skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Have people use lat/lng? You can add two new columns for latitude and longitude populated by:

=GoogleLookup("address to geocode", "latitude")

"Address to geocode" can probably be made using the existing city/country columns.

Then you can automatically make a map directly from spreadsheet data: http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsma...
Thanks these are some great concreate actionable suggestions. Just curious, have you put your last bullet into practice?
Holy nauseating reference frames batman...

This really seems to mess with the part of my brain that's been optimized for playing Tetris, even after ~50 lines... It's like going from being fluent in a language to a complete noob again.
They are all the time anyway so why not?

On the other hand there was a post about the release of freebsd 8. If I cared about Freebsd I would have known about it. If I didn't care then well I don't care. I would say post if it is a\your startup, otherwise people who care about it already know about it and people who don't don't want the channel to be polluted.
IE was reportedly the attack vector for China's hacking into Google
I upvoted it because it's nice to see technical information about voice rather than just more hype about Google Voice. I also think Asterisk could use some competition.
Yeah man power and infrastructure. The goal with VC usually is to help something move faster in the direction of success/profitability via whatever resources the startup is lacking in.
type "@thatotherpersonsusername hello there"
Amazon: We Don't Have Cloud Capacity Issues
From the linked article:

> Sure, it could be a note protesting the scavenger hunt in principle, speaking to any and all confidential knowledge of any unreleased Apple product, but this scavenger hunt is purely for Tablet evidence. And, do companies send C&Ds for non existent devices? Not in our experience.

The emphasis is mine.
Things Happening on NYC Tech Scene in '10
Rackspace Cloud Slowed by 'Unusual Load Spike'
Imho, this spreadsheet captures the very bare essence of a co-founder dating site. Find your co-founder with nothing more than your browser's "Control-F"
Ask HN: Anybody Know Any Real-Time Web Stats?
Hi guys,

My Google-Fu is weak today, as I have tried to find the answers to these questions and have failed. So I figured I would ask the experts.

Anybody know how much volume the real-time web is pumping today? How many tweets there are per day, how many FaceBook updates the average user reads each day, how many new blogs are written each day, or how many news/web articles the average user reads?

I need this for my startup business proposal, so any help would be really, really appreciated. Sorry to be so lame -- I guess the information is out there somewhere -- but beats me if I can find it easily.
I can't remember if it was mentioned in all honesty. There's no real reason that the incision need get infected if they were very careful.

If I remember correctly the medic sterilized his instruments, himself and the patient with alcohol or some sort of solvent.

I have a friend who lived in the Yukon (north edge of Canada) for many years. He slashed his leg open with a knife accidentally while working one day, but he was a day or so away from medical care. He just cleaned it and then sutured himself up using a needle and dental floss. He eventually got to a hospital, the doctor told him he had done just fine!
Yup. Everyone lives in tiny cages and the result is that we've lost, or are loosing, our sense of community.

I want to outline part of the reasons why we choose to live in "voluntary prisons." I, thankfully, at age 26 have never been a victim of crime - But I do know several people that have not been as lucky:

* My friend's cousin was stabbed in a shopping mall in the gaming arcade! He unfortunately didn't make it.

* The same friend's grandmother was strangled to death in her bed - The criminal stole her car.

* My previous boss had a "home invasion," this is one of those terms that tries to soften the reality of such a situation. 4 armed criminals entered her house. They hit her husband over the head with a bottle and tied him and her up in the living room. After awhile they untied her and made her walk into each room. (She wasn't raped, but apparently the gauged her reactions to each room to figure out if she had hidden anything of value in said room.) Before they left the house that defecated and urinated on the living room carpet.

* A friend's parent's owns a hotel - He went to the bank to draw wages for his workers (Most are paid in cash, because they don't have bank accounts.) He was followed from the bank and 2 guys criminals entered his property with 9mm hand guns - He gave them his entire staff's wages.

To get a first hand account of some of the things that go on here I would recommend watching a documentary about the South African Special Task Force. I believe it's from 1999.

