skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You write:
"I would like to point out that the understanding of real world economics is developed enough to make very accurate predictions.
"For instance, I knew in late 2000 or early 2001 that there would be a housing boom, a housing bubble, and a banking crisis when it burst. ..."

I don't think "knowing" constitutes prediction. If a housing bubble were predictable, the factors creating it, the timing, the drivers, and all manner of detail would have been generally known, as would the impact of the bubble in the short, medium, and long term. Moreover, we would have been able to explore various options that would mitigate the impact of the bubble or eliminate it all together.
I think you're overestimating the chances that in the future Google will play as important a role as it does today.

Google was the first to solve the "search problem". They won't be the last, and finding information is only one aspect of one thing people do on the internet. Google has not been very good at making money in any other way. Competitors in the search engine business are emerging. I can totally foresee a scenario where Google's core business shrinks quite a lot over time, and I have a sneaking suspicion they do too. They're scared, whether they admit it or not, their acquisition spree is evidence.
> Google was the first to solve the "search problem".

Google definitely wasn't the first to solve the search problem.
You look really pretty and you know unix. I would definitely hire you.
Freepascal + Lazarus for win/mac/linux desktop apps, if you dig pascal language.
Reminds me of how I used to get banned from reading Google Groups all the time just for opening a bunch of threads in tabs from Google Reader. Now I know that I have to open a couple, read a couple, go back to Reader and repeat. Kind of a shame that people have to act differently just to not be banned as robots.
Hint: Despite its name, Hacker News isn't really about news. It's about discussing content that is relevant to the interests of our community. This usually mean fresh business and technical articles, but that's not necessarily the case.
I've done this quite a lot throughout my career as I attempted to bootstrap various businesses. there are, really, two ways of going about it:

1. scrounge for several short-term contracts.

The problem with this approach is that the life of the independent contractor is very feast or famine. My biggest problem was that I'd put effort into selling and then I'd end up with more hours of work than I wanted; then I'd pull back and I'd end up with not enough.

The advantage is that you can often charge higher hourly rates, and it doesn't require establishing yourself as difficult to replace at your current job.

You can pull it off, but there is a lot of sales and financial planning you need to do. I've personally supported myself this way for almost a year, but it was pretty difficult.

2. talk your current employer into letting you do the same work, only two or three days a week.

(this usually involves losing your health insurance and most other benefits)

If you want to work 20 hours a week for the same employer steady-like (as opposed to scrounging for work all the time) you will have to take the job full time and make yourself hard to replace, first; then you explain the situation to the boss. I've had pretty good luck doing this... better luck, in fact, than the aforementioned 'scrounging for several small contracts' strategy. I've probably done this for a total of two years of my career (while working on prgmr.com) and they were relatively easy years (vs. my year doing #1, which was really difficult, and involved eating a lot of tuna.) This strategy results in a steadier (and for me, larger) income, and because I'm really not that good at selling 'premium products' it usually results in me earning more per hour, if you count sales effort. Someone who is better at sales might have the opposite result, just 'cause part time catch as catch can gigs often can give you better hourly rates.
I think this is true. I recently read "The Fates of Nations" by Paul Colinvaux, which was very interesting. One of his main points was that people are very smart about choosing how many kids to have, and they generally choose to have as many kids as they can afford. For richer people, it tends to be less, since they want to give their kids all the best: the best schools, the best daycare, set them up with a good start in life, etc. For poorer people, they don't spend as much on their kids. They don't worry so much about education because it's often out of their reach, so they have more kids since it doesn't cost them as much. (The book isn't so much about demographics as about how demographics have shaped history throughout time.)
How to Make Your Product Images Beautiful With the Rule of Thirds
That's subjective. I consider Google the first "good" search engine.
http://videolectures.net/ has some interesting lectures as well.
I think idea generation/ creativity is a competitve advantgage because it is a skill that a lot of people don't have and it is essentially the ability to create "possible" new value.

But as people mentioned they worthless if you do not execute.

I come up with good ideas all the time becasue I am naturally curious on how things work and love to solve problems. It is psychologically rewarding to me to solve complex problems and coming up with ideas and being correct. So if you are natually curious and can critically think you should be coming up with a lot of ideas.
Mahmud, please do an autobiography! Cigarette black marketeer, lisper, salesman of luxury motor cycles, business advisor and to top it off, a window cleaner.

No doubt many other things beside, if you can spare the time, do it, I'll pre-order at any fair price.

There has to be a very interesting story at the root of all that. Alternatively, if you bring the stories I'll supply the campfire.
I'm a Fedora contributor and closet Ubuntu user. While I can get extremely upset at how difficult things can be in Fedora, like python and ruby, I generally try and take care of these things myself anyway. And who's not using RVM so why does it matter in the first place?

