skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Haven't tried Rubinius yet myself, but being able to run rails on it is a huge milestone.

Some of the benefits of Rubinius, from what I've heard so far:

- uses modern techniques to decrease memory usage and increase throughput

- less memory change per additional mongrel instance

- capability for precompiled code (similar to java .jar files)

- better performance

- better error reporting

- profiling has less impact on performance

I think it could totally change the rails landscape as we know it.

http://rubyconf2007.confreaks.com/d2t1p3_rubinius.html

http://www.slideshare.net/evanphx/rubinius-improving-the-rai...
Yes, SOAP is not always the right solution. It adds extra overhead, which is the price you pay for having the tools validate and map the message to objects automatically for you. It's your call weather that's worth it or not.

In many applications (mostly enterprise), the extra overhead is well worth it because of the time it saves the developers. With .NET for example, you simply add the tag "[webmethod]" before the declaration of your method, and it becomes available over the Web. And if you're building the client, you simply point your tool to the URL of the service, and it immediately pulls the declaration of all methods along with their documentation if available, and also provides autocomplete and compile time validation on those remote methods. So, most developers don't even know about SOAP and never see a SOAP message. It's all done behind the scenes. If you're using a tool that doesn't have good support for it, though, then you're going to have a hard time with it.
So far, I see 2 answers, 1 that puts the earnings for the banker on this deal at $100,000, and another that puts it at $500,000 to $1,000,000.

Does anyone have a number from actual experience?

On a side note, now that I've seen some numbers I'm interested in learning more about becoming an investment banker :P
Why did Facebook tell Google “stay off our lawn?”
My initial reaction was to downvote this (I didn't though), but then I had an interesting question: which industries aren't driven by greed?

From wikipedia: Greed is the selfish desire for or pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others.

While the last part about denying the same goods to others presumes zero sum (which is debatable in the investment industries), I see nothing wrong with the rest of the definition being applied to any other capitalistic venture.
I know you're joking, but meditation doesn't have to be done sitting or lying down. It can be done standing, walking, or during practically any activity. It's just that some people get caught up in what they're doing rather than the meditation, so they sit and do nothing.
How about downloading the documentation to your work computer and using that local copy? If the docs fail, you can use the other computer to ask questions.
Stay away from anything that uses a printer, like Cafepress or Zazzle. The quality is horrendous.
... says a potential buyer ;-)
250 tabs? Literally?! I get majorly bogged down when I have more than 10 tabs open (I usually have no more than 4)... And my agility decreases exponentially, not linearly.
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displays...

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.5...

Evidentally, 8 hours per day per household. I suspect nielsen is using their meters or whatever, which clock up time even when no one is watching. Some households just let it run nonstop.

The internet doesn't bother me so much, though I've noticed my ability to read books has shriveled up alarmingly. The 'net is better than reversi and minesweeper and computer golf, which is exactly what people did before AOL came into their lives. I remember playing Sid Meier's Civilization literally 16 hours a day for several months after it came out. Same thing.

As for drinking alone, I suspect it's better on the whole. It reduces the likelihood of violent crimes and car wrecks, anyway.
Interoperability is a mess. From the server side, no matter how long you chip away at it, there always seems to be another client library, or another version of a client library, that will bork.

However, provided your server can talk to it at all, Microsoft's toolchain works really, really well for anybody writing a client. If you are providing a web service and want .NET developers to be interested, you owe it to yourself and them to provide a SOAP interface.
"Has anyone in the history of computing ever really taken advantage of the "transport layer agnostic" aspect of SOAP?"

At my current enterprise gig, SOAP messages are passed via MQ. This provides for additional facilities (transactions, message persistance) that SOAP in itself does not offer.
http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_treestyletab.html.en
Has anyone here pointed out the irony of the guy who wrote Hacker News writing an article about distractions? I can't tell because I'm too busy flipping between tabs of stuff I clicked on here.
No, it isn't. The guy is putting on a very effective act. There's no way he's spent 26 years "developing" bulletball. I'm sure he made that up (as well as other details) in order to add emotional appeal to his game. In fact, he's had some real success as a result of his unusual marketing skills:

http://www.itstrulyrandom.com/2008/02/26/theres-a-new-game-c...