It's 3 x 60 minute episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQSndb1DcqY

I know I'm painting a fairly bleak picture of South Africa - It's a remarkable and truly beautiful place with amazing people (Minus the criminals.) It's just this fucking crime that's making it a horrible place to live.
you should cry for your attitude.
Making jquery.browser engine-centric is a nice touch, especially now that webkit based browsers are breeding like rabbits.
The peace corp require the same thing. I believe they also require you have your wisdom teeth taken out...

I guess prevention is the best defense!
Everything You Want To Know About The Most Secretive Startup In The World
Yeah, Slime does this and without ctags, I believe most lisps keep track of the location of definitions in source.

But what's a definition? Slime does this for defun/defvar etc, but not for things defined with, say, hunchentoot's define-easy-handler. Can you tell your IDE to take me to that location in a single keystroke? Maybe Slime supports adding definition types, I have no idea. Or maybe it throws up its hands because of the potential naming conflicts.

All this makes you wonder whether Lisp is too powerful for any IDE to keep up.
This is true but we're a lot closer to isolating the nutrients that support memory and delay aging. You can also play "brain games" to stimulate neural activity and develop better memory recall, even with people over 50.
I remember being seriously grossed out the first time I read that story. And, yep. It still grosses me out now!
Fair enough, thanks for the explanation.
Also, people not running a startup at all could answer "no".
I don't think you hear much about the 'real' Lisp apps. I have for example never seen anything about Amazon's use of Lisp. But they use it. Did you ever read something about the applications that schedule airport operations? Or did you ever hear about SISCOG's software ( http://www.siscog.com/ ) who develop most of their software in Lisp? Their products are used to schedule the crews of public transport systems (trains) in major cities and states.

Ever read blog posts about those?
Yup, I will be keeping it up indefinitely, I don't see any reason why to remove .. but if it ever came down to that, I will ping the HN community so that everybody knows.

I guess anyone looking to build a co-founder dating site has to figure out what value they are adding on top of this spreadsheet!
Thanks for the comments everyone! I hope that you will find the information in the interview useful in some way.

Feel free to hit me up on Twitter (@noaheverett) if you have any questions.
Simulated Neural Selves Use E-Drugs For Creative Telepathy
It's not so much what the site does but the fact that it came earlyish on and got so much traction (and recognition from most of the major Twitter clients). Being in the right place at the right time can beat execution in most areas.
And if he didn't take "much more than 10 million" for a site that's making about $1m in profit, he either has gigantic balls or a tiny brain :-) Good luck to him though!
And yet, everyone knows it's a Tablet, so they've really given away nothing.
Noah, thanks for putting all this info out there. And congratulations on your success so far.

Question: How did you respond to the leaked Twitter notes in which the Twitter guys talked about "blessing" another Twitter photosharing application instead of you? That had to be a low point. I remember when I first read that I clucked my tongue in sympathy for you. Do you suppose the Twitter guys would rather just work with a known quantity instead of some guy out in SC?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/twitters-internal-strat...
(ctrl+F for "twitpic" to find the relevant section)
They're using the Google Closure compiler as their minifier now.

Resig in this presentation (warning: video autoplay), in response to the last question, said that while it's slick if you simply throw jquery into it you'll just get broken javascript out: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/video.php?v=resig-tes...
I wonder what has changed?

(Maybe just not running it in advanced mode; at any rate, they're reporting a 13% decrease in file size: http://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/3fd62eae9df3159fc238a...)
The article doesn't provide any details; I'm quite curious _how_ this happened. And how did it stop?
Why is the news media comfortable with lying about science?
When I was a kid in Wyoming, a couple of cowboys moved a few bulls past our house, onto mountain range. Bulls are slow when they're not upset, and they were having some fun with one of the bulls, jumping from their horses, onto the bull's back, and back again. (Probably held on to their saddles, just in case the bull took exception, they could pull themselves back on the horse)

Anyway, one of the bulls got tired of it, and gored the horse, spilling intestines out. Not sure how far they protruded, I wasn't there. The cowboys stuffed the intestines back into the horse, and used their pocket knives to poke little holes into the horses skin along the edge of the wound, and then pulled hair from the horses tail and threaded it through the holes, holding everything together.

