skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yeah, I'm new to web development and I'm 26... I started reading about php/mysql in January, and began developing my first application in February, and I'm about a month away from being able to launch it.

I didn't start from scratch though -- I knew visual basic for applications from my MS Excel jockey days, and took a couple of java courses in undergrad. Those give you the underpinnings behind programming logic, which extends to other languages pretty easily. Making my VB skills transfer into PHP and web development has been satisfying. It feels like I'm actually creating for the first time.

I had exposure to the 'online environment' at an internet startup for a year prior to this as well, which probably made the environment a little less mystifying.

One insight I'll give you is that I learned more in a week of sitting and coding than I did in the month of reading 3 hours a day. Try stuff out, test it, see what works and understand what your natural tendencies are and your common mistakes. Ask for help when you need it, but never avoid a sticking point, always push through.
No, because that assumes that mac and windows are equally exploitable. Given mac's core, they are not.
Yes, I thought of this but didn't think someone would go to the trouble to look at the stock and date, then look up the price N-days after that, then go back and trade it. Apparently I was wrong! I could solve this by dynamically creating an image w/ PHP and trimming the stock & date, but my poor shared CPU wouldn't like that...
In the works; probably not free :(
Excellent summary. Thanks!
Hello? SEX?

You can make money with anything as long as you can sell sex with it.

Hurry up and make a damn sexy robot already, my retirement depends on it.
i think matthias wandel's came first:

http://chartgame.com/
Other people did a good job explaining the basics. The issue is about book value and the complexity of the risk. The risk is similar to what the firm Citadel did with E*Trade.

The risk on the books of Bear Stearns can't be fully calculated and JP Morgan is assuming that risk, hence the low price. The Fed is possibly going to limit the downside risk of JP Morgan to keep stability in US financial markets, though they are not putting up any additional capital upfront.

Roger Ehrenberg has some great blog posts on the topic (he used to run a big hedgefund and now has an NYC startup called Monitor110):

http://www.informationarbitrage.com/2008/03/the-bear-facts.h...

http://www.informationarbitrage.com/2008/03/i-bear-ly-knew.h...
If applications like Skype or last.fm's clients are any indication, people will use high-quality cross-platform frameworks like Qt instead of exclusively choosing Apple's proprietary platform over Microsoft's.
An important tip, not mentioned in the article:

It is in fact OK to wonder whether using a database is the right idea in the first place.
> I think awesome business opportunities are built around folks who ask the same kind of askew questions that others don't consider.

I whole heartedly agree. I hope he gets his voting rights back. His comments are always insightful.
"Addictive", surely?
I've never had that problem, did quicktime do something terrible to you? Point to this doll of your mime types, and show me where the bad man touched you.
Disqus Goes Beta II - Gets More Funding And Removes Message Boards
It would be funny if Stallman himself buys that account on eBay :-)
How about an embeddable mini-player? The src could be per-song, per-channel, or just "Featured Music."

I bet a lot of people (myself included) would love this for their blogs. Then it becomes a functional ad for your site.
What the fuck is "BrainFk"?
We are actually working on this feature right now :)
Do Startups Understand Consumer Research Habits?
Funny because just 2 days ago I switched to FF3b4 because Safari was crashing too often on flash-based ads (of all things!). Now I'm switching back to Safari, even though FF3 is pretty cool, because it just handles (scrolls, renders, feels) faster and smoother.
from wikipedia:
WebCore

WebCore is a layout, rendering, and DOM library for HTML and SVG developed by the WebKit project, originally developed by Apple as a fork of KHTML. It is licensed under the LGPL. The WebKit framework wraps WebCore and JavaScriptCore, providing an Objective-C application programming interface to the C++-based WebCore rendering engine and JavaScriptCore script engine, allowing it to easily be referenced by Cocoa-based applications; later versions also include a cross-platform C++ platform abstraction, and various ports provide additional APIs.