Truth is, I spend way too much time hacking at my Fedora system to make things work. It gets frustrating. I fall back to the Ubuntu systems and somehow, it's just easier. I'd comment on the details here, but it is madness.

So why even bother with Fedora at all? People. I can't stand Ubuntu people. From uneducated bloggers to Ubuntu fanbois, it drives me insane. You know there's a popular blog called OMG Ubuntu!? As far as uneducated views, there's a lot of talk about how awesome NetworkManager is in Ubuntu... you know where all that awesomeness came from? Fedora!

The Fedora community? Just amazing talented people all over the place. I can't stand to give them up. Some of the most awesome, unique, thoughtful and mindful people I've ever met all have Fedora in common.

In the end, I can't see how much feature X has to do with anything over it not existing in another distro. I can sort of see how something as shiny and new as a new Ubuntu release can be appealing, but not enough to move me. It all comes down to people, and Fedora has what really matters here.
According to my computations, the total amount of content isn’t that large. It’s about 36 credit hours total and I am being generous here.
Killer ideas generally come from personal experience within a field and look obvious to the person in question. You cannot create fire by banging rocks together unless you know what you're doing. What I'm getting at is you can't create a new never seen idea without having some background in that field but you can apply what you know to create something better.
Weld defects
I thought the film did a great job of making Saverin very sympathetic as a character, while also making the reason for him being pushed out very understandable. You really like the guy, but the movie makes it clear that he has no idea what's really happening.

- The Florida LLC.
- The Gary's Tuxedo ads
- He doesn't know how to update his own relationship status.
- He never really appears to do anything CFO-like other than write a few checks. The important stuff was all being done by the devs.

In the film, Saverin wanted to be somebody while Zuckerberg wanted to make something. That's why he had to be shown the door.
How Differential Steering Works (1937)
I have facebook and don't really care for my account I am too busy to use facebook and don't have time to read about my friends status updates.

Honestly if you are a serious business man you don't have time for facebook.
I predict a lot of sites featuring the words 'free sms' will be hammered out within hours of this articles posting.
isn't the argument like the gun argument, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

The internet was not the problem it was person who immorally used it.
Facebook has penetrated much further than myspace or friendster. My Facebook friends span several generations. I was skeptical of Facebook, I didn't think they'd pull it off. I still don't think they will be quite as ubiquitous as Google, but also I don't think that is going to matter.

And whether they "beat" google or not is rather beside the point. Facebook doesn't compete with them on search, except for people search.
Millionaire City Coins & EXP (金錢 & 經驗值) | fREE2SW4U | fREE2 Software 4 You
Yep, I agree, there are so many opportunities floating all around us. Its always a matter of us discovering them and then most importantly executing them, in a way that translates those opportunities into monetizable services.
The way "instant personalization" works is that when you a visit one of the few sites where this is turned on, you are automatically logged in using your Facebook account (if you have one) without asking you first. The lack of explicit consent for linking accounts on two different web sites together is the privacy violation.

Once you know about this you can turn off that feature in your Facebook settings.
http://www.pingdom.com/
New York, NY. Tachyon Capital Management

We specialize in high-frequency trading in equities and futures. We are a small firm of seven people who build and execute automated trading algorithms.

We are looking for another software developer to join us. The ideal candidate will have experience with many of the following:

- high-performance computing

- asynchronous/non-blocking IO

- FIX protocol and parsing

- statistical analysis

- alpha model simulation

- market microstructure

- ticker plants and feed handlers

- absurdly large data sets

If the new hire does well, he will have the opportunity to move into a trading position.

We are NOT looking for anyone who believes in manually monitoring the system, watching CNBC, or sending Word documents.

Send us your cover letter with an explanation of who you are and what you're looking for. Your resume is optional, though we'd be more impressed if it had been typeset with LaTeX.

As part of the interview process, serious candidates will be required to give a brief (5--10 minute) presentation on any technical topic of their choosing. It may involve technology in finance, the math of music, your thesis topic, etc.

Start the ball rolling with an email to me, Chris Aycock, at caycock AT tachyoncm DOT com
I don't buy it, unless Facebook builds a search engine that incorporates social data AND the result is dramatically better than traditional search.
More here: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/09/scribd-facebook-insta...
ASK PG/HN: Question on advantages of applying early
Hi
From the description on applying at "http://news.ycombinator.com/apply", I quote

"Early submissions have a significant advantage because we have more time to look at them and engage with the founders.

Could you please elaborate on how you engage with the founders who have submitted an idea but plan to refine the application (perhaps significantly) before Oct 19 deadline? I am working on an idea, have reserved domains but I do not have any web site running yet. I would probably have that happen very close to the deadline. If I submit an application right now, how would yc engage with me? Does this involve some kind of feedback on the idea/application itself?

