skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Do things that you are actually interested in. Seriously. It makes life MUCH easier and it's easier to be productive.

That being said, willpower is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Practice willpower whenever you can.. for example, try not zipping up your jacket when it's cold. (I'm talking about mental-discomfort cold, not hypothermia-cold.)

My friends are all amazed at my willpower at things like dieting, and the truth is I just build willpower by practicing on the little things.

In conclusion, as Eckhart Tolle says, when used correctly, the mind is a powerful tool. Otherwise, your mind uses you.
I've used trac, bugzilla, and custom-rolled solutions and have found trac the be the best. It's missing some features (silly things like renaming a user...) but overall it's enough for most needs, and much simpler than bugzilla is.
I literally just learned this the other day (in that "create a programming language" book posted on here). I always had the impression Schmidt was a "business guy" - Lex is a very solid bit of engineering.
I frequented digg before I found HN. I do sometimes go there, but run away in horror quickly.
"Too many people building db backed websites - clones of successful western products. Not much hardcore tech."

Isn't Twitter a DB backed website? What about Facebook? Try to understand that there is a need for various types of web-apps in the world. Everyone doesn't need to build MySQL storage-engines for SSDs, for example.

Don't underestimate the effort that goes into making a db-backed website available to a few million people on the Internet.
Note to others: if you want to find the 'zombies' part, search for [Mark Roth], because the word 'zombie' isn't used.
Hmm, thanks thomaspaine, I think we're going to go with Trac since we're currently using SVN... I'm considering a move to git since I've really enjoyed using that for another current project, but it looks like there's hooks for git and trac as well.
To use an example, if things “just worked” then I'd be able
to copy music from my iPod back to my laptop, or from one
machine that I own to another.

True for the first part, as for the second: this feature is built in into iTunes, it even allows you to see the music that's not on your computer and copy it with a simple drag and drop.

The thing that will be interesting about the iPad is the experience
of using it — something that nobody has had except for the folks at
Apple — and as is always the case when dealing with a different type
of interface, you're always going to be wrong.

Not sure what he has in mind talking about experience. I gather few folks had a chance to try it out after it was presented and all were raving how fast that thing is.
Then a lot of folks keep saying "it's just a bigger iPhone", but don't know what the UX will be. Well, if it just a bigger iPhone (it's not) user experience is going to be as good, only better.

Then people cry and predict the end of hacking, tinkering and programming. Folks, don't forget: with iPad also comes out new free SDK. But maybe shouting about freedom is just a tad easier than using it.
Hmm I don't like the interface - drag and drop is kind of clunky for these purposes
Redmine, is a good alternative.
Or try Unfuddle, which is sort of like hosted redmine. They have a freemium model, free for 2 users, unlimited repos.
I wrote about my efforts to avoid procrastination previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=809638

Since then I've changed a few things. Here is what I am doing now:

1) Make a list of what I want to do tomorrow before going to bed.

2) Write down what I am doing during the day on a time sheet of one hour blocks. I was using 30 minute blocks initially but got sick of it.

3) Try and do hard stuff first (coding) and easier stuff after (everything else). I try and start work as soon as I get up as well.

4) Disconnect the internet. I physically unplug the cable. My current work allows me to mostly get away with this and I only go online about twice a week.

Since my previous comment I'm now working for myself on my startup too. I've found a few additiuonal tricks to cope with being on my own:

5) Go outside every day. I have to make a conscious effort to do this or I end up staying inside sitting at my computer for a week at a time. I normally just go for a walk around the park, or sometimes arrange to meet a friend for a coffee etc.

6) Pretend I am only going to do four hours coding per day. If I sit down at the computer at 8.00AM thinking "I'll stop at noon and go for a bike ride" then I have much less difficulty in getting started. I almost always end up spending more time coding than this once I get started though, because I hate leaving something unfinished.
shipley on Wolfram: "If he were a patent-troll I'd have no patience for him, sure, but he's a man of science in the truest sense of the word."

