skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ah, but did the girlfriend thing ever work out?

I tend to engage in a lot of (sometimes unhealthy) introspection, and the only conclusion that I can draw is that all the little (and big) decisions we make about what to do with our time can have a wide range of impact on our lives, from "little to nothing" all the way up to "life-changing." And it's usually so hard to tell ahead of time whether or not those decisions will end up giving us a net positive or negative.

And to make matters worse (or better, depending on how you think about it), the effects might not even be related to the "good thing" you expected. Like in your example, you ended up getting a referral at a new job, which was probably not what you expected. I think so far in my short life I've figured out that the biggest bang for your buck comes from forming relationships and connections with other people. All that, "it's not what you know, it's who you know," cliched stuff that we smile-and-nod at but rarely really think about, but is so ridiculously true.
Why not try to capture some of the Hacker News talent and create a crowd sourced Hacker News project? I little bit of everyone's time could add up to something interesting, and perhaps useful.
San Francisco, CA

Blurb - http://www.blurb.com/join_us

Help people make books - it makes them really happy.

Mainly looking for Rails developers.
From the second link:

".tar.gz is the most widely used archive format on Linux. Using other formats (.tar.bz2, for example) is discouraged, as it requires additional steps for the packager."

-- so fix the bleeping package system to support bzip2.

I note, too, that Fedora has rubygem packages, which provide Ruby gems directly. Is there something rpm does better than dpkg here?

(Not that I give a flip about Ruby; it's a terrible language. I spent about 6 months building an app in Rails; it took about 3 months to go from "this is easy!" to "but it won't let me do anything hard!".)
Sometimes I wonder, though, if methods like Lean Startup aren't solidifications of this very illusion: that just building something awesome and slightly gonzo is too much fun to be trusted. Lean Startups tend to miss things people don't know they want, or that yield negative results when market-tested with crappy prototypes. It's like "Design by Focus Group". It's probably safer. The success rate is probably higher. But I think you pay for it in loss of craziness. At any rate, startups either don't need to hear this, or shouldn't listen to it.
How does this effect the kno? http://www.kno.com/
Seriously, this is a nice gesture, but like most other forms of social welfare, I don't think you can save people from themselves through things like this.
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

People I trust have told me his books are great reads.

I'm self-taught on analytics and blog about it, but it is probably scattered over the last couple of years of posts. I wouldn't recommend it for an entry to the discipline.
Google KS has nothing on that!
I agree with you that there is a spectrum of risk taking from gambling to investing. Nevertheless both involve taking risk and expecting payoff sometime in the future. Both the estimate of risk and estimate of payoff could be wrong or could change dynamically. I wouldn't be surprised if some argue that US government bonds are more risky than investing a diversified portfolio of forex today.
Actually, a lot of pundits and opinion-writers never do.
Not always. When one partner is demotivated, he/she has the other partner to turn to, discuss the problem, and pivot/change the project if necessary. The motivated partner can also start this conversation as well. Compare that to a solo founder who wouldn't have this support.

I'm not saying drawing inspiration from the users isn't important (ideally, all founders should be doing this anyways), but having another person on the team significantly helps to start.
Ask HN: Why is HN so slow lately?
3 out of 4 times I access HN during the last month or two it's slow to load the home page. It's also slow to load comments about 50% of the time. Is there anything we can do to help make it faster? I'm happy to donate some of my time optimizing queries, app servers, web clusters etc.
Well, to be fair, most of the borrowed money came from his own pocket, which is why he ended up owning more than 40% of zappos (probably more that 50% if you include venture frogs' 36% involvement).

Most boards hate companies who spend extravagantly on their employees. For example, even though Google is doing great, quite a few of their board members hate how Eric Schmidt feeds Google employees so well. According to a few I know at google, they had to pull back a few items on the menu to keep the board happy. Most boards are just after profits and don't really see the connection to employee happiness.

In fact, there was a YC company board who rejected the purchase of an expensive espresso machine just because the employees wanted it... that destroyed employee morale for the next 2-3 months, and also caused traffic to go down. Eventually the board gave in and bought the company the espresso machine and it really paid off -- employees were happy, traffic rebounded, and board members actually stated that they wished they knew this earlier. Won't say which YC company, but it was a talk from one of the YC dinners during my round.

tl;dr: Boards are always after the cash and rarely see the connection to keeping employees happy, yet time after time they make the same stupid mistakes.
I had to read this in 7th grade when we were doing a unit on Utopias, but had long since forgotten the title. I've tried many times to find it again after trying to describe it to people. Thanks so much for posting it!
I re-read your comment and I can see it now, but I missed the humor first time around.
I was entirely aware of the parent's info but still read the name as "list-eria" giving the impression of "mad list-making, list-hysteria".

