skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Seriously, Joel, Facebook just needs to "optimize" a bit and they'll be more profitable? Really? With a valuation of $33 billion, Facebook needs to make a bit more than a dime or two extra from their users. They need a ton of real dollars from each and every user or (more likely) dozens or hundreds of dollars from some users and nothing from the rest. How are they going to do that, exactly?

How will Facebook change its platform to convert its hundreds of millions of users, who signed up for a free party, into billions of dollars per year without spoiling the party? No one likes getting invited to a party with their friends only to find that the beer isn't free after 11:30, or worse, they've been tricked into attending an MLM meeting. If Facebook could convert eyeballs to dollars the way Google can, there was no reason not to do so when they had 50 million users, or 100 million, or 200 million... It hasn't been done, though, because it would spoil the party and stop that lovely flow of VC money.

I am just gobsmacked that, within just a few years of the US housing market bubble popping and the financial empires getting caught with their pants down, you would continue to support the speculators' fantasy of pre-IPO tech valuations. These types of valuations aren't just irresponsible or insane, they're scams! The consumers have no money or credit left, so the easy money is going to come from gullible investors.
For what it's worth, I didn't interpret that as him being upset that he wasn't making more money; I thought he was upset because the teachers are treating him like some amorphous business-entity instead of a normal, hard-working guy who deserves what they're paying him.

Beyond the fact that I consider it extremely rude to write something like this about a private person without permission, I am strongly negative about this piece because it reinforces the bizarre idea that making money is somehow a really good and important value to have. If you have a particular passion that requires a lot of money, like running a huge business, or helping a ton of people through charity, then great -- make some money and do it! But most things that humans like don't require a lot of money!

Imagine I wrote this post:

The Genius and Tragedy of Sebastian

Sebastian is a multi-faceted genius. He’s amazingly talented, I can’t even explain how talented he is. But all is not rosy... His story thus far is a story of tragedy and wasted potential. I assumed he was a successful chessplayer. He's very smart, and has a good memory. Then I read this comment Sebastian wrote earlier today:

"I like chess, but I wish my dad would stop bragging when he beats me (I'm not even a C-class player.)"

WTF? Sebastian, dude, with your focus and brains, you could be an international master. Even if you don't fully appreciate the beauty of chess, your tournament games would entertain hundreds of players online, and help educate and inspire young players. Anyone who says "I don't care about competitive chess" clearly hasn't thought about it very much.

[insert ten pages of chess advice]

I find that to be totally identical to your post about why he should try to make a lot of money.
I use Ad Thwart. It's been pretty good.
Steve Blank: Panic at the Pivot – Aligning Incentives By Burning the Boats
Hey but what a way to raise your own visibility by pushing down on someone else. Tragedy indeed.
Hey, at least the author held his punches. If he really wanted to bash Patrick, he could have mentioned how he doesn't unit test.
I usually point them to Ning...or even create a Facebook Page
Completely agree, specifically with these items:

* I don't like how the display of a lot of tabs are handled (dozens of really small unreadable tabs)

I wish Chrome had something like Tree Style Tabs (vertical tab panel on the left).

* It doesn't feel that much faster with dozens of open tabs

For me, it feels much, much slower when you have 30 tabs open - which are all visible because of Tree Style Tabs.

If I need to look at one website quickly and FF isn't open, I'll use Chrome. Otherwise, it's all Firefox.
Amazingly talented and erudite programmer with multiple aptitudes, a generous spirit and strong signs of being well-adjusted is probably not that interested in money? Sounds incredibly normal to me.

Hustler baffled by this attitude to the point of almost tearing his hair out? Also normal. Sad but normal.
I agree, but then you have to make a distinction: Do you think Patrick is cool because of his exceptional SEO/business knowledge, or do you think Patrick is cool because he is active in the community?
Two very different things.
Maybe Sam Walton?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Walton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton
All of the code samples in the "models" that I've seen seem to be straight to database type code

I think the problem is that you're looking at "code samples", which tend to be the simplest possible examples. One of the nice things about RoR is that a model class can be as short as two lines:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
end

and everything else happens by "magic". Our system has a few classes like that. OTOH, we also have model classes with thousands of lines of complicated business logic. But, showing those to someone trying to learn RoR would just overwhelm them.
Perhaps it is more correct to say that the potential revenues from this thing don't justify the valuation. It wouldn't be the first company to be overvalued and the fact that many owners of this stock cannot sell is certainly relevant.
this is exactly what i need right now. see you all there!
Dynamically Programming A Cake [video]
The search keywords is the main reason I can't get used to Chrome. After years of typing g <search> or wiki <search>, I'm having a lot of trouble readjusting.
So you have a few options - one would be to split profits with an artist (usually you would need to have some fairly well working code for an artist to take the risk).

