skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Agree, Coda (http://www.panic.com/coda) is one very slick application for web related work where lots of FTPing is required. It also supports syntax highliting for most popular scripting languages (Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, JavaScript and others) and has a great CSS editor AND integrated Terminal.

Plus you can choose to preview how your web app looks like in various browsers from Coda.

There are many more features, it's one very useful and slick app for web development work - HTML/CSS and lightweight scripting.

For heavier jobs (Lisp and non-web based Python programming) I use Aquamacs - definitely check it out.
Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal
Why aren't you going to invest in an AC? They can be had for as low as $100 nowadays. You can even spend a few dollars more and get one that's very energy efficient. Seems like the smart move to me.
There is no inherent morality to the copyright monopoly as it is not a natural right. It was created foremost as a mutually beneficial arrangement between the Crown and publishers to ensure certain subjects were not published in exchange for a guaranteed monopoly on publication. In our current system, copyright is supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement between Society and creators to foster the useful Art in exchange for a temporary monopoly. Since the temporary nature of that monopoly has been over-stretched, effectively to the point of permanence, society (especially the digitally literate youth) has begun to disregard the compromise.
I'm glad to see this. Everyone who was talking about TextMate should take a look! It might turn into major productivity gains.
assuming you live in the bay area: sleep all day and work at night
I don't see any reason to suspect they would. They've been good (from what I can tell) to the reddit folks and know ars technica's value comes from the existing format.
Ask YC: Recommendations on a good server?
I'm in the purchasing phase of my startup where I'm looking for equipment. Most people are saying to just rent space, but I very much like the flexibility and freedom of operating my own server. Financially, I can support the move by leaps and bounds because of my connections with certain people at a local ISP. Plus, I think it'd be great to have an extra server to test products on, roll out some sort of virtualization options and let the other hackers conduct experiments on before we go live.

My question is: who do you recommend for purchasing a good server machine?
Does anybody know if there are more details out there for Feynman's buffer analysis using PDEs? Is this an example of probabilistic analysis like bin analysis, birthday paradox, etc.
Dharmesh - thanks for the additional comment. I was not trying to be disparaging. Congratulation and look forwarding to seeing your continual success. High tide raised all boats. Good news for one is great news for all.
They are useless.

I remember a while ago I was reviewing whole disk encryption products for a large financial services firm. Gartner had a strong admonishment against PGP's product because "Pretty Good Privacy" didn't sound very professional and the company wasn't very 'mature'.

They never mentioned that PGP wrote one of the first open implementations of public key crypto, had one of the best track records in the biz, or had a history of standing up to government pressure.

Talk about valuing form over function.

We ended up not going with PGP's product because it didn't integrate with our AD infrastructure very well and their odd licensing requirements, but the Gartner's report never even mentioned those.
Yes. But there are many dangers to this (many a horror story of VC self-interests in appointments) and in my experience it is better to search your closest circle first before moving to the next degree of seperation.
EmacsWiki is actually pretty useful though.

Whenever I have a problem, it and cliki.net (a great source for finding obscure, but useful, Lisp libraries) are the first two places I turn.
That's true, but most of those I found I didn't need anyway and spent more time trying to remember where which snippet was and what binding I put to it than just getting real work done. My memory doesn't work well with lots of key bindings...

Then again, you also don't see many crazy snippet packages for vim, but that's still not a "dead" project either.
Pete H's Homemade Air Conditioner
I was afraid of that too. But I think in the absence of a precedent for spoiling things, CN should be given a chance. Wired is a glossy for techies. Ars is different, thankfully. They have a lot less leeway in playing with Ars's format. Of course, they could throw the established format for all it's worth, but I hope they won't. AT's also a great site. Too many flash ads on the main page but thankfully adblock takes care of it.
http://www.gmilburn.ca/ac/pete_ac.html

http://www.everythingusb.com/diy_usb_air-conditioning_13207....

http://www.instructables.com/id/Free-Air-Conditioning/
Free Air Conditioning (DIY)
Radio Lab is absolutely, absolutely amazing. It's the best radio show I've ever heard, and I come from the land of BBC Radio 4..
I moved from Texas to the valley in winter of last year, and was stunned to find that a lot of places (a majority?) don't have AC, including the house I rented. But, the fact is it's not too bad. Yesterday and today were pretty toasty, but after the long winter (I'm from Texas...the bay area is cold in contrast), it's kind of a relief.

