skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
blink

Stereotypes? Where? I wasn't making generalisations, I was describing my daily work environment! The fact that you identify that environment as being stereotypically male rather proves my point, don't you think?
> killer auto-submit RSS feature

Definitely a killer feature, check out the new page on the site, it autosubmits things at zero points.
Just curious: will there ever be something like a Common Scheme? (Hardened by common practice?)
This article is pure FUD. Sure adoption of Vista is slow, but so many mission-critical applications are built for the Windows platform that businesses won't be moving away from it any time soon. Not until there is a sane upgrade path or they are finally forced to invest in something new (be it a rewrite, etc.), which realistically could be decades for some.

The majority of home users still run some flavour of Windows, and likely don't have a reason to upgrade and won't until there is a compelling reason to do so. Processor speeds and RAM sizes are "good enough" for most users now, and have been for the past couple of years.

Windows as a fashion is definitely passé, but it won't get thrown out like your old Vaurnet T-Shirts and Bugle Boy jeans...
> while Facebook is generally considered to be a clean, open, and sophisticated networking application.

And then they implemented Facebook Apps.

Lesson to startup founders out there. If your website is blessedly devoid of spam, don't create it yourself. It really pushes your users away.
Virtual world offers bands global stage
Traditional software licensing: Why you pay more and a look at your options
An Open Source Class-Five Switch
Which is why they advocate a backward compatible virtualization module for win32 compatibility. Either way, Microsoft has to take a more modular approach if they're going to sustain backwards compatibility and continue innovating in future OSs. The effort to remain backwards compatible has outstripped the effort to innovate. Vista is the proof.
As I said a long time ago in a Slashdot comment answering almost the same question... don't mess with someone whose last name is Cumming and who made it through school :-)
The idea is good. I will add that to my favorities, but you realy ought to work on the layout. It is ugly, in my sincere opinion.
I don't think an automated ban is a good idea. Hopefully the weighting system will count those voting the VW stories up with less weight.
So do it. I disagree, and apparently some others do too, but if it works for you, great.

There's a lot of stuff I don't understand. I know how to build cool stuff; I learned that in a community that was good at building stuff (the open source world).

I don't know very well how to pitch it, who to pitch it to, or when I've got it right. But I'm trying to figure that out, as are a lot of folks here. Pooling experience tends to pay off.
The business case for Google App Engine
We should be openly advocating for brain performance boosting. An open debate would include clear admission that many of today's drugs have side effects that outweight the benefits. Those drugs that have net positive benefits are used by billions of people, e.g. cafeine.

We need to significantly and openly fund a search for a drug like meth that doesn't make you go batshit crazy.
I agree. It's not our layout, this is Slicehost. They are working on it. They don't have a custom CSS feature yet.
column-oriented databases are great for huge amounts of information which will primarily require reading and updating, with not much inserting at all. if this is relevant to your web app, then i would recommend this approach. if not, then you don't really need it, and you'd be fine with a regular row-oriented database.
Building Flash applications with Google App Engine
The default installation is pretty bare just like Debian. I've had no issues with it, and it does offer more up-to-date software compared to Debian (as well as Python 2.5 being the default unlike Debian, if you're using that).
I agree that it is a bit difficult to find out what hardware works and what doesn't. I have a working printer and a working scanner, though, and I didn't do much tweaking. The tweaking only applies if you have some weird hardware that you want to get running no matter what.

But remember the "stuff" discussion - it really is not very expensive anymore to buy a scanner or a printer that works with Linux, so maybe that is an easier route.

Wireless Networking: not sure what you mean, it works flawless for me.
Can't comment on your hardware problems, as I don't have them.

Windows: maybe I am wrong, but I would suspect that Microsoft pays PC vendors to put Windows on their machine.
R6RS is a first attempt at doing something like that. It's an attempt to standardize things that are continually recreated (differently) by each implementation (hash-tables, modules, structures, IO).
Wow, iamelgringo, that's a scary story. Not just the valleywag thing, but the whole "information" angle. Sorry to hear about your friend. Glad to see that things are working out for him.

