skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hyperbole aside, v2.x has been the best RDF database on the market (or OSS, for that matter). Its a bit rough around the edges (you'll be talking to their very helpful support frequently), but the performance with large datasets is significantly better than Sesame, Jena, etc.
It's worse, actually; the vast majority of the programmers out there today aren't implementing squat, they're providing life support for the bad programmers who came before them.

(This has come very close to driving me entirely out of the field; the only thing that has kept me in it for so long is the paychecks.)
I think the aesthetics are important. You can see further when they are better.
Value or Viral?
GWAP: New Games With a Purpose - Making Computers Smarter by Tapping the Crowd
These annoyances don't seem to be all that critical. I haven't been able to use my wireless card on Gutsy since I installed it several months ago.

Last night, I upgraded to Heron and voila, my wireless card is recognized and functional.

Annoyances aside, making Ubuntu's very broken wireless driver support a little less broken makes installing Heron much more appealing than previous versions.
Poll: I use twitter for...
I was wondering how many people use twitter for blogging and dont have a full-time blog.
I use twitter for blogging. DONT have another blog.
I use twitter for blogging. AND have another blog.
I use twitter for updates only.
I dont use twitter.
Here is how modern anti-science propaganda works. Just read edit history of linked wiki page on SourceWatch.

Arthur B. Robinson, head of Oregon Institute is labeled there "an eccentric scientist who has a long history of controversial entanglements with figures on the fringe of accepted research".

One science historian, author of a well-researched and well-reviewed book on Amazon, objects and tries to edit the entry: "he is a thoroughly reputable scientist... he does not have a 'long history' of controversial engagements...".

His words are erased by some Diane Farsetta, who sits on the board of SourceWatch and writes for AlterNet. She has not written a book on the subject. But she has time and she has an agenda.

So the entry is back to personal slander and innuendo. Enjoy the 'facts'.
I subscribed to Netflix a couple months ago when they added the all-you-can-eat streaming package. The streaming selection was atrocious. I don't watch that many movies per month and the ones I do watch are either on HBO On-Demand or a couple bucks from the iTunes store.
Andrew Chen: How Web 2.0 startups should think about the Lifetime Value of their audiences
When they can walk the packages over to the UPS hub and they have such a large volume in shipping, UPS probably cut them a pretty good deal also.
You both _know_ and work with 100 (or more) .NET programmers?
Walking, Talking (Bleeping) R2-D2 With Hi-Def Television Projector
San Francisco rents have reached the doot com boom level. It is pretty bad.

I got my 2 bedroom apt (with a roomate) for 1850 two years ago, and we were happy as it is relatively cheap for a good apt. Few months ago, the same kind of a apt. right above us, rented for $2300.
While the 1 bedroom. next door, rented for $1800.
You'd be surprised though at how much cash people are willing to sacrifice just to be able to enjoy coming to work each day.

As long as they're ballpark, they'll always have people beating down their door.
I assume you are already using boolean searches but if you aren't...
First look at OLPC 2.0 - Dual touchscreens
Alltop now has Ruby covered
The three legged symbol is pretty good, but maybe papers could just set the value of pi at the introduction.
Gearing up for the .car Era
"prevent viruses from taking control of your car"

For some drivers, that may be an improvement.
Ask YC: Worst job title (anything with "Excellence")
A colleague of mine recently was awarded the title "FPGA Excellence Principal Engineer". We immediately transformed it informally to "His Excellency", and we salute and bow every time we see him. He will probably ask to be demoted sometime later this year.

Anyone else got better ones?
re: privacy - I've often wondered what the happy medium is between desks with no walls at all (cheap!), cubicle farms, and private offices (expensive)

and also which one fosters more creativity.
it would be a lot more interesting if it was an open source project... unfortunately, I'm not very keen on vendor lock-in with a small company especially when there's so many other choices
Reminds me of the authentic loft space I visited once - it was really really cold (Winter). Not like the faux lofts that have central heating+air
What better way to represent your cause than to act like a completely moronic child. Seriously, way to represent dude. ("Ballmer or the protester?" joke in 3, 2, 1....)
Apple's Top Designer Explains Design
Funny, I had quite the opposite problem. I installed Gutsy and my wireless card worked out of the box, no config needed. But right after upgrading to Hardy, Ubuntu didn't recognize my wireless card.

