skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When I ran a club website for my university we were asked to implement a policy of having full names recorded for all our members. This was a change from our previous practice of only storing handles for everyone. I had to go through and ask everyone to add their name to their profile. One individual did not update, so I contacted them individually. As it turned out, what I had assumed was a silly-sounding "fantasy role-playing" name was in fact her given name! So I ended up feeling silly myself, and learned a lesson about making assumptions.

In this case the university directory corroborated the identity of the member, but in the absence of a definitive reference like that, I now just give people the benefit of the doubt.
The dirty little secret that public corporations don't talk about is that they NEED TO PAY SOMEBODY. Freeware, shareware, and ad supported software are good for many things, but as soon as something goes wrong (and it will), someone must be held accountable. Imagine management telling ownership that "Google lost our data and there's nothing we can do about it."

Microsoft's position may be threatened in the future, but only by someone willing to take on that responsibility.
Please do if you think it's appropriate; I'm not sure how well the discussion style posting will work when aggregated amongst traditional blog posts, but let me know what you think (at the moment we're organising an entrelist session on ImInLikeWithYou's 'Blockles'). I have startup blog at http://webappropriate.com which may be more suitable.
An AWS Competitor: Elastic Server On Demand
I'm not sure what you could be basing that on. I didn't see any demos (or did I miss a link?). I read a list of features and a vague description in a few places. You can't really make a judgment either way.
Got it. I misinterpreted. I agree.
Really nice! I don't understand how anyone thought browser testing could be done with just images before.
Haha, true.

Let them sell it then. I think a non-trivial number of Apple customers buy for the look and feel of the hardware too. A Macbook is just prettier than anything Dell offers, and that matters to some people. Regardless, I just meant the only thing killing windows in the near term is OS X.

But I guess Apple is smarter than me, realizing it can basically sell it's operating system (with bundled hardware) for $2500 rather than $100 by itself.
I was on Mashable twice and even though he wasn't 100% complementary about my application it helped a lot. Being nice is they key, remember they're people too!
3 Excellent Ways to Build Your Personal Brand
"You DO remember where your Starcraft disks are, don’t you?"

It's like he can read my mind! They're a four hour drive from here, if I could even find them. I guess I'll have to wait for SC2.
speak for yourself! i'm generation X
The fact that people are still playing Starcraft restores my faith in humanity
I like idea "b", though maybe it's more of a "flame warning" button: i.e., the authenticity of this article/domain is suspect, so be warned that it may just be flammable material.

Really, I don't think we should be necessarily banning content, but rather encouraging the community at large to post worthwhile material for itself.
I got all of that too. I think that Java thing is a Firefox problem. (I already had the latest Java installed). After that though my session just started (I still had time left).

I guess just try again and click through any warnings from FF. If Java works for you on other sites, it should probably work here.
Google Launching ToDo List Product?
I think it's absolutely necessary to have someone in the group with some business/marketing/networking abilities. As developers, I would think that most of us could have easily built Facebook, but it doesn't mean that we'd all be able to make it what it is today.

Being able to program the idea is key, but it goes hand in hand with pushing it out the door as well.
Okay fair enough, I'll agree to that.
I liked the article, specially since it comes from someone with long experience in the subject.

But what it seemed more interesting is the company. Specially here in HN it seems that many start ups are focused on social networks or other consumer applications. This guys are basically selling technology. They seem to have found an interesting niche.
Technology is making the "business guy" less important (not unimportant, but less important). Why? Because it unchains the hacker with a little people skills from his terminal.

With modern languages, frameworks, automated testing, debugging, and IDE's, some hackers can produce much more per unit time. Or produce the same amount in less time. And then go out and talk about it with the time saved.

Sure, business guys often bring something to the table, but so can unchained hackers. Just like women threw away their aprons to join the workforce, hackers can now set aside their keyboards to sell.

Don't forget, a lot of hackers are "business guys", too. Now, it's a little easier to see the forest when you can cut down trees faster.
How is it that people still think thats a real picture?
Why Firefox Is Shrinking: Mobile Browser Market To Explode
Thanks for pointing us out.

We are NOT an AWS competitor though. We allow you to build your application stacks dynamically (like RoR + nginx + mongrel + etc) and build them out in virtual formats like VMware or Xen, AND also deploy to clouds like Amazon EC2.
I have one friend who is a "business guy" but I wouldn't start a business without him. His value is priceless. Admittedly he won't be building the product with you but the contacts he makes, the meetings he manages to arrange and the time spent getting other people excited about the product make it a lot more enjoyable to work on since you know there are others out there just as excited as you.

