skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This explanation makes sense, but I can't reproduce the behavior.

in IE ... all elements with IDs are already in the global scope

This I can confirm. If the page contains this:

<div id="bob">Hi</div>

then the following evaluates to true in IE:

bob == $("bob")

...without defining the variable. I didn't know that - thanks!

The issue comes when you do something more like this.

<script> var bob = "hello world"; </script> <div id="bob">Hi</div>

now bob doesn't equal "hello world". Your global has been clobbered.

One might expect this, given the above, but I tried it in both IE6 and IE7 and the global keeps the value it had before.
I would ask each of them "are you lieing?". Then, when their heads have exploded, they could all be identified as "dead gods".
Another easy way for spammers to game the system: Set up a link with a copy of a legitimate, interesting news from another location (perhaps from a social site with similar interests) and submit it to a social site. Wait a few hours while the users classify it as non-spam and comments start to roll in. Then, change the page to be mostly spam. (You can't fight this by taking hashes or diffing pages; most pages these days have dynamic content.)

Not only does this spread the spammer's message, but it also breaks down your proposed web of trust between social sites; sites that approve links that later turn out to be spam will be seen as untrustworthy.
Cells (Component Plugin for Rails) Gaining Mindshare
Well, it has been eons since my last visit to a Starbucks. But IIRC here in Barcelona a regular latte costed something around 2 euros. A "café con leche" in a normal bar costs about 1 euro, yes it is half the starbuck's size but it is triple tasty!
Make iGoogle Your Startup Page in Microsoft Outlook
Brad Beveridge abandoned development on both vial and slim-vim. He conceded and now uses emacs+vimpulse. [1]

Many people that come to Lisp from vi tend to be very hesistant to use emacs. I spent weeks trying to use vilisp.vim and viper-mode but eventually learned to live with emacs. It was worth it.

http://www.lispniks.com/pipermail/slim-vim/2007-May/000556.h...
High Performance SSH/SCP - HPN-SSH
OK It's been a while. It may only happen when you start modifying the dom, or using innerHTML.

End of the day though it's a bad idea and at some point you'll clobber variables you didn't want to.
Quantum computing since Democritus
Arc creates classic lit. spam? :-)

http://www.google.com/search?q=classic+lit+spam
Awesome. Thank you very much :)
Usually I only eat meat on holidays, at home, during family feasts. I usually am in a post feast coma, but there are other factors at play here.
Do SLIME users have much need for keyboard macros? I find them very useful.
Considering the pointy haired boss ignored your advice and let the customer run wild in the design phase, you have no reason to feel ashamed for that abomination.
Car, Cdr, and Lisp...
>He had a gym bag, $25, and little else.

>A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C.

Sounds like he had quite a bit to me. Most homeless aren't lazy, as this would seem to suggest. Most have developmental or addition problems. The fact that a bright kid can make it doesn't prove anything, really.
17 shot, gunman dead at Northern Illinois University
Using Nature as a Design Guide
I've used TrustCommerce and I highly recommend them. I've also used authorize, paymentech, and cybersource. TC is head-and-shoulders above the rest IMO.
The Web Developer Extension is truly a great tool for web development. I have found the outline/forms/ruler to be extremely useful.

It does have a lot of overlap with Firebug though, and for stuff like (x)html/dom/js/css inspections I prefer to use Firebug than WDE...
Thank. You. Sir.
4 Steps To Overcome Your Online Addictions
Feature: Ten Must-Have Plug-ins to Power Up Pidgin
To play the devil's advocate, does the culture of openness have the potential for diluting intellectual advancement? On the one hand, there is a greater cross flow of ideas, so the integration of ideas from disparate disciplines will happen much more. However, the cross flow means there is less concerted effort on certain issues and there is less incentive to focus on unpopular but important problems. To use an evolutionary metaphor, the greatest variety of unique species emerge in isolated environments, such as Australia.
Dude, he's an intern, and he's learning. It makes a lot of sense for him to try and participate in the culture during his short time there. There is always lots of time for cynicism afterwards.
Top Five Alternative Ways to Spend Valentines Day for the Single Techie
hustle + opportunity + preparation = luck
Of course it's faster to use a precomputed reference than to find an element in the DOM. I can't see the "overhead" of manually storing a reference to a DOM element in a variable ever mattering in any application. Grab it once and you're done.
Agreed. I've worked in a startup that grow too fast and a new VC brought in "experts" and everything just collapsed. Of course it was also during startup bubbles.

