skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I wrote a fairly successful blogpost about what I've learned doing full-time freelancing this summer: http://sealedabstract.com/rants/5-lessons-learned-while-bein...

I think you're on the wrong track focusing on the technical side. If you read HN, you're at least an okay coder. Focus on improving your business skills:

* Figure out where your potential clients hang out. Capturing Google searches is a good place to start

* Filter out the really dumb people in some sort of automated fashion. Every minute you spend figuring out if a client is even serious is a minute where you could be productive.

* Learn to write clearly. Either that or talk on the phone. Master at least one communication skill, and try not to suck at the other.

* Get some pretty templates for doing estimates, invoices and such

* Read a book or two on contracts. Write out your terms in a bulleted list, but hand it to a lawyer to enlegalize.

* You don't need a signed contract on every project--just the ones for which you want to be paid.

* The most important thing is to get 3 projects in your portfolio. Even if you have to be your own client.

* Deals fall through. Always talk to 3x as many people as you can actually do work for. If you're turning away business and people get angry with you, you're doing it right.
Ask HN: What solution do you use for Rails3 & MongoDB hosting?
I'm in the middle of writing a new app with Ruby 1.9.2, Rails 3, and MongoDB and am looking for some good hosting options. From what I've read, Mongo likes / needs a minimum of two servers for durability, so something in the cloud sounds like it might be the best option.

What do you guys use?
Unless you click the more link, the iTunes web page displays only the first line of your game description: "Beautiful retina display graphics". Suggest you change the first line to your hook line.

Send promo codes to children's web sites. It seems targeted to younger children (6-8 yrs old) if I'm not mistaken (first impression).

Played the game. It would be nice to vary the sound effects you get from tapping the screen to control the dragon (since you vary the game action).
Was it aware of them when it made the recommendation?
I remember 10 years ago when I was really exciting about perl 6. I was working at a perl shop and thought, "how the hell are we going to migrate our code base?"

Turns out, it was never an issue.
Well, that's the trick, isn't it? You have to make people care enough about their "digital remains" to want the service, but not enough to worry about the risk. Will the new generation of techno-literate users find the happy medium and make this startup successful?
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File sharers targeted with legal action over music downloads
I was under the impression that most of the reason conventional wind turbines are so huge is so they can have the blades move slowly, to be more hospitable to local birds.
If you didn't submit pre-release screenshots to sites and post "preview" threads on game forums then you missed some opportunities. Most sites want to review games coming out in the next few weeks, not games that came out in the past.

They also like exclusive content; they're not interested in posting a rehash of your web site. I was actually chided by a UK web site for posting my screen shots on a web forum before sending to them.

You also want some "buzz" going before the game is released. "Ravensword" had lots of buzz based on early screen shots and had many people "waiting in line" to buy it at release. "Eliminate" got lots of press for being one of the first 3D shooters. This is easy for some games due to theme, timeliness, originality, lack of competition, etc; harder for other games that lack these traits.
Can anyone comment on how Provigil has effected a relationship? Are you so focused on work you ignore your significant other? Does your sex drive go away? Does it increase?
That sounds a lot like the time required to acquire the complete almanac from the GPS signals. See the almanac section of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals

If a GPS receiver has no current satellite orbit data, it'll need to listen for 12.5 minutes to determine the current set of satellite orbit information.

There's a useful explanation of the various possiblilities of GPS startup (specifically talking about Garmin models and terminology, but more broadly applicable too) here:

http://gpsinformation.net/main/warmcold.htm
Your first paragraph falls under the "Pocket Exception" (proposed by Jesse Schell). If it's in your pocket, you want it to converge. If it's not in your pocket, its going to specialize. To steal his example: the swiss army knife is a great pocket device, but you'd never use a giant swiss army knife in your kitchen.
I'll be interested to see if having a child increases your capacity for simultaneous serious projects. It had that effect on me. I think it does that because you're forced to do lots of context switching, and eventually get better at it.
Agreed - If I ever retire from paying work - I will still be working.
I'll give you $100 for it right now via PayPal if you go with ohashi's advice.
Write a cool python program which when given a youtube url provides with all the stats about the video e.g.
Ratings: 6467
Comments: 1,565
Favorites: 124
to judge the popularity of videos
That's interesting, I don't think it makes one seem anymore uneducated than any other piece of correctly used grammar (correct use of the word "one", "none of them is" etc). I wouldn't regard my self as uneducated, having had the privelege to go to a good (if not public/private) school.

