skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Clozure Associates has an open source Common Lisp with an IDE for Mac OS X. We're also working on the documentation. We're specifically working to remove the speed bumps for new Lispers. Check out http://www.clozure.com/clozurecl.html. We plan to have IDEs for other OSes too in the future.
You can't blame the VCs as long as companies like Google, Yahoo, etc. can make money offering free services.
Actually, most HN replies favor brevity. I like that.
> I didn't hang out for long, but both of the 2 people I talked to were there to hit on developers!

+1 for using the dating metaphor for recruiting/finding a job. How often do developers get hit on in the dating world? On dates or even just talking to a girl, I find I quickly steer the topic 'what do you do' to something like 'Heard of Facebook? I want to build stuff like that'
But a generic domain such as 'chocolate.com' probably receives tons of targeted, type-in traffic every day that can result in $$$ if they know how to convert their visitors.
Yet you profess to think in BASIC, and FORTRAN is very, very similar to BASIC.

I don't follow the metaphor about COBOL. Although it's syntax can be burdensome, the language is very efficient for the same reasons FORTRAN is: static typing, no dynamic memory allocation, efficient file I/O and the best compilers available. COBOL programs are not necessarily flexible, but the are fast and efficient.

Also COBOL has correct "accounting math", something that almost no other language has as part of the core. In fact I can't think of another language specification that implements fixed-point math as part of the core: usually it's part of an external library and is cumbersome to use.
More counterexamples: LiveJournal, Flickr, HotOrNot.
Another one for the I-wish-I-had-business-foresight. Who knew generic domains would be immensely valuable properties back in 1993/1994ish? They did. Back then, I wanted to register command.com - clueless still I am (DIS research owned command.com since 1990ish).
Sorry if my evaluation was hasty
How To Find Out Who Sold Your Gmail Address To Spammers
The day $2 billion walked out the door
80,000 job losses, unemployment spikes
Interesting read Denny, and some great points. However I have to disagree with your comment that entrepreneurs “must focus entirely on making money”. History (and research) suggests that money is not the over-riding factor motivating entrepreneurs and people wanting to build great companies. The book ‘Built To Last’ deals with this in detail. What I think differentiates entrepreneurs is their desire to create something original and of ‘value’ (not necessarily ‘profit’). Look at it another way, if your driver is profit, you’d be happy to pursue any start-up with good financial prospects. That simply won’t work. And that’s certainly not an entrepreneur. Money is important, and helps you realise dreams, but the ‘intangibles’ are significantly, significantly more important.
No. It's procedural epistemology.
That's really my point though: it's not being über-cautious to default to NSFW, because the point is to not get fired for accidentally clicking on a landmine.

If you can't give some sense of confidence that the tool will prevent that scenario, then it's usefulness is limited.
Software Development Life Cycle for BR-BPEL application
It's hard to find Ruby talent (I have a Ruby product team). But any clueful employer will hire a strong Python dev for a Ruby slot, any Lisper for pretty much any non-C slot, and even a Java dev if they rockstar their interview.

The people who have Ruby slots tend not to keyword screen.

The people who have Java slots do (or, at least, their directors do).
Matrix-style virtual worlds 'a few years away'
For a brief moment, I experienced the revulsion an attractive woman might feel when leered at like a juicy steak. It was enlightening.
Even that can be misleading. I share the post's distaste for Java, but I get paid to rip apart cool applications, and lots of them are written in Java --- even more are written in C.

That's true across all the verticals. Plenty of 2.0 apps are Java --- including large swaths of Google. Careful about myopia. In the end, the problems you work are are far more important than the language, unless you suck. I'd much rather work on a parser/compiler in Java than a report generator in Ruby.
I feel the same way. It's no-headphones, no-soundcards for me as well. That's just the way I roll. A (video) tag would help me avoid topics I can't really contribute to.
Guy writes: "There is nothing I am aware of in Facebook's Terms of Service stating it is illegal to tag people that aren't in the photo, video, or note."

Yeah, but I would find it damn annoying! I generally like Guy's take on things but tagging other people to "get attention" would be one way for me to chuck someone off my friend's list.
I agree, absolutely. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that "dabbling in languages is counterproductive". That's like concluding that martinis are fundamentally wrong because some people are alcoholics.

I'd also suggest that of the two pathological conditions -- Overdabbling and Underdabbling -- the Underdabblers outnumber the Overdabblers by a huge margin. We just see a lot more of the latter on the Internet, because for many obsessive dabblers the whole point is to brag about it.

You need to find a balance. In the end, I think this essay is much more about that balance than its title suggests.
I guess this is why I never post in language threads, we can go on and on all day. No one is right or wrong. Anyway, I'll try to address your comments.

