skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Link doesn't seem to work anymore. Does anyone have the skinny on it or the replacement link?
It's interesting how angry some people get if you suggest that not everyone needs to follow the traditional educational path.
And regarding $150k/year, saw your profile and you look young (although maybe you're not). Like it or not, you'll make more as you get more experience. Maybe that's reverse ageism, I don't know, but seems to be a fact of life, even in software, which is more meritocratic than most industries.

Also it appears you do game development. Unless you become a rockstar or do the next Angry Birds as a solo dev, you'll tend to get paid less than the industry average -- at least that's how it has been historically.
So you also don't hire people that drink alcohol, correct? (Throwaway account for obvious reasons).
I have this book, somewhere, and I have so many fond memories of it. Of course I didn't actually type in and play many of the games, because TI-99/4A BASIC was not really compatible with Microsoft BASIC. I revisited it some years later on a Tandy, though, and did things like adapt the horseracing game to show an animated on-screen (text) display of the horses running towards the finish line across the screen. That sort of thing.

I also added graphical capability to the Life game. Seeing a Life plot unfold over the entire screen in pixels was breathtaking.

I always liked the dorky guy with his arm around the robot, like he finally has a pal who understands him. "Mom, you said I should make new friends. So that's just what I did! Meet Gregtron. Man, me and Gregtron are gonna do everything together! Go camping and play ball and... Wait, that's not what you meant?"

Even better were the robot comics inside the book. There's something grim and vaguely cyberpunk about them. "Oh yeah? Well, your mother has knobby tires..."
Only friends of Dave McClure raise funding
I don't think he's crazy; I just think he's wrong.
Accelerando is available for free online: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
great iteration, the search is really fast, and I like how you can easily thumbs up/down items (way better than starring imo)
Proofiness
I think my problem with development articles on Smashing Magazine is that they most often tend to be "good advice" and a little thin on content.

While a lot of the information in that article is relevant/important from a foundational aspect, it only scratches the surface of mobile development.

Additionally - to barely mention mobile frameworks like jqTouch, jQuery Mobile, & Sencha Touch under a section called "Special iPhone / iPad Enhancements" is not only misleading (WebKit is also on Android, hello) but , if expanded on, could have been the most helpful part of that article for someone who really wants to learn about mobile development.

The conclusion of the article talks about the infancy of mobile and how standards are emerging. I would argue that frameworks like the ones above can help drive mobile standards and also enable developers to build applications within the mobile space with confidence.
It's not at all surprising if you consider that it's the expected thing to do for upper-middle class kids. Presumably having gone to those schools also gives them knowledge of what the experience provides and how it did or did not help them start a business. I doubt it's some kind of evil plot to keep kids out of school.
yes. HFS+ suffering from fragmentation. plus bloatware.
Only the jump to 4.0 is excruciating; 4.1's performance is on-par with 3.1.3
It's not 4.x, it's 4.0. 4.1 and 4.2 beta run just fine on iPhone 3G.
That was always my problem with the DEA (and the war on drugs, etc.): it completely ignores the fact that the basic building block of government is supposed to be the states, not the fed. It's as if their backers never heard of the tenth amendment.
The kind of user who starts sentences with “OMG” is the kind of user who doesn’t know iOS 4.0 is out until the apps they use start being released without 3.x compatibility — if then — and doesn’t even often sync with their computer.
Virtual Assistant Needed: How to Hire And Work With a Virtual Assistant
Read Excerpt 2 (PDF) :

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/39/04709298/0470...
This may sound extreme but one way to choose to view the confusion and depression is that it is a necessary part of growth:

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

Mind you, even Dabrowski (who created the theory) differentiates between depression that instigates changes vs. depression that leaves you spinning your wheels. I'd venture that anyone who has been seriously depressed has experience with both types.
Similarly, though not as funny, from "The Legend of John Von Neumann" - http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/legende.html

'Then there is the famous fly puzzle. Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 m.p.h. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 m.p.h. starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels. Question: what total distance did the fly cover ? The slow way to find the answer is to calculate what distance the fly covers on the first, northbound, leg of the trip, then on the second, southbound, leg, then on the third, etc., etc., and, finally, to sum the infinite series so obtained. The quick way is to observe that the bicycles meet exactly