skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Future world wheat crops threatened by Ug99 stem rust
The way scientists currently combat rusts is they go down to northern Mexico each winter to survey the new strains each year so they can try to create pesticides and resistant wheat strains accordingly. The reason they go to Mexico is that the wheat grows there first, and then in Texas and the other border states when it gets a little warmer, and then finally you get the wheat crop in midwest and Canada. The spores are produced first in Mexico and then blow northwards and infect the new wheat in each climate region as it begins to grow. However, Ug99 is able to completely destroy 99% of the world's wheat population. If someone were to bring a single teaspoon of this stuff back from the middle east and put it in just the right field in northern Mexico then the potential exists to destroy a very large percentage of the north american wheat crop. Really scary stuff. It's been in the news this week because the Gates foundation just gave Cornell a 26 million dollar grant to work on the problem:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April08/wheat.rust.lm.ht...
Life of a software project
What is "FOSS"?
Inline branching would be nice...

I think they do away with this for simplicity. Inline branching doesn't make that much conceptual sense a lot of the time. That said, I wish Hg had it.
The New HondaJet
It's a beautiful craft.
The Self-Examination of a Masochistic Programmer
I'm pretty sure they all go out at once, at night, like around 9-11pm.
It's weird, because I created an identifier with 4 letters and it worked, but only after my first choice identifier, also with 4 letters, didn't work and it said it wasn't avaiable.
From Socrates to Soros
Cloning Mario probably wasn't the point.
Easter Eggs in Facebook Chat
Hardcopy printouts, marked with the date, in a shoebox under the bed... ;-)
One thing that bothers me is clutter, clear messaging should be in place on the homepage.

The multiple pictures are eye grabbers so they take away from the text that matters. Like for instance, I think "You can now learn a few words of your chosen language every day." Should be WAY BIGGER AND IMPORTANT.

I like easy, as does everyone else, so make juice worth the squeeze.

Like :
http://www.chatterous.com/
http://coordinatr.com/
http://script.aculo.us/
http://foamee.com/
http://rescuetime.com/forbiz
http://heysan.com/

I think those have clear messaging and purpose. I dont have to think what it is really...I think this will increase your user signups. As well as making that sign up button WAY bigger.

Additionally, that sign up page it has "I am Learning" then an options like "German <> English"...What's that about? Why not just ask me what language I want to learn and what language I speak don't confuse me... I mean what does that even mean anyway...

Also, when I click one word and it loops through the list, I meant for the word to translate on the other side, not have the flashing red words in the top left...

And what's with the poll? lol

That's everything from me. Sorry if I tore you up, but hey at leasts it's honest feedback, right?
The misleading part is "Play" ;-).

Interesting demo, though.
The Drupal community lives on irc. The Rails community also makes extensive use of it -- or at least they did last year when I still had time to pay close attention to Rails.

irc is alive and well.
The Actual, Documented Story Behind Facebook...is coming out in hardback
I know. Look at all those crazies thinking they'll make money on ads. None of the big boys do that; just look at these recent top tech startups (reading through Alexa):

Google
MySpace
YouTube
Blogger
fotolog
Photobucket
Flickr

Wait. Every single one of these startups is advertising supported. I wonder why people think advertising is a workable business model...
On Teaching Programming With Python 3.0
Sorry. We will fix it ASAP.

Must have escaped out build tests. Won't happen again. ;-)
Great idea, here's some thoughts:
- I signed up and it put me in a google gadget widger page, but it's not actually a google gadget. http://widget.learnitlists.com/orkut/index/google_gadget is the url I am talking about. It was just kind of confusing to be put in there

- I was tossed into it without any explanation and words began revealing themselves if I clicked on things but I could not type in the words I knew (Or is that not how it works?) It looked like I was supposed to begin typing/guessing the words but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Great front page though, made me want to try it right away
If a product doesn't revolutionize mankind, then it's not worth the valuations. Tech would die without hype. It's the frictional force between us and the fate suffered by aerospace engineering.
Im sorry but if anything 37s ripped off IRC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS
BBC and ISPs clash over increased bandwidth costs from BBC's new offering
Yeah, you shouldn't be able to downmod below -1. That's enough to send the signal. Otherwise people will just keep downmodding and go in for the kill.

