skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm a lucky guy. I've chosen for myself the job of e-entrepreneur, and so when I'm navigating I'm actually working! Be it e-mails, my feedreader, digg, paulgraham.com or whatever else, I'm actually always trying to improve my business and offer my customers a better service!
Or am I fooling myself? Time will tell.
Because hackers might also care about the world around them, that's why.
depends on the product. the likelyhood of competition, and what kind of secrets you are devulging. I wouldn't tell people how to make your product. But, I believe someone said it on a thread recently (maybe blog entry) that not talking is overrated (paraphrase). Don't give up patent secrets or what your trump card is. But 99% of people ain't going to hurt you, your biggest problem will eventually become needing to tell people.
I agree, Paris is a great place to walk around. But in practical terms, what's it like to try and raise three children in a place where only the super-rich can afford to have a back yard?

If the folks in Clichy-sous-Bois lived in ugly low-density suburbs would they still feel the need to riot every two months?
While it's true, doom-n-gloom title can also be used to trigger human's fear.

Take rice as an example. Right now fund managers are "toying" the price of rice by:

1) Buying all of them in the market

2) Hold it from circulation

3) Spread the doom-n-gloom via newspaper and stuffs by saying that "Rice is scarce".

4) In turn, we, regular people, got so scared and bought rice at a higher price.

5) Fund managers sell these rice at higher price

6) Time goes profit comes

7) Once they had enough, they'll return the price to a stable point.

Don't you love George Soros?
yay for you... um... can we help you? this almost reads like a blog entry, and a not so important one at that.
And for anyone paying over X $'s a month in Adwords we should definitely get free live stats.
it depends whom you are talking to - be smart enough to get alert if someone starts asking too many critical questions (especially about business model) ... also you can share only the outline of the idea (to get a response) rather than sharing the real meat. sometime you can also keep it very generic and simple, for example i'm planing to start a social/dating portal - where people get responses right away for their match - now by knowing this no one can figure it out how exactly you are going to do it and how it is going to be different from the rest of the competitor and what will be your business model/revenue stream etc.
Where the Web is Weak
Actually, regulation and subsidies can be good for food production. They give farmers a fighting chance against big food corporations, which helps the food supply because while a small farm may not be profitable without government subsidies, it is better at producing more calories per square meter of land under cultivation.

Take, for example, green house tomatoes. They grow to enormous sizes exceedingly quickly so they're profitable, but, as anyone who's ever grown a single tomato plant on a balcony can testify, they have absolutely zero taste and rather limited nutritional value compared to the real thing. Likewise, as was touched upon in the article, high quality poultry is far more nourishing than industrially produced chicken breasts that consist mostly of water.

Government subsidies allow farmers to continue producing high quality produce locally, even if it is in a manner that is, from a free market point of view, inefficient.
A start would be any second-year business degree marketing course textbook which discusses MASH analysis, among other foundational aspects of marketing.

This one (link is for a used copy): http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/3rs/004826.shtml has been absolute gold for me.

You wouldn't learn the basics of programming from a 'design patterns' book, right? I'd suggest learning the basics of marketing from a text which focuses on the basics of marketing (not advertising -- that's different). The other trendy "how to synergize your paradigms to leverage the new economy's zeitgeist" stuff can be picked up later.
Rather than focus on specific tricks, I've found the best thing to keep me focused is to set up lots of aggressive short term goals _and_ have a fixed time when I will stop working for the day. Just having daily goals isn't enough - it's too easy to procrastinate and then work long hours to make up for it.

I also try to schedule a two hour chunk each day (preferably near the beginning) with minimal interruptions and just leave emacs and shells open. Regardless of how many meetings or other distractions come up the rest of the day, I can guarantee some amount of forward progress on the technical front. It's actually pretty amazing how much can get done in two hours if you're very focused.
Google Translate offers 10 new languages | Tech Jaws
Take a look at codeigniter
Bill Gates’ Gold Watch
I'd add in "add a checkbox to remove weekends from displayed results".

Selling business software, we've found weekends are a dead-zone which throws the numbers off. It's not a huge issue, but it makes things a smidge more difficult to trend.
Brilliant, worth a read "the Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer".
Dear Web Applications: Where Are My Files?
How Google Friend Connect Works
Derivative of test scores.

