skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Interesting New Facebook Feature: People You May Know
Facebook just added a feature called "People You May Know: Found based on your existing connections".

The algorithm seems to look for people who:
1. You aren't currently friends with.
2. Are friends with 4+ of your friends.
3. Are friends with at least two of your friends who come from different groups.

I think it's somewhat creepy, but more than that an interesting and useful application of data mining to the vast data on Facebook.
This is confusing, because Lisp doesn't have the literal notation you're talking about. Since Ruby supports arbitrary lambdas using "lambda" notation (something Python does not support), it seems like Ruby's syntax can only be be better than Lisp's in this regard.
Product Ideas
if google owns your users, content and code, what do you own?
International Olympic Committee stands up to China, prompts partial unblocking of English Wikipedia
Ultimately, the smallest unit of communication must be a representation of a cognitive thought. Pictures work for this, but words are more convenient. Generally, you can't have a conversation with the link at the atomic unit because the link is only as good as what it links to; that is, the words or pictures in the link are what is added to the conversation, not just the link itself.

Also, it would be really confusing to communicate in links as there would be a difficulty in providing context.
I agree. I really just want to use Bigtable.

Please?
My Startup: A place for potential founders to meet
This isn't so much a new business as a new side project of mine. I've noticed a lot of people here and on other blogs and news sites saying how much they would like a place to find business partners. So in my spare time I put together http://www.FounderLink.com to fill this space. I've tried not to make just another social networking site and I am trying to keep the features as few and focused as possible while still being useful for the core functionality(Meeting potential business partners).

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Some Interesting Tech Facts
Google Finally Realizes It Needs To Be The Web Platform
Just so you know my position, I'm a major advocate for Python. I love it and not long ago talked about my "fun" integrating it with Counter-Strike: Source at PyCon, introducing Python to thousands of gaming enthusiasts who have never coded befre.

Where can you point me to "better documentation than PHP"? This is a major difficulty for new people getting into Python-- the documentation is really quite poor and out-dated. My life would be much easier if the core Python documentation was nearly as good and organized as PHP or, even, MSDN.

What I really want is for every framework and language to have documentation as stellar as the user guide for the PHP framework Code Igniter:
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/

As a long time Python hacker, I'm used to using the interactive interpreter for my documentation needs (and then the source later). But that is absolutely not sufficient for newbies coming into Python-- they're lost in the arcane organization and formatting of the core Python documentation.

If you have a site that provides better core/comprehensive documentation than the official Python docs, let me know, as there are hundreds of Python scripters who would love it.
History of Search Engines
Aren't you judging the kind of thing that makes credentials meaningful by citing the credentials themselves? As high finglefarb of the church of deontoenails, I am fully able to condemn this as heretical. And as someone experienced with condemning people as heretics, I am obviously qualified to be the high finglefarb.
Fastest Spread Communication Tool Ever: The Internet
First Internet Domain Names Registered
there's already a couple out there:

http://cofoundr.com

http://partnerup.com

like yours, they have various strengths; but a consistent weakness is that there's no inherrent reason for anyone to come back unlike say yc news or meetup.com
For once I agree with you. This reads like a description not of the rockstar but of the "team player" that big companies look for.

Not only are many of the items on this list wrong ("Uses design patterns" should be replaced by "Laughs at the phrase 'design patterns'"), it's missing the defining quality of the really great programmer: Redefines the problem.
Google Apps Engine Primer: What You Need To Know About The Apps Engine
Is the era of cheap Chinese products over?
"Minorities" really means "non-asian minorities, primarily black/hispanic" to anyone involved with the diversity bureaucracy. Jews are lumped in with caucasians, and therefore do not count as diversity.

It gets worse.

Gypsies are caucasian/european. Gypsies are known to be genetically and phenotypically non-caucasian. They also suffer from historic (and current) discrimination. No bonus points for you, whitey.