The real "business guys" are the ones who shield you from the outside world so you can focus on the technology and can find and make the connections with others that you're too busy hacking to do. Unfortunately these people are often grouped in with the "idea guys" you all to often see online saying "I have a great idea, build it for me and we'll split the profits 50/50" but then don't actually contribute anything to the process besides the original idea.

Business guys good, Idea guys pointless.
yeah I was going to say.. they support EC2
Clifford Stoll: 18 minutes with an agile mind
How do you propose they reach out to the good talent? I ask because I know managers at a number of companies near me that cannot find good developers. They can find 100 far less than ideal ones but finding one that is worth hiring and doesn't already have a good job is proving near impossible. So how would you recommend they go about finding these people?
Two template engines, one AppEngine
Great idea. I've been using browsershots.org, which while cheaper only provides static images of pages. Sandboxing the entire machine is a clear improvement. A logical next step is automated testing to take advantage of these system configurations, something like Selenium.
Still playing? People are SERIOUS about Starcraft. Here is a youtube video from Korea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jen46qkZVNI

Check out the size of the crowd around 2:30
I think Google was the first one to really dominate this approach (or bring to market) they started with super cheap hardware... (and I think they still use commodity hardware)...

- I think its equally cool that he can get his PHD from hacking together a gaming system into something usable
Ask YC: A VC as President?
I work for a startup a year old, with about 10 people in it and a round A of 1M. What's happened in the last of month is that the VC's have put one of their own guys in as president (not someone that they chose - one of the actual VC's: formerly a stock-broker with no previous experience running a company), who is now starting to dictate schedules and parts of the technical direction.

My question is: this is unusual, right? I understand that it's common to put in a CEO at a later round, but having the fund-raisers in the presidential role while we are still in heavy development seems very out of the ordinary...

Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, was it a portent of doom?
wow, okay I take it back, now I've lost faith again
Hacker seeking designer; work for equity
We are a startup in search technology, located in Laurel, Maryland. We are looking for a talented web designer and content writer. Must be familiar with .net technologies, knowledge of C#, C++ is a plus as we are not necessary looking for a programmer.
We are self funded with small budget, the candidate will be working for equity (keep your day job), basically joining the founding team.
The ideal candidate must be living in the Washington DC, MD VA area and willing to work from own PC, at odd hours and on weekends.

We are mostly looking for someone passionate about his work and search technology, experience is not necessary.

If interested please send me an email: okeumeni (at) hotmail (dot) com
due to the recent take down of "huddle chat" I think it would be a small, feature-less non independent product.
I think the answer is very non-static and always moving, there are 1000 reasons for YC and 1000 reasons for VC.
I think the title should have been "To YC or not to YC".

Writers write articles, they don't get to choose titles.
Obama crushing Clinton, online at least
Yaw, FWIW I was going for a thesis of "For all the people pouring hate onto the biz guys, it's a bit more complex than that".

Regarding the "shielding from the outside world" idea: For a pre-funding startup, I don't think there's much outside world to shield you from-- certainly not 10-12 hours a day of it. There are some products that can benefit from sales effort on day 1. Most (especially consumer plays) really can't. For the first 3-4 months, what is a biz guy gonna do, other than sell?

I should also add that I truly GET the value of a biz guy. Every company I have build has required that evolve (or devolve, if you want to be a hater!) from builder to biz guy. I've played the biz role for more of my adult life than I've played a development role.
I only have analog basic cable at home. I use a myth server with three tuner cards (QAM and regular analog) as my PVR solution.

If TW required me to get a converter box, I'd likely drop them immediately. They recently (in this last bill) showed that the cost to rent a converter box (dual tuner HD DVR) is now $14 a month. Considering I'd need one for every TV in my house, that would effectively quadruple my cable bill! (I've got TVs that aren't hooked to the myth server, they simply plug into the wall and get TV).

ETA: I don't use TW for my internet anyway. I used to, but it was constantly down. Now I use AT&T DSL (dry loop) and it's a little slower on the top end, but it's not failed yet, AND it's $20 a month cheaper.

ETA2: I used to try and get the TV over firewire to my mythbox, but TW has blocked firewire output for everything but the locals, so firewire is not an option.
Top Quotes By Entrepreneurs
Followup from another post - quotes by entrepreneurs and other quotes that can be applied to entrepreneurship
Podcasting is failing because 99% of the population doesn't even know WTF "podcasting" is and won't even try to click "Podcasts" button or whatever. GMail would have failed miserably if they tried to replace "emailing" with "ajaxing".

For two years I worked at RSS company where technology didn't matter: what mattered was that people were too tired to learn yet another buzzword. Even now, while immensely useful, RSS is still used mostly by geeks.

