skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think this is a great idea and I can relate. I was a wayward youth. I never did anything serious but I was constantly on the wrong side of the law and my success / failure rate was pretty impressive. Though it's not as bad anymore think I was just allergic to authority. I eventually turned my need for risk and self determination to mountaineering and entrepreneurship. A life of crime is very dynamic and intense. Quite similar to startup life. I can see this program being successful and I wish these gentlemen luck.

As for the moral dilemma people are concerned about, I don't think it's such a problem. My rebellion was much more rooted in an inability to walk lockstep through a life of following directions than a rotten soul. I tended toward and environment that I thrived in, one of raw risk and raw reward. A program that recognizes these folks and steers them away from the brink sounds like a really good idea. The only laws I've broken in the last 8 years have been speeding and running stop signs. And I refuse to ever give that up.
SIGGRAPH’s International Animation Competition Opens to Public
An alternative to hierarchical file systems.
Fly, Robot Fly
Site reads your friendfeed then recommends news/blog articles
not a rails guy, but great no bullshit advice nonetheless.
It seems to vary a lot state-by-state. I remember reading posts about $55/month or $79/month health insurance before quitting my day job, but the cheapest I could find here in Massachusetts was that $116/month high-deductible plan. Most high-deductible plans were in the $120-130/month range, with some of the ones that didn't discriminate based on age ranging up to $230. COBRA would've been upwards of $400, and I think plain old independent HMOs would've been comparable.
You could totally monetize the hell out of that idea.
Thanks for all the comments - I wrote a follow-up to this article and posted it on my blog. http://www.16thletter.com/2008/03/21/more-on-starting-a-comp...
An open social graph where each user owns their own data that would 1) keep that data protected, 2) let the user decide which parts of their data is visible to the web applications of their choosing, and 3) not able to be exploited by the likes of Microsoft and Google to better merchandise to users. This type of system will never get built because there's only money in using a user's data against them and users won't pay out of pocket for such a service.
When Are Two Algorithms the Same?
What would you do with them? And why would more than one be needed?
I've got a friend that remarked on that once...he has Marfan's syndrome, which means that he has pricey routine medical treatments and the possibility of some very expensive emergency operations. He's working at Microsoft (despite being a big Mac person), and he said that one of the reasons why he chose to work for "the evil empire" is they have great health benefits, and no small company would be able to cover his health insurance.
Hey cperciva, thanks for submitting it here; I hope more people read it. Question about your attitude about math education. My contention is that real good mathematicians are endowed with an ability that is easily recognized. First you write,

"In the semester I took this course, the average grade on the first mid-term examination was 29%. Three students (myself included), out of a class of about 40, scored higher than 50%."

I attempted a course that seems similar to the 242 you described, and I would be under that 29%. There was even an English major who had abilities far beyond mine; these things convinced me that I wasn't cut out for hard math. But then you write,

"Schneier is right that security requires a strange mindset; and he's right that computer science departments aren't good places to teach this mindset. But he's wrong in thinking that it can't be taught: If you want someone to understand security, just send him to a university mathematics department for four years."

You seem to think it can be trained. Would you think your perception of people's math ability is skewed, yourself being gifted, and probably interact regularly with similarly gifted people?

Even if you are correct, what would you say to the people who placed into hard courses and found themselves inadequate? While it could be that more effort is required, but the ROI varies between individuals. For a math-inclined student, maybe this means four years in the math department. For those who aren't, but perhaps have the aptitude, maybe this is eight years. Aren't universities the wrong place to find out?

I'm reading Apostol's Calculus at my leisure now. It may take me two years to finish, but I will finish it. As determined as I am, this attitude doesn't earn me a math degree, nor an A in a class where an English major could get one easily.
Microsoft is already working on that. ;)
Something that (stupidly) never occurred to me before I kicked of a startup - if you want to get a job with one, go along to networking meetups (e.g. opencoffee) and you'll soon find some opportunities.
The "free" facebook.

- no ads, period

- all personal info is held under the watchful eye of a seperate, non-profit org that ensures no personal info is ever shared with third parties

- you can delete your own account whenever you want, and you won't get hassled. An actual deletion of your data, too

- all source code is open source, and people can contribute whatever features they want
The reviews on ebay are turing complete. You might think people are giving over the top reviews with their "A+++++++++", but that's just unary notation.
The essential flaw in your logic is this: "evolved to" Evolution has neither purpose nor end. That which is more 'fit' (a very vague term to be sure) is what evolution favors. If a larger force with better weapons can defeat a smaller, disorganized force, then evolution clearly favors the former.

