skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When Pell grants were named for the senator in 1980, a typical public four-year university cost $2,551 annually. Pell Grants provided $1,750, almost 70 percent of the total. Even private colleges cost only about $5,600 back then. Low-income students could matriculate with little fear of financial hardship, as Pell intended. Over the next three decades, Congress poured vast sums into the program, increasing annual funding from $2 billion to nearly $20 billion. Yet today, Pell Grants cover only 33 percent of the cost of attending a public university. Why? Because prices have increased nearly 500 percent since 1980. Average private college costs, meanwhile, rose to over $34,000 per year.

These numbers don't seem to be adjusted for inflation. If you adjust them for inflation the price increase for expensive colleges is only about 340%. (178% inflation, 5600 = 10k).

Colleges are also offering a lot of financial aid. If you look at NYU, for example, it offers about 26,000 in financial aid on average (vs a 38,000 tuition). So it would cost about 12,000 on average. Other colleges give much more financial aid (ex. hamilton college costs 41k, but offers something like 38k in financial aid). So from my random sampling, at least, it seems that college prices would be right in line with what they were in 1980.

(http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.j... Numbers are similar for other high-end schools.)

I am not a statistician/economist, but really, this doesn't seem to be the price of college per person really increasing, it seems more likely that the wealth is being distributed differently. The relatively wealthy are being asked to pay sticker price, while the less wealthy are getting a huge discount or free ride.

This makes sense, because it is people who write columns like this one that would really feel it in their wallets (the middle and upper middle class).

Whether this redistribution is a good thing is another question entirely, also it would be nice to know if our young adults are actually learning. I'm of the opinion that College is a garbage in garbage out sort of situation. There is no way to make sure that students will put in the effort, high achievement has to be a cultural thing.
Sorry you found the title misleading. That wasn't my intention.
Generating HTML from Lisp is very easy and natural. Of course, there are situations where it might be better to use an HTML template, and there are libraries for that too. Here are a few more examples of HTML generation in Lisp:

A tutorial about writing an HTML-generating DSL in Common Lisp: http://gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-an-html-generation-lib...

The Common Lisp HTML generation library most people actually use[0]: http://weitz.de/cl-who/

HTML generation in PLT Scheme's Continue framework: http://docs.plt-scheme.org/continue/index.html#(part._.Rende...

Arc's built-in HTML generation (powers this site): http://files.arcfn.com/doc/html.html

[0] I'm not actually certain about that, but I think it's the most popular.
Viewing your 3-years-hence profile is fun too. http://web.archive.org/web/20080113124511/news.ycombinator.c...
No, he had it right.

"I think the soonest I can get something published is in about a month ... it wasn't worth the extra friction to push them to the front of the line"

So if he had made a big push, he could have gotten them published in a month. He goes on to say when it would be published if he submitted it at the end of his queue.

"And it would be June 18th before they ran in their normal position, which seemed too far in the future."
Scott's sense of humor isn't really laugh-out-loud-funny, but more of a weird tickle deep inside your mind. It's more "eerily amusing" than "funny". I think if you read blog or comics often, it'll grow on you :)
Ask HN: Review my app, cloudgrapher.com (Amazon CloudWatch dashboard)
In the interest of scratching my own itch, I've written an app that automatically graphs Amazon CloudWatch metrics. I'm making it free for all to use. EC2 customers with Elastic Load Balancers and Auto Scaling Groups should find it especially handy.

It's built in Django on Google App Engine (with the google-app-engine-django helper) and uses Boto to talk to AWS.

This is my first webapp, so I'm sure there's a lot I can improve upon. I'd love to hear any feedback you have.
I think there's another force at play - everyone knows who Google is, so there is an additional illusion of safety by going with Chrome. Outside of the tech world, not a lot of people know or care about the Mozilla Foundation; there's no implicit guarantee of quality.
The one problem is the professors think that college is for learning.