Another option would be to use resources like Open Game Art - http://opengameart.org/ and supplement as needed (but of course be mindful of licenses).

Third you could use primarily geometry, or procedurally generated content, or ascii.

I think finding an artist willing to partner up is the best bet.
You view the bid/ask spread as an indicator of poor regulation? Not actually true.

The spread reflects the willingness of firms to compete as market makers. More firms competing means a smaller spread.

The spread also reflects the risk associated with the market maker holding inventory. The more perceived risk, the bigger the spread.
Thing about making money off facebook is the same thing that happened with trying to make money off myspace.

Facebook has gotten increasingly annoying to use lately and the reason is changes are being made that benefit the company's ability to make money, not the interests of the users. I remember a time when all my friends were on myspace and suddenly everyone switched to facebook. The reason was facebook loaded instantly and you didn't get spammed by bots trying to make money off you. These two things are becoming increasingly less true of facebook today and I can feel the attempts to make money on facebook becoming more intrusive and more insulting of my intelligence.

Also as Cory Doctorow has pointed out, the inherent of value of a social network decreases over time the longer you use it [http://craphound.com/?p=1961]

It's possible for facebook to become a real success but they need to figure out the difference between creating value and making money and not try to make money by destroying value. That is never a self-sustaining strategy.
This feels a bit like boy scout merit badges now.
I pay my art guys a combination of flat rate + % of licensing (flash games).
Zuckerberg now worth more than Steve Jobs
Apps tend to reuse buffers, so if you zero-copy read() into a buffer that's already populated you'd have to drop the existing pages and replace them with new ones. Then a zero-copy write() has to mark the pages as COW. Would this require a TLB flush? It seems like it would.
NYC Prepares for Life After Cable TV
If you guys can come up with a longer-than-two-year bet you can go here to broker it (and let other people join in the fun)

http://www.longbets.org/
From the title I thought that the FCC ruled on
'super WiFi' over 'superWiFi'
And here is the evercookie homepage http://samy.pl/evercookie/
Why? I can't think of any ill that can come from this, beyond a bit of discomfort, and I can see plenty of upside.

Being public means public conversation. It's not always fun but it's a cost of doing business.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had the other day with a friend. This guy is very senior and has been around the bay for 25 years. His kids went to school with Steve Jobs' kids.

At a graduation, my friend observed all these people coming up to Steve Jobs, introducing themselves, and otherwise being a nuisance during a family event. Jobs' body language clearly communicated how little he enjoyed this.

This is a cost of doing business.

The other side of it is that Apple gets millions of dollars of free press attention every single year, thanks to this one guy's personality and visibility. Their buzz is tremendous every single time they launch a product. Jobs pays the price of this.

Clearly a more extreme example, but this is what comes of successful visibility. Some of it is great.

Some of it is posts like this.

But it points to one thing: patio11 is doing it right.
His major asset at this point in time is his reputation

Agree completely. Reading the article, I couldn't help but imagine how Patrick would be perceived if he followed the OP's well-intentioned advice.

IMO, his humble persona, generosity/openness and consistent work ethic have made him the popular and approachable figure that he is today. It wouldn't be surprising if much of Patrick's inspiration came from Balsamiq's Peldi.
Note, http://github.com/onilabs/apollo/blob/master/oni-apollo.js

This might be the implementation of StratifiedJS, but it displays as a long, half minified, 92kb line of code... not ver readable like that.
There are tricks you can employ. There are certain graphic styles that are easy enough for non artistic people to pull off. Things like Geometry War's vector style, or pretend your game is 8 bit, etc. This game is beautiful with very simple graphics: http://www.kongregate.com/games/TerryCavanagh/vvvvvv-demo

Truth be told, really pulling off even "simple" graphics takes skill and an artistic eye. But often times for small indie games "good enough" really is. There are plenty of indie games with obviously developer created graphics that have done well: iShoot is a big one.

Even Minecraft's graphics have a very down to earth, homebrew feel to them. Which can both be easy to pull off and work well if you can find that sweet spot.
Human-powered Ornithopter Becomes First Ever to Achieve Sustained Flight
The hype is that it was finally a framework that does not build on leaky abstractions like "business layers". The downside is that it sometimes adds a few others...

By the way: the Rails hype was 3 years ago. Now, its just one implementation of the same concept like all others.
After reading it is written in Java, I remembered Yegge's Wyvern and how he wished he had written it in Python or something.

I wonder how many lines of code this is...
This is an extremely important point, germane to the conversation.. The $120mm was not a funding round -- it was liquidity for founders. Huge difference, and it invalidates much of dhh's original analysis.
Google search for "Job in Sweden" and peruse the many results. I read The Local, and their job board is the second hit: http://www.thelocal.se/jobs/ . You'll might also asking for advice on http://www.amerikanska.com/ .