However, a Brazilian of 100% European ancestry (who speaks no Spanish) qualifies as Hispanic. This, in spite of the fact that his ancestors almost certainly oppressed the natives/slaves, just like an American of Portugese ancestry (who is white/caucasian). You get bonus points, Mr. Diversity.

Think it's nonsense? Are you a racist or something?
Thank you for the links.

I agree that there is very little reason for people to keep going back once they have found a business partner which is why I'm keeping this firmly in the side project area.

I think the biggest issue is that unlike other partner matching sites(dating sites) you're not likely to get many people looking for casual short term business partnerships. :)

Thanks again for the comments.
I couldn't create the identifier from their web page, it looks like it needs to be at least 8 characters long.
The author mentions survival rates, but these often just reflect improved diagnosis techniques. Mortality rates are more meaningful, and - sadly - haven't improved so much. (Props to Edward Tufte for pointing out this one.)
I think I took the AB test. This was in 2002, and AB covered binary arithmetic, data structures, Big-O, and a bunch of other stuff. The CS A test (which is all that remains now) cut out almost all of the data structures, and was light on all the rest. It was designed to be a single semester course, where AB is a full-year course.
What does Google App Engine mean for Ajax developers?
The Semantic Web in Action (Scientific American - December 2007)
Forget Iron Chef, How About Iron Coder?
Thanks. I'll use it.
Another reason to reduce lines of code: every line you write is another chance for a bug (this is the argument that I tend to use to convince people who don't believe in beauty).
Google's series A round was not the first money they raised.
Data Accessibility and Me: Introducing SIOC, FOAF and the Linked Data Web
That's what I heard in conversations with several people. For my application (ezLearnz.com), I'm really interested in using google documents instead of rich text fields, since that solves a whole host of problems (adding images, revision history, sharing editing capabilities, etc). But I think that's a ways off.
Freebase Data Dump (all assertions through March '08)
with the users api your users cannot be transferred, they are google users who can use your application, it isnt openid, you cant chuck this on another computer and have remote authentication.

I wonder, though -- what if you used something like a remote REST interface to do authentication, passing MD5'ed or SHA'ed passwords as one of the arguments, and then based auth on that? Google wouldn't like it, but technically it appears to be within the scope of the TOS.

Very, very good point, though... users and data are basically the only things that matter for this type of application.

I did find one of your other points spurious, though:

their query language is even google specific.

Oh for crying out loud -- if you can't write a Perl one-liner to convert every instance of GQL to SQL with bind variables, or if you don't already use placeholders in any instance of raw SQL in your own code, you've got worse problems than that. This is the least of the problems IMHO.

Something has occurred to me regarding NumPy, SciPy, R, etc. Since it's Google's CPU time, it's not my problem if a loop or matrix calculation is inefficient. I'm going to deploy some grad students to stress test their TOS... :-)
Creepy YES! Do I really want to look at my ex's who are still friends of friends of mine? Just waiting for an emotional distress lawsuit to happen.
Good to know I'm (presumably) not the only Sailer reader here.

I know Gypsies are discriminated against, but I was under the impression that they're also, uh, very criminal on average, and generally not well suited to many modern careers (outside of entertainment, especially music, at which they excel). I'm thus unsurprised that there is not a powerful Gypsy Lobby agitating for affirmative action benefits, or maybe some sort of foundation started by a wealthy Gypsy industrialist. (The punk band Gogol Bordello seems to agitate for Gypsy rights, though. It's a start!)

I've heard that the Chinese and Japanese immigrants in Chile and Brazil are also treated as 'Hispanic' for these purposes, even though they obviously don't need a leg up in such matters. The same source mentioned that the 'Mestizo' ethnicity covers what people think of when they think 'Hispanic'. Is that accurate? (This problem also shows up in racial crime stats; the FBI rather promiscuously mixes whites and Mestizos, so it's very hard to tell that, for example, white-on-black rapes are incredibly rare, at fewer than ten per year -- because Mestizo-on-black rapes are more common).
This is what I was thinking as I played with it last night.

