skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think the reason people were insulted is not because
you were putting down their abilities, but because
you were putting down their choices.

Oh, you'd rather be in a zoo, than in the wild? You suck.

Or maybe putting down their perceptive abilities.

Oh, you'd don't even realize you are living in a zoo? You really suck
It's not so much desktop integration that's needed at this point. People are stuck all day in their web-browsers--tabbed browsing has basically eliminated the need to use any functionality outside the browser window (e.g. your window manager), and thus discouraged people from using desktop applications, as they now require a greater mental context-shift than just going to the site of a webapp.

Prism has the first, most important step down, and the rest can come later: they push the user out of the browser environment and back onto their own computer's desktop environment. From there, the possibilities are (for now) simply greater.
"... I would love a dating site where I could search for women based on their reading habits ... Heard of this exact idea on popular media this week ..."

That's not a good reason to not try something - because there is already a service. In fact I'd be surprised if there was not more competition. Music is a good one. I'll see if I can find the service ...

some time later ...

There is an interesting article now on just this idea ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=149467
> So could someone here please make it? Please...

Agreed. Please make this!

A friend and I were talking about such an idea right around the time Friendster was making rounds... and after running through lots of issues and the one sticking point was honesty - perusing friends of friends on frienster, I ran into people I barely knew - but I was pretty certain that they hadn't read "Foucault's Pendulum" or "Infinite Jest", etc - they were listing books that were "hip" (within certain circles).

My conclusion was that Amazon needed to do this, they have a pretty full catalog of personality reflecting items for sale - and the key (in my mind) was that a purchase record was at least as important as a rating/review.
Teen Startup, ES40, Launches BT Ping
> I think it's time for me to go.

No offense dude, but this made me think of ESR.
www.last.fm, but it's one of those sites where people only incidentally hookup, like yelp.com
HK firm taps Filipino developers for iPhone apps
Hurray for lots of of links!

I tinkered with FPGAs in college as part of my digital logic class. I remember reading about Hugo De Garis's work with them and they sound neat.
relevancy should be a light weight factor in any automated filter script.
I don't know; seems to be a lesson in honesty, do you know? no!? then say so ... If you gained an advantage by slanting the truth then you will almost always end up over promising and under delivering
I lof the OCW! Thanks!
"our initial launch went well, we were getting traction. we had three choices: angel, vc or acquisition."

Call me absolutely insane, but isn't there also a 4th choice - "Make money"? :)
they need to hire a decent graphics designer. do any other services like this exist already?
Some of those kids are summer interns...
Does anybody use C++ anymore? I use Python and, when doing embedded programming, C (and maybe a pinch of assembly).

I'm playing with Arc.

I suppose people who write Microsoft apps may still write C++ but most of them have moved to C#.
I was thinking the same thing some time ago. But maybe it really makes a difference if it is a dedicated dating site? Probably worth a try.

Any sites with an api, to tap into their data?
I said "complex information". This is vague, but you can see the truth of this in a following way: take any topic, such as maps, which you mentioned. What's more complex, a map, or knowing how to make a map? The former will be a picture, but the latter will be mostly text. As far as I can tell, this is the rule. As you go up in complexity, text becomes more and more suitable.

By the way, I mostly agree that books are overrated. The reason is that most books are not very complex. Text is the wrong medium for the ideas of their authors.
instead of/besides a fixed top 10 sites, I would add any site that has been on techmeme. If it's been on techmeme everybody here has probably heard of it already.
Google for ESP game
Hmm the site says on the front page "Automatically". This was added later?
I also have the feeling that some news stay on the frontpage for a longer time than before. My hypothesis is that it happens because nowadays stories get more points.

