skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yes, the author spent way too much time before getting to his relatively trivial point:

Where Tomcat and other Web servers fall short is in the area of features such as distributed transactions, EJBs, and JMS. Applications requiring support for these components are usually more at home in with a Java EE application server such as JBoss, Geronimo, WebLogic, WebSphere, or Glassfish. Many Java EE application servers actually use Tomcat as their Web container.
http://xkcd.com/224/
I agree. I figured out the reason I stayed up late in high school was because that was the only time nothing interrupted me.
Stands like the iCurve ( http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Technology-iCurve-Laptop-Stand... ) take up almost zero space inside a suitcase.
My god! It's full of 'car's!
The convention in question is actually a technique American typesetters used to keep track of the punctuation. It doesn't exist because it makes sense, but because of a trick of the trade.
>...So, for example, suppose culture contains a trigger which causes parents to be more discouraging of one type of children's book than another, for girls. ...

I could consider such explanations plausible for explaining gender gaps between law and chemistry.

But theoretical high energy physics vs experimental condensed matter physics? That sounds way too specific for a diffuse cultural cue that no one can identify.

>By what mechanism does testosterone cause aggressive personalities?

Hmm, I thought testosterone increased aggression, but a quick google search suggests the correlation goes the other way.

Nevertheless, it is known that most male mammals are more aggressive than females. Whatever the biochemical cause, this trait (in humans) could explain greater success/participation in business.
Are Whales Smarter Than We Are?
That would be awesome if they joined. If only we could get Google to extend open social to Facebook... I don't think these guys are realizing what they could do if they worked together. And it's not like it would cost them anything either.
When will stuff like this stop passing for humor? You can take any set of facts, grossly exaggerate it, and then deadpan it. You could probably write a program to do it for you.
I commented to Allen, the post author, that I think it's very important that he include Andy's stated loan-making strategy before he starts casting doubt on Prosper's, or peer to peer lending in general's, effectiveness:

"We focus our lending efforts on people who [...] Have a lower credit score (and are thus willing to pay higher interest rates)"*

While Andy does try to mitigate that risk, he's still purposely lending to the highest-risk group available.

Using Prosper's own (very useful) dynamic statistics page, we can see that of all loans made since March 28th(when Andy made his first loan)^, 8.17% are late. BUT, only 4.53% are over 1 month late. Furthermore, out of the total number of late loans, ~60% are loans made to D, F, and HR credit ratings, the low credit score group Andy loaned to.

When you loan to a high risk group, you have to be willing to accept the potential negative consequences of that risk. Andy decided to limit that risk, but I think he staked too much importance on loaning to people with no delinquencies on their credit report, forgetting that past performance is not always a good indicator of future actions.

By Andy's own admission, he's gained 10% on the 5k he loaned. Hardly cause to start waving the bad debt flag, especially if the 2/3rds of his bad debt that are 1 month late or less come back to current, with late fees.

I've been keeping my own coverage of social lending services updated. I hope you'll find it useful:
http://socialstrategist.com/2007/06/08/small-loans-big-bucks...

*http://andyswan.com/2007/06/25/prosper-is-really-cool/ - Andy's first post

^http://www.prosper.com/lend/performance.aspx?af=0&esba=6... - Statistics from Prosper
Quantum Field Theory. Swastika. Software for MySpace that stops ALL spam. Update profiles. Coded entirely in Flash...

All of this goodness was not necessary, Brandon, you had me at "SinGlE -N- RdY 2 MiNgLe"! 'Tis poetry.

[The Hypetrain leaves the station at 9am, folks...hurry, hurry, hurry!]
But theoretical high energy physics vs experimental condensed matter physics? That sounds way too specific for a diffuse cultural cue that no one can identify.

That is hard to explain, with any method. (i.e., the correct explanation appears likely to depend on the complex relationship between lots of details). But I think at least our culture contains knowledge of what different types of physics are, whereas our genes don't.