I have made many comments about my experiences, but in "loud mouth restaurant mode", without names and places. Isn't that one of the purposes of this board, to learn and share with each other?

I often wonder if a sleuth" went through my posts, they could figure out names, dates, and issues. I'm not sure what they would do with that, but your experience, along with with HN's increasing popularity, gives one food for thought.
The Growth Of Collegiate Entrepreneurship
Government Quietly Changes Rules on Foreign Tech Workers
Starcraft AI bot war
How to Make US Broadband Competitive - Quickly and Cheaply
Virtualbox: Absolutely perfect virtualizer for x86 platform. Give it a try.
I am using wifi at home (desktop+laptop) and has worked on it at couple of places. It worked alright for both wired/wireless options w/o any problem.
Havent worked on OSX but when I compare Windows Vs Ubuntu; ubuntu should be preferred choice for programmers atleast. It runs quite fast compared to vista/xp too.
The Psychology of Getting Suckered
Merb has a wiki, built with Merb.
Interview: Toluu Founder, Caleb Elston
Blogonomics: The Seeking Alpha (Business) Model
I'm not familiar with Michael Silver or Neil MacDonald but wow, I hope this isn't a case of prediction being any kind of catalyst. These guys probably get high off the smell of their farts.

I wonder if they're Apple Fan-boys.
Much like my recent experiences with TipJoy, Toluu really listens to it's users and work hard to improve the service. This is even more amazing since Toluu is just a side project.

Toluu is an RSS sharing and suggestion tool in private beta. Invites are available if you want one just leave a comment on the post. I'll check back here as well if you would rather request an invite in this thread.
There is an error in the article and I was described as a "serial YCombinator" which I am not. I am however, a frequent YC News reader, and have learned a lot from the discussion forum.

Hopefully this will be corrected soon. Very sorry for the misrepresentation.
As funny as this would be to watch, I think this underestimates the lock-in effect Microsoft has on business and everyday users. Even with Ubuntu, linux isn't going to capture the mainstream in a long time, so the only real threat to Windows on the desktop is OS X... and since you have to buy hardware to get it, Microsoft still has a pretty strong moat here.

Now if Apple were to give away their OS for non-mac hardware, that would be interesting.

As for Office, no online solution can compete until net access becomes ubiquitous. You can't use Google Apps on a plane at the moment, and a lot of users are comfortable with Word's UI.

I think Microsoft's business model is eventually doomed, but not in any time frame short enough to make the Yahoo deal matter in that regard.

It seems to me like Microsoft should leverage what it is very good at (marketing) and try to compete with IBM in the consulting business rather than try to compete online. There will always be a huge market of MBAs wasting money on overpriced tech advice!
Separate the decisions into two large bins: issues and details. Spend more time on issues than details.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=159978
Unprecedented sharing of data is starting to happen, and friendfeed is setting itself up as the hub of that sharing.
I have an x_64 machine with an Atheros card (5007, I think). Nobody can make this work yet to my knowledge (it works on i386). Typically, it just takes a while for open source versions to come out for proprietary drivers. Same (I'm hoping!) for my Epson R280 printer.

So it's not really weirdness that sets you back, as much as it is using linux-friendly stuff. It's riskier to go with Linux. Kinda like stick-shift vs. auto transmission: Stick-shift is way more fun, but it takes more effort to learn and is inconvenient in heavy traffic when you are trying to do other stuff....
That is correct. I found that all MySpace music profiles have that pattern. I think MySpace does it.
I dislike Microsoft, but the idea that the only hope of MS is online advertising is scary. We're talking about 30 billion in sales for office and windows. Is the only viable alternative for MS to give up all that in order to chase advertising dollars? Will 'free' really kill an entire industry?
I did not just look at 100-101M. I looked at 100-110M, ~200k from each interval of one million. I concurrently ran 10 threads looking at intervals of one million. I did not include this in the code because I wanted to keep it as short as possible for the blog entry.
Really? Maybe someone should take a closer look at EA.
Not sure if this has been asked before, but I'd like to see a feature that alerts us whenever someone either 1) posts a reply to a submission we made (should be optional) and 2) posts a reply to a comment we made on any submission (again, optional). An "alert" can either be an email or a message indicator on the site in the top right corner.
I'm not so convinced that Microsoft's business model is doomed. Even with ubiquitous net access, there are still issues with keeping sensitive information on evil corp servers. Not just legal (medical info, educational records, etc.), but also practical issues. After all, if you are a software company, you are competition for other software companies. (This is what MS overlooked as Google was taking root.) Putting your business strategy in their hands is not something I'm comfortable with.