I agree with the article; Hardy isn't quite ready for prime time.
Joel wrote this about moveable walls and cool offices.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/04/13.html
Things Peter Thiel has funded:

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
(Making sure our eventual AI overlords are benevolent)

Aubrey De Grey's Methuselah Mouse Prize
(Research toward ending aging)

The Seasteading Institute
(Build your own nation)

I'm really excited about the kind of people the tech boom has made rich.
"Everytime you say Web 3.0 a startup dies" http://hubber.blogspot.com/2006/06/web-30-kills-startups.htm...
The "Web 3.0" stuff is bullshit (anything mentioned "Web x.y" invariably is), but the actual Franz database is an interesting product with some cool technology inside it.
How to Make Common Lisp go Faster Than C
It's funny how people are so eager to generalize from "my wireless card didn't work on Gutsy out of the box" to "Ubuntu [has] very broken wireless driver support".
New Tech Jaws Category: Linux | Tech Jaws
Did you seriously read the last paragraph?

"Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed."

This is industry propaganda. See:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/rea...
http://fm4.orf.at/chris/215162/main
"Nuclear war survival skills" is actually a very interesting book. Not the kind of practical guide you'd ever want to be in need of, but it contains lots of fascinating insights about life in a society where the social structure has collapsed (and life in a fallout shelter in particular).

What does the disparaging remark 'survivalist' (and I am sorry if I miscalculated the tone of your post) mean, anyway? The way I see it, we are better off if a few people think about what to do in the event of a catastrophe. It doesn't hurt in the likely event that there is no calamity. And if they spend millions building fallout shelters that will never be used..well, let them.
Oh, and sorry. I actually submitted a link to the PDF directly, but YCNews scribd it and now it's unreadable. Here is the original:

http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier/research/verna.06.imecs.pdf
My generalization stems from the number of comments with peers and countless internet searches for fixes.

In the case of peers, wireless card support was a common complaint.

In the case of searching, looking around the forums will give you a pretty good idea that wireless card support is pretty bad. I bought a standard Belkin wireless card from the local Staples. It should have worked, but didn't.

Yes, I think it's pretty broken.
How to Not Meet Girlz
or what 2 nerds carry to Where2.0
Well, yeah, but the point is that expression that aversion in lieu of any other comment is a goddamn waste of time.
You might find some at 3boobs.de, it's probably a site you're familiar with. As far as I'm concerned, that counts as showing a negative attitude towards women. You don't have to mention IT when you're showing bias against women in the workplace full-stop.

Meh, getting shades of "someone is wrong on the internet"[xkcd]. I don't think this thread is going anywhere productive. It's probably down to cultural differences, saying that most women don't want to think about their future careers because they are women in a culture which values financial independence sounds a lot like bias against women, and certainly doesn't jibe with my experiences.
I am a netflix subscriber (>4yrs). I think the comments about the limited selection are overblown. I ordered this box earlier today as I have been happy with the selection and the online streaming service. The selection also appears to be growing every week. Now I can do away needing a Windows PC to access the streaming service. The price is right too!
Digg - Artwork - Photoshop - Illustrator - Adobe - Macromedia and S
The wonderous legs of Oscar Pistorius
Reddit.com: Cool Visual Wiki Launches An Early Release
Wikipedia on Modafinil / Provigil
You Can't Soak the Rich
Interesting regardless of your politics.