I like it, but then I tend to like clever names that others may not get or might be put off from.
When I was a child (about 7 years) I nearly drowned at a public swimming pool full of people. My family was there including my mother, smiling at me from all of 5 feet away.

After I ran out of air and strength... it was actually my (then 9 year old) brother who saved me.

As a child I was simply infuriated with my mother, that she would sit there smiling acting like everything was okay while I was fighting for my life. I guess I know why now.

Thanks for this article -- it won't be forgotten.
I think user generated tags go a long way in filtering out which stories I'd like to read/explore. (I used to read Slashdot until I found HN a few weeks ago). For now I just use the number of comments as good first approximation.
Prince's statement may not make sense to me or you but I don't share the author's view that it somehow makes him an anachronism. He's an artist, not a business person. He has always lived and worked in a creative universe that only loosely intersects with the rest of us. Overall I think it's a good thing that there are still some artists who are not following the mainstream path.
A screencap of the previous page design would help - from what I recall it must be pretty similar.
Good point! I think we will change this!
When will Froyo hit Australia? The complete handset list
But they can easily be hacked to work, because they all run USB.

And I don't own a dock anyway, because they don't have cross-device compatibility.

In any case, I wasn't asserting the absolute superiority of Android. I only said that the Motorola Droid is entirely sufficient. So I'm not looking to upgrade to a better model anytime soon. If anything, I'll be looking for something with roughly the Motorola Droid's specs.
This would be like a drug dealer not dealing for certain part of his regularly scheduled day. I can only imagine that this would make it worse because your cutting off supply and thus increasing demand.
You'll probably increase traffic :).
OH! Neither did I. Thanks. Now don't I look stupid. In my defense the author isn't listed anywhere but the title tag. Which I didn't see. I've always thought it was just written by some jerk.
So jealous!
I'm curious as to why their "About us" page is empty. Beyond their manufacturing complications, I'm wondering what qualifies them to make statements and a device that claims to help people sleep/wake up better. It leaves the door open to everything from "read some academic papers written by grad students" to "medical doctor with years of sleep research". I'm sure a quick google search would bring up more info about the founders, but it seems more appropriate to be able to find it from the company itself.

That aside, this product does seem promising. I typically sleep only 5-6 hours per night and wake up naturally (without an alarm clock). I feel fine most of the time, but I do notice on those occasional days that I sleep 8+ hours, I feel much better. Being able to analyze my sleep with a $50 device at home is something that does interest me.
How Computer Modeling Worsened The Financial Crisis
A peek inside the working designer's mind
I was aware of that, but I thought the effect was somewhat ironic/funny... Perhaps I will reconsider...
Backups to remote systems. Keep significant data in "the cloud". Stream content directly from a friend - why upload/download? Distributed cluster computing / rending farms - make adding FX or fully rendered animation to home movies near real-time. Redundant distributed storage - eliminate backups altogether and keep data safe and accessible. 1080p video conferencing / security monitoring.

Most importantly, probably something we haven't yet thought of.
Risk of Injury is much better than drowning alongside then.. (But I'm not a lifeguard -- so I'll shutup)

// I was somewhat shocked when I did an L2 First Aid course a couple of years back. The Ambulance Officer running the class talked about CPR -- push much harder than you think you should. A couple of broken ribs will heal. A stopped heat beat wont.
Despite a lot of floofy rhetoric, we didn't evolve to spend time in the water. We're land apes with reflexes that try to get us out of the water after we've fallen in.
Thanks for your feedback! This sounds precisely like what we're encountering right now: restaurants are uncertain why people would want to see their site on a phone and how it increases their bottom line. We'd like to educate them and show them that customer discovery = ROI, but we're not sure how to evaluate that in our context. Some people here have suggested success stories, which we think is fantastic.
Hmmm, good idea, maybe I'll change that.
New Access Policies for Amazon S3 Buckets
Off-site backup is a good one. If I backup to a NAS on my Gigabit LAN at home, it should be similar speed to a colo-NAS located within the same datacentre as the ISP. According to the linked site, you can download a 4.7GB DVD in 38 seconds.
Use lower latency video codecs so that video conferencing works better?

It's hard to think about, at least when I'm paying 28 US$ for "up to" 1.5M/364Kbps. The way I'm looking at it, much of the future won't be invented in the US.
That's a scary thought. I think the HN community is very aware of time wasting. There appears to be a constant stream of don't-waste-time encouragement.

HN is a good personal investment if you don't take the "fake work" bait[1]. Any non-fiction book is the same - you can spend hours reading every word/sentence/paragraph/page, or scan and focus with a purpose. It's easy to fall into passivity.

[1] Perhaps there is a better system to bring "good investment posts" to the top.
How do you know when the drowning person is unconscious

Wait for their hands to stop moving.

that would be when they dip under and don't come back up? They're lungs would be full of water then? So you would have to swim down to them, pull them to dry land (they won't float) and resuscitate them?