Paul, can you check this? The average points of news that reached the frontpage, the points of the max. scored piece of news, etcetera?
Phoniness vs Magic
True, but they've been vetted for intelligence, programming skills and analytical thinking by a very rigorous selection process (much like YC) which helps with recruiting and money raising (again just like the YC brand does). And every one of them can afford to bootstrap his next 50 startups.
OK now that I logged in I see it (very small and in grey). I guess since I have been frustrated so many times before (I have this problem EVER time I go on flickr), I didn't expect to find one anymore.

Usually I end up going to the FAQ and then somehow I figure out how to do it. I don't use flickr that often, so I keep forgetting.

I guess I would expect a big, fat button, since it seems rather important, but it might be different for different people.
Why News of Iraq Dropped
The Fall Of Freeconomics. Why $0.00 Is NOT the Future of Business
http://www.textfiles.com/hacking/statemind.txt
I feel this hits the definition.
There are differences at levels between 'hacker' and 'programmer' and 'open source developer', but the universe is visible in a grain of sand.
Forget not to read dabblers and blowhards at www. idlewords.com
"be submissions discussing how to combat Hacker News deteriorating into just-another-news-site"

Irony?
16 points, no comments and this is up near the top? what is wrong?
C++ is like French. There are lots of idiosychrasies. Bad syntax leads to an inexplicable reaction (from the complier or Frenchman.) For the first few years you'll sound like a buffoon. But once you get the hang of it, it rolls off the tongue. And once you master the slang, you can say things REALLY fast and very few will understand you. I for one welcome this awkward new grammar and its unforgiving compiler errors. Vive Le C++0x!
Calling Y Combinator - need for YC in other countries
Sudoku in 201 lines
I got bored at work and had a go at a sudoku solver in Ruby. It can solve most medium difficulty puzzles.
Any tips on improving my code would be appreciated!
Using freeconomics isn't monopolistic in nature. There are ways to compete, independent of pricing strategy (e.g. all webmail is free, so the best product wins).

If Roovno is a service that can generate revenue for users while they use free web services, you're very much a part of the Freeconomy. In fact, you're betting on $0.00 being the future of business. lol.
I got bored at work and had a go at a sudoku solver in Ruby. It can solve most medium difficulty puzzles.
Any tips on improving my code would be appreciated!
I agree 100%. The things animals do in the wild are much more fascinating especially when you consider techniques that humans do not grasp.

The video is interesting but misleading. I would highly doubt that the elephant has a clue as to what it's painting. Elephants have an incredible memory and amazing dexterity, those two things coupled together makes it likely that the elephant is painting from memory. The elephant also demonstrates some advanced painting skills that i'm sure it was taught. I would be more impressed of some cave paintings done in wild naturally by animals.

That being said, it's still a pretty neat video.
we didn't find any of this a problem. I spent a lot of time on ebay forums, we had plenty of meetings with people much older than us that went v well and our seller focused strategy gave us the understanding of the ecommerce landscape that we wanted.
Be entrepreneurial, write a scraper API
How would you avoid cheating? Hope that enough people are honest?
imity.com but never took off
I should have read the comment before the code. I was just coming to the conclusion that the code could not solve the harder sudokus.

The wikipedia article on "Algorithmics of Sudoku" is a start for tips. There is a Scientific American article that has a good overview of the problem... http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~kuipers/readings/Sudoku-sciam-06.p...

Don't google for Lispers writing solvers. They will make you feel all bloated.
although, to go back to high fidelity - the big discovery is that it's not what you like, but what you're like that makes a relationship workable
This reminds me of Karl Popper's in his critique of Marx. Anyone have the quote?
Would the person who down-modded me please drop me email to yc@culver.net and explain, in detail, WHY they did this? Presumably, the "in-crowd" who can downmod is telling me that, somehow, my question should NOT be on hacker news. Or something. I'm terribly perplexed. Thank you for your response (if, indeed, you are man enough to respond!)
IPhone Pwnage Tool Released
Prism is nice and open, however, and combines well with any web technology that works in Gecko. That includes XUL, SVG and scripting, which gets you pretty far with developing desktop apps.
Agreed.