I think MS's stranglehold will be loosened, however. I am fine working with Open Office (I really like MS Publisher, however), Firefox, and other "alternative" apps. I think others will be too, especially if the recession turns out to be very painful.

Imagine how much $ a school system would save if they went to Open Office?
Map of all Google data center locations
Awesome Stuff.

Extremely simple.
Very Useful.
Usability rocks.

You guys are going to make tons of cash from this.
Johnny Lee: Wii Remote hacks [video]
I love this approach of using powerful, but cheap, technology to bring a powerful new tool to the masses.
I don't get while everyone likes to complain that there are these high skilled American engineers that can't get jobs because of cheaper H1B workers? Where are the people because I know many companies paying top dollar that have a real problem finding talent.
It was a very well written article. Wisdom is something that eludes the masses. I can't begin to comment on it seeing that I lack a lot of it myself. Even though knowledge is more and more accessible, the wisdom to use it will not be within the granting power of Man. [taken from various philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and probably many more have glimpsed this trait of human nature]
Nearly perfect. My dream world would involve DirectX 9 support and USB passthrough support in the free version.

That said, it really does kick ass. I'd recommend it.
Currently, each person is left to give their own 'meaning' to a vote. I think that this approach would help define that meaning: A 'vote' is public support for the quality of an article, such that you are willing to associate yourself with it.
How to Open a Microsoft Product Box, aka Usability R Us
Life Recording: Google for your Life
Very well said, but the teachers that take upon themselves to present subjects like 'Philosophy', are not to enthusiastic about it and the students may find it difficult to grasp the implications of 'Philosophy' in their lives.
Why we are called Generation Y?
Facebook & MySpace have managed to get people on the internet who wouldn't normally be on it. If you sampled random college students, I wouldn't be surprised at all if most of them care very little (or not at all) about blogs. However, most of them probably use Facebook or MySpace. It's hard to get the perspective when we're some encompassed in what we do. Personally, I rarely sign onto Facebook but am reading blogs daily. I know very well that I'm the exception.

I don't think Facebook is worth $15 billion but I wouldn't trivialize it too much - it's becoming the de facto online personal communications tool.
They predicted computer will be like this
well the Protoss have the higher scores probably because they are the last left in the game and would have fought for more time.
if the AI would be more developed then playing against 2-3 computers would be impossible. I think the AI scripts are for training benefits.
I think the norm is to descend into a competition with others about who can get the most 'friends'.

I expect the average facebook probably has a few hundred 'friends'. Which makes the whole thing a little bit pointless.
Sounds interesting, but Virtulization is a crowded market- Is there a guide/chart/article explaining what this offers over other solutions, such as Xen, Vmware, or Parallels?