Summary chart: http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AH556B_ranso_200...
This scribd thing is getting ridiculous. Why not make it an opt-out arrangement for submitters?
I disagree, but unfortunately I don't have a blog to blog about it in.
I emailed probably the most successful Hollywood agent. It took me 3 weeks to write the letter, and he accepted my script for reading. I reckon that 3 weeks of my time was worth an hour of his.

Sadly, 2 years later and the script is still unread. But the chances of now convincing him to accept a better script is a lot higher than nothing.

An amusing aside is this: I used a guide on how to write a good online personals/dating letter, to write the letter to the agent.
If I were a people person, Southwest would be the company I would work for. I love their reality show because it shows you how people can remain calm in a storm.

Nordstrom's is a department store known around here for extraordinary customer service. I walked into a Nordstrom's the other day. I felt out of place because the marble floors reflected the well-heeled patrons. I went in just to see if it was true that they never ask "Can I help you?". Because if you are asked that - you'll probably say "No, thank you." At Nordstrom's, they asked me "Have you shopped here before?" It's a tricky question - because it's not really a closed-ended question. "No" "No? How can I.."
The current approach with biofuels is a debacle -- algae is clearly the way to go. That said, biofuels are not the only thing that comprises "green energy". Solar, wind, geothermal all have their place.

Let's also not forget increasing energy efficiency and otherwise reducing waste that have direct economic benefits...
Digg - Hacker News | duthel's comments
Be careful about zoning laws, though. Many houses are zoned solely for residential use and cannot be used for commercial offices. I am not a fan of zoning laws, but as a company executive you should be aware that converting spaces is full of legal pitfalls.
Good Development Practices - Basic Reading List
Doesn't seem like much of a threat. It's just a set-top version of their already existing mediocre streaming service, which itself is just a sweetener for their core business. (Nobody would pay $9-$18 a month for the streaming alone.) There's nothing to recommend it unless you're already a Netflix subscriber, making it entirely harmless to Apple, et al.
Chalee - Marlene Duthel Art & Sound
This site shows Artwork or Art by Marlene and Chalee Duthel

http://gallery.chaleeduthel.com/displayimage.php?pos=-19
I really thought you were talking about Ballmer up until the last bit.
Web 3.0 is based on simplicity. Even simpler than web 2.0. Now there are just blank screens + white noise with backend tags for a semantic, metaphysical experience.
"While Lisp is mainly known for its basement on list processing, the Common Lisp standard features very efficient data types such as specialized arrays, structs or hash tables, making lists almost completely obsolete."

Uh?!?
Google Health beta launches with security issues looming
And while they're at it, they could also check for duplicate submissions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=172432
Since I work on one laptop and can't turn wifi off (IM w/ distributed workmates), PG's trick doesn't apply to me.

However I find simply separating work/fun applications has helped me work more efficiently and reduce distractions.

For examples: I switched to NetNewsWire from Google Reader. And I use Safari only for work and Firefox for general browsing. Trick is to keep the non-work applications turned off while working.
Here's a webcomic where a guy turns an Apple computer into a blue haired cybernetic hottie. (The concept is stupid, but the execution is good.)

http://www.applegeeks.com/
CERN is the Doomsday Machine
I'm sure this is an exaggeration but I do not know enough to dispute it. Anyone have any knowledge about this?
Google AppEngine Developers Meeting (5/21 @ Stanford)
Just a heads-up to YCNews readers in the bay area. There'll be the first meeting of a Google AppEngine developers group at Stanford tomorrow (Wed, 5/21, 7pm)

http://web.meetup.com/116/calendar/7866778/

RSVP if you plan on coming.
There'll be at least one AppEngine core team member speaking and answering questions. I'll be showing Bloog, a blog/homepage app for AppEngine, and walking through some code. (http://bloog.appspot.com)
Ok, but why don't girls want to become engineers?
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) + VMWare Fusion + Mono = Bliss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve_of_constant_width
6 Ways to Remind the Mustaches That You’re Important
Hacker News Bookmarklet using Yahoo Pipes
Prepping for Warren Buffett: The Art of the Elevator Pitch
I'm not saying everyone should shut up, just the haters. They're so loud and shrill that they drown everyone else out. There are lots of people who like suburbia (and dislike cities). They're just not smug and self-righteous about it, and they don't shout it from the rooftops while looking down on everyone else.
They do check. The sequence of events here seems to be:

- Person submits PDF article.

