skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Spot on. The 'how do I get an A' question always seemed to be on the lips of everyone who never seemed to want to do the thing consensus reality suggested you might have to do to get one (turn up, pay attention, work hard, ...)

Computer Science, particularly, has a problem with bright students who managed to blaze through their first-year courses with a 4.0, expending absolutely no effort at all. This is because they already know how to program and are often inculcated with enormously broad knowledge of CS as compared with their peers.

Many of them also know dangerous portions of typical second-year subjects - e.g. just enough to regard their second-year algorithms or operating systems courses as 'oh, this is just like first year, I know this'. Unfortunately, this often refers to the first 20-25% of the course, not all of it, and maybe not even that.

Some of them never quite seem to recover and start regarding the marks they get as arbitrary personal judgements of their character ('you gave me a bad mark because I'm smarter than you and you hate me') or as failings in the system ('you gave me a bad mark because this course is in ML and ML is stupid').

Naturally none of this is helped by the fact that there are copious actual failings in the system. The hours of my software engineering course spent on the waterfall model (back in the early 90s), or mind-numbing lectures on the Seven Deadly Layers of OSI, are hours I'll never get back...
Ask HN: Any bar owners?
With all of the tech startup entrepreneurs, does anyone have experience in starting a bar? Any facts or figures you could provide about the cost to setup, info for getting licenses, etc.?
So, what you should do now, is run linkscape (http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape) or another link intelligence tool of your choice on a competitive website.

See those links to your competition? Figure out how to get them to link to your site.

(This is where the glib, generic advice ends and the work starts. As you have probably figured out, SEO is relatively simple to understand in theory, and relatively difficult to actually do.)

If you share your site w/ us, I'll give you some suggestions.
The internet doesn't weigh anything, Jen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRmxXp62O8g
SV is one of the only places on Earth where dreamers, hackers, and backers all gather to make big things happen. My only thing is, why not apply more of our joint efforts to solve critical survival problems for all human beings and our only home planet? It's already happening at some degree but, as evolving beings, we must keep raising the bar.

Maybe more people need to trip on LSD before starting up...
I sent it.

Oh yeah -- also see pg's undergraduation: http://paulgraham.com/college.html , which is on point here. I think in some essay he points out that if you want to work in a lab, you need to convince the prof that you'll be a net decrease in work. This is harder than it might appear.
Not too different, in the end. The "Old" web was "patched" with excessive Flash, which slowed it down for many users.

I'll take the "New" web browsers over Flash, though. Better hardware acceleration (such as for large images) should've been done long ago, and Flash is a security / stability / (usually) usability nightmare.
Well, you could be right, but at least I've provided a datapoint. Can you provide some evidence that the phenomenon you're describing explains the state of the public school system as a whole, and that the DC system is an aberration?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jun/07/guardianwee...

2 oz, apparently.
David Foster Wallace’s struggle to surpass “Infinite Jest.”
...It actually probably more depends on the school.

To a certain degree there are computer science programs where the net result is large-scale training in collaborative development. At the university where I worked, there was a graduate CS class where over the course of 10 weeks they rewrote the transportation department's website (enabling real-time tracking of campus busses and wi-fi base stations in all the busses).

However, I was a chemistry/math major as an undergrad, at a primarily research institution. I imagine chemistry departments at primarily undergrad institutions were probably not as involved in the process of "knowledge creation" - that's what REUs were for - and who can say about the humanities and political science?
I would kill for nicely designed API's for the things I work with.

Then maybe I can stop writing stupid shell script wrappers.
The Tragedy of the Uncommons
do undergraduates really not know this or at least figure it out very quickly?

Some do, but my impression is that most don't. I didn't, as I wrote; I knew that most smart people go to college, but I didn't know how college was structured (nor did I know how high school was structured, or what was wrong with the structure of high school; for more on that, see http://jseliger.com/2009/11/12/susan-engel-doesnt-get/ ).

Maybe some students figure out the structure of universities quickly through osmosis, but again, I wasn't one. If this essay hastens the process, then I've done something useful in the world.
Don't first year CS courses usually share the same maths classes as first year engineering? Pretty difficult to "blaze through" that purely on prior programming knowledge (believe me, I tried and almost got kicked out of the course I did for failing maths).
Correct link: http://www.links.org/?p=998
Michael Bolton: Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks!
Being overweight and obese is caused by eating too many calories. No really. If you don't believe me you can get the very long exhaustive scientific treatment of the subject over here:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html
You forget that you can have the best of both worlds: you can join a startup and become a Rock Star Programmer. Possibly also some sort of Ninja!

More seriously: nothing wrong with taking a swing.