My dad being the closest vet, our ranch is where they ended up. I can't remember if my dad saved the horse, but the cowboys sort of had a balanced day. Stupid in the morning, ingenious in the afternoon.
i'm considering this option. what often stops me is the urge to punish the world for creating me on the way out.
If you read XKCD and use an auto-balancing editor for plaintext then you should have no problems modding it to recognize emoticons.
I'm not much of a fan of the bloat that SOAP has acquired, but to me the point of something XML-based isn't so much the transport side but instead the API-publishing side. The point of a WSDL or similar descriptor is to define what's available: what methods you can call, what types of data they take, and what sorts of data they return. Generally, you can query the server for the WSDL in addition to actually executing the calls. To me that's the primary advantage, and the reason why a lot of clients prefer SOAP (or some other XML-RPC approach): it's because it provides a clear, published API that you can hand off to someone and have them program against, and there are tools for basically every language that can interpret that API. For statically-typed languages, those tools can also help make sure that your calls are at least syntactically valid, i.e. you're not making calls to methods that don't exist, or passing Strings in for integer parameters, or referencing fields off the result object that aren't there, etc. That might not seem like a big deal, but when you're calling a totally unfamiliar API, it can help you get up to speed much faster, and when you have clients that rely on that API, it really helps everyone's peace of mind when they can be 100% sure that API isn't changing on them.

I'm not aware of an similar, standardized, machine-readable equivalent for REST service documentation, though I'd certainly love to know about it if there is one.
Isotonix OPC-3
China tells web companies to obey controls
If anyone could point me to similar (iPhone-friendly) references for Objective-C and iPhone development I would be eternally grateful. I've downloaded the PDFs, which a reader like GoodReader does pretty well at, but something like an HTML-formatted guide would be more palatable.
Shouldn't you be using HTTP Accept headers to specify the format(s) you want? (rather than file extensions in the URL)
PUT is used when you know the URL you are creating and you can send a whole resource. This, by convention, has been interpreted by many to mean updates, but not everyone agrees. The Basecamp API for instance uses "PUT /todo_items/#{id}/complete.xml" to mark a TODO item as complete. Is this creating a new "complete" resource, or updating a "todo_item" resource? Either way, when trying to make an API fit the REST style, one must fit everything into the standard verb / filesystem-like mold. With plain-old RPC, you name your methods whatever makes sense to you, using your time-earned experience in designing regular libraries, and you don't waste a moment on these nitpicky decisions.

The lack of consistent client support for PUT and DELETE further complicates this issue. As you say, you can abstract away the emulation of these verbs, but what library are you speaking of? A single-purpose solution to wrapping a particular REST interface? Or a one-size-fits-all REST wrapper that works with any server? I'm not sure the latter is possible, since there are once again multiple ways to do this - "?_method=PUT"? X-HTTP-Method-Override? Or something else entirely... it's not standardized, and REST isn't a spec, it's just a style, so everyone does it their own way. All of this so that we can write "PUT" at the beginning of the HTTP request line instead of further down or to the right? What is the actual benefit to all of this extra work?

The biggest issue with parameter-passing style is the lack of a standard way to pass complex data structures. It's as if every function took only a single argument, a string, and had to run a regex on it, splitting the results on delimiters, each in its own special way. If a regular software library were written this way, it would be appalling. At least PHP gave it a shot, with its arr[]1=&arr[]=2... syntax, but nobody's going to standardize on that, since query strings are unfashionable now, and nobody likes PHP anymore. I honestly think we should go back to query strings and stop embedding data in URLs because at least you get named parameters. And if you subscribe to the HATEOAS camp, they're more RESTful since we already have one standardized, well-documented way to provide clients all they need to build them (HTML forms).