I'm sure it's a great package, I'm just trying to find the unique selling point- I'd love your insight on what you liked about it.
apple is never going to allow their OS to run on anything but apple hardware. not so long as steve jobs is alive, anyway. yes, a lot of people want that, because it would be good for them, but it wouldn't be good for apple, and it wouldn't be good for apple's non-technical users, either.
I was accepted to the Hinman CEOs program at UMCP (http://hinmanceos.umd.edu/).
My impression so far is that this program, and others like it, are a good first step for aspiring entrepreneurs. They concentrate like-minded and motivated students -- a great way to find a co-founder. (Which is essentially what I'm hoping to get out of the experience)
Great service. I'll probably use it. The demo is really well done. I'm impressed.
People are extremely fickle. A few years ago in the UK, everyone was on friendsreunited. Then they all moved to facebook/myspace.
If there's a new thing with some cool feature, they'll all move to that.
Facebook is just the current fad.
I "discovered" google when a search on Yahoo that used to bring me to a certain site no longer returned on the front page. I saw "powered by google" rather than "powered by yahoo".
I don't see that experience on facebook though.
Email/IM/IRC/blog+forum comments - those help me to keep in touch.

Facebook just spams me with invites and stupid boring status updates. It's like a very very bad webmail system with a shared address book.
> Where are the people

And to you I say "where are the companies?" I know that I can speak for myself and my peers that these mythical $100K positions that companies are having such a hard time filling are pretty hard to come by.

This move by DHS looks like blatant brown-nosing to corporate interests who have been pushing this "shortage" crap in order to cut their bottom line. It's pretty clear that cost cutting is the main motive when the average H-1B worker is paid thousands less than the average native employee in the same field.

P.S. I understand that companies DO have a hard time finding talent. The market is filled to the brim with JavaSchool clones that flood HR departments with hundreds of resumes week after week. The companies should, however, actually try to reach out to good talent instead of just wading through piles of resumes.
Large corporations will never switch to Open Office, because they have too much invested. The home edition of MS Office is $129, which isn't too bad for most home and small business users, and it means they have exact file compatibility with other businesses.

I like Open Office, but I would never have bothered to switch except for the fact that I prefer Linux to Windows.

I owould say that cash-strapped startups and nonprofits are the most likely groups to switch to Open Office in particular, though I expect just as many OO.o switchers are actually people who switch to Linux and use OO.o by default. There would probably also be more switchers if the native Aqua version for Mac were rock solid.
It will continue to be very relevant for college campuses for a good while yet.

How facebook will be replaced.

http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2007/11/google-opensocial-and-...

http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2007/11/social-network-transit...
the ai checks players' hotkeyed groups? i hope this doesn't spark another korean war.
Startup Lawyer
Hi,

I really need a good startup lawyer in the Miami area. Do you guys know anyone?

Thanks
"vista will collapse" is likely too sensationalist. i'd say it's more that windows is continuing its long, slow slide into irrelevance, a trend that has been evident for several years now.

the most encouraging sign i've heard about microsoft lately is that the next version of windows will supposedly break binary compatibility. it will continue to run old apps, but only in an old-windows-emulator, much the same way macosx used to run old mac classic apps. they'll finally get to break free of the 20 years of backward compatibility that's strangling them.

that means they'll have a chance for a smaller, leaner OS. will they also take that opportunity to make a better os, in terms of user experience and programming APIs? i kind of doubt it, because microsoft is too big to get out of its own way. but it will be interesting to watch, nonetheless.
The new chip that will let an iPod store 500,000 songs
You could replace "Facebook" with Hacker News in your argument.

It's not the technology, but the community.
> Is the only viable alternative for MS to give up all that in order to chase advertising dollars?

No, of course not. Anyone who thinks that is on crack.

But what we may see is that Windows and Office are mature businesses and if Microsoft wants to continue to grow, it will have to be online.
I did not have an opinion. But after reading this I do. Ban Valleywag
Damn, one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments. Congrats guys!
It works very well, little slow but is not speed what is intended to be tested. I tested my site with IE 5.0 ... awfull! :)
I just missed the Mac OS , as only Windows and Ubuntu are available right now.
For me, the selling point is the ease of use. VirtualBox is like the Ubuntu of virtualization suites... it just works, and works well, and it's easy to get going.
Fierce battle rages over Yahoo/Microsoft deal in Washington
I choosed Vista plain install. All I get is a blank white screen. On top, it displays the % bar and two buttons.
Ok, we'll try banning them for a while.
"Now if Apple were to give away their OS for non-mac hardware, that would be interesting."