I have a swamp cooler in the bath tub with a fan blowing out into the rest of the house. I'm running the vaporizer that I bought when I got a nasty sore throat and head cold a couple of months back--a cool mist drizzling over me all day is pretty sweet...actually, I think it's better than AC, but I might be weird. And, of course, all the windows and doors are open (after about noon when the house has heated up to be warmer than outside--since it cools down a lot at night) to maximize the breeze.

And, as others have pointed out, there are other places to go. Coffee shops often have AC. Libraries always do. Sitting under a tree in the park is probably cooler than your apartment by 10 degrees, and pretty girls (or boys, depending on your preference) might walk by once in a while.

Or you could buy a window unit. I made it through last summer without too much discomfort, so I'll probably skip AC this year as well.
DIY USB Air-Conditioning Unit on the Cheap
Work where there's a breeze and shade. 3g is roughly the same cost as AC/heating these days.
you need to define offshore. start-ups are all about execution and disconnection between those road-mapping and those executing is a major issue. if this is China i can help you get in touch with people who can help. contact info at the bottom of this page:

http://adsotrans.com/readme.html
Hundreds of thousands of frogs migrated days before earthquake
I'd invest 10 more years into enjoying programming in the first place. (Although I've already invested 20 into it.)
Thats pretty cool. Those look like fun DIY projects, although very time consuming.
>> (I used to believe you got the product right, then sold it.. no sirree, that's not how big business really works).

What would you have done differently in retrospect?
Please find me portable ACs for <$100.
I dont think i can install a AC in my window.
the 1st one isn't very time consuming, though you can probably come up with a more simple variation of the bucket of ice/water + pipe(s) + fan setup
Spellr.us - Automated Website Spell Checking
Wall-E Spotted in LA [video]
I can see where you're coming from, and I can completely agree that TextMate could only be made better if it was open source, but it's quite good as is. To each their own, I guess.
I am looking for a Hacker.
I am starting a new start up and the domain is YouYap.com. I post it here and people break into it. So I am looking to find someone to joint me in this project. How do I find the best hacker?
I want to do something like this website.
I am starting a new start up and the domain is YouYap.com. I post it here and people break into it. So I am looking to find someone to joint me in this project. How do I find the best hacker?
This is why I advocate, where possible, try-before-you-buy. It is an important decision and very costly to correctly.

With regard to people in technically expert roles (CTO\CIO\etc\etc) they really must be able to walk and talk. The hardest part is getting super-talented people on board, and equity or performance related incentives in such cases is a neccessity.
I know that regular vim is available for OS X, and I also know that a special "MacVim" also exists. MacVim is more integrated with OS X as a whole, and has a gui like gvim.
Eight Commandments for Marketing Your Startup
I have yet to meet a marketing manager that builds/codes his product(s).

Maybe I should meet more marketing managers?
I am really surprised only 2 other people have mentioned Smultron. At least to me, it is by far a superior application to textmate, text wrangler, and bbedit. I have not used emacs and coda, but will be trying them when I get home.

I work in both windows and mac worlds. By far, textpad on windows is the #1 text editor I've ever used. Last year I started doing web development on macs and quickly got frustrated nothing was available that would do everything textpad does. I even tried running it in emulation but some wierdness didnt leave it as a functional option at the time.

I tried various text editors until I found smultron. Easily the best little text editor ive found for mac so far, and I can't recommend it enough.
Let us ask you the same question, "What service would add enough value to your startup that you would be willing to pay for it?"

I want to add "a service or product that you can't already find or that doesn't cut it for you and you're looking for something better."

