skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you're in jail for theft and then beat the person who got you arrested senseless with a baseball bat, that doesn't make you a repeat violent crime offender.

Of course, the article doesn't elaborate on what his previous sentence was, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was theft, fencing, scams or fraud etc. and not violence.
The Twitter hack: how it started and how it worked
I'm trying to find the sustainable model in this operation. From reading the article he's obviously trying to take it to the next level. Having good advice from a hacker (such as on-demand pricing) could make his next move that much more likely to succeed. Hacker News is about creating and improving upon ideas. We're not here to keep the status quo - we're here to say you can do more and do it better...

NEWNAM: So what's next?

RONNIE: Next I'm looking to get into a legal kitchen. For example, a restaurant that isn't open for lunch. I would rent it out from them and just work the lunch shift delivering sandwiches everywhere.
Ditto. Please, if you're exposing this much about the process and not trying to keep it a secret or anything, give us the play by play.
You seem to be referring to the web site as the "minimally viable product" not including the actual product that you're selling on the site.

You don't mention how long it took to actually build the templates that you're selling.

Three hours is still impressive and inspiring, but I imagine there was a lot more work leading up to that point.
You'd be surprised how often nuts&bolts issues stop people from starting. I was mildly mystified by "Set up website, collect money, deliver software" prior to starting, too. Turns out it is trivial, but that was not obvious prior to doing it. (Relatedly: taxes, bookkeeping, accounting, and government regulation were all walks in the park. Marketing is hard. Who knew?)
> Ideas are real-- as real as anything

Ideas aren't real by themselves, in the sense that they aren't even a part of reality. Now the fact that we have ideas is definitely real, in the sense that having a idea is a physical process (some sort of brain chemistry).

I know I sound pedantic, but such confusion is the basis of many silly disputes, like the one that's about deciding whether ideas "out there" or "man made", while it doesn't actually change anything.

Now, you keep saying "property", but do you really think that any rule we should come up with are closer to physical property than exclusivity or monopoly? Frankly, the only IP rules I can come up with are directly a form of exclusivity or monopoly, and have nothing to do with ownership.

Now your question may be hard for you, but for me it's dead easy. I believe that all software should be free. That patents should be banished (including, if not especially, the pharmaceutical ones). That copyright length should be reduced down to 10 years tops, and it's scope limited to commercial exploitation. The only thing I'm not sure yet is whether we should abolish copyright altogether. Therefore, I believe that you should totally own what you rightfully hold in your hands, even if most its value comes from the idea it represents. I may make an exception for DVD and such, but when the object can do useful things beyond storing some pre-set data, then you should be allowed to do anything, including publishing the schematics and the firmware.
Six Apart (Movable Type, TypePad) allegedly being acquired by VideoEgg
Yeah, what I work on is quite similar to dabbledb. There are some differences of course. One of the most important differences is that my system will not only be available as a cloud service, but companies can run their own server if they want. The server software is extremely simple in this sense: it needs zero configuration, it embeds an open source db engine (Derby) and an open source web server (Jetty). Basically the server just needs to be copied an run and that's all. It is also operating-system independent (provided that a JVM is available).
To be honest, I didn't dig into that site deeply enough to notice that. I pulled this out of an email I was sent just yesterday.

Sure, I'd be interested in collaborating if there's not one out there already.

The spider part is easy, you just need a web client (e.g. Ruby's or Python's Mechanize, Java's HTTPClient, even just wget or curl) coupled with an HTML parser (Hpricot, Nokogiri, Tidy, etc., or even some basic regular expressions). One can readily hack something rough together in an hour or two. Gabriel might have a lot of the data and certainly the code in order to produce DuckDuckGo, but he may have good reasons to keep that private.

The harder part, and the part that I wonder if builtwith is doing correctly, is to do the technology detection. Things like JavaScript libraries or CSS frameworks might be fairly easy to detect, but it is not trivial to reliably detect some of the server side technologies. I recently put together a script to survey the operating system and web server in use at a large number of domains from Alexa's top million list (similar to what Netcraft does) and there are plenty of servers that make that difficult, let alone determining whether a site is built with Ruby, Java or PHP. There are HTTP headers that could tell you, but not everyone uses them. There are certain signatures that give a pretty good clue, but those aren't always present and can be downright misleading. (I've seen sites that migrated from ASP to Java Servlets, for example, that kept .aspx URLs to avoid breaking links.)

If I remember correctly someone posted a JavaScript framework survey based on a similar spidering approach on HN a while back, you might be able to find it at searchyc.
It's much more complicated than that.

There's so much to say about your post that I'm not even going to start.
I get the same thing on Chrome (Mac, 5.0.375.125) if the window is too narrow.
The point he is making, and that you don't seem to understand is that you need to live within your means. If your means consist of $8 an hour, $320 a week, $1000 a month after taxes, that means buying bulk oatmeal instead of Raisin Bran. That might mean eating beans and rice instead of stealing steak.

