skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is wrong, but being a civil argument, at least there are concrete things to refute.

One problem with direct observation is that it's hard to get a representative sample. It can be done, but you have to make it a deliberate project and put some time and thought into it, rather than just stumbling on a bunch of programmers in a café.

False dichotomy. PG's sample is neither a deliberate project, nor the people in the cafe. It's the programmers he has known and observed over his life. There's no reason to doubt representativeness of his sample.

a case where an ad hominem argument is relevant and valid.

There's never a case where ad hominem is valid. If it's valid, it's not ad hominem, by definition. A logical fallacy can't be valid. But I'm nitpicking here. His point is:

The fact that this observation confirms his preexisting belief in the worthiness of startups makes it less credible than if the same observation were made by someone who had no particular interest in startups.

Occam's Razor suggests that PG works with startups because he thinks they're better, not that he thinks they're better because he works with them. He is rich enough to work on whatever he wants.

A creature that's perpetually dissatisfied, always striving for advantage, wins out over a creature that's happy.

Then why does happiness exist? Why hasn't it been eradicated millions of years ago? Answer: because it serves a purpose. It's how evolution tells the organism, "keep doing what you're doing". Not everything that mentions nature is an appeal to nature.
ProBlogger Launches PayPerTweet
That's the point (even inferable from the title) - he'd take a good programmer who was slow (like you describe) over the bad programmer, who is slow, and writes bugs, and takes a long time to fix those bugs, and makes more work for other people. Fast good programmer > slow good programmer > fast bad programmer > slow good programmer.
Spoiler free sports info for people who are slightly behind.

If I missed the game, give me a reliable way to find things like a replay broadcast time, or as a last resort streaming highlights video, without bumping into the result.

If I'm at work until 8pm and the game starts at 7pm, give me a news stream/aggregator that fills me in on last minute news like injuries and starting lineups, but cuts short as of the game start. That way I can dick around on the web at work, then go home to watch.

Let me see what the league ladder looked like 48 hours ago, so I can decide which of the games on my DVR are worth watching.

Give me a browser plugin that scans pages on load and hides them if they contain recent results for a team I follow. (Damn you, gmail web clippings.. come to think of it, blank over the browser if you spot something in an XMLHttpRequest, too)

I'm an Australian who enjoys European soccer and F1, so one or two fixtures a week, often delayed telecast and/or recorded at awkward times. Not sure how well this would translate to American sports.
The best service providers for startups
The underlying assumption seems to be that H1B = cheap labor? As far as I know, this is certainly not the case.
Being opposed to immigration is different from opposing H1B. I'm not a big fan of H1B but I would pave the road with gold for more talented developers and scientists to come work in America.

One change I would make to H1B would be to auction them to companies instead of granting them. That would shut up the cries of "We can't hire anyone". If you really can't find anyone in the US at any price, you'd happily bid on an H1B to find someone. If you're just a cheapskate and don't pay market wages, then why do you think you should be able to rip off foreign citizens?
Hmmm. It's not clickable from the forums themselves. Must be a bug. I'm talking to the coder about it now.
Title should be hyphenated.
5 of the 20 startups in the current batch have non-US founders.

Can you name the countries?
Top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers
Yeah. Jeff's article makes it sounds as though Tog later refutes the original quote. But all he does is mention that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are exceptions because you can use them while using the mouse.

IMO, the post that Jeff linked to in the comments (http://tinyurl.com/2odgua) provides a better criticism of Tog's keyboard vs. mouse claim.
15 Open-Source Business Influencers
I wouldn't come to that conclusion for several reasons:

1. Lines of code is an almost meaningless measure. 1,500 lines of code can be (and often is) much better than 13,000 Lines of code.

2. Microsoft (by default) had a huge head start over Lotus in Windows apps (They wrote the OS, for crying out loud.)

3. Microsoft (by default) had a huge head start over Lotus because of their marriage to the hardware manufacturers and their borderline illegal business practices "If you put Lotus on that box, we won't give you your discount on Windows". (I have no idea if this exact arrangement was ever made, but you get the idea.)

