skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If any of the subreddit starts to get too popular and mainstream, usually 2-3 new subreddits popup that are more specific and interesting.

Bingo! I think this is the solution to the eternal September effect on communities.

You get a super nice place like reddit when it was new and shiny and over time it gets taken over by trolls. So you move on to startup news, then hacker news, but soon that is filled with generic crap and shallow discussions as well.

So you move on to an individually selected group of sub-reddits and then just keep moving, like a nomad always moving away form the trolls. (Or not even necessarily trolls, just too much popularity which brings shallowness if no actual trolling.)

I strongly encourage everyone to try this. Keep in mind the default reddit includes subreddits like pics and WTF which basically equals 4chan, so quickly edit your settings.
Tell that to Abraham Lincoln. He effectively ended slavery in the US, you will recall. Antagonizing people and polarizing the issue were necessary to achieve what he did.
Absolutely. If they'd asked nicely, and had some sort of non-violent, respectful protest I wouldn't feel the need to respond in any way.
Facebook, Google and privacy: Dicing with data
We have exactly the same problem. (I'm a solo bootstrapper too).

It sounds like I should just go ahead and start this entrepreneur forum that I'm envisioning.
The lean startup circle Google group is pretty active, with decent SNR.
...where are the articles showing the flaws in Lisp...

I've been reading about Lisp since I first learned of its existence in the early 90s. In all that time I can't think of a really good critical article that I've read about Lisp (there is some decent stuff about the various drawbacks of Common Lisp, or Scheme, or Lisp-1 vs Lisp-2, etc. And then there's some really bad stuff that's just old recycled FUD), but nothing good that really attacks Lisp as a whole critically.

I bet if such an article was written, it would actually get very far on Hacker News indeed. I'd certainly be interested to read it!
"This sentence has no proof" (and add all the difficult bits about formal systems, what you mean by proof, and the containing of enough complexity to model arithmetic) is a paradox, and it's led to some very interesting mathematics. (I observe that Goedel said that any true paradox could be used as the basis for an incompleteness theorem.) Yes, it's also led to a lot of cranks spouting huge amounts of nonsense, but that just proves that people will insist on misunderstanding things, and then loudly demonstrate their lack of understanding.

Paradoxes in the true mathematical sense are useful in mathematics, and I thought that many here on HN would find that they sufficiently provoke their intellectual curiosity to be regarded on topic.

However, clearly you disagree, so clearly we disagree. I found the submission interesting, the discussion less so, and wish the inappropriate comments had been flagged/killed to allow the interesting and contentful discussion to flow. That's not what happened.

People complain that HN has jumped the shark, and the submissions are of poor quality. Personally I think it's the inappropriate comments that are dragging HN down, the insistance by so many to add largely content-free and insight-free comments. And yes, I admit that I've done it too.

PG says that the greatest threat to HN isn't the poor quality of submission, but the poor quality of comment. Perhaps submissions should die less often, and comment be killed more often.

Perhaps not. I don't have solutions, but I do know that this submission was a paradox, and that some true paradoxes are of interest and use in formal mathematics. Others aren't - it would be interesting to know if this is the former, and that's what I'll be exploring with some of my colleagues over the next few days.
Let me show you a recent example of what this is about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfW95sSaVVo

This took place in a swedish university during a lecture about religion and freedom of speech. The video that Lars Vilks showed during this clip was made by an iranian artist. Before this he had showed examples of offensive material directed at christianity etc.

And there is a funny kind of double standard involved, because practically nobody objects when artists offend religions where the response to the alleged offence isn't violent.

EDIT: A few days after this attack, "somebody" tried to firebomb Vilk's house. All because of a series of rather tame drawings like this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muh-hund-original-rondelll...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks
But that old-time genetic engineering still plays by the rules of nature, so to speak. Grafting branches between trees is pushing it a little. Splicing genes, not to mention synthesizing them from scratch, I think is pretty clearly of a different nature.
No, that's not the case at all. We just happen to value freedom of expression above anyone else's avoidance of offence.
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I think there's plenty of precedent for works titled "The Art of X" to explain how "X" works. Knuth?

(I was going to include an Amazon link for a book search on "The Art of" to support my point, but the first few pages of results were all books of pictures from Hollywood movies. Oh well.)
http://twitpic.com/1p9paw/
Christine Tsai, Dave McClure, PG, Albert Wenger, Dick Costolo, Brad Feld.
I wonder if PG turned his ID deliberately.
Those people were not antagonized by anonymous cartoonists, they were antagonized by guys with guns.

