skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>>Google might make money from advertising, yes. But, as far as the average person is concerned, Google means search.

Yes, exactly, precisely that is what I find funny.
Not in a "you average people, go read up on your google facts" or even in a way that I particularly care take a stand against/with. I just find it cosmically funny somehow.
If I may stretch it a tad; almost in a dystopian, dark comedic sense.

edit: and also, you say "average", in my above post I said news stories, that is, journalists. They really shouldn't be "average" in this context. If they are, then yeah sure, their readers will become.
OStatus-enable Your Application (key to dencentralized social networks)
His particular demo only works with a specific Verizon router, but the notional attack works against any wireless router that has any XSS flaw --- ie, any wireless router.

There are really just two simple ideas here (taking a couple simple ideas and plugging them together in some totally unexpected way being a Samy Kamkar trademark):

* Any website can usually use reflected XSS to interact with a browser's upstream wireless router, because wireless routers suck, and because they assume that the "inside" network is safe.

* There are databases that translate wireless MAC into location (like Skyhook).
It depends on how compelling the content is; if a user is really engrossed, they'll be happy to scroll down pages of content. If they're not, keeping everything above the fold won't be enough.

Naturally there are limits to how much a person will scroll no matter how compelling the content. With 37signals, they probably feel their copy is engaging enough and the design offers enough varying contrast as a person scrolls down that having someone scroll that far isn't an issue.
I created an alternative spreadsheet to pg's that is formula-based, which explains some of the final numbers. (At least that's the intention.) In particular, where the 3.7% adjustment for the pool refresh comes from.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ap9s-bcx0E1adGh4cVJ...
Notably, contributed by Microsoft.

I... I have nothing bad to say about that.

Hmmm.
I have always thought abortion an act of barbarism against which both the past and the future would revolt. Babies are killed for convenience and profit; it'd be over the top for comic book villains, and yet it is real.

It won't survive another generation, and will be seen as one of the darkest black spots in our history.
So, now BeOS is owned by HP?
By default, my AT&T home router doesn't ask for credentials until I ask to change something. Our office router is completely authenticated with HTTP Basic. Different routers, different results, but there are an awful lot of routers that assume that if you can hit the router's internal address, it must be safe for you to get information about the router.
It all comes down to phrasing doesn't it?

No, the two cases are fundamentally different.

On the one hand we guarantee each person the right to voice his own beliefs, peaceably assemble, and worship (or not) as his conscience dictates. This empowers each person, but is completely neutral for others: I can listen or ignore the speech of others as I like.

On the other hand are the positive liberties such as healthcare. These do much more than allow a person to do as they will without hurting others. Quite the opposite: they explicitly place a responsibility on me to provide for the care of others.

In the case of negative liberties such as free speech, I can go off in the woods to type out my magnum opus, and be well within moral grounds. But in the presence of positive liberties, my choice to distance myself is morally wrong, as I'd be shirking my duty to help provide.

Your comparison to slavery in the American south simply doesn't work. In their case, the abolition of slavery damaged the plantation owners, but that was a morally just outcome. But in the current case, what happens when the budget for healthcare is exhausted? At some point there must come an instance where we say "we just don't have the resources to heal you".

Also, because the resources to provide healthcare are necessarily finite, someone must draw a line determining how much healthcare is due each person. I'm not comfortable with a moral code where right and wrong is determined by an arbitrary line (which is what is going to happen: if the bill exceeds $X per quality-adjusted year of life, then it will be denied). I note that this doesn't in itself mean that it ought not to be done, but it makes the argument from morality much more difficult.
I'm not comfortable with a moral code
This is interesting. Just the other day I saw a flash ad on Reddit touting all the new features in Visual Studio 2010. I was surprised to see that one of the slides mentioned "Support for including the jQuery Framework".

Glad to see that riding the jQuery train rather than making their own or something along those lines.
What is Gamification and Real World Examples of It
I think Feynman's quote is meant that you should not learn only the name of things and pretend to understand what they are.

There's also another anecdote written by Feynman where he describes creating his own notation for trig, or maybe calc. At some point he had to abandon it because no one else understood him. The anecdote is not as quotable, but it correlates with what you said -- it gives you the ability to talk about it with other people, so Feynman is not ignorant of this.
The Charter Takeover
The rise and fall and rise of Edward Kim and Car Locator
Well, the Python Twisted framework (http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/) can always use more people and is one of the bigger and more awesome open source projects.

In addition (in my experience) most of the code is very modular, clean and understandable.
Hm, indeed I didn't follow. I think that karma score beyond a few thousand at most would be completely irrelevant, and that even 10 comments, if they're good ones are going to give PG a bit of insight in to your thinking, which is what he probably tries to glean from it.