Griffin has joined forces with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Veterans with Disabilities, and the Disabled-Athlete Sports Association to stage the first annual “Bulletball Tournament” which will feature the former Ms. Wheelchair America.

The long term prospects for an obviously stupid game aren't good, but still...
Don’t Screw Your Partners Over A Marketing Promotion (TC stops loading because of Seesmic)
wsdl2java has worked really well for any WSDL I've ever had to work against (consuming fairly rich both Java and .Net web services from Java).

Note that there's been a fair bit of resistance to Axis2, with a lot of people preferring to stay on 1. I believe they changed the entire team from 1 to 2.
> Surgery to give you 20/20 vision = OK, Surgery to give you 145 IQ = not ok??

I think the main difference here is that we understand (for the most part) how the eye works, but we don't understand the brain. It's orders of magnitude more complicated, so we don't understand all the effects.
I'm not sure I liked this essay. Usually, when you read PG's essay you immediately realize that insane amount of effort and thought is involved. While reading this essay, it ended where it should have begun from.
I've been working with XML-RPC (predecessor to SOAP) over the past few days and it's much less painful than SOAP. It only takes a couple lines of (python) code to get a client running functions on a remote server, without having to know what is going on below.
My point is, the world is full of people who whine about problems and always find something else to blame for the problems, no matter how abstract.

It's rare to find the man who realizes that everything he fails at is ultimately his own fault, because everyone is free to do whatever they want.
That seems about right!

Also, it depends on a size of a deal and also on the attractiveness of the business and the market.
This is a good point. I don't mean to imply one should do nothing but work. The problem with many types of procrastination is that they're not even all that fun.
I think the right thing to do is when you work, really work, and when you're just having fun, really have fun.
They're morphing their idea into something less focused on procrastination.
I've always wondered about this.

If you use the Caps Lock key as CTRL, then it feels pretty awkward for me to type some key combinations (like ctrl-x or ctrl-c) and still keep my fingers on the "home row".

Do you just get used to this? Do you type ctrl-x with your pinky and ring finger? Or, do you shift your hand away from the home row and type ctrl-x with your pinky and middle finger?
Without knowing your needs, it's hard to tell. However, you can get similar specs from SoftLayer or The Planet for $500/month.
Are they the only external people you need to be involved to make a deal like this happen? Do the costs change if the investment bank is involved in finding the deal (as TechCrunch reports happens all the time)? Are they useful at all in the negotiation or are they just paper pushers?

I had an investment banker contact me early in the year just to "start a relationship in case I ever needed help with fundraising or M&A." Is it worth meeting with these people?
What's Keeping Adobe Up at Night? Probably Not Silverlight.
FreeMat: a free environment for rapid engineering and scientific prototyping and data processing
JQuery iPod-style Drilldown Menu
It's a solid step up from WoW.
Exactly why I posted it.
That's ironic in an Alanis sort of way.
Yahoo lost a lot of leverage when they flipped the bird at Microsoft. A $33/share offer was gold and they left a lot of money on the table. Yahoo is in a really tight corner now with pissed off shareholders. I wonder how likely a merger with Google is at this point of if that would make any sense for Google.
Grape Desktop
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0929/076.html
No way MSFT offers $33+/share again. Yahoo's pride/arrogance/stupidity cost their shareholders a lot of money.
> Facebook chat is a heavy erlang user

Heavy? They must be going by Facebook's user base, not amount of code (the system is a hybrid of multiple languages) or even actual usage (they just launched it, I doubt everyone has switched over from IM yet, if they ever will).
Sounds like a job for the Fun Police.