I'm one of those in college solely to get "certified impressive".
While it may look cleaner on the surface, I don't think this sort of hackery actually is cleaner. Are you certain this solution will work with multiple threads? What if a signal is received during one of these calls? Are you sure it will work across all architectures? Operating systems?

I prefer to stay within a language's semantics if possible; it reduces these sorts of concerns. For C++, that would mean using function objects.
To be fair to saurabh, the original title was "Woodstock for Entrepreneurs - the Startup Lessons Learned Conference" before it was modified by the editors.
Me too. Though in this case the "boss" was a statistician.

The way the professor initially gathered data, instead of immediately asking for help like a normal user, made me think this was going to turn into a joke. Like the one that begins with, "a manager, an engineer, and a programmer are driving through the mountains..."
Since when have web platforms ever not been moving targets? It's a pretty simple equation really, if people see enough value with being part of the twitter platform they will update their code, if not, well twitter of decided that it doesn't bother them to lose those people by making this change.
Um, Twitter has been up for years. I have two old apps, and Twitter is needlessly making me put more work into them. It's especially painful because I don't even remember the code very well anymore. The Twitter library I use in one of them is not actively supported anymore, so it might be a huge hassle to switch to another library.

Doable, but annoying.
Daemonic Emacs
Ah, the iPhone argument. What if an app simply doesn't need constant updates and a recurring flood of new features? What are we, a society of update junkies? Some apps are simply there to do something useful, not for showing off new features.
I was always under the impression that Dilbert's company was some sort of sprawling conglomerate like G.E. that produces all sorts of products. Dilbert and his coworkers seem to bounce pretty freely between hardware and software products.

Also, I don't think continuity is one of Scott's goals at all. In fact, I suddenly realized how absurd it was to be discussing what is and isn't Dilbert Canon.
Buy One Get One Free Ebooks from O'Reilly [edited]
This implementation: http://www.terrainformatica.com/index.php/?p=98 is even more portable, by applying some brutal but standards-compliant abuse to the switch statement.
The price is that you cannot have another switch statement within your generator. Well, you can live with that if you still have some spare if/then/else constructs in your basement.
Oil Leaks Could Take Months to Stop, Even With Robots
I thought the second one was stronger; the punchline of the first was very forced.
This is because that Latency is strongly relevant to Consistency.
Communication layer design approach
I consider "bounces" to be a lack of up-sell

Not in all cases. For an affiliate site, a bounce could be some one who gave up reading, or someone who was completely sold and clicked through on the affiliate link. They both show up as "bounces" in Google Analytics.
HN has now gone back in time and jumped itself!
Since I'm not selling anything, a single pageview can easily be a success case for me. If Google refers someone to my site and a single page (and/or its comments) answers their question, I see that as a win. That's where most stats packages fail me, since they assume single pageview visits are immediate bounces.

I think it's applicable to other situations as well. Even if you're selling something and hope to guide visitors down a funnel, an accurate time-on-last-page metric should be valuable. There's a world of difference between someone that bounced immediately and someone that read your landing page for a few minutes but wasn't convinced to take the next step.
His code is also non-portable, and non-standard.

I haven't been able to get it to compile on my system yet, but I don't see anywhere that he's capturing the variables on the stack, so while you may be able to jump back to your position after one call, you'll loose whatever parameters you passed (assuming you don't simply crash). Also, since it seems to depend on a static variable hidden within the function, I doubt it will work even in single threaded programs if you need multiple generators.

This is just my five minute analysis though, so grain of salt and all that.
Obviously, the key question here is what the desired action on your landing page is.

If you're Hanselman, and your goal is to get people to read your blog posts, then your bounce-rate can be close to 100% and it doesn't really matter-- the content you are attempting to serve up is all on the front page, and additional clicks are secondary.

If, on the other hand, you have an e-commerce site like Amazon's, where the landing page is just the first step in a process that you'd like to end in a conversion, then a 78% bounce rate is definitely something to work on.
I liked the following idea (from a commenter on the site) better than the originals:

> Alternatively, it could be funny if Wally became a hero at work when he suddenly delivers an amazing 4G phone that finally makes the company successful - right up until the time it's discovered that he didn't actually develop it, but found it on the counter at the coffee shop.
I'm not a linguist.