The main problem is not the people who take risks to begin with. It's the ones who don't know when to quit and carry on a failed plan to the point of turning their lives into a parody - the difference between a couple years off and a decade spent mucking around getting nowhere.
How to make interactive menus easier to use
True enough. I mainly meant 4.0 in their CS courses, although some have overlap between advanced HS math and first-year university math.
Zynga is about entertainment, yes. But where'd you get the idea that the entertainment industry won't stand the test of time? For as long as there's been currency, people have been paying to be entertained. This trend is only getting stronger with each passing decade, as technological improvements give us more free time to kill, and as the Earth's population grows. It's hardly a "silly" industry to be involved in as a business. As for innovation, just stop and consider the fact that the average social media gamers is a middle-aged woman[1]. Compare entertainment today to how it was 10 years ago, and you'll realize Zynga (well, the companies it steals from) innovates quite a bit.

Facebook and Twitter are less about entertainment and more about communication. Facebook lets me communicate and "share" with the people who've come and gone in my life in a way that's never been possible. And for those who use it well, Twitter is an invaluable source of relevant up-to-date information, straight from the mouths of the experts/authorities that you respect. As far as transforming the world goes, communication is a MAJOR area to innovate in, because it tends to bring people close together who were once far away and alien. This has profound effects on culture, government, etc (see: telegraph, radio, telephone, television, etc).

The way I see it, the web is a naturally advantageous platform for innovation in these industries and more, and now it's finally maturing. The startups blowing up today are merely the ones taking advantage of this fact.

[1] http://gigaom.com/2010/02/17/average-social-gamer-is-a-43-ye...
Fixed: "have earned a B.A. or equivalent." I the mention B.S. earlier, too: "Congratulations: you’re now probably working toward your B.A. (bachelor of arts) or B.S. (bachelor of science), which will probably take four years."

Thanks for the heads up.
I did this just now. Thanks.
Most real design-centered shops (like Apple) do something in between: a group of people gets together, agrees on requirements, then each goes off and conceives of their own solution(s) to the entire problem. Then, they meet up again, and use that "common design language" to each, in turn, advocate for their design.
I'm actually glad that this was and continues to be a big story in our world; it says something. I'm reminded of @cdixon's comment on Twitter the other day:

'One thing angelgate shows is how ethics-driven the startup world is. On Wall Street, meeting to fix prices is called "lunch."'
> To make sandboxing secure, UI widget has to run in a different process and only communicate data of selected image back to your app.

Android already does this using separate processes for distinct Activities and by using Intents for message-passing between those activities. Granted, Android doesn't prevent access to the SD card data, but assuming it did secure that access somehow, the existing Activity/Intents framework would make it trivial to keep that functionality separate. Except for the fact that all the system applications and activities are built on top of the same basic Android SDK/API as 3rd party applications, so anything they can do, your apps can do too if it requests the right permissions.
Medical school in Japan lasts 6 years, not 3.

It's true that you can apply to medical school straight out of high school in Japan, but that's also true for many (most?) other countries.
Works smoothly in Safari 5 on OS X. However, the various images that move around in each frame of the comic strip as you move the mouse around are, depending on how you hover with the mouse, completely off and move almost randomly, ripping the frame apart (f.e. being able to move the whisky glass around on the table, up in the air and off the table, and being able to rip the cowboy's arm off of his torso). I later found that this is the case on all browsers except IE9 - I am willing to bet that this is because IE9 is still broken.
Child of the Internet
SEO keeps on evolving, the best way to learn is to keep a track on SEO trends.

There are two main aspects of SEO, on-site optimization and link building.

Read at about on-site optimization at:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-p...

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/12-basic-on-site-seo-tact...

After you have an optimized website ready, you should go and get some links. There are countless ways of building links. Let your imagination run wild and be creative with the link building.

Some resources to get started with link building:

http://www.linkbuildingwiki.com

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-building-from-a-to-z

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/6

http://searchenginewatch.com/2160301
When I went there in December, my distinct impression was that I would love to live near there if I was still doing ham radio. Having such a variety of shops close at hand would be fantastic. But otherwise... you can get everything online for cheaper.
My fault I think, being British I have no idea of the significance of the 4.0 thing :-)
You do know that some places award MA degrees in four years as first degrees?
I, too, think it's a good idea but her presentation definitely rubbed me the wrong way.
UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens
I'm so glad you pointed this out. I was getting extremely confused by the bias of the author toward Bachelors of Arts degrees over Bachelors of Science degrees. In fact some degrees were not mentioned at all in the article such as S.B. degrees. I was worried about the validity of his arguments and advice because of the lack of rigor in his research of what degrees undergraduates can earn. Again I applaud your efforts to clean up his act.
How to Tilt an Election Through Redistricting
If you don't have prior experience you need to find someone who does to help you run it.

