skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The real questions are, "How long does this take in real time?" and, "How much like real life is this scenario?"

The default setting has trades of 20-day duration. 18 trades take one year, and to get to ten years takes ~183 trades. At 3.5% inflation, $141 large turns into $100 large in ten years.
What the site really needs, in addition to the glamorous dollar amount, is an effective annual percentage rate (Instantaneous/Cumulative/Moving average would all be nice to see) of your investing strategy. That way, you could see the unglamorous effects of trying to beat inflation while crawling out of the hole you just dug yourself.

For example, I picked only apparent winners that had climbing moving averages for the last six months, climbing value for at least the last three, no major price shocks in the last six, and I held for 20 days. After 43 months I had $187,000. The value of this money was a little over $160,000 after discounting for inflation (%3.5 annually, as a guess). Approximately 14% per annum after inflation (and before taxes). This same strategy, unmonitored for time, yielded $15,000,000 earlier. Fiddling with logarithms gives me just under 17 years to attain this value (not adjusted for inflation, and you have to defer your taxes).

If it really is this easy, we should all be eating Ramen and working for Microsoft for $100,000 per year. After two years, you'd have your seed money, and could go work fast food to pay the rent while you pay attention to the stock market once every 20 days.

Am I the only one to whom this sounds a little odd? Could this just be that the data are taken "at random" from a bull market? Is it just that you can't find the proper 17 years in which to do this? Are all my wins coming from the bull markets? That is, am I (by choosing stocks that look great) actually choosing stocks from a bull market? Wouldn't this imply something about the feasibility of actually earning a living this way?
Good to see this. I have a photo-sharing site myself, and the world needs more of them, as I wrote here: http://ourdoings.com/2007-12-19

Mine caters to people with tons of photos to share and little time to organize. Yours seems more for people dealing with individual photos to use on myspace, ebay, etc. Still there's overlap. A few tips:

When the upload starts, gray out the "Let's Go" button.

Learn about EXIF orientation information and make use of it.

Keep an eye on Disqus. It's not ready to replace your comment system yet, but when it is ready it will be a lot better than what you have.

Make it clear whether the 10-cent tip is going to simplebucket or to the photographer.
> Oops, didn't read the problem.

You wrote the problem. ;)
Sorry, "ohnoes" is just internet slang: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oh+noes

But yes -- I'm very concerned about AI safety and I think it deserves more research attention.
I noticed these problems on Firefox on Mac OS 10.5:

1) Upload form still asks for an email address even if I'm logged in.

2) No way to change my screen name or url (e.g. http://www.simplebucket.com/p/mdc1oa compared to http://flickr.com/photos/hoyhoy)

3) Page view counter doesn't recognize a session_id so reloads advance the counter even for myself

4) Have to enter in name, email, and CAPTCHA when commenting a picture even though I'm logged in

5) No interface to find tagged pictures

6) Tags aren't hyperlinked

7) Allowed me to add a note outside of the image on Firefox e.g. (http://involution.com/images/simplebucket.png)

8) Note text can overlap the image when a note is inside an image

9) Hit save multiple times on a single note and it made multiple copies of the same note all over the page.

10) HTML Embed link shows note text in the input box located under "Photo Options"

11) When clicked, the "Photo Widget" link shows note text in the input box located under "Photo Options"

12) Attempted uploading 5 images from the upload page, but only one uploaded

13) Added a comment with no text, no error message, and nothing was displayed

14) Added a large comment with 5K of text. Nothing was displayed and no error message was given. Can't you just limit the number of chars in the TEXTBOX?

15) Clicked "Add From Address Book" went to Plaxo, and then added myself, but the email showed up in what looked to be a message box. Why do you need to ask for my name and email again when it's already in "My Settings"? The email did arrive though.

16) Went back to upload, added two more images via browse, clicked "Let's go" and nothing happened.

17) Clicked "Add" then "Browse" on the upload page, and the nothing happened (Browse window not displayed)

18) Left an open table tag in a comment and totally busted the page layout.
Have you actually tried using one? I don't know about the Kindle, but Sony Reader is pretty useful. It lasts weeks due to e-ink unlike PDA or notebook. Reading books from a smart phone or PDA is difficult because of screen size / font limitations. This is great for readers that commute via MTA, or people that fly a lot.
You said that it seemed like everyone that dislikes working their day job loved PG's article, and that everyone that likes their day job loves JA's article. I take that to mean that you had the impression that those who were comfortable in a big company disagreed with Paul and those who didn't agreed with him. I just wanted to give you a counter-example (me). I want to let you and others know that although Paul's article may be right about some things (to some people like me and you), other things in the article seem to denote a narrow and excluding viewpoint regardless of whether you're comfortable with corporate life. I don't think it would be too much trouble to acknowledge that there are career avenues that bring joy, challenge, fulfillment, learning, self-reliance, and responsibility outside of creating startups. Further, I would add that there are things outside of work that you should think twice before sacrificing lest you find that your great successful career alone is not enough to make you happy.
Promoting a website? It's easy. Submit it to mailing lists, search engines and discussion boards. For additional measure, you can even try purchasing advertising and making a youtube video but this is unnecessary. If people like it, they will spread the word, and usage will lift it higher on search engine results lists.