You're right, just because people don't use something consistently doesn't mean you should throw the whole thing out. I didn't mean to imply that. What I stand by, however, is that HTTP status codes were not designed for APIs, and that as a result they are guaranteed to be used inconsistently when used for the purpose of designing APIs. At least with all-custom error codes there's no expectation that everyone will interpret the HTTP standard correctly as applied to a problem it was never intended to solve.
The result is (almost) exactly http://xkcd.com/688/

I loved that one before, but I didn't realise that the panels also described the xkcd logo itself. It's beautiful.
He doesn't really get into much useful detail here, instead saying he'll go into more detail in part 2. This was written a year ago, and he posts in the comments that he might someday post Part 2, but at this rate, I wouldn't hold my breath. Anyone have a better reference for actually working with c and ruby?
TimeGT got beaten up too easily with Goole Apps 500 emails per day send limit
This is why some of us still prefer to use XML-RPC. We just want to make an API, and don't need any of the other baggage, especially if we can no longer map our existing software design to a REST approach.

At least with real object-oriented programming you can come up with your own method names.
Well don't leave us hanging! What is the textbook?
XML-RPC is still supported by more languages, and doesn't require third-party libraries for Python or Ruby users. But this looks interesting, thanks for mentioning it.
> LispWorks comes a huge image that ...

> In LispWorks you start the image and type to the listener.

I'm very new to Lisp (but not C, C++, Java, Python, and some other similar languages). Can you please tell me what an "image" is?
Given the demographics here, perhaps this might be of interest: Jimmy Jean-Louis, who plays "The Haitian" on the TV series, Heroes, is actually from Haiti (and has family affected by the quake) he runs a charity called Hollywood Unites for Haiti: http://www.hufh.org/

(I know little about the charity beyond what I read on its website but, again, thought it might be of interest to people here).

Related (via reddit.com): http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/13/jimmy.louis.haiti/?...
I found the page linked under the words "reduce the complexity" ( http://ejohn.org/blog/function-call-profiling/ ) a rather exemplary tale of profile-and-optimize.
We should all be inspired by him to make something great, one day be able to give millions away and also to have our picture taken while hopping a creek for an interview.
I don't know how accurate this is, but this site claims about 490 tweets per second: http://www.twitpocalypse.com/
If you scroll down in the comments to where Lenni posted, and then read that thread, he doesn't seem to realize that ageism works both ways, and in fact holds a few ageist prejudices of his own regarding younger people.
The Briggs-Rauscher Oscillating Reaction (video)
All you need to know about this can be found here:

http://isthetabletout.com
Ouch That's going to leave a mark!
Great tip -- I've been using Mnemosyne daily for the last couple of months, but it's never occurred to me to use the flashcards to schedule practice sessions.
I know it's not a good thing to do when you comment and say something simple like "wow" but Wow!

I never suspected the volume was already at this level.
Again, it's all about critical mass and people knowing where to look.

We launched exactly what you are asking for a year ago. It's there, people are using it. But not everyone knows it. Look at my profile if you don't know which site I'm talking about.
i think most sites should be reduced to being this simple
Publisher, PR Firms Team Up To Offer Young Entrepreneur Award
Staying away from the global cooling stuff for now, I'll comment on this.

McCarthy has a long history of dismissing epidemiology,
statistics, and all the other evidence-based tools we use
to make public health decisions

That's not really true. The problem is that there have been no studies made regarding vaccine and autism. McCarthy believes they are linked and asks to be shown a study proving they are not. (A study that takes populations of vaccinated children and unvaccinated children and compares their autism rates) No studies are available, and years later, that remains true.

Given that this is pretty easy to find out, I think this author has their own little axe to grind.
The distance from all nodes to all other nodes is the Floyd-Warshall's All Shortest Paths algorithm, and it's V^3.
imho it's a good example of the truth that things bite you from places you least expect :)
So does Apple get the reward?
"I've been seeing a lot more ageism lately.

