skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What would make this truly epic would be if they offered a secure hosted subscription service that allowed you to upload a script you built with the desktop app and either:

a) run it on a hosted Mac Mini at a specified frequency, with a billing rate based on number of actions/frequency of script execution (aka, someone with a 30 step script who wants their script to run once an hour pays more than someone with a 5 step script who wants their script to run once a day)

b) execute the script on their hosting via a callback url, so I can hook this up to my CI server

This plus flexible notifications (email, SMS, Campfire) would be huge.
I've been known to quote for clients by rolling dice.
It seems utterly bizarre that posters here apparently belive that the AP's copyright stance is no big deal. The last time I checked, the AP still considered using headlines to be a copyright violation and the only reason they weren't going after sites like Hacker News is because they haven't yet figured out how to deal with PR fallout they experienced last year when (simultaneous with other controversies surrounding their legal attacks on sites) their board actually voted to go after news aggregators. Do note, they have already sued at least 2 news aggregators.
Ask HN:My g/f's journal entry for Active Citizenship (got 1/10 - about 'Snuff')
I’m reading a book between classes called Snuff, by Chuck Palahniuk. Its story line is based around a woman who is setting a world record, to beat all other world records. She is a famous adult film actress and she has decided to have sex with 600 men in one sitting, “the record to end all records”. I’ve been working at an adult novelty store on and off for the past 5 years, I was an assistant manager for a year, then was a manager for a year and a half and continue to work on call for the owners now, so reading a book based on this is actually very interesting to me. Questions like; how would you survive? How would your body be able to handle that? Is there some kind of training to prepare for a record like that? What kind of person would you have to be to want to accomplish a goal like that? Is it true that if you’re women trying to set a sex record it’ll be regarded differently then if a man were to try and set a sex record?
I’m about half way through the novel and so far, I haven’t specifically learned any knew, because of my experience with product in the industry. The way you can strengthen your inner vaginal muscles to be more controllable and stronger. There are stretches that are easy to do to help accentuate different body parts to increase and decrease orgasm. Although this author who is famous for books like Fight Club and Haunted, has made the experience of what this porn star’s lifestyle is like. I’m looking forward to getting further into the book where more details of her life become more prominent and maybe some of my questions will be answered. This book is kind of slow paced and goes into other characters like “Mr.9”, and “Mr. 238”, “Mr. 417”, I’ve put the book down because of school work but am looking forward to going away on the coming weekend so that I can finish this enticing book.

lol great... her teacher is probably still showing this around the breakroom.. Have you ever written anything as crazy and handed it in?
I am planning on writing up a "Tell HN" post tomorrow, but with the topic so close I figure I would mention it here. I'm working on a weekly newsletter that will allow users to quickly get the best articles on HN each week. I've been wanting to do something newsletter related and thought this would be a great chance plus after seeing Lim's Hacker Monthly I was sold that alternative formats work for the great content on HN.

I'll post the launch tomorrow, but for now you can sign-up if you want at http://www.hackernewsletter.com/
This is another example of a thing done wrong: we want to hear that you're working on the product, not a book about it.
There is more to reading code than just reading...
huge waste of time, it doesn't have to be 100% valid, it has to work on popular handsets - that's all.
One of the biggest reasons solo founder projects fail more than multiple founder companies is that a multi-founder company has already passed some tests of market, product, and team.

If an idea is incredibly stupid, but it's your idea, you can easily become deluded into thinking it's actually a great idea. Being able to convince another person that the idea is good is definitely a sign that the idea is good.

It's also a good check on the quality of the team -- if someone is obviously such a screw up that you'd never want to work with him, you wouldn't work with him. Even fairly defective people can notice flaws in others. Therefore, a group of 2+ people probably means the members are at least tolerable.
this isn't targeted at bloggers

Except for the part where they actually already have famously targeted at least one blogger.
Only some days, and rarely now that it's the summer and our office doesn't have AC. Seriously though, I definitely feel a lot better on days I wear a shirt and tie to work, especially since it is a very marked contrast from the rest of Valley culture.
When I first discovered HN it was very low-traffic and I could check it once a week and not miss anything. Now I can check it twice daily and still miss a lot. But it seems this is the way of all social networks. The only solution I can think of is to continuously find smaller niches and avoid the large social gathering places.
I think you would get the same effect. It's not because of direct interference: I've seen it happen even when the extra "cooks" do everything they can to encourage innovation. It's because there's a natural tendency to self-censor your more "out there" ideas when you know there are people watching. In order to let them bloom, you usually need a safe, private environment where you can try out lots of things that don't work before you condense on one that does.
I wonder, if you're downloading a file at this speed, your computer wouldn't be able to write it to your hard disk fast enough correct?
Is this rhetoric you're referring to the water-ape hypothesis?
More bullshit. I ordered through Google Checkout and definitely have a $5 my credit card bill.
Ask HN:How to tell off a stupid customer after you've got paid
I've answered this question about Google indexing your page in at least 30 different ways, I have all the emails that you've sent me.. Susan, I honestly believed that this would be a ONE-PAGE site, with payment made after the one page was completed. I didn't anticipate having to educate you about the nature of the internet, hosting, searching, Google PageRank, direct you and your future web-masters, etc. If I had realized that you wanted me to do Search Engine Optimization while you withheld payment until a 3rd party did something, I would have never done the work for you. I should have got a written contract signed before beginning work. In retrospect, I've done about $500-$600 worth of work for you, and bit my tounge until now because you are a friend of the family. I've fulfilled my end of the bargin, I honestly wish to have no further contact with you, or ever work with/for you again.