I'm definitely going to use it for that. And if I can get away with it, I'm going to try doing some unclever implementations of semi-supervised ML, maybe a few matrix calculations, and see what I can get away with before they kick me off their grid :-)

It occurred to me that, since no one is paying me to optimize the usual tight loops that crop up, or write a C extension to speed them up, I can try just running a shit load of them in parallel and storing the results in their ObjectStore. Now I just need to randomize the ''request'' IP blocks and we're all set for the billion or so simulations that my officemate wants to run.
I was really impressed with this feature -- I got a ton of new friend requests in the days following the rollout.
You don't just write it correctly the first time?

// Mozart
your brand, and a copyright, if you have any sense

If they fuck this up, and lose developers' trust, they're done. I don't think that's the plan. I could be wrong.
My suggestion:
- Fix your site in Firefox
- Don't ask me to login / signup right away without giving me more info.

Here's your intro page for me btw: http://www.simplebucket.com/p/mdeymdg.jpg
> Thus some patients with FTD develop artistic abilities

and begin arranging and delivering flowers.
That would require at least 3 people to walk in, sing a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and walk out.
Enomalism Elastic Virtualization - open source virtual infrastructure/cloud computing platform
Google: Cloud Control to Major Tom
Why can't you upvote?
Thanks for the tip. Which OS are you using if you don't mind me asking? I do all my development in Firefox(latest stable release) in Leopard.

I agree with the login part and I am working on a demo/walkthrough for new users as part of an overall redesign of the landing page which is pretty blegh at the moment. But I'm not a very good designer, so if you know one perhaps recommend them to the site. :)
Great I hope it's useful for you, let me know if you find any issues or have any suggestions.
Has this anything to do with: http://www.founderslink.com/ (with the 's' in there)?
Ask HN: What was an idea or concept that made sense to you only after a small epiphany?
What I mean is for example an economic or mathematical concept which you struggled to grasp until one day you figured out something by yourself which was not thought or written about when discussing that subject.

What was that concept and what was the epiphany that made it all make sense?
Indonesia Bans YouTube, MetaCafe, MySpace, RapidShare And Multiply
They "make it up in volume"? This is true for the big boys (FB, MySpace, etc). But is it true for all of the "sorta successful" sites out there that merely get a few million page views a month?
I'm using Windows XP and Firefox 3 Beta 5 at the moment.
O rly? I agree that there are lots of ways to make money, but it's not as easy as it looks, especially for "social" sites. Facebook has a veritable army of geniuses, and they haven't figured out anything. What would YOU do with Facebook traffic?
Comparative advantage makes more intuitive sense when someone gives you the example of the young strong guy and the old slow guy trapped on an island.
Can entrepreneurs create demand?
Demand creators take a risk that demand fillers (or even revealers) never do. They have to have the conviction to believe that demand will emerge once people “wake up.” They have to be thought leaders as well as innovators. Motivators as well as inventors. Mentors as well as managers. And if it is about ego (i.e., “I know what’s best”) instead of a genuine attempt to guide people to a new beneficial perspective, then they’re likely to fail.
I would tend to agree that YC cookie-cutter clones are probably not going to succeed, but there are probably niches that are underserved. One that immediately comes to mind, just from the various discussions here, is the "I want to found a company, but I'm not in the US, and there's no such thing as a company founder visa."
Thank you, I'll get Firefox updated on my desktop and see if I can fix the display issues.
Underhanded?

1) It helps me, because I no longer have to write auth/auth and registration code.

2) It helps users, because they no longer have to create yet another account to access some random app.

3) Yes, it helps Google, because it promotes other Google Apps by creating more Google accounts.

Seems like a pretty obvious strategy that works out well for all three parties.
Google's Outsourcing to You
The author has ceirtainly touched a nerve.

I wonder if Perl 6 will be a better Ruby... I do hope we can start to use it by this year's end.
Good question: "That is an interesting finding, I'd be interesting in seeing the methodology behind the study."