"Observance of 'Fun Time' will be strictly enforced."
Erlang is best for software that works like telco switches, i.e., you have the need to route thousands of messages in real-time.

Chat, IM, SMS, message queues, etc. are all well-suited for Erlang. Tasks that involves lots of I/O and parsing, not so much.
Props for trying something different, but this is not solving a problem.
Wounded Soldier Given New High-Tech Home | Tech Jaws
Here's some ruby snippets that I used to build http://forecaster.ws

http://pastie.org/198820
Well, the place I worked for (about 25 years ago!) is still going-- Original Design Company (http://www.originaldesigncompany.com/) in North Woodstock, NH-- just a trip up 93 from Boston. I have no idea how their prices are these days, but they are good people, and do great work. (Or, at least they did a quarter century ago...)
yeah 250 or so..don't get me wrong there is some slowdown but its still very useable. Don't really notice any difference up to 100 tabs, after then it starts getting slow.

Note: This are just tabs that are open, they aren't in the process of loading the page
> because everyone is free to do whatever they want.

Citation needed.

> It's rare to find the man who realizes that everything he fails at is ultimately his own fault

Incompatible with the other claim.

If other people are free to do whatever they want, they are free not to cooperate with you. If you fail to get Megan Fox to want to engage in mating behavior with you, it may well be due to circumstances beyond your control, like not being her "type".

We aren't free. We have a lot of built-in unconscious drives that push and pull us in one direction or another. Our decision-making process is wired up through genetic happenstance and upbringing. Our parents, schools, cultures, and religions programmed us to a large degree and then turned us out into the world.
Another option, for those using an apple Airport Base Station, is to activate the Timed Access control for your computer's MAC address. I, for instance, cut off my net access between 9am and 5pm on the weekend.
Marketing and versioning is often done in threes because that's the minimum number you can use to take advantage of the psychological aversion to extremes that people have.

It's well known that if you have two versions of a product with some purchase distribution, you can often "force" people who otherwise buy the cheap one to "upgrade" to the more expensive one by simply adding a third super-expensive version.

There are people who will pay for the premium third level, but often more importantly, it causes psychological angst in anyone who wants to buy the cheapest, often forcing them to upgrade.
Hacker News is just a half-baked Reddit clone with less functionality catering to a specific demographic, mainly people who want YC to endorse their start-up.

Edit: Don't just reflexively downmod this. Point out where I'm wrong.
So, you know how like Rails runs on Ruby, which is kinda slow. As you may or may not know, Ruby isn't compiled into any sort of machine code, or even bytecode. It is compiled down into a tree-representation (like all languages i think), but instead of taking this tree representation into bytecode or native machine code, they just leave it. This makes ruby extra slow and hard to optimize. Rubinus (as far as I know) takes the tree and makes bytecode which is then executed on a VM. This should make it much faster.
We Don't Need a "Database"
And the cost is very high.
Actually, I don't understand how this article is related to this site (HN). Was it posted here just because it's funny? Or is there any lesson on it?
I can't seem to find any way to actually install this - I'm guessing its just a concept instead of an actual desktop environment or wm. Pretty pointless if theres nothing beyond 'It would be cool if a computer behaved like this'.
I believe John C Dvorak had this right: MS lacks direction. They should stop becoming Web 2.0 masters and instead focus on releasing a simple, effective, high-quality OS (which they've failed with since W2K/XP imo).
How to rescue Java from the men in suits
Neither. Focus on building your product and your business and forget about blogging.
I'm also getting new shirts printed up so I'm looking for a printer here in the bay area. Anybody have a favorite, preferably in the south bay (I'm in Mountain View)?

A good one in Austin is Vreeland Graphics...not super cheap, but reliable and great quality prints.
If it quacks like a blog...
From the article:
"What we really need is a persistence-aware programming environment"

This really hits home with me. I've been working on a data model for one of my projects. I'm trying to model time series data so that I can perform analysis of the data as it changes over time. I've been thinking about how best to model this using the relational model, but even after a few months I've been unable to develop a relational model that I'm happy with.