What do you think?
Does a finite state machine where you can modify the events to cause any transition you want defeat the purpose of the FSM? It's interesting that while the states are limited, by adding code you can cause a transition from any state to any other. You can look at the pretty picture to understand the default FSM, but as soon as you install any additional code, you don't know what transitions it will take. Adding modules effectively rewrites the FSM.

Is that the intent?

Also, this reminds me a bit of the design behind Varnish.
Accessible interfaces: driving blind
The more I read about Mongrel2 the more interested I am in it.

I have never really looked at the code of a web server before for comparison but it is kind of interesting to read about Zed's approach to building a web server.
Isn't a solo founder just a team waiting to happen?
Right. But if you have an SSD it should be fine.
Still annoyed that I can't drag an image from Firefox to Photoshop via the OSX dock, despite the fact that it's been a known bug for ages.

Otherwise, it does feel faster, though I find it funny that Firebug currently doesn't work even though it's prominently listed as one of their main developer tools.

They worked really hard on making the add-on interface more intuitive and cleaner, but really the thing everyone wants is better memory management.
Best place to look first: ask whomever were your grad rec writers if they know folks who could use a bit of summer coding or other cs know how. Or at least, thats how I have my current pre CS grad school summer gig.

best of luck
46 US warships and 7,000 Marines heading toward Costa Rica
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon Acquisitions
Have some fun and make your own tool. If you know php and jquery you can make a wicked program to show some sample divs and play with the colors using jquery popups with color wheels and whatnot. Cld be a mighty good iphone app too.
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529321

Depending on your project scope I really enjoyed 'Programming Collective Intelligence' by Toby Segaran. Some of the web API samples may be out of date at this point but I don't consider that a deal breaker if you can find it used cheap.
At least I find it impossible to find anything in my email archives. So maybe an app like a bicycle wheel, the emails
come in, route to the hub, and get directed elsewhere. Digital magazines are getting pretty snazzy, but should end up on your desktop, not stuck in your email. Similar emails can get parsed,tagged and directed to personal blogs. Nice and organized like.
Obviously it is an option of last resort.

Not obviously, since you listed it third of four and fourth was roughly "swim where they can't grab you, and drag them back to shore while avoiding their grasp", which sounds pretty straightforward to an untrained reader.
Well, you can't cause any transition you want, you can just change the events in the stream. So, if you're in the middle of proxying you can get out of it and go into a handler, but you couldn't totally screw up the FSM and go someplace weird.

So, adding modules doesn't rewrite the FSM. You'd need Ragel and a C compiler for that. ;-)
Thanks! I appreciate the compliment. That's the general goal, but with all things, it remains to be seen how easy it is to actually do this. It's really easy for me to do it in C code, but the key is how to make it easy for other people without much fuss.
We're not the first company in this space...there have been quite a few over the years...we're worried about all of them :)

The challenge for us, I think, is not in the existence of competitors, but the ability to convince a meaningful amount of restaurants that their existing websites are difficult to use on phones, and that they need to do something about it. After all, there are still tons of poorly designed restaurant websites out there.
> 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).

It's highly unusual (not to mention irresponsible) to ask diver to do this for the first time outside of a confined-water scenario (like a swimming pool), where the water is shallow and immediate ascent is safe.
Startup Metrics 4 Pirates
Do "people", and by people I mean not people who read HN, actually type in domain names any more? Most I see simply search for it, even if they end up searching for the domain name itself.

PageRank > Shiny domain name.
Ask HN: What's the best feature you've built that no one uses?
Also curious to know the probable reasons for the failure.
Currently I have one server running haproxy, which distributes requests to three servers running nginx (which serves static content) and proxies application requests to apache/mod_wsgi. How would Mongrel2 simplify this?
This is basically a lite version of what Woot does right? If that's any indication it would turn your users into crazed fanatics.
It seems to me that the logic behind the problem solving going on in Mongrel2 has been 'how can I make this into a problem that's already been solved?'