Personally I don't care one bit about getting in to YC, and I highly doubt you would either, it seems you are pretty well established, most likely that's 'mutual'.

As for Patrick, only Patrick could answer that question, but his route so far suggests he's a bootstrapper far more than someone that would go looking for funding.

Though I doubt it would be hard for him to find funding through YC or elsewhere he at least seems to have chosen for the moment to forgo that option.

I don't know what the 'something else' is that you're referring to, but to make a stab at it for myself, HN is the replacement of something that I used to have, which is people to work with, remotely or in person.

As a result of that I spend an inordinate amount of time on HN, but the result - as far as I can see - has been an absolute net positive, I've gotten to know quite a few people 'in real life' that have enriched my life in many ways and I've been able to learn from quite a few people as well.

If HN karma translates in to 'work' then my own score would probably represent upwards of 4 months full-time since I became a member, I'm fortunate enough that I actually can spend that time, and when expressed in money, at a very conservative 75 euros per hour would be the equivalent of about 50K euros, so approximately 1 euro per 'karma point' invested.

I'm in the wrong place (Europe), in the wrong age group (45+), in the wrong 'mindset' (more like grizzled and scarred tomcat than a fresh and young kid) that is pretty opinionated and so on. Too much impedance mismatch between me and YC to make me even think of applying, besides that I wouldn't live in the US if you paid me for it.
We need drunk carry laws just like we need drunk driving laws. I'm as pro concealed carry as you can get, but I don't even like it when a drunk has a butterknife.
There is a big difference between

1) impractical

2) does not apply to all life situations
Don't be so sure that WordPress attracts so many developers that are so much better than you. It might get a few, but from what I've seen of the codebase, the project could stand to gain a few more contributors who can code their way out of a wet paper bag.
Dropbox's feature list calls out File Sync and File Sharing as the major features. Forgive me if I took that at face value.
"Sync Windows, Mac and Linux computers" sure sounds like what it says.

In fact the word "server" doesn't occur until the 18th bullet point. If this is a the major feature point, they need to talk pointedly with their marketing guy.
Keep in mind that there is no shortage of open source developers out there. I'm not trying to discourage you from contributing to open source projects (the community needs you!), only to remind you that a post like this can never fully answer your question.

Browse SourceForge or GitHub and you'll find literally tens of thousands of projects ranging from huge enterprise-scale development efforts that will likely never implement your code (OpenOffice, Linux kernel, Firefox) to small projects that are a cool idea but were never even developed to the point of an alpha release.

Personally, I like contributing to the latter of those categories. The small, cool-idea projects that never got their feet off the ground are the best places to start. There are several reasons I support this route, primarily that:

1.) Smaller projects need you more, and your code is more likely to actually be committed to a release version.

2.) You will actually be designing code. Monolithic projects like Firefox or OpenOffice certainly need developers, but mostly for bug fixes and slow feature additions. Developing for a small open source project will see you actually rolling out functionality--a skillset upon which you can build.

Good luck!
Fantastically smart, alarmingly unwise.
Noah Kagan approached me the other day about including HM into part of a 'startup' bundle. I have no idea at that time the bundle would look this big (and this cheap).

I think this would be really helpful to startups or those who are looking to start one and operate on a tight budget (which is what most startups are).
Interestingly, the "new design" looks a lot like the one the "old design" replaced. Obviously some background A/B testing winning out here.
Perhaps this article on today's HN was meant for you! :)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1755334
What gave you the impression that Linode uses Drupal for their admin interface?
Scala needs the JVM (well, at least it's main implementation does).
The nice thing about open source is that you're going about it all wrong.

You're not looking for a project "actively looking for new contributors". You're looking for a project you want to contribute to. You don't ask/interview for a spot on the team; you come up with a feature you will use, write it, and send diffs.

Even a project like Wordpress, which has a small army of PHP contributors, is "open to contributions". If you write something genuinely useful, send diffs, and are willing to transfer your rights to the code, chances are they'll seriously consider it. Of course, Wordpress probably "wants" you to build a plugin, not a core modification. But if your best idea is a core modification, just go write it.

You're overthinking this. Consider whether that's a sign that you're procrastinating.
Thank you, fixed the typo.

> Where did you get the (one boat cruise|two boat race) saying?

Long ago I designed a CAD/CAM system for a sailmaker in the Netherlands, the effect of this is that I spent a ton of time in and around the sailmakery itself (I even spent some time living in the attic above it because I had no house) and the sailing related proverbs flew fast and thick there.

It's really true though, if you're on a boat and having a good time sailing and someone overtakes you the urge to give chase is almost too strong to resist, it's like having a hound spot a deer that is running away.
24 hours.

edit: proof: http://pics.ww.com/d/425306-1/downvote-cutoff.png

That's the 'comments' list.
... Where is the pun?
Oh wow. That's some seriously cool stuff.

