skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Definitely a nice try, your enthusiasm is appreciated but this is the wrong audience for your widget. My home page is about:blank, I imagine this, custom pages, and netvibes/google are the popular homepages and I can't see why anyone would switch to your thing..

Honestly I suspect you've been ripped off. The idea of a mediocre homepage being seen as a gift just seems incredibly fake to me and would only work on very computer unsavvy people. You're paying money to promote someone else's widget? Are you doing this just for pagerank? Or do you get a cut of the advertising money?
Not to mention that it's one of the dumbest interview questions I've ever heard. Imagine serving a 4-year-old a piece of cake from the bottom (with little frosting).

I can see why smart people would have trouble with it. They would naturally assume that the interviewer was clever, and would see a mathematical solution while preserving the "cakeness", that is, the ability to carry frosting and internal structure.
On Balanced Trees and Car Insurance
Good design, nice content. But it has to have much better content to stick with me.
There's something fundamentally important here, a perspective that certain practices are insurance against disaster even if they add a constant amount of overhead.
That's a fascinating interview that you have linked to. Way more interesting than the original article.
Currently, I mostly follow a process outlined nicely in the link below (expect for greyscreening interactively, my grey screening is done with everyone sitting and editing a Dreamweaver template based solution together)...

http://www.newfangled.com/web_development_prototyping_proces...
(If you don’t want to watch the video above it is summarised in 4 nice pictures at http://onwired.com/portfolio/)

I am thinking about using Drupal (or even Joomla to a lesser extent) as the CMS just for interactive greyscreening just so it can be done asynchronously and on a distributed basis.
I was not lied to in this fashion. I was raised a Quaker, and we don't lie.

My parents told me about sex, prostitutes and drugs from a young age (5?). They told me sex and drugs were fun, but even better for your soul if you waited for the right person in life.

Having only had a sexual relationship with my wife, I can't say if this is true, but it certainly feels true. At any rate, because of their honesty I didn't feel like the world conspired against me, instead I felt that it trusted me and relied upon me to make correct decisions.

Paul - I'm surprised at you to put this model forward as the correct model. Why can't we create children better able to make their own judgements by being more honest and asking more of them?

Another complaint: people may move out of the city because they hate the city. I would prefer to live in the woods (and I grew up there). I never felt it was stale, I never felt trapped or bored. Working in NYC now, I am counting the hours until I can move back to somewhere beautiful.
McAfee Doesn’t Subscribe to Their Own Medicine | Tech Jaws
Sun's McNealy: 'I Don't Want to Be On the Network'
Pen and paper is best for very early concept design but quickly becomes a chore for complex sites.

To resolve this, I have tried LucidSpec (http://www.elegancetech.com) and AxureRP-Pro (http://www.axure.com) which are better in many ways than using Visio and even Freehand to a lesser extent. I like my early prototypes to focus less on graphical elements and more on functionality, user flow and interaction, and the latter tools make the mock look “too real” hence people focus on elements that are not so important at the early stages e.g. colours.

Dreamweaver remains the best for balancing creativity and productivity (concepts can be realised quickly as they are already partially built). Photoshop seems to be best for pure creativity (provided you have sufficient skill to cut up your designs and implement them).

What I am really interested in is the grey screening part. Thoughts? Thanks.
Kevin, I hear your concerns. However, if you take a closer look, you'll find this is not what you think it is. In any case, thanks for responding. ~ mel

>> Definitely a nice try, your enthusiasm is appreciated but this is the wrong audience for your widget.

I couldn't disagree more. Ponder Pearls has a content library that is very useful for the HN community, many of whom I've noticed are entrepreneurs like myself. Sales & success tips from Brian Tracy can be valuable in closing deals. Positive thoughts from successful innovators can help motivate someone who might be going through a bit of a financial roller coaster in launching their startup. I could go on and on.

>> My home page is about:blank, I imagine this, custom pages, and netvibes/google are the popular homepages and I can't see why anyone would switch to your thing.

