skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Robert Kiyosaki (rich dad poor dad) has a story where he's interviewed about his book by journalist who's an excellent writer, and having trouble breaking in. He advises her to take a copy writing course, to help her sell her work. She objects that she became took journalism so she wouldn't have to be a saleswoman. He points to his book jacket's blurb which says "best selling". "It doesn't say best writing," he explains. "You are an excellent writer; I'm terrible at writing, but good at selling." "It's not fair," she sulks.

niche marketing: Instead of simply going to the biggest book-buying markets, he focused his early tours and advertising efforts on cities where his books were selling best: like a politician aspiring to higher office, he was shoring up his base.

pragmatism: I’m less interested in sentences now and more interested in stories.

kill your darlings: “I don’t believe in showing off,” Patterson says of his writing. “Showing off can get in the way of a good story.” (Samuel Johnson: Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.)

a marketing genius who has cynically maneuvered his way to best-sellerdom by writing remedial novels that pander to the public’s basest instincts. Sounds pretty accurate.

If writing is intended to match the human story-processing system, analogously to how image compression attempts to match human visual system, then the popularity of writing (aside from sales due to marketing) is a measure of its match to what an ideal story really is (i.e. how humans perceive stories). In this view, a story is not an end in itself, but an attempt to communicate; in contrast, "literature" has become its own subject. It is solipsistic. Therefore, it is possible that this guy's writing will become studied in the future (as his editor said of Dickens), because it is based on reality outside of itself.

Just remember that when you go over the mountain to work in the morning, you’ve got to be singing Yeah, I agree with the article's followup on this, that it's not clear that he loves what he does for its own sake, or because he's successful at it. I think he must deeply enjoy it in some sense, because he has tremendous energy for it. Or perhaps he enjoys it because he gives it energy and meaning? It reminds me of the conflicting advice posted on HN, about "do what you love" vs. "love what you do". The latter is certainly essential, for even in loving what you do, some bits of it you won't love and you need to do them anyway. And, as apes, we enjoy dominant status for its own sake (aka "success"), regardless of how we got there. I think enjoying how we get there does matter; but it doesn't have to be entirely for its own sake.

I love these long nyt articles.
Adobe, Apple, and Flash
It's funny to see that his address was in the Gates building. I'm sure it's old news to Stanford alum, but I love the irony.
Agreed. Philip Kirwan -- http://www.philipkirwan.ie/site/index.html -- is clearly a dodgy person. I certainly wouldn't do business with him.
This is an aside, but it's always amusing to see how often you see people mimicking the look of people they look up to or report to. I met a senior manager at a Microsoft booth at a trade show, an Indian man who groomed himself to follow almost exactly the external appearance of Bill Gates. It was stunning. At Oracle, you see a lot of mini-Larrys. When you meet virtual reality people at the Maker Faire, it's amazing how many of them have Jaron Lanier's dreadlocks. And Apple fans, not all, but many, me included, with their short haircuts. Of course certain things are off limits - the black mock turtleneck, nobody wears that now, because it's taboo to be seen as trying to look like Him.

So my question here is: Is this professor mimicking Ben Goertzel, or is Ben mimicking him? It's not a coincidence that they choose the same hairstyle. And it's not just long hair, it's long hair worn a certain way. What gives? Even AGI researchers are susceptible to these, what, canine, instincts?
I know this is not the place for this, but I really wish submitters would start submitting the one-page articles as the standard.
It gets even more confusing if you have a Google Apps for Domains. I've had andrew@ducker.org.uk for my Google ID for a fair while before I got them to manage the email/calendar/etc. for ducker.org.uk - at which point calendaring got a bit complex for a few days - and it took me a while to get sharing set up again properly.

Some of this stuff really doesn't seem that well thought out, to be honest.
I see your point, but this isn't really new, especially in the teen and young adult markets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratemeyer_Syndicate

Additionally, I think recent developments mean that more and more authors will skip the publisher entirely and do it themselves. Finally, the idealistic (and probably somewhat naive) part of me still believes that there will always be a market for great content. There will always be publishers and authors who want to create great stuff and do so, even if the market isn't apparent. Yes, this means that the blockbusters will be mostly shit, but every now and then, there will be a blockbuster that's truly great. Look at the TV, movie, and music industries now for examples of what I'm talking about.
FacteryLabs gets Facts, not Links (real-time monitoring; nice source of data)
Hiya,
Well yes you could say that there are definately features worth charging for. The fact you can manage unlimited projects, assign tasks to collaborators, upload files to projects and submit invoices for those projects are all features that could be charged for. I don't think its right to take some features out for 'standard' users and only allow 'pro' users to use them because the features are dependent on each other in my opinion. So the best thing to do is limit the use, to say 10 projects and invoices.