How often does that happen?

Does it happen sufficiently often enough that finding the right sound(s) on a full IPA chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPA_chart_2005_png.svg) and using that as the larger 'keyboard' is too cumbersome?
I have a tangential question - if this app was rejected, what is to stop the developer from setting up a website with the source to download, and maybe a paypal donation link (were he so inclined)? Do you have the pay the apple $99 developer fee to even install an app you developed on your iPhone? Or can you do it as long as you have the dev tools installed? I know this isn't an option for everyone, but is it possible?
Play’s the Thing
The code provided isn't storing any internal state (aside from the resume location) as far as I can see. The generator thus generated isn't reentrant and has other flaws, but those pale to nothing when you consider that nothing on the stack is preserved..
But if you test your market value too often, you may be tempted to perform incremental changes, that will lead you to a local maximum, rather than find the global maximum

Why? Because by job hopping, you'll find the company willing to pay the most for your current skills, but you'll forgo promotions that would allow you access to even higher-paying jobs.
How Value Added Taxes Work & How They Would Affect Small Businesses
It seems that he ignores a certain necessity in his CA == CP premise. Specifically, that premise is that to achieve CA the system must be a single logical unit. One the network partitions, anyone in the correct partition (the same one as the CA system) still has access, therefore the system is still available. This sounds bunk, because the system is not available to those on the wrong partition, however, this is not an availability issue, it is a partition issue -- pretty much by definition.
I remember the Yahoo guys saying they would open source PNUTS/sherpa at the very first NoSQL meetup. It's a shame that it's been so long and they have not followed through on that.
A screenshot of Opera displaying this website gave me a 90 Kilobyte GIF or a 60 Kilobyte PNG, both with 256 colours.
FBI: The Top Ten Job Descriptions in Organized Cybercrime
I turned a NAS device -- Intel SS-4200E (has Intel Celeron CPU) into my dedicated home dev server. Installed Ubuntu 9.10, latest Ruby on Rails, Mono and F#. It rocks as it only consumes 40Watts when loaded with tasks. Cutting eletricity bill was the main motive I had to replace a few obsolete PCs I used as Linux servers.

My main desktop is my Macbook that hooked to a Dell 23inch LCD. Most of work is done at the SS4200E where I use Vim. I generally open 5 to 6 terminals and use cmd+# to switch among them. Contrary to other guys here, I really like the Terminal.app. The default color scheme used by Vim is too dark though.

Edit: typo
> A 2006 study from the American Institutes for Research found that only 31 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees are proficient in "prose literacy"–being able to compare and contrast two newspaper editorials, for example.

Well shock and awe, people can't do a college compare and contrast assignment after they leave college. Just ask them what's different in the articles.

> More than a quarter have math skills so feeble that they can’t calculate the cost of ordering supplies from a catalogue.

A skill that isn't strictly needed if those people can use a calculator, it's good enough. Stop measuring how effective school is by having people retake tests they took in school.
205 games written this weekend, source available
(λx.x x) (λx.x x) is an infinite loop whether you use call-by-"name" or call-by-value.
This is a lie that I think is told in every IKEA showroom. 300 square feet is rather functional given the space is well laid out i.e. long and narrow without much obstructing the walls.

The trouble is, it's difficult to find an ideal small space. I've lived in under 300 square feet for over two years in the past, half of the time with a roommate. A single misplaced pipe or radiator can screw up the possibility of a space entirely, and too square an area can produce too much walkway and less "effective" square footage.
If anyone's interested, my entry is at http://labs.haleret.com/ludumdare/ld17/ld17.html
I'm American, and I agree that I'm being a bit unfair. We have had some cultural successes, but (in my opinion) fewer than I would have hoped, given our resources and ability.