A good teacher should make your scores improve. The absolute numbers are much less meaningful.
first of all i dont understand why this project is taking such a long time ... if someone is really dedicated and committed then anything can be done, just like TATA who created $2500 NANO car right from the scratch from patent to assembly every single thing is innovative (http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/may/14tata.htm) - TATA motivated tens of hundreds of manufacturer and vendors to redesign their auto-parts to fit in NANO car ... OLPC is for poor nations or say for 3rd world countries and i dont think NGOs/Govt./schools have any preference over what o/s it comes with as far as it can launch all educational application. OLPC laptop is not meant for scientists anyway, so what the fuss - just keep it simple and open source and create nice educational material so that kids form these countries can learn something valuable. Also 3rd world countries are very humble and they will be more than happy just to get this laptop (with or without XP).
Are We Running Out of Food?
my first mockup takes inspiration from http://last.fm and http://digg.com
Sources? Mine say that only 5-7% of rice is even traded across borders, so I think your story looks a bit dubious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice#World_production_and_trade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_shortage
Ask HN: Erlang and network connections?
I was interested in the latest use of Erlang for Comet by Facebook. However, thinking further about it, I wonder how the HTTP connections are typically being implemented (on Linux, say)? Erlang solves the problem of having lots of threads listening, but I am guessing it does not solve the problem of having lots of connections? Is there one thread listening to a network adapter, distributing the packages to the "virtual" connections? Or does the OS spawn a thread for every Connection it creates (presumably in some arcane C implementation)?

Maybe for the comet problem it would make more sense to optimize at that point, ie only spawn threads on incoming data? Erlang might still come in handy, depending on the number of concurrent messages, but perhaps not be the killer app it looks to be?
I used to not tell anyone much more than a brief gist. But as time and projects have gone by, I'm starting to switch viewpoints.

Basically, 90% of the people I talk to couldn't implement my idea or simply don't care. Those that could implement it won't, b/c they think they have better ideas. Of the few who could and might, it's your job to convince them that their best chance of making it work is by joining you.

On top of that, I've found that talking about what you're going to do is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That said, I would never go around telling the juiciest parts of my ideas to people I didn't already trust, or post them online where anyone and their mom can steal them without much remorse.
Erlang eval and dynamic dispatch
Just pick the one that's most popular :)
Please, please, please, no mises.org links.
i think this is a good example of why a search box on HN might be helpful - i have seen this discussed multiple times.

(not attacking the poster, just pointing out a benefit of search, i think it's a very good question for discussion)
BitTorrent started the same way, with a request for porn in NTK.
In the normal case, Erlang is only one OS process. It handles everything via select. The only limits are OS limits on open sockets and things like that.
Oh, it's more than just partially tongue-in-cheek! I actually find, as you do, that industry is refreshingly direct compared to pure research, which is why I prefer it.

I used to work at Agilent, a.k.a. "the good parts of the former Hewlett-Packard." And, with the usual handful of exceptions, it really was the largest collection of nice folks that you'll ever meet. So, yeah, I believe in the existence of good businesses.

What I refer to is the emotional learning curve coming out of school. The part where you learn, among other things, that not everybody is trustworthy, and that not every market-leading product is worth what it costs. That the ugly method that is currently shipping is often better than the elegant but theoretical alternative. That some of your company's products are, inevitably, better than others. That any group of more than five people will face political problems, misunderstandings, and red tape. And that without those folks doing the marketing and accounting your business won't function.

None of which actually means that industry is a big con. It's just real. It's not made of imaginary people living in an imaginary land. Academia is the same, actually, though when you're in an especially bitter mood -- or faced with the occasional person who really is a con artist -- you might think otherwise.
India has its own "OLPC"[1], not being a client state. Education works best, when you work your way through: there is not royal path to knowledge (or, teach fishing instead of selling cheap fish, if you like).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputer
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore

http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Geoffrey-Moore/dp/00605...
Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Its functioning is secret, so it is incompatible with the spirit of learning. Teaching children to use a proprietary (non-free) system such as Windows does not make the world a better place, because it puts them under the power of the system's developer -- perhaps permanently. You might as well introduce the children to an addictive drug.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows
Usually I hate these one-word unjustified responses, but today I'm gonna have to go with:

No.

I wish I could provide some kind of rebuttal of the points made in the article, but unfortunately the article really doesn't seem to make any points. It's just a series of quotes from crazy people who tell us we're all going to die without providing much justification other than "climate change, man!"

Oh, okay, there's a fair point about overfishing.

"All of these authors agree that the entire system of Western food production is in need of radical change, right down to the spinach. Roberts opens with a description of E.-coli-infected spinach from California, which killed three people in 2006 and sickened two hundred others."