There are so many different versions of BASIC; it's possible we are visualizing very different versions. I am accustomed to using INFOBASIC dialects as in JBase or IBM'S U2 line. Everything numeric is represented as strings (integers) including dates, times, and decimals, so there is no "typing".

As for efficiency, I used to benchmark like crazy, looking for the slickest algorithms and the best implementations of compilers and I/O routines. Not any more. Hardware has gotten so fast that I am more concerned with human time, not machine time. (Naturally, anything that runs 8 million times per second BETTER be fast.)

These days, I generate most of my code, so the verbosity of COBOL (if I used it) shouldn't be an issue. But it is. I have to drop down to the source so often and I work on the code of others often enough, that I am most concerned with getting the whole job done with the LEAST code. This is where "juniors" fall down the fastest (IMO); there's too many places for things to go wrong.

I know what you're thinking, if this is the case, why not learn even more advanced languages and frameworks with even less code. I dunno.

I guess I've "settled into" what works best for me (as everyone should). Is it the best? Probably not. Am I open to better ways? Probably. But not today. Too busy.
I love collecting Buffett quotes:

"Investment managers often profit far more from piling up assets than from handling those assets well. So when one tells you that increased funds won’t hurt his investment performance, step back: His nose is about to grow."

He's talking about mutual funds here, but the same applies to VC.
I agree, let's not jump to conclusions.

I'd like to see you defend your argument, that "underdabblers outnumber the overdabblers". Control for talent, please. Clearly there are thousands of VB forms developers out there; let's stick with the people working on interesting problems.
Yes, but it isn't pretty.

A static IP is, of course, preferred to using a dynamic address. On the name servers, you repoint your web address to your home IP.

The DSL "modem" is plugged into my router which I have allowed outside access to port 80 only to a specific IP on my home network.

Unrelated?: As a hobby, I also like designing my own http server software for specific purposes. :)
Yes, it's veeeery far from being usable. But, hey, it's only been started 6 or 7 days ago...
What about small software firms like Rogue Amoeba or Panic? They make fabulous programs and sell them for reasonable prices. I think the biggest problem with most of these web 2.0 startups is there is no product to sell.
Ha, I'll bet Verizon waited them out on purpose, just to make them wimper a bit.
I forgot an obvious one that I pay for: SmugMug.
http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2008/03/06/apple-bans-fire...

"No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)… An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise."
And note the first release has no problem with Unicode :)
4 GB of RAM is $60? When the hell did that happen?
The Continuing Relevance of C
Any ideas why Yahoo, didn't relaunch broadcast.com - as soon as youtube was known to be getting popular - they could have squashed them. (relaunch in the same space, not old broadcast)
his assertion that online ad revenue is the only real revenue stream is false.

the rest of the article fails because it was built on a faulty premise.

its true that there are lots of sites built on ad revenue, but it is definitely not the only revenue model.
It really gets interesting when you do it on wallpaper. I usually use the 30" brown wrapping paper from CVS or Wallgreen's, a lot of duct tape or masking tape, and different colored markers. Much better than a white board because someone gets to keep it.

Just this week, a client called me in to review a wallpaper prototype I did for him 2 years ago. He posted the whole thing in another room, gathered his team, and said, "Let's get started on this."

Funny, everybody in this week's session who was also in the first session looked at the paper and vividly remembered that day, even the food we ate while we did that.
The story of 64-bit Photoshop for the Mac
They do, but only if they are commoditized. Once you get a sufficient amount of differentiation, you can (and should) "price information according to its value, not its cost".
Not a problem. Thanks.
Fry's sells defective components back to customers in the hope they'll be too lazy to return it (they do have an extremely liberal return policy, though -- it'll just go back on the shelf for someone else to buy).
probably they were scared of getting sued for all of the copyright violations on user generated video sites like youtube
I'm starting to understand that most websites, especially websites produced by YC companies, are really media companies. From a business perspective, most of our startups have more in common with MTV or the New York Times than we do with Microsoft. We make money in the same way that any media company does - by selling advertising.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that. It's certainly riskier and subject to the whims of a fickle public. But there is also a bigger reward for success.

Saying that a new media company should charge their customers before they become popular seems counter intuitive. IIRC, this is how the Onion and many other major media publications began...they gave their product away for free until enough people read it that they could charge for ads.

It seems to me that most of the author's points could apply just as well to starting a new magazine or newspaper. Yet, I don't think that many people would agree that college newspapers are killing themselves by giving their products away for free. I think that the expectations people have for web startups would change if people looked at them as media entities and not software companies.
Good and Bad Publicity Works
Wanted to throw YourKit out there.

It's a great profiler, if you can afford it.

http://www.yourkit.com/

Even integrates nicely with IntelliJ.
Why no central repository for data used by social networks, Web mail, IM?
No, but don't focus on exiting when starting a company.

There, summarized the article in a sentence, now can we move on to more intelligent stuff?
I don't disagree.