The problem is that nearly everything that is produced has to be filtered through large corporations; in most of these, major decisions are often made by filthy, uncultured pig-like creatures who hate creativity (even though they'll say they're all about "innovation") and defile everything they touch. There are glowing exceptions to this rule, but they're rare. The next-quarter mentality is killing refinement.

In the US, to be creative requires that you fight against the larger society, and succeed in spite of it rather than with its assistance. Our artistic successes exist because we have a large population and (for other reasons) draw ambitious people from all over the world, but for us to truly fledge (and I believe we can; we have an incredible number of talented people within our borders) we'd have to move to a different socioeconomic model than the corporate-dominated mess we have now, in which parasites who don't actually do anything have almost all of the power, and the truly creative are almost always treated as pawns.
As far as I can tell you can't get free Ebooks from this link.

You have to buy something first.

All I could find was buy one get one free. Buy two get two free, etc.

So essentially you get books for half price assuming the 2 books you get are the same price.
Ask HN: Best, Safest Interest-Free Ways of Investing 100k?
Hi,

Assuming one is making enough from a startup to put aside all income from a day job, but not yet ready to quit the day job, what are some recommended ways of investing that money?

The catch is, the investment should be interest-free. As far as my limited knowledge in investments goes: Stock market is OK, bearer bonds are not. Micro-investments are based on interest, so they too are not allowed.

That said, what are some of the safest and some of the best ways to invest? Obviously 100k isn't a "fortune" but it's not a small about either. Split it in half and go risky with part and safe with other? What's the return on the "safe" investments over how long?

I guess I'm all questions here, would appreciate any help you guys could give :)
"Autowash!?"

</Obligatory Fifth Element Quote!>

I highly recommend a hammock to anyone that is wanting to save space. I slept in one for 2+ years, and haven't found anything as comfortable since. It takes a little while to get used to, but it's great for your back - despite what you may think.
16-year-old California girl gives up solo around-the-world voyage
Sarah Palin tells court that email hacker disrupted campaign and personal life
Your bounce rate didn't change. The title is very misleading.
It's sad that HN had lost so much of its former quality. Makes me yearn for the good old days.
Funniest Dilbert episodes I've read in a while.
If the developer posts an unsigned app, then it should be possible for someone who paid the $99 dev fee to sign the app and install it on their personal phone.

I don't know if it is possible to do without paying the fee though...
Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?
Some sort of Gyroscope might appeal to both your sensibilities?
I find that with a good, type-aware compiler such as SBCL, Common Lisp hits a really sweet spot on the typing issue. It catches a crapload of mistakes at compile time that would be runtime errors in Python (the language, incidentally the SBCL compiler is also named Python) and most other dynamic languages. The type-language of CL is also more expressive than anything else I have seen, featuring unions, intersections, predicates, subtyping etc. But most importantly, it stands in the background, and doesn't stop you from executing programs that don't conform to some preconceived notion of what typing should be like.
gack. horrible colors.

please don't ever even think of using an HSV rainbow as your palette.
Port/starboard in a trimaran might work, but maybe having a lot of weight on one side would affect the dynamics... You might end up with a boat that only sails in circles :)
Ask HN: Can you suggest a better name for Charles Nutter's Duby project?
Charlie Nutter's project, currently called Duby, allows you to write Ruby code and have it compile to Java class files.

He wants to rename the project to something with less of a drug connotation and is looking for suggestions. Feel free to post your thoughts here or on the Duby mailing list.

There are also about 15 open issues that he could use some help with, if anyone has time.

http://kenai.com/projects/duby
As I noted below, you can solve the stack problem with setjmp() and longjmp(). But that's only portable across different Unixes, not across all systems which will have C++.

But, yes, I am in agreement: function objects are the better solution to this problem in C++. This sort of hackery, while neat, leads to a rats nest of problems.
Washington Post and NPR: Yes, Apple Can Block Their iPad Journalism
JPG for photos; PNG for logos, graphics, ui elements, sprites or anything else that has a vector (adobe illustrator) master.