Edit: And we know our culture created different types of physics and has mechanisms for people to learn about them, and to become interested in learning about them. it wouldn't be a huge shock if they had some quirks and biases in them.

-----

@testosterone: animals don't have personalities in the sense humans do. I'm asking for an explanation of a mechanism that would work on humans.

The primary issue is that humans have general intelligence, by which they normally make decisions. So the mechanism by which testosterone (or something else) works needs to either bypass intelligence somehow (but then you'd have to explain why it still constitutes part of someone's personality), or harness intelligence and work with/through it. No such issues arise in the animal case.
he was being sarcastic.
I agree, twitter is a great idea. I've found a few parties that way.
Something about this article feels wrong. Maybe it's the author's disdain for technology, or the apparent hatred towards multi-tasking (the author brings up the story of how he/she crashed while checking pictures on their camera while it was raining - this is their fault, not the phones'). The whole article seems like a, 'Remember the good ol' days when things were more simple?' story, telling of how all our technology has made things worse and by golly we should be concentrating on one thing only. Yet everyone multi-tasks, we were designed to do it; our ancestors had to concentrate on hunting in groups, and in doing so concentrate on their prey and communication among the group.

Sure, too much multi-tasking is probably a bad thing, as can be said about anything, but it's so useful to multi-task. Everyone here is probably multi-tasking five different browser windows with ten different tabs in each while messaging and ssh'd into a server. It is just so efficient to concentrate on the most we can handle at once.

This line cements this article for me as an ill-formed hate piece against technology:
"What has the madness of multitasking cost us? The better question might be: What hasn't it?"

This line of reasoning is what I hear from religious fundamentalists about science.

And is the author actually trying to blame multi-tasking for Enron and Iraq?!?! Seriously, references are made towards how people were fooled by enron's constant multi-tasking of corporate tax law, saying that people were just too blazed by the sheer number of tasks in their everyday life to catch them, and then references a quote later from Guiliani on the concentration of US military power towards iraq, iran, afghanistan, implying in a low handed way that were being suckered by the administration. This article is garbage. This article isn't even about multi-tasking.

(also,) does (the author (really) like lisp (or something)(?))
I was startled but not surprised to find the inevitable links to two additional pages after my initial interest had abated.
The point is not to replace Google, but to change the rules so Google's strengths are neutralized. I didn't dream this up, it's straight from Clayton Christensen. Since nobody knows what the next rule changes will take effect, anyone can be replaced insofar as any company can have only a limited number of strengths, no matter how much they're diversified.
I agree with all of pg's sentiments except for "it is not a good idea to have formal advisors who are neither board members nor investors."

Lots of great companies have formal advisors who are neither board members nor investors. I encourage entrepreneurs to turn proven smart + helpful people into advisors.

The board's primary task is governance, not advice. Lots of great advisors don't even want to deal with being on your board. pg is probably a good example of that.

I would also argue that, to some degree, YC is effectively acting as an advisor, not an investor. This is consistent with the fact that some/many? of the YC grads say that they would give YC the equity for free, just to participate in the program.

I'll write up detailed thoughts on Venture Hacks soon. I'm sure you're holding your breath. =)
Rapidly Prototyping Rockets
Best of Luck. Nothing personal, just curious. :)
If we continue the multi-task metaphor, i think it's the context-switching that hurts the effectiveness of multi-tasking in work. If the interruption is over instant messenger, it's not as bad. Sometimes I have to put on headphones with loud music to cut out the white-noise office chatter.

