skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A few years ago, when struggling with a big decision, I wondered: if persistence is such a good trait, why have I gotten into such trouble with it? The solution I found was to distinguish between persistence and stubbornness. Both are committed to reaching the goal no matter what, but persistence means changing what's not working, while stubbornness simply repeats what's not working.

This distinction has proven quite helpful to me. Your Andreesen quote may be the first time I've run across it elsewhere.
Did Google not ate their lunch when it introduced forms in Google Doc's Spreadsheet? That basically took away their raison d'etre.
My advice is contrary to what most people here are saying: avoid both the headhunter firm, and companies that utilize headhunter firms.

To begin, there's a _reason_ they're "all over you." I know and have been there, too, sometimes getting several calls in one day from various agencies. Any phone call that begins with "I'm so and so with such and such IT staffing. I have a client that. . ." is a no-no in my book. Headhunters don't care how much money you make, only how much you can make them.

They tend to like to leech the maximum amounts possible both from you and from the company you are sent to work for "for them." The really pathetic thing is most headhunters/recruiters don't even know what they're talking about tech-wise. Sure, they may have some smooth telephone skills, but that's about it. The most laughable one called me up to ask if I knew what RHEL stood for.

The constant barrage of calls and such from them should tell you: (a) that there are more leeches like them than there are people like you and (b) that your time and talent are potentially valuable to somebody somewhere, but that various obstacles exist in your line of communication.

Maybe I'm just a stickler for efficiencies, but seriously. Putting yourself behind a "brick wall" (IT staffing/headhunter) even if the company you want to work for is indeed on the other side of that brick wall can be really frustrating. It's especially frustrating when you have to re-arrange that brick wall every time, just to get anything done.

One more thing to note: The fact that this "startup" is already utilizing a headhunter firm would worry me if I were you. Usually companies don't tend to need to pawn off hiring duties until they're unable to handle hiring on their own: this can be an early warning sign.

I don't know if I can speak for the group, but I think most of us here on HN value our independence and as someone earlier mentioned "being stuck" anywhere just doesn't factor into the equation.

P.S. I'm sorry, but it's not a "valuable service" when it's something that anybody can easily do on their own. MBA Rule #1: managers should not ask others to do something they can do themselves; this includes searching for, seeking out and talking to potential employees _directly_.
I was just taking a shot at answering your question and I wasn't commenting on any other of your posts except the one you asked about.
GE "major milestone": Printing Organic LEDs like Paper, Applicable to Solar Panels
Money being wasted on trying to see inside a computer hackers brain? 
Hacker Poem, care of Brand Killer Robots, in response to http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/2007/11/22/why-a-computer-security-course-blog/
Motorola's Solar and Wind-Powered Cell Phone Base Stations in Africa
"Headhunters don't care how much money you make, only how much you can make them."

Mhm. And grocery stores don't care about whether you go hungry, just whether or not you give them money. And landlords don't care about whether you have a home, just ...

I'm a recruiter. I avoid lying about jobs or the candidates I submit for them because my ability to do business depends on being someone both sides want to hear from. If I send half a dozen people to a company, and they all complain about how the job isn't what they expected, they lose the hour of interview time and I lose a client. Why would I do that?
This maybe something like what you were thinking: http://notchup.com
They are 'known' for it in the sense that if they do it, we will all 'know' about it. I'm sure that within a block of my home there are more people who've cheated that way than you could find in a week's worth of TMZ and The Drudge Report.
Proposal would curb Web tracking for advertisements
That's quite interesting. I would assume that polygamous tribes would be much more successful; if the biggest, fiercest chief gets ten wives instead of one, you've got to assume that there are going to be lots of little fierce ones toddling around, making the tribe more competitive. On the other hand, they might just end up killing each other, so polygamy could be useful if there's a more benign trait being bred for, like IQ. Perhaps extremely wealthy polymaths who like to fool around (e.g. http://www.dealbreaker.com/jeffrey_epstein/ and http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/15/071015fa_fact_... ) are the future.
Education vs Justification
Paul, any chance to accept a possibility, that they write "we do not agree with this particular Paul's essay" because they do not agree with what you wrote in this particular article, not because they don't like you as a person? Maybe some of them acutally don't like you, but I am quite sure this is not true for everybody.

If you publish something (in any media) you will get different opinions. Some people will agree, some will not. Some will express support, some will express critique. You can respond to that, they can respond to your response etc. This is called discussion. As a result of discussion some people will change their mind, and some will simply agree that they don't agree. Especially when the subject is life style, where there is no "one size fits all". I like spinach, others don't. You feel free in startup, I don't (taking care of non-technical stuf, bleeeeh).