Napoleon is a case example. There are many, many more I could call upon, but I think a lesson in world history is beyond the scope of this debate.
What's the problem with using credit card for funding? I'm new here, but I have already seen many people advising against it.
The Unmistakable Trait of a Kick-ass Startup
True, but I think they want it this way for a reason. Amazon is really cherry-picking the best part of the colo business with EC2. They get to charge people a decent rate for a moderately powerful server with a public IP address, yet they really don't have to provide much beyond "best effort" availability. 99% uptime is easy, it's those 9's after the decimal point that get costly.
This game is currently in full effect at MIT. I really assumed no one would have time to play it, what with all the psets, but no. Lots of people are into, and they're even trying to pull alums (read: me) in.

Not sure how big a deal this sort of thing will be, but it's certainly taking off.
That's what Tsumobi were working on last time I talked to them (and the programming language part was already well under way).
They're going to compete with UPS (which is transitioning into fulfillment and even IT repair at its depots!) on this and I guess they're targeting the long tail first.
Test-driven parsing with Python, Dparser and Doctest
Normally, IAAL is accompanied by a disclaimer like "I am not your lawyer. This post does not constitute legal advice. PLZ don't sue me."
This article really touches on something I've thought a lot about. People are supposed to be indepependent. The freedom-loving spark is in all of us, and when we work for a behemoth organization or spend all day long taking orders from some arbitrary boss, we lose something. We change somehow.

Not that following a great leader is a bad thing, because it's not. Following a great leader is actually one of the best ways to learn (think getting mentoring by a successful entrepreneur... or reading and trying to live by the great works of Aristotle, Ghandi, Christ, etc.)

But there is a big difference between voluntarily choosing to follow a great leader, and being told that you must follow a leader. And if you miss work for 3 days, "we'll find somebody else."

120 years ago, 90% of Americans owned their own land and their own companies (usually farms).

Today, the opposite is true. 10% of Americans own their own land (sorry, a $500,000 mortgage on a $501,000 house doesn't count. Try not paying your mortgage for 3 months and see who owns that land)... and 10% of Americans have their own companies.

Maybe Americans are mostly living below their potential today...
New Form of Vision Discovered
If it works.
They'd do what libraries do: collect and preserve. Several already exist, like archive.org and Google cache. But Google's cache exists for Google's purposes. Archive.org is often forced to take down material, especially since the DMCA. You need a real decentralized network that is both lawyer- and disaster-resistant.

It is impossible for, say, the New York Times to change or obliterate what it printed on some day in 1997. For NYT.com it's a simple as a mouseclick and a letter. That means there is no such thing as "public record" on the internet. Public record is the basis of a literate society.
Author of "Five reasons why a recession is a good time to start a company" responds to Hacker News
I've been thinking recently about that too. It's inefficient to use a traditional folder/file system, at least for your personal documents (for system and program files I think they're better off the original way.)

What about folders that represent tags? I could tag a file (say a picture) with Danny (my name), Vacation, and 2007. The system creates 4 "folders" as we understand them, each one labeled with a tag, and the final one labeled as "images" or something similar (whatever the file type is). You could open the "images" folder and see the image, along with all other images. You could drill down further into images>vacation and see all files tagged with both images and vacation. You will also see additional folders for other items that have additional tags and fit in the images>vacation tag.

You could also get to the same file by going into the "Danny" folder, to see all files tagged with "Danny,"

It's a little difficult to explain, and I'm sure that what I'm trying to express is already being developed by someone, but either way, it is a more efficient system than what we already have. No more annoying shortcuts and restrictive folders.
The original Hacker News thread is here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=141786
They have, however, told us their numbers.

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080131/chatty-zuckerberg-tells-...

They are not, as you'll see, Google-esque.
There was a book I read recently...I can't remember the title, but it was one of those generic "How to manage for innovation and creativity" books, by a famous author.

Anyway, one of the examples used was that most-hierarchical-of-hierarchies, the U.S. Army. It talked about how in Vietnam, the U.S. got its butt kicked because basically "no plan survives contact with the enemy." The army would have these detailed marching orders, but then Vietcong would come out of nowhere and blow the plans to shambles.

The army's solution was to include a "Commander's Intention" section at the top of every order, which was a one-sentence description of the overall objective that the military hoped to achieve. At high levels, it would be very general, like "Establish air superiority over the region between the XYZ and ABC parallels". At low levels, it might be very specific, like "Capture the hill overlooking the southernmost runway at XY Airbase, to allow the 3rd mechanized division to enter the base without fear of artillery attack."

The crucial point was that if conditions on the battlefield ever made it impossible to carry out their orders as written, officers were authorized to use whatever creativity and judgment necessary to achieve the Commander's Intention, including giving new orders to their own subordinates. So you had plans, but each subunit knew where they stood in relationship to the whole and could adapt on the fly to take into account changing battlefield realities.