I think that seems like a pretty good methodology in a lot of cases actually.
Reminds me of http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.html (specifically, paragraph 7)
I don't think anything is really ever lost so long as you support the system by remaining a US citizen. Losses in the financial markets and in business just get carried forward, at the very least in terms of experience. It feels like time is being wasted but I think that's just an illusion from the Obama doctrine of spreading the wealth around; at some point down the line, money will be made again hand over fist to both confirm the system is in play and that people are being taken advantage of.
Can you provide quote from the T&C where it states that you can't host servers and prohibit you from have your own ips?

I just did a quick search on certain keywords but didn't find any specific that states that you can't host servers. http://www.hkbn.net/TC/00_right/pdf/HKBN_Gen_T&C_Eng%202...

I know this is true for more US internet providers that I know of. Until recently my Roadrunner had port 80 blocked (now its open last time I checked). I still have the same ip I had 2 years ago since I moved to this house, even after flushing the modem (they replaced it after it went bad). I know this is not normal, but even with dynamic ips they don't change it that often, if at all. You could always use something like http://www.dyndns.com/services/ for dynamic ips.

Either way, it was just a thought experiment like "What would you do if you had this much speed?". Its impractical and risky anyways.

I remember reading when plentyoffish started out he used to host his server in his home. I think he moved his server to his new office now.
I agree with some of your points, but I think "avoid competition / competitors' markets" is a fallacy and bad advice.

Successful companies succeed in the face of competition, and capitalize on some opportunity, which could be a technology, a market shift, a business model, or a partnership. You can often turn this "seizing a (unique) opportunity" truism into a "looking where others didn't" story in hindsight, and start getting excited about real "off the map" innovations, as if there's something inherently good about that, business-wise. In Google's case they simply came up with a better business model, though their tech strength helped.

Altavista was a search company. Google didn't succeed by not stepping on Altavista's toes in the "portal market" (which I'm sure is entirely distinct from the web search market), they just built a better search business.
I don't have a dialect of Lisp. I work on a translator from a subset of Common Lisp to JavaScript (http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/). In particular, this subset does not have car/cdr, or any other list manipulation functions. No one has ever complained about this.

This is map:

(defun map (fn arr)
"Call FN on each element in ARR and return the returned values in a new array."
;; In newer versions of ECMAScript, this may call Array.map, too
(let ((idx 0)
(result (array)))
(dolist (el arr)
(setf (aref result idx) (fn el))
(setf idx (1+ idx)))
(return result)))

This is reduce:

(defun reduce (func list &optional init) ;; the use of init here is actually a bit broken wrt null
(let* ((acc))
(do* ((i (if init -1 0) (1+ i))
(acc (if init init (elt list 0)) (func acc (elt list i))))
((>= i (1- (length list)))))
(return acc)))

What would a linked list data structure provide? Incompatibility with all other JavaScript code and a mandatory runtime library?

Thanks for introducing me to Nu btw. What makes you say that it is not a Lisp?
So, at the start, if someone is ladder-climbing-panic-drowning, then they are floating, have air, and have energy ... why are they drowning? What triggered the ladder-climb-panic mode?
Stare decisis--the legal doctrine upon which binding precedents are made--is not something that I think would apply to small claims courts. You wouldn't have a precedent unless it reached a federal appeals court.

Also, since copyright is federal law, you may need to sue them in federal court to begin with. Do the feds even run small claims courts? I don't think they do.
Massive reverse address DNS resolver implemented with Node.js
Geeks hate Flash, but is it just groupthink?
Beats Erlang day/s.
I almost drowned when I was about 8 years old and I remember it very clearly. I did exactly as is described -- I was face up, mouth just at the water level, arms flat, completely quiet. My parents -- who had two older children and spent their whole lives by the water -- spotted me and pulled me out.

The thing I remember most is that the overriding sensation was not panic, but calm -- a weird, fatalistic calm. I was gong to die: "oops". It really is an odd physiological response, and you have absolutely no control over it.
I recommend "Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer" by Roy Peter Clark.

Expect improvement immediately.

http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Tools-Essential-Strategies-Wri...
It sounds pretty straightforward when you hear it, but execution is the real challenge. And if you execute it incorrectly, you run a serious risk of death.

To give an example of what can go wrong, your description suggests that you just hold the person where they can't reach you and drag them. But if you try that you'll find out the hard way that there is no good way to drag the person while they are still panicking without getting grabbed.

To give another problem, can you swim in place for a minute with your hands out of the water? Try it before confidently asserting that you can. And that is substantially easier than swimming in place, holding a struggling, panicked person up.

Those are among the reasons why I've so strongly recommended that untrained people avoid option #4. If you can stand on the bottom, fine. Otherwise, not so fine.
Pre-launch marketing or blogging can give you a lot of feedback about your idea.