If Excel and Lotus were both being developed today as web apps, the story could very easily be different. At least the playing field would be more level.
Unfortunately patenting something is very difficult to get right by yourself, learning to write patents properly is much like learning your first computer language without the benefit of a compiler or interpreter. There is a very strict syntax (for example any text in a claim after a dot is ignored) but no obvious way to break your patent into claims (think function declarations) wording is critical, as is segmentation into claims.

It is possible but it will consume a lot of time and effort be prepared. Luckily there are some good books on the subjects "Patent It Yourself" is worth a read as is "Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks for Dummies"
Have you seen this article yet? Looks like it would be useful to you. http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/03/30/python-html-parser-per...
i hate how godaddy's advertising. it is so in your face that even when your a customer it is a pain to get anything done. even if you purchased everything they offered you still see it all.
Beginning Python For Bioinformatics
The #1 Reason Not to Feel Bad Over a VC-Rejection
Best point was at the end:

One difficulty with disagreeing with people is that you have to present their argument and your argument, and so your essay ends up being longer than theirs.
>Then why does happiness exist? Why hasn't it been eradicated millions of years ago? Answer: because it serves a purpose. It's how evolution tells the organism, "keep doing what you're doing".

like the purpose of leadership/management/social groups it can be taken to a detrimental level. example: addiction. "keep doing what you're doing at all costs, care about nothing else, even if it kills you or otherwise destroys your life."

>A creature that's perpetually dissatisfied, always striving for advantage, wins out over a creature that's happy.

I, too, thought this statement was conspicuously unsupported by any evidence (which is part of what i thought the author disagreed with). moreover, it is in direct contradiction to the parenthetical that it preceeds (are we to take it that monks "override... unhappiness" in order to lose out?)
Where do we begin?
Yeah, I've used joker for a long time as well, they have been great to deal with for pretty much forever.

As a downside, any purchase I make with them via Wells Fargo causes Wells Fargo to pitch a fit.
The way this thing is going, we are asymptotically approaching the infinitely long essay.
Then you're dismissing the entire argument against them. The primary problem people have with H1Bs isn't protectionism, it's that H1Bs are held hostage by their employers (even after 2000, it is tricky for many visa holders to change jobs and retain legal working status).

The result is that the market for H1B labor is corrupted in favor of employers, perverting the fair market wage for developers. Prior to 2000, there were all sorts of horror stories about poorly trained tech workers living in dorms working for half the prevailing wage; they were probably not all made up.
An elevator with speech recognition for people with their hands full.
One look at venture capital, or "Why I hate VCs."
Sure I do. I just don't want special-interest employer exemptions from immigration law that deliberately creates an artifically cheap supply of temp workers.

The alternative to H1B is offshoring, which is clearly worse than immigration.
It is difficult to change companies if you are on L1B (intra-company transfer from a foreign country). If you are on H1B, you can change any time.

I am just curious to find out why people think L1Bs/H1Bs are cheap labor. May be it is a popular myth?

I came here in 2003. I was getting above "market salary" even then. Now I get way more - about twice the market salary (I've got skillz man! :-p) - which is the only reason I am hesitating to quit my job to do my startup full time.

I know many people who are on L1B and H1B. I don't know of even one underpaid person! USCIS is really strict on reviewing your W2s. Even the supposedly hostage L1Bs are payed fair salary. May be the situation was bad before 2000 and has been since corrected? I don't know.

[voted you up]
Nobody can steal what you choose to give away. If it would save or significantly improve lives, publish it under some appropriate license (try GFDL) and then start telling people.
The internet has provided for some major idea-grabbers, and I do recognize that there are times when that provides for a great product.

I don't know that I agree that 2008 will be flat, because of the new semantic web movement, by companies like Spock.

I would be interested to hear more about your startup... Feel free to email me at dustin@dustinmooney.com.
As far as I know, the domain purgatory is only when it's close to it's expiry date.