Insulting question: I wonder if the authors made a certain specific error, when making said error implies the person is either ignorant, stupid, or intellectually dishonest.

I'm not not going to defend the statistic since I haven't seen the methodology. That said, I do think it's insulting to the authors to ask if they've made a very basic and specific error without first reading the methodology.

In any event, I'm sure you could email any of the authors and ask where the statistic came from if you are interested.
I'm paranoid, if my deprived server[1] goes down, the post can also be read here: http://dynamictyping.tumblr.com/post/31152364

__

[1] It'll get more love when I get more time.
For your snarky "for once" comment, you owe me a response to this: withholding distaste for the term "rock star", rock star devs:

1. Can estimate accurately.

2. Can solve problems involving graphs.

3. Can frame and solve problems compiler-theoretically, including parsing, domain-specific languages, and virtual machines.

4. Can code bare metal and understand the memory hierarchy well enough to know when that makes sense.

5. Can assess whether a problem is going to be compute bound or IO bound and plan accordingly.

6. May or may not write code that is easy to read ("maintainable"), but tend to write code that is extensible.

7. Understand caching, load balancing, and compression.

8. Can work with large data sets.

9. May or may not formally unit test, but can debug fast and can design code to be debugged.

10. Steal ideas from other strong projects (implying also that they read and evaluate other people's code).

Obvious caveats: I'm not one, but lists like this are always biased. "A rock star developer looks exactly like the ideal me!". Like with the original list, I could easily put a book to each of these.

A comment thread with nothing but people's lists would be fun to read.
I think you're absolutely right with this article.
Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary. I do not think Ruby is better for having an additional syntax (block literals) that is just like an existing syntax (lambda) only more restricted.
Design patterns?!? Give me a break. A rock star doesn't do design patterns. They use that book as a monitor stand.

Knows basic computer science?!? WTF. You don't need to memorize Knuth, but knowing more than basic computer science is pretty important.
You're basically saying "let's communicate with entire concepts and ideas instead of words, and let's represent those concepts and ideas via links to articles."

The problem is that the links will contain words which represent an idea. You couldn't have an article that was made entirely out of links. Furthermore, the link does not immediately convey an idea, unless the reader automatically recognizes the link (not likely). Using the link to represent the idea is more efficient for the person providing the link, but not for the people being talked too, when compared to reading a summary of an idea with the link as a reference.

It reminds me of a Star Trek episode (TNG) where the captain is stranded on a planet with an alien who only speaks with references to his species' history (there was also some wild beast that was hunting them). The alien would only say things like "Gesh, from Torrock," which represented a story about a warrior who faced a similar situation to theirs. That short phrase was the link, and it represented an entire idea, but to the captain it had no meaning, because he didn't know the story.

I suppose I should have found a link that describes what I just said. That would be hard to find.
Sounds tricky. The closest thing we have is TopCoder and the ACM collegiate competitions, and ESPN isn't exactly fighting for coverage of those events -- even though they're willing to cover spelling, chess, and video game competitions.

I think the big hurdle is audience engagement. Everyone instinctually understands how one thing can taste better than another -- Iron Chef routinely pulls in celebrity judges who know almost nothing about cooking. The public does not have the same intuitive grasp of code quality.
Web 2.0 and Two-sided Markets
Bret Taylor: Experimenting with Google App Engine
Today, I'm writing in Python, because Python has interfaces to the Win32 COM object for WinDbg's KD.EXE, and trying to make that interface work in Ruby cost me a day of x86 runtime code generation.

I'm not hating it, because despite all the stupid arguments, Python and Ruby are basically the same language.

But why do I still use Ruby? Because builtin Unicode doesn't matter to me that much, I can often answer questions from the Ruby source code faster than I can from Python's hard-to-search documentation, evented code in Ruby and Python is equivalently fast and everything else I do in C, and none of the other complaints from this article were valid. Against those points, Ruby's block construct is a huge win.
Orders of Magnitude
Energy, magnetic fields, angular velocity, see how it all measures up in this universe of ours.
The hard part is not gathering the money, but knowing who to back. That's why there are not a million successful Y-Combinators.