By any chance is this one of those quirks of American grammar usage that I've not come across before. The only times where I've seen disapproval of the use of 'they' in that fashion was on the Internet...
By any chance is this another Ame
Importance of Startups in Job Creation
I agree that Apple has been the darling of the media for a while, but I don't know if I would call this the same kind of scrutiny other corps put up with; this is bordering on irrational (if not there already).
Well, you can't just leave us hanging like that. What's the program?
wow! fixed that one too
Previous thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1514430
Why do you think this job is shitty?

Or do you think only software engineering and other "creative" jobs are worthy, and every other job shitty?
I think that your first step in becoming "addicted to programming" is understanding what building stuff really is: intense sprints of orgasmic discovery separated by long periods of building the prerequisites. Once you understand which phase you're in, you can better understand why you feel the way you do.

A perfect example was my project last week. I had to make 14 changes (including 3 major structural reworks) to an existing application to produce one additional output. This output was key for a fundamental shift in thinking about the use of the app.

My week was actually fairly predictable:

Monday was fun for a while, thinking about how it would work, what needed to be different, how the data has to be restructured, and how cool the new results would be. But things became drudgery when I had to lay everything out build my work plan.

Tuesday sucked, tearing apart code while trying to maintain an audit trail and balancing the new functionality with keep everything old still working.

By Wednesday, I didn't even want to work on it and spent a lot on time on hn, playing games, and surfing the internet. I struggled getting the final pieces in place.

On Thursday, my interest piqued when regression testing went almost flawlessly. But no matter, even if it didn't, being in "getting it to work now" mode always captures my attention.

Friday was bliss. I was cranking code, unit testing, regression testing, reworking, getting the results I forsaw on Monday, and doing a happy dance every 20 minutes or so. Time flew as I worked into the night getting all this cool stuff working. I wish every day could be like Friday, but I needed to pay my dues earlier in the week just to get to that point.

I wish I had an easy answer for collapsing the long hours of building the prerequisites and expanding the time spent "in the zone". The only suggestion I can make is get to the point of having something for output as early as possible. That's when the fun usually begins. Until you reach that point, just understand you're in "courting" mode. Just keep on working and the digital orgasms will arrive. Once they do, it'll be worth it. Don't worry, you'll be "addicted".
One word: creepy.

The uncanny valley for something like this would be deeper than the Marianas.
I didn't mod you down. I'm not that invested. The part that really bothers me is the whole, "We're going to talk about how 'smart drugs' make you creative, and then spend a post rambling about how taking speed is awesome" load of crap that seems to come up like clockwork here.

I've tried piracetam (and other various racetams), and stand by my opinion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1212193. I did my research, but it was five-ish years ago, and don't have it on hand anymore. (I also don't work at a library with awesome medical journal access anymore...sigh.) Most of what I read concerned people with Alzheimers or other degenerative conditions associated with old age, or measurable brain damage caused by years and years of heavy drinking. I'm convinced that piracetam is probably useful, but for healthy people, sleeping enough / eating better / etc. will probably have as much effect. ("Probably effective" < "definitely effective.") On the other hand, it's been around long enough (IIRC the patent has expired; there's certainly no money in it), that it's probably not a high priority for further research. The consensus is that it's reasonably safe, though, and I'd rather have people who insist trying that than amphetamines.

FWIW, I had the best results with getting more sleep and switching (mostly) from coffee to green tea. I had really poor sleep hygiene, but was ignoring it because I wanted to keep learning more. Wikisomnia.
IIRC, the digest HTTP auth stuff essentially forces you to store cleartext passwords.
Amen. I found a three month software gig on craigslist that turned into two more years of really interesting work with great people.
Well it's my Dad, not my Grandfather, but, well, he is a grandfather and he is in his '70s. ;)

The guy can still drive a 3 inch nail in with 3 hits of his hammer but has real trouble with the end of his finger, of which the last 1/4 inch is missing, courtesy of a saw blade. He also has trouble grasping a mouse due to tendon damage in his right hand caused by a nylon rope, a flooded creek and a rescue attempt - well, you get the picture. Old guys who have worked hard have the money to spend, and the interest, but just aren't a use-case for product designers. I've long argued that a phone company who brings out a simple, affordable phone with a long-lasting battery, large buttons, easy to read simple screen and ear-shatteringly loud ringers would clean up the seniors market.
@pvg Sigh. OK I will take time to respond to you. I will try to get to this thread tonight. Sorry for not taking the time to write well. Damn it where is the tweet button?
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I started out programming on an Acorn ATOM 2k+2k, upgraded to something like 12K total, which gave 'hi-res' graphics, and wrote little games I used to play myself.

There's really nothing quite like the joy of having a simple game come together and be fun enough that you play it yourself. Here's one I did in java. The source is available!

http://jonathanwatmough.com/jplanetoid/ptoidApplet.html

Of course, I write bigger programs now, but the same joy of getting something to work should always be there. If it's there, it should shine through in your code and UI, and people should love your software. Make people happy.