I guess the bigger point that I am trying to make is that entrepreneur has two sets of responsibilities, one to self and one to others.

As an individual, I am obviously not motivated solely by money. Money is important but it is not the most important. I got up at 6:00 am this morning (as in most mornings) wanting to make a positive contribution to the World. But that's a private thing. And if we don't have this level of aspiration, we couldn't be an entrepreneur and no one else would buy into our vision.

But an entrepreneur has a public responsibility as well and that was what I was trying to emphasize in the article. I am guilty for over-stating the point but I think it is an important point for most first-time entrepreneurs.

Thanks for the comment.
I think that your comparison of the relationship of lists to lisp and hashtables to OOP languages is rather superficial. Lists relate to lisp differently than hashtables (or full objects actually,) relate to languages such a Java or Ruby.

In those languages, everything is an object, that is everything construct you define, whether data or code stared as an object, a set a behaviors and properties. (Assuming it is fully OOP, unlike Java.)

In common lisp, everything is an object as well, with it's own set of properties and behaviors. Cons cells are basic, for example, but you can still add properties to them and define methods for them. Encapsulation is not enforced, but that's for what closures and packages are.

Lists are dominant in lisp for another reason: the language itself is represented in them, not just the data and the methods, but the pre-compiled language, so that you can use lisps meta-programming facilities to generate lisp code itself. In most other programming languages, the code is represented to the compiler as text and to use such meta-programming facilities would require string parsing. Macros aren't a 'hack' but an actual paradigm shift. Attempts to do the same thing in other languages have largely been very clumsy, witness C++ macros. (Template Haskell apparently has managed to do it properly though.) Nearly Lisp's entire syntax is for defining the structure of the code; everything else is done with operators, functions, and macros.

If languages like Java or Ruby were represented in hashmaps the same way that Lisp is represented by lists, they would probably be incomprehensible. if you were to attempt to use a structure to represent the language, it would probably end up being something of a tree format. Code, is naturally hierarchical, even class definitions, and if I were to do the same kind of thing that one does with Lisp in C++ or Java, I would end up using lists. So I don't think that this comparison is really correct.

(BTW, I love C. It's not deformed, it was designed like that to A- make it easy to implement and B- give the programmer as low a level access as he needed. You are meant to define your own data structures and implement them in an efficient way using algorithms that make sense for the usage. You are not confined to a preset, possibly inefficient implementation. This is a level of control not available in a lot of other languages which is why C is so commonly used to write interpreters and compilers for other programming languages. Those highly efficient Python hashtables are implemented in C (and maybe a bit of assembler))
"It's not going to be a lot of fun. Recessions are never fun"

I laughed when I read that.

What I would actually be interested in, though, is a study on how difficult it is for the unemployed sector to find jobs if they are completely open to relocating, retraining, etc. It was one of the things I couldn't understand when watching Moore's "Roger & Me" (though not the only thing I was frustrated with, to be sure): Why, if you can only pay for one more month's rent, at which point you will be kicked to the curb, and there is absolutely NO hope of finding a job in your own town, would you pay that month's rent? Why wouldn't you take the money and make a last ditch effort a few towns over, where the chances of becoming employed are higher?
Ask YC: Good application for support emails and tickets?
Hello Friends,

We've gone live with some actual users now and we're starting to get support requests. What are you guys using to handle the tracking of these emails? I'd love to get recommendations for some hosted systems out there. I don't mind paying a bit either, although open source is always cool.

Thanks,

Matt
So would gargling Drano

So, can I interest you in some lutefisk?
Noise-cancelling neurons - the brain is a noisy place
Those are good examples. I think there must be a difference in market for them than for what the author seems to want to sell. Basecamp, FogBugz and the like are business-oriented tools and businesses don't mind paying for something of value. They show that their audience is up for exactly what he wants.

Plus, with the cost of hosting a small service being so low, a service of this sort ought to be making a little money fairly quickly (maybe not to where you're making a decent living yet, but enough to work at it and get it there if it's something people want and will recommend).

Being a small software biz owner (and so someone who pays for software), I find the mindset of my friends, who can't fathom paying for anything, kind of strange.

Not that I pay for everything, but I would rather use a better tool for a fee than an inferior one that costs me time. And judging by the Basecamp numbers, I'm definitely not alone in that one.
I'd like to hear you expand your thoughts in an essay (no pressure). This is intriguing.
Robots Could Do Work Of 3.5 Million People By 2025
I share out a Google spreadsheet with these columns:

Issue Number	Issue Type	Version	Fixed in Version	Issue Description	Status	Priority	Date Recorded	Creator
> It was enlightening.

I assume you didn't give them your digits/contact info.

Wow. Can you expand on this? Is it really like that for women when we go ga-ga?
Quotes from Jef Raskin on this:

* Once the product's task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design.

* Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.

* As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.
Google and Yahoo can do it because they can take advantage of their scale to monetize ads, as well as their diversity of products (profitable products can help pay for the unprofitable ones).

Which is exactly the author's point. He says that small companies are forced to swing for the fences in terms of user-base because a) that is all advertisers are interested in and b) the competitors (such as Yahoo! and Google) offer free alternatives.

I dont think it reasonable to set Yahoo or Google as the measuring stick of success as those companies are clearly way out ahead of anyone
This will likely continue to be a solid strategy. As new technologies and innovations come to light new generic groups are created. Maybe one technique would be to keep track of emerging internet meme's and jump on related domains ASAP?
I love the Google Apps and we use them. Just started using the Sites app with our customer.

However, what I'm really looking for is one of those systems where you send an email to support@ and you get back the automated response with a ticket. Then we (the developers) can track and prioritize.

I basically want Remedy but I want it nice and Web 2.0 and hosted.
Scalr Goes Open Source - Scalable Web Sites with EC2
there's a lot of software out there. it depends on what features you need, what language you want it written in, etc..

here's a partially complete list of open source solutions for you:
http://www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com/
But... How do we know that the original author would know who Summer Glau is?
are you really trying to ask what to do or just plugging the fact that you have invited to speak at some conference ie. enhancing your ego?
The Onion predates the www. They were a subscription-based tabloid (and still are). Generally, free media is bottom-of-the-barrel and advertisers prefer paying audiences. The traditional broadcast networks are the biggest exception, but that's probably a holdover from their predating cable. I've mentioned the stats before, but the nytimes has 10 times the web traffic as print, but 1/10th the ad revenue. (Those numbers are wrong, but it's something like that.)
> Besides, not staring at an ugly UI all day has its advantages as do the rest of the Mac productivity features.

You actually didn't state what any of these features were, or what the advantages of not staring at an ugly UI all day was.
whoops, just saw the techcrunch article on same topic here at HN :)
I'm not sure I'm sold on the idea of a spam countermeasure that can be defeated on the command line with sed.
hehehe yeah, maybe follow some training classes, being confident that you can get them at 15$ a month :-)
Hi,

I did read their post when it came out a while back, but I did not use their parts list for this computer or look at it recently. Looking at it now, the 3 common parts were the CPU, motherboard, and case.

Both the motherboard and the CPU are customer choice award items at newegg, with tons of sales and positive reviews. I imagine 90% of people building Intel quad cores use this CPU, and the MB selection is narrow. The case was the big coincidence, but it was $30 off when I bought it, which is why I did.

The "algorithm" I used to pick the parts was:

1. Go to new egg
2. Sort by # of ratings
3. Find the top-rated, high-selling stuff.
4. Look at the % of low ratings, and read a few of the low-rating reviews to see if something is wrong with the component (everything has a few one-egg reviews, but their kind matters)
5. Google the part to see if it's ok in the main reviews or if no major problems are around.
6. Done

cheers
Well, it's easily defeated. But it's a nice feature of email addresses that more people might like to know about. And at least you won't get false positives if someone defeats your trap with the sed approach.
"Free" is Killing Us--Blame The VCs
There is lighthouse..

lighthouseapp.com

It has e-mail support for ticketing
Amen for Linux software RAID.
2008 Social Networking Survey - 41% of Young Children Have a Public Profile
Try KayakoSuite.
It's one of the best.
Blogger used it when is was from Pyra.
April 4, 1975: Bill Gates, Paul Allen Form a Little Partnership
I thought about that too. They stayed out because two of those guys mirrored would have broken the $1,000. But yea, it's definitely good return on the money. If you've got a couple hundred more, I'd go for it.
OK. Here's a subtle technique. For prior to your big presentation. People like people who they have met. Before your discussion, stand by the entrance and greet everyone (handshake). If you can't do that, introduce yourself to as much of the audience as you can (prior to the talk).

They'll like you better and your talk because they have had (albeit very brief) contact with you.
Forget advertising for a moment.

Suppose you start a company to compete in an industry (any industry) where your rivals are profitable despite offering free services.

The fact they're able to do that is going to force your hand in that direction, too.

So it's the market which dictates those conditions, not your investors.
I didn't read it that way. He's seems to be claiming that getting good at a new language involves a lot of non-mind-expanding overhead---which, in the author's estimation, isn't worth the opportunity cost past one or two additional (sufficiently different) languages. I think this passage sums it up:

Aside from the immediate reasons, there's some merit to the mind expansion argument. I think being proficient in at least two languages is indeed important for boosting your ability as a developer. This resembles human language: learning a second one changes the way you think and your perception of the world. The third or fourth, not as much. But it can't be any two languages. If you know Portuguese and Spanish, your mind didn't have to expand much. Likewise, learning VB.net and C# doesn't count.