Having been a poor, starving college student before, and living off of ramen noodles, mac and cheese, hot dogs, etc, I know this reality. I wasn't smart enough at the time to realize how unhealthy a lot of cheap food is, and if I had to do it over again I'd eat beans and rice and oatmeal as they're much more healthy.

Anyway, the point he's trying to make is that even if you are extremely poor, making $8 an hour, you can choose to live on a budget. Rent a room somewhere for a few hundred dollars a month, buy cheap food for a hundred bucks a month. If you're smart and live within your means, you can be saving 10% of your income even with only $1,000 a month. Work a second job, pick up more income. Maybe splurge and buy some meat once in a while now that you can afford it.

If you're getting a $200 payday loan every week and paying $250 a few days later, you're just plain stupid. That ends up taking $200 a month out of your money. And $200 a month can buy a lot of oatmeal...
According to TechCrunch, he'll be working on Instapaper full-time: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/marco-arment-instapaper/
My guess is that the nuts and bolts problems aren't actually that big. Most people Just Don't Start™.
HTTP errors – About 10% of the URLs I requested were unresolvable, unreachable, or otherwise refused my connection. A big part of that is due to Alexa basing its rankings on domains, not specific hosts. Even if a site only responds to www.domain.com, Alexa lists it as domain.com and my request to domain.com went unanswered.

At first, that may seem like an awful lot of potential error. However, the one thing all of these inaccuracies have in common is that none of them favor the case for using a public CDN.

I would have to disagree with the last paragraph there. I think that if one is so incompetent that his page is not available without the "www.", that there is a very strong chance that such person hasn't heard of a CDN. So domains that are not working without the "www." are, in my opinion, favouring the non CDN way.
A nicer list, but not rooted in reality - a benefit the list in the article has.
:) No secrets here. I've been keeping a journal of the whole experiment, and can compile it into a couple of posts this weekend.
That's exactly right. I really don't think I did anything new or special here. My biggest challenge was to stop thinking about it and do it.
I agree with a lot of this. Too often we promote a victim mentality. While that may help people feel better, it doesn't actually do much in the long run, it just makes everyone think they are victims of the inescapable Man and therefore have no hope or opportunity. So your counterpoints about low-class are somewhat helpful.

That said, I think you are way too extreme about some of it, especially the points about not marrying someone who will run away and not having "more kids than space". Seriously. I know several people intimately who grew in a "more kids than space" situation and I can assure that none of them would rather delete a sibling than have a little more space. It is nice to give lots of space to people if you can; if you can't, it is better to have people than space.

As far as a spouse running off or going crazy, that happens sometimes. Nobody marries someone thinking that they are just going to end up divorced. Things happen to people, including things beyond their own control. My father-in-law is bipolar and ultimately left his family and gave them no money. He was normal the first ten years and then started acting strangely ... is my mother-in-law at fault for not detecting this illness that did not manifest until ten years post-marriage?

You should cool it on the really personal family stuff, not only because it's offensive and uncouth but also because it is incorrect and ignorant.
Maybe we could. We don’t necessarily have the resources right now, though.
>Hint: the proper balance is heavily leaning towards the child.

Only if you want it to be. I don't know how the father felt about the whole situation, but it's possible that he never wanted a child or this child.

To be honest, his description of the whole affair was very detached. He nowhere uses the world "love" in describing any of it.

In describing the process of child birth, he uses mostly negative adj., i.e. "perverse," "bloody," and "screaming," and there's no hint of "miracle" anywhere.

For all we know he desperately wanted this woman to get an abortion, and she refused.
How to Create HTML5 Website and Page Templates for Visual Studio 2010
Much like food carts, this sounds like "clever ways to get around NYC real estate prices for commercially zoned kitchens". It isn't sustainable legally.
Sorry, how is this being upvoted? He doesn't present any coherent argument other than "shit happens" and calls the guy an asshole.
Lot of illegal consumables innovation in NYC these days as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/nyregion/21nutcracker.html...

With only two texts I could have a delicious grilled cheese and a nice styrofoam cup of Nutcracker!
Well, first, this stuff mostly doesn't exist in schools. Around the valley, maybe, but in Iowa where I grew up (the place I left to after the school I was talking about)? No.

Second, why not put this stuff in the Library? It is absolutely a resource that the public could use.
"I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anyone help me out? No!"