Thank you!
I've also tried both Google and FB ads (among other), and FB returns me next to nothing. I also don't spend money with them anymore.
Could you expand on what you saw, generally what your thought process was, and how you feel it could apply to business ideas and social apps in general?

I understand that it may be obvious and I'm sure I'd have plenty of ideas myself, I'm just curious of the mindset and psyche behind your (as another person) thinking.
This seems interesting. What is your email address? The email field on your profile is not publicly visible.
It sometimes seem as though these magazines are outrageous and worthless. All the content is typically big ticket spending and dating supermodels. But, they sell and do very well. It says a great deal about the male psychology and how to position a product. Obviously these magazines are doing something correctly, otherwise they wouldn't exist in their volume.
There's a distinction (which admittedly might only be in my head) that a balloon _requires atmosphere_ to work, which means it can't get into _space_, since buoyancy in the surrounding air runs out by the time you get to "space" where there _is_ no "surrounding air".

'course that's no more a technical definition of "space" than "100km" or "the Karman line"...

Still, that's a cool project!
This might be slightly off topic but if you don't mind could you share the specs of your Varnish server? Everything I have read about Varnish says that it will run extremely well on pretty much any decent hardware. But I am still unsure how much power I should be providing it.
Mahmud, It has happened to quite a few times because I never take appointments at such places.

I am not a coder but I think there is a big opportunity for making applications/services for people who want to consume trash. There is huge chunk of society who needs it and it is not-so surprising seeing how much money luxury brands make.
Doing something you love to do, something that gets you excited to wake up everyday, with all your necessity needs taken care of (money, home, a wife, etc)
Ask Hacker News: Economics of Karma Points
How much has the worth of a karma point on Hacker News been inflated/devalued over time as more and more members have joined the community? I am starting with the assumption that more post or comment viewers translates to more upvotes per comment on average. It is entirely possible that this is incorrect. Still how would one go about doing this kind of math calculation?
Hilarious, now, the one thing I can't get out of my head is the question if he got the job or not?
This would make for an excellent college entrance essay :)
A lot of times I get ideas from considering these types of experiences with how people operate. If it's a magazine, a social situation or a TV commercial, they might collide with the abstract thoughts floating around in your head at just the right angle, producing a great idea.

People talk a lot about swimming around in your thoughts to conceive ideas. This is something that I definitely support; people spend way too little time letting their mind wander, and so they end up only being able to think in the shower or in line at Starbucks. Setting aside more time to do this, along with refusing to whip out the smartphone to read HN or check in with foursquare every time something isn't immediately demanding your attention, will give your mind a better chance to conceive new ideas and consider old ones.

That said, often it takes a little fuel to jump start your thought process. Something specific to consider, to trigger memories and begin a train of thought. As people in the startup industry tend to be more technically inclined and thus, occasionally lose sight of their market's intellectual abilities and social tendencies, it can be refreshing to embed yourself in the types of things people do that you expect to use your product.
One of my (rather cynical) friends predicts that liberal, secular, Western culture is going to die out in the long run. He thinks certain religious traditions that encourage children and families (traditional Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism) will survive, but not us. I argued it was a race--could our culture infect theirs before theirs outpopulated ours? It'll be interesting to see (in the ominous, "may you live in interesting times" sense of the word).
Yeah, I usually need help to do Google's captchas too. Amazingly hard to convince them you're human.
VoIP Abuse Project Blacklists Attackers
Then don't be mad Facebook for developing this feature, blame Scribd for using it.
You and your department aren't normal. I think their actual usage data tells a much different story than your anecdote does.
The short form if don't want to read the entire post is summarized with this snip:

"By some algorithmic oddity, the historious cache actually ranked higher than the site (which turned out to be the most popular free sms service in Brazil), so anyone who searched for "free sms" in Brazil ended up on the historious page!"

In short, Google ranked an archive page (historious) higher then the content. Google corrected this problem, presumably automatically, 3 days after it happened.
So long as their stingers remain unable to penetrate the human skull or spinal cord, we're safe. Once they figure out how to do that though, every man for himself!
Well, that depends on what you mean by 'work', if with work you mean go up for ever then the answer is a clear 'no'.

However the 'envelope' for just about any balloon that is not built with extreme altitude in mind lies within rather than on top of the atmosphere.

A balloon will go up until the pull of gravity is balanced by the lift, and in most balloons that point will not be reached until the balloon bursts from a lack of counter-pressure by the atmosphere.
Montreal, Quebec. Tungle http://www.tungle.me/Home/careers/

We're looking for a C#/Java developer, and QA lead (python/selenium).
Small team (under 20), smart people, and beer hour on Fridays :)
I think the letter is a great example of how I would like to see resume submissions / job requests written. It gets to the point pretty directly in "this is how I think I can help" and "here is the type of environment I am/am not interested in".