By ageism, I mean people saying that my age makes me less intelligent, informed, clued, aware, whatever."

Having kids will do that, at least once they get to be 10 or 12.
I try to keep it in mind as we develop, it's especially important for us because our target market is not at all web savvy (and them not having to be so to use our service is one of our big selling points).

Right now we're very focused on getting to a point where we can launch. Once we're at a point where we can start to optimize, I definitely intend to do this, using feature usage statistics as a priority guide.
Comprehensive Dremel Parts Guide for Tool Repairs
Actually, it's strike three. People associated with Hadopi have already been caught for unauthorized duplication of DVDs and for playing a song at a rally without clearing the rights. :)

http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/2009/10/08/french...
appended to the end of the url: "toomany=true"
In other words, "YHBT, HAND" ...
anyone looking to build a co-founder dating site has to figure out what value they are adding

1. Better search (by location, keyword, whatever)

2. time-based, so that old entries from years past don't pollute the current directory

3. protect anonymity but preserving a way to get in touch

4. more details available so you can make a judgment call more easily

5. a way to look at projects or people, depending on what your approach is

That's a good start. I'd say #2 is critical, because the Google Docs list will become obsolete within weeks.

http://fairsoftware.net/publicUsers is a list of people, and http://fairsoftware.net/publicProjects is a list of projects. You can navigate back and forth.
Maybe it takes business sense to realize the potential of an idea, and so the spreadsheet selects for techies who have business sense too.
Is it working? Some line is missing and empty and some lines only has a word "Java," (may be merge during typing...)

May be it is better to build a one / 2 pages UI for that...
Some categorization would be really nice.
First let me say I'm not arguing for XML-RPC. See my actual question at the bottom.

One nice thing about protocols like XML-RPC is they're well defined, unlike the somewhat abstract idea of "REST", which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

You end up with lots of different REST API styles created by people of various levels of competence and understanding of what REST is. It makes it harder to create client libraries that handle the mundane aspects of communicating with these APIs.

Projects like httparty and rest-client do help somewhat, but they end up injecting their opinion of what the "correct" way to do REST is.

So my question is: has there been any effort to codify REST API best practices into a lightweight REST "protocol", such that it would be easy to write generic client libraries, yet still obey the principles of REST?
That's for "Hands On Network" in Georgia, URL http://www.handsonnetwork.org/ which is almost certainly unrelated.

I did some brief research on hodr.org ... the Exec Dir is a tech/bus exec in MA. Seems like a solid organization, but I didn't seem them on Charity Navigator.
what a fitting username.
I like the idea. I think it would be better illustrated with shorter lines, though.
Looks like they are sitting on a gold mine of data - I doubt even Amazon or walmart have such rich data on consumer purchasing habits. Amazing.
Helping Haiti respond to the earthquake
I read "The Rails Way" and apparently he hates the moniker DHH. He prefers Heinemeier Hansson, if he's being referred to by his last name like Dawkins or Lessig or Obama, but if it's more casual or frequent, especially if it's on his blog, David works.

I suddenly feel all fanboyish though...ech.
While I get that it's not exciting to end-users and many technologists and therefore is easy to overlook, what's most happening in the NYC tech scene is probably advertising.
Apparently you don't know anyone who spends 90% of their working time in emacs.
Just upgraded http://wasitup.com to jQuery 1.4 without issues.
The C&D is not for a "device", the C&D is for an act: bribing people to violate their agreements with Apple.

If the $100k bounty had been offered for secret information about a released Apple product, it would have been C&D'd just as quickly.
Bonus points to Orrick for writing a really straightforward notice absent the usual heavy-handed stuff you see in cease and decist letters.
How about blogspot content via feedburner?

The firewall's probably looking for blogspot characteristics in the html coming through (ie the themes) -- but grabbing the same blog posts through feedburner (and rss in general) could circumvent this filter. Although, in such feeds, you wouldn't want any blogspot.com links.