Wolfram is extremely litigious: http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2002-July/005692.html

He's also notoriously skimpy on giving credit for ideas.

while I haven't heard any specific claims of patent troll-ism, I suspect he has a ton of patents on Mathematica and Alpha.
We use Redmine here (~4 people) and it's great. Rails backed, lots of plugin if you need more and easily extendable.

It integrate cleanly with CVS, Git, Mercurial, SVN, ... and we'll even do invoicing with it in a few weeks.

There are paid hosting options if you don't want to maintain it yourself.
I recently started using redmine (http://www.redmine.org) and only had good experiences with it. It's an open-source ruby on rails project management "framework". It supports everything you are looking for, and then some more, namely:

- roadmap for upcoming versions/features
- dedicated site for documentation
- wiki
- forum
- tickets
- repository support

The repository support let's you do things like refer to a ticket in a commit message which then gets associated with said ticket (or even changes the status of the ticket as soon as you commit the bugfix).

I could go on and on... but you get the point.

Here's a demo where you can give some of the things a try:

http://demo.redmine.org/
this implies that quite many applications would get interviewed/ founded if there wasn't so many of the good ones. And I think these applications deserve to be told so and the rest to be told the reason why they are not promising. Because they will learn more than from silence and it could be said in one sentence, couldn't it?
FYI: You can tell by:
a) The deep voice
b) She's attractive
For some countries it is enough. For example, the minimum wage in Romania is $180 and in Bulgaria it is $170.

If you work 8 hours per day, 5 days peer week, and 4 weeks per month, then you can make $5 * 8 * 5 * 4 = $800 per month. This is 4 times the minimum wage in Romania and Bulgaria -- it is more than enough.
"... I often find myself with piles of work to do and many projects to complete but yet distracted ..."

Focus, discipline & strategy. You have to focus on getting your tasks done. Be disciplined in not being unintentionally distracted and plan a strategy to avoid or discourage distractions.

- Focus by planing exactly what you need to achieve in a given time.

- discipline your self by sticking at the required task

- I plan thinking tasks in the morning, with short breaks. then in the afternoon more unstructured tasks.

I also keep 2 browsers open for instance if I'm working. One for work, the other for distraction. Then avoid looking at the distraction browser. Keep posting, reading and non work activities to a minimum by scheduling time wasters for short periods.
I try to identify and break hedonistic loops. Changing environment helps, even if it's such a simple act as shuffle the furniture at home around.

Another way is to optimize away loops. The first example that pops ups is that I was at one point manually visiting >20 news-sites, webcomics and blogs, and when I'd reached the last one, I started checking if the other ones had updated while I was reading. RSS saved me from most of that. Now if I could only drop reddit and hackernews ;)

Oh, and this is the home page firefox shows when I open it:
http://phylab.mtu.edu/~nckelley/Focus/
This is my favourite productivity blog.

http://www.doitfuckingnow.com/

I'm serious. Of course, it's partly a joke, but there is an extent to which we just have to get on with stuff we don't like. Asking for a method to fight procrastination is a symptom of the problem itself.
Pomodoro technique. You pick task that can be done in 25 minutes, you set up timer for 25 minutes and start working. You do your best to finish the task. When timer rings you set it up to 5 minutest and make a 5 minute break from computer. Take a walk to the bathroom, get coffee, do some push ups or sit ups, talk to your colleague who also uses same timer to regulate his work. 5 minute is long enough to rest and short enough to not forget what you were doing. 25 minutes is enough to get something done, and short enough to wait for 5 minute break. Just two rules, don't do anything except the task at hand during 25 minutes (you have no time for that!) and stop doing what you are doing when timer rings.

I also use the break to plan what I'll be doing next 25 minutes. If I have task longer then 25 minutes then I break it into smaller parts.