Instead, a lot of time these days is wasted in "here is my resume", phone back and forth with some HR person, phone with the hiring person, if in person, then you may or may not get a good feel for the work environment.

If only it were possible for both sides to be frank about "this is what we do" and "this is what we want".
The ant's first mistake was attaching it's head with a membrane...

Obviously ants are one of the most successful creatures in the world, but a membrane!? Wow.
Interesting. But I notice none of the examples have a real beard.
Online Entrepreneur: Why City Directories are Lucrative
50 ideas for the new catonmat.net website
Can you share a little what your apps are about and how long it took to become sustainable? Not expecting vivid details, just some food for thought if that's ok.
It's helpful to think of Startup School as a conference -- you don't really go for the talks, as much as the people you'll meet between sessions. If you come with that purpose in mind, the experience can be immensely valuable (My first SS was the reason I moved to San Francisco!)

That said, I've never been to SXSW, but my second-hand impression of the event is that it's less focused on startups and technology, and more generally about promotion, business development, schmoozing and...well, music. It's primarily a music/arts festival, with an "interactive" component tacked on. But it's also much longer, and will fill up more of a week's trip.

My advice is to remember that these are social events, and to choose appropriately based upon your interests. Like any other convention, the talks are just a reason to get people together.
I think a great deal of Facebook's recent, and coming, success is not just that Sheryl Sandberg was brought on, but when she was brought on. They allude to the rapid growth that Facebook has seen lately, but Mark Zuckerberg may not have been able to effectively handle that growth without her. She joined on at the crucially perfect time, which is a credit to both of them.
I had an idea that may be more helpful for you (given your automatic summarizing technical knowhow) and just shot you an email. Please respond to my email if interested.
Hiring practices of course being totally irrelevant to the vast majority of HN readers
Well if you liked this article I can't help but suggest The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1) -- more depth & background than any sane person needs to have regarding HST. This letter was published in same in 1998.
> Its sad, you can't believe that a reality(or life) other than one similar to yours exists.

How on earth did you distill that from what I wrote?

Had it occurred to you that I'm genuinely interested and that I think that Mahmud's story really must be something that I would enjoy to hear / read?

As for not being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, I think I could qualify for that category easily.
Why not bigger than this universe? Why would it be limited to the size of mere Google in this multiverse where every alternative event can happen?
Any tips on how to make money with this? Maybe You could email me if you don't want to broadcast your strategies?
If people want to be entrepreneurs because of that film, they're in for a huge disappointment. Three years in the valley, and I've yet to see anyone snort cocaine off of a single coed.

That said, I do use emacs a lot. It wasn't all fiction.
Windows Live Essentials 2011 out
As a side note, who doesn't wish for one of these cool microscopes. However, upon further review, you might end up with a list of stuff that cannot be unseen.
Combustion engine internals [video]
There are a lot of people that scrape Google pretty badly, so we do need to have protection against bots, including ones that look like the Google toolbar. If you're resuming ~50 tabs, I can believe that might look like a scraper to us for while. I'm glad you could do regular Google searches after 15 minutes or so.
I must have been on one of my out of earth experiences, when I read your comment.

I misinterpreted and read sarcasm in what you wrote. Apologies for that.
So, are you seriously telling me that google can't tell the difference between their own toolbar used by a logged in user and a bot?

How about changing the toolbar code so it paces the requests to something that sits below the frequency of the 'ban for bot use' trigger? That would seem to me to be an obvious fix.
Though I'm a fan of Feynman anecdotes, I've always disagreed with the point of the one used in this article. Names are important. You know what you get by knowing the name of the brown-throated thrush? You get an identifier by which to look up all the collected knowledge of humanity on the brown-throated thrush, and you gain the ability to talk about it with other people.

In the online SICP lectures there's a nice point about names and how they give you power over things, but I couldn't find it right away.
> Ubuntu's strategy to not let you upgrade some packages without upgrading the OS itself is insane.

you're doing it wrong
I am not speaking of Apple or Google. My point is about Microsoft.

Have they ever made something really innovative?
A while ago I listened to my neighbour rambling about our neighbourhood. He knew about every fish-pond anyone has in his garden around here. He knew how much it costs, what fish, how many ect Apparently there is a form of competitiveness that goes like this: I can enjoy my pond more than you, because mine is better. The competition is in the enjoyment, not the coolness of the pond itself. Subtle difference. The thing is, I live here for years and I had no idea.

I guess you could make a SN for these folks. It would be foto-heavy and have some sort of competition inbuild.