end quote

basically it has to update and restart so that all cocoa based apps can use the new version.
I am with Joel, I don't think it is realistically possible to make an unambiguous specification.
Class name generator
A clever twist on the Polish Political Speech Generator.
IANAL etc etc, but I think the difference is between "available as a system library" and "integrated into every freaking conceivable corner of the OS".
Another idea: A narrow, vertical interface for loading in Firefox's sidebar. Makes it easier to keep the player open while you browse elsewhere.
Jason Calacanis & the Mahalo Work Ethic (Comic)
Coding Horror: Does More Than One Monitor Improve Productivity?
Disqus Raises $500,000; Adds New Community Pages for Blog Comments
In fairness, the standard Java library, the Unix /usr/bin and Common Lisp are not for the faint of heart either.
I asked a freelancer friend of mine a few months ago: "If I want to work for myself, what language would I learn to reach that point in the quickest fashion?" He told me to learn JavaScript/Ajax. Of course I see now that nothing is so simple... I've had to catch up on how to utilize other tools I'd rarely touched before (like CSS), and I feel compelled to learn PHP, MySQL, etc at the same time. So while I was hoping to reach some level of employable proficiency by summer, it's looking more like it'll be the end of the year.

I'm at work so I don't have time to read the other comments, but I'm sure someone's mentioned SICP and various videocasts, and yeah Python is supposed to be a good learning language. I've heard starting with JS might not be so great b/c of its idiosyncracies. No, still working on apps/sites, nothing finished.
I've really been happy with FF3b4, I'd never had a browser that allowed for tab switching so quickly.
Lessons from Bear on Sarbanes-Oxley: We didn't need it, and it didn't do any good
Microsoft wants to keep developers very busy learning _their_ terminology and development tools so that there is no time to learn any other: e.g., W3C terminology, Apache, PHP or cherry.py.

What better way than to rename everything that already exists in W3C and add even more new terminology from the Microsoft's tools.

Learning to use Microsoft's tools with any degree of skill means that you simply won't have time or memory to learn much else. Most developers won't have sufficient time to learn even learn Microsoft's tools! The result: a brain full of cryptic terminology that no one understands except another unfortunate who made the same mistake.

And when Microsoft releases the "next generation", everything you know will instantly be labelled as obsolete, inefficient and bug-ridden by Microsoft. Not exactly a "career path."

Any developer considering studying .NET (or any other technology) should ask himself: In the long run what is the most profitable action that I can do next?

I venture that the answer is rarely "learn .NET". Even if the boss just ordered you to learn .NET, the answer to the above question is more likely "Send out my resume."
But its not that bad. You just use it and when you run into a problem you look it up. Thats what API docs are for. The same holds for java. Most programmers aren't going to be using the whole library, just a little of it.

And autocomplete in visual studio does a lot of that thinking for you. You'll use a hundred different methods without thinking about it quicker than you'll know.

I threw together a program that read and wrote from the serial port and did a bunch of stuff in like 1 day. Between googling for examples and a tiny bit of help from a friend who programs c# it was very straightforward.
Good Luck at Demo Day
I believe today is Demo Day for the Spring 08 YC Companies, so good luck to all and get some more funding!
Decentralized (to me) implies a lot of people working together on something, without a clear leader or headquarters. I think he was right to use 'fragmentation' ... a lot of the conversation is isolated and most likely redundant.

To use the obligatory p2p reference... the DHT peers in bittorrent are decentralized (no clear leader but all generally working together). Private trading groups on IRC are fragmented (they are isolated from each other).
Why would you say :(? It is a great idea and people would and should pay for it. Fuck free.
Awareness Test
Spot the grammatical error: "By 7:30 p.m., hunger pangs had taken hold. Someone ordered Chinese food. A security guard lay out a buffet spread."
Drat. I tried the same trick, and I'm down to my last $10,000.
"I realized technical analysis didn't work when I turned the charts upside down and didn't get a different answer." - Warren Buffett