Adults who list Harry Potter as their favorite book (which is not the same as admitting Harry Potter is a fun read) by doing so fairly explicitly state that the universe of a children's book, however well written it is, is pretty much all the intellectual stimulation they care for.

Nothing wrong with them, most likely, but certainly not people I'd want to invest emotionally in. YMMV, of course.
I didn't downmod you, but I imagine someone had a problem with the question "Does anybody use C++ anymore?". Around here, probably not that many, but there is both a mountain of legacy code, and a good many domains where it's still appropriate (game development being a big one).

And, I guess, even more domains where it's not still appropriate, but where it's still used anyway. :)
I don't know, a lot of the stuff they are doing in C++0x seems to be of the "throw more syntax at the problem" kind. This is probably one of the better changes (along with the "auto" type inference and a bunch of library stuff) but I can't help but think they're at a bit of a lost cause.

If I was to try and "save" C++, I'd probably start from scratch on the template system. Really though, then I'd just end up with a idiosyncratic though type-safe implementation of Lisp macros.

Don't get me wrong: I've invested so much time in learning C++ and perfecting my skills in it that it makes me wish that I wouldn't be saying this, but every time I have to touch C++ I get "that sinking feeling". (languages I'm spending more time with these days: various Lisp dialects including Clojure; Ruby; Java/C# if I have to)

Oh, and live.com doesn't seem to work properly on Opera. Nice.
Brandon,

Thanks for the personal observations.

I find that I never make such a black-or-white decision: usually I have periods of increased or decreased usage which eventually peters completely out. So it's interesting to see someone who is either participating or not.

Don't let the commenters bug you -- one of the not-so-good traits here is that they sometimes seem to have a bit of a self-admiration society going on. It's not unusual that your post would get criticized. I found it right on-target for what I liked about news.yc -- some person making an observation about the market/program/philosophy-of-business and then asking others for comments. I remember some great AskYC and AskPG questions. Don't seem to see those a lot any more -- at least not as much as before. People who provide honest negative feedback are doing a great service for a community like this. PG owes you thanks for taking the time to rant a bit on the way out.
Abstract Mathematics - Calculating uncertainty before you get to certainty?
I, for one, think that this site has gotten much BETTER in the past year. It's the first (and last) I go to every day. It's got just the right mix of outside content, intellegent discussion of that content, "Ask YC" threads, and self-examination.

I sure hope I don't upset anyone, but here goes:

1. BrandonM, I recognize your name from encountering you many times in interesting threads. Sure hope you'll reconsider. We'd miss you.

2. BrandonM, you've been a member for 369 days and have posted an outside submission 8 times. AFAIC, your complaint carries no weight. If you don't like the content here, submit more better content.

3. If anyone sees a thread they don't like, don't vote up or click on it.

4. If you're tired of what I call "self-examination" threads, don't vote them up or click on them.

5. Personally, I find the threads discussing this site the most interesting. Here's why. Even though most of us are hackers, we're also users. (We'd better be, or we'd lose all perspective.) The one thing we all have in common is that we are users of THIS SITE. We NEED to keep talking about it. It provides valuable feedback to pg, and interestingly, it provides us much better feedback about each other. I learn more about how you guys think and work from your comments in these threads than any other type. Not sure why, just the way it is.

6. If you're concerned about the content here, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I surf about a dozen other sites throughout the day, and whenever I see anything interesting, I submit it. I don't feel like I've gotten everything out of the story until I get feedback here. Many stories die quickly (I'm disappointed), but many others take off. If you find something cool somewhere else, don't keep it a secret; let us know about it.

7. Vote!

8. Visit the "new" page more often. Lots of good stuff falls out of the top 30 to a quick death. Maybe we need a more prominent link to the new page, a "split screen" default, or more than 30 new links.

9. Starting a software business takes a lot more than good hacking skills and raw intelligence. You need passion, perserverence, thick skin, and big balls. Don't like something (here or anywhere else)? Shut up and do your part to make it better. Whiners don't belong here.