I was thinking that this should be turned into a firefox extension, but I see that you already did it.
You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss: The Cliffs Notes
Genius.
Ni-chan paradox of registration free commenting?
I imagine Bell Labs would have been an incredible place if only based on people that worked there. I wonder how close IBM and HP were at their research peaks. Also, I should mention that I wasn't intentionally picking on yc companies and perhaps that was the wrong choice. Some of the technology coming out of a few of them seems to be more interesting than some of the best labs. I know that isn't the goal, but it certainly isn't bad side effect! I really only meant to pick on the droves of obscure, uninteresting <insert social aspect here> startups.
"... Learn about EXIF orientation information and make use of it. ..."

Try http://search.cpan.org/~ccpro/Image-EXIF-1.00.3/EXIF.pm or http://johnst.org/sw/exiftags/
Microsoft internal memo: Evangelism is War
Expression Engine 2.0 Powered by CodeIgniter Coming Soon
That's not how it really works, when it works.
This sounds terrible.
1) why couldn't you advance?
2) wasn't the company being deprived of your talents since you were only doing a cubicle job?
3) what would you have preferred to be doing?
It's not "sexist" to state things that are "generally" true. At least, no more sexist than saying men are "generally" into sports. I'm not into sports, but I would not be offended if a women were to say this since it IS "generally" true.
I didn't expect people to be so offended either, but in hindsight it does seem predictable. Take the mindset of someone who's an employee and at least slightly insecure. Start reading the "boss" essay with an eye to what it might be saying about you. Does it really matter what's in the last paragraph? You're red in the face by then.

There's a really dense book called "Difficult Conversations" (Stone, Patton, Heen, Fisher) that covers, among other things, how people frame discussions in terms of their identity. I think if I had adsorbed that book better I would have predicted that this essay would deeply offend some people.
In that case, there must be two levels of discrimination.

I have lots of preferences and discriminate between different products, people, and choices all the time.

I am very much against institutionalized discrimination, however.

Let's say I wouldn't want to personally work with someone who couldn't speak English. That's a personal choice, but I wouldn't want the same person to be discriminated against in terms of politics, job opportunities, and other senses.

Perhaps the difference is passive versus active discrimination. The former being someone operating on their preferences (that is, choosing not to live in a black neighbourhood or choosing not to date blondes) versus active discrimation (attacking people of a certain color or gender, implementing discriminatory policies at a workplace, etc.)

I think passive discrimination is necessary for the world to work, but active discrimination should be avoided and discouraged.
Props for a clear, well-reasoned comment.

One of my peeves is the use of "in my opinion ..." since pretty much anything anyone says is, by definition, their opinion.

Yet your mention of the phatic (thanks, too, from teaching me a new term) is interesting. Those little qualifiers, even when not strictly needed, do seem to keep the wolves at bay.
The Job - Career Gap
More of an apologia than a summarization.

Atwood et al are responding to the more general idea, quite consistently expressed, that the startup life is better than the corporate life. By itself, this is neither true nor false, so it's simply not worth fighting over.

Everybody wants to be rich. Nobody wants to fail. Startups offer both.
To me, initially it was unclear when somebody would want to use this. After some thought I figured that something like this could be cool for a tech document or white paper you're reading online with a lot of unfamiliar or esoterically techie jargon in it.

So people who have to read about difficult concepts in varied areas may find this useful. This could be anyone from students to professional consultants. So finding forums where students are trying to get help with various topics could be a good place to start.
I like to broil whitefish, it's a similar effect. I tend to grill red fishes (Tuna, salmon, etc) because the grill heats up hotter quicker. The cook-in-bag vegetables are super easy and quick with no cleanup.

Oh! and this dish freezes well, you can make enough for a week in just a few minutes and reheat a nice dinner all week.
I like Zed's easy_fucking_uninstall for python:

easy_install -m $1
for i in `find /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/ -name "$1*"`
do
echo "Removing: $i"
rm -rf $i
done

Assuming he is using Bash, he forgot some necessary double quotes around $i in the rm, so yes Zed, apparently it was "so damn hard" that you couldn't get it right.
What is so much more fulfilling about startups that is unlikely to be attained elsewhere?
Does not appear to work for full content. Most, but not all.
So how do you want to regulate the "shadow banking system" and the world of derivatives? What kind of reserve requirements should there be for traditionally off-balance-sheet derivatives? What kind of reporting requirements? If I come up with a new kind of funding structure -- something like a CDO, a SIV, whatever -- do I need to explain everything to the Fed first before going ahead with it? Who gets regulated: just the large non-depository investment banks? Smaller derivatives dealers and hedge funds?