I would probably apply design-by-contract methods. HR, finance and others do play a good role in a company but as long as they are contained :)

I guess startups would eventually want to become a real company and there are costs in that as well. you can minimized that but you can not completely avoid them
He didn't mention his college degree or use stuff like his credit rating... and his background story was that he "was running away from his from druggie mom to live with his alcoholic father"

whatever happend to the spirit of self reliance?
I dislike working in 'real companies' so much that I've hedged my bets, in case we're successful: we plan on basically growing by mitosis, spawning little, autonomous exclaves of our company (of which we have partial ownership, non-controlling ownership).

I bet other hackers dislike working in 'real companies' too, so it might even be a magnet for more independently minded hackers. The most independently minded hackers are likely to go off and start their own, though.
Finding a Cofounder
I'm in need of some advice.

I have started my own project in Sept 2007.

I've managed to just about get it to 70% complete for version 1 which I am schedule to release the beginning of April.

Along the way I've invited a few alpha testers who I knew from another site which would be a competitor. While chatting almost daily with one of the alpha testers (who is also a professional programmer as myself) I thought to myself wouldn't it be great if he were to come on board and directly help guide the ship so to speak. His many suggestions have been pretty helpful and good...although sometimes he tends to make suggestions that replicate functionalities in sites he currently frequents.

My question is, what is expected of bringing on a cofounder later in the game? How do I establish that this is my vision and things should be done my way? Or should I just not be so paranoid in fear a second coder could just screw everything up? Should there be some agreement up front about who has what stake? What precautions should I look out for? He works for a good company in Austin and from our conversations he almost seems right up my alley...so it could turn out to be a golden opportunity and not the glooms day scenario I've been painting thus far.

Any encouragement or warning would be great.

By the way...make this dialog bigger Y...its freakin too small.
something cool is wiki.coworking.info where you can collaborate with other hackers to share space.

my ideal office would have alot of light, a plasma, a couch, wifi and a wireless keyboard amd mouse.
I lost everything I owned except a car and 3 pairs of clothes when I was 23.

Didn't end up homeless though. Just stayed with friends, worked double menial full-time jobs, and put it all back together.

Anybody can _get_ homeless. Staying homeless is an emotion-related disease. My opinion only.
Time for Twitter to Buy Pownce..or Visa Versa
> that watered down flavorless crap they have been serving

Watered down and flavorless? Maybe compared to eating straight coffee grounds. The only valid criticism of Starbucks is they tend to over-roast the beans, allegedly because it makes consistency easier. That aside, it's very good coffee at a fair price.
Yes, this would break it temporarily. In the long run this strategy would lose. With enough eyeballs scrutinizing a site, such a system would eventually identify a site as spam and have it marked because of the dynamic nature of human judgement.

So let's say that out of 100 visitors, 20 see legitimate content, the next 20 see spam, thus alerting the system that they have encountered a spam site. The Bayesian filtering would be for sites with established spam content and then matching it against other established spam content. This would be a cost of 20 visitors exposed to spam while 20 others are exposed to legitimate content. The remaining 60 users are diverted. Sounds like a reasonable tradeoff to me...

Spammers could keep on shifting the content of sites, and this would make it more difficult to apply the spam filter for similar content (but humans, the first line of defense, aren't so easily fooled); this is where site moderators can identify users as potential spammers and give them the boot. So instead of having a 1:1 filter for domain:content, you could have a 1:n filter and then match that against other sites with similar 1:n "content shifting". A danger here is that legitimate content gets associated with spam and thus gets filtered out; this would require more sophistication on behalf of the Bayesian filter in associating content - but I'm certain this is a solved problem that can be put to use here.
I don't know about other states, but in Georgia you cannot incorporate a company with the primary address being a P.O. Box. I assume that would be the case in other places as well.
A couple of days ago I heard an expert on satellites say that a lot of them come down and never even touch the Earth. I started wondering what all the fuss about the American spy satellite was all about. It's clear now, they spread the fear to make it ok for them shoot it out of the sky, even after all the fuss around China's testing last year.

Militarization of space has already begun, welcome to the next phase.
Is spamming much of a problem for the editors?

I suppose I should have asked this when you posted instead of going on my (useful?) brainstorm below (and I really was just throwing out some ideas)...
NetSuite bullish on saas business, swipes at SAP, Microsoft and Sage
Microsoft reorg: Who’s in; who’s out
2009: The year of enterprise social networks
all he had was knowledge of how to live. he didn't do stupid stuff. that doesn't take an advanced degree, but it is more prevalent among affluent people.

This is exactly in accordance with the theory that the chronically poor are poor because of ignorance of basic life skills (and/or because of genuinely bad approaches to life)
redditors hate white people
kijijijijijijijiji!

Are you serious?
The Tech of Obamamania: Online Phone Banks, Mass Texting and Blogs
Has anyone looked into just calling a bank and getting a merchant account? Are these other online services really that much value added?
New York Times Plans to Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs
RIP: Yahoo Design closed down
I am in the exact same boat, so I don't have many answers, just more questions.