Blank home pages work for some people. I personally used to use Google.com. I switched because you can't really get a lot of the positive content such as sales & success tips from Brian Tracy's book, quotes from The Peaceful Warrior, etc. This is like iGoogle/Netvibes/etc without ADD. It offers small bits of wisdom from some very positive people.

>> Honestly I suspect you've been ripped off. The idea of a mediocre homepage being seen as a gift just seems incredibly fake to me and would only work on very computer unsavvy people.

A lot of my clients use this and they like it. I figured you all would like it too. Take a quick peak. If you don't like it, no biggie. Just offering a gift which I think you'll find valuable. Chances are you'll love it if you try it.

>> You're paying money to promote someone else's widget? Are you doing this just for pagerank? Or do you get a cut of the advertising money?

There are no ads on the site or the desktop version. I pay for this so I can do something nice for my clients and stay in front of them in a positive way. My clients get positive thoughts. I get their loyalty. Ponder Pearls gets money from me. Win-win-win.

Think of it this way, it's like getting daily coaching from wise people.

Why am I "promoting" it on HN? I like the community. I hope it's not too hard to believe? lol No hidden agenda Kevin, promise. Anyway, I'm going to go knock out. It's 4am here in Cali.
You did more than me. I read the headline and thought, "The only reason to make that the headline is to start a flame war thus drawing attn to yourself. Next!"
I got as far as the third "comparison" on install:

For SQL Server: "Hardest most time-consuming and biggest hog of resources of the 3 even when its not doing anything"

I stopped reading - it was clear from that and the previous sentences that the author had an ulterior motive than to provide an unbiased account of the three.
Being Young is a Fault That Improves Daily
Browning got there first: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
I completely agree, however subjective the determination of what one should get for their dollar is.

Having had a DH account for numerous years which I now use for nothing important whatsoever, I can tell you... you don't get much for your combo-meal monthly fee.
Slightly offtopic, but the name

"LoveMyTool"

is just chock full of double entendre for the native english speaker. Hopefully that was your intent.
When I was studying for my PhD in Edinburgh around 1990/91, the group I was working with (Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre) bought a Connection Machine. Alas it was just being set up when I finished, so I never spent any time on it. So Thinking Machines had at least one customer!
What, exactly, are you asking here?

The question reminds me of the youyap.com site you asked us to visit: not quite enough information there to make it clear just what you were after.
Doesn't Jon Stewart already fit the bill? Intelligent, comprehensive, and entertaining. And, more news value (pound for pound) than just about any other news show.
It's really sad that a comedy show is the best news show. If I was a billionaire I would hire Jon Stewart to produce a cable news channel. I wonder if he would do it if funded sufficiently.
Rijndael Inspector - visualization of AES cipher
I don't think that being a hacker in PS is necessary as long as you can provide the designer(s) links/jpegs of things you do like. I think adding PS as a req't/suggestion is completely a waste of time for a lot of people. Bottom line: you want people to be in a position to succeed and taking someone who may not be a visual thinker and telling them they must learn+use PS is a real easy way to lose a lot of great people.
I just checked out the videos of the two websites. They look fantastic, especially Axure. If I building a complex app, I'd probably use it.

As for grey screening, I've never heard the term. I searched on Google and it didn't turn up anything.

What is grey screening?
I don't know why this is obvious. I certainly don't agree. History has seen way more successful startups started by "business people" than those founded by hackers. Don't get so myopic that you when you think "startup" you only think about cool things on the internet...
Comet: Introducing HTTP Channels
So then I would assume you would also argue that hackers need to know the business side of things for the same reason - yes? Either way, you're choosing a strategy of "Strengthen your weaknesses." There are other strategies like "Play to your strengths" that a lot of people will advocate very strongly. Personally I cannot think to advocate one and only one strategy; I think you have to fit with the dynamics at hand and go with the optimal strategy at the moment.
ClickHeat - open source clicks heatmap
Did Andreessen miss the point of Google’s Friend Connect?
http://arachnoid.com/transitions/index.html
Actually, this doesn't fit here, because "useful" implies "for a goal", and if there's no ultimate goal to life, then nothing is useful. So "life has meaning" is just another example of something that is only useful if true. Ah, well.
Excellent visualization! Very nicely done.
25 Beautifully Colorful Websites - Part 2
To OP: If you and I were talking, I would turn the question back on you and ask you: What do you think? If you are the business major in your post, do you think you can? What would it take to make it work? What would make it fail?