1. Coding for project
2. Interruption from business analyst on project/another project
3. Write this-is-where-I-am-with-the-code to "mental" disk
4. Answer business analyst
5. Resume coding
6. "Mental" disk: File Not Found (see 3)
Digg, Twitter and Flickr all have a 'relatively' higher barrier to entry. To run any of these services you require a fairly substantial investment. This is not true for bookmarking extensions.
Also this logic about investing in Teams and Markets - not products is faulty. This kind of thinking is what causes a bubble. If a team is good, part of it shows in the product they choose to build.
+1 for Starchild reference. I saw 2001 again recently. Amazing work. I still don't claim to understand it. But it makes you think.
Survey: Will Google become self-aware first or will it be able to let you find the missing socks you lost in the laundry?
"Let them eat CDO's"
I gave up after the first page. Not because I was doing too many other things but the article just seemed crap with no actual science content. With so many other options life is too short short to read some no-content, neo-Luddite, arts student rant. Maybe that is why these type of people don't like the options provided by technology - it means that we don't have to read their pretentious fluff.
> Welcome my friends.It is a very special occasion indeed, and i can assure you that this is the single most important thread that you will have ever read in your entire life. Since I am not a man of many words, the least i can do is offer you a proposal for your inclusion and cooperation to change the world and revolutionize computing in ways never before thought possible.

You almost lost me there to the irony of your words.
I went to a public school that was on par with some private schools. It was funded by real-estate taxes (wealthy area). I had a long discussion about whether wealthy parents make the difference in making their children's education a priority - and we concluded that it is the parent's involvement in their children's education that is important (over money)
"You're saying white people can jump? ;)"

When this comes up, I always like to point to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIBA_World_Championship

Professionals started participating in 1994. Since then, the U.S.A. has won exactly once (in 1994). If you look at team photos of recent medalists, you will see many pigmentally challenged individuals (Spain, Greece, Argentina, Yugoslavia, etc.).

Further anecdotes: the last three NBA MVP awards went to a white German guy (one time) and a white Canadian guy (two times).
From today, feel free to download another 25 million songs - legally
I represented myself in US Federal court on a civil rights action against a county and Sheriff's department, and prevailed. Had never previously picked up a law book. Gathered evidence myself, and circumvented the defendant's attempts at destroying some of that evidence. All things considered, it was a coup on my part.
That's pretty awesome.

I guess this is what John Carmack is doing with his fortune from Doom and Quake.
So true. I was learning html a few weeks ago, and was struck that I spent most of my time learning about conventions rather than actually designing stuff.
My point was not about elitism ( your right, Exeter is much less elitist than some people think ). My point was that from my experience, the vast majority of Exeter's recent spending has had no impact on the quality of the education. The old student center, science building, and squash courts were more than adequate. The $100+ million spent on the new ones is just over the top. It's a shame that donors couldn't find a better use of their money.
The problem I see with my public school is that it glorifies the accomplishments that happen in some academic areas while it de-emphasizes other ares. If there are a lot of Intel semifinalists or high SAT scores, its all over the news, but if nothing big happens, they don't say a word.

It's understandable of course, a school's a business too and it needs money. But the problem is that the school didn't even do anything, it was all the students or their parents.

This is the main difference I see between public and private schooling. Yeah private schools weed out the really smart and really rich but most importantly they gather the kids that actually want to go to that school specifically while public schools just gather the kids that happen to be in the area.

I want to form a startup but my school is offering no help whatsoever on creating a business or in any other way. They probably don't believe I have the ability to make news headlines and promote the school so whatever potential I have is being wasted. One the other side, if I do make news headlines for some reason, they will probably be all over me saying how they helped support me the whole way. Sad isn't it?
In high school, I filled out some form on the Princeton Review's website claiming I was a high school teacher in order to download sample Advanced Placement tests. I worked through them and thought nothing more of it.

A month later the teachers in my AP classes gave me those same tests, unmodified. I did pretty well.

I went to a community college for a year and then transferred over to university to save some money, and it turned out by taking a calculus test with about a month more of material in it, I could get out of an entire extra semester of calculus classes. I taught myself the extra stuff and skipped an entire year of math.