I'm definitely sympathetic to the idea that regulators were asleep at the wheel. I just haven't yet seen any regulatory proposals that, if implemented, could have prevented the current crisis.
My grandfather used to say, "If you don't fail every now and then, you are not doing enough."

Failure is a good thing. It is from failure that new things are learned. I am willing to fail if that failure ultimately leads to riches. In a startup failures and riches are not mutually exclusive if the entrepreneurs are willing to learn from their failures.
no mention of github.com ?
I think they offer the same opportunities for fulfillment as any experience that tests you and is entirely dependant on you without the usual buffers and safeguards. Whats more the original article explicitly stated that it wasn't just startups that can give you that 'uncagedness'.
I think Sequoia Capital has some decent guidelines for what to look for: http://sequoiacap.com/ideas/
However, if you were to ask Marc Andreessen the only thing that matters is the market: http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-pmarca-gu-2.html -- according to Marc, the team doesn't have to be superstars, they just have to be "good enough"
Many of the principles and goals outlined in the document are a clear indiciation of the type of dedication and mindset that truly ambitious and dedicated followers must have to follow-through on their commitments.

I can't say that I agree completely with the methods discussed, but I <b>can</b> appreciate the cut-throat "must win at all costs" determination that is evident throughout the writing that almost borders on cult fanaticism.
I think that is a cool display of loyalty. Good on him.

How much does working for "an enron" taint you - prefessionally? (not that BS will necessary turn out to have been like that, but its possible).
That actually isn't strictly true; you could loan out that 900, which gets spent by the person you loaned it to, and can then could be redeposited by the person who sold him something, in the same bank. And this can be repeated up until it asymptotes off, which (from memory), with a 20% reserve requirement, would occur at $5000. You can do the math on your own for a 10% reserve (I'm guessing it happens at $10,000, which minus the original $1000 is the author's $9,000).
Ugg... stupid Valley Wag like Gossip story.
I think people are reacting not to the (nonexistent) suggestion that MegaCorp programmers intrinsically suck, but rather to the implicit suggestion that they suck for not starting startups.

To continue with the lion analogy, suppose that lions in the zoo were there by choice rather than by force. Then, when seeing how pathetic zoo lions are compared to wild lions, we might conclude that they somehow lack the courage to live their wild lives of destiny.

The negative spin is that MegaCorp hackers are cowardly lions. This predictably provokes a defensive response. The positive spin? The cage doors are open.
Wattzon - Energy Literacy. (with a detailed carbon footprint calculation)
At one point in time I tried to optimize my writing style like this...

One other reason is that you have a touchy subject. Tell anyone they're doing the wrong thing (implicitly or unintentionally) and you'll get the same response. People are very sensitive about their own choices (stubborn), especially ones that are hard to defend rationally (religion, major, job, etc).
Well, why not offer both options? One way to do it would be to offer the "step-by-step (beginner)" and "all at once (experimented)" ways right at the start.

Another is to have the beginner way by default but having a way to access the advanced mode.
I would say that you have much more creative freedom as a tenured professor (if getting to that point hasn't completely destroyed your spirit) than as a startup founder. Look at some of the stuff Noam Chomsky has been able to devote almost all of his time to--it sure isn't linguistics.
The laughter is coming from the size implied by "cedar plank".
"... what is your best Hacked meal in 10 minutes or less. No ramen allowed ..."

For the time limit I guess it's Rat packs only. Here's a selection that I've hacked up. Each take less than 10m.

Cold:

- toasted Turkish bread, fruit & nuts ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/208532380/

- croissant & salad ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/2348875312/

- salad ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/374445307

- popcorn ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/197013458/

- cold scones & filling ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/278756630

- cold beans ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/146521341/

Hot:

- boiled googs & soldiers ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/273680402/

- cannelloni, sauce & basil ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/2298155730

- left-overs & sliced veges as a soup ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/1144599851/

- focaccia ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/487694401

- heated beans, coffee & bread ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/201529926/

Less than 20m:

Of course reducing the time to 10 minutes leave out even the simplest of recipes:

- boiled rice, chilli, garlic & chicken ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/2348875322/

- pizza ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/54271803

- any form of stirfry ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/434856726
so the 10:1 ration people talk about (fractional reserve) is lending 900 out of 1000 deposit?
sorry for the meta comment: but the above comment thread is why I think news.YC is the greatest at the moment. Compare this sort of conversation to reddit, or anything really. Doesn't compare.
I know you're not asking for advice, and I figure you're still working on it, but I'd be more likely to use something like this if it didn't only search for capitalized proper nouns. i.e., If "san antonio" or "set theory" generated links too. I wouldn't mind waiting a little longer for the script to do the extra work. http://www.golimojo.com/proxy.html?christiansands.livejourna...
Why is this of interest? It's a brief paragraph some guy wrote about what some guy wrote about what happened once to some guy.