And even then it took some doing. And even today there are some 'holdouts' who think that was all a big mistake.

The people pushing this are just as stupid as the people that get upset over Mohammed being depicted.

They're just preaching to the choir and in the meantime will achieve the opposite of what they want to achieve.

You are not going to solve this with a confrontation, only with education.

Slavery could be solved with confrontation, and sufficient force. And I don't think you'd like to see this escalate the way the slavery issue did.
In the interests of disclosure, it wasn't I that submitted it. I was just surprised and sorry to see it go.

Given the poor quality of the comments perhaps I was less surprised than I might've been, but as I've said elsewhere, I just wish the bad comments had been flagged, not the submission.
Android Froyo Running Laps Around The iPad — Literally
And man made life: Artificial life, stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived
Privacy and the internet: Lives of others
Sometimes antagonism is called for. Witness the "War of Northern Aggression" (also known as the US Civil War) for an example of antagonism that achieved a good result. Or, if you prefer a peaceful example, Ghandi was very antagonistic, and with good results.
What Did You Say About Muhammad?
Importance-wise, delays in the singularity are trivial compared to a risk of it not happening at all.

So suppose we are worried that a die-off in industrial nations will actually make it impossible. Isn't this risk (that there is a major catastrophic disaster for industrialized nations and this disaster prevents a singularity from ever taking place) much smaller than the risk that the singularity goes badly when it happens? If so, then this supports the spirit of my original comment: worrying about the singularity going well is more pressing than worrying about major shocks to civilization which do not completely wipe out humanity.
North Korea threatens 'all-out war' over warship sinking report
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This is an important feature for all Android devices. The N1 is only 6 months old and has 512MB of built in storage. Only a smaller subset of that is actually available for applications to install. Probably enough space for most people today but with games, GPS mapping apps, etc it's really just not enough. As the OP noted it's even worse on the older models where you typically have less than 200MB to install applications.
First, there is nothing to get over. I am not emotionally involved. Second, just because you have a right to do something doesn't mean you should do it. It's not about laws and amendments. It is about people's feelings. I have the right to draw Jesus, Mohammed and Moses having sex. That doesn't make it any less offensive to a great many people. So should I do it just because I can and want to see what kind of reaction I get?

So your cartoon was censored. Maybe you are the one who needs to get over it.
I agree that disappointment in this accomplishment is crazy, it's an amazing feat

That said, people can sometimes go batty and start thinking something was achieved when it wasn't. I think it's reasonable to clarify that this isn't a full realization of "artificial life" just yet (though it clearly is a partial realization, as the scientists did alter the genome (also, apparantly they removed potentially disease-inducing strands of DNA, according to the NYTimes). The poster who got negged expressed this distinction in a fairly dismissive fashion that appeared to disparage the achievement. But you should be able to point out (diplomatically, one would hope)that a monumental achievement isn't an even more monumental achievement without being accused of minimizing the achievement itself!
People get offended by things whether you like it or not. It's extreme to make death threats, but it's also extreme and fairly despicable to go out of your way to offend an entire group of people simply because a subset of those people are acting extremely. If someone punches me in the face for making lewd comments about his mother, is it constructive to then go around making lewd comments about anyone's mother who thinks that these comments are offensive? I think the organizers of this event are free to do what they want, but it's still a pretty tasteless thing to do. And if people take this as a reflection on all atheists, it DOES make us all look bad.
> "...why do more Muslims not speak out more often against extremists?"

The same way Christians should be constantly and publicly apologetic for the crazy abortion clinic bombers?

My impression from Muslim friends is that they do, but internally - and I can't blame them. Muslims face an increasingly cold attitude from people in America, and unity against the face of discrimination is important. Without speaking from personal experience, I suspect that nobody wants to get into an internal witch-hunt (who's the extremist bomber?!) that will simply fracture the community.

Perhaps they would be more willing to speak out against extremists if they thought the rest of their country had their backs. But let's face it - looking at this discussion (and knowing that attitudes in the general population is markedly worse), we don't. The moderates are between a rock and a hard place - on one side a public that fears and loathes them, and on the other a bunch of murderous fiends that look like them, and claim to be one of them.
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

-Abraham Lincoln, first inaugural address
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html
The badness of a delayed singularity is insignificant to the badness of it never happening. So let's consider the latter.