still a cool little app.
Often times mechanical trading strategies discussed in papers that use fancy math and algorithms don't consistently beat buy and hold.
It'd be easier to just download CSV files of daily historical data from Yahoo Finance, or shell out $10-50/month and get quality realtime feeds.
As you might guess, this is one of my favorite books! One of the things I find so fascinating is how, as in Fooled By Randomness, the concepts he outlines are readily applicable to so many spheres of activity in the modern world. There are black swans happening and about to happen in every field where modern technology has accelerated communication and is changing the way things are done.
B Corporations
Now I can finally realize my dream of creating a virus by painting a .gif!! The day is mine!
Ever notice that, unlike with PCs, the older your PowerBook is the cooler you are?
It's not that I don't know my product; it just takes several paragraphs to describe it (http://blog.ezlearnz.com/post/29205280). It will take a while to distill that into the one-liner that I keep referring to. Thanks for the suggestion, tho.

I'll be removing ads in the next several days.
#1 rule of web app development (as far as i'm concerned):
sanitize inputs. if you don't know if inputs are already/automatically sanitized, sanitize them again anyway.
"Were there significant changes between the previous version of your kernel and the current maintenance release, or just bug fixes," I asked.
"Well, we changed the compiler tool chain and added a new feature," the client responded.

So, yes, significant changes.

"Were the changes reviewed for possible side-effects on other parts of the system?"
"We tested it before we released it and verified that the bugs were fixed."

So, no, they weren't.

"Is your testing automated?"
"No, testing is done with a developer observing the test output."

So, no, it isn't.

"Do tests that verify bug fixes become part of the regression test suite?"
"No, we have a list of tests that we run for each release."

So, no, they don't.

"Does your team use a formal version-control system?"
"We make a back up before each release."

So, no, they don't.

Let's recap. Significant changes without a good long look at what regression bugs may arise, with only manual testing (it worked on my machine!), and no tests added to an automated suite to ensure that older bugs don't turn up again. No source control, so changes aren't tracked, and they have only a backup of the source code before the last release to track development.

Yikes, though I wouldn't doubt that this is better than the average software development project.
This is actually a great question. I've been toying around with the idea of having a personal blog, but when I look around at most personal blogs, they've been updated like three times since the new year, just talked about some conference that I would have had to been at to enjoy, and really offered me nothing. After awhile, what's the point of even looking?

It's nice to put on a business card, but I question whether its mere presence actually makes a difference in selling you to the public. Unless it's regularly updated, it just looks budget...
This is actually my blog...

I'm tickled that it made it here and to reddit, but please don't think I was trying to start a flame war!
I use a laptop and desktop next to each other when I'm at home, and I like to think I'm more productive than I'd be with just one monitor. If I'm compiling or converting or doing something processor intensive on one computer, it's easy to keep an api reference up on another screen for easy looking up of functions, or any other web related issues.
It's easy to kill if you only employ competent developers who don't trust any user input :/
I think an influx of users (like me) have offset those poll posters.
This is definitely a page I'm going to have to come back to. One look through is not enough.
I found another way to "cheat." Change the length of time to 40 days, and then click the buy button five or six times before the buy/sell/skip buttons change to the "new trade" button.
Re: Tagging:
I noticed some people have started tagging posts with # before words. I think they could implement that special character to work similarly to how the @ character works.
Point taken, although I think the original article with its title of "Are macbooks just trendy", was already so idiotic as to not really merit any serious response.

Shame there is no downmod for articles IMHO.
The stuff going down on wall street is pretty unreal. The numbers they talk about are mind-boggling and I wish I knew more of what exactly everything meant - securities, bonds, etc. I have a vague idea of what they all are, but not a really concrete, i'll explain it to you, sort of knowledge.
Starbucks dangers
Notes on scaling an organization from FriendFeed's Bret Taylor
Adobe Fireworks Tutorials and Downloads - Best of
Well, success actually is the ability to be able to redefine "success" to be whatever you already have. So, you succeeded there too.
Facebook Ready To Pass MySpace In Worldwide Traffic
Announcing or Broadcasting are still forms of communication. Email, IM, and IRC don't really allow you to do that. That's why I think Twitter fills a gap in communication methods. A lot of people don't like to broadcast their life. I understand that, but some people do like to let other people know what's going on.
The article explains the issue very poorly (seriously, I'm disappointed how badly this was written, considering it's ARS and all). If you read the user comments, they manage to explain it much more clearly, except for one issue... the article mentions how these cached search results are "forwarded" to Google/Yahoo etc. I don't know what the hell they're talking about, I know of no way to forward local site search results to search engines.

