skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>I want to know: Why the hype?

"Startups" in the context of HackerNews and crew are glorified small businesses.

There is a lot of buzzy words that make the people here feel special, but it's nothing new. Individuals have been working long days, risking their homes and succeeding or failing at small businesses since the discovery of trade.

You want to be your own boss? You start a company. Maybe you pay the mortgage, maybe you fail, maybe you strike it rich.

You enjoy working 9-5 and taking two weeks vacation a year? Then be happy working for someone else.

I think the fact that it's easy to form a community of software developers compared to a community of masons has created a feedback loop of feeling special. A widget in my browser is no more special than a widget I spread cream cheese on. It's all small business until they strike it big and maybe become Dunkin Donuts or Facebook.

Edit: I just realized how great a choice masons was for an example, but for the wrong reason. HackerNews is an echo chamber for software small businesses. Masons and other craftsmen didn't have the internet and they formed their own guilds which served the exact same purpose.
Examples of poor error messages when submitting blank forms
Really? Easier than C syntax, which is a more appropriate in this context, and on which Java's syntax is based upon?
I like fixing other people's computers. It's the closes thing I have to a super power. Imagine if superman decided he was too busy to help other people....
I guess the thing that annoys me more than anything about this blog is that the author often has great posts, but is a tangle of contradictions. For example, Clojure is bad because it ignore Common Lisp (nevermind that many of its features are inspired by CL). History is good and we should stop trying to create new things. The blog author is also creating a new Lisp. People should stop creating minimal Lisp implementations (history is now bad?). The more you read this blog the more these types of things pop up. However, I get the impression that often he's taking the piss and that's why I continue to read.
Feels like a rant. Which doesnt even point out what exactly is wrong and how could have been done right.
A lot of programmers are either inapt or inept at making their own "batteries"; let's call them b-group programmers. Clojure's main draw over lisp (as I see it) is the JVM and all of the work that a-group programmers have contributed. It's lisp, with most[1] of the allure of an almost mystically powerful succinctness, but with batteries included.

I contend that while batteries are, in the short term, a big help to the b-group it would be better for the programmers to look into whether or not they have what it takes to move into the a-group. One will never fail to learn a ton walking the hallowed halls of the a-group's code trying to figure out how that formerly black box does it's magic.

Where I currently work, for better or worse, the micro-development manager has forbidden the use of JavaScript libraries. The net effect has been that some developers have left/been let go and the ones of us that have stayed have had to learn to roll our own.

pg said it best: "Powerful libraries are a cheap way to make a new language the language du jour. (Think Rails.) They're not the critical ingredient if you're trying to make something to last; they may even hurt."

[1]: no CLOS, no Tail Call Optimization, etc...
Really, LispWorks has its IDE ported to GTK+ and looks very nice under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux/FreeBSD. Got concurrency, too.

I'm also looking forward to see the ARM port of Clozure CL mature with the alpha version already running on an iPad.
This article makes it seem like Lisp is in a state of continuous evolution. In which case I don't see a good enough argument why Clojure isn't part of that.

Even more so, it kinda reads like there's one huge mainstream evolutionary branch of Lisp since time immemorial, and off-shoots are quickly reabsorbed into this. Never mind the multitudes of lisps and especially the constant Scheme-CL schism…

I understand perfectly why fans of Common Lisp won't switch, but considering CL as the head of a constantly evolving Lisp with a capital L seems a bit silly.

There's either no "Lisp", or Clojure is as much a part of it as CL is.
Apple buys Polar Rose
I second this. In fact I always find comments along the lines of "I tried Flash but then uninstalled it" curiously suspicious: It is very common knowledge that it should be set to ondemand, as otherwise you will drown under a sea of hundreds of heavily animated advertisements.

I have it on ondemand, and while I seldom enable it, when I do I appreciate that I have the option.
Well, since two-factor authentification is required to login into your account to change password, I would think it already applies to password change?
The toolbar was so bad that I turned No-Script back on. I had given Javascript the benefit of the doubt, but sites like that ruin it for me.
> Coca Cola, for instance, doesn't have any real benefit over other drinks, but they have a fearsome salesforce, marketing and distribution.

Not as simple as that. Firstly, it is extremely difficult to enter the drinks market (setting up a countrywide distribution network, etc...).

What Coke also does (in some countries) is giving the owner of Cafes, garages and small shops a fridge (loan on permanent basis). The condition of the fridge is simple - the owner can only stock it with Coke-a-Cola products.

So right there the retailer is locked in - to distribute a smaller competitor's drinks, he would have to buy a whole fridge (or the competitor must provide a fridge). This is not likely - hence the lock-in. The customer is not locked in, the distributor is.

Another thing that Coke does is prevent competition between small retailers. You must sell Coke’s products at their recommended price (otherwise you have to pay more). They also sell the products to larger retailers at a lower price (and they in turn may not sell it at the reduced price to smaller retailers).

If Coke wants to launch a new product, they basically force small retailers to carry their product (whether they want to buy it or not).

So, yeah, Coke is a pretty nasty company. Luckily for the guys in the USA, there is actual competition (Pepsi).
And you sound just like the followup to a forum question on amazon by a person asking the same question that I was.
I got a big "Help us improve our site" overlay that greyed out the content I was trying to read. Here's a suggestion to improve any website that includes these sorts of ads: stop "disrupting" the people who want to read your content.
You should read PGs essays if you haven't done so yet. He did write about the topic longer and better than I could in this post.

I'll just say that the difference in terms of what your lifestyle looks like is not as clear cut as you may think. Some "startups" are like owning a job and some jobs may give you extreme freedom. I've been in startups and in large organizations. Large organizations always need a few people who are on the side of the org chart.

On a lighter note, in my case, startups were never a factor in getting better health, quite the contrary in some cases. But its just a result of how I did things not about how I made a living.
Most of us are not Ents. We don't have decades to wait and see how a language feature "plays out". Rather, most of us have projects that we need to work on NOW, and if a language comes along with features that help us solve hard problems, it would be a good idea to take advantage of it. Who cares if "the greater Lisp community" will approve of it or not?

(By the way, "Lisp community" is a bit of an oxymoron, IMHO; everyone seems to be stuck on his own island.)
It is now installed on an Amazon EC2 micro instance, much cheaper than the small instances, as a result I don't stop the instance anymore.

Thanks for trying, maybe another shot?
Yesterday's thread discussing 9.0: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1706030
That was the 60s, this is the 10s. The long-term, stable employment with increasing wages that your parents enjoyed is no longer the same. But yes, the hype is exaggerated as well.
I have a perspective on this: I have been using Clojure for work over the last 5+ months but I am also setting up my laptop to finish writing a Common Lisp book while I travel over the next month.

Using Clojure is definitely a nice experience and I am really excited by the future of Clojure as the infrastructure for the language evolves.

However, after hacking Common Lisp for a few days, I have to say that the tools are so very good.

I find myself preferring Clojure the language but prefer the tools and programming environment of Common Lisp.
In the end it's this question:

Either you think we should have to earn a worthy living and to be treated with respect.

Or that we have the innate right to a worthy living and to be treated with respect.

What is it going to be: The law of the jungle or a more civilized world?

All civilization can be explained as "socialism": To be civil to each other, help the needy and not let the strongest take everything?
88, really?
Java-Batteries. Other people don't use Java batteries. Personally I prefer a Lisp that shows real error messages (not Java mumble mumble) and shows Lisp objects and Lisp functions in a debugger. I also prefer to have a nice Cocoa binding over a Swing binding.
Lisp Archipelago?
Godaddy could be giving free domains and I still would care. Their service is awful, the control panel is a mess and god help you if you have any problems because the support sucks...
Why not a plain C which is an obvious choice? I think I know the answer - "because of a buzz". ^_^

And of course, using a VM-hosted language to describe things which are on two levels of abstraction lower is a little bit funny.
> Where I currently work, for better or worse, the micro-development manager has forbidden the use of JavaScript libraries. The net effect has been that some developers have left/been let go and thous of us that have stayed have had to learn to roll our own.

I don't think that kind of 'NIH' is very productive in the longer term but it must be a great place to work if you're encouraged to re-invent the wheel.

Most places would try to avoid such a waste of resources. Maybe there would be a way to convince him of rolling your own company specific OS?
I think she shouldn't expect a white collar job. Better to move to Manufacturing Industry or Agriculture sector.
On both Debian and Ubuntu `ulimit -u` returns `unlimited` for me.
400+ programming cheat sheets and infographics
400+ programming cheat sheets and infographics submitted on quicklycode.com after only 6 months! Thanks to all!
Stallman calls for file-sharing to be legalised
Solving for Banner Blindness. Solve Media.
I would also not care. If people like Clojure and its Java integration? So what? More power to them. Rich and his friends are doing a good job. Still there are enough people to prefer other Lisps - enough that ten Common Lisp implementations are maintained, twenty Schemes, many versions of Logo, ...
The fact that the reviewer has the technical ability to do something on your behalf does not mean he will. Specially in a weak labor market, the reviewer's job is, more likely than not, find a reason not-to-hire this particular candidate and pick the next resume on the stack.

On the other hand, think of a candidate that is able to identify a relevant piece of information, and willing to do a little extra work to display this info where the people who need it can easily find it. In my opinion, this is a sign of strong soft skills and general common sense.
Repeatedly "attempt to fix" problems for people and "fail" almost every time. Then, just say something like "Yeah, I write software, but I'm really not one of those IT desktop guys". After a while, they stop asking.
Hah, as I read your comment I thought "this description sounds exactly like Limewire." Did you work with Mike S?
Just what I've been waiting for :) Is the scraping/parsing done on in the app or on the remote end? (i.e., do I just have to count on HN being up for this to keep working?)
My mom woke me up Sunday morning with a phone call. I'm laying in bed, eyes closed, telling her, "Ok, click on accessories, then command prompt . . . Now type 'ipconfig' space, slash, release . . . " While I'm doing all this, I'm wondering how I got myself in this position.
I've bought all my domains from them for 5+ years and have never had to contact them for anything. I buy a domain, change the nameservers and do everything else from my favorite host.
With Solve Media you'll never look at a CAPTCHA the same way again
And that's the best reason why tech schools/retraining should be offered as a part of unemployment. (See Clinton's "The Daily Show"'s interview.

If I can go and get very specific training to get my skills up to snuff - I consider that valuable and a benefit to society.
My friend runs: http://www.syncplicity.com/ - might be of use.
This is more than double the frame rate of Apple’s offering and is still 17 frames faster than the HTML 5 version on the same Nexus One.

Everyone even relatively familiar with graphics rendering should involuntarily cringe when hearing comparisons like this.

See the light:
http://www.mvps.org/directx/articles/fps_versus_frame_time.h...
I agree.
Socialism is preventing race to the bottom.
Capitalism is promoting race to the top.
We need both to build and sustain a great nation.
I love this article. It's practically a case study for Fred Brooks' "mythical man-month".
Yes. It gives the next poor schmuck something to work from.

That's assuming a world, of course, where at least some people actually use free software as something to hack on, rather than as a product to bitch about.
Here's a QR code for the APK. You should toss it on the page.

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=5&d=http%3A%2F%2Fglueg...
Why Europe lags the U.S. in technology startups
Full release notes http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/release-9-0
I've been lucky because "John Graham-Cumming" is close to a unique ID.

When my wife and I got married, a couple of years ago, we decided to invent a new name for ourselves. I googled each alternative we came up with, and made sure the name we chose wasn't already taken. Sometimes you get to make your own luck!
At least for wealthier companies, the iPhone/BB/Android apps solves that problem.
It all happens in your phone, even Login. So your credentials are as safe as your web browser.
But the mere fact that you actually need to point out that it (can) have basic cross platform compatibility and concurrency is proof that it's getting dated. Modern languages assume that.

And that's only in the commercial implementation.
It makes no sense, but what aggravates me about Gillete is that when you buy the razor and head, they only give you 2 extra razors instead of filling out the package with 4. I suppose it is because when you go looking for a razor, if you had to buy the head and the 4 razors the price would be so high no one would want to purchase it. It's one of those sleight of the hands the companies play that once observed, is infuriating.
A Rubyist's development environment
Just gave it a go, very clean, simple and elegant. Just what I needed.

Thank you very much for this. Do you have a donations page? I'd gladly give a couple of dollars if this works out.
Seems to work very well! Great job.

Btw, 'successfull login :)' should be spelled without the double 'll'.

Edit: on second thought, I'd really like to be able to see the amount of comments in the overview. And perhaps even a small visual difference between opened-before and never seen yet articles...
Tried signing up for an account. They eat their own dogfood, for which I'm thankful.

It looks like the advertisers can force you to click through to get the security code. (e.g. Catfish's "Click through to see the security code!") I'll pass.
The Startup to Company Transition
I'd recommend to use Open source software whenever and wherever possible.
"I haven't used windows in like 10 years I really have no clue what I'm doing with it".

Honest and works most of the time.

I also get asked to go shopping for computers with family and family friends all the time. Given how useless I am with PC hardware it's really amazing(I can assemble one but don't ask me to pick the parts).
“When you meet an entrepreneur you are looking into the future. You are talking to a crystal ball. That is how I felt when I first spoke with Larry and Sergey.”

- Ron Conway
I wish zf0 would mentor me
>I'm pretty sure the author's talking about "chemicals" and not chemicals.

No, you are completely missing the point. He was attacking the mythical duality you are perpetuating. There is no binary distinction between psychoactive and non psychoactive chemicals. Water IS psychoactive. Protein in chicken IS psychoactive. Sugar IS psychoactive.

Let's take chicken for example. We can turn that into a chemical with a long name quite easily! Assuming you are consuming low fat chicken, the majority is protein. Protein is a bunch of chemicals called amino acids. One of the most common amino acids by weight in chicken is (2S)-2-amino-3-(1H-indol-3-yl)propanoic acid, Tryptophan. Tryptophan is THE building block of serotonin and all other tryptamines your body produces.

Are you aware 2-(1H-indol-3-yl)-N,N-dimethylethanamine (DMT) is responsible for dreaming and near death experiences is synthesized in your body directly from that chicken and could not have been synthesized without it?

Sugar->Glucose-> 6-(hydroxymethyl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol.
Sugar has clear and obvious excitatory psychoactive effects on the brain. Some researchers even think cognitive decline\Alzheimer's may be related to insulin resistance in the CNS similar to diabetes.

The author tells you exact dosages in the article for the amount of Nutmeg you need to consume to hallucinate. He gives more than enough numbers for an opinion piece.

Regarding chocolate you can test your wrong hypothesis quite easily. Buy pure, NON-alkalized cocoa powder in the store today and consume 3 tablespoons.
I enjoy helping people a little, usually recommending good usage guidelines (IE:Use Chrome, a Mac, gmail). It's actually a great "usability" process to watch people solve their problems and figure things out. A big help is to watch peoples problems, not listen to them.

I'm actually amazed by the BS that people put up with to get their computer to do what they want. Complete novices will encounter an issue, and they'll go through a process, often 5-7 steps, of which 1 solves the problem. I like to think of myself as Exorcizing Technical Demons from people. It really is not a technical issue 80% of the time. My girlfriend shakes her Cellphone to improve reception. I haven't been able to exorcize that one yet. I think she likes how much it aggravates me.

I also have clear boundaries on helping them get through their problems and fixing them. IE: I don't re-install windows. I will muck for 5 minutes to get spybot and try and rescue a computer, but then it's to the repair shop. I'm not going to sit around for 3 hours while spybot runs, I'll tell them to give me a ring.
Steve Jobs has testy email exchange with student
Are Twitter Followers Better Than Facebook Fans?
Why don't they just add wheels to the sardine can and be done with it?
It seems like being active on GitHub is slowly becoming almost a requirement in order to land a good job.

You know, there is open source software which isn't on GitHub.

Personally I'm far more impressed with someone who has a commit bit on a project like FreeBSD, because it shows an ability to work together with other people. Having code on GitHub just shows that you're able to fork someone else's work.
That's the fastest I've ever seen an author of such a Common Lisp rant point out that you're not supposed to take it too seriously.

(By "such a rant", I mean the tradition of rants which purport to turn Common Lisp's negatives into positives, where the smugness is joyously dialled up to 11.)
Sure, I'll do it for you. You can wash my clothes/dishes/clean up the place while I do it. It always works.
Scott Kirsner: Too many of Boston's tech execs are "crusty old doughnuts"
The main branch is Lisp, Lisp 1.5, MacLisp, Lisp Machine Lisp, Common Lisp. The evolution of that branch is now more in libraries and with individual implementations. It also got excellent implementations where all the low-hanging fruit is gone (Means easy improvements are no longer possible). For the community it is more difficult to improve the SBCL compiler, because it is already a substantial Lisp program. Still, if you look at the repository quite a few people add improvements to it.

There is Scheme, where there is still some research and evolution going on. See the work on R7RS and implementations like Racket.
I don't get them all the time, and I doubt it was that. The account is new enough that he probably hasn't seen the Putnam story.
That aside, do you have a response? How about 90%?
I wake up pissed..... I fall asleep happy
On their end, the equity should be enough where it is motivating to stay engaged. In practice, I think this is 2%+. That is significantly higher than normal advisor relationships.

How much equity would you give for a normal advisor relationship?
If this doesn't get countered, we're all doomed.
Anybody else disturbed by the increasing array of technological options to de-evolve into a passive herd-cow, contributing nothing much more than a moo-tweet here and a moo-facebook update there?

Sure ... some will be quick to say it's optional ... but is it really when everyone from VCs to job-seekers feel obsessively-compulsively compelled to keep every-single-freakin' petty detail of every moment of every day "up-to-date", lest they be seen as "inactive" and therefore, to the superficial-yet-blessed-with-power types that seem to rule the lives of those of us who haven't as yet achieved total financial freedom, "irrelevant?"

I don't know ... I think some public display is necessary to highlight the dangers of this trend, if allowed to continue.

Can something like fb/twitter be hacked in the original sense of the word and played around with for a day, say, parodied?

Can the world log on to facebook for a day and see, say, a picture of a people doing something at a park with a message like, "Stop updating everybody and go out and do something with them before your lives pass you by!"?

I know meetup and stuff exist ... but I feel like the dark side of the mindless internet brain is sucking us all in and reducing us to simple binary micro processors of the "I liked the latest whatever/I didn't like it." type.

Thanks for listening to my rant.
Thanks for suggestions, I'll see if I can put the comments count somewhere in the layout.

And Sorry for the typo :(
Traffic congestion in China’s capital has reached a tipping point.
Yeah because bullshit rules need to be followed, and if you break a bullshit rule then you should feel remorse. Give me a break.
For an awful long time the masons felt very special indeed, they're still the poster child of exclusive club to this day. That says a lot about the influence of highly-skilled, independent craftsmen.