- HN rewrites article to scribd link.

- People complain about scribd link.

- Admin manually corrects link to point directly to PDF.

- A month later, another person submits same PDF article.

- HN rewrites article to scribd link, but because the original article was manually corrected, the scribd link doesn't match the original article, so it doesn't register as a dupe.
Space To Scale
I write my own blog. My readership is minuscule but it takes to my idiosyncrasies. And often challenges my opinions. What more could I ask!

Language should be the last reason why one does not communicate. An idea holds itself regardless of which language its written in and with what finesse.

And like you I guess I too shift from philosophy to poetry to tech without missing a beat. It does restrict your reader base a lot but again, if your style can accommodate all these perspectives, I dont see why you could not talk about all that catches your fancy.
But wouldn't either the original pdf link or the resulting scribd link show up as a duplicate in HN's dupe checker, since both were in the submitted list at one time or another?
What I like is this sentence from Jonathan,
"We don't have to take this great intuitive leap to understand the mythical concerns of our users, because we are the users."

But I guess we also need to have taste.
As a computer consultant I find time and time again that many people are wasting increasingly a lot of their spare time and even working hours browsing the Internet. Many times they start with a good reason, but after a little while they wander and end going to sites they never intended to go to in the first place.

For teens it is increasingly more difficult to stay away from networking sites like myspace.com, there they share more personal information than they ought to and do whatever it takes to have as many 'friends' as possible.

One problem with an ever increasing reliance on computers is that we are more and more getting away from physical actual contact with other human beings.

Kids are potentially vulnerable to predators and all kind of garbage found on the Internet like porno, violence, drugs, and much more.

I couldn't resist adding my pitch of salt to your essay, it is like much of what you write straight forward and to the point.

Would be nice if you were to write a new essay on how kids and teens could be better protected, and why they have to. A problem I frequently see is that there are many homes where the kids and teens are computer savvy, but the parents know next to nothing about computers. Just picture a teen or little kid as the computer admin with unrestricted access to the system and the Internet.

Some possible solutions, apart from trowing the computer out the window, should include besides parents training, better operating systems, that make from simple to easy to secure and filter Internet access, opendns to block unwanted content, and even this could be controversial more Government oversight, to really get rid of plagues like spy ware, virus proliferation, phishing, and many other Internet ills.

That's all, take care.
You are a people person. And you can hack. May be better to stay right where you're at. :)
Look at the link in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=172432 ... It's been changed from the scribd link to the original pdf file. I'm guessing they only check for dupes against a list of the current article links, and that they don't maintain a separate list of submitted links (which, except for cases like this one, would be the same list).
I know it's his name, but the OCD within makes me want to
sed 's/Ive/I\'ve/g'
I sense that there's a simple solution to this. Perhaps we could drop the automatic scribdifynig of PDF links?
It's been changed from the scribd link to the original pdf file.

Ah, I didn't see that (I thought once it's been trans-scribd, it stays that way).

But that raises another question: if http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=172432 points to the original pdf (i.e., http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier/research/verna.06.imecs.pdf) and the guy who submitted this also posted the same original pdf link, why wasn't it detected as a dupe right then?
To Fight Global Warming We Must Tax All Recreational Exercise
It's a shame small government is long gone from the US.
I think there are very few people in the world that know enough to dispute it.
The scribdfication must take place before duplicate-checking.
Ok, maybe I missed something, but what exactly does the blue curve show?
No one uses lists in a LISt Processing language. :P
The top marginal tax rate.

Yes, it was 90%+ for a while: http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
I'm not sure why HN auto-posts to scridb.