The more I read about MapReduce and similar methods of computation, the more I become convinced that I could model time series data and perform analysis of it with a method of computation that is more "integrated" into my data store. Essentially, I'd like to be able to use my programming language of choice (at the moment, that's ruby) to perform queries on my datastore that for one reason or another I've been unable to represent in SQL or a similar query language.
Now, I'm just waiting for the Memrom optimized build.
I would personally introduce mathematics into a CS curriculum through heavy use of computer graphics. Having an application for the knowledge makes it suddenly relevant.
"mainly people who want YC to endorse their start-up"

You're wrong on this count. Many folks here have already had YC "endorse" their startup, and so stand to gain nothing by being the hottest nerd on Hacker News.
The procrastination thing puts you in good company: Andrew Tridgell apparently created Samba as a way of procrastinating while working on rsync for his doctoral thesis.
2008 Google SoC: 21 Projects I'm Excited About
Opposite of the BulletBall Post -- (BTW, poor guy...)
Check out who Tangosol used to use. I'd bet they sourced locally.
That it is a good product and appeals to many goes without saying no matter who the investor is. Presumably, every investor is behind a product because he/she sees some merit.
The "Atomization of Conversation"
Please pardon my spelling.
Yes. But if you have no wireless and a short cable and therefore must carry your laptop across the room to connect to the net - it might just work.
Do you know any alternatives to these services? I've used cafepress in the past, to print 6 color shirts and they came out pretty good. They were pricier than I would've liked, but I wasn't purchasing a quantity where I could find cheaper alternatives.
maybe Mikey didn't invest enough money to be important to seesmic :)
I didn't know that Dyson Vacuum cleaners need to be replaced yearly. I guess I'll cross that off my wish list.
250 hours?

Considering an analyst works about 80-100 hours a week, this deal would be done in 3 weeks. ha.
Yes.

I want to see if giving an item upvotes makes it more likely that it gets more upvotes still.

I hope to be able to distinguish statistically between the influence of inherent quality and current upvotes.

My arm-chair hypothesis is that prevalence of inherent quality leads to a geometric distribution. And prevalence of attention grabbing effects should make the distribution look more like a power-law.

If that simple histogram turns out to be inconclusive extending the analysis from the final scores of items to their value over time might help.

P.S. A simple observation started me on this line of thought: I had the feeling that upvoting comments close to mine makes it more likely that mine will be upvoted. I wonder whether such strategic voting really makes a difference.
Why Aren't We Driving Salt-Water Powered Cars Then?
Nonsense. Delusion includes the inability to accurately assess reality, which this inventor clearly has to some degree.
Keep Friends Posted While on the Road
As every mathematician knows, two is the most magic number. A lot of strange things happen with two. Take fields of characteristic two for example. (That is fields were 1+1=0.)
Written by a programmer who has a myopic view of how data is used. Data is not used by just one application in the real world over time; if your app that uses the stupid database becomes popular (or your startup becomes popular), you will now need many interfaces into that database - reporting, analysis, OLTP, maintenance. By putting it in a "persistence-aware programming environment" you're *&%$ing everyone else except you. Woohoo!
Ask HN: Is it possible to think well with noise?
I am used to working in silence, but this is impossible where I live now. I can hear everything that happens in my building, and it interferes with my work. Is it possible to learn to tune it out? How long does it take? Or should I continue knocking on people's doors and complaining?

I've tried foam earplugs, but they're uncomfortable, and apparently bad for your ears.
Ask YC: Technical Co-Founder and Non-Technical Co-Founder Equity Split
How would you guys split equity between two cofounders: one technical and one non-technical? I know this depends on the business, but what skills (besides coding) can the non-technical person contribute at the very early stages of an internet startup?
I used to work with these guys: http://www.astropress.net/
Worth a look.
As for drinking alone, I suspect it's better on the whole. It reduces the likelihood of violent crimes and car wrecks, anyway.