I think I'm 60% complete, but who's to say?

I have coded everything just the way I want, what if the next person has better ideas?

What about equity? I've put too much into this to keep less than 50%.

I would love some help, but I don't want to compromise anything.

Actually, you're ahead of me. You have someone in mind. Every potential co-founder I consider doesn't even come close.

Just thought you'd like to know you're not alone. I'm interested in others' opinions as well.
I think this story is testament to the fact that resourcefulness outweighs whatever resources you have. How you use what you have matters more than what you have to work with. Definitely a lesson in this story for those of us in the process of bootstrapping.

Absolutely amazing!
1) conceptualize

2) implement (keeping in mind things will change)

3) get feedback (indicating how I will change things)

4) scrutinize what I have conceptualized or implemented against feedback I get

5) continue on to either step 1 or 2 depending on what happens in step 3 and what I choose is the focus of step 4
That has to be the worse name for a website I've seen. Can you imagine trying to tell that to someone in real life?
the only sure thing is that the whole javascript perfomance/memory footprint/cross-browser/degrade challenge can drive someone crazy!
I don't think explanations of the popularity of car and cdr need to be any more complicated than that they were the first and hence using them was consistent - also two 3 letter keywords are better than any alternatives I've ever seen proposed. They could happily be called left and right without any inconsistency with implementation.
Valentine's Day Developer: Trail of Tiers
An alternative to a normal ban would be to put identified spam accounts into a sandbox mode, where it looks to the account holder like its submissions are working, but everybody else doesn't see them. That way it doesn't start seeing errors and think, "Oh, time to create another account."
"The fact that a bright kid can make it doesn't prove anything, really."

I agree.

He had the single most overlooked aspect of a college degree: he had achieved something. He KNEW he could succeed; that's often half the battle.

Many down and out people can't imagine succeeding, so they don't.

This story reminds me of Robert Allen's old claim, "Put me anywhere in the United States with no money, and by the end of the day I will own some real estate." He did it every time. And to this day, with my limited real estate knowledge, I don't know if I could do the same thing even once.

Nice story, but run4yourlives is right; it doesn't really prove anything except that it's mostly in your head. Then again, maybe that was the whole point.
eBay also own the reasonably successful UK-based Craigslist-imitator Gumtree
And we're supposed to be shocked that a good looking, college-educated white kid succeeded in South Carolina?

If you don't see how this proves nothing, you've never lived in the south. And to use this as proof that people who are poor are poor because they -choose- to be is to defy reason.
5 ways to save money on your start-up
I'm in the same boat as you and as lanceusa, although I am probably 90% done with the alpha. Maybe at this stage, it's better to finish the prototype by yourself, and at that point try to get funding? Once you have funding (or can afford to self-fund, which I can't), just hire the person with the tech skills that you need, instead of giving equity? Just my two cents.
The Maybe Monad in Ruby
This "experience" seems like a bunch of bs - he had $25, got menial physical jobs despite a small army of illegal immigrants flooding this country daily willing to work half the min/wage rate for cash, and ... secured an apartment with no credit history (but first/last/security deposit?) ... and, oh yeah ... just by coincidence decided to write a book about it.

Here's how this really happened. This guy read Prozac nation or one of the many "Reality Books" that are populuar these days and decided, "I know, I'll go talk to publishers and see if they'll pay for a book like this based on my experiences."

He found a publisher, then went to get some "experience" to write about. End of story. Yet another pretentious pseudo experiment which teaches nothing about life other than if you come up with a good enough concept, some publisher somewhere will pay you to write about it.
Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University
What makes you think things should be done your way? I'm sure he'll have some ideas that are at least as good as yours.
People that are poor, are poor b/c they

1.Don't know better.

2. Health illness (major cripling one, or mental reason).

3. You come in this country at a late age (i.e. 55+)

There are really no other reasons. I have two families, one of my uncle, and one of my first cousin, that came to the US (with green cards), and had to restart their lives all from the beginning.

All they had was 5k. For a family of 4, that is very little, and goes by very fast, yet, 10 years later, they are both doing great.

My uncle had to work as pizza deliver person, then truck driver, until found a good job in a car dealership. His wife, had to be a waitress for a while (it sucked, as she was not good for it), but eventually ended up becoming a "accountant helper" for a hospital. 8 years later, she is primary person, managing their money, both of their kids ended up in good private schools, and now one goes to Dartmouth, the other to a good college. They own a house, (bought at reasonable rates, before this buble), cars and all that, living the true american dream.

My other's cousin family, is having a little bit harder time, as they have to get menial jobs, but my cousin became a teacher assistent, (teaching french), and eventually she would move up to something better, while their kids are doing great in school.