If they're trying to send more traffic to that site, then we're S.O.L.

OTOH, if they're just trying to increase the number of documents in scribd's repository, then a parallel submission process would be the solution.

I.e., keep HN posts pointing to the original pdf, but also auto-submit to scribe, behind the scenes in a separate thread.
Thoughts of a Teenage Bot Master
The Wall Street Journal needs to have its statistics license taken away. Every editorial manages to commit some sort of statistical fallacy.

highest marginal tax rate is charted against total revenue as a percent of GDP. Absolutely worthless. Total revenue as a percent of GDP happens to be flat, so we can take any statistic we care to blather about, chart it against this line, and say: see? You can't get money from (fuel taxes | tariffs | mandatory minimum sentencing | software piracy).
Thanks. No.
It's been a long time since I got offended twice in two paragraphs.
Authors of computer science papers aren't exactly known for their command of the finer points of the English language. basement?
Happy Birthday edw519
Meant to submit this yesterday (for obvious reasons), but for some reason I failed.

I'll try harder next year!
http://www.mylistwatcher.com - We Watch Your Amazon Wish Lists and will alert you when the price of any item meets your target price. Never miss a bargain again!
"Raising taxes encourages taxpayers to shift, hide and underreport income"

Uh, let's not forget about finding legal tax shelters and using wealth to influence lawmakers to define what actually is a legal tax shelter.

It's a pity that the article never explores the difference between income and wealth. Does anyone honestly believe that wealthy individuals haven't long ago figured out how to avoid paying the top rate?
I used to lecture at Northumbria where Ive studied. Everyone who knew him said he was a really reserved and pleasant guy who just truly loved to design. I think that Apples success lends itself substantially to this guy and his creative skill. He's definitely up there with Steve Jobs for helping the re-emergence of Apple
The amazing thing is that Apple (Steve Jobs?) succeeded in noticing this talented individual and promoting him to a position where his designs could be realized.

"With his dramatic return to the company in 1997, Steve Jobs began to revive Apple’s fortunes and return it to the industry leader that it is today. Jonathan Ive was instrumental to this turnaround, and under the new Jobs-led Apple he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Industrial Design and began a period of unrivaled creativity and innovation which continues to this day." http://www.jonathanive.com/biography/
If black holes usually get created by collapsing massive stars (much bigger than the sun), then how could CERN possibly create a black hole? I don't know too much about the particle physics of black holes, but it doesn't seem to make that much sense.

Black holes basically happen because the gravity of the thing overcomes all other forces because its so incredibly massive in such a small space (overcomes the forces keeping atom's nuclei apart too). Smashing together a few protons together might make those proton nuclei to crash together, but I don't see how that could possibly make a black hole.

To me, any crazy thing like a black hole that could destroy the earth, is far too energetic and ridiculous for humans to actually make unknowingly. (for now I guess)

I'm sure the smart dudes at CERN thought about this and aren't worried.
To be fair, the purpose of HN is to serve YC -- that's why we don't see ads on the site. People have suggested not scribd-ing everything before; I can only assume that the reason this has not yet happened is because the feedback we are providing is more valuable to YC than a few upset readers.

And this may well be the case: When most people have problems accessing a web page one way, they won't tell you directly; instead, they'll try to find another way to access it or give up. By providing only one way to read PDFs on a discussion board, you get access to this otherwise invisible negative feedback.
would you take your dog to visit a penitentiary ?
Wow, that's some variation there. As a foreigner I always saw the US as a country of low taxes, I guess that's not the whole story.
If you are still doing consulting, do you need your clients to come to your office? If so, will a 'cooler' office space impress them more, get you more business? If the answer is no, then save your money and go for a different space.

Do you even need a space at all? Do you need employees in the same office or could you all work from home (we ditched out office and work in this way and meet up once a week).

The final suggestion is to look for an apartment or house that you can rent or purchase and use that.
IPhone Windows Vista Skin Makes Steve Jobs Cry Tears of Blood