I heartily disagree about you wanting YC to stay one of a kind though. The beauty of our capitalist society is that if anyone wants to try to do it better, they can give it a shot. It's to YC's credit that so many people want to copy it. And I think they welcome that.
It comes with free 37signals Kool-Aid, and man, is that good Kool-Aid...
"Our Users API allows you to authenticate users with Google Accounts"

It doesn't in any way disallow you from using something like openid, but your post seemed to imply that.
I agree...it took a while on the phone to get to the heart of what the fellow was asking about, and I've arbitrarily called the types of business "community" and "value" since that's the only thing I could think of that really fits the difference between these very different businesses. Auctomatic and Zenter are obviously not even a little similar, and yet when one asks "did their value come from their community or the utility of their software?" the answer is clear. Since none of these things are really black and white, I just fudged a bit to try to bring to light the "ah ha!" moment I had during the conversation.

I'm obviously not suggesting that people shouldn't build community-based startups or that YC shouldn't fund them. Just suggesting that maybe a useful application is a safer bet than an application that has to reach millions of users to be a valuable acquisition target (or to make money). But, if we wanted safe, we'd be working for Microsoft or Google, right?
(I am Indian and I have friends in the IIMs).

Scarily enough these guys are serious. They think they are actually doing something "cool". The whole idea seems to be that "real hackers" (note the quotes) would feel "challenged" by such an environment and buy into it. After all why else would they want to attend a google interview? (ignoring the fact that Google India is no where near as cool - in terms of work done or quality of people hired - as Google California).

In short this is just managers living in their own fantasy world. No real hacker would take these guys seriously.
I've seen the canvas do fairly decent realtime 3D, and used the canvas to render somewhat-simple 3D scenes very quickly.
Personal photos.

I've been giving Picassa a whirl.

There's a part of me that just dislikes the "winner takes all", eventual walled-garden effect.
There's a self-service laundromat I go to, and the have you charge up a reusable swipe card.

The card machine takes 1's, fives, and so on; bills, no coins, but the machines themselves cost oddball amounts.

The big-load washer was something like $5.63, and the drier was $0.69 for 15 minutes.
Footers In Modern Web Design: Creative Examples and Ideas
Network Solutions Hijacking Unassigned Sub-Domains
Flickr's $25 Fee: A Business Model For User-Generated Video?
What makes something a Web app?

Is it (not) simply the ability to fetch and post data via HTTP?
HuddleChat Has Been Taken Down
A visit to http://www.huddlechat.com/ grants the following message:

Hi, a couple of our colleagues wrote Huddle Chat in their spare time as a sample application for other developers to demonstrate the power and flexibility of Google App Engine. We've heard some complaints from the developer community about it and because of that we've decided to take it down. If you'd like to see more sample applications written on Google App Engine please check out our documentation and our App Gallery.

Thanks,
The Google App Engine Team

Seems they did not want to deal with the criticism over the similiarities between it and campfire (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/huddlechat_campfire_rip.php)
AP Calculus. The epiphany was "I have a very bad teacher and this is really easy stuff. The rest of the class will fail because they didn't realize this earlier. :( :( "

Linear Algebra. The epiphany is difficult to explain and remember. It involved the elegance and coolness of eigenvectors.

How damned important and awesome physics is to life. The epiphany came after actually predicting precisely how a projectile would fall and where it would hit when launched. My only thought was "Oh my god, why didn't they tell me I could predict the future long before I got sucked into CompSci? I would be a physics major had they shown me this stuff earlier. Why isn't teaching better? How many other people never discover this and abandon interest?"