I think that what really happens is the people who create these "attacks" just post the links on some page that spiders will find and then the links will show up in Google/Yahoo results, and probably quite high since they're from domains with high page rank.
Yeah guys! Good luck!!!
Basically, the 'Efficient Market Hypothesis' and Newtonian physics are both wrong. Markets don't accurately price things to 1/100th of a percent every second thought the day. Stocks go up and down though random chance and bubbles are all too common. A more basic failing of the efficient market hypothesis is the lack of a standard level of risk tolerance. However, as a general rule it is vary hard to significantly beat the market over time and for most real world objects F = M * A.
You'd assume that the average algo strategy does worse, if only because it's an average portfolio plus extra transaction costs.
I was trying to think of something appropriately motivational, and the speech from Animal House was all I could come up with:

http://www.jibjab.com/view/123484

I'm sure you're going to wow them
Dupe?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=139872
Instead of incessantly dragging, sizing, minimizing and maximizing windows, you can do actual productive work.

I have no idea what he's talking about here. My work day starts with me opening one firefox window (full-screen), and one emacs window (also full-screen). That's pretty much all I look at for 12 hours every day. Dragging? Resizing? Not so much. Being productive? Yes.
Disqus Gets VC Funding, Releases v2 and Kicks Competitions' Ass.
Which is a big reason why US GDP per capita is 25% higher than any other country with a sizable population.
Awesome news champs - great product and so easy to log in to! ;)
Federal Reserve slashes US rates 0,75% - less than expected
Just store their current stock symbol & dates as session variables, and make the src of the image be a .php file which has the one liner:

<?php header("Location: http://quote-web.aol.com/..."); ?>

Then you don't have to use image processing (including actually reading the image), and they'd have to become right-click-and-copy-paste-image-src-check-in-new-tab-cheater! :-)
My only criticism is that its hard to tell where the stock was after the time-window is grown after I click buy/sell. If i click back, then I can see, but otherwise its kinda hard. If you could put a little vertical red line over the image where I bought/sold the stock, it'd help figure out what happened. I know you're just pulling a picture from yahoo finance, but since the time-window change is always the same, the red line should always be over the same spot.
> CEOs have resumes.

You could have condensed your entire (quite good) post to this. Great pull quote, and it obliterates Godin's argument.
Previous discussion of the Utah study:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134318
The Windows version of Safari doesn't require a reboot to install or upgrade. ;-)
And of course, YC.
Yesterday's Priority is Today's Procrastination
cool. congrats...
http://thefeelgood.com/
No, I specifically re-submitted because the other title was terribly undescriptive (and a verbatim copy of the Reddit title for the article).
High Quality isn't the default because if overnight YouTube made the switch their servers would be hammered and most likely go down the following day at multiple times.

Google's probably going to gradually add the feature, until they feel they have enough server power on YouTube to handle the traffic.
I want to echo what whalesalad said. Two main components of being a great (anything) are passion and and a mentor. Passion will push you and the mentor will guide you.

1. Find a language that you like
2. Think of a project that you find interesting/useful to you and write it
3. Have the mentor whack you over the head when you do it wrong.