The other thing is that written word (like your essays) is taken more seriously than if it was said by mouth, so the lions metaphor would be absolutely not a problem if said over a beer, but when written it left impression, that you call "corporate" folks' lives a piece of crap, while some of them CHOSE corporate as giving THEM more freedom (by some definition of freedom) than startup.

As simple as that - no size fits all, people care about different things, leaving impression, that their life is worse because of that will do no good.

Cheers!
This lifestyle is nicer FOR YOU. Not necessarily FOR THEM.

If I like spinach and you don't, how will you show me, that not eating spinach is nicer? Or the other way around?
Some users are used to registering no matter what. We only require registrations to upload content on the site, yet for some visitors the first thing they do on the site is register, without uploading anything.
Clickpass v. Justin.tv
OpenID - what is it, how do you implement it and how can you layer the magic that is Clickpass on top of it.

This Thursday, 27th March, 12pm at Justin.tv in San Francisco:

36 Clyde St. San Francisco, California 94103
Still available from BN.com: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/iPhone-Open-Application-Dev...
What's everybody's background?

I'm currently coding in Ruby on Rails. Studied CS and Math at Appalachian State (graduated in 2004). Working at Enventys in Charlotte (http://www.enventys.com).

We could definitely meet up at the Enventys facilities ... cool place to hang out.
http://twitter.com/aaroneous

Twitter reminds me of listening to a police scanner, that said, there's usually some interesting things you can pick up.
Meet the wizard of Web 2.0 (Arrington)
Defection Watch: Google’s Director of Social Media Decides Its More Social at Facebook
OpenID - what is it, how do you implement it and how can you layer the magic that is Clickpass on top of it.

This Thursday, 27th March, 12pm at Justin.tv in San Francisco:

36 Clyde St. San Francisco, California 94103
You don't want to address 30% of the market because they're using technology you don't feel like supporting?

I'll take them. Thanks.
Regarding Poor Charlie's Almanack, the best way to buy the book is on a trip to the Huntington Library near LA. No discount, nor is it signed, but that way it comes with a free excuse to visit an amazing treasury of culture. Worth doing!

http://www.huntington.org/
Google, Yahoo!, News Corp. Team Up on OpenSocial
You are using the word "impossible" to mean "very hard", and I am not.
Has anyone talked to nontech people about OpenID? Do they understand what it is and are they using it?
Matrix like immersive realistic second life... but non-invasive. (no metal rods stuck down your neck)
There are exist some truths about what lifestyles are nice for everyone. If they violate some of those, then changing would benefit them.

As far as we know, the truth about eating is a lot more like "eat foods you like" than "eat foods X, Y, and Z but not A, B, or C". So we can all agree that I will eat spinach because I like it, and you won't because you don't. That doesn't contradict, and is no reason for disagreement.
That's exactly some of what we'll be talking about - they love the idea but tend to get confused by the logistics
Rick Little. 155 grant proposals turned down. Stubbornness paid off. Eventually awarded second-largest-ever grant in US History ($65M)

This reads sort-of like an underdog movie...

"Rick had one last chance. Activated by desperation and conviction, he managed to talk himself past several secretaries and he secured a lunch date with Dr. Russ Mawby, President of the Kellogg Foundation..."

http://www.iyfnet.org/section.cfm/2/242/545

"Rick Little’s life is a testament to the power of commitment to a high vision, coupled with a willingness to keep on asking until one manifests the dream."

Yes, from Chicken Soup from the Soul
Anyone have a guess as to whether or not this will pass the "bar fight test"?

I go to the bar and start shit with Big McLargeHuge and he busts up my face. My nose is broken, one or both eyes are swollen, my jaw line is resting differently because of busted teeth or possibly a broken jaw.

Can I still be recognized? People who know me will still be able to see who I am. A person comparing my face to a photo of me in an unbeaten condition would be able to recognize me. Will this software?
1 + 1 = 74:: 
Abstract maths teaches intelligence students to think beyond the obvious?

Bring it on..
That depends on the complexity of the bot. A general purpose bot might not get through a complex process, but someone could spend just a few minutes to customize a bot to a particular site. CAPTCHAs are reasonably good at stopping bots.
The only truths about lifestyles true for everyone I can come up with is "don't hit yourself with a hammer" and "don't eat poison". Definitely not "work for yourself" or "work for corp". A lot of people is unhappy working for corp, but a lot likes it better than being on their own (me included).

It's exactly the same way as with food - "work where you like".
"The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic. "

Nice list! They compare the Vatican to the US? It's a joke...
Why would a buyer's agent be a good faith representative in negotiations if it was in their personal interest that the sale price be higher?

This belief follows from the mistaken notion that if there are two brokers involved in the transaction where one has listed the property and the other is assisting a buyer in finding a property, then one of them has a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer. This is almost never the case in conventional real estate transactions - all the brokers involved work for the seller. The listing broker receives a fee for having listed the property. If a non-listing broker is involved he/she receives a fee for locating the buyer. As you point out, the nature of this relationship should be clear when you notice that all the brokers' financial interests are aligned with the seller's.