Though that seems unlikely given the presence of reflections. Even this system does not promise equal intensity, just equal divergence.
The worst part? They're all the same video (_NMqPT6oKJ8 is its id on youtube). Stop reposting this, dammit!
JQuery Globalization plugin
The Globalization sounds like a good idea. However the template library scares me. There are so many different template use cases in JS that having one ordained jquery one seems like it might have to be too many things to too many people.
U.S. Files Antitrust Suit Against AmEx
Am I being elliptical? Sorry. I'm saying that if you have the spare time to amass a 'jacquesm-level of HN karma, you're communicating that you're not very focused and that you allow yourself too much free time. At a certain point, for YC's selection criteria, HN becomes a vice.

Don't worry, I have even more karma than you; this is what I do instead of IRC and Usenet.
Agreed. I'd say a good approach would go something like this:

1. have a taste for using simple, clean tools

2. when in need of software, see if you can find simple, clean tools that do what you need

3. prefer those that use languages you know or would like to learn

4. use them for a while and see if you like them and develop a sense of what kind of contributions you could make

5. check out the source to see if you can get a clear enough concept of it to develop some good patches

If all of that works out, submit your patches. Voila: you're an open source contributor.
A couple of reasons besides stylistic pretension (though that might be true in some cases):

1. Skinny columns of text are easier to scan quickly. This is the same reason newspapers do it.

2. When you're using a fixed-width layout, you're going to look skinny at some screen resolutions and scroll horizontally on others. People are generally more horrified by the latter than the former, so they go conservative and target a fairly small screen size — in that case, 640px wide. Very likely, the people behind the site have a smaller display than you do (though a site targeting 640x480 is still probably aiming a few notches below their own display).
And then got a MBA from Harvard.
For someone just getting started, I'd be more inclined to recommend picking a smaller codebase.
The illusion of disrupting vs. repairing the existing education market
Read closer.

"The characters '<' and '>' are unsafe because they are used as the delimiters around URLs in free text".

The RFC itself uses "<URL:...>" because it already uses "<...>" for BNF non-terminals, which are much more common than URLs in the RFC.

Enjoy your undeserved upvote :)
Interesting. I don't think I've ever heard of this site. Thanks for linking it.
I've considered this. (Getting a Phil deg. altough I'm a geek and want to work in a technical field). Any pointers maybe? Is this a viable route?
> Actually, teaching a child a trade is probably less harmful to his character than sending him to the average public school.

This is not a new idea. It's called apprenticeship and was once widespread in e.g. Europe. Why it's less common now is largely a combination of changes in the economy (fewer stable, skilled trades) and society (teenagers being less willing to accept the obligations of being an apprentice).
How about"The same way that we call the cops on the guy we think is running a drug house, we bomb << entity >>. :-)

It's complex enough to make the point, but I certainly do appreciate that it isn't that straightforward in the real world.
The post is unreasonable, but most reasons to leave a job are good in that they teach you to remain dynamic and doing new, better, greater software (or whatever you do).

However, I found at least one exclusive set of points:
-If you aren’t being challenged in your job – leave.
-If someone is standing in the way of your progress (either internally or externally) – leave.

Someone may be standing in your way - isn't that a challenge to beat him?
Nice to see "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis in there. Best lesson from that book? "Equity isn't the main thing, it's the only thing", as in, don't give away any part of the only thing you have of value; your business, unless you have to.
Ask HN: Balancing your interests and the interests of the company you work for?
I am a mid level software engineer at a startup that has been running for a little while. I understand that being a startup, we need to prioritize effort into making the company succeed but at the same time, I do not feel that I am
really learning the things that would enhance my skills as a developer.

The reason I mentioned we have been running for a while is that because I learn and pick up things very quickly, I have always been the one sent out to evaluate or
implement features that were "needed" quickly. Over time, every one else fell into place for implementing full features which involve detailed design etc. and I end up implementing everything that is "needed" by the company. I have
gone over this over the past several performance reviews and the situation has not changed.

I try to self learn and it works most of the time but sometimes it helps to have a change to learn from people with more experience as well.

How does everyone deal with balancing your interests and the company's
interests?
A world with no government lasts exactly as long as it takes for some charismatic guy to round up some armed men and set up a new government. Out of 300-500 million people in the 13th century we had Genghis Khan--how many Genghis Khans are we going to find out of 7 billion people?