You can visit Sweden without a permit for up to 3 months out of 6. While there you can take Swedish classes at places like Folkuniversitetet or, if you have a residency permit, take free classes as part of SFI (Svenskundervisning för invandrare - Swedish education for foreigners). Personally, I did private Swedish lessons in the US before moving to Gothenburg. It took some time to find an instructor in New Mexico, but it was possible.

Now I have to ask the same question many have asked me - why Sweden?
Opening up the 2.4ghz spectrum to everyone didn't create ubiquitous free internet, nor even ubiquitous free-with-ads internet. Why are some postulating that this will mean the end of cellular carriers and that phones will somehow use this spectrum for free?

In terms of utilizing frequencies that can provide connections over longer range than 2.4GHz, that's exactly what WiMax already is. And WiMax specs aren't leading us towards any kind of free internet, they're the new high priced 4G service you now buy from the same cell companies as always.
That's pretty much what I'm planning on doing - I had an excellent internship this summer at a great web company, and I am really looking forward to continue to work there.

That said, the romance and adventure of eating ramen and working morning, noon, and night to make something interesting and new is attractive. There's plenty of the rest of my life, too, though, I suppose :)
I noticed similar problems. I guess it's the growth, and that an article only really has a few minutes to get its first few votes that will put it onto the front page.
In a nutshell: Python actually runs well on Windows, which isn't something you can really say about MRI. (JRuby, maybe, but that brings its own set of issues.)

Linux may have gained real acceptance as a server OS, but businesses overwhelmingly still prefer Windows on the desktop.
I can't edit above so I will add it here:

* '09 spent $400 on $700M of revenue ($300M profit)

* profitable since Q2 of 09

* one of the only social networks to ever reach profitability

* 55% of US retailers present on Facebook

* 20% of global social network ad revenues

* 550,000 approved apps, 1M developers

* 20% of users have logged into another site using connect

* Zynga revenue is over $40M a month. Up to $10M of that goes to Facebook for advertising, while Facebook then take 30% of what Zynga make through Facebook revenue. So Zynga first pay Facebook to get the users, then pay Facebook again when they make money from those users. Great model.

sources:
* http://www.sharespost.com/research_report?filename=facebook-...

* http://www.sharespost.com/research_report?filename=100702_GS...

(both reports source from SEC filings and other sources)
I would love to make $60K while living in an country/place of my choice
Where did you find them? Finding reliable artists is not easy.
Steve Blank: The Peter Pan Syndrome–The Startup to Company Transition
Modkit - In-browser Arduino Environment
Few things to learn from Nokia's fall
Zeus's beard. Saw the headline and thought it was an obituary.

(At least until my brain kicked and thought "he can't be dead, he's posting". But sheesh.)
Firebug and LiveHTTPHeaders are basically the only reason I keep Firefox around these days.
Here is an example:
User uploads and image to be OCR'ed and the resulting text is to be displayed (in process). Say I have the OCR algorithim (the business) in a c library. In the .Net world I would create a dll from the library, reference it and call the ocr function and display the results. Does RoR have the ability to include external late binding libraries where the "business" can be implemented?
Makes it quick and easy to create working web applications without having to worry about all the extra necessities. Yes, you should learn about databases, working with SQL, html requests, routing, etc in depth, but Rails handles it for you so you don't have to waste the time setting up the cookie cutter parts and can get right to prototyping.
Very timely. My plans this weekend are to finally finish my iPad game that's been over a year in the making :)
I'm a pretty active user / community member at http://www.flashgamelicense.com/ which has lots of art, audio and programmer types.

Even if you're looking at other platforms I'd suggest trying to find an artist there, there's some great talent.

You can also find art guys at sites like http://www.newgrounds.com and http://www.deviantart.com and whatever deal you make can vary, some will do it for % only, some for ridiculously little amounts of $$$, some will want ridiculously big amounts of $$$.

I tend to use the same guys (http://hardcircle.com/) unless it's a little project I can do myself. Not cheap but good quality:

http://inflashstudios.com/survivosaur.jpg
See my reply to the other guy.
RoR has a lot of advantages for rapid development and prototyping early on. I think over the course of the development cycle, the advantages even out with other frameworks. In other words, for the first 10% of your development, you'll get much more accomplished than if you decided to use pure Ruby (or even Django or Symfony).

However, this "magic" comes at a price, and at some point you will hit a wall, and if you're a very attentive programmer, you'll have been paying attention to what the magic has been accomplishing without you behind the scenes, and you'll be able to figure out a way around it without scrapping your code base. If you haven't done that, then you're going to pull your hair out in frustration.