It is possible for a buyer to hire an agent to act on his behalf and there would be no reason for this agent to be paid a percentage of the sales price. Very few people do this - either because they don't think it is worth it or don't understand that the broker who showed them the house isn't working for them.
"How would you make this site have a gentler slope? Let the user post a comment and then say "Thanks for the comment, now you just need an account to publish this. Enter your username/password."?"

An interesting idea, but it would probably deter casual commenters. People who drop by, see something interesting and want to add their two cents, sign their anonymous comment, and leave it at that.

It's a bit of a stretch, possibly, but track users and pester them gently if they comment several times anonymously. Something like "hey, I've noticed you've been around for awhile, if you sign up, you'll get these perks. Would you like to?"

http://qdb.us/latest does SOMETHING like this. It's a quotes database and after you've browsed around awhile it puts a non-intrusive nag-message at the top of the screen directing you to the FAQ. Maybe something similar to direct people to a signup form?
Yahoo joins OpenSocial
Seems harder to do with something as granular as posting permissions, I agree.
Or maybe it just means we underestimate our abilities, and conserve too much for the swim back.

Or to apply this to startups, instead of giving it your all even at the risk of failure, you never really devote yourself to something, so you have an excuse in the case that you do fail.

(As an aside, I modded you up. Not sure who puts someone at -2 for expressing an opinion.)
Is Yahoo really worth $40Billion - when in the hands of hackers?
An open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English
all of yall are stupid ass fags i will beat all yall asses if you got anything to say suck my nutts bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!
The part that often gets overlooked is knowing what you want. Once you've figured that out, don't quit until you get there.

Glad you're feeling better.
From WSJ blog http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/03/24/idea-watch-can-thi...
http://jottit.com has a nearly frictionless scheme.
Hold on there, I didn't say anything about people should work for themselves. We can do better than "don't hit yourself with a hammer", but nothing like "everyone should work for themselves" (that'd be a bit hard with no possibility of hiring employees, lol).
Save the Developers! Stop Using Internet Explorer 6
VoIP VIPs: How Some of VoIP's Biggest Advocates Are Using the Technology They Tout
>The weird thing being claimed here is that it actually doesn't matter which features you pick as long as 1) feature space is huge 2) you pick enough features 3) you use a "correct" sparse representation of the features

I haven't read the paper yet, but from your description this part is indeed the least convincing. It still matters which features you use! What if I pick the average color of the image (and millions of similar "features")? A feature like that won't help me in face recognition.
Problem Solving:: Heuristic Analysis vs. Formal Methods?
Heh. Well if it's good enough then word will get around. One day all his friends will have read it, loved it, and told him to read it. Plus it would be all over TV and radio and culture in general, so it'd be hard to have a normal conversation while missing all the references to it.
Did Microsoft look at the structure of Linux systems and figure they could do the same?
I just saw that movie for the first time the other night! Great film, great quote!
I once had a municipal tech incubator rep tell me that any internet business requiring more feet on the pavement to sell the product was doomed to fail. And that pretty much exactly describes why a lot of web 2.0 companies will fail, because they wait for a magical invisible phenomenon to sell their product (traffic or otherwise).

This article gives me a lot of confidence to just trust in traditional sales methods. Hard earned revenues aren't evil nor scary. And if you don't get them, you'll soon cease to exist.
If you want a stable government, the Vatican is the place to be. About the only disadvantage it has in terms of governmental stability is that every head of state since it was formed in 1929 has died while in office. :-)
I would say that it depends very much on what you do.

If your main income is advertising you will definitely want to watch it closely, have a good reputation and a conversation with your customers. And, as the article states, it can affect your brand severely if you run "punch the monkey" ads.

That said, running your own advertising is not easy. You need IT infrastructure, a sales department, customer relations, etc. If advertising is not paramount to your business maybe it is better to focus on the things that are, and outsource advertising. After all a company has limited resources and must spend them where it matters the most.

I'm sure there are ad networks that cater to a more upscale audience (eg. no "punch the monkey ads), and if there aren't then there is a great business opportunity in creating one.
If you really want to get rid of sign up forms, having a large scale trusted and secure central repository for unique IDs/logins and 'commonly requested' information would eliminate the need for many sign up forms. The majority of web based applications, services, etc. ask you for the same information repeatedly without any actual need or use for the information as a value add in the functionality of the application. Why is that? Why hasn't this been done/worked in the past?
Who needs a mummy or daddy - when you can Google all day?
I don't think the reason you don't see planes in people's driveways is because of their complexity. Nearly all consumer products are increasing their complexity each year and there's no reason to think that this trends stops. Just take a look at any modern car and compare it with an old one. If people want such robots enough those robots will be produced for the mass market.