Licenses vary greatly from state to state. There are a myriad of details to master.
You could have node.js serve different feeds of JSON data (or just use node.js for whatever you need realtime, via socket.io, and pull the JSON from an old-school CMS).
Err... I may be missing something, but is there any way to POST data to a hashtag URL within the same page? You wouldn't be able to retrieve the posted data without some server-side cooperation. In fact you're not really doing a GET either in the example code, there is no HTTP action. This makes this not really a RESTful framework, but just a neatly structured event handler for onhashchange.

Edit: Oh I see from the docs, Sammy binds to form submit events ondocumentready and overrides them unless you return false from your route handler. Clever.
You apparently haven't heard of my neutrino-powered wifi transmitter.
What state are you in? My grandmother's boyfriend is in the process of selling his bar in CA and I bet I could ask him some questions for you.
My parents bought an existing bar back in 1993, held it for 3 years and sold it in 1996. I managed it for them while completing my CS degree.

Licensing is a complex topic that varies considerably by location. By state, and then by county or municipality.

Overhead can be relatively low, depending on what you have in mind. You need some basic infrastructure- ice machine, coolers, CO2 systems, etc. Insurance is a bit different for a bar than other businesses, obviously, but not too bad. Inventory is a low cost compared to your cash flow, as is labor since pretty much everyone will be minimum wage plus tips. Maintenance isn't too bad.

Basically a well-run bar is a license to print money. You sell drinks for several multiples of your cost of goods.

Most bars I knew of that had trouble had it due to owners that didn't know what they were doing, at all, in terms of business, or more commonly had a drinking/substance problem.
View Twitter Through Other People’s Eyes With TwtRoulette
You might find JWZ's experiences interesting: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/

Then again, it might scare you off. Maybe it's just that CA is particularly bad, I dunno.
JWZ:

http://www.dnalounge.com/

http://jwz.livejournal.com/profile

edit:

1) dupe.

2) @netik is involved with DNA lounge too.
Iris Scanning Set To Secure City in Mexico, Then the World
jwz does: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/permits-index.html

I think if you peruse his site a bit, there are lots of rants about how difficult it was for him to get this started.
Very useful in my opinion. Universities are strange institutions, especially when you don't know how they work.
Undercover in North Korea
There are US companies whose whole business is to own patents and sue companies who, they claim, infringe upon them.
The Valley has already created a positive feedback loop for attracting high quality VCs and entrepreneurs. Therefore, like those who go to LA to seek Silver Screen fame, SV will be hard to replace as THE place to be for tech startups.

With that said, ironically technology is draining the moat around SV and offering great opportunities to other world-class startup cities (e.g., NYC, Boston, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, etc.). In 50-100 years I expect these cities and a few more to have equal resources ala capital, technology, experienced operators, and top tier entrepreneurs.

IMHO, this is one of the ways the US will get its swagger back ;)
TwtRoulette - Peeking each other's home timeline
At 1400 employees and four international headquarters, is Facebook really considered a mid-sized startup? To me that phrase evokes a few dozen people who took a sublet last year....
Ask HN: Is being an introvert okay?
My social skills are going down exponentially day by day. I am an undergraduate at a university. I tend to be communicative with people who share similar interests (physics, hacking, heavy metal etc.). Is this for the worst? I know that HN is not a social advice site. But I believe that there'd be a couple of guys having had experiences like me who could give me some advice :)
Should user interface designers be able to build what they design?
I was thinking about my brain emerging through the birth canal.
This really annoyed me because it's not HTML5 that is powering most of this technology nor is it something that could not be accomplished on HTML4.

(I wrote a post about it. http://zachinglis.com/2010/html5-is-not-that-powerful/)
Which is why WHO you have distribute your deal is so important. If you are a small business, do your research.

Again, I get what you are alluding to, but the fact of the matter is you are only speaking generally, this is possible, and in fact happens every day. Maybe not with Groupon per say, but there are others. If you are a small business, adility.com is your friend.

This model is designed to get mass exposure, but it is ultimately up to the business how massive the outcome will be.
Hey HN: My quick-n-dirty Sunday "fun-day" project: crashmybrowser.com
http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.brian.l.wang

The Author is an MBA from Canadian universities!

What authority the author has to talk on this subject he isn't a PhD in Chemistry, Physics or or Chemical or even Electrical Engineering?

Locklin is an idiot neverthless.
Most of the companies like Zynga and Foursquare are get rich quick schemes powered by snake oil.

They talk about changing life and solving world's problems.. yada.. yada.. BS!

When was the last time any of such silly companies helped you with your real life, I am not talking about a virtual fantasy farm.