...I got nothin'. Good thing I'm not applying for YC funding!
Any intelligent fool can make things more complex
Yale Lecturer Advises: Flush the Prozac and Hack Your Own Happiness
Near-Revolt on Digg Underscores Site's Dependence on Its Users
Palm to Close Retail Stores
MacBook Air: A Little Too Pretty?
Creative capitalism: Pros and cons
Two security researchers infiltrate the phishing underground and reveal how you info is traded
This is what's wrong with Java:

J2SE, J2EE, EJB, JDNI, JMS, JTA, WAR, JAR, ERP, DAO, EIS, JSP, JDBC, XML, HTML, EAR, JAAS, JAF, JPA, JMX, JAXP, JAX-RPC, JAXB, SAAJ, JCA, SOA

Every single one of those acronyms (and probably more) were used in that article.

And, if you read this http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.219431.... and thought he was exaggerating, think again. This is what I had to do to parse an XML file in Java the other day:

DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = builder.parse(new File("something.xml"));
Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();

Sigh
Is that a rock or a man on Mars?
The Turducken model of why programming is hard to learn
Seriously, talking in IRC and reading an article is hard.
Technorati Founder Launches Web Hot or Not. It's Geek Love.
hhm please contact me at:

uclawins at gmail dot com

-Merrick
Forget about images, I'd like to have a full text search like the latest Opera 9.5 has... that would be super cool!
Tichy: Since 3boobs.de is too funny and you read my blog. If you get the chance to come over I can introduce you to some YC companies and go out for dinner/drinks. Give me an email...

Also I would follow the advice from the other people here, and try to arrange as many events and people to see as possible so that you maximize your time here.
My editor is flirting with me
I strongly suspect that the site had an agreement that said, "When you deposit x dollars, you get y points." You seem to be morally juvenile. When you crack (not hack) a computer system in order to steal merchandise, it doesn't matter how "stupid" the system was. I think a deadbolt is pretty fucking "stupid", but that doesn't make smashing it open somehow acceptable.

EDIT: Frankly, I re-read the original post and I'm not sure what's going on. Is he actually depositing money or depositing a small amount and somehow refreshing it so that it reads like a larger amount? If he is doing the former, then it isn't a hack at all. If he is doing the latter, then it is thievery, pure and simple. I read it the latter way because the former way (as I said) makes no sense as a "hack".
Wiki engine written in Bash
I give her credit for taking initiative - timing/she was lucky, yes, but smart enough to build a her own "brand", whateverlife.com (I think we can learn from her that you don't have to be perfect/have a business plan to get going - just get it going)
Media: MIT's 3D Installation Pwns Roger Rabbit
Colemak layout works wonders, and for me was much more pleasant than Dvorak (plus, the transition is easier).

http://colemak.com/
Plan your trip and have a go. There's not much to look at in the south bay, but you can have your fill of tech company logos.

Email a few of your favorite companies and tell them your story. Most would be happy to show you around.

The web is social now, right? Use it to your advantage. Facebook, Twitter, Upcoming, and even Valleywag is full of local event schedules.
Startups rush to pave way for Web video
How many lines of code can you write?
How many lines can you write and in what language? I can write about 200 lines of Python per day and am feeling that I don't write fast enough. What are your experiences?
Who my intimates are, what kind of gifts they prefer, when the last time I talked to them was.
Why internet ads pay less than other media ads
My (very uninformed, but somewhat plausible) take:

It's because you can measure the results. With TV, it's hard to determine the ROI of a marketing campaign. In a Steven Levitt interview, he said the ROI for big-corp marketing departments is usually about 30 cents on the dollar [1]. The question is, why don't they shrink their budget until they have a minimalist campaign that gets a rational ROI?

My guess is that there's a conflict of interest between the marketing department and the shareholders. The marketing VP (or the CMO or whatever it says on the door of his office) is interested in furthering his career. I would guess he isn't judged by employers based on the ROI he produced, but on the size of the budget he managed and how many famous (i.e. expensive) campaigns he headed. So he wants to spend as much as possible, particularly on high-profile campaigns that get him a lot of PR.