Just as an example, today's task that I got done, I managed to move some audio streaming code onto its own thread and get vastly improved performance in the UI of an iPhone app I'm building. It's just sooo addictive when a plan comes together!

And one other thing. Pick a programming language to write in that is fun and powerful enough to be addictive. Clojure is a wonderful language, and so is Objective-C. Both have enormous power, yet are relatively easy to write once you have the basics down. Many people will say similar things about Ruby or Python, or hacking things together in Perl. The important thing is to pick something where you say 'just 5 more minutes on this'.

Then you're addicted.
Perl6 is not Perl.

Did you mean to write "Perl 6 is not Perl 5"?
OK, I went there to read this article but hung around for more than 45mins, awesome site! Who is this lady who (i) has a blog designed in excellent sense compared to Blogger madness, (ii) has very interesting content, and (iii) has one of the most captivating blog about pages I've seen. I am captivated.
I identify with you to a great degree: I have to work to imagine how mousing could be hard.

Nevertheless: none of our bafflement changes in the slightest way the fact that there are people who are, indeed, so baffled.

It delights them to use something that doesn't baffle them. And that delights me.
I would kill someone for some Tim's at this point. ;)
Setting up experiments to determine if they talk would be interesting.

Finding out that most of the time they gossip about each others' foliage would be hilarious.
A day in the life of a library
Pivoting 101
Heroku with the mongohq add on. I don't have anything running with that combo yet, but that is the target environment fir the app I'm currently working on. Hoping to get it up in the next few days.
I agree. Have always had difficulty just "learning" programming languages. But when I try to make small web apps using scripting languages, I've had far more fun...I'm just going to learn the tricks needed, but none of the really advanced stuff.
Here's my advice but you won't like it: At this very early stage nobody can give you much advice, you should go buy your gut. Nobody can tell you if 14 as opposed to 20 or 50 forum posts is the threshold. As in art, if you're always asking if your creations are "art", then you are not ready.

Apart from that, I would say that if your idea is so reliant to the first mover advantage, it may not be worth pursuing, there will always be copycats, you should be ready to fend them off. I say, go with the dry run and don't worry too much about it.
For me, there's a bit of a natural distinction: "workstation" tasks need a big screen and, at least for the currently foreseeable future, a mouse. "Casual" tasks need something personal, intimate, and "touchy". The world will benefit from having both.

This isn't to say that all tasks can be easily assigned to one of these categories, at least without further parameters specified: fingerpainting with Brushes and compositing 3D renderings for a motion picture are "the same task" in a sense. But each fits nicely with one device instead of the other. And, of course, there'll always be a gray area.
Wow. I must be the only person living in Canada (though not Canadian) who does not like Tims.
Though timbits are a different story.
They left cube-corner reflectors on the moon that we bounce laser beams off for distance measurements. That should be enough to convince most people, since lots of places will have the equipment to verify it?
This is the thing though, if you actually took one of these people to the moon and showed them the lunar lander, you know what they would say? That the US sent this lander as unmanned to try to cover its ass in case anybody ever made it to the moon. No matter what you say to them they will always come up with a reason of why it is a hoax. Heck, you could go back in time and show them the astronauts boarding the space capsule and you know what they would say? That this is a parallel universe. In this parallel universe this did happen but in our own universe it never did. One of the reasons why they will never accept it is because they do not want to admit that they are wrong.
Cool! Looking forward to checking it out.
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While you say you disagree, it sounds to me like you two are in agreement: one device doesn't fit all needs. Tablets can be fantastic. That doesn't in the least bit mean that "computers" as we've traditionally known them will or should go away. It's just that their role is somewhat reduced and clarified, empowering new types of device.
By that measure, you might as well drop out.

That's assuming that every course I take is like that. If that's what school means to you, you're really missing out on the purpose of education.

the two aren't orthogonal if memorization aids in understanding, and understanding aids in memorization, and both aid in long-term recollection.

If my goal is to get to my house, and I am standing 10 meters from it in the diagonal, I must traverse ground both in the x and y directions. If the goal is long term recollection, a combination of memorization and understanding is necessary.
Updated my iPad and the wi-fi problems persist. Very frustrating.
If this isn't just sensationalist reporting, then this is pretty bad. I wonder if it's related to the piracy crackdown that was recently announced by the White House.
Our startup is http://www.IActionable.com
We're what some call 'Game Mechanics as a Service'. I'll send you an email as well.
I've used sedo.com with success. They seem to have a wide international audience of domain pros. It is good for when you don't have the time to execute your plan of contacting biz's directly. They handle the transaction process via concealed identity offer and counter-offers.
The con is they charge 10% of the selling price to the seller.
1 MW is the rated capacity. The actual amount of energy produced depends on where it is deployed. They go into detail about how much energy is produced on the "fundamentals" page:

http://www.makanipower.com/concept/fundamentals/
Yes. There has traditionally been a drive toward putting all major functions of a Mac app in the menu bar — even if they also additionally got a shortcut such as through a "right-click" contextual menu. This leads one to expect to be able to find any available option through scanning a single set of options (categorized roughly by the thing or type of action they effect) rather than having to mentally union all the options from several disparate places to get a complete mental model of the app's actions and options.
Thanks for the responses. Most of what you said was what I would have guessed, but wanted to give you the perspective of a customer that doesn't know.

These I see as road-blocks in getting people to use the service. It isn't as easy to understand as you may think. A quick 'this is how it works' demo with screenshots (video might not be as good for this) would probably be helpful.

I totally didn't get the Finch thing. I don't know what a finch looks like, but I know what the twitter bird looks like.
You're right about the copycats, I tend to sway back and forth between objectivity and fearfulness, but your mentioning of copycats was right. I don't really know if theres a such thing as a first mover in this space, after all, I'm just taking existing software and offering it cheaper.
Or switch to chicks - the pill, tampons, etc.

Or for both, contact lens solution, staples like earbuds, toothpaste, etc.
OK, I still haven't seen any evidence that the US's system is relatively miserable. Am I not clearly asking for what I want? Articles about how Spain's grid system adapts to wind power don't do much to prove the point that I'm questioning.
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The spokesperson said it wasn't a copyright thing; it sounds a little extreme for that anyway. I'd rather not speculate on what it is though until we get more details.
So far all of the advice here is really good.

I'd like to add that you have to inspire confidence to your clients. You have to be sure about your area of expertise or appear to be sure.

I think the most important idea in your head should be "I can do this." or "I can figure out how to do this."

That's a good way to go and sell your services.
Not piracy:

A spokesperson for the company later told CNET that this case had nothing to do with copyright violations.

I wonder what it is.
> And I know Europe has its own problems, but they're actually doing some stuff here that makes the place a better place to live,

Unfortunately Europe has its own problems. The arms industry in Europe is even more corrupt than in the USA (the french company Thales/Thompson resorted to changing its name every 5 years to shake off the bad name).

The European Union is an extremely expensive and failed project and the public finances in many European countries is a huge mess (e.g. Portugal, Spain, Greece). They have big immigration problems and social problems (e.g. large and growing Muslim minorities in most countries). The birth rate has all but collapsed and they will have serious economic problems in the long term.
What Microsoft? Is it that multi-billion dollar buroctatic company which failed to release any innovative product in ten years?
Complaining about a generation of spoiled kids -- again
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TaskRabbit is neat if you haven't written about them yet.
I assume you are talking about Tim Hortons, which is the only Canadian thing I know named "Tim".

I've been there once (I'm American). You guys got it right up there. Who doesn't want drive thru muffins?
I read in Perfect Power, that the average age of major step-down and step-up transformers is over forty years and that they were only rated for forty years. Ditto for the high voltage transmission lines. This infrastructure cost something like 550 billion to install and would cost over two trillion to replace.
Sorry, I missed that the first time I read through the article.
Ask yourself what's the Minimum Viable Product? How long would it take you to produce it? Would you learn anything by producing it or would it enhance your CV/portfolio? Would you enjoy producing it? If it doesn't sell could you open source it and either gain some reputation for yourself or help some people out?

Maybe it's worth just doing it regardless of market size/opportunity?
So glad I popped into this thread and discovered repustate. Really cool API!
that is what I was referring to yes.
Good ol' Mr. Hedley in 7th Grade English class refused to let any of us use the following words the entire year: am, is, are, was, were, be, been. Any paper turned in that contained one of those had to be re-written. My English, and clarity of thought, improved more that year than during any other equivalent span in my life.
Where was this a couple of years ago?! I had worked on a project with a friend and we were looking for exactly this to support it. We dropped it because we would have had to build what you offer plus our service. Your API looks clean and simple. I just might have to play with this still.

Oh and I'm 1/4 Canadian, does that make me cool too? :P
I've been interested to read people's responses to the press conference. Those who have taken a contrarian view have often mentioned it as though it were fact that Jobs didn't admit that it was a "real problem". I, on the other hand, was struck by how often Steve used the word "problem" rather than the lighter "issue".
It isn't just forums that are filling the gap it is sites like Ning, and Wordpress plugins like buddypress that are allowing people to develop their own "social networks" as well. Which has me thinking that it is probably better to create a service that allows individuals to design and develop their own communities that cater to whatever interest they may have.