Why people tried hard at all in school. Epiphany: "Because people really do reward you for excellence after school. Even if doing well in school feels like you're being penalized and singled-out, all those other people will be slacking off after school while you're naturally being successful."
i think people wouldn't have downmodded you to this extent if you had said the above instead of "puke". it's the "what do i make of that response" irritation which causes people to do that.
So basically App Engine + Gears + Prism = a Python version of Joyent Slingshot.
This is exactly how Microsoft did business: clone, acquire, or kill competitors that had any success running on their platform.
In this case, they're talking about apps that were designed to present their UI inside a browser.
Wow, that's pretty low . . . even for Network Solutions.
WTF does your site do?
Oh, that's must be why they took it down.
Yes. Use it all day at work.

Super handy.
Can't blame them really. It's not worth risking the wrath of the Internet crazies for the sake of doing a single cool tech demo. They made their point already, and they're not going to win an argument against a bunch of zealots.
"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."

Or in this case competence. It was trivial for a few Googlers to functionally clone your super-duper web-app in their spare time with Google's new publicly available tools?! Doh!
I don't get the complaining. It's a sample to show the power of AE. It's not as if Google has released HuddleChat on the level of Gmail or Google Maps. Speaking of which, does anyone know if Yahoo or MS complained about design copying when Gmail was released?

From the comments of the RWW post about this http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/huddlechat_campfire_rip...

"""
As one of the App Engine product managers, I wanted to give an update -- we've now taken HuddleChat down from the App Engine app gallery. The App Engine team was looking for some sample apps to help kick the tires on their new system, so we invited Googlers to build some as side projects. A couple of our colleagues here built HuddleChat in their spare time because they wanted to share work within their team more easily and thought persistent web chat would do the trick. We've heard some complaints from the developer community, though, so rather than divert attention from Google App Engine itself, we thought it better to just take HuddleChat down.

Thanks,
Pete Koomen
Product Manager, Google App Engine Team
"""
37signals are such stuck up, elitist, preppy twats... They should eat their own words and compete.

http://tinyurl.com/65my4q

This was just a demo app for a framework in a completely different language. I don't think it was a huge threat, I mean come on, they didn't invent online chatrooms. They just invented a doll house, my Mom can play with, that looks like a watered down IRC (for $$$).

The main reason they sell Campfire is for the integration with their other apps... something I doubt the Google App Engine Team managed to add to their clone.
I don't get the complaining. It's a sample to show the power of AE. It's not as if Google has released HuddleChat on the level of Gmail or Google Maps. Speaking of which, does anyone know if Yahoo or MS complained about design copying when Gmail was released?

From the comments:

""" As one of the App Engine product managers, I wanted to give an update -- we've now taken HuddleChat down from the App Engine app gallery. The App Engine team was looking for some sample apps to help kick the tires on their new system, so we invited Googlers to build some as side projects. A couple of our colleagues here built HuddleChat in their spare time because they wanted to share work within their team more easily and thought persistent web chat would do the trick. We've heard some complaints from the developer community, though, so rather than divert attention from Google App Engine itself, we thought it better to just take HuddleChat down.

Thanks, Pete Koomen Product Manager, Google App Engine Team """
I don't recall the 37signals people ever complaining. There are oodles of Basecamp competitors out there, and I honestly don't think they mind the competition/copycats.

They are really very humble about competition, in general.
Doomed to failure. Business models where you charge for your product instead of for advertising just aren't viable anymore.

</sarcasm>
How to Count Cards at Blackjack?
Here's the complaining and their basically solid rationalization for it.

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/575-but-theres-only-so-ma...

Although I'd still come back and say there's only so many ways to do chat . . .
Simulating closures? that seems pretty clever I've just recently integrated a functional extension into our private web application framework a few months ago. Perhaps we can share notes?
"... Seems they did not want to deal with the criticism over the similiarities between it and campfire ..."

Maybe.

