skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Umm, thanks?!

Not exactly hackerish or star-upish I know but I was going along this guideline:

anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I find it fascinating that as a race we have reached a point where we are seriously discussing the possibility of making another planet hospitable enough to maintain human life.
Wow, stack the deck much?

If your application required connection to three databases concurrently, then you almost certainly wouldn't have chosen Django 1.0 as your application development platform.

If connecting to multiple databases is a new requirement, then you're likely going to have to change much of your code / environment anyway, no matter whether or not you're using Django 1.0, 1.2, or Rails.

Also, for what it's worth, the OP doesn't mention just Django, it mentions Pylons, Repoze, etc. Django isn't the only Python tool in the arsenal.

Besides that, if you swap out your database abstraction layer in almost any language that I know of, you're going to have bigger problems than 'finding new plug-ins'. I can't think of a single ORM that is replaceable to another without significant retooling above the model layer. Most notably though, since you cite it as an example, losing the admin panel can hardly be considered as too big a deal, since the last time I looked at Rails, Symfony or Cake, none of them even offered that as a feature.

As for your last sentence:
I'd rather use one tool that should cover my needs than be forced to switch them because they don't fit the needs of project.

Can I safely assume that you're building everything in Java then? I mean, honestly, we pick the right tool for the job, don't we? We shouldn't be building things in Django because it's all we know, just as we shouldn't be building things in Ruby/Rails for that reason. Take a look at the challenges and figure out what makes sense.

If you don't know wha the challenges are before you start developing (they're often surprising), then just start iterating until you figure out what they are. In this case, whatever framework or development platform lets you iterate the most quickly is the winner, whatever language it happens to be written in.
Tibbon, I'm in Columbus and while I don't know that I'm really part of the startup scene, I'm working on it. If you want to meet up for lunch or beers you can email me at stansbury.mark at gmail.com or find me on Twitter @markstansbury.

I think you'll find that Columbus doesn't have much of a startup scene compared to Boston, but it could be worse.

I'm trying to get a few people together to watch the first OSU football game on Thursday night if you're interested. Grandview area. And before the game I'm planning on going to a tech-startup meetup sometime between 4:30 and 7. That could be pretty interesting and I'd be happy to meet up with you and head over if you'd like.

Let me know.
Techstars hosts a series of vlogs called "The founders", often compared to a reality show, where you can see more of how things go: http://www.techstars.org/thefounders/

The last season they showed Boulder team, which had their demo day last month.

Funny fact: about the videos being compared to a reality show, the idea actually came from Hollywood, even though they produce it all by themselves (well, they do have Rackspace backening them...). Brad Field tells more: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/06/the-techstars-story-...
I think it was a graduated response. Here's the timeline as I understand it:

- Super Duper registered for a new trademark.

- Mattel tried to stop it through the Trademark Office, and then tried to cancel a few Super Duper's past trademarks that contained "Say" or "And Say".

- Super Duper sued Mattel.

- Mattel counter-sued, for $10m

- Mattel won, again and again

Sometime during this process, Mattel offered to settle by letting Super Duper remove the words "Say" and "And Say" from certain products.
What's produced at hackathons?
You say that so negatively, but I bet, at the very least, it would mean we could skip the "HN Sucks now" threads that pop up every month.

Edit: I just wanted to say that I was joking there, since it might not be obvious. The detriment of course would be that we'd lose out on the advice of the non-technical members we have here.
You have considered the possibility that there are HNers who disagree with pg, correct?
I believe the resilience, critical thinking/reading and ability to keep going are benefits I've had. Less so the actual research output.
Also, if the startups fail, you could have a pretty awesome reality TV show out of it. I'm only halfway joking.

You do raise a good point- the worst part of living in NYC and doing a startup is rent. If you could fix that part of the equation in some way, all sorts of fun stuff starts happening and you can really keep costs/salaries down.
One thing I'm unclear on: Did they use the training data in assessing accuracy? (Sorry if I missed this in my reading.) If so, it might be interesting to see how well they do on a separate test set. Also, it would be interesting to see the results broken down conditioning both on the estimated sentiment and on the true sentiment -- "precision" and "recall" by type.
Good post, except one point - you're not a socialist. You're someone who believes in people acting individualistically and through voluntary cooperation. Hell, you sound like you've got similar politics as me. I think people should empower themselves and I'm for voluntary worker's collectives, absolutely. I think being salaried when you could go off and do a project with a team you pick is a bad choice. I'm all for people controlling their own destiny.

But that's not socialism. Socialism has a definition - it was coined and defined by Marx as an intermediate stage on the way to Communism after the proles have seized the means of production by violence. Marx postulated that after heavy social control and violence against the exploiters, all class and social barriers would melt away into paradise.

Turns out, he's wrong. People are different.

You're not a socialist as Marx defined it. If you want to redefine socialism and say you're this redefined thing, okay, sure. But it sounds to me like you're more into free action than socialism. That's a healthy place to be. Marxist-brand socialism is not a healthy place to be, or at least, everything that's remotely tried to be it has gone very wrong.
Very cool - the return of an East Coast presence for YC is a good thing for New York and Boston based early entrepreneurs.
I completely agree infact Jack Cheng wrote a great article about the type of effects our environment has on our habits.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/habit-fields/
Hi Guys,

This is a question I've been struggling with for a while now.

Would you host your company's super important bread and butter code on GitHub instead of your own server?

I get a funny feeling every time I think about this mostly because I've put tons of time (3 years) into our code base and I think of it as one of the most important aspects of our company.

Then again, GitHub hosts their code on GitHub which makes me feel a bit at ease in doing so.

I would really appreciate your insights.

Thanks!
I'm working on a VM/ec2 image for Gitorious to ease the installation pain. I'm working from the the Ubuntu installation script that the Gitorious project provides, and I will try to get the improvements merged upstream. Things are mostly working, so I will be making the work public after a few more days of testing. Feel free to contact me if you'd like more info.
Fighting Gravity "America's Got Talent" | Exotic Home ReSources
At the point that most of these companies are getting funded, valuing their 'idea' (and it isn't much more than an idea at that point generally) at 100K is rather generous even, so it isn't a horrid idea.
This is excellent advice. I should have added this one.

Perhaps this belongs under a post called "10 hard ways to fail a Ph.D."

An advisor-advisee mismatch can be excruciating.
Anyone seriously considering "doing something similar" is going to look into exactly what the patent covers, where, and for how long. There are plenty of databases to search for that information and plenty of professionals to help them do so.

At worst, an expired patent might be considered inaccurate advertising that fools a few consumers into thinking a product won't have any generic alternatives available. Not sure it's a $500 per violation level of misleading though...

I'm not really sure how anyone other than the lawyers attempting to extort money (and representing only themselves) benefits in any way.

The companies that suffer the most will be those that have genuinely tried to protect innovative product designs they've actually implemented, rather than those with secret arsenals of vague and broad business process patents that are mainly conceived as an excuse to sue the successful.
Guess this is the big announcement Harj and Jessica were twetting about: http://twitter.com/Harjeet/status/22654064109
It's 2010. Checking to see if a patent is still valid is trivial.

What happens to old stock or whatever? Do retailers have to pull things from the shelves when their patents expire?

Better yet, you could have a product code, that could lead to a web page that has the list of patents (and potentially other information; recalls etc?) on it.
Do you live in thailand?
The same law bans creditors from contacting anyone related to you
Do you also tell them that every email provider worth their salt is performing some sort of analysis on their mail?

It's not particular to Google. Google didn't invent mail routing, or spam filtering, or any of the other reasons that people would be scanning my mail. Hotmail, Yahoo, et al have been doing it since far before GMail was even a product.
I read it and commented before it was edited to include that bit about Anathem. The original post made no mention of reading any book.
That's exactly what I wondering a few minutes ago :-) - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653191
Depending on the school grad students are not necessarily cheaper to a professor than Postdocs due to the overhead/fees paid for students versus that paid for postdocs. Also the current academic job market in the US is bad. Taking a postdoc for 1,2,3 years has been very common in Computer Science for people seeking faculty positions in the last couple of years.
Yes indeed.

But where's your (or Raganwald's) collection of essays on how people should be paid a standard hourly rate regardless of their actual output?
I like the way you think! ....wait, uhhhh....I've got nothing, downvote me.
The tenure system is also completely different in Europe.
Ask HN:  What are your non-programming hobbies?
I'm thinking of taking up a hobby to get my mind off of coding (not that I don't like thinking about coding!) and give me something better to do than watch TV. Now the next question is trying to figure out what hobby to choose. What hobbies have you guys picked up?
I haven't played with Silver Lining yet due to its infancy, but I personally considered the problem solved with virtualenv and fabric, though my deployments aren't exactly complicated anyway.
Welcome to reddit!
I doubt that it will cost the company that much to remove the patent number. Packaging changes all the time. Seriously name one product that uses the same packaging it did 17 years ago.

As for patent number stamped on the product itself, I bet if the company took the stamping tool off the machine, or filled in the patent number part of the mold, it would cost a day or two and a few $K. I bet the law (judges, regulatory agencies, etc) would be willing to make exceptions for "if it was manufactured while the patent was valid, there is no need to retroactively remove the number.

Your other points -- general advice is to not look into patents when creating things, seriously google it. Consumers don't care about the patent, but that is a strawman. Consumers do care about shady business practices, which this falls under.

As for why the lawyer should get money? He is willing to look for the violations of the law, he can get rewarded for it. Further, it is probably far more efficient than the amount tax money the USPTO would waste enforcing this poorly.
The sound of sorting algorithms using HTML5 audio
> You're not a socialist as Marx defined it.

Exactly. There's a big difference between 'Socialism', 'socialism', and 'libertarian socialism.' He's a libertarian socialist. Marx advocated Socialism.
We'll have to wait and see for the current generation 'steals from itself' but the baby boom generation have definitely screwed themselves. Other than the few unlucky souls who went to Vietnam the baby boomers lived through an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity and all they have to show for it is a mountain of debt.
(Probably off-topic? Maybe nerdy enough?) Icelandic Waterfall and Rock Wallpaper
"Socialism" was definitely not coined by Marx. Google "Robert Owen" if you're interested in pre-Marx socialism.
> whereas American Ph.D.s can (usually) transition directly to faculty jobs

In physics, going straight from grad student to professor is extremely rare these days.
I cannot resist too: java guys nowadays autocomplete everything with eclipse
"self-organized collectives" are abundant in western capitalism, we usually refer to them as corporations. The terms and agreements between parties in these organizations vary but many fit your ideal.

The philosophical difference between socialism and capitalism, is the willingness to accept violence and coercion as a means to mold society to a specific vision.
Build An Opensource Dropbox Clone
37 Signals - Customer Survey Happiness App in Rails 3
Conan Announces Name of New TBS Show
> Exactly. There's a big difference between 'Socialism', 'socialism', and 'libertarian socialism.' He's a libertarian socialist. Marx advocated Socialism.

Most people - like 90% of people - don't know the difference. Reginald wrote, "I don't like the idea of anyone forcing me to accept socialism" - that's good and healthy. Socialism, unfortunately, now has strong connotations of control involved. If he's for people being able to choose their own life and destiny, I think he'd be best off picking a word or phrase that says that. "Free action" is the closest I know.

Why lock 90%+ of people out of the discussion because they don't know the terminology?
They're called tetrominoes, singular tetromino. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino
I learned a lot of things from this survey, I didn't know about some of the listed features and listed tools. I read the manual and searched the web for tools a lot of time ago, so I guess there are many new things out there.
Microsoft patents Operating System Shutdown
No. If you go through bankruptcy, trust me, you'll know it. There will be a judge involved and a fairly involved litigation process.

This will not result in any marginal negative comments on your credit reports. You've already earned those by dint of not paying your bills as agreed. There is no special box which they can check to say "He knows how to cite the FDCPA. Ding his credit harder!"

Accurate negative information can stay on your credit report for up to seven years from date of first delinquency, ten years for bankruptcies if I remember correctly.

Credit reports are increasingly used to vet prospects for jobs in the United States, and for some insurance purposes. Being delinquent on a single obligation is not exactly outside the mainstream of the American experience.

If a credit collection agency violates federal law by claiming they have ties to immigration, let's see:

a) You are talking to them on the phone. You should never, ever talk to creditors on the phone. If they call you, the most you should ever do is ask for their postal address, and then you send them a letter mentioning the FDCPA and instructing them to never call you. If you legitimately owe them, obviously, you should pay them, but handle all negotiation on paper. Almost all abuse of debtors happens on the phone, because it does not leave a paper trail.

b) Document the threat, immediately. At the very least, write down in a journal who said it (get a name or desk number), when, and what the exact contents of the threat was.

c) You have a couple of options at this point. The easy option is to write them a letter politely informing them that you are aware of your rights, that they have threatened you in violation of the FDCPA, and that instituting legal action against you will turn into a very expensive proposition for them. The less easy but fairly straightforward option is to go to any US court of competent jurisdiction -- your local small claims court works -- and sue them under the FDCPA for making prohibited statements in collection of a debt, namely, falsely alleging legal consequences which do not exist and falsely claiming affiliation with a government organization. You will win. Damages are $1,000 per incident, and your debt stands a good chance of being voided in the bargain.

You are highly likely to have additional legal claims against them based on state consumer protection statutes, torts like fraud, etc. Speak to a lawyer if you want the details.

You can also speak to your state's consumer protection or Attorney General's office. They're fairly big on these things.

For these and other questions, I recommend the Motley Fool forums, Credit Cards & Consumer Debt forum in specific.
Had I been using up research funding from my advisor during those two years, he would have been expecting me to produce research papers and to contribute to the project.

He probably would have booted me out and hired someone else willing to do the research if that had been the case.

If you've got a non-research source of funding like a fellowship or TA funding, by all means, have some fun.

But, if you're being paid from research funds, it's important to accomplish the research mission first.

If you have time left over, take some fun classes.
I'm the guy who went flat broke and this is what I'm doing about it.
I wonder if he'll be listed as a 'co-founder' of Y Combinator?
One of the beliefs I share with many (though certainly not all) of the regulars on HN is that upmods should be given based on the merit of comment as measured by it contribution to the discussion. That isn't the same thing as whether I agree with the comment, and there are many comments I upmod even though I disagree.

So when it comes to PG's beliefs, I'm sure you can appreciate that I might admire Paul The Man and admire one of Paul's essays to the point of forwarding it around, even though I might disagree with it in part or even in whole.

Being specific, I see compensation as being one of many different ways we try to game people into doing good things. Some people respond to this carrot, some ignore it and are motivated by other things, and some game the system by lying or cheating their way into getting more carrots, like Mark Hurd slashing HP's R&D budget then pocketing millions for raising their profits.

A word like "should" is ambiguous. Does it mean "Should because that is Right with a capital R?" Or does it mean "Should because it is the best way to achieve some larger social goal?"

All that being said, may I offer these two statements and ask you if it is possible for someone to be an S-ist and an H-ist?

S-ists advocate a method of compensation based on individual merit

H-ists believe people should be compensated on how productive they are
>At best a handful of chemists remember what Einstein's Ph.D. was in.

>Einstein's Ph.D. dissertation was a principled calculation meant to estimate Avogadro's number. He got it wrong. By a factor of 3.

This is interesting. A quick search can't show me the history of Avogadro's number -- what was it thought to be before? Einstein could have been off by a factor of three, or he could have been off by "only" a factor of three. Context matters.
I suspect that people will have no choice but to be more tolerant as there won't be people who are entirely blemish free when faced with the increased level of scrutiny.

David Brin's "The Transparent Society" has some interesting things to say about this sort of transparency. While I'm not 100% sold on his conclusions the analysis is well worth reading and thinking about.
What Is Consciousness? –Modern Science of The Mind
I was considering writing a similar post after that thread the other day. I fear for this thread, though. This becomes a touchy subject quickly.

I personally identify with something very close to libertarian socialism myself, so you're not the only one.
Wow, I wonder how big the YC network is now after so many years in operation. Has anybody done any statistical analysis? Like how many cofounders walked out the programme and where their startups are currently located
Good for the individual entrepreneurs? Sure. Good for the overall East coast tech scene? I doubt it. I could be wrong, but I doubt that pg has changed his stance on startups needing to move to Silicon Valley. More than likely, this will serve as a "funnel" for companies from NYC to SV.

Of course, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that I doubt this is a good thing for the overall east coast entrepreneur community.
Look for the link "this excellent explanation" in the article for more on the analytical solution.
Why would he invent a new term when libertarian socialism has such a history already, and is used by prominent thinkers such as Chomsky?
Do You Love Your Business as Much as Hef Loves Playboy?
No worries, it's an easy distinction to forget, and rarely do people use 'the s word' in America without a ridiculous amount of rhetoric.
I'm with the OP on this. It's too easy to get distracted by all the awesome things you can do and learn when at Grad School.

> (a) become a broadly smart individual

Do you need to be in grad school to achieve this? Why not just read widely and do the odd course here and there? I also suffered from the 'learn everything' bug and I think it cost me. I'm confident in my ability to learn so a lack of knowledge in one area doesn't bother me.

> (b) do research later on anything else besides the tiny topic of your dissertation

This isn't true at all. Learning the skills involved in focusing on one area can then be applied to another area later on. I've moved between Physics and Neuroscience and was (reasonably) focused on each at the time. However, the grad students who succeed in academia tend to focus on one thing for many years, right the way through post-docs. It's only when they become tenured that they begin branching out more.

(Note: I went through the UK system)
Speaking of PG essays I admire:

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
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They're only allowed to contact third parties to find "location information" for you. If they have successfully made contact with you already, and you have forbidden them from further contact, speaking to any third party about the debt is a per se violation of the FDCPA.

(Your wife is you and vice versa, for the purposes of the FDCPA. Barring them from speaking to you bars them to speak to her.)

If it happens, take a day off work and sue them. You will win.

Edited to add: Forgot to mention, always send mail certified if you are harboring plans of suing people for ignoring its contents. It costs $5 or so and you get written confirmation from the post office that they received the mail, which is admissable in court.