Isn't the risk that a large industrial collapse happens and it prevents a singularity from ever taking place much smaller than the risk that the singularity goes badly? If so, then this agrees with the spirit of my comment: worrying about the singularity going well is much more pressing than worrying about catastrophes that do not immediately wipe out humanity.
So since the file system is open, couldn't you still trivially get to the files and move them to the SD card or FTP them to a friend? Is this really much of a barrier?
Start a Stackexchange site with like-minded HN folks?

http://blog.stackexchange.com/post/518474918/stack-exchange-...

And don't forget good ol' Slashdot. Alot of the old trolls moved on the new hotness social media sites.
I'm just saying that expression shouldn't be limited in any way. Then, you can go on debating morality with everyone else for as long as you want.

As for the cartoon, it was likely a mistake to give in to the threats, as it simply validates them and invites more.
See there's thing thing called an apple and this other thing called an orange.

And there's this discussion about artificial and natural micro organisms competing in the same niche. Like using light energy to capture CO2 for example.

And then there's oil drillers.
Yes, what makes you think I'm not?

If I walk up to an American and burn a flag chances are they'll get violent. What's the difference here ?

Kick someones symbol on purpose and you kick the person behind it. If you do not wish to be kicked back you educate, not confront.

Of course it is stupid, but this is no less stupid, and childish to boot.
where are the articles pointing out the problems with HN

like this one?
Apple Selling More iPads Than Macs
Yes. I don't really see how this solves my problem though.

The design of HN is news oriented, not discussion or community oriented. And because it doesn't have categories, when the amount of submission reaches a certain size, up-voting "new" posts has marginal effect compares to random floods of submissions.

A year and half ago, I was reading every "new" post, because I wanted to be fair, but it's just not feasible right now.
Being married to one (and being a panentheist from a Protestant and Catholic Northern Irish family) I can tell you that my wife doesn't like pictures of the prophet Muhammed because in their religion, the prophet is the messenger, not the message. It's as much a part of their religion as making the old joke about Jesus walking into a bar with two planks of wood and some nails and asking if he could be put up for the night.

While it's fun for some to mock part of someone elses religion and I absolutely advocate free speech we need to see this as what it is. It's trolling. If you want to stick it to the extremists then do something the moderates can unite with you against them. No moderate could support EDMD because it specifically goes against the teachings of one of their holy books.

Rather than ask for a response that a peace loving muslim might give an extremist muslim, ask yourself what a peace loving Christian would give by way of a response to an extremist Christian should Jesus be mocked. There you will find your answer.

Interestingly (or perhaps not) this doesn't just apply to Mohammed. This applies to all prophets in Islam, including Jesus and Moses. It's because idolatry is the worship of something other than god and to muslims there is only the one god, although he's the same god as the god in all Abrahamic faiths, just interpreted differently.
Recently during the British elections a photographer placed on his window looking out into the street a poster with a picture of the then candidate for prime minister David Cameron above the caption 'David Cameron Is A Wanker'.

An elderly neighbour noticed the poster and alerted the police. A gaggle of bobbies arrived shortly there after, pushed there way into his home and told told the now handcuffed afacer that the poster had to be taken down.

When he asked why, he was told that it caused offense. When he asked what the criteria was for that which is determined to be offensive, he was told "that which any reasonable person would find alarming, harassing or distressful" In a hilarious conversation with an inspector of the police some time later, he asked whether he might be allowed to use the word 'tosser' in place. 'No' came the answer. Masturbater?..still 'No'. He suggested onanist as a last resort which flumoxed the inspector. Full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/11/david-cameron-poste...

My point is that here is a case where freedom of speech is restricted by a government, but we don't see anybody rallying support for 'David Cameron is a Wanker day' not that many people wouldn't enjoy it.

Similarly The European Union's Framework decision on Racism and Xenophobia states that denying or grossly trivialising "crimes of genocide" should be made "punishable in all EU Member States" but we don't see anybody rallying for a '6 million jews didn't die in the holocast' day.

Why is that? I think that although this 'everybody draw mohammed day' wants to wear the mask of 'supporting free speech' - it is at it's heart really just an excuse to bash religionists - an easy target. What's offensive to some, is not offensive to others. If we are to have restrictions in society on what we can and cannot say, do, write or draw then what exactly does and does not get restricted will often be because of some bias on behalf of the lawmaker. In this case the US law sides with the caricaturists, in another instance it might not.
Leveraging your freedoms to its maximum extent, even to the grave offense of others, is not protecting it

I disagree, this is the only way to test the limits of our rights. Our freedoms are defined everyday by circumstances beyond what the law states.

EDMD is a reaction to the self-censorship of the mainstream media. It's a reaction to a debate, one which has terms of discourse dictated by one side via fear. When a cartoon is so controversial someone gets killed, the public needs to understand the reason, context, and history. This cannot happen without free debate. Censoring the offending image is the anti-thesis of informative journalism.