Another of my pet peeves is when people criticize the "Western" system of doing something without providing any contrast with an "Eastern" way of doing it. Is the Eastern system of food production better? Are there fewer cases of food poisoning from contaminated food in Asia? I don't think so.
Bad answer. That opens up the site to anything and everything. I care deeply about the ongoing Giro d'Italia, and if all goes well, will go watch a stage in the near future, but I wouldn't post daily results on this site. Nor would I attempt to inflict my own political and economic views on the other users. Were we all to do that, the site would rapidly degrade.
Find a lawyer for the product team; not your corporate counsel, but someone whose sole responsibility is advising you on your contracts and recordkeeping requirements. From the sound of it someone who has experience in the publishing industry who has both written contracts and litigated disputes involving revenue sharing.
I realize this is irrelevant because the content was donated (which I didn't realize when I posted). But still:

"Well, if they don't enforce this, it will look bad when they try to enforce something else."

Because the US government and the fourth tier Pat Robertson law school grads and Bush's Youth alums running the justice department would never selectively enforce laws so the effects of that enforcement would conform to their irrational religious bigotries.

The whole purpose of the system of laws in this country is that everyone is always breaking some law. This allows the people in power to have a lever they can use against anybody, at their discretion. Although not applicable to this case, selectively enforcing laws (and being hypocritical about it) is part of the foundation of the US legal system.

Right wing fascist states always depend partially on sexual repression (and the associated fear/hatred of the feminine other that come with it) to create the psychological preconditions in the collective unconsciousness to allow authoritarianism to thrive. They would never side with porn producers that relieve sexual frustration. They would only side with porn producers when the pornography was titillating (like American Idol or beer commercials) instead of overtly erotic.

When they do go after pornography, they go after pornography that contradicts the masculine objectification of females. This is why the last DOJ cases concerned squirting fetish movies (which are all about female orgasm, and deemed so dangerous that we must be protected from it) but the DOJ never goes after porn where the male orgasm is fetishized.

Until people stop confusing titillation with eroticism, and eroticism with sex, the government will not stop being aggressively hypocritical in it's reaction to all three.
The opportunity cost of choosing Windows seems quite high: if countries won't buy the XO for lack of MSFT software, then it is ultimately the kids loss.

I would say hordes of American children (and Chinese, Indian, et. al) grew up on Windows. Did that somehow take away the spirit of learning?
Doctors Say ‘I’m Sorry’ Before ‘See You in Court’
Whoops sorry, I did try a Google site:news.ycombinator.com but obviously I didn't try hard enough!
Thanks for your helpful comment. I obviously have many opportunities to grow as a leader.
if countries won't buy the XO for lack of MSFT software read the Negroponte NYT quote carefully. It is basic colonial behaviour (corruption etc.):

"“The people who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but government officials in most cases,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the nonprofit group. “And those people are much more comfortable with Windows.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?r...

"Did that somehow take away the spirit of learning?" The spirit of learning is inherently human (evolutional design), therefore not even MS can take hijack it: taking it away is even more nonsense[1].
But if you think of the real breakthroughs, they are independent of Windows (you cannot beat them by playing in accordance to the rules they dictate: this is what RMS might have meant in the quote above).
Google could (have) never eclipse(d) MS, if it were built on it. Nor Facebook, or whatever "web2.00" you might think of. Nor OSX. Most "innovation" or development is as independent of Windows as it can be: though it has to leverage on the userbase. This is why it is "trendy" to consider it as a buggy device driver. Growing up with windows is a factual matter: try purchasing a PC without it: and this begs for even more questions...

[1] though Adam Curtis' Century of the Self is worrying http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22century%20of%20th...
You don't need two computers to do that: a laptop will do just fine.

Just make the rule that you can use the internet for as long as you want, but in a different (and preferably less comfortable) room/table.
Another good point. After thinking it over, he'd make a much better buoy than an anchor. He is a man of rather grand stature.

I still don't think I'm doing this right. Another opportunity for growth is in front of me.
There may be some similarity, but laptops aren't bibles.
What is a select? And if Erlang is only one OS process, how does it benefit from multicore CPUs?

But my real question is, how does the OS (Linux) handle the open connections (a ka open sockets, I guess)?
In fact, that's all the better if you let it run on battery. For me that caps my internet time at 2 hours.
Sorry. I did not know. Nevermind then.
Not that this article is great, but I would think anything thats about huge scale world problems would be of interest to the group of creatives that need problems to apply their technical skills too so they can create world changing companies. Which I thought was kind of the idea of entrepreneurial activities.

Also, the studies on divergent thinking show their are huge cross pollination type benefits to people who are in a field considering the problems in another, both for the people who have mastered the field, and for the problem.

Therefore, some hackers who encounter non hacking problems like this (again, not that this article is great, it isn't) will benefit themselves and the problem they are able to apply their unique style of thinking too. In fact, I think a lot of great companies probably started as a result of hackers applying their skills to what seemed like non hacker problems.