Thanks for the comment.
Google cache: http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://successnexus.com/...
You sir, just found the recipe for success. I must do this to my own site.
Take a look on 2checkout.com. We are using it for more than a month already(moved from PayPal to accept customers who can't use PayPal).
Seems obvious to me. Non-commercial pretty much only allows private usage or usage by non-profits. That's how I read it all the time.
There's Python411 at http://www.awaretek.com/python
I agree completely, I think that one should value their readership enough to not only entertain them but improve their mind by showing them new perspectives, teaching them things, exposing them to new ideas, etc.... I wonder how good his books are.

Also note, that his outline can be up to 50 pages triple spaced -- so he writes down 17 pages or so, and then says fill it up. I wonder if his stories would be better as short stories, instead of novels.
What exactly is the point of this? Aren't visualizations supposed to provide some kind of new context or insight? All this really does is show that I have to scroll a lot to see 20k images. It's kind of like showing a bar graph with one data point.

What about making the images small so you can see them on one page. Perhaps you could compare them to the sizes of other companies. You probably don't have this data, but showing geographic or job-role distribution would also be interesting. Or, you could show a visualization of profit per employee.
I don't think there's anything wrong with basing your payment plans on the number of projects. Lots of companies do that with great success.

Do you have many users who already have more than 10 projects? How will you handle transitioning to payments for them? It might be worthwhile to give them N months of free premium access to thank them for using your site.
I think this concept is interesting, but it seems like a lot of the services mentioned in the article are having trouble gaining traction outside of their home bases.
The YT buttons could be made to work because there is an analog for them, for example: document.getElementById('video').controls.pause(); does what you would expect.

See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd563945(VS.85).aspx
Like who? Are there good examples of people who have done this on a mass scale AND done more than offer empty hope and unfulfilled promises to do so (politicians)?
An interesting application of genetic algorithms
my gut-feeling that 5 minutes of additional work while committing can easily amount to 30 minutes of effort saved later

I don’t need to rationalize being anal about my commits, of most I never visit again ;)
are you looking for a thing like "how to print the perfect counterfeit money?". I am also looking for that, if you find it, please shoot me a msg! LoL! BTW i don't know much about federal reserve, i am italian but living in china. Is there anything you might like to know about China? i could possibly help you. Cheers. Alberto
Brad Feld: It’s So Hard When Contemplated In Advance And So Easy When You Do It
I would say about half the groups have one or more non-programmers. I remember 2 that had no programmers, though I may be forgetting some.

The optimal configuration is one or two programmers plus one person who can sell really well. Best of all is when the person who can sell is also a programmer.
Yes, I like this idea. I think that users love being valued, and feeling special. I would offer a killer deal to those that have been 'power users' since the beginning as they have contributed a lot to the success of the app.
My issue is this: I don't want my browser deciding what plugins and/or codecs I am allowed to use.

I understand that they want to support free software, and that is laudable. However, if I intentionally install something on my computer that _can_ used, then I expect that to be used.

I just tested with Safari and I was able to play an mkv 720p file in a video tag because I installed Perian. That is how it should work.
Additionally to "Getting Real", I strongly recommend you reading "Just don't roll the dice: a usefully short guide to software pricing". It's free:

http://www.neildavidson.com/dontjustrollthedice.html
So, he worked on an "automated detection of copyright violations"... Interesting...
At the first Startup School, Wolfram actually made a joke that they were missing some deliverables from him.
This happens already quite often.
My suggestion would be to introduce payment by
1) allow a set of usage free (e.g. up to 10 forms)
2) create individual small payments for each use (e.g. after cost 3¢ ea. initial start charge is $20 until $20 is used up)
3) offer monthly subscription based on unlimited usage

Treat it similar to the Virtual Goods model.
Clickable: http://favilous.com/
One slight correction - £68,000 of sales within the EU. Any sales outside the EU are VAT exempt and so do not count towards the threshold. If your marketing efforts are focused on the US you can help postpone the requirement to register for VAT.