I firmly believe the adage that "What you think about, you bring about." Another that comes to mind is "Whatever you believe, you can achieve." I think it's all in the prepwork...
Take a look again-- I said "tech startup". And I maintain that any startup that is focused on "tech" (internet or otherwise) needs somebody who is a true "hacker" on the appropriate "tech".
This is why we need a FAQ here...
Blue Brain - Reverse Engineering the Mammalian Brain
Pure CSS Animated Progress Bar
Thanks for that, interesting interviews.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3zBfBs-hBc

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ic1Ro4LkKw -- 5.40 minutes into it
15 Excercises to Know a programming language
"It doesn't make any sense to complain about inept suggestions or withheld permission when the problem could have been solved or a critical decision could have been made without blessing from above."

The trouble is, if you try to solve a problem you weren't asked (told) to, or use new and 'unapproved' methods, and anything goes even slightly wrong, you'll be in serious trouble.

If you do what you're told and use the 'approved' methods, your job will be safe in the short term - no matter how unsatisfactory the end result.

"Many of the greatest projects that have ever come out of large corporations happened because the innovators didn't ask or wait for permission (e.g. Unix)."

Longer term, yes, I think you're right.
I'm a sucker for Top 25 cool stuff like this. Had it been 26, I probably wouldn't have clicked lol. That's probably my maximum - 25. 24 - sure. 17 - absolutely. 31? No since I don't believe anyone spent that much time checking out quality "x" for a quick web article.
Common Errors we all make in our Writing (and how to fix them)
This all sounds fabulous until you start putting out fires and possibly start to have troubles with scaling.

Not to downplay your development choice, but it's always nice to be intimate with what you rely on.
I downloaded Smart Draw (http://www.smartdraw.com/) last week and it seemed promising for tedious tasks like layouts and site maps, not so much for the graphic design side. Seems like a nice tool but they have a ridiculously anti-user trial period of "7 Application Launches before time out". I didn't feel that I was able to try it out enough before it timed out on me so I didn't buy it.
Packet Garden - 3D Visualization of your Network Traffic
Everything I want to do is Illegal
Find a host that allows you to use Postini. I found a host last week that lets you buy Postini for $1/mailbox. Postini was bought by google and my understanding is that it is the logic behind why gmail has so much less spam than others.

http://www.google.com/search?q=postini+email+hosting
How to Live Well Without a Job and with (almost) no Money
It is a worst type of "bug" because it seems intentional: the implications are enormous, the temptation is simply too big.
Remember the "netscape" crypto lib (ssl huh...)? With half-key repositories, weak rnd generators, "bugs". This doesn't happen so often by accident. Particularly after having been recognized.
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/ddj-netscape.html
I was thinking, before I clicked the link, "What are Vista's Best Features that an XP user would want?" I couldn't think of any. After reading the article, i remember that SuperFetch and ReadyBoost are definite improvements as are the improved startup/shutdown times. Things like Aero and the other junk listed are not things people care about so they don't count in my book.
Zoho No Longer Requires Accounts. Sign In With Your Yahoo Or Google ID
How about "Write a compiler/interpreter for language X in language X"?
Inside the Klein Bottle
Tom, thanks for the kind words. Our team has been fortunate in the fact that after Tom moved away in high school, he decided to become a programming genius. To add a little bit to what Tom said...

Because of the nature of our project, numerous parties and moving parts are involved. For better or for worse, there's lot of "business stuff" to do on a daily basis. Looking at some of the other YC projects, I could definitely understand the advantages of having two hackers or one hacker and one designer. However, for our project, our skills are extremely complimentary of each other and well aligned with the work that needs to be done.