Seconded.
You're right. The hours are probably way off. I do financial due diligence for M&A. I'm on a deal for the next couple weeks for a software company in this price range and it will take us a little under 250 hours to complete a pretty thorough analysis of the target from a deal perspective.

Although we're only around towards the end of the transaction, bankers are involved from the beginning. They typically get an offering memorandum together, help the company organize their financial data, contact potential buyers and do anything else necessary to facilitate a smooth transaction acting on the seller's behalf.

As far as fees go, we're by the hour, but bankers may very well get a % of the total deal. I certainly don't make ibanker money, but there wouldn't be anytime for my hacking side projects if I did!
If I cannot lay Megan Fox, it's because she decided not to. Excercising my freedom does not give me the right to take away someone elses freedom. If however, Miss Fox says no to me, and I take that to mean that I will fail with all chicks from then on, then that is my own bloody fault, and its something I can change easily by trying for other chicks.

So when someone blames his reading of reddit on his high school, I say that's silly, and its something he is absolutely in control of, and can change without affecting anybody elses freedom.
OLPC Will Have Windows
The dumbest generation? Not this crowd
Total advisory fees for bankers in the last two quarters, as well as total deal size, are listed in the article below. In each case, it works out to be about 1.3% of total deal value.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGDI...
Basically it also depends upon relationship - going forward non of you have to feel like not compensated appropriately.
Job description for non-hacker could be anything and everything but coding (and/or web designing). So the list can go on and on ...
Sales,
Marketing,
Advertising,
HR,
Finance, etc.
Most of the time will go in to preparing business plan, research about your product/service & competition, sales & marketing and contacting angels/VCs.
The foam earplugs never worked for me.

This did:

http://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Relaxation-System-Active/dp/B000...
How about this: can you tell me precisely what statistic you want?
AGREED... with video you have two options:

1) stare straight into the camera and emote-- but this makes for awful video content that nobody will endure.

2) take advantage of the visual medium-- you'll make compelling video but it will take SO DAMN LONG to produce that your startup will wither and die.

I blew 10k on hvx200, arris, and audio only to learn: focus on the startup, focus on the startup, focus on the startup.

Everyone likes to be famous and on tv because thats what our culture drills into us. Think about all the kick ass products you respect... how much do they blog? vlog? I didn't think so.
The tragedy of suburbia
"but I certainly wouldn't want to risk my company on PGP"

All my privately owned clients do.

And none of them subscribe to Gartner or anyone else for "expert" opinions.

Unlike enterprises, they have to get the best value to stay in business.
Since when is using a widget on your page being a partner? If I embed a youtube clip in my site, does that make me a youtube partner?

I understand he is an investor, but come on.
Neither does "Amor Vincit Omnia", not all value derives from problem-solving.
pretty brilliant
Just remember to make your design at 300dpi or higher (in photoshop). I imagine vector art is better, but when I went we just had to make sure to be at 300dpi. I was making shirts for a bike race. We broke even on the shirts.
I found it sort of confusing and hard to navigate.
As far as I know, the cost is determined by the process and the quantity. Screen-printed shirts start out expensive, because you have to make one screen for every color (at $60-$180 per screen, I seem to recall, though it's been a year or more since I last got shirts), but get cheaper as the quantities increase because the screen is good for hundreds or thousands of shirts and it's really fast to do. The lifetime of screen printed shirts is much longer than the inkjet style printed shirts, I believe, as well. But, realistically, I'm not sure how precise screens can get--really intricate designs are out of reach of that process, I guess (I dunno, all my shirts are two color).

I believe there is a new multi-color process (a few years old, which is bleeding edge in the print industry) that apparently does high color prints at high speed, but I don't know how many providers actually have such a machine, or if the costs are competitive with screen printing.

I'd be curious who prints the shirts for the Mozilla Foundation. I love my Firefox shirt. It looks great, has at least four or five colors, and has held up well.