Sure don't mean to offend anyone, especially you, BrandonM. At least you had the balls to say what others must be thinking but won't say. And you gave the rest of us a chance to get a few things off our chest. Thanks. Hope to continue to see your name around here.
User moderation so you can flag any dubious tags, with exponential lock outs for dodgy taggers.
that depends on how many votes an article gets, doesn't it? I don't remember the formula you posted before, but doesn't an article that gets more votes stave off the decay longer?

In addition, I think that the perceived amount of stay is longer. While the front page as a whole changes faster, there are certain articles that stay for quite a while. It's less noticible if it's an article you liked, but if it was something that you hold contempt for, you'll tend to notice it every time you login.
maybe hacking. Or learn arc so he can contribute patches to HN.
http://openphotovr.org uses many CC-licensed images from Flickr, honoring license terms and giving attribution with backlinks. For example, we built San Marco from Flickr, unlike Photosynth's San Marco which was shot in one day by one photographer.

The problem with architectural photos on Flickr: everybody chooses the "best" viewpoints. This is why I couldn't build a model of Taj Mahal, one of the most photographed places on Earth - all good images of it are taken from the same point.
Good comment.

I notice that your karma is over 4000.

Could it be that you're just one of the "chosen few" who are supposed to represent the community at large? If so, it would stand to reason that your karma would go through the roof and you would be finding the site more and more interesting.

I wonder if the reverse holds true: if by choosing the "holders of quality" it also has the effect of choosing certain personality types as being "anti-quality" In other words, when a site gravitates to being represented by a select few (which we all know happens) does it also tend to completely turn off people of opposite personalities and tastes?

This is probably not such a big deal with a low volume of articles and submissions, ie, everybody gets a chance to make a difference in the conversation. In a 10-article-per-day site, everybody's opinion can get something on the front page. But as the volume increases, individuals get lost in the system and those that don't exactly match the opinions of the select few feel more and more isolated.

Just wildly speculating here. I didn't mean to criticize you personally, just using your account and comment as an example. Hope that is okay.
I thought this was interesting from several angles, but don't really have anything to add. Apparently, I'm not the only one.

What's your complaint, that people don't comment enough or that this got voted up too much? You never say, so how can we answer "what is wrong"?

Not every thread has to be about starting a software business. Also, weekends tend to be kind of slow, so they're a good chance to look at other interesting stuff.
That sounds reasonable, but how many LEDs are they using? RGB and blue LEDs have been under $1 for quite a while.
Is your dad John Gibbon?
I wish the title of the article wasn't so vague.

But that aside, there are a couple things that the article failed to mention. The obvious use is to watch TV and movies on it. However, I remember other interesting research uses for projectors.

The first well-known one is a major part of a multi-touch display. Of course, with OLEDs, it might be possible to make one without a projector--it just won't be as big.

Second, Johnny Lee, in addition to his Wii IR goggles, has previous projects, where he can detect the orientation of portable display surfaces (like a small board) by projecting gray codes. He cheats a little by having photo sensors at the corners of the small board, but the idea is to be able to project onto any surface, and for the projects to 'follow' it, as you move it around.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/thesis/

As a curiosity, there was a paper on HN a long time ago about seeing the back of a card. It used a projector to project patterns(gray codes again, I think), on the card, and a camera to read the reflection of the color off a book page facing the back of the card. Doing this, they were able to reconstruct the image of the card.

Lastly, it doesn't have to be a projector of visible light. If you had another 'channel' to project into your environment from your phone, you can probably detect what's out there

I personally want contact lenses that does augmented reality. because one is in each eye, it should be possible to create the illusion of floating displays in the air. That way, you can see it, an no one else would.
they might be bigger ones, or better focused ones (I'm guessing). The ones you're thinking of are mostly used as indicators, so I'm guessing it doesn't matter where they shoot their light.
I worked in finance here and there.