Anyone here in the military that could confirm or deny this? Anyone know what book it's from?
All the more reason for someone else to work on it, and do it right.
AvatarNet. They start off based loosely on your personality but self-develop and become independent over time.
Paul, I think you need to take the next step here which is getting out of the venture business. The whole venture industry is based on your startup founders becoming bosses or being acquired by companies with bosses. Even if they end up rich afterward, the availability of the money is directly tied to other programmers getting duped into working unnaturally (with bosses). Have you considered leading your startups toward a small business path? More here:
http://www.stubbleblog.com/index.php/2008/03/take-the-next-s...
Wow. Any idea how much they charge?

Edit: free for the web service, they charge for the fulfillment. Not unreasonable, though I don't know what competitors charge. http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fba_pricing.html?
I think Arc - the 100 year language is a pretty noble aim. Just the idea that a programming language could be useful all that time - thats a pretty big step forward for technology. And its not likely to be any commercial motivation that causes it to come about.
That article was dated from 2003. There is also a Time article about the device from around the same period.

Near as I can tell, he's still working on it.
Evolutionary algorithms to create music (attached to libraries for sound generation and modification, drum beat, samples, etc) fronted by a reddit-like vote-up, vote-down system for the output of different algorithms. I'd try out different strategies for evolving things.

I'd focus on electronica or something without vocals initially. Each "subreddit" would be focused around the evolved algorithms for a different theme (trance, house, etc.)

Maybe there's something like this out there, but I'd play with it anyway...
I'm doing this right now, with a game site devoted to multi-player turn-based strategy games. It's still a small site (as far as the number of players go) and I'm sure it could be monetized, but I doubt it'd make much money right now. Certainly not enough to put it outside the realm of just doing this for fun.

The site's Vying Games (vying.org) if you want to check it out. : ))
Indeed. I came up with a new motto lately: "Premature hierarchisation is the root of all rigidity."
YC applications are due - 3 questions to ask yourself
Yeah my thoughts on the matter have always included tagging. It just seems logical to have the same file in more than one group (or folder if you want to call it that), and I hate drilling down seven levels to find something. My problem has always been in dealing with system files. The current setup seems rather logical for them anyway. Maybe a two pronged approach like you suggest makes the most sense.
i think dataflow programming is a pretty good angle of attack
Non-Shocker: People Want To Watch TV On TV, Web On PC
an virtual programmer ie a software or call it AI that creates software based on my desire. so i will give simple specification and it will turn it into software, i can refine the code, save, go back to previous version....
The fact that user credentials (or any sensitive data) is directly modifiable through a web interface is concerning to me. Shouldn't this logic be protected in the controller layer?
bread.

seriously. i think i would own a bakery.
i wouldn't worry about Microsoft actually developing something new and useful. Unless Apple did it first of course.
I don't buy it.

One at a time:

1. Good (ie, narrowband) voice codecs have been around for a while. I don't think that's why Skype took off. I think that they crystalized the notion of the cheap call.

2. I can't comment on the TeNeT group with any authority.

3. Originally, Google wasn't visionary in any way. It was another search engine, albeit a good one.

4. The Tata Nano seems to be the latest in a long line of ever cheaper people's cars. You may remember this one:

http://people.westminstercollege.edu/staff/bknorr/html/histo...
The only difference between this water distiller and just boiling water is the amount of electricity required.

Right now all three presidential candidates are favor of a cap-and-trade system. There is something like a 90% chance of having that enacted within the next 18-24 months. According to John Doerr, once we get a cap-and-trade system solar will become cost competitive with coal within two years.

So while this specific device is certainly cool, the upcoming trillion dollar energy revolution is going to have a far greater impact on the ability for developing nations to have clean water than any single device.
I would start a derivatives trading firm specializing in securitizing consumer products. First: a gasoline-contract, so people could hedge their gas purchases for the expected life of any car they bought (and never care about gas again -- until it was time to buy a new car). Then, personal market-makers, which would, e.g., try to buy more of foods you liked when they were cheap, suggest alternative venues for entertainment and dining, etc. This would allow people to 'sketch' their demand curves for lots of goods, solving part of the socialist calculation debate and allowing me and my friends to spend our time doing something besides being obnoxious libertarians.

Interesting problems this could solve: over-investment and under-use of transportation (lease your bike to a courier from 9, when you arrive at work, until 5, when you leave -- charging a different leasing rate depending on the reputation of the courier, of course); estimating the effects of changes in excise taxes; having a better idea of when it's worth it to spend X minutes for a Y% chance to save $Z; etc.
It's not that hard to monetize: just stick ads on pages and sell them. If they had been happy with a billion-dollar valuation, they could simply do that, and everybody would have been happy, including their blissfully unzombified users.