They won't sink at this point, they'll just float with their face in the water. (There is a reason why the dead man's float is called that. See http://www.ehow.com/how_6582_survival-float.html for a description.)

And yes, at this point they'll have water in their lungs, and may need CPR.

I understand sometimes that could be the only option... but seems like a heavy responsibility.

If you're not trained, then getting in over your head (literally!) is an easy way to commit suicide. I had multiple years of lessons before any instructor gave me any instruction on how to go after someone in the water beyond, "Don't."

Now one thing that I didn't talk about was how you can tow someone in the water. If you have any swimming training you may be familiar with the elementary backstroke. (If not, hopefully you know the breaststroke, basically it is a version of that except on your back.) If you continuously do the kick from that, you get the whipkick. (Well to get it right you need to keep the knees a little closer together than many people's breaststroke, but close enough.) It turns out that the kick is enough.

Now what you do is lay the person with their head on your chest, your arms coming under their shoulders and crossing their chest, and just do that kick as fast as you can. You won't move very fast, but you can keep both your face and theirs in the air as you go. If you get them early enough, there is a good chance they will start breathing on their own as you tow them. At which point you get them to land and your job is done. If not, you'll get to land alive without having done further damage and can start CPR. (A life skill that I firmly believe everyone should have.)
I think the key word here is "required". Most of the restaurants we've spoken to are averse to the idea of having to promote a new piece of technology because of the time and effort that involves. This gives them the opportunity to make the decision about promoting it--restaurant websites deemed "bad neighborhoods" might choose otherwise :)
Maybe our most effective strategy is pre-emptive avoidance? I've never played any of those Facebook games, in fact I never joined a social networking site at all for years, because I KNEW it would be a time sink. I like computer games but i've sworn never to even TRY World of Warcraft. I felt pretty stupid about trying EVE Online (I was intrigued by the business aspects) but turns out it's very boring anyway.

So my point is, recognize in advance the time-wasting potential of prospective activities, and that will save you some grief. Another strategy: treat these activities like tradable items, like currently I'm considering "Buy: iPad, Sell: Xbox 360" and then the net effect of a new gizmo should be nullified.
Research by Matt Davis at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy sheds some light - http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/
This reminds me of something from scuba certification. After doing all this scary stuff underwater( like taking the regulator out of your mouth, dropping it, then recovering and re-inserting with your eyes closed) one of the last tests was to take off your mask, put it back on, and use your regulator bubbles to blow your mask clear of water. Easy, I thought. You get to keep your regulator in the whole time. So you could literally spend 60 minutes getting this right with absolutely no danger. Frankly, it sounded about as intimidating as washing your hair in the shower.

Oh, how wrong I was. Despite the fact that I knew I was perfectly safe, the second my face was immersed in water, I had to fight hard to not panic. I felt waves of fear threatening to engulf me, and it took every ounce of self control not to bolt for the surface (which can injure or kill you). Two other students did bolt for the surface before being grabbed by instructors. I later learned that this is a very common, instinctive reaction.

I was amazed at how powerful this reaction was, and gained a newfound respect for the lizard brain.
I have an original model-m (June '89), and the case and bottom are plastic. Sturdy plastic, sure, but still plastic. Definitely steel inside though.
Neanderthal Males Had Popeye-Like Arms
Justin TV in May 2007: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojbyrne/505415469/

I remember it being a little more informal than the Inc picture suggests, but look - dress shirt.
I can rapidly prototype code but I get tripped up on design
Guys,

I'm a big fan of rapid prototyping. Get your startup idea up in a week or two and get a feel for how people like it. I can easily create the code (php/jquery,etc) but I always get tripped up on the design.

I'm not entirely sure what the resource I'm looking for is, but I want to find tools to help me quickly put together CSS spreadhsheets with decent looking designs.

Are there generators with web 2.0 design styles where you can click which features you want and it will generate designs for you?

I'm not looking for a design that will be the design the site will have in two months, just something that people can look at and not think this website is a complete joke.

Maybe something like http://www.web20generator.com that's less of a joke and has more features.

I've been studying at designfromscratch.com to help get some principles, but I'm not a design guy and I'd rather pay for design after my concepts are solid.

I'm not sure if I'll get laughed off the boards for this, but any tips/ideas would be appreciated.
A continuous, blocking python interface for streaming Flickr photos
Wow. This makes me hate the U.S. telecom providers even more.