Humanity's had two steady states--hunting and gathering, and governments. It's an interesting question how authority functioned in hunter-gatherer tribes prior to the invention of civilization and government, but since then, government has been the only steady state. It's even more of a steady state than hunting and gathering, because the hunter-gatherers kept realizing they were better warriors than the grain-fed populations of a civilization, so they conquered neighboring civilizations and set up their own government.
I always enjoy 37signals' copy, but the one that feels a little odd is "Backpack is like a beautifully organized closet for your internal communications."

So... it's a backpack that's like a closet, but a beautifully-organized one. And my internal communications go in this closet. Huh.

Anyone else find that a little funky?
This is not very approachable.

I highly, highly recommend Skiena: http://www.algorist.com/

Skiena has much, much more content on the motivation behind algorithms and algorithm selection than other algorithm books. It also dives headfirst into graph traversal, which "Algorithms-in-C"-type books tend to leave for the end of the book.

Other decent algorithms books are CLR (http://j.mp/91SqgE), which looks pretty on my shelf but I never use, and Knuth, which I find works better as literature than as a reference, but highly recommend anyways. Avoid Sedgewick.
Do You Know : “Who is Genghis Khan?” | Quazen
More Privacy Coming Over Web Data Used for Behavioral Ads
> you're not very focused and that you allow yourself too much free time.

I've had my 10 year long stretch of 16 to 18 hour days and it served me well enough, I'm not going to feel at all bad about 'not being focused' and 'allowing myself too much free time', though I can see why for YC that would be a red flag.
My thing is, whatever happened to Google just launching things without announcing them? They still do it for features, but no longer for products. Maybe it's something you can't do with physical products because consumers might postpone their buying decisions for competitors until after the launch. Still, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see us announcing things that are not even nearly done yet.
All the electronics needed to power a Google TV cost $99 (retail). It's called the Apple TV :-)

So clearly, it can be done for less. Apple is not known for low margins.
Thanks very much for the guidance on this matter!
Always glad to be downvoted without comment for an opinion!
Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity
Violence does not solve social problems. Forcing people to feed unemployed people is violent. A future without forced "charity" does not mean people are left to starve.
If you are looking to work on a Python (or for that matter any language) project, why not start contributing to one of the many libraries that you use daily. That will give you an opportunity to understand it better, as well as fix any bugs and add features to it in the process.
Very true. Content that appears above the fold will always have the highest visual priority. That said, there is a myth in web design that the second content hangs below the fold, users will ignore it. This is false, and I thought it necessary point it out.

37 signals' page encapsulates this well: the important stuff is front and center (their products) and other good information is stacked hierarchically below it.
> I'm not going to mention anything really crazy, since I'll get downvoted as a nut if I do.

You mean like democracy?

Edit: Yup, there's the "downvoted as a nut" - I think voting on what your fellow man can do with his life might be seen as barbaric in the future. Maybe not, but the idea that 51% of people voting in the USA can enforce their will on all 300 million citizens is pretty scary to me...
Agreed - those sites tend to hurt the market when relied on like that - at the same time it would be interesting to see peoples honest salaries - perhaps without mentioning company names but instead just their primary roles or titles. This information can possibly prove to be useful much as the info from this thread has been useful to me.
We'll have computers which will increasingly replace humans in risk estimation. People will just do what the computer tells them to do.
They'd wonder why we're repeating so many of their mistakes.
"Good fences make good neighbors." What's true at the local level is also true at a national level.
Cover Flow may cost Apple $208.5 million in damages
> Browse SourceForge or GitHub

. . . or BitBucket or Google Code or even Launchpad.

I use BitBucket almost exclusively, because I prefer Mercurial over Git, for instance. So does a friend of mine, who has about ten different small (but worthy) projects -- probably perfect for someone looking to get started with his/her first contributions to an open source project, but (unfortunately for this case) all but one are in Ruby and that one is Perl; there's no Python or PHP in the list.

Anyway . . . start with whichever of these things supports the version control system you prefer. I think that's probably the best approach to finding projects to which you want to contribute, rather than picking one of the two most-mentioned code hosting sites in the open source community.

Hell, I've got a couple of small projects on BitBucket that could use some contributions, too -- but they're also Ruby, and probably less likely to be exciting for someone like the OP anyway.
I have been thinking quite a bit about this since I read pg's words. I (currently) live in Denmark and I have always felt that I had pretty good conditions for doing a startup even though I don't have access to the networking that takes place in the valley.
There is so much info online anyway, and since I prefer bootstrapping, I am not that interested in meeting with angels etc. However, if the material that is available online really is that filtered, maybe I am being deluded?
I have had some great experiences as well; but there have been a slight handful that just are very slow to pay. The person I am hunting down for payment now has agreed to pay me as well as paid over half of their money owed - it's just they are taking a lot longer than is acceptable.

If I knew I could have a more reliable flow of income, freelancing/contracting would be amazing.