One caveat, I have built a few simple websites from scratch before and taken a couple programming classes so it's not like I know nothing about programming although Tom would probably argue otherwise :).
Explaining the Poincaré Conjecture
Lisp Wins (Steve Yegge article)
Build a self-tuning portable RF Jammer
I think it's worse to be stuck with responsibility for a codebase that you have no real authority over.

You can't live in fear of that kind of stuff. Who's the fricking expert on software development? Not the managers. If you focus on meeting everyone's needs lower down on the food chain-- and invest in tools in techniques that multiply your ability to maintain and extend the code-- then your development will be so tight and your response to issues will be so comprehensive that the "play it safe" types will have nothing they can say to you. (Except maybe that they'd rather have more buttons or something.) If you're a responisible developer, you'll be addressing the "slightly wrong" stuff well before the middle managers even hear about it. You'll have a relationship with the real value-adders such that they talk to you instead of your bosses. You, after all, are the one that gets stuff done quietly and thoroughly.

Sheesh. They're "play it safe" types. Think about it. Once the code is up and running, they're not going to be to be suggesting any changes. Suddenly you're the status quo and they'll defend your work by saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" just like they said about the previous solution.
Fontstruct: Elegant GUI for Font Making
A set of interesting interview questions.
That could be rather non-trivial for some values of X ...

Maybe writing a minimal lisp like AWKLisp (with just CAR, CDR, CONS, EQ, ATOM, SET, EVAL, ERROR, QUOTE,
COND, AND, OR, LIST) could be more reasonable.
as technical as possible. i think a business major has little chance.
A toy problem with an application to acquisition offers
Consulting is sharing your own expertise with someone else. I'm looking for someone else to share their expertise with me.

That aside, short-term stages would not destroy the market. Chefs have been doing it for years. They come out of it as better chefs and then have more earning power.
Labor in the U.S. now cheaper than labor in Brazil
teachers seem solidly in the middle for the three groups.

This brings up something interesting, as a group, we like to think of ourselves as above average when compared to other disciplines, but Computer & Info. Sciences was comparable to Education. Consider that in many states, ALL teachers must go to graduate school, so many more of them are taking the GRE than Computer & Info. Sciences.

I suppose most schools with Computer Science grad programs probably also have a lite Information Science/Business program that would drag our scores down significantly. I know mine did.
I'd still have to work with that advise.
I think there was an error in his analysis of the naive solution for finding loops in linked lists (at http://20bits.com/2008/04/17/interview-questions-loops-in-li...)

I don't know Ruby, so correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe the naive solution presented runs in O(n) space and O(n^2) time (not O(n) time, as the author suggests).

If you used a hash table to keep track of nodes seen so far, you could do O(n) time and space.

The tortoise and the hare solution is quite elegant though.
Creating Highly Specific Communities around Search Queries
Matt Cutts Discusses Google's Knowledge of Spam
The writer makes the common mistake to equate circulation decline with decline of interest in the news. That clearly isn't the case which even a quick look at Pew Research stats would show. People are getting their news from the internet.

The news and music industries are very similar and despite what you read both are booming. It is the newspaper and recording industries that are buggered.
I reported a few links as spam without even knowing what i was doing. It really should be more clear.

The little "play" style button is confusing.
Watch the video in the link...

http://www.newfangled.com/web_development_prototyping_proces.... (If you don’t want to watch the video above it is summarised in 4 nice pictures at http://onwired.com/portfolio/)

I..it is baciscally creating an interactive wireframe without the graphics and focused on structure and interaction.

I am a developer, not really a designer, and working with others i have found we have some many different interpretations of meanings it is just easier to create things on the fly together. Unless you sit together in a room, this can be hard. Hence I am thinking of using Drupal as a base system for doing this.
The tortoise and the hare solution is quite elegant though.

This approach is more correctly known as Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm, and while it is suboptimal, it comes within a constant factor of the optimum for logspace algorithms.
There is a kind of lie used to spark off the child's imagination like the Santa Claus or fairies or ghosts. I don't think those are covered in this article. But these can help a child to visualize things those don't exist which is the very first step to create things those don't exist (as of now) when they grow up.
Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector
Faulty Powers: The Brain as Kludge
Most of the excerpt lengths are from the feeds, though I am cutting it off after one paragraph. The idea is you would quickly move through them and click through to the story if you want.

I don't understand your question about the new page. Can you please expand? There shouldn't be a new page load for each story, i.e. when you hit the arrow keys it should be taking the excerpts from memory.

As for the feed choice, these are just general interest feeds of course. I've thought about custom feeds, but then this just becomes another feed reader (and a worse one at that). I think its usefulness stems from the aggregation, i.e. you do no work to get a snapshot of the most emailed stories out there. And since they are not your feeds, you don't really care if you miss something.

That being said, I can really see some sub-watrcoolrs. What would you think of a hacker oriented one? Any feed ideas?

Also, what do you mean by "no-cycling?" Thanks for the feedback.
At least one of the co-founders should be in a "computer wizard" level. But almost every startup also needs a business guy.
Cakes have layers. It ruins them to cut them horizontally. And it is not convenient - how do you even hold the knife to do that?

It is a bad example.
Pure CSS... and an animated GIF. Progress bars that aren't actually tied to an underlying progressing quantity annoy me. Why not just use some spinning activity indicator instead of lying to the user? Or trying a little harder to quantify the processing going on? Or maybe even optimise/background the processing so it's fast enough not to need a progress indicator.
Wow, they are beautiful. Maybe too beautiful.

Is it just me, or do they look just a little unprofessional, almost like toys?

Brings up an interesting point - looks like there's a fine line between beautiful and professional enough for a B2B site.

Looks like "FreeAgentCentral" has best nailed that sweet spot - beautiful, professional, simple, and inviting.
Eating Mindfully: How to Pay Attention to What You Eat and Stop Just Before You're Full
Just for my own edification, what is the optimal solution?

I haven't yet seen a proof on the lower bound of cycle detection, so I don't know if other quicker solutions (like Brent's algorithm) are optimal or are just the best we've found.

And I don't think there is anything incorrect with referring to Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm as the tortoise and the hare algorithm. Most literature I've seen mentions the alias too.
The Chroma Upsampling Error
The Physics of Relationships
This line of reasoning can be brought to bear upon other questions. One I've been thinking about (brought up by PG, too): why is it that startups form disproportionately in Silicon Valley? I started to derive a result showing that SV could be in a different thermodynamic 'phase' than the rest of he world, but my thoughts ran away with me -- it will have to wait on a couple revisions.

PS: It goes from interesting and reasonable to joke territory, pretty quickly.
1. "loves the web"

2. "has a good idea"

3. "cut throat, competition heavy web space"

4. "spend day in and day out coding"

5. "how to survive in the web start-up space"

Nowhere do you mention "building something people want".

Nowhere do you mention the "utter joy of manifesting something out of nothing".

These 2 things are so overwhelmingly important that they really do overshadow everything else, like the 5 details you do mention.

If I wasn't nice, I'd say, "You just don't get it."

But since I am nice, I'll simply say, "You just answered your own question."
Non-trivial, but (even if ultimately unsuccessful) an excellent exercise to get to know a language
His argument has good points, but would be a lot more convincing if presented in a less vitriolic tone. As Sgt. Friday would say "Just the facts, ma'am."

This particular situation sounds like overkill, but there are reasons we have laws concerning who can produce and sell food, and how homes must be constructed to basic safety standards. And yes, if you sell products to consumers you have to pay sales taxes.
_Can the business major who loves the web and has a good idea about a web based business succeed_

Yes. Kevin Rose.
"raising and slaughtering rabbits"

"catching and cooking fish and turtles"

"distilling your own moonshine"

Those late night coding sessions with macaroni & cheese and Milwaukee's Best are looking better and better.