However, with internet advertising, it's much easier to know what the ROI is, because all the stats are there. The CEO will not put up with bullshit if the stats are staring him in the face. If the only way to get marketihg data for TV campaigns is paying consulting firms 400,000 for a one-time analysis, the marketer can put a spin on things. On the internet, you get real-time data on everything. It's blatantly obvious if your marketing campaign sucks.

The marketing VPs can't play the game with internet advertising, so they don't, and leave web 2.0 companies wondering why they can't get as much for an ad as Fox does.

My hypothesis is based on a lot of guesses, a little knowledge of internet advertising, and a Steven Levitt podcast where he talks about some pretty weird (as in irrational) business decisions:

http://www.chicagogsb.edu/news/2006-07-14_xpkickoff.aspx?modeset=audio
Clearly proximity to the equator is an important effect (the horizontal banding). Can anybody explain the variations not running north/south?
The Importance of Being Money Smart
You may be very spot on there. There's an old adage in advertising, something like "Half of money spent on ads is wasted, but you can't tell which half." Online, you can, so you have to make smarter investments to maintain the appearance of being a good marketer.
Warner, UMG, EMI: No Deals With Free Music Service QTrax
-2 and no one telling me what was wrong.

Was it the clicking of the button? Or was it the scripting? Perhaps it was the not committing a crime part?

People, reread the story -- he deposited tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at once, only to withdraw it after a week.
I've been there and it looks like any other giant strip mall. Do yourself a serious favor and go to Thailand for vacation.
Molecular Biology Made Simple and Fun

Do not let its silly title fool you. This is an excellent book containing real biology facts. Plus, unlike Molecular Biology of the Cell, if this book falls on you from a high shelf you have a chance to survive.

Of course, the book predates siRNA. Nothing ages faster than a molecular biology book.
He deposited $50,000 at a time! You were allowed to make as many deposits as you wanted, $500 at once. He didn't steal points, he got the points he was supposed to get for clicking deposit 100 times.

Why do you say he stole something? I can't believe how many (people) are misreading Matt's words. There is no fraud, there is no crime. What is your problem?
Wilbur Ross Above, Ambac Below
37 Questions Web Designers/Developers Should Know the Answer To
No MP3s? No OGGs? Proprietary adware with DRM? Nah, I'll go with BitTorrent instead.
I should clarify, we're not actually looking for an 'official board.' I guess a 'set of advisers' is more like it, loosely tied together. We already have a decent amount of advisers, but they range from VCs to my mom. What we were looking for were a few core advisers who can devote a bit of time and also have something at stake.Thanks for everyone's great comments.
Yes, emacs with a kinesis keyboard is great. Hitting the modifier keys with your thumbs instead of your pinkies makes a big difference because thumbs are your strongest fingers.
I am a long-time kinesis user because I find the kinesis i the best combination of speed and comfort. But once I head really crippling RSI, I switched to the safetype keyboard (www.safetype.com) for a few weeks, and found it even more comfortable. Eventually I switched back to the kinesis because of the speed and accuracy, but the safetype is worth a try if you have really bad pains.

www.safetype.com
Quantum Field... Finance?
Good analysis, but there's still room to fudge internet numbers, especially when you're getting high priced CPM banner/skyscraper ads for "branding" purposes.
Sounds like the French revolution lives on in the hearts of the people. Too bad they don't realize that fraud of this level hurts them directly.
...said the dope dealer.
You can dismiss all logic when responding to me?
Response to edit:

>you could make one deposit and then just keep hitting refresh to deposit again and again

He is actually depositing money and very large amounts of money. The site made it easy to deposit up to $500, so Matt repeated that process ad nauseum. After a week, when the points cleared, he withdrew the money.

The hack is because he was able to get large amounts of video game systems and video games by having his bankroll tied up for one week.
No, but I may have the facts all turned around.