This is digg-bait.
I agree strongly with your "augment" point, and I'd just like to point out that online communications mediums provide opportunities for expression not possible in other contexts.

For one thing, text chat is a very different art from speaking. Any kind of timing or nonverbal sound has to be expressed somehow in ASCII. Most emoticons are thin symbolic standins for actual face-eye contact, but some emoticons and larger images posted on forums and the like express things you couldn't possibly express verbally.

Now, you may say, hey great, so the next great leap in human relationships is fucking LOLcats. Well, people walk around saying Git 'R Dun to each other in the flesh. In my opinion LOLcats is at least a step up from that. Besides, that's just retarded superpopular images.

Putting aside the base communication, what about file transfers? If I'm chatting with someone, it's trivial to hand over, in a sense, some image or mp3 or document or whatever. And we're both in a position to handle those files: play or edit them or whatever.

So.

Yea.

Communication on the net is far more than just speech without inflection.
Jason Calacanis Planning a Startup Camp
I found the opening metaphor distasteful because it suggests MegaCorp programmers currently suck, even if it's because of their environment. It sounded like PG can, at a glance, see programmers who seem "smart enough" but lack fundamental qualities that YC founders possess. As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example.

The summary could be slightly modified and be truer to the essay:

"Oh... you aren't working for yourself? You currently suck."

[Disclaimer: I currently work for myself, and still suck.]
Mozilla CEO: Apple's Safari-to-Windows Distribution Scheme is Wrong
The challenge I see is how to do a really big project with small independent groups of people. Open source is one concept that helps. In that paradigm, not everyone has to start from scratch. You can grab someone else's code and add functionality to it.

My pet project of the moment is to develop an "Industry wide SOA" with a defined interface between the services. This would allow entry into (in this case the medical) industry by smaller groups that can't do it all. See the beginning of the idea at:
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/km/med-research/archives/open-soa...
Bank of America, the TSA, electronic payment companies, and National Security all have had sensitive information bounced onto this site. The epic fail of all epic fails.

The guy (Chet) gives the money he gets for taking things down to a dog pound. Nice guy. He gets a lot of threats from lawyers, but it looks like no big deal, as all the suits he gets are identical. He probably knows the rules better than the lawyers that threaten him. He could have made billions by extorting incompetent companies in a formal manner, say, settling out of court for a breach of security, or something. I'm not sure this is possible, but it might be.

Also, this means that startups can even beat big corps when it comes to security and privacy.
I am very surprised at the discussion this essay has touched off. I thought it was almost obvious what pg was saying. I have been from start up to large company to starting my own start up to working for a large company again. I've lived the same changes two times over now and can completely relate to the caged lion feeling. It's not that I'm a better programmer (or person for that matter) when I'm working for myself. It's that working for a large company has certain restrictions on freedom that come with the added security and comfort.

In short, I feel, act, and behave differently based on my environment. There are a lot of nice things about working for a large company and I work for a good one right now. Still, if I didn't have my own projects to work on (another start up coming on!) I would go stir crazy. I thought the analogy to a lion was quite flattering.
What he's talking about is called the money multiplier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Money_multiplier

It's taught in basic econ 101!

Although it's a big house of cards, but since in today's age of almost everyone using the debit, credit & gift card instead of cold hard cash, it's very true reality. Also, it's the not the same bank, but the entire banking system as a whole that allows the money to "multiply". And todays reserve ratios are ridiculously small, in the 1% area.
Wasn't the web-2.0 rounded-corner rectangle with reduced-opacity gradient layers (like the skype buttons) invented by Apple?
Wow, this is amazing. Anybody on HN happen to see it?
I personally can't stand Paul Krugman. I know he's done good work in academia, but his op-eds push a liberal agenda regardless of the evidence in favor of it.

In this case, how would the federal regulators know how to price risk better than the owners of financial businesses? Krugman doesn't say. He posits that they have some magic knowledge by virtue of being government agents.

The truth is, there was a unprecedented bubble in real estate values and real estate related debt. No one knew how to price them correctly. For a regulator to attempt to do so would be like a regulator setting the right price for Yahoo in 1999.

Neither does Krugman mention past failed financial regulation. Canada had only a handful of bank failures in the 1930's, compared with thousands in the US. The reason was that banks in the United States were kept small by anti-branch banking laws designed to keep any one bank from having too much power. The larger banks of Canada survived, not so the banks of the US.

What assurance do we have that the current regulators will get it right? Many people in public life seem to be drawing bad lessons from the current crisis so far. I'm inclined to think that they won't get it right.