Trouble with that technique is that it becomes very hard to start first 25 minutes.
No offense to the op but this is another reason why I prefer OS X to any other operating system.. this stuff is built in. You can print any site right to PDF from any browser (as it's an OS feature). No Adobe needed.
You should have a look at Flying Saucer/xhtmlrenderer (https://xhtmlrenderer.dev.java.net/). It handles every CSS rule I could throw at it. If you simply need a commandline app converting a XHTML file into a PDF, you're done in 10 lines of code.
Ah, is this the MySpace ghetto person? Both articles are really good (reading this because I just tried to post the link and found out it was already here....)
Try doing that with your Mac OS X and http://www.woothemes.com/demo/dailyedition/

Does it work correctly? pdfmyurl.com does and so do a few more online such services.
Something like StumbleUpon has similar privacy implications and yet, people don't seem to have any problem with that.
Peruvian Nazca Civilization Was Destroyed by Deforestation
Excellent work - congratulations! Even ignoring the advanced options your converter is fast and produces accurate results!

Very well done!
Please do read "How to Get Things Done" by Robert Benchley, written in 1949. It's such a gem: http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/etext/how-to-get-things-done...

There was a simliar thread to this quite a while ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=187132 . A comment by nickb (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=187277) introduced me to structured procrastination: http://www.structuredprocrastination.com . There's some good content there.
It is a complex issue. I read and watched videos and went to a lot of seminars on psicology of productivity. "Read The Power of full engagement"(This is the best book you can read ever!!) and create rituals.

I like investigating new technologies too, so I do it, with limits. I read HN each day but no comments(it drains too much).

Emails and social media at the end of the day.

I do manage my emotional states, and schedule resting time.

I wrote down each day what I want to do(look at how many people here do the same, it works).

Help other people without interest in mind.

Don't "fight" procrastination. Improve productivity(don't focus on your bad, improve your strengths)
>Biggest Bomb in the Cosmos

Doesn't beat a gamma ray burst. We can see those clear from the other side of the universe.
That's simultaneously quite cool and quite disconcerting.

I wonder if there's any work being done in large "control room" type installations these days? Power plants, NASA... ?
And a few days before that... I don't like going into the 'old'ing but I was under the impression that there was a URL check when posting doubles on HN. Maybe I was wrong...
Well then they wouldn't get into an accident & you wouldn't hear about them. Look, things are different in the aggregate. You only hear about special results, so it doesn't make sense to wonder why they're special.
Thing about the 'Apple may switch to Bing' threat is... wouldn't that actually put consumers OFF? (unless you could change the search bar settings back to google)

Regarding the 'spat,' all I'm saying is, "everyone" knows Apple should open up their platform more, yet Apple must have their reasons. It reminds me how "everyone" knew Nintendo should have ditched cartridge technology earlier, yet Nintendo (a 100+ year old business) hung in there, poised to make a massive comeback some point in the future, while other console vendors dropped like flies.
Redmine and Trac
Amazon objector claims partial victory in One-Click patent challenge
You probably meant that as a joke too, but I think a virtual whiteboard with Post-Its would be a great product. Colour-coded notes to indicate priority, clustering by physical location on the screen, larger text sizes for very-urgent-do-it-today tasks. You could draw lines on the whiteboard to show the relationship between notes, could have the ability to roll back to previous days to track history, attach files to Post-Its, etc, etc. I currently do something like this using index cards on a pinboard, and it works really well.
"I'm curious, what is your project about?"

I am working on a couple of projects. I can't speak about them much (defense projects, largely classified) but I can say that one involves natural language processing (on small datasets , small by internet scale that is), the other involves robotics and computer vision (involves some fairly large datasets but I don't need specialized data store infrastructure).

The interesting thing about such projects is that they combine cutting edge technology with interesting users - soldiers, intelligence analysts etc - with interesting hard problems to solve. It is a different world from fixing bugs in the leasing system from hell (old time ThoughtWorkers will understand what I mean ;-) ).
It's quite telling that this attempt by a Marxist government to computerise control of the economy had it's biggest success in organising scabs during a strike.