Not to be flip, but if there's a scratch I have that nothing out there is itching, well, there's my next big thing.
If you want to keep costs cheap, I would recommend not buying a new one and instead looking around for a bankruptcy auction. I managed to get 3 pretty decent servers for $400/ea. from a startup that was going out of business.

Other than that, I recommend HP. Dell is cheaper, but you get what you pay for, especially if you are managing it remotely.
get supermicro hardware. siliconmechanics.com is a pretty good provider of pre-assembled supermicro hardware. We use supermicro servers for all of our clusters at engineyard.com
that is an elegant library... hadn't seen it before, thanks.
Notes from SF Google App Engine Hackathon
My attempt at live blogging the SF Google App Engine Hackathon --
I've enjoyed biographies of Augustus and Hannibal on Audio CD. "Augustus" is by Anthony Everett, and sadly I can not find the Hannibal set at the moment. Both lived during at an incredible time of change in Roman history. The stories are interesting, each is better "written" than many a Hollywood drama.

Also, it is just fascinating to listen to accounts from pre-Christian times. The characters share many common human traits with us, but are also deeply different. It will make you question what it means to be human.
The reports are only as good as the people who write them and the depth they go in to. Often, I find the information is superficial, gathered from technical documents and whitepapers, without actual/significant usage/testing by them.

However, if you know nothing about the topic, atleast they do provide a ballpark of what to look at, even if it is a broken window fallacy (you look at what is there rather than considering what is not).
I thought "The Tipping Point" was a little bit fluffy.
How many of us have sat at our terminals trying to force a solution to a problem by brute force coding....and then finally walked away, only to solve the problem in our mind while taking a shower?

Damn, who doesn't experience this? If you hack/solve problems of any sort and this doesn't happen to you, your not pushing your abilities enough.
My answer to the same question is "an easy way to get small amounts of funding." So that's the avenue I'm pursuing.

Are you saying that there's no problem you've encountered for which there isn't already an adequate solution? Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that even in an entrepreneurial minded community there must be some problems people can't fix for themselves.
I would go for Sun servers. Sign up for the Sun Startup Essential program and get a certain percent off (40%) some hardware.

But really. Use Amazon AWS. Buying hardware is very 1999
I guess I'm thinking in my domain, software solutions. Most everything else that I can afford is already out there.

Edit: If there is something I need that is a hindrance (service not existent yet, I'll say) from the outset of my venture, and that hindrance is not part of my solution, I don't go there.
Eat cool melon and nothing else.
If you already have a cross ventilation setup, that's pretty close to the limit of how nice your place can be without AC. One thing you can do improve the effectiveness of your setup is to work where all the airflow is going on. Place your desk in between the air coming in and the air going out so you can directly benefit from the flow.
Not to belabor the point, but what would you use if you could afford it? What do you use that doesn't work well enough or costs too much?

These are the types of questions I'm hoping the intelligent people here might humor me by answering. Perhaps the original question was too simplistic, as I was going for succinctness.
SubEthaEdit is great for multiple people editing the same file. Not like Google-docs' "save and refresh", it's truly real-time collaboration from anywhere you have an internet connection.
It really depends what you are looking for. You really need to clarify what you want.
Jane Austen novels are pretty good.
I would second that recommendation.
Even if it costs $200, it's well worth it for the productivity you gain. You'll make that back in a week.
There is a gap between profit and exploitation.

He alleges that it is charging interest rates of over 100% a year, little different from what illegal loan sharks demand, and that it is deliberately making it difficult for poor borrowers to understand how much they are paying for their loans.

PS: Compartamos concedes that its rates may seem high—though it reckons they are closer to 70% so it's not like his numbers are pulled from thin air.
I don't need micro-lending, but many others might. I've had ideas that could use an effective merchant micro-payment system usable by all, charging tiny amounts of money for individual services, but credit services charge fees currently preclude that, AFAIK.
Wear few, or no clothes.
Drink cold drinks.
Take cold showers.
Soak feet, hands in cold water.
Keep all the doors (internal, I mean) open.
Open windows.
Using air con only adds to global warming.
The Linux Kernel Saboteurs
The nice thing about AWS is it takes away many of the hassles of scaling up quickly and headaches of hardware failure, but it is actually cheaper to own and run your own server for a early stage startup as hardware costs are generally covered in the first year (there are many comparisons, Google it).