As I said, poverty is b/c ignorance. If these two families, can move from a different continent, and re-build everything from scratch, and provide great education to their kids, then everybody else can.

In this country hard work, and perseverance will pay off. B!tching about your conditions, and doing nothing about it, wont.

Sure, you can blame racism, but from experience, it is not that. It is the huge amount of hard work and ethical mentality, and the strong family values that drives all these immigrant families, who while starting dirt poor, they do well, and much better than the american born poor.
Pretty good two cents. I have a feeling that's what will happen.

I often remember the words of Felix Dennis who says he'll do just about anything to succeed---except give up equity. That advice runs counter to much of the thinking here. Then again, Dennis is a billionaire. His book, How to Get Rich, is one of my favorites. (How could you not love, "Money did not make me happy. But it definitely improved my sex life."?)
I've lived in the South, and I've seen both "good looking" white people fail and "bad looking" black people succeed.

I don't see what's wrong with pushing the message that as long as you have the mindset and will to succeed, you will succeed.

Don't get me wrong, there are still places in the South where racism is extremely prevalent and a hinderence to success; but typically those are extremely remote/rural areas (where more than likely the racists themselves are poor too). It's very different from the more progressive metros. Given your post I can probably ask you the same question, "Have you ever lived in the South?"
You can't. Thank Lou Dobbs.
Let's be honest, 99.9% of developers out there don't care much about lisp.

Emacs vs. Vim has been a long standing debate, so it would never resloved here. Frankly, I just use Textpad, and/or Eclipse, and ocassionally GVIM.
So he gave up his health insurance too?

Did he talk using a simpler vocabulary than that which he learned at college?
How Obama Does That Thing He Does
Not huge. There's not a lot of it, and we have several tools for dealing with it. It was unusual for those spams to sit for 3 hours on the new page without getting cleaned up.
to me it's more like a lot of (but not all) redditors want the government to grow large enough to take care of them; then they get shocked once government is big enough to take away their rights...
stop using my company name please. I show no disrespect or want any problems but your using the trademark name for my company and my companies name. Thanks i'm sure we can come to some arrangement on using "quebix" in public with our consent. However if you continue without our permission we might need to take this much further.
I would suggest letting go of the idea that you've created much value.

One way to look at it is this:

If he came on TOMORROW and both of you busted ass for 12 months, how much of the value at the end of that 12 months would have been built before he came on? How about in 4 years (your standard vesting plan)?

The thing to key on is VESTING. Make damn sure that he gets ownership in a trickle (starting after a few months maybe as a trial period)... But make sure they he can eventually get really close to being an equal partner (maybe a touch less than 50% due to the fact that you got started a touch early).
What CAPTCHA emphasizes is that it is automated. Not only the verification process, but also the process of generating problems. If the problem space is fixed, eventually the list of answers is formulated if it is worth. In practice if spammer's think it's not worth we can outperform them by more problems, but that's kind of passive, giving up control to them. In general, what matters is asymptotic ratio of our cost vs spammer's cost---if it is both linear, it's not very promising. If the ratio reaches zero asymptotically, it means the more we and spammers compete the better we do, hence the control is ours.
I think that's LOUSY 2 cents. Take the top 200 sites (by traffic) and show many how many have a single founder.

The number to optimize is your chance of getting ANY payday- not your percentage of ownership. Would you trade 50% of your company to increase your chance of success from 2.1% to 4.2%? I have no idea what those numbers are (but I suspect that a co-founder more than doubles your shot at success)... But if you're more concerned with personal wealth than having a successful company, you're already a step behind.

If you think you'll just run out and get some funding so you can "hire" a partner, you should consider that savvy investors are thinking one of two things:

1) This guy either isn't persuasive enough or doesn't have a good enough idea to get a co-founder, OR

2) This guy is jealously guarding his equity, when he could add 50 hours a week of free and passionate labor from someone with a (hopefully) complementary skillset OR

3) This guy isn't smart enough to know that he doesn't have all of the skills and answers to pull off v1 of this thing.
The book is beyond the point. Maybe he planned to write the book beforehand, maybe not. I don't think that has any influence on the experience that he did ultimately write about.

If the article is true, this man turned $25 into an apartment, a truck, and $5,000 in savings in under a year. It shows that it can be done, at least for a single random sample. I hope that the fact that he wrote a book about his experience doesn't prevent people from seeing the result of the experiment.
I hope you realize that Robert Allen was a fraud.

http://www.johntreed.com/Reedgururating.html#anchor496881
there's an equal mix of ron paul libertarians versus obama democrats on reddit
The first page of my web site answers those questions...

http://ourdoings.com/

...but I don't think that constitutes a business plan, not by a long shot. I need business plan help, big time.
This experiment suggests interesting questions about the cycle of poverty.