Don't tell me he actually said that. That's just so deliberately idiotic.
He can also use delivery times as an incentive the way Domino's used to, albeit in reverse: The sooner he gets it to you, the more you pay.
Correct- The product itself has been created over time, as a byproduct of my day job. But it wasn't a product until I put together that MVP website.
http://www.stackoverflow.com ?
(Meaning, not to offer it outright in fixed increments like $5 for 20, etc., but as incentive for him to get there ASAP.)
Don't you think Duke University has financial aid programs in place exactly for this scenario? I realize the poster might not have known this at the time, but I would be willing to bet that if they called the admissions office and explained their financial situation they would be able to waive the test fee.
My post was only four sentences, couldn't you have troubled yourself to finish it before replying?
The advantage of the same app on all the platforms is I don't have to worry about where I added it if I want to read on my Android phone, iPad, or Kindle. If I read it on my phone it should be marked read on the iPad. If I leave off halfway though that should be reflected. Etc etc.
How (too) frequent and (too) long are your newsletters?
Doing Y Combinator in your 30s
A great classic. I basically started learning Python because Bruce Eckel recommended it. And I'm never tired of recommending "Thinking in Java" as a must-read for all programmers, regardless of whether they aspire to become Java programmers or not :)
People needs concrete goals to set themselves. Given that the couple are both graduate students, it would seem likely that they would, by default, instill in their children the urge to go to college.

I think (no proof or statistics to back this up) that the majority of wage-earners hold a college or university degree. Social proof is a strong motivator when people are in uncertain situations. Education seems to be one of the most widely held beliefs that has a high probability of leading to better economic conditions. From there, the leap is that most people are better off paying to attend a post-secondary institution.

If you have the money to pay for college, and if it could benefit you in the future, why not?

If, on the other hand, the person in question believes they can strike out on their own and start a startup, then that would probably be the preferred HN opinion, given the audience that frequent the site.
This only eats 17% of my CPU on Windows7/Chrome but the animation still jerks. If I go to page 2 (navigation on top) it scrolls smoothly at first but starts jerking later on. If I reload (page 2) it works fine again. What is going on here?

Edit: It works smoothly with Firefox 3.6.6
Good work guys!
Would that stop them from working for the CIA? Corporations are about as patriotic as the money they're paid with.
Yeah, the nuts and bolts of selling the product is the easy part. There are loads of services out there to sell digital goods including the one that the submitter used and my own service (shameless plug: link in my profile anyone is interested).

PayPal is still the cheapest and easiest way to collect the money, even considering fraud. (PayPal almost always sides with the buyer and with digital goods you have little recourse.)

It's the marketing that makes all the difference. We have customers that have made $50-60k in less than a week due to awesome marketing. And we have customers that pull in well over $100k/yr due to good marketing and good affiliates. We also have many that will never sell anywhere near that much in the product's lifetime, also due to marketing.
My father's mother died when he was 13. His father abandoned his family around the same time and later died of a stroke. My dad lived in a slum for five bitter years in Taipei living off US$20 a month, and never let anyone know how poor he was or that he ate white rice every night. His only ticket out was betting it on the College Entrance Exams.

What saved him was that in Chinese culture, you have the ability to move up through tests and exams. So while I have a lot of problems with standardized exams, he was also able to move up because he was smart.

However, my main beef with your post is that you seem to think that anyone can fix their problems at any time. I don't know why you turned this into a pro-Capitalism article, or why you turned this into a you-can-fix-this-yourself article, because I don't think my Dad needed help from anyone, but the empathy to understand that when both your parents are effectively dead and you're trying to get an education and basically enough food to subsist, it's more than about leftism. It's about being a human being. When you're 13, and have no parents, what choice do you really have? There is no easy fix until you have that degree.

And for your information, my Dad relied on no government help, other than what was provided to everyone, public schools. But to think that anyone can make decisions to be move up is foolish thinking.

Should he have dropped out of school and "fixed" the problem as you proposed by working long days? My Dad didn't need any help from anyone. And he worked hard getting into the best university in Taiwan, National Taiwan University. But don't imply that poor people have control over their situation. That is arrogant and wrong.

When you're faced with a Hobson's choice--to drop out of school and forfeit a future with maybe a bit of comfort, or to stay in school but have little comfort--I think you'll agree with me that there's little choice at all. But it is insulting to assume that there were better choices he could have made. Save money on food? He's already eating white rice on 67 cents a day! "Being poor is not budgeting" -- how is this even possible, being a high school student, with no sources of income or parents?

Moving up, as a young kid before even having the opportunity to be in college, isn't as easy as you think.
I just got it installed and activated, and deactivated most plug-ins on the blog and website. Hopefully that will solve it.
You can also speed up load time using LAB.js http://www.labjs.com

It loads and executes all scripts in parallel. Just be careful and hide any elements that rely on javascript before the scripts finish loading.
I've started to see some best-practice-if-you-ignore-user-expectation guides out there which say that allowing the domain to ignore the www is Not A Good Idea. I don't really know why this is the case, though.
To little? I think people should have their taxes dropped by 95% all around.
Ask HN: What was the toughest decision you have made as a founder?
For those who are/have been founders among the readers of HN, can you share some perspective on the toughest decisions you have made regarding your start up?