I'll probably get some downvotes for this, but IMO hacker founders shouldn't get their panties in too much of a bunch over this (with the possible exception of mobile stuff). Work on your startup and solving a problem–then– when your traffic warrants it–you can start obsessing over a few kilobytes of savings. Swapping out graphics in your page templates or CSS is trivial.

When I see a good-looking site, I don't need to go digging into their source to see if they used JPGs or PNGs before it catches my eye.

Follow the above rule, keep your master PSD/AI files, and you'll be fine.
Haha! Exactly what I needed to offset the nag fest I got this morning from an HD snob for not investing in a Blu-Ray setup only a week after upgrading from my 32" tube.
15 Applications For A Better Facebook Fan Page
Do you know there are over 20 million people join as fans of Facebook Fan Pages daily? If you can get 5% of those people to land and join your fan page, the impact will be significant. Time to boost popularity of your fan page with the right Facebook applications. While you’re here be sure to check out Promote Yourself Effectively on Facebook & Advertising for the Now Generation
I'm glad it's not called "Startup News" any more. I probably would have just glanced at the page and left. And then where would I find the kind of techy, software development article links that I regularly add to my company's wiki?
OneBag: The Art and Science of Travelling Light
It's pretty, but does it have any significant physical interpretation? I.e., what are the actual behaviors of the system that emerge from the given rules?
You're right, I missed it
Making Machinist master MongoMapper & Mongoid
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/search?itemlang=&q=...
Comcast: The Consumerist's Worst Company in America
Twitter acquires SMS service Cloudhopper
If you're comparing your current interest in two iterations of hn, presumably it's hn that's changed.

For myself, if anything I'm more interested in today's front page, but there's not much in it. And I'm more into the hacking aspect than startups specifically, which might be relevant.
Why do you wish you went with the System76 model (I'm considering both right now)?
Probably half and half. I read less than half of the stuff on HN now.

Part of it is a lot of it is not new now. I've read a lot about the lean startups, or joel's ben and jerry vs amazon, or mel the programmer, or the 500 mile email. I've been here long enough to have seen repeats of the same themes. As you grow, the less things surprise you, and hence perhaps less interesting.

And the other part is that I don't really care for the apple gossip, or a picture of woz, or the lighter stuff, but then again, I've only sporatically submitted stuff too.

I've noticed you've submitted less stuff and don't participate as much. The edw519 era has gone, where you submitted stuff and commented. Nowadays, it's the patio11 era, where he submits his own stuff and comments.
How is this different from any other platform upgrade, regardless of web/desktop?

Platforms evolve. APIs get deprecated. Stuff either breaks or gets updated.
Groupon and other deal-a-day coupon sites spend tons of money on Facebook ads.

Since Greg (hi Greg!) works at Facebook, it'd be a gross breach of trust for him to reveal who Facebook's ad clients are. Zynga is a well-known example, often mentioned because they spend a ridiculous amount of cash on FB ads.
Yes please! A browser built around this workflow would be fantastic. You don't have any idea how many times I've accidentally closed one of my "workspace" browsers and left another browser open and lost several hours worth of research because there's no good way to retrieve all of the tabs that were there in a simple way. Keeping the tabs as bookmarks would likewise be even better since I've brought even quad core systems with 8 GB of RAM to their knees on occasion. The only way I can get along now is by using extensions like flashblocker which helps somewhat with the performance, but still doesn't help much with the workflow.

The worst thing is that there seems to be this weird proclivity for GUI designers to put long lists of things horizontally instead of vertically, the Windows Task Bar, Tabs in browsers, diagrams in Visio, etc. Wouldn't these things just work about a billion times better as a simple list along the left or right side of the window? Especially since most screens these days are so wide, web pages never actually fill them up horizontally. (Yes, I'd tried various extensions, but none of them really seem to do what I want).
No, the reply to you. Sorry, wasn't clear.