If you look at the amount of press proclaiming you can "re-create" a 37sigs app using googles new toolkit. Then you might say it's a clever "social media hack" to make the dev community to take notice. There is an alternative to ROR and it scales. And we told you by example. We got our point across using code not blogs!
It's a new microblogging/lifestreaming service. Competitor to Tumblr, Pownce, FriendFeed, Jaiku, etc. I thought the existing tools were all deficient in certain crucial ways so I made one I'd actually want to use myself.
Joyent: Let my People Have Root
Analysis: Google App Engine alluring, will be hard to escape
Little League and the Goodyear Blimp - Best Game Ever
That's not complaining about competition, that's complaining about theft of design.

I really don't think they care if someone copies the functionality of one of their products, but I think they care when someone copies their words and design (CSS and images, in this case). Two completely different things.
If Google’s App Engine ever met an app appliance…
Google's App Engine: Should Amazon worry?
How To Pitch Your Startup To Blogs
Google To Close HuddleChat
If you wish to see DH6 in action and completely for religion, Berkeley, Kant and the scientific exploration of the grand unificaiton theory at LCH, purchse "The Nightmare Treacheries" by Scott St. Clair Henderson
If you wish to read DH6 in action and completely for Religion, Science and the grand unification theory at LHC, read the Nightmare Treacheries by Scott St. Clair Henderson
Stefanie Posavec “On the Map”
Good example. Perhaps they're trying to encourage you to tip in whole numbers, further away from your "mental anchor" than you would with a number like $8.99.

Maybe a $10 meal nets a carefree $2 tip whereas a $9.99 meal merits a meticulous $11.49 total in the customer's head.
Hooray for commoditization.
I don't know if a company can be considered a baby, but, if so, 37Signals can safely add another notch their belt of "Biggest [something]" awards.
Mappinks - google engine application. Really nice experience using the sdk.
Hacking the Apple Remote
It's funny how I don't hear anyone saying, wow how cool, they listened and tried their best to respect 37signals. All this was was a few engineers trying to make something cool really quick just to show what you can do with AppEngine. Google, probably thought it was cool too and decided to showcase it.

This was really blown out of proportion. If anyone wants to perpetuate conspiracy theories you've got plenty of ammo with AppEngine. This HubbleChat thing is/was nothing. Cope.
I don't understand the particulars of this case, but in general:

There are 2 sets of hackers: those whose intellectual property has been stolen and those whose intellectual property will be stolen.

The former group thinks it's a big deal. The latter group doesn't (yet).
It is foolish to make any very general statements about "India" (just as it would be to make very general statements about "America"). Too large an entity to make generalizations.
IBM Conjures Phantom to Fight Hacker Menace
Ask YC: Anyone know the proper way to report a phishing site?
Hi - we recently found a website so similar to ours we considered suing for infringement, but upon closer examination it appears to be a phishing site. Does anyone know the proper way to report something like this?
Zak, you rule! Thank you.
The Anatomy of Personal Change
Yeah like that isn't the default easiest bribing situation ever.

Guard: "Not so fast!"

Worker: "How about I split the $10 million in cash I'm holding with you?"
Google does not render resistance futile (old)
Good article.

We recently decided to move to AIR/Flex as jQuery and the like was insufficient in providing a true event-driven experience for the multiplayer technology we're developing. Flex/AIR handles the presentation layer a lot better than jQuery, lets us rapidly develop and prototype, and allows for a secured XMPP data path.

For interacting with users in real-time, traditional web technology just doesn't cut it I'm afraid... especially for gamers. The amount of HTTP polling necessary to replicate XMPP's inherent functionality creates ungodly amounts of lag on both the browser and their internet connection...

Side note: hooked on Twitter simply because of Twhirl.
OpenID for Google Accounts - use Google Account to log into any site that supports OpenID
The Rubicon Project launches high-quality ad optimization
Can't leave the office all day -- it's going to get messy in there.