There are a lot of smart people there, but also many people with advanced degrees that are more book smart than street smart. So they sell book-smart snake oil, or help others do that indirectly via a stable of credentialed eggheads. (Cf Nassim Taleb on derivatives shenanigans.)

Street smart is a lot more important than book smart on wall street.

Too bad I'm so book smart :)
That's not really what this is about, however. Knowing who Enrico Fermi, Alan Turing or Paul Erdős is, indicates you know your math. Knowing who Pushkin is, on the other hand, serves as a tribal marking that signals that you're one of a group of people that have a certain outlook on life, namely one in which literature is important.

If you're hiring someone for your startup, that's probably not important to know, but if you're looking for someone to have a relatioship with it can be helpful.
Lambda functions and closures in C++. E-gads man! Wasn't the language complex enough already!

I have to say: I love it. C++ has always been my favorite language that I don't program in. It's like kung-fu for programmers. You can attack any problem. But most times we don't need kung-fu.

There's nothing like "getting in the zone" with a good C++ program. It's a thing of beauty. And if you're doing stuff that you have to use the tool, like writing drivers, low-level stuff, doing some "break the rules" programming, it's the best there is. I wrote a shell extender for windows many years ago in C++. I got to change the desktop and file system to work the way I wanted it to. Very neat stuff.

The sad fact is that most of the time you can make more money writing something with a much higher level language. And you can make it faster and adapt to the market faster. So C++ is a tougher language to use for startups, in my opinion (although it is still my favorite)

Can you imagine the trouble you can get into with macros, lambda functions, and unsafe pointers? How about throwing i some operator overloading? It's like a playground for nuclear weapons.
Ask YC: good place to find CC licensed music?
I'm looking for some music licensed under CC to use in my screencaptures. I had a look on jamendo but couldn't find anything suitable. Any ideas?
"Could it be that you're just one of the "chosen few""

I've never been "chosen" for anything in my life. That's why I'm a hacker. With few exceptions. everything I've ever had or accomplished has been a result of hard work and perserverence (good thing I love what I do).

"represent the community at large"

Ha, if only it were true! I often wonder if I'm the most contrary person here. I've never "audited" my comments here, but I'd be willing to bet many of them were "against the common grain".

A little background: I have absolutely NO formal computer education. I was a math major in a college without a computer science department. I have written tens of thousands of original programs in many technologies in over 80 companies. I don't fully understand social networking, or ad based revenue, but I do know how to build what users need. I don't blog, facebook, twitter, instant message, or text. I often worry that I don't fit in here, because I feel so different from the "typical" member, if there is such a thing.

My karma score is a direct result of participation, nothing else. Anyone can do it. I have no idea (nor do I care) if that score "entitles" me to anything. I love it here. I sit at my terminal from 12 to 16 hours 6 or 7 days per week. Except for the few precious hours with friends and family, THIS is my social life. Don't even have to get up to interact with other humans, alt-tab does it.

Yes, you are wildly speculating. But that is okay. How else would we know about things unless we talk about them?
Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'
Does any prosper lender really just do it for the money? Hope not.

An unusually low default rate would show to me that the money is going only to people constrained by their fear of risk.
I feel like there's been a slight creep in people posting articles about recession, polictics, current events because they believe that these things are important to this audience. It all still falls within "Hacker News".

I think people may have formed an internal model about the sort of things they think appropriate for this (or any such site) and get concerned when a submitted article doesn't conform to this. I feel it occasionally on programming.reddit.com, sometimes there are articles there that seem to be on there purely because it mentions the word "computer" or "internet".

But to my surprise when I visited archive.org and pulled up the front page from just over a year ago I see:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombi...

There really isn't much change at all in the sort of articles being posted.

Out of curiosity, where will you go instead of HN? I've not encountered anything better than this place yet - the high comment quality especially.
Google has lots to do with intelligence