Just use plain English goddamit.
The U.S. Congress is doing its best to lose the global talent war
Ruby scoped method injection
In any company, startups included, you need a fellow who understands the market, does sales, and can keep the books. It helps to have a fellow who can organize things and keep folks directed. These are considered business skills rather than technology skills, though, they're not beyond most hackers to pick up. I'd suggest that the best position is where the hackers are the business guys, or visa-versa. If you're smart enough to get an MBA, you should be able to learn at least a little comp sci, and if you know comp sci, a book on marketing and finance shouldn't be beyond you.
This is tony from CrossBrowserTesting.com and we really love the feedback!

We really think with ajax this is the only way to do cross browser compatibility. Our site can do screenshots too but you have all the control.

Thanks for checking it out. We will take any feedback good or bad!
This was a better article than I was expecting.

However, I'm not really convinced by the use of the word "failure". Podcasts may be less successful than their most breathless hype predicted... but what invention isn't?

Podcasts are a modest success. They're modest, in part, because the masters of podcasting turn out to be radio producers. This is completely unsurprising -- the radio folks have been evolving their audio production skills in a competitive environment for nearly a century -- and it's the very un-surprisingness of it that keeps the phenomenon under the radar. Who besides advertisers knows or cares what the audience of a radio program is? Radio hasn't been the stuff of tech news since the 1930s.

The other problem with podcasting is that the term is badly chosen and too narrowly defined. The word is associated with downloading (rather than streaming), audio (rather than video), RSS (rather than simple web links), the use of portable devices for playback (rather than PCs), and amateur production (rather than pros). Youtube and its clones represent the same core phenomenon as podcasting -- ubiquitous, cheap distribution of audio and video over the web -- except that they offer better UI and lower costs for users, producers, and advertisers. But somehow the word "podcasting" isn't used for Youtube.

It's not the podcasting phenomenon that's "failing": It's the word "podcasting", and the specific constellation of technologies that it implies.
I disagree.
As months go by, it's going to be even harder for anyone to come up with a social network as big as FB. Why ? FB's critical mass!
As it's been said, all that differentiates Facebook for an individual user is the presence of that users friend’s on Facebook — which forces them to use Facebook to connect with them.
And this is precisely why FB is not a founding member of the OpenSocial foundation. Facebook is threatened by OpenSocial’s ultimate aim of connecting user profiles and enabling users to easily manage and port their data across any social network.
"Shockingly, I have never met a passionate MySpace user before."

Then you, my friend, have never met a teenager.
Golly, I hope it doesn't compete with something 37 Signals did. Like "using computers", or "eating", or "breathing". (Although I maintain that Google totally ripped off the idea for breathing from me!)
I've already done it. Started from nothing, built a business, then sold it (twice technically, but only "real" money once). I also didn't know much (not to say I'm particularly expert now!)

I am convinced, however, that if I listened to a large crowd of well meaning people, things might not have turned out as well as they did. Being a good entrepreneur IMHO rests a LOT on your ability to take risks, do things in a radically different way (often out of ignorance) and to just get stuff done without talking about it.

Networking and engaging with a community works well when you're trying to learn something initially (programming language, other technologies, and, yes, even entrepreneurial skills), but isn't much use when it comes to actually breaking through.. indeed, it can be a hinderance if you actually adjust your plans or thinking on what other people are saying, as that could limit your success.

Good luck if you are trying to boost morale or just provide a place for entrepreneurs to share stories.. but I'm not so confident that setting up networks for people to actually bounce ideas around is a good idea at all. So many risky / weird startups might not have made it if people paid attention to the "suggestions" other entrepreneurs would have made to their ideas.

Of course, the above all applies to you, your idea, and my comments now. So.. you just need to do what you feel from the gut! :)
I was hoping someone had finally reverse engineered SC/BNet to make an AI design platform for the game. Booh.

The analysis of this game is pretty empty - Protoss will always do better with more resources, because they're just a more resource-consuming race. Humans will do worse with a general AI, because smart micromanaging of terrain units is what gives them a strong advantage.
"There are some products that can benefit from sales effort on day 1. Most (especially consumer plays) really can't."

Admittedly selling(to customers) isn't always needed on day one but having someone working on building relationships with other companies and arranging cross promotion, etc is definitely valuable no matter what stage you are at.
Thank you.

Even though it seems to do what it aims to do well, its ultimate goal == to sell advertising by creating sensationalist headlines and feeding the egos of people who have (or who nurture through Valleywag mentions) a grotesque vanity complex == is hardly original or noteworthy. Most hackers go out of their way to _avoid_ spotlight, so I think for the most part Valleywag is just digital GIGO. Occasionally almost humorous, but GIGO nonetheless.
Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?
This has been posted before, but it was on YouTube. Its a great video.
For me, OSX + VMWare is my ideal testing environment. As virtualization comes into play more on desktops, that could marginalize the utility of a browser-based solution for this, although presently I think it's an idea that is definitely useful and price-wise they offer good value.