Also..

It took about a year to become operational but it was never completely finished.

and

The software (...) was written by Chilean engineers in consultation with a team of 12 British programmers.

12 developers for a year.. controlling the entire economy?This smells a lot like vaporware, and it was in fact never operational, even though the article makes it sound like the main culprit was the 1973 coup.
Yes, it would be nice to get feedback, but a lot of people would find a tweet-length rejection insulting. YC doesn't have enough time to make their application process perfect, but it seems to get better every cycle. If you want some feedback to go with your rejection, I think NYC Angels will do it for $150. They probably just tell most people to come back when they are profitable.
Ah, Reddit. So guy A says, "I'm broke and really want a pizza." Guy B gets guy A a pizza (though the magic of the tubes), and it all ends in an enormous thread full of truly racist humor (the name of guy B was too much for many Redditers) and some discussion about what kind of sexual favors are owed and to whom.
That's not even the home screen on Android!

They opened the applications "drawer" which shows an icon for each application you have ... and showed that next to the iPhone's home screen. Icons aligned in a grid on a screen have been used everywhere since early GUIs.

If they had shown the home screen for Android (desktop with widgets and a couple of icons) the two screens would not look so similar.
I'm sure there's a cute mathematical trick to calculate the missing digit, but Raphael is right, with numbers limited to 1 billion, this can be easily brute forced. You need a few gigabytes of disk space and a few days of precalculation at most.

What's more interesting to me is that the missing number is actually unique, i.e. that this trick is possible at all. Maybe it actually isn't, maybe it doesn't work in 0.1% of the cases, which is good enough for a magic trick.
Offtopic, but did anyone ever find out what happened to nickb?
It was just 500 factories. Probably any company today that has at least 500 factories has similar (modern) hierarchical system of control in place.

AI is effectively replacing free market from inside out not top down like in government attempts to instantiate centrally planned economy.
Flyspray is as advertised: "uncomplicated." If you want a simple system, it is worth a try.
http://flyspray.org/
I disagree completely. Evolution is not something that has happened a couple of thousand years ago. It is an ongoing process. There certainly are behaviors in relationships that are a result of modern living conditions. I'd argue these are also results of evolution.

Maybe I should clarify: evolution is not limited to genetic traits. It also applies to behaviors, strategies, designs, everything. Perhaps it would be clearer if I asked for the economic reason (why is it economical for partners to behave like x in a relationship).
I wonder why AMD doesn't use the 'tick-tock' model? It seems to work very well for Intel.
I once looked high and low for habits to get me to stop procrastinating.

Now I take Ritalin (I have a classic case of ADD, which you might also suffer) and it is willpower in pill form. I also drink a half-gallon of coke a day (dissolved glucose for the win) which is the mental fuel ritalin is not.
Thanks for your feedback, we'll incorporate it into the jobs page. To answer some points here, we do not arrange housing for the interns (you can probably crash our place until you find a sublet, and we can put interns in contact with each other so they can self-organize). We didn't completely define the perks yet, but it'll be pretty standard stuff.

I agree that the world domination stuff is hokey, but it's catchy and it grabs people's attention, so it serves its purpose pretty well.

If in doubt, apply! We're pretty flexible when it comes to the details.
I thought it was even more interesting they put stock options right there too.
Ask yourself constantly "What is the most important thing I could be doing right now?" and act on it.

Forget GTD and read "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life", by Alan Lakein.
I'm currently working on a bug tracker (http://purifyapp.com). I can send you a beta invite if you're interested? Also open to anyone else who fancies trying it out.

Email me at jim@purifyapp.com
a little historical context: that strike was funded by the cia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#US_involvement
I like unfuddle.com
Your advice is great, but it is too simple and too obvious to be used by any modern team. It is old-fashioned, without any noise and hype around it.