Plus if you have a good relationship with an ISP (free/low-cost hosting and bandwidth), I would go with that.
Paranoia isn't pretty.
"Right. I understand that part. Same reason why professional cyclists wear helmets."

But this is simply not true. As a person who follows the sport of cycling I know that many professional cyclists will use helmets only during races (because they are required to), during training they won't.
Flash Product Mgr. Weighs In RE: Flash 10 And CDNs
First off, I regret using the tone I have used in my previous post because it seems to have made you angry.

My point is that your discussions on a bulletin board doesn't change ground realities. Some piracy exists because there seems to be a valid need, needless to say that some piracy exists to fulfill greed. The high dependence on computing in todays world has forced people to use software - most of which, especially for the not so technically inclined, is expensive. Outside of the US, a copy of windows is more expensive than one months earnings. The whole problem is not as binary as you suggest.

Stuff you pointed out that has nothing to do with this discussion -

* 'Situational Ethics' is the kind of term that applies only in a intellectual masturbation of this sort.

* Clergy are not the only people doing charity.

* Your convictions are not my convictions.

PS: I wonder if you have any MP3s of songs that you never purchased. Honestly...
I got a customized 404 from the link. Anyone else?
You may be better able to apply that money - don't buy the server just for kicks.
+1 for Aquamacs. Two years ago I tried several options, here are the screenshots if you care:

Aquamacs: http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/1.png
Regular emacs, using mac's native UI with the pretties font I tried (and I tried quite a few): http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/2.png
Regular emacs, using X, with the font I normally use on Linux: http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/3.png
Emacs ran inside Apple terminal: http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/4.png

As you can see, (1) and (4) kicks (2) and (3)'s ass with respect to the looks of the font. (4) would be a good option, especially since it comes with the OS X, but you have to use ESC, key instead of meta+key (b/c of Apple terminal), which kind of sucks.

Plus, Aquamacs lets you set the color theme:

http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/default.png
http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/black.png
http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/classic.png
http://www.mogiel.net/~pfedor/emacs/xcode.png

Aquamacs has some behaviors that I don't very much care for, like opening a new window every time you open a file, but it can be easily fixed in the .emacs file.
Smart people might walk by your tree, too. In case you swing that way...
This is what will happen. Ars' articles will be integrated with Reddit comments. As soon as the founders have transitioned the company and it is running smoothly under control of CN, the forums as we know them will be shut down. I wouldn't be surprised to see self Reddits replace the threaded forums too.
My ghetto/redneck solution is a towel with the end dipped in a bucket or tub or sink hanging an inch or two from the intake of the fan. As the water evaporates (and cools) more is drawn up into the towel via the wick effect. Definitely not as fabulous as an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys seen in those fine examples of ingenuity, but it works and allows me to be very lazy.
Reduced melatonin production has been proposed as a likely factor in the significantly higher cancer rates in night workers,[28] and the effect of modern lighting practice on endogenous melatonin has been proposed as a contributory factor to the larger overall incidence of some cancers in the developed world.[29]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin
Who cares? It's too hot to talk.
What a coincidence, I was interested in this very question just yesterday! Here's the best I found:

http://www.wikihow.com/Cool-Yourself-Without-Air-Conditionin...
Get a de-humidifier. They are cheaper than AC, much more convenient, and usually just as effective.
Well, if you become the type where it really bothers you if you have bugs in yoru code, your needs won't be basic for long. I'm of 2 minds on this. I love Textmate, and Gray's Pragmatic book is superb. It just flows from my brain. My only complain is working the key combinations on a macbook keyboard (which i suppose is also true of emacs )

But I have to work on Linux and Windows boxes, too. So, either look into the various packages for remote editing in textmate, or, more simply, vim. You can also look at eclipse and jedit as cross-platform editors. I think it's really useful to get adept at 2 editors, thothere's a 15 minute transition each time you have to switch. The upside is that you periodically get the "I wonder how you do this in textmate/eclipse/emacs" lightbulb.