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of rails or other magic frameworks for anything other than prototyping, but ymmv, I definitely understand why people like it.
> Imagine I wrote this post: ... Even if you don't fully appreciate the beauty of chess, your tournament games would entertain hundreds of players online, and help educate and inspire young players. Anyone who says "I don't care about competitive chess" clearly hasn't thought about it very much.

It's a little different than that - there's some smart and accomplished people who read my site, and I was hoping to introduce them and connect them with Patrick, maybe creating some opportunities. If you posted on a Chess blog and told all your readers to go look the person up if they wanted an exceptional Chess student, and I was looking to be apprenticed, then I'd appreciate that.

I don't know how it'll go over, we'll see what Patrick says. If he's displeased or this brings ill on him, I can edit or delete the post as suits him. I wrote it with good intentions, we'll see how it goes.
OK, point taken. It might have been more difficult, but it could definitely have been possible to give him a strong endorsement without the rest of the post. Then he could have sent Patrick an email with the rest, indicating that the blog post might be a good reference.
No social engineering took place unless you gave up something you shouldn't have. Someone was friendly in email and was playing around with your code submission system seeing how far he could push it. rm -fr * is a nice joke on you for letting it slide and the #include /dev/random is just funny.
Haha... I just reread your comment. Sorry, I read it too fast the first time.
It's of note that Hollywood Video was bought by Movie Gallery, and Movie Gallery went out of business earlier this year.
If it receives anything but ICMP packets, it breaks miserably. This should have just been called a tiny ping responder program. (And it can't deal with any problems or normal network issues at all even to do that.) It has no relation to an IP stack other than it reading network data raw.
But that's what your post's parents are talking about. Microsoft won't debug your code, but they will respond if you show them a bug in their code (and you've paid for the support accounts).
Interactive: CDOs’ Interlocking Ownership (built with Raphael.js)
The about page says:

Once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code as some kind of open source. I'm not very happy with the draconian nature of (L)GPL, nor do I believe the other licenses have much merit other than to boost the egos of the original authors, so I might just possibly release it all as public domain.
There's a blog post on how we did it here:

http://www.propublica.org/nerds/item/the-rainbow-connection-...
Blockbuster is sort of like 7-11. IIRC, most of the stores are franchisees. NCR was probably just using Blockbuster's name and bargaining position with the studios on the price of movies.
Mulve: super fast music discovery and no P2P in sight
I'm also finding many are [dead] as soon as they are submitted, for no reason that I can see. Then, a short while later, the [dead] is lifted. See my post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659521
If you're like me and can't access loudthinking link, here's a copy: http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=1...
The Top 100 Job Boards Online
DHH can write my web framework but I wouldn't let him manage my money.
How dare you judge someone else's value system on nothing more than your own value system, in particular over such a trivial metric as salary?

The market determines the score (price, profit, salary, whatever you want to call it); that which is both scarce and in demand is rewarded most. But a man's highest motivations, his identity, is not determined by the market, and should never be, for any hope of sanity and healthy self-image. It is thus offensive to me that someone should judge someone else on the basis that their motivations, their identity, are insufficiently market-oriented.

I think I detect a hint of a repulsive assumption underlying this article: that you value the worth of a person, at least in part, on the basis of how much money they make. I hope that's not true.
It could be growth. It could be a lot of things.

I postulate that the necessary quality level is greater now because of the sheer number of articles that get sifted through. What used to make the cut, no longer does. Or, it could be vice-versa.
DHH: you should read this Business Week article on Google in 2000: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2000/nf200012...

I love 37signals, as I'm sure most of us here do too, but this analysis on Facebook is completely haywire. I bet he would've said the same thing about Google's prospects back in 2000, just like that BW article.
I think it's a function of there being too many items submitted every day, and not enough people checking the "new" page. During busy times of the day, if you don't get 5-10 votes within the first 10-15 mins, you're on the 2nd page of the "new" posts area, and you're never going to make it. I'm afraid the end result is that the only posts that will end up on the front-page are:

1. Where the author (domain) is well-known
2. Where the title is link-bait
3. Where the submitter tries to game the system

All of these are bad for the future of HN. I really like the way reddit handles this, of putting a few new items at the top of the homepage and rotating them, so that more people see them and have the chance to upvote. The way things are going, HN is destined to have a front-page full of only linkbait, spam, and/or posts by rockstars.
Where's Spolsky? He should be in on this. Maybe DHH can put up his Zonda for something that Joel values highly.
Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freeloader, since I never click on "new" in order to upvote the decent submissions.

The only suggestions that I have would be (1) to automatically load a handful of "new" submissions in a separate section of the main page (at the expense of destroying the current design and cluttering the page), or (2) giving out karma for upvoting new stories (which is ripe for exploitation by simply clicking randomly).
i really hate pointing it out, but working on a scrappy startup straight out of school is either for the exceptionally talented or for the people who have/had the financial support of their parents.