And the first application which did spring to my mind immediately was transport. There are so many situations where an automated transport, which does not depend on wheels or rails, would be useful that I can see a huge market for this.

The first mass market might be in the industry. But once prices fall there are also lots of possibilities for this to reach the consumer market. Certainly normal people also can have uses for such transports. Be it as intelligent luggage, as a tool for the garden (replacing the wheelbarrow) or simply as a very cool toy for the kids (just think of riding those things!).

This is a completely new way of automating transports and so I expect it to have an extremely large impact in the following years.
I think there is a fine balance between being "strung along" and gradual engagement.

For instance, if I were to use an app to share photos (a la flickr), and I was invited to upload a bunch of photos then be presented with "Ok, now you've got to sign up RIGHT NOW or we'll delete everything you just did" - that's sorta missing the point. That's less gradual engagement and more impending doom.

The implementation of the chatbot above seems to be more along the right lines, though. The holy grail perhaps would be allowing the user to fully engage with the service without even realising it.
Robot Scientist: the best job ever?
Trevor's ad for anybots.
I think this problem is less of AI, more of HI; not so much a computing problem but more of a cognitive one.
Games Publishers not willing to play 'Dirty Games' to defend their brand
If the first month is critical, you're probably picking a crappy segment to chase. Yeah, the window's closing on social networks. Go do something else.
Oops, sorry. I did stretch it a bit :)

The flame with Paul started with him drawing conclusion (or leaving such impression) that natural state for human is to be own boss and that ones that work for somebody are missing something in life (hence their life is somehow inferior). That's why I jumped to "work" topic.
You did not mention work, but I connected Paul's essay with your post.

My point was that IMO there are very few universal truths about life and they are limited to very basic things. Differences between particular human beings and environments they live in are too big to draw general conclusions.
This reminds of me the archetype of the 'hero's journey', best described by Joseph Campbell. Which basically perfectly underlines why successful enrepreneurs are considered our contemporary heroes. Fighting against impressive odds with limited resources and little to no regard for one's own safety? Sounds pretty heroic to me...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
Who says they're 30% of your market?

We're talking about people who either don't care about staying current or who intentionally refuse to upgrade (surely Windows prompts people to upgrade to IE7).

Is it worth spending many extra hours on your project – and shelving one feature or dev shortcut after another – in order to tap that market?

The answer can be no.

Do movies studios still put out VHS tapes?
Killer Robots:: Ready for the War on Brand Terror!
I'm not sure I see how the two are comparable.
The only problem, as iamwil pointed out is that the algorithm doesn't work if it isn't given perfectly cropped face on photos. Its a "different problem" as they say, which i'd say is pretty valid.
Computing History Matters
Right, I see. But I think there are actually a lot of universal truths.

For example, lifestyles that are open to criticism are more successful because they correct more of their errors. Lifestyles with appropriate attention to detail are more successful too (that doesn't mean more attention to detail, it means being good at judging the right amount for the situation and using that. And there exist non-obvious truths about how to judge the appropriate amount of detail for a situation).

And there's all that stuff we call "scientific rigor" or the scientific method. While it's normally associated with only science, large parts of it are valuable to thinking in general. And better ways of thinking definitely make for a better life.
How to succeed in the high-tech boys' club
I'm frikking depressed now.
When I bought my house, I knew the area I want to live in. I searched for homes using the various websites (realtor.com, craigslist.com ...) I got comparable homes using Zillow. I didn’t really see a need for an agent, but once I found a house myself and ready to buy, I needed to get an agent because the seller wasn’t comfortable selling without an agent. I assume this will change in near future.
Great Moments in Linux History
Liveblogging the OpenSocial.org Conference Call
The issue isn't necessarily collecting "boatloads of data"; rather, the problem is making sure I have a way to contact this person who is potentially interested in my product. For you, this is conveniently solved through their screen name and network. However, how would you go about contacting someone who stumbles upon your website (without explicitly asking them for contact info)?

Another issue is accountability. If someone is abusing my service, I want to be able to ban them from ruining things for everyone else. If you look at sign up forms in terms of security, the psychological acceptability of filling out a form and providing an e-mail address is actually quite high compared to more robust ways of verifying identity (driver's license, social security number, etc).
Which would probably be a good idea. Heads up that Google is working on a task list/productivity manager for calendar.
One link here: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/05/10/task-list-coming-in-...

And there was another I can't seem to find now where a Google employee explicitly stated in response to people petitioning for one that a task manager was in the works .
DEKA (aka Dean Kamen) patented inverted pendulum in 2002
the key difference between Apple and MS is that Apple doesn't currently produce garbage that they overcharge for (though there may be an exception here and there). it's easier to put up with a jerk company that produces nice stuff