Fortunately, the guys at http://73primenumbers.com/ started a campaign to add the missing buzz.
Oh, quick plug for rescuetime.

Go sign up for www.rescuetime.com

That should definitely help you when you can really see where you're wasting your time with procrastination. It's definitely an eye opener.
This is an interesting problem.

I'm not an expert, but I feel like a lot of socialism depends on accurate demand forecasting and in the past forecasting models may have failed because of lack of real-time data collection and processing capabilities. As both collection (sensor networks) and processing (CPU) capabilities increase exponentially, perhaps the model can be made more accurate.

Of course, I'm sure socialism as an economic system has other, deeper flaws :-)
FillAnyPDF: modificare i PDF online
I suspect they couldn't do much with 0000000, where the first digit that is chopped off is my secret digit.

I was under the impression that this trick usually involves the difference of two numbers with the same digits.
I am keeping my fingers crossed!
The hard part of such as system is defining the objectives and the economical model to use, but that work is left to politicians, not programmers. Once the model is known, it is much simpler to write a program which applies it to get from the current situation to the objective. 1 year sounds perfectly reasonable.
To maintain a monopoly in itself would be expensive and not necessarily the way to maximum profits (there is always the threat of outside investors). Innovation of course costs money but if a company remains stagnant (because its profits are unaffected by competition) then it runs the long term risk of becoming obsolete when substitute technology comes onto the market. You could say competition is a short-term cost but non-competition is a long-term disaster.

In Apple's case, though, there's already plenty of tough competition going on.
Choose one thing each week that you know wastes your time.. and quit cold turkey.

Delete your relevant accounts, remove from bookmarks, clear browser history and just stop using it.

I find it gives me immediate results, got rid of lots of needless web-games, news-sites, blogs, TV-series and such.

And yes, HN is in this category. If you logically think it's contribution of information and motivation is not worth the time. Cold turkey.
We use trac. And it works really well, has a built in wiki for other bits and pieces that need remembering.
I'm pretty excited by the fact that in the DB scene there are also new players in the closed source side. If we want to make sure that in the end we'll have the best solutions I guess different economic and development models should compete as well, not only technology. For instance if I remember correctly MySQL initially started as a closed source product.
I don't try to fight it. I accept it.

During the day job, I open up the all the tabs that I'd like to read(usually links from HN) and then start working. Whenever i want to take a 5 min break between coding tasks, i read 1 article and then close it. This also helps when a task is proving annoying to go through.

That's the thing with the computing field, there are way more things to do and learn than you can finish in a lifetime. I still try to keep up as much as possible, but I stress over it less and less with age and wisdom.
Solving your problem (procrastination) may require figuring out the root problem(s). People have already mentioned a lot of good solutions for a lot of problems, but trying to solve the wrong problem can make your's worse.. or at least frustrate you more.

It may be you're too distracted, so eliminate the distractions. Not me - I get overly focused.

It may be your task is so large and unclear that it seems pointless to even try, so first break the problem down into manageable chunks. Not me - I think I can do practically anything (but start :).

It may be your work is too annoying to you, so you wear out your self-control "muscles". If so, find different work. This isn't usually my problem either -- I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want at work.

It may be you subconsciously avoid heavy concentration. This is one of the symptoms of ADHD, so you may get lucky and be able to treat it with chemicals (see a doctor). This is my biggest problem.

I don't have trouble doing "labor," but I amaze myself with the things I do to avoid thinking. I don't have a good, healthy solution yet, but I know a couple things that work for me:

1. Creating emergencies.. e.g. putting off a term paper until 6 hours before its due, or imagining you'll die of shame if you don't squash your bugs. My brain kicks right into gear when I have to do something.

2. Working closely with others keeps me engaged for other reasons. Pair programming is a good example of this, but not my preference.

I'd love to hear others problems and solutions.
I just started using http://speckleapp.com/

It's relatively new, very lightweight, and made by HN member elliottkember, who is very open to feedback/suggestions.