For most web-based startups, VAT accounting should be relatively trivial.
World latest news: 'Chemical Ali' executed in Iraq
You should only blame yourself though, you could have had a simple crypt on the db, with a key stored inside the binary. At least it would take a bit more work to rip you off.
Well, there's one I didn't expect to see on HN. A developer gets ripped off and told it's his fault for not including some form of DRM.
There's a phone number on there. Someone should call and ask for Sergey.
It's easy to see for yourself how many crashes are caused by Flash. Firefox used to crash regularly for me. After I installed FlashBlock it can run pretty much indefinitely.
I think the Zen Buddhists have it. Most of the thoughts we have are centred around avoiding having to deal with what is right in front of us. In otherwords we are constantly shirking things. The good news is that everythig one is inclined to shirk is an opportunity to develop character by simply doing it and sticking at it until it is done. The Zen Buddhists also repeatedly refer to judging things as good or bad or "picking and choosing this vs that" as the primary shirk mechanism. In my case this is definitely true. Lets face it. Conceptually CS or programming is a very limited domain (compared to something like, say physics, or even electrical engineering). I used to program in C++ all the time. What have I picked up since then in working with/reading about other languanges? I mean what have I picked up that fundamentally/conceptually new? Nothing. (The functional stuff certainly does not introduce any new concept. Objects/interfaces are first class collections of functions)
So bottom line is that if I am honest, experimenting with/reading about other languages has been a net loss for me. The only reason I do it is literally because its a form of shopping as in "Modelling real world problems is hard, let's go shopping"
He looks like a capable guy and I would like to hire him.
Agreed. One of my current fav authors - Raymond Feist - isn't a particularly fine writer - but I really like his stories (especially the earlier ones) and some of the characters (particularly the quirky ones) are utterly engaging.

At the end of the day a lot of what he writes is a bit awkward (and even weak at times) but you dont often notice.
I think that some of these are a little far fetched (Steve seems to prefer less cutting-edge technologies), but ever since GrandCentral I have had the suspicion that Apple wants to have a runtime-variable number of cores. That would be most useful as a power saving technique, which is generally how we improve battery life without increasing weight. So, not having seen runtime variable cores in an iPhone (yet), but knowing that the tablet will have to outperform the phone with similar battery life, I think that we will see a large number of low power (ARM instead of x86) cores soon.
His dad is still a working mathematician and teacher :-)

http://www-users.math.umd.edu/~mib/
I didn't call you troll, just that trolls argue similar positions.

>>You look at me and say "troll", I look at you and say "delusional."

But that comment was quite trollish in just dismissing an argument with a one word insult. Good bye.
Rocketbox Lifts Off With Better Email Search For Apple Mail
If you are OK with a free, ad-funded service, take a look at zeepmobile.com, they offer a free API with which you can send and receive SMS to your subscribed users.

The only con is that it's an API and you need to spend a small amount of time developing the app.
Wow really useful. Thanks for this, it will make good bedtime reading tonight. :-)
I've been working my butt off on this product for about the past 9 months during after hours (I have a 9-5 job right now).

I'd love to here what HN thinks of it!
I don't consider that as satisfying the prediction of computers embedded in clothing any more than I consider predictions of flying cars fulfilled by ultralight aircraft.
Stealth Startup Ground Truth Emerges with First Data on Mobile Web Use
GPS: Working on it. 1998 was around the time GPS was commercialized.
Yeah, sorry, I realized my mistake too late. I was going to delete it and resubmit but it already had a few points.

Being able to edit a URL for 15 minutes after submitting would probably help.
My God. Scraping is not illegal. Please. But... IANAL.
Interesting. I suppose you could buy credits, similar to Skype. I think people might get a bit frustrated though having to purchase additional project. I like the KISS ethos, so having a Free and Premium option certainly makes things a lot more simple.
The burden of dealing with patent encumbered formats.

They already do this by letting users install Flash -- in fact, they make it particularly easy to do so, patent-encumbered though it is. And as I've pointed out before, they use Flash to play h.264 video anyway. The difference with <video> is that Mozilla is actively forbidding users from passing that supposed burden onto the operating system vendor, who in the case of Windows and Mac OS X, have already licensed h.264. In the case of free software operating systems, users can choose whether they want to have support for h.264 or not, just as they have for years with any number of other patent-encumbered formats.

And once again, we're not merely talking about patent-encumbered formats, as Mozilla prevents users from using non-Ogg patent-free formats like Dirac and Flac.

My point is simple...

You didn't actually answer my question. You keep mentioning things and then forgetting them entirely. Please just make a coherent argument or stop replying. If you're not going to talk sense, you're wasting time for both of us.

Therefore implementing h.264...

It has been made abundantly clear that they don't have to in order to allow users to use it of their own free will. Just as Apple did not have to implement Theora in order to allow users to view Theora content in <video> if they choose to do so.

This guy explains it in much better terms...

He didn't, actually. He made a lot of emotional appeals that fly in the face of reality and then breezily dismissed every other argument in a single concluding paragraph. I know this because I already read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073718
Good job guys. I really like the style of the site and I definitely think there is a Market for a site like this. I would like to something for my media but otherwise good job
He did not call you a troll, he called people that love language wars trolls.

If you self identify with 'people that love language wars' then that's something you can't blame him for.

Loving language wars and debating the finer points of the pros and cons of various languages are two different things.

Language wars are almost without exception based in the people having them, not in the relative merits of the languages.

Think of it as religion: If you were born in Iran you probably are a muslim, if you were born in Italy chances are you're catholic and if you were born in India chances are you are a hindu.