I wouldn't consider a cofounder unless they could add serious value beyond feedback.
I think the reference was to web2py.
The demonstration of speed difference is bogus. Really we should be comparing Jammit vs Sprite load time. Of course 100 files will take longer to load than 1 file!!! But how about 1 extra sprite vs Jammit? Here's a demo:

http://autocomplete.s3.amazonaws.com/sprite_example.html
Is the iPad the New Guillotine?
It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this.

I'm not sure exactly on my recollection, however, I had a similar incident and my reaction was not anything calm. I was angry and very frustrated. My guess is that it probably depends on the person and situation
The best way to get someone to continue a behavior is to give intermittent positive reinforcement.

I predict shutting down HN for a few hours a day would make us even more addicted.
Cave training places an extremely strong emphasis on controlling panic. In open water, if you bolt to the surface you might get bent, but there are chambers for that. In a cave, you either swim out, or you drown. You don't even have the option of a quick, merciful DCS hit. Keeping a clear head is essential when your own self-rescue is on the line.
I remember issues arising due to weird default permissions when I tried to use beep, or bell (don't remember if it was the command or character [ctrl+g]). I think festival or the command used to play the startup sound in ubuntu where the easiest alternatives, as getting beep/bell to work is weird.

Pre-Edit: /usr/bin/canberra-gtk-play , according to my Ubuntu's startup applications preferences.
The grass patterns say technology is changing the game. Same with Golf (distance) and Basketball (height). Haven't seen it in football or baseball though.
Cobra (http://cobra-language.com/), a python derivative that also an up and coming language. Love the syntax refinements, the built in unit-testing, contracts, etc... all around a great language.
They'll only float if their lungs are fully inflated with air (from your link and my own experience). If they've been choking on water and are now drowned (as opposed to drowning) I would assume that's no longer the case.
I agree with Tim, I've noticed the NYT has switched to a more and more sensationalist approach for their headlines. The NYT especially has been influenced by the blog-culture.

I suggest that Tim submits his Buzz as a Letter to the Editor:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor....
Hm. Is that number pulled out of the air?

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Possibly some kind of instinctual trigger. Think about the moment where the entire body was fully EXPECTING a lung full of air... and ready for it... but for whatever reason you become submerged and cannot get it.

You aren't unconscious yet because you still have plenty of oxygen, but your instincts have been triggered on a more primitive level -- possibly initiated as the lungs failed to function as expected.
I'm not unaware of that. Neither was I debating that this was an invasion of my privacy, because Blizzard can do whatever the flying fuck they want with their own game and their own servers, and it requires ME to do something for it to become any kind of privacy breach, but at the same time it limits what I can do with what I'm paying with. (Now, if this was a retroactive change, we then have a problem....) Therefore, my choice is to stop playing the game if they force Real ID on people, where originally they claimed they would only use this for friends to keep in touch with each other. It's not a privacy thing, it's just a proposed change that doesn't fix the problem and screws over other people, and I don't really care to participate in this game if Blizzard continues down this path. For what it is worth, this is not the only change/addition to the game that would prompt me to quit playing.

Claiming that this will cut down on trolling is fallacious. The other features that Blizzard intends on introducing to the forums (voting and threading, etc.) and that they could implement (no posting rights outside of tech support for toons under level 10, for example) will do far more to cut down on this kind of behavior than forcing people to use Real ID. Because it's entirely possible to create accounts with fake details or someone else's details, and it doesn't even take someone to post on the forums to see details about people that can enable them to troll elsewhere and in real life (see: Blizzard employee Bashiok on 4chan today after he posted his real name). This just reduces the overall usefulness of the official forums.
How different is that from losing? Lots of examples of that: anybody that lost to the Japanese in WWII. Anybody that lost to Germany in WWII.
It would also look nicer if the script was in default.aspx instead of ViewEntry.aspx and the url was written like this:

http://www.woot.com/Blog/?Id=13420

It would look nicer still if it was lower case and they got rid of the dub-dub-dub:

http://woot.com/blog/?id=13420
So is the consensus that it's ok if the other domain name does not engage in the same market, but not a good idea if it does? I also have the chance to do the former, and it's starting to appeal to me.
Will the wakemates work with an iPad?
> 4. Alternative input methods that let you type special characters in in various other ways, such as LaTeX names, if you prefer that.

Yes, please! This would be extraordinary! How do I do it?
I built a tool called Statzen that I shutdown because it didn't get traction. It had a feature that would show you what topics/tags from your blog were getting read (via web and/or rss) and what sub-topics within that topic were getting read most.

I think I should have just released that one feature as an MVP.
Heh, all the time I had a Sparc in my office I looked at the 'Compose' key and wondered "Now, what does that do?" Thanks! I'll give this a try.