OTOH it is probably possible to figure out how PG and company are judging the people and ideas, and duplicate the methodology.

The world doesn't need a bunch of bad YC clones, but it sure could use a few more good ones. :-)
AWS is going to work better for a lot of people, no doubt. However, this is good for those people as well. Google opening up this kind of offering really puts the pressure on Amazon to improve the quality of all the AWS stuff. Competition is good. I'd really like to see one more BIG player in this market. I would guess Microsoft is probably going to be next, since they've already started with a SQL Server offering.
The syntax isn't meant to be "a better lambda". The syntax is meant to recast other language functions, like looping and iteration, in terms of messages and anonymous functions. Since idiomatic Ruby basically never has "for" loops, despite their easy availability in the language, I'm going to go ahead and call the "block" expiriment successful.
A few interesting entries:

Angular velocity:

10,348 RPM - 52x CD-ROM

42,980 RPM - fastest known pulsar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_J1748-2446ad

Power:

3 MW - diesel locomotive

2.5 MW - blue whale
The Truth According to Wikipedia
Movements require charismatic leaders. You can duplicate the $$$, you can duplicate the choice of companies, but can you lead them?
Cuill is banned on 10,000 sites
Cognitive Dissonance in Monkeys - The Monty Hall Problem
What Power Looks Like
On the Randomness of Pi
How Google App Engine Kills Startups, Tricks Consumers
There seems to have been the same level of hype over Facebook's apps and I haven't seen many Facebook app startups getting acquired by Facebook. Granted the Google App Engine is whole other level of app hosting but compared to the scale of Google could any single Google App Engine app grow large enough to worth acquisition by Google? The best offer an App Engine startup may get from Google is maybe a job offer and nothing more.
"I cringe at the title 'Software Engineer' "

---Ha. What's wrong with engineer? I actually cringe when I see Code Ninja, Pirate, Monkey, or whatever. Very juvenile. Sure, I am a programmer, software engineer, I can hack, and all that. But Ninja? WTF? It must be an american thing. Maybe kids in here were raised watching Ninja Turtles, and that's a wait to attract them, but seriously, it is just very juvenile and naive'.
Years ago when I was switching from Perl to something else (I ended up on PHP mainly, and others where needed), I did look at Python but documentation was something that seemed lacking at that time. It just made me think at that point that Python wasn't going to be easy to find answers for when I run into problems. Sad to see that hasn't changed yet, it's been about 7 years since I really looked at it, and has gained some huge traction recently too.
That book takes an unfair beating. I think I could still lose an argument defending it, but if you really want to consider the concept fully, you have to take into account:

- Alexander's "The Timeless Way Of Building", from which it borrows the concept of defining a vocabulary of design based on small, proven ideas applied fluidly --- where the GoF misfired was that Alexander's book has hundreds of patterns, and they only have like 15, which made the GoF patterns seem more brittle and simplistic than the concept they were talking about really is. Go read Alexander before laughing at Patterns.

- The extended "Patterns" movement, which can only be an improvement over (gag) OOPSLA --- for a credible application of the idea, see Schmidt's Pattern-Oriented Network Software books. Schmidt (of ACE/TAO infamy) managed to use the Pattern concept to discuss some valuable ideas in concurrency and distributed systems, and I still refer back to those books.
>Will proliferating seed companies start looking like micro sub-prime mortgage traders?

I question the analogy. Seed funding might become a fad investment, but it will surely be less volatile than the subprime mortgage sector. Subprime mortgage originators and buyers backed their assets (the mortgages) by a large amount of debt. So, if their assumptions were only a small bit off (say defaults were 5.0% instead of 4.0%) the debt holders could demand a large amount of new collateral, more than the companies had on hand, forcing them into bankruptcy.

Most venture funds have little or no debt. If they overestimate their return by 25%, that means that they will earn 25% less than expected. They will not, however, go bankrupt.