How did you go about making those tough decisions?

Thanks.
Your comment is priceless...

What I find really interesting is that you actually sat down and read the whole post despite it being "from that guy".

I don't understand trolls...
Excited to read that!
Without a comparison to Haskell, ML, or similar best-of-breed statically typed languages, this truly misses the point. Using C++ and Java as the poster children for static typing is like using DOS batch files as the exemplar of scripting languages.
To accept that job offer from Google...
The problem, for me at least, was that I didn't know what was the simplest way. I spent a long time learning some design skills, learning html/css, etc. Then I realized (not long ago) that I could effectively buy a 20$ site template, and it would take a hundredth of the time and look 100 times better. Then, even more recently, I learned that you can set up a WordPress site, with a great design, and pretty much any goodie you need (contact forms, email lists, etc.).

Now, none of these things are particularly hard. But for me, coming from a non-Web background, each of these steps took some learning. And you never know when you should be learning more.

So in that sense, every article I read that says exactly how to set up an MVP, including all the nuts & bolts of the various plugins / etc, is incredibly valuable.
Six Apart sure did mess up the opportunity they had. They went from IPO track to forced merger in the space of a few years.

See this answer on Quora: "How Did Six Apart Screw Up (the complete story)":

http://www.quora.com/How-did-Six-Apart-screw-up-The-Complete...
Witchcraft!

(That's awesome)
The R-Files: Profiling prominent #rstats users
Acceptance- vs. Integration-Tests 
Classifying unit-, integration-, end-to-end and acceptance tests.
The one reason we don't use Google's CDN for our public website: Some of our business users block sites by domain or IP, so they allow our site but block google's CDN. It's a PITA to get a rule added to a client's security setup.
This is why I don't like the article. Being poor in America means you might have to take a $8 an hour job working in a fast food restaurant flipping burgers. At least you get enough money to live off of (granted, living at a low standard), and all the junk food you can eat at work for half price. If you work there long enough you'll probably even get health care benefits. Being poor in another country means not even having the ability to find a job.

He is complaining about having heat in only one room of the house, when people in other countries don't even have 4 walls and a roof. In the US we have heating assistance that will pay your gas bill if you can't afford it. You just have to have 2 brain cells to rub together and enough literary skills to fill out a piece of paper and apply for it.
as a designer, I can't thank you enough for making a video player that is easy to skin and more importantly... responsive.

scrubbing the timeline produced no noticeable lag whereas flash-based players seem to crap out on me all the time. maybe it's just the streaming server but it seems too consistent across multiple sites to be a server issue.
Opportunities in the Mobile + Location Internet
You do realise that's exactly his point?
Summary: So far, only the iPad has been an awesome enough e-reader to make Stephen Wolfram willing to release "A New Kind of Science" to be viewed on it.
Phusion Passenger & running multiple Ruby versions – Phusion Corporate Blog
It is exciting! But what I wonder about is what a tablet gets you that you don't get with downloading PLT Scheme and visiting http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-11.html... Or in the case of NKS, tracking down Mathematica and downloading the code from the book and playing with that on a PC. I don't have an ipad, so I can only guess.

Wolfram mentions getting excited about zooming in on the diagrams, and about using the app to refer to parts of the book for himself or to show others. In fact, it seems like the tablet would be great for two people exploring a book or data together.
I try to avoid them altogether. Gun to my head, I'd go with "Your". See also: http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/06/unsuck_it_special_byeby...
and people actually trust the govt with NN.
Sounds more like a proxy jab against Zuckerberg: the other usual suspects are rather confident in public.
Surprisingly, this is the first time this article was submitted to HN.

It was already discussed here before (with many comments), but it was submitted as a comment:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=619197
Free plan and a $200/mo plan. Considering I used to pay a friend $10 to do this every time I made a post or two on a niche site... its well worth the price of free, and possibly $200 if you're a serious blogger with a few million applications to update each time you post. Its also a white hat SEO technique. You're basically backlinking to yourself, but doing it for the benefit of the social masses, etc.

(Also, I tested it myself. My fresh post was in Google Reader in <2 mins.)
A well-executed layoff is the triple lutz of entrepreneurship, and your company may be ruined if your execution is short of flawless. You're going to cut some people, but you're also going to lose even more people. Companies will try to cut "dead wood", but the people who leave afterwards will tend to be A-players; they're the ones with the most mobility.

Some of Ed's suggestions cost almost nothing; for instance, being ready with an immediate offer a strong letter of reference --- that's just planning.

Other things do cost money. But if you're bracing yourself in anticipation of losing A-players after a layoff, consider whether saving that one extra headcount in HR or Marcom is worth what you can buy in risk mitigation with the FTE cash they'd free up.