The reason you need to disable the domain proxy is because they replace your admin contact email address with one of theirs (they also replace your phone number and address with theirs). In order to receive the transfer request to your Administrative Contact email address, you need to turn off this proxy.
I'd love to see this too. I, however, think we're in the minority. I know if there is a match(premiere league) that i want to see, I have to tread ever so lightly to find out match information without the scores. Luckily, here in the US, Sportscenter never covers soccer, except for about 30 seconds from ESPN Deportes or LA Galaxy news.

but i think most people here(US) want their scores NOW and don't care about the actual game, plus there are way too many sports here.
Occam's Razor suggests that PG works with startups because he thinks they're better, not that he thinks they're better because he works with them. He is rich enough to work on whatever he wants.

Huh? I think you'd have to know pg pretty darn well before being able to apply Occam's Razor to the logic of his preferences. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to think that pg works with startups because he thinks they'd be better because he works with them.

It also seems to me that might be a distinction between work and play: you work on the things you work on to make them better, you play with the things you play with because they are better.

Lastly, if you think startups are better, and that you can make them better by working with them, then it seems like the perfect combination of work and play (read: passion), and Occam's Razor isn't needed.
Yes we're getting dangerously close Steve Yegge length posts
Except for the bit about taking two weeks to get a new EEPROM fabricated.
Ask YC: What are the best movies, short films, documentaries about the computer industry?
So, what have you seen? This really isn't a rapid growth category on Netflix, but it should be. They're some really good films out there. Maybe someone will take note. Fandom allowed.
Ruby 1.9 for Symbian and GREDIA Project
Symbian's EVP of Research David Wood talks about their Ruby port and the GREDIA Project.
Please be smart and go with the ThinkPad (parcticularly a T61p).

Right now they have a 25% off sale on them, not to mention you can get another 5% off if you have a Visa card, or are a student, or a number of other things. In addition to this there are usually other coupons you can use.

I was able to purchase a T61p (more or less the same specs as a Macbook Pro, including the same graphics card (same internally) for $1250 (this includes tax). I got that price because the discount ended up being some 40% or more.

To get about the same Macbook Pro would cost me another $400 at the very least, closer to $500, and I don't think that's including the upgrades I'd have to make to the Pro to get certain features (like a 7200 RPM HD).

I received the ThinkPad several weeks ago. It is very sturdy, and so far I have really liked it. I've had quality issues with Macs before, but I see no problem with this laptop.

If you want to save at least $500 for an equivalent machine and you don't need OS X or some other Mac-specific item, I would definitely recommend looking into the T61p.
Evolution is not quite as easy as everyone assumes it is. I don't know much about it myself, but I do know enough to know that I can't appeal to it to make arguments about human nature.

Evolution, at its core, strives for only one thing: propagation of the species. Taken to this level, it's a wonder that everyone isn't spending their time either at drunken orgies, or fighting each other to get into the drunken orgies. Somehow, "civilization", "culture", and "society" have guided human development away from that model - and I don't presume to know how it happened.

Taken to the extreme, why have we even developed arms, legs, eyes, ears, and minds? Simple bacterial reproduction does just fine. In fact, there is so much bacteria in our gut and sinuses that 90% of the DNA molecules in our bodies are foreign. One begins to wonder, then, whose purpose our human bodies really serve.
How long are we going to have to put up with the ridiculous labeling of every post. If you like Paul's article, fine, use it as your own frame of reference. But please don't litter News YC with your analysis of what is DH1 and what is DH2.
Mod_rails vs. mongrel vs. thin: a benchmark
1. Wargames.
2. Pirates of Silicon Valley.
3. Aardvark (cool documentary)
Was a pretty good movie. You could totally anticipate the ending though, either right at the beginning, or right after he gets beat up.
Technically Easy: Securing Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router
How to Reset the Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router
I use Moniker and I have been happy with them. They have a pleasant interface. However, if you add their extra services like email and such it probably becomes expensive.