1. Give away the key differentiator of your product for free to eliminate any distinction between your products and those of your competitors.

2. ????

3. Profit!
I believe his point is that the cheap buildup/teardown of processes is inherently safer and more mature than a monolithic clump of threads in terms of isolating processes and ensuring resource deallocation. The startup time of the VM is a red herring in this case. I too have seen impressive VM uptimes. Almost as good as the OS uptimes I've seen.

Java threads are dead easy as threads go. However, I don't believe that they're going to be a sustainable solution as we move forward. As processor counts keep rising and the focus moves from scaling up to scaling out we need to find more easily understood and debuggable abstractions for dealing with a massively parallel world.
I had the same problem. But then I figured out.. you need to enable Java.

I get a lot of runtime errors in IE though. Worked great in FF.
Valleywag sometimes goes too far, but the writers are often willing to tell the ugly truth about technologies, even if no one wants to listen. For instance, Valleywag was one of the few blogs to question the Second Life hype a few years back, while practically every mainstream media publication was gushing about all of the great business potential there.

Valleywag also highlighted some of the negative goings-on with Wikipedia under Jimmy Wales. Yes, some of the revelations were merely titillating but it also pointed to first-person accounts of alleged financial wrongdoing.

The media has an important watchdog role, and Valleywag's coverage, as flawed as it may be, sometimes goes where other reporters and bloggers fear to tread. Let it remain on Hacker News.
RSpec plain text story runner on a fresh rails app
It's not deducing a third property "hasParentNamed".

It's joining the two graphs so that you can do a query like this:

SELECT ?parentName WHERE
{
?child name 'Brendan'
?parent parentOf ?child
?parent name ?parentName
}

to find the name of Brendan's parent.

You're being quite patient with me, thanks. :)
"I think Microsoft's business model is eventually doomed, but not in any time frame short enough to make the Yahoo deal matter in that regard"

I'm not so sure about "doomed" -- "threatened," I might allow, for a sufficiently liberal definition of "eventually."

Vista isn't doomed because the desktop is dead -- it's doomed because it sucks. Web software may represent a legitimate threat to Microsoft someday, but it seems the more immediate concern ought to be that they can barely develop software anymore. It took 6 years to get from Windows 95/NT to Windows XP -- a huge step forward in so many ways. Then 6 years later, Vista brought us what, exactly? Worse performance on the same hardware? A pretty new interface that practically requires a 3D graphics card to open the start menu? DRM? A completely reorganized interface offering negligible improvements over the old one? A privilege escalation implementation that causes as many problems as it solves? An eye-popping $319.95 price tag for the "full" version? Sign me up...
Why podcasting is failing
I think finding a team is still the primary reason to join one of these programs. Around here (FL), the startup culture is still not such that our entrepreneurship program really gives deep insight into starting a web-based business.

There is a lot of cross-over between the web and more traditional markets, but a lot of the details still need to be culled from experience. As you said, the really nice thing is that you find a lot of like-minded, entrepreneurial people -- which is often one of the harder parts.
Automatically Creating, Loading, and Migrating your Database (with Rails Magic)
Java! Interesting. I did not use that since the 90s.

Ok, I enabled Java and reloaded. Then I got "download missing plugins" in that formerly empty space. I clicked on it and then got a window saying "The following plugins are available: Java Runtime Environment". In the meantime, in the background, the page got dark and displayed something about the fact that my session timed out. Anyway, I clicked "next" to continue to install Java. Then I got a screen saying "Java Runtime Environment Not Available".
No OSX support?
Well... I don't know if you'd always want to display the list, as that opens up the potential for vote buying, because you can verify that someone has voted a certain way.
And what if you had two candidates that were of similar ability, and one of which has shown you his Google non-compete agreement?
I really like this and I agree, it's one of those forehead slapper idea's, obvious when you see it. Is it just me or is the pricing structure a little aggressive?