Unfortunately, they're not happy being a billion-dollar company, they want to be a 15-billion dollar company, or perhaps a hundred-billion-dollar company. To justify that kind of size they need to think up all sorts of new ways to monetize their users (e.g. Beacon) at the possible cost of annoying their users (e.g. Beacon).
You should work with this guy: http://www.electricsheep.org/
It does seem like GXC currently has more traction than KN

Don't believe everything you read in the NYT. They've run games at a lot of schools, but none of them really took off. Whereas the game Kirkland North ran for Stanford spread to a quarter of the student body in two weeks.
Text adventure games, a la Infocom.
BTW I would seriously like to work on this someday.
I think this describes every programming language, for some value of 'simple'.
mos, have you seen _Local Breads_, by Daniel Leader? Just got it from the library and will try his baguettes tomorrow.
A bittorrent plugin for firefox with no UI. e.g. downloading a torrent has the exact same interaction as downloading a file over HTTP. Seeding == leaving it in your downloads list, advanced power user preferences are tucked in an about: page.

Bittorrent for the masses.
Good for you. Really good, fresh bread, is a treat that not enough people appreciate.
6 million hits a day. Time to think scale!
Two girls at the same time.
I haven't, but I'll be sure to check it out now. I love cooking and gardening, but restaurants generally have one of the worst failure rates of any business. So it's all hacking for me for now...
I'd work on a free, secure set of tools for the IT needs of non-profit organizations. Hosted and LiveCD/appliance deployment options, and containing a full, truly usable stack for CRM, fundraising, event planning, and publishing.

There's interesting work going on in the problem space, (CiviCRM being the 500lb. gorilla) but no free turnkey solutions I know of. Some organizations literally have to beg to scrape up the money for a basic web hosting account, so monetization of the platform would be tough.
Is Oprah Going to Save the Internet?
As someone whose startup was acquired by IBM, I whole heartedly agree. Every day in IBM is rot. Can't wait to do another startup.
Pardon my ignorance, but if you program in multi-threads using a high level language what assurance do you have that the code will run in parallel on the chip level/lower level. Assuming that you're running a multi-core processor, that is.
Articles, Ideas, Books and/or Concepts that have changed your life
I'm really curious to see what has influenced you all to become the people you are. What ideas? A quotation from an obscure philosopher? What books? What articles?

One for me is this article on the "Design Document" by Rex Parker of StreetSmartinc.com

http://streetsmartinc.com/design_doc.php
To be fair, WinFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS) had some really exciting ideas in it. I distinctly remember being a sophomore in college, looking forward to "Longhorn" because of things like WinFS, but having trepidation about it because of things like Palladium. Of course, that was a good six years ago. They ended up gutting both of those features out of Vista to get the OS out the door and even then it was years late. But I digress. :)
A new dialect of Lisp.
It seems like that would be pretty straightforward to add to any filesystem that already supports metadata.

I'm sure Windows has something similar, but on MacOS X.5 (a feature borrowed from BeOS, IIRC), you can create a Smart Folder that's basically a canned query for files matching a very large set of criteria. I'm not sure what the API is for extending the criteria, but presumably adding tags wouldn't be all that difficult.
I've considered this idea myself, previously, and I like it a lot. The beauty is that if you go to \Images\Vacation\2005, it's the same as going to \2005\Vacation\Images, so you can access your files in an intuitive way no matter which train of thought got you there.

The only thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to represend these tags as directories. You shouldn't see them all at the top level, that'd be pretty crowded.
If you're interested, drop me a line and I'll send you a couple of bready links (written while preheating the oven--pizza's about to go in!).

Here's a guy who's doing good things with pizza: http://www.billyreisinger.com/pizza.php

Some inspiration: http://www.billyreisinger.com/pizza_log.html
You might also want to take a look at LOCKSS (I'm not affiliated; just thought it was interesting):

"LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) is an international non-profit community initiative that provides tools and support so libraries can easily and cost-effectively preserve today’s web-published materials for tomorrow’s readers."

Currently OpenBSD-based, but I think that I heard that they are looking to migrate to FreeBSD to take advantage of ZFS.

http://www.lockss.org/lockss/
Ooh! I got quoted :) Fuzzy feeling ...
"When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

Warren Buffett could have warned them.
Are you sure? Do you know how this machine works? There is significantly more to distillation than just boiling. Conventional boiling only deals with microbes, chemicals, such as salt, require full distillation, so if this really is a genuine distillation machine, it is significantly more useful than boiling water (which requires a lot of energy to do on a mass scale.)
Sounds like something closer to a social graph plugin for people that already have a personal web site.

You might be able to make money at this by offering a no-hassle hosted version for the lazy, and give away the API and GPLed reference implementation.
God I hope not.

But I'm a natural contrarian, and Oprah represents all that is mainstream (and hence bad) to me.
Yes, I think that is the point of the article.
One of my many "I'll never have time for that" interests is experimenting with OS-wide transparent persistence.