I think stuff like this should be here, even if this article happens to not be great.
they are both tools to help to form your perception of the world.
lol

I went to business school because I was tired of being a cook and wanted a better future.

The only thing I remember was, "A degree in business is a degree in nothing."

"How strange," I thought at the time.

"Truer words about business were never spoken," I think now.
I don't want to sound too old fashioned, but I think the key question you should be asking yourself about your "groundbreaking" idea is "What are the barriers to entry?" If the idea is such that anyone with a decent technical background could implement it upon hearing it, you're likely to get instant copy-cat competitors even if you do make it first to market.

If your idea is good, and there are sufficient barriers to entry, I don't think there's any problem discussing it with others-- in fact, I'd recommend you discuss it with people you trust, as they can help you refine it.
yes people, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but cars cause smog
An excellent post. I'm finding this is increasingly a problem too. I often find my greatest productivity in coding comes when there is a power outage. Not only am I forced to not browse the Internet, I'm just plain forced to NOT use a computer at ALL. Pencil and paper only.

If you need to have a network in place, while still preventing the urge to browse, you might want to try using some alternative networking infrastructure. Consider using AX.25 to transfer files, for example. Unless you configure TCP/IP to tunnel through AX.25, you won't be able to browse or use the Internet. But, you still have connectivity to your work-related file servers, since they'll (presumably also) have connectivity via AX.25 too.
Good for them.

Porn sucks. Porn is to sex as chocolate life savers are to an artisanal chocolate cake.
In Pictures: Companies That Profit From Your Data
So, then, there weren't food riots in Haiti? We aren't seeing inflation in food costs squeeze out the bottom 20% of the world?
Ask YC: Any startup here familiar with Brad Greenspan or LiveUniverse?
Just wondering if anyone here has worked with Brad, or been involved with any deals with LiveUniverse? Any feedback on how things went? What is the reputation of LiveUniverse apart from buying up companies on the cheap?
Why I get nothing done: http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/nothin...
I use the same strategy when I look for an SEO expert, I just google SEO expert or some other relevant keyword and go to the #1 link.
The select syscall:

http://linux.die.net/man/2/select

That's how most high throughput networking works.
I thought it was an excellent answer.

Hacker News IS my portal now, and if an occasional piece not directly related to hacking spawns excellent discussion among my peers, great. That's something I'd probably find nowhere else.

As far as the "appropriateness" of submissions, just trust the rest of us to prudently use our up arrows. Sure, stupid stuff will get through, but a small price to pay for good content and discussion.

Oh, and go ahead and submit a Giro d'Italia post. Not sure it would see too many upvotes.
Well, no one's going to force you to not post them, most likely, but it'd be nice to avoid going down that road (politics).
How many govt regulations favor the politically weak over the politically powerful?

I like computer games more than tomatoes. Why shouldn't the govt subsidize my preferences?

I've no objection to you buying whatever food, from whatever source, you'd like, but why shouldn't you pay for it? I'm perfectly willing to take the same deal wrt my food, video games, etc.
The areas in the US with the most smog are also the areas with the most suburban sprawl.

http://www.citymayors.com/environment/polluted_uscities.html
Actually I'm not joking, but I was referring to sitting or lying down meditation -- so point taken.

Narcoleptics usually aren't like the puppies in internet videos or the girl in Deuce Bigalow, falling asleep suddenly and at random. They fall asleep in non-stimulating situations like a classroom or church and enter the deep part of the sleep cycle much faster than normal sleepers.
Don't Be So Naive: Friendfeed Adds to the Noise
What a cute interface. I love it.
I don't think non-geeks say 'teh'
I am getting really sick of people ragging on TV. "Visual crack"? Really? Have you been watching TV lately? Sure there is show that are just mindless fun but everyone needs a chance to relax these days. TV is more and more producing great works of art, try The Wire if you're doubtful. TV writing is getting better all the time. I'm of the belief that narrative is important which is why so many people gravitate towards it whether in the form of TV, books, movies, comic books or even video games. And with the internet it's become even less of a passive experience inspiring social networks, creativity and intellectual thought among other things. I watch TV because it's a part of doing what I love and I will never apologize for watching 4 hours a day or however much I watch a certain day. And if you tell me to give it up, I'll tell you that you should try giving up all the narrative forms listed above. Some people may be able to do it and be happy but not most people.

It's all about moderation. Doing too much of any one thing is usually a bad idea but if you do small things that you love, it should be positive for you.
Facebook exec: We're the Net's cable company
A comment more on the structure of the pages linked to than the content:

I have to say that I really don't like slideshow pages, especially those that skip automatically to the next slide. Am I alone in this?
That was a more personal initiative, though. As in, a user created the reddit again after people were allowed to make their own.