Funny thing is I graduated a comp sci major without all 3 of these things. It's no wonder I avoided coding during college. I knew how to do it, but I didn't enjoy it (who enjoys making rolodexes?). I started coding again after college because my mentor challenged me with an product worth making.
That's great! USV seems to really like investing in services they use themselves instead of "trends".
curious, what are the potential monetization strategies?

they only occupy below the fold or secondary jump pages so they're rarely a destination site. build the business intelligence site that om malik wants?

monetize the landing pages from google traffic? but then publishers will get pissed that they're stealing the googlejuice.

involve more functionality a la identity management?

morph into mini-reddits or mini-blogger for everyone and upsell?

the tradeoff of a commenting system for ads would seem ludicrous as well. the only competitive advantage they have is a network effect. build to flip?
How does this site not violate copyright law? I love the idea, but as it is, I feel like a nasty letter from the RIAA is being carried by a postman still wet from the tongue of some RIAA lawyer.

Anyway, don't let that set you back. It seems great.
The mortgage crisis, in cartoon form (has cursing, maybe NSFW?)
I dont think karma is related to coding ability. There are plenty of smart developers who simply dont waste time posting or commenting, whilst those with higher karma might have high karma because they are unproductive
Solo Entrepreneurs: Big Bucks from Tiny Computing Startups
For some reason I always associate the 'z' in place of an 's' as pretty juvenile slang (though funny its right place.) You'd be surprised, there are tons of good names still out there. This is probably not one, but may be a good jump off point:

wisdomgrasper.com

It's unregistered. I say this b/c I am in the midst of a name change. What was funny and cute late at night is now tedious, obscure and cumbersome. Best of luck to you...
NASA's space robot assembled and awaiting first assignment
Eschew giving China money.

Buy gold.

Write to your congressman.
Yahoo Expects 8.8B Revenue By 2010
Survey Confirms iPhone Users are Hardcore Internet Junkies
I know this wasn't mentioned in the previous threads...check out Magnet - http://www.homeofmagnet.com/

Synthetic folk, great trance-type music when you get in the zone.
As you mention Common Lisp:

The implementation I'm using is really small (and contains every single symbol of the CL specs).
And: as I'm doing real-world apps in CL, I'm often very happy with some (little) more complexity to gain the required performance needed.

Really, there is no real waste in Common Lisp, although this seems not to be a very popular opinion nowadays...
Cell phone as boarding pass
So... that's like a compatibility layer for viruses?
There aren't that many synonyms to masturbatory. And I find it adequate in using it.

And these posts aren't explaining my expectations, I've already expected people to focus on dorky and trivial things, but rather pushing my political agenda.
Got it, Metallica.
"They're called 'Effeciency Experts' but you're really interviewing for your own job!"

"So ... what would you say ... ya DO here?"

"I already told you! I deal with the goddamned customers so the programmers don't have to! I have people skills! What's the matter with you people?!"
Direct object. Your sentences use it unconventionally.

Anyway, I was being wry. You may not be waiting for permission, but it does matter if it's illegal.

(Clarification: I use hacking in the same spirit as this site, meaning to code with a hobbyist's or experimenter's ethic. Not meaning the media obfuscation of the word.)
1. big user base; they even finished their crowd-sourced i18n projects early on to reach more

2. highly sticky engagement, average being 4 hours

3. and just because they ask for it doesn't mean they'll get it
The concept is interesting. I, however, am not a fan of technical analysis. It's been drilled into my head that technical analysis is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If everyone looking at a chart determines that the exit price should be $20 (let's assume the stock has shown a resistance level at that price) many people would try to exit around $20. The assumption would then be that if everyone does indeed believe that $20 is a ceiling, then everyone would sell at $20 thus creating the ceiling.

I believe sound fundamental analysis is the optimal method of analysis, but even that method has been called into question over the course of the last eight months as many investors are learning that much of what is on the books is either someone's best guess or flat out fraudulent at best.
He's not giving advice on how to get to his world. He's telling people that they don't need a resume to get a job. Under rare circumstances, that might be true. But as general advice, it's both bad and unrealistic.
Aw, c'mon. I can't believe people voted me down for this one. No one else thought the 'bot seemed eerily self-aware?
Try TradeStation.com.