I haven't used virtualization on Windows or Linux much, how are those at testing other platforms? All the major browsers already run on Windows, but I've been bitten by differences in Firefox between Windows and OSX before (line heights were off), so multi-OS testing is still important.
Valley Newbies: What Slowdown?
You know that old meme (a very popular one around here) that goes:

1. statement x

2. statement y

3. ????

4. Profit

Well, number 3 is where your business guy comes in.

Without a business guy on the team, be it you, or someone else, it's just a hobby.
Valleywag seems like a good candidate - but do we want to get into the mindset of banning an entire site? This seems like an emotional and short-sighted decision.

What about the hypothetical 1% of Valleywag articles that is interesting?

Why not find a way to prevent linkbait in general?
"how do you win the global talent wars when Congress is already in the hands of the idiocracy?"

You expect that kind of thing from a cynic, but it's pretty sad (and telling) when The Economist is saying things like that.

It seems like anyone that takes half a second to think about it would realize that having H-1B visa holders is a great thing for our country, but they'd have to get past the daddy model (to borrow PG's term).

There seems to be this standard view that there are X jobs in America and that by allowing in Y immigrants, Americans are left with X - Y jobs. But with H-1Bs, the people are guest workers for a specific job with a specific employer. Since they are such a pain in the ass to get, you have to reason that the company wouldn't go to the trouble/expense if they could just hire local talent to do it. If the choice is between an unfilled job and one filled with immigrant, how hard can it really be?

Sadly the prevailing view is that all immigrants are bad, no matter what, and you can't explain H-1Bs in a soundbite.
they can start by lowering their standards...
Nice job. I particularly like that the Church lab's Personal Genome project is currently topping the charts. They spurred (re)sequencing-by-synthesis with their own padlock sequencing method; if Lander hadn't got a wild hair up his ass to do the comparative genomics project with chimps, that probably would have been my PhD thesis. They're awesome, and Church 'gets it' as well as anyone in the field regarding the potential of open, collaborative collection of information.

I think Helicos' product will probably win, but the point is that this shift in methodology is going to change science. Again. And it allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay between genetic, epigenetic, and environmental influences on, for lack of a better word, destiny. In addition to higher-resolution understanding of our history as a species and as carbon-based life.

I think I would like to subscribe to your newsletter ;-)
"Protoss will always do better with more resources, because they're just a more resource-consuming race."

Not quite. As the article says, Protoss do better even without more resources, it is just that the remaining Protoss players often run out of resources before one of them is eliminated.
My girlfriend is just finishing up teachers college and a large portion of her course was spent on technology in the classroom.

I heard her talking about podcasting once and she was told at a conference in January that podcasting was the future and teachers should be integrating it into their classrooms and this and that.

That said neither of us could figure out how to best introduce podcasts into a classroom without them being at best a simple distraction(neither could the presenters it would seem as they gave no ideas either).

That fact is though that there are a lot of new teachers that will take these peoples word as gospel and try to introduce podcasting into their classes which is the start of the cycle.

So podcasting may not be a huge success now but possibly the kids that are currently in elementary school will be the first group to truely embrace the idea of non-live radio?
Still not getting it, here's your second example in that syntax:

SELECT ?son WHERE
{
<brian> parentOf ?son
?son gender <male>
}

What's the fundamental difference? That one example yields a new RDF triple, and the other yields a query result? Surely this is just a matter of representation.
Just getting here?
Why should they spend their money on less than ideal candidates when apparently a lot of highly skilled and great developers are out of work and desperate?
I would have thought that a lack of search capability would matter. How many neat pages or sites have you come across due to searching via Google? There is currently no easy way to search the podcast content for stuff I am interested in.
Subscribed to the mailing list. Joined #startups channel on IRC. LinkedIn... Nah, I'll pass. Web-based communication tools suck compared to email+IRC.
The second is an idiot who doesn't know how to negotiate or use Google (to search for the thousands of citations to the precedent). Don't hire the guy.

News flash: big companies will try to screw you, even when it's against the law. If you do not resist, you are a chump, and I feel that hiring passive chumps can only lead to trouble.

Not nice, maybe, but it's worth understanding. When push comes to shove, you have to stand up for yourself.

Those that signed the NCA and then discarded it got themselves a free 2 months of severance. I applaud their canny maneuvering; Google is poorer for firing them.