Moniker has services for domain appraisal and all that junk if you are into it.
I left Reddit for the same reason I left Digg. Both have dishonest voting engines. Recently, Reddit was caught making comments only show up for the poster, nobody else. http://reddit.com/info/6drwl/comments/ Reddit also will blacklist your name such as the submitter of the above article, and then all submissions (not comments) points are reset to 0 every minute or so.

Ideas: I want downmod buttons because people post (and up) too much non-news. I think there should be points and total vote count. Then there can be a contrivercial page (ranked by points+total votes){or something like it.} Also there should be a "safe" non-contravercial page, a "worst" page, and a "zero gravity zone" where old good posts dominate.

Don't mean to be pushy just ideas.
Decent list. I'd include:

Google's GrandCentral (for phone #)
37Signals' Campfire (for chatting... in office or not)
ThePlanet (dedicated servers)
Evolution, at its core, strives for only one thing: propagation of the species.

No, actually. The one thing it strives for is propagation of the genes, not the species. Read The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. It will make things clearer.
This is why I gave up on a Philosophy Degree: I was jaded by the intense over-analyzing and language-parsing. Perhaps the blogosphere will ponder whether or not we were meant to have a boss for as long as we’ve pondered whether or not we have Free Will.
Well, education isn't as valuable unless those three things (esp #2 and #3) are in place. They're prerequisites for education to be valuable.
VC Complains that VCs are too quick to fire founders
Sorry. I over-simplified. (or under-simplified?) I have read it and its basic idea was, in fact, the basis of my statement.
This movie was awesome. Went to see it on sunday.
Same as I was thinking.
Is it possible to be original and not use the Internet?
is there anything new to see here? yes M$ had a unix and yes it became SCO.
Until I can install GNU on it, it's not mine. Why would I want to pay for something which isn't mine?
Where'd you come in from, and who placed you?
Results returned from whois.publicinterestregistry.net:
"
If anyone's dns people were going to be threatened, it would be their's. Wonder if you can reserve your own name at other company's so if it is revoked or expires, it is automatically registered to you at a different place.
Technically every business is in it for the profit. If not an insurance company, then it would have to be a non-profit (too underfunded to make a big difference) or the government (insert your own concern).
Check out ParenScript: http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/

You can write in a subset of CL, compile it to JS on the server, and send it out as a normal .js file.
Eat clean non/less pesticide non genetic experiment (local farm) food. Shit-can the cellphone, the wifi, and the microwave. And don't take anything a doctor would proscribe.
More living braincells == smarter.
GetElementsByClassName pre Prototype 1.6
Code Rush, that documentary about Netscape right before it was sold to AOL. Thats a nice one.
This is exactly the kind of awesomeness I come to YCNews for.
Im interested as to where the question contradicts itself(?) In any case, the "perceived noise" question 1 alludes to is precisely the noise coming from the internet; that is, the internet makes it much easier for dabblers from all over to overstate claims. Oddly, it is this same noise that made me come to the internet in search of clever way to announce - an odd duality...
21 Ways to Visualize and Explore Your Email Inbox
This article completely misses the point. I want to know how many of the non-H1B workers at Microsoft used to be H1B's. And how about finding out percentage of engineers at all these companies. And personally I am so sick of hearing all these BS stories of H1B's stealing American jobs with low wages. I used to be on H1B and I made (and still do) more that all my friends who are American citizens or green card holders. I have green card now, and that hasnt affected my pay in any way.
I find it kind of upsetting that none of the various disagreements with pg's essay that I've read have been in reaction to what I felt was the core of the essay. As far as I'm concerned, the centerpiece of the essay is this interesting observation about organizational hierarchies, and why they might necessarily place limitations on individual freedoms.

He also makes some guesses about the effects of those limitations on the happiness of employees in companies of different sizes, which I think he marks off pretty clearly as being drawn from observation. What's so incendiary about those, anyway? Regardless of whether it's true or not, isn't the stereotype of the creatively stifled employee of a large company a cultural cliche?