I don't think this issue has much to do with Islam proper, it's more a chastisement of the American media. Burning an American flag would be a good parallel, another sacred cow gets slaughtered. If you can't recognize the underlying symbology of course it seems pointless and provocative.
You are right.

Apple TV should have been this product, if it was open and allowed you to browse any website and ran flash, it didn't.

Boxee would be this product if it had shipped a box that worked with the TV. (Yeah, I know about the boxee box). The difference is Google has the muscle to close the loop on this one.

The others are all closed at various levels or lack developer traction.

Boxee is the closest in terms of being open, I was hoping to replace my apple tv (had it from day 1 and use it for my videos and photos)
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A directional pad.

http://www.google.com/tv/developer/#navigation-is-critical
Clouds, Network Infrastructure and Unintended Consequences
>So, you'll depend on the rest of the world to vaccinate so you can benefit from herd immunity

It's easy to make a remark about "anti-vaccine conspiracy theories" now that we have evidence to show - but to expect me or anyone else simply to trust the medical establishment has not erred in creating a new vaccine is too much.

Selfish? My children have both been immunised for the standard spread of common [childhood] disease in my country using the established vaccines. The swine flu vaccine was offered to us the week before vaccination was stopped - the reports were already in that it had been vastly overstocked, that vaccination wouldn't be effective against next seasons mutations, that other countries had ceased immunisation, that there were barely any new cases being reported, that it was far less virulent than expected and in addition I had a strong suspicion that our youngest (the only one offered the vaccine) had actually had the virus already. FWIW I've also donated to charities that make medical interventions such as vaccination of children.

Uninformed? I've attempted to ascertain the risks involved in the vaccines offered to us. Most have been widely tested over several years but the swine-flu virus had not; as you saw I did rely on past empirical data to establish some of the risk factors.

I am in no way part of an "anti-vaccine movement" I'm simply trying to use available knowledge to reduce the risk of harm to my own family.

This does bring us back to the question of selfishness - I would let others be guinea pigs first before risking the health of my own children. Part of the problem is that from an immunological perspective you can expect a lot of deaths from a vaccine and still make the call that to save the population it's better to vaccinate.

Do you really believe that I was risking the lives of other children by not immunising against swine flu in January of this year? ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8645477.stm shows there were no further deaths in reality in my region).
I agree. The cell is a much bigger challenge.
This whole thing is so lame.

Anyone who wants to kill you for drawing a picture already wants to kill you for other reasons, they just haven't singled you out yet. If you're participating in this because you want to stand up to a violent threat, you fail. You're simply saying "I'm afraid of the boogieman, and I can't stand up to him without a herd to hide me".

The censorship argument is equally ridiculous. The media censors all kinds of information that would piss of their advertisers and audiences, and a cartoon of a dead religious figure surely ranks among the least significant to anyone's daily life. If you want to get pissed about something, get pissed about the utterly insignificant bullshit that gets paraded around as news every day (hint: EDMD would be a good start).
Err, my short stops are from BC2...
Making a point through antagonism to demonstrate that making a point through antagonism is not a good idea? How very meta of you.

I would avoid saying "HN demands" anything, since this thread shows that people's views here are all over the map.
A Stackexchange site might be too. It seems the main difference b/t the two is that the Reddit/HN format is oriented submitting links for discussion and pithy comments, whereas SE is oriented around submitting questions for specific answers and collective problem-solving. The latter might be more what the OP is looking for.
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
Mohandas Gandhi
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Mandatory:
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/c6dea/synthetic_lif...
Do this fun experiment: Go buy an iPad and try to figure out how to use it WITHOUT another computer to sync it against.

That's what they're talking about.
Though without the s, tartups.com has some pretty bad connotations.
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No, I don't think it's that simple.

Humans are unpredictable almost by definition. Love, relationships, and marriages are near impossible to predict with any accuracy -- there are just too many variables to catalog, index, and draw relationships between.

If even humans can't predict their own marriages half the time (to wit: about a 50% divorce rate in the US), how can a computer or a statistical model ever hope to compare?

Maybe these fellows really are doing something special, but they give no justification for their model here. They don't explain why they think they're on to something new or even how accurate they think their model is.
I also don't recall ever getting an apology for his capping CityDesk without any recourse, open sourcing of the software, whatever.

I suppose in both cases the distinction is that Joel decided not to apologize. The original point was about how he does that when he actually does it. And all or nothing is a legit thing to do here.