I know it's not a fair comparison considering how spread out the U.S. is, but still, I'm paying $80 for Internet and phone. Where's all my money going?
I'd like a 'timeslot' feature that I could set myself eg. block my account all day except between 10pm and 11pm. This actually occurred to me previously when I activated the noprocrast feature, which was good also
Do you mean virtual desktops? You could do it with a regular DSL/cable connection. I have users in India connecting to us in the States through a T3. It is actually pretty sweet; they can even do things like stream audio/video and it goes through just fine.
I was surprised enough that a mention on Reddit could sell $4,000 worth of software that I had to submit this. Divvy is very savvy about taking advantage of the opportunity, too -- they created a Reddit-only discount.

(I'd say this is an engraved invitation to buy a Reddit ad and make a landing page with narwhals and bacon on it -- the obvious choice being the product video. That gives them a second bite at the PR apple and they might get links and follow-on coverage for sheer novelty value.)
Extensions normally don't work with new versions mostly because of the em:maxVersion requirement in the install.rdf file all extensions use for their metadata. You can probably unzip your favorite extension, modify the file, zip it back up and it might work just fine.
The implication being that its not orders of magnitude more difficult than shipping a web application that works with IE6. Don't I know.
This isn't entirely true. In many cases you can post things anonymously online, and they will stay so, unless they're illegal enough to warrant a subpoena forcing a provider to turn over details that can be used to identify you.

We all understand that if you include personal information or post using a known alias, a little bit of searching may identify you. If your IP address is made public in the post or email, it can be used to narrow down who or where you are. Even simply correlating known data, that is linked to your identity, with previously anonymous data can sometimes identify you. And the popular easy to regurgitate advice is that "nothing" you do is anonymous.

The fact is, if you're careful and there isn't enough of a motivation to go to the level necessary to identify you, you can participate anonymously in many discussions.

It's also possible to maintain the option of anonymous discussion in the future if people realize where it has value and make an effort not to give their privacy away voluntarily.
Perhaps some tweaks could be made to encourage more valuable content on Hacker News. For example, a link to a new Ruby gem that may solve a problem I have makes me more productive. Links about Facebook, Google, Apple, TechCrunch, etc. drama is junk food.
How many of you would host your servers at home if you had a connection like that (assuming your webserver is not several racks, just 1 or 2 quad cores)?

I know it might seem irrational, since webhosts provide more than just bandwidth and uptime, its also about security (both physical and virtual), but there is something about having 100% access to my server that I really enjoy.
A brief look at Smarter Football's 3 year, 2 pivot journey
<!--[if IE 6]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie6.css" />
<![endif]-->

The standard way to show a custom stylesheet to IE6 only is to use the IE6 conditional, which is ignored by all browsers except IE6, because it's semantically a comment and other IE browsers will ignore it, because they don't match the version number.
BBC - Children - Home
Who let the narwhals in?
I think these tags would be useful:

[programming] [startups] [drama] [meta]
I'm sick of waiting for this in the U.S. How much is it to rent a microtrencher and wire up my neighborhood with fiber and then lease a university/municipal network uplink?
It was not I who posted that there.

I fully agree that waiting for unconsciousness is a very bad idea. Obviously it is an option of last resort. However from my training, I believe it to be a better idea than getting killed. And in my training it was suggested as an option of last resort if we had no other options and didn't feel comfortable making a rescue.

And yes, there are a lot of variables that come into play. For example my instructor once saw 3 people drowning in a river. She rescued 2 and let the third drown because she was developing hypothermia. (The story is that one broke through thin ice, the other two tried to rescue the first. The one who died was one of the would-be rescuers.)

However in general if you have the knowledge and experience to properly judge those factors for yourself, you should know more about drowning than my brief blog post.
Which of those languages are you claiming is optimized for 10-line examples? If it had been one if the "scripting" languages (Ruby/Python/Perl), I might at least see some relevance since those were the initial use cases. But none of these are like that, and in fact most of them have trouble showing their benefits in toy examples.
Mine are in a box a few thousand miles away, so I might just confuse very sturdy plastic with steel. My black Unicomp is definitely flimsier, although that's still better than most other keyboards. Definitely no keycaps, though. Maybe they still got 'em for the beige ones?
First you will need a license from your local government -- and they will want to know what you can do for them.
I completely agree. I've tried noprocrast but I it's too easy to shut off or work around. I do think that its a real addiction.

To be fair though I am a bit of a news junkie and a horrible procrastinator in general so even without HN I'm sure I'd find other ways to waste time.
The Folks at Twitter Should be Monetizing the Platform not the Accounts
I don't think that hacker news has any "topic" that articles must stick to, other than that they pique intellectual curiosity. As for that, I think that this article does well.
Which language is my "X For Dummies"-toting boss going to pick? Probably not the one with the best Fedora package.
That may be true, but experienced people can solder surface mounts. I do it all the time.

It may be a little more costly, but you know what they say, undercommit & overdeliver.
In the first alphabets, the letters didn't have a particular orientation. There was even this strange (to us) writing system of writing every other line as a mirror image. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon