skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have always liked my parent's approach to "I'm bored". I wasn't afraid to say I was bored; I just knew that they'd tell me "Being bored is a choice. Find something to do." and refuse to help me.

As a result, I have never been bored for more than about 5 minutes at a time for nearly a decade. (well, besides classes. But even then I don't think of myself as bored)
I couldn't disagree more with the author of this post. When I think of entrepreneurship, I think of innovation. I think of creativity. I think of drive. The author expresses none of these qualities - especially drive. I'm all for knowing when to stop, but this is just pathetic.

Congrats - you're a quitter. The next time you feel like spreading your pessimism, keep it to yourself. I don't think your little rant is benefiting anybody.

“The only real failure in life is the failure to try.” Trying is what drives humanity - it's all we have. If nobody ever tried, we'd have nothing.
strcspn is really, really fussy. When what you want is the semantic equivalent of "foo,bar, baz".split(','), I don't think it's worth the potential for error, or the tangliness of the code.
anyone accepting bitcoin?
While we're on the subject, what is the point of strndup()? Keeping people from running you out of memory with big long strings? They'll just find other ways to do the same thing (by repeatedly feeding you strings of threshold length).
The cast on that malloc drives me f'ing nuts. DON'T CAST MALLOC.
Rephrased: Facebook is everywhere and important. He doesn't like that.
Can someone tell me what RubyPay was about? The (ex)founder took down everything.
Yeah, well, this is a middle of the road server these days. I have a 16-core server with 64G of RAM as a dev server at work. They get even more powerful than this, too.

Not saying pg should spend any money on this, though. A redesign of news.arc will stretch the hardware a lot further.
The big problem with tok isn't that it alters the string; it's that it keeps state, and so can't be used in multicontext code. sep changes the interface to delegate state tracking to the caller, which is the way it should be.

Just as map and reduce in Python is "unpythonic", interfaces that mint new temp strings to process what should be a simple charstar are un-c-like, and should be avoided.
I think the real problem is that there are too few package maintainers for Java packages, and the upstream binaries are usable enough that there is less incentive to become a Java pkg maintainer compared to eg C packages.

edit: also, I don't believe in either of his solutions. Real solution imho would be to patch upstream source to work with distro provided libraries (of course in some cases patching the library is also viable alternative).
They may also have learned from the ever-ongoing micropayment failure. When prices start getting down to $.99, mental transaction costs start to matter more than the dollar costs.

I'm currently on the $8.99 plan for Netflix and probably wouldn't switch to the all-streaming plan even if they offered it. At my usage rate, .99/movie would be cheaper for me. But I would still rather hand over $8.99 a month and not think about the dollar per streaming movie than to individually watch every dollar going out.

This is twice as true if that dollar is for some BS "limited time rental", now I'm watching every dollar go out and I'm watching the clock. I am happy to pay a bit more to avoid this mental stress.
even though (like many pointed out) it's only moved- not removed... what's important here is the sentiment, which is the same.

if this was in fact removed intentionally, i can't help but think that this was a conscious decision to make twitter a much more central (at the peril of third parties) experience (much like the overall bigger picture of #newtwitter).

that all said... they did add gist support which is so awesome. i can't take sides on this one.
when facebook changed user profile pages to be more stream-centric than app-centric, developers complained too, and subsequently destroyed the user base for a few apps that relied on user profile canvas presence. However, I think the change was for the better and the good apps that survived focused more on the user stream than a flashy annoying front page widget.

I think anyone developing heavily for one platform should always keep in mind that you'll need to pivot as quickly as the platform company.
Some people need a little kick start to the self-learning process. I've taught classes like this, and it's really amazing how a week of instructor-driven exploration can improve people's programming skills!

Sometimes, getting started all seems a little overwhelming. Having someone show you everything and hold your hand can give you the context you need to really understand what's going on. Once you have context and understanding, the rest is easy.
Well, as a 24 year old PERL developer in Los Angeles I'm glad this is the case.

Many people underestimate the capabilities of the PERL MVC frameworks such as CGI::Application + Moose and the other ones.

I can bang out a proper MVC templated project with a proper OO structure and Beanstalk MQ backend for long running jobs with an AJAX interface that'll scale in about week. No sweat.

These tools make the recent Diaspora fiasco non-existant. They take of sanity checking, access checking, etc. at a lower level and you implement features in higher level classes.
(For example I can store JSON in a DB column and automatically parse it when it's accesed like:
$mytable->myjson->{'myvalue'} )

Need a barcode reader? Need a SOAP/JSON/etc library? Need clean database access API? Need a printing library? Need a PSD library? All in CPAN.

I wouldn't touch Rails with a 10 foot pole. PHP blows chunks. I'm able to be picky when it comes to jobs

I've gotten my PERL jobs through craigslist. I'm honestly not aware of a better medium to find PERL jobs.
Been programming in PERL since I was 14 (so 10 years) and I'm so happy I don't have to sweat for a job. I'm actually currently living off my previous job's savings because it paid that well.

Also note that I never even finished High School.

In short, I don't know why they haven't been able to find PERL programmers. I guess because the newer generation of developers don't realize how awesome it is.

PS:
Looking for a short-term PERL project in Los Angeles, check out my resume: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/therevoltingx
I always wonder were amazon video on demand is in these discussions. I find that service much more comfortable to use and you can redownload your videos or even watch them in the browser. I wonder why this is not getting more attention
> The banks only want to drop you if you're attracting too many charge-backs, fraud, or money laundering. If you have a good system in place to minimize these problems, they will gladly take their processing fee from each and every transaction you process and they will do it with a smile.

Wrong. I know this first hand. First, "banks" do not decide whether you process or not. People do, and these people are, in my experience, fairly corrupt. Most people don't deal with the banks directly, but even if they do, the agents their aren't just dealing with you. All it takes is for you and a competitor to end up using the same bank, and if that competitor is bigger than you, they can push you out.

It's not difficult.

I've been on the receiving end of this. I've heard it all. I've had the agent on the phone, and wouldn't answer the question regarding which transaction they were claiming was against their policy. A few weeks later, after closing us down, the send us the information for a transaction that occurred after they shut us down, claiming that was why we were closed.

Chargeback levels? Well below the threshold. We had practically no actual fraudulent transactions, and more than 95% of the transactions that were pending chargebacks were friendly fraud (authorized card holder claiming a chargeback).

I'm not talking about some small time shop. We were pumping 8 figures through our banks at our prime, all as legit as we could make it (which at the time, was far more secure than most other processors at the time).

Your sentiments are right. The banks are interested in money, and if you are bringing in the transactions, they'll process. Unfortunately, if you're a small fish in a big pond (and yes, a small fish processing in the 10s of millions a year), and a bigger fish wants you put down, the bank will take the work to keep the big fish happy.

And if it sounds like I'm pissed, it's because I am. It's working so hard for so many years, pushing forth so many cool things, just to see it collapse. Not because you did anything wrong, but because someone maliciously screwed you over.

That's why I avoid looking at anything as a startup that forces me to rely on a single point of failure. Working with Visa and MasterCard puts you under their control. Sure, accepting money online puts you at their mercy as well, but it's not the same as building your business being an actual processor.

Anyways, I've rambled on long enough. Don't take offense if I caused any. That wasn't my intent.
Malware Hits Computerized Industrial Equipment
I've found http://txt2re.com/ to be very helpful for simple things.
In some cases those profiting from the earlier higher priced sale of a property, and the commissions, were committing fraud. One of the story links indicates that Toxie was connected to a known case.

A realtor flipped a property back and forth between friends multiple times, it being sold for a higher price each time. The banks were happy to make the loans on the property that was increasing in value. The people involved shared the gains along the way, then the last one defaulted. The selling back and forth could happen normally... it seems the fraud was in the parties obtaining loans for an owner occupied property. It was apparently empty the whole time.

These people didn't need an economic downturn to default. It was planned.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/07/23/128720556/atc-flip...
Vim Heresy
go with a partner or two.
I hate those lame give-me-more-pageviews titles.
A shot across the bow of 10gen?
Lawyer to Startup Founder Day 0
We can't know what was in the guy's head, but it doesn't make sense to me that you'd feel like shit. You suggested he change the copy a little. Someone else asked if he'd consulted a lawyer. Someone else pointed him to the Wikipedia page for Flooz.com, which includes the sentence, "In 2001, Flooz.com was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that a Russian organized crime syndicate was using Flooz and stolen credit card numbers as part of a money-laundering scheme, in which stolen credit cards were used to purchase currency and then redeemed."

My guess is that it's the realization that he was in way over his head, rather than your suggestion that he edit the copy on his site, that led him to change course.
What is that "serious damage" which would happen if Facebook died?
Twitter is already its own client. Twitter for iPad, iPhone and web are all produced by Twitter - in competition with Tweetdeck, Brizzly etc.
Apple, Google, Intel, ... admit secret agreements to not poach employees
Thanks, I realize it wasn't my comment that made OP do it. It's just that I found myself leading the lynch mob, without intending it.
Hmmm, I should probably put up a pdf that says "there's a new version" at that URL.
Are you trying to get a rise out of me, sir?
Buy it in India. Dell sells them at reasonable prices.
http://www.dell.co.in/
Which one of those guys is a 'new user'?
How have you dealt with the stress?
I'm gearing up to get ready to start my own startup. It'll take a lot of coding and late nights, and probably more so then some as I'll probably have to go it alone.
I expect it and I'm ready to deal with it. How have many of you done to help relieve your stress while working on your dream so you hair doesn't fall out? And how much fear did you have when starting out?
On a side note, I love Paul Graham's essays and would like to see one on how he personally dealt with the stresses of his startup. How his family reacted and what he did with that.
The point is that with the given strategy, the developer won't be able to contribute anything meaningful to their pet movement. They might learn something, but they won't create something useful.
I always love to see this sort of thing on HN!

I was going to say "this sort of thing makes me want to move my servers to Rackspace", but they're already there ;)
Same here, but then people like me and you are rare in the real world. Other folks, for lack of confidence or direction, need someone to point them in in the right way so they get started.
Here's the interview where Mark Zuckerberg admits that they're working on a social phone layer: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/22/zuckerberg-interview-facebo...
Ok easy.

You've got two packages that need to be installed. ImageMagick the binary and imagick the php module.

Here are the imagemagick install instructions http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php?ImageM...

Imagick can be found here http://pecl.php.net/package/imagick/

You can install imagick with the command: pecl install imagick and then add extension=imagick.so to your php.ini file.
It's a great investment for two (2) reasons. First, I'm sure the money will be useful, but, perhaps more importantly, the fact that KhanAcademy was narrowed down from 150K -> 16 -> 5 ideas brings a well deserved sense of accomplishment to everything that Salman Khan has been doing.

I've got about 200 of his videos on my iPad, and I'm religious about absolutely absorbing and practicing stuff from them every day.

100% of my friends who have _any_ difficulty with Math, instantly are introduced to Khan Academy by me.

Even Bill Gates has been using Khan Academy with his children and envies Sal's teaching skills.

One of the better writeups can be found here: http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/technology/sal_khan_academy....
Well damn, maybe I'll do one. Hell I'd get together with people in SF or wherever for free and show them how to do stuff. It'd be an awesome bad ass way for me to get feedback on what needs to happen to make Mongrel2 awesome.
Indeed.

I get the urge as much as anyone else to "build something new and cool" (spend enough time Googling me and you'll see I'm pretty guilty of this) but I think FOSS would be farther along if fewer people tried to start their own projects and instead contributed to existing projects.
Hey, I'm one of the RR organizers. We've been toying with the idea of running a language/framework-agnostic competition too, but in the meantime RR itself allows use of any Rack-based Ruby web framework.
Interview with female entrepreneur and inventor - Emily Cummins
I hate the attribution. I also like the old twitter web interface.

When I'm not using the web interface, I use it through an irc proxy. No pictures, no attribution... nothing but content.

(On my phone, I use Twidroid, but it's so buggy that all tweets attributed to Twidroid from me are usually, "it botched my priceless photo again". Not exactly the advertising they want, I bet...)
I think this hits the crux of the problem but not directly:

An ugly design that works is actually a good design.

Several people in this thread make the point that design isn't just the veneer, but definitely the whole user experience. But sometimes people confuse "looking pretty" with "well designed". Those often go hand-in-hand, but not always, which is very important to keep in mind.

It's easy for folks who are used to conflating the two to accept a good looking design because it looks good, rather than it working well for the user.
> I'm actually a Los Angeles Perl developer and I keep telling my HR department to either look for college kids with basically no professional programming experience at all, or senior candidates that they're willing to pay at least $90,000. Looking for "some Perl programmer guy" with some experience that you're looking to pay $70,000 is pointless, because they don't exist.

Actually, if I found myself looking for a job I'd consider taking $70k, even though I'm a senior level guy and that would be quite a pay cut from what I now get. The big factors would be the stability of the company, how good its benefits are (including 401k matching), and reasonable flexibility in work hours.

The reason for this is that I'm 50, and I'd want the job to be my last job before retirement. If a job has a very good chance of being able to take me to retirement age, and letting me grow my 401k a good amount, that would be more attractive to me than a job that pays more now, but that I can't foresee lasting 12-17 years.
I'm very obviously biased, as a founder of one of Bootup's startups, but I hear what everyone is saying here...Van has it's challenges when it comes to fueling rapid startup growth and success. I do think there are great people here striving to really change the world and a decent community around that scene trying to empower that activity.

I think a lot of the complaints I see here are fixable, and I think it would do a lot more good to focus on the value these types of events can bring to the culture in Van, rather than pointing out what's wrong all the time. It seems like a subset of the community is really downtrodden and negative, and they seem to be the most vocal, especially online.

I think money people like Boris Wertz and Jason Bailey are putting forth enormous efforts to jump start the scene right now. GROW was successful, and increasing we founders are talking with the influencers in the Valley and around the US. Hootsuite is one of a few potential success stories and I think that will be followed with a handful more from the younger companies.

Again yeah, I'm biased, but we're working as hard as anyone up here in Vancouver, and I see tons of potential.
Did this decline start when Hacker News Daily opened? The Hacker News Daily lists the 10 highest-rated articles from Hacker News at http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/

Maybe some readers are less engaged because they skip the http://news.ycombinator.com and go straight to Hacker News Daily.
Are you looking to hire? Are you looking to find freelancers? Are you looking for support forums and mailing lists?
Also one of the researchers behind POET recommends this tool:

http://huagati.blogspot.com/2010/09/testing-aspnet-poet-snif...
In MBA world there is this somewhat confused notion that if Facebook's search engine is powered by Bing then people who use Facebook a lot will naturally/organically start using their search (ie Bing) more.

The halo effect.

I don't think it really plays out because who searches in Facebook, and your browser search box is always present.
Been holding out to try a new layout.
I think it will be worthwhile to try out a new layout... the issue is time.

I'm working at a 14-person marketing research startup (up from 6 in 2008 when I started) in Boston and one of biggest issues me and my fellow coders have is wrist pain.

We've resorted to wrist braces for the time being.
I know this isn't a good idea.

Any recommendations for ideal QWERTY setups? Been doing some research on different keyboards, but would love to hear some opinions from HN.
I can't think of any reason why someone would want to contact me. It would be like trying to shake hands with someone who didn't even notice you. I'd just feel embarrassed :)
Why Is Washington Ignoring the Freelance Economy?
My twitter client doesn't show app attribution either, does that mean it's evil?
WARNING: RANTING AHEAD

"Everyone agrees..." No support evidence for this claim. Furthermore, the entire premise of the argument relies on looking at number of boys below a certain level. That's fine in it's own right, but they seem to assume this means boys are overall worse at reading, when no evidence has been presented to support this claim, and every study I have read about male intelligence indicates that it has higher variance than females.

This man seems obsessed with imposing his arbitrary and unnatural social views upon boys. He denounces the natural desire for boys to be active, negatively calling upon the properties of 'squirminess'. And we sit to wonder why America is expected to be 75% obese people in a few years, when activity is denounced?

The author then reveals his complete ignorance when he cites one study demonstrating correlation between media consumption in boys to academic progress as Scientific Fact that his claims are accurate. To quote, "Hard to believe, isn't it, but Science has spoken." Yet, he ignores two very important parts of Science - experiments must be repeated, and correlation != causation. He steps through magical logical leaps that somehow playing video games makes your children illiterate and that the solution to illiteracy is removing anything interesting that is not a book, when there are in fact several simpler explanations supported by much more repeated research reflecting child development patterns. I am sure he does not want to accept this 'barbaric' view, but boys have a tendency to learn more effectively through trial and error, and develop their analytical (as he might call it, 'civilized') language skills later. Boys are learning about the world around them by pushing the boundaries to see how it reacts - no matter how much it upsets this author's view on how civilized people should act. Those boys not held back by imbeciles like him will grow up to become Engineers and Scientists, spending a little time in their day to use their superior literacy and reasoning skills to retort people such as the author here.

A boy raised on the stimulating electronic media of infinite possibility, will imagine - and create - the future that narrow-minded president's of publishing companies could never think of, but take for granted anyway.
> but I would give a lot of credit to the 3rd party developers for getting most of those 99% of normal people on Twitter in the first place

Do you think? I'd have expected most people came to twitter.com and after some time (and possibly frustration) learnt of other ways to access the main features (ie 3rd party apps).
It is complicated. You are correct in that when the house is sold investors get a recovery. Not all investors are created equal though. Difference pieces of a deal were paid different interest rates (according to risk) and as such they get allocated recoveries in a specific order. If you notice Toxie stopped getting payments a few months in and is declared dead a few months afterwards. This happens when the amount of losses eats through your piece of the pie. When the house gets sold is is sold for something less than the mortgage was worth. The losses get allocated to the riskier pieces of the deal which protects the lower interest rate/more "protected" higher pieces of the deal.

Also banks got bailouts which cushion them against losses but do not prevent losses. A loss on an asset is a loss on an asset. The federal reserve buying mortgage bonds was not considered a bailout per say but are helping to prop up prices which indirectly help the banks.
Isn't anti-trust designed to prevent people from abusing their monopoly position? For example, Microsoft was the top OS vendor. They wanted to dominate the highly-lucrative Web Browser Vendor business. So, they forced everyone using their popular OS to use their web browser.

The government thought this was an abuse of the monopoly, but the charges didn't stick.

What Google's doing is nothing close to that, though. Nobody uses other search engines because they suck. The results are irrelevant and the ads are irrelevant. That's not anti-competitive action, that's competitive action -- they make a good product that people like. Seems legal to me.
The font is extremely eye-catching, with the varying stroke width, lack of tittles, and the weird truncated "t". Compared to many other web logos (e.g. digg, reddit, facebook, Hacker News!), their logo is far from minimal.

Also, you could definitely take away most (e.g. leave just the dot) or all of the Tower of Hanoi graphic without losing anything.