You could have debates all day long about 'whose' religion is the better one (or the true one), but it would be an argument mostly rooted in to your familiarity with a certain religion because of your heritage.

An objective argument would essentially require parties to give some ground based on real arguments, in a language war that rarely if ever happens.

Debate is to advance a common viewpoint, not to get your way. Then a gun will suffice. And plenty of religious wars indeed devolve in to violence.
From a design point of view, I would put your two columns inside a fixed with div centered in the page. On my 1920x1080 monitor, there's a huge pile of whitespace between the two. I would replace all the detail with how it works with some actual content. Nobody cares how it works. I look at it for a second and go OK, why wouldn't I just go to alltop?
not trying to be critical just my first impression and why I'm not looking at it further.
In case you're interested, and in case it helps, here are my personal spam incoming figures:

2009 06 : 44832 @ 1494 /day
2009 07 : 74855 @ 2414 /day
2009 08 : 66190 @ 2135 /day
2009 09 : 62081 @ 2069 /day
2009 10 : 63961 @ 2063 /day
2009 11 : 57362 @ 1912 /day
2009 12 : 37663 @ 1214 /day

20100101 : 1041
20100102 : 1045
20100103 : 902
20100104 : 1201
20100105 : 1168
20100106 : 1535
20100107 : 1800
20100108 : 1396
20100109 : 1548
20100110 : 1650
20100111 : 1629
20100112 : 1881
20100113 : 2692
20100114 : 2695
20100115 : 2712
20100116 : 2495
20100117 : 1966
20100118 : 2683
20100119 : 1646
20100120 : 1221
20100121 : 1351
20100122 : 1423
20100123 : 1306

Average : 1648
I think the assumption is sound. The kind of content that doesn't need to be incentivized to be created, is the kind of content that is created for a purpose other than "to be good content of the type in question."

We see how this works out in the historical patronage system; before the development of copyrights, most reproducible art (poetry and the like) was created not to sell, but to flatter some aristocratic bigwig -- that's why its conventions were so stubbornly moribund, and why it took something like 1400 years for the novel to be reinvented after the end of the Western Roman Empire.

I think this is a particularly alarming situation in regard to computer games; it would mean that the average game would probably be a cheaply-produced advertising piece -- imagine a world in which the Burger King promotional games outnumber _Jagged Alliance_ and _Final Fantasy 6_ by an even larger margin than they do now. I think that we can get a hint about what would happen by looking at the Arab world, where piracy is unusually rampant and the only active game development is done by Muslim fundamentalists...
> A new project I have just started is going to generate personalized movie ratings for users. The way it works is as follows. You rate the movies you have seen. Then the system finds other users with similar tastes to extrapolate how much the you will like some other movies. It is currently written entirely in Python.

Netflix Challenge.
Ask HN: Location Based Dating?
Hi HN-

I posted this last night, but didn't really get much response. I figured I'd give it one more shot, since I think there is some upside to this idea. Obviously I wanted the opinion of the collective.

So, A buddy of mine recently told me to take a look a blippy. I liked it, kind of. In any case, I thought that this voyeuristic (or insane sharing) impulse could be put to use for dating. What does that mean? Well I think with user's permissions you could attach to their foursquare, blippy etc. (or use the api if one exists), gather up their recent check-ins/location data, and then compare with other people who have similar habits. People with the highest matches could be recommended first etc. etc.

Yes/No/Already Exists? What do we think?
Add a new feature that uses new data, and encrypt that data. Not an insurmountable obstacle, but it will put you ahead of him in the comparisons on the app store as long as you can stay ahead.

But he can do the same thing to you.

In the end, the users win. That's the beauty of a platform that has critical mass in numbers of developers competing to make good apps. Sucks for you (us) unless you look at it as a fun challenge.
Ask HN: Cases where software patents have prevented progress?
A student writing a thesis about software patents emailed me asking about cases "in which having a patent on an algorithm prevented some significant technological progress." HN seemed the best place to find answers. What are the clearest examples of this happening, and how much did they slow things down?
The Chess Master and the Computer
Nice description, but this is unfortunately a very simple case. Sometimes the firmware may be a 2-stage affair, with a bootloader that has a decryption key for the main firmware, which is encrypted. Something like that might take a logic analyzer connected to the data pins of the CPU to crack. If the CPU is a MCU that has embedded flash, then there may not be an easy way to snoop on the data bus. Also, while serial ports are common, it may be necessary to use JTAG, I2C, 1-wire, etc.

One other thing that struck me though, was that companies would be using consultants to reverse a competitor's product. I thought that was a landmine. Isn't it better to be able to claim `clean room' engineering to avoid lawsuits?
Of course there may also be a survivorship bias involved: Imagine that life dies out easily, but does not get re-started when it has died out once. Our observation would be the same.