I'm ready to stop hearing about this now.
Ok, for those against H-1Bs, tell me how many good programmers you know that don't have a job, or can't find one? My company is hiring, and they have hard time filling slots. Even fresh undergrads are taking in multiple offers.
I'd like to see a H-1B reform, where there are more safeguard put in place against fraud (body shop abuses), and more green cards available.

Some people dream that if H-1B supply is cut off, engineers will get paid as much as lawyers and doctors, it is not going to happen.
Once wages get to a pain threshold, companies will outsource even more. Unlike a doctor or engineer, you don't have to be at the location to build software. The engineers in the USA will be left only for jobs that have to be done locally.
A good lawyer or doctor earn knowledge thru accumulated experience, and a 10 to 15 years of experiene. In Engineering, the learning experience curve is max 5 years. There is great chance, whatever you are doing now, that in 5 years it will be obsolete, and you will be re-learning from the beginning.
Oh - and look at the posts in relation to this post that got downmodded - what other company would be able to convince it's customers to actually start modding something that is the least bit negative about their product down?

As I said - it's marketing genious.
"Simple bacterial reproduction does just fine."

Sure, until one bacterium in your neighborhood starts working out---then you better hit the gym, too. Onwards and upwards.
Follow The Political Blogosphere With The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room
India.

Cognizant (ticker: CTSH)

Why do you ask?
It seems perfectly reasonable to me to think that pg works with startups because he thinks they'd be better because he works with them.

You know what else would be better if PG worked with it? Potholes in the street. So why doesn't PG work with potholes, or any of the infinity of other things he could be working with, and making better? The obvious answer: because he thinks startups are neat, as opposed to potholes, or big companies.
> and would be impossible if you were a startup founder

Only if you're bootstrapping. A lot of start-ups are not so lucky as to get funding and help from a company like Y-Combinator. End up with a bad VC, and you can easily find yourself feeling 'caged' again.
Ghost Benefits
Ok - I guess then the question is HOW do I publish the darn thing?

A radical example for clarification: Say you discover a method by which the HIV virus can be detected one day after transmission with 99% confidence...and you live in a homeless shelter. While an exaggeration, this example shows(hopefully) that there is an initial resistance when an idea comes from an unlikely source. What method of publication best overcomes this resistance?
Plato Says Knock You Out
10 'Net startups that will succeed, and 10 that will fail ... probably
Last.fm to Sponsor New Music Category for "Extend Firefox 3" Contest
People who wonder what's so great about Lisp's s-expression syntax should read the bit about indentation. 27k lines of code to do a good job of indenting C-like languages!
Lines of code is like democracy - a terrible system, but less terrible than the other ones.
>When you break it down, Graham's argument from evolution goes like this: our ancestors worked in groups of eight or so, therefore humans evolved to work in groups of eight or so, therefore contemporary humans will be more alive and fulfilled working in groups of eight or so.

>In a general sense, this is the logical fallacy known as the "appeal to nature" -- the idea that what's natural is ipso facto good or right. There is no reason to believe this: plenty of natural things are neither good nor right.

Paul is not saying that working in groups of about 8 is not "good or right." He's saying that it's satisfying and functional. It's perfectly reasonable to say that something we were evolved to do is something we do well, and something we were not evolved to do, we have trouble with.
These kinds of comments are unnecessary on HN...we have editors to fix them.
Why IT Hates the iPhone
Crushes goblet full of wine

Groovy.
Considering that there are a billion times more copies of bacterial genes than any other, I'd say that "upwards" isn't a better way to propogate the gene:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_bacteria.html
A systems scientist looks at virtualization, scalability, and Ruby on Rails
meh. this smells a lot like speculation without real facts.

for example, trulia will succeed but zillow will fail? perhaps, but they really don't have a totally different model. maybe they should have considered redfin, as they do have a substantially different model.
Seems to me that data is already available, with wget?