Cloud Computing and iPhone are among the few useful innovations from Silicon Valley in recent times. Even products like Basecamp, Zoho suite and Google Apps are great.

*Hint hint, A bubble is in the making.
Why are you growing away from people? There has to be a reason.

I faced a similar battle and realized I was just growing a lot faster than the people around me and just needed broader experiences. In the end, I learned to focus on QUALITY of relationships, not QUANTITY. I learned that one amazing woman is better than a hundred models. I learned that one loyal friend is better than a hundred cool ones.

Not all who wander are lost...
Your response is all over the place and making a lot of assumptions about my beliefs that aren't true. I was only posting a one-off response to unfounded assertion that groupon buyers "would have bought anyway". Don't read too much into it.
If you want, I'll give your site a once over Tuesday evening. I've got some time to kill. Send me a URL and I'll email you a report.
Zynga is about wasting time in a fantasy farm. What is innovative about it? Flash games have existed since more than a decade.
Review my App:  Park in the Shade
Forgive me if this is not the place for this. This is my first published app and I'm looking for some feedback.

First off, I know the graphics suck. I'm not a graphics designer. In bootstrapping this, I didn't have a budget for a designer. If anyone out there wishes to donate a mockup, that'd be great. Otherwise, I'm not going to tweak graphics too much.

I would like to expand the app into more functionality. I've got all the calculations needed to provide more information, but I don't want to overcomplicate things. Any ideas on what features I can start adding in? It's a pretty unique app, no real competition.

Thoughts?
I understand that "why?" will probably be responded with "why not?" but I'm going to ask it anyway. What benefit does bringing in more fonts do? What is the advantage of using these fonts over the current free/open fonts, like Nimbus, Arial, Courier New, etc?
Keep in mind Michael Arrington said he talked to three different people who were at the meeting. It's possible David Lee was one of them. I have a hard time believing all Angels assembled were comfortable with the direction the meetings appeared to be taking. I think someone (possibly publicly defensive, and with a flamboyant writing style) had the bright idea to bring Angels together for mutually beneficial agreements to control market forces affecting them, but before things went very far things went public.
Given that the topic is legislative machinations about (research) funding and the diversion of such funding, it would seem to be well within his formal education on the subjects.

If you look at his list of publications you'll see they probably assume the science and technology (and he does have a CS undergraduate degree) and focus on appropriate stuff beyond that.

And all that said, you don't have to be too familiar with the science and engineering that Drexler has proposed to know when someone is misrepresenting it as grossly as Locklin. Just like anyone with a basic understanding of chemistry and Drexler's writings could tell that Smalley's "fat fingers" (emphasis on plural) was a strawman, since at that time Drexler had never proposed multiple "fingers" for just the reason Smally pointed out (not enough room for them to fit; qualification because I don't know anything about the current DNA approaches that are exciting a lot of people).
> We've considered meeting with the small businesses individually but that's just really time intensive.

If you're not willing to work for it you'll fail. Sometimes you actually have to invest time -- lots of time in the right areas -- whether you think you have the time or not. Or would you rather just give up and fail?
Arial and Courier New are proprietary fonts. Arimo, Tinos, and Cousine use SIL Open Font License.

Not sure why not other open fonts, but hey, we now have three more, how's this not a good thing?

(Designed by Steve Matesson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Matteson)
Needs a code example on the front page.
Unpacking Imagination
As much as I love zen koans, especially hacker koans, it's worth remembering that ESR doesn't really code and I don't know if he merits the 'authority' that some people ascribe to him.
ICEBERG STRAIGHT AHEAD!

I hope people start to see the bigger picture when their virtual farms fail and their check-in mania subsides...

The 21st century is primetime for humans to step up and finally solve problems that have plagued our progress for centuries and here we have the masses switching from coach potatoes to facebook zombies...
All the porn probably took the shine off it. Looks less like the future and more like a grubby swapmeet in a red light district.
There is difference between starting a credible business (not another Zynga or Posterous ) and starting a rock band.

Good busineses require a lot of knowledge about engineering and world in general. Everyone here recommending dropping out of college is clearly delusional. What the fuck a freshman knows, even if a student is computer genius, college is essential to learn about how world works. To all the folks who are commenting like stupid about how they learnt nothing from college, I suggest them to find few people who couldn't go to college and talk to them.

And Oh btw Steve Jobs dropped out because he didnt have money and Zukerberg studied at Exter and Harvard, similar with Bill Gates. When they both dropped out, they had good connections as well as parents capable of bank rolling them.

If you are a an 18 year of HTML CSS RUBY PHP educated kid, please dont listen to this crap. Go to a good school and get a degree in engineering and minor in business or economics.