BlackBerry
Ask YC: passive income?
I'd really like to hear how any hackers have developed a stream of passive income. Things like ads on your blog, open source libraries/apps (donations?), maybe even a side project that users pay for.

I'm getting ready to release a self-hosted web application for free (open source!) and was hoping I could pull off some passive income from either ads or donations (I'd be happy if it'd pay my VPS bills).
New meat-eating dinos identified
Does anyone know how to install macports?
I'm having a hard time. The new release (1.6.0) has a bug that makes installation fail. How do I get this to work? I ran

$ touch .profile

and tried to compensate for a failure in the postflight of the installer.

I did stuff with the paths, but I can't get this thing to work. Any advice?