There's a couple others i've really liked, while i'm at it, Komodo and Wing IDE for python work, but they're kinda expensive.
seriously recommend using serverbeach or softlayer - userscripts.org gets 4M pageviews/mo (including RSS and bots I get 50K dynamic req/hour) on a $200 box from serverbeach.

softlayer is like serverbeach but a little more expensive. they are more automated though - so if you expect to add more hardware, it only a few hours for new boxes to come online.

that said, they are both monthly and have setup fees (not horribly expensive but not like AWS where you can get a server for a few hours)
i want to do something like this hacker site.
I'll say what I'd do now, and what I'm about to do on the "next" thing, having gained quite a lot of education and mentoring on the "business" side of things since then.

I'd start selling. Day one. Even if the product or service I'm selling still needs to be developed, I'd work out who wants what I'm developing, what they'll pay for it, and how I can sell to them. Once I have the product working in a saleable form (think 37signals "Getting Real" levels of "done" here - not perfectionism at all), I'd switch 80% of energy to selling it. Cash is king. With cash coming in, I can pay other people to do the grunt work as well as work on improving the product.

But.. selling is absolutely key. Last time I focused on making a kick ass product, and it worked, but I didn't know who the market was, and all the sales were from luck alone. I didn't sell the product whatsoever. It sold itself, but that's not a good strategy unless you have a mass market product. If you have a niche product, you need to be selling it yourself from day one.

I would highly recommend a book called "Ready, Fire, Aim" by Michael Masterson ( http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Fire-Aim-Million-Agora/dp/047018... ). It outlines the whole process of successfully generating a high revenue business from start to finish, and is written by someone who has launched several businesses that have gone on to reach 8 and 9 figure revenues.
> TextMate the backward search is bound to Control-Shift-S, a key combo that's torture to type compared to Control-R, that I can't remember to save my life, and that AFAIK cannot be changed…

It can be changed absolutely trivially. See http://macromates.com/textmate/manual/key_bindings and also http://blog.macromates.com/2005/key-bindings-for-switchers/

> I've got my emacs rigged so that, when I type source code, I don't need to press Shift to get symbols out of the top row of keys instead of digits.

This is very easy to accomplish in TextMate.

> Plus, you get folks like Steve Yegge, working in his spare time to make your editor better. 10% of that guy's time is worth a fortune, and there's more where he came from! The problem with a closed-source editor is that there's only one or two people who can fix or improve the core code.

The vast majority of TextMate’s functionality is in open-source bundles, which you or anyone else can freely edit, and which hundreds of people are constantly working to improve.
TextMate is significantly easier to customize than other editors, and those customizations are extremely powerful and flexible.
fermilabs mystery letter: full cryptanalysis?

FIRST SECTION:

1) remove the linebreaks from the first block

2) interpret # of lines as digits 0-2

3) results:

212 122 220 001 021 222 120 211 012 201

000 220 021 201 122 222 101 012 102 002

200 222 202 220 002 002 222 121 211 022

120 222 001 012 022 120 201

4) Convert 000 == 'a' 001 == 'b', ... , '221' == 'z':

5) Substition cipher:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

nl o ki wu strdec hfa

6) Results:
xrybh pwftayhtr kflcs uycc qwip bfipt

frank shoemaker would call this noise

THIRD SECTION:

1) break on '||'

2) Interpreted results & substitution cipher

tadcfmtt blaztr zyppt pioqttb
employee number basse sixteen

MIDDLE SECTION:

1) 26-252
Screw that. How am I supposed to get in the mood without a little roleplaying?
> Emacs just supports more of what I need

What, specifically?