When you start you get water wings that say, "Make Something People Want"
I looked at the differences between the two and.. it's a layout and styling that I see everywhere.
On paper.
OnStartups: Why I Hate PowerPoint and You Probably Do Too
Mac Machines considered helpful
I always say prices have no more than 2 significant digits.
I don't want to knock Mercurial; I think it's actually quite nice. However, I'm a little puzzled about why you think git has poor documentation. The User's Manual (http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual....) is quite readable and covers most common and many uncommon use cases. I've also never had trouble making sense of the man pages for the individual commands. They are dense, but they cover a whole slew of highly advanced functionality and have always seemed to me quite thorough.

Also, I'm not sure I agree git has a particularly steep learning curve. I know that in the pre-1.5 days, everyday usage required a lot more knowledge of the plumbing, but today, the high-level commands seem pretty straightforward to me. Sure, the index takes some getting used to (and a very nice tool it turns out to be, too), but is that really the only thing that makes you say that git has a steep learning curve?
Google App Engine page already owned by hackers
I would suggest there's a third set, who sits around on Slashdot and argues that "intellectual property" is a misnomer and therefore cannot be "stolen".
I am sorry. We have already given up building the site and were ready to let the idea wait for another year, but then our co-prankster, who didn't read the e-mails where we communicated our decision to postpone, called us on the phone and said the press-release was already on its way to tech publications all around. Then I had about one hour to write all the text you see in the cover, a couple news items excepted, while my other co-prankster was buying the domain, setting up hosting and uploading the HTML skeleton and designing the logo. I was sitting in a café waiting to pick up my wife while I banged this page.

From that OMFG moment, the denial-anger cycle that followed, to uploading the last touches, we made it all in about three hours.

We will plan better for next April. I promise.

BTW, the Slashdot submission is still pending. We may even be able to see it re-boom in a couple days.
"we had alreaday"... That's what you get when you are writing this late into the night.
I don't care about root if this new service lets me launch all kinds of random sites and see what sticks. I've had a (Textdrive then) Joyent account for a long time, and the cost and 3-domain name limit makes it harder for me to try random things.
I thought that point was self-evident. If anything, that post suggests to me that traditional hosting companies are starting to get nervous, if they have to state the obvious... anyone else read it that way?
I actually thing the new javascript standard would make an even better language pedagogically speaking!
I mean, it supports both dynamic and static typing, and has a number of other really nifty features, such as closures, which python sorely lacks!
Excellent use of App Engine.

But it makes me wonder why Google hasn't done this on their own yet. Maybe because they're trying to re-create every possible web app so you don't need to login to anything but Google?
My partner and I submitted a "life management" app, but also touched on a learning aid in the "other projects" section. Unfortunately, my partner was out of town during most of the development of our demo, and I'm not very satisfied with what I had together come submission time. What I'm happy about is that I feel the work making the demo was a growth experience. (An entertaining one, as a bonus!)

Of course, we're still going to work on it, regardless of whether or not we get accepted. I'm going to start actively using it for its intended purpose within a week, which should be really informative.

Also, good luck with your businesses, to everyone who applied! Whether we succeed or fail, we'll all grow from the experience in one way or another.
Can anyone explain what was wrong with this? If someone is determined enough to move to SV for the startup ecosystem, is an extra $200/month really going to stop them?
It's not self evident to me anyway. Which point?
DHH already said all this.

And PG noticed hackers moving to Mac 3 years ago.
Why Data Portability is Important For Web Personalization
Yes I did and I'm sure I have a great opportunity in my hands but I also have some difficulties to face. I had a co-founder which was the coder and unfortunately he had to drop off the idea because personal reasons. We were working in a online investment social network which I'm pretty sure is great but now I can see some reasons to not be selected. I can do really little coding and I'm a sole founder right now. Let's see what is going to happen.
Got a question for any of the YC participants or partners... in the past, what percentage of YC applicants have gone on to the interview stage? According to the comments there were over 500 applicants, and the end result is around 20 groups.. I'm curious as to what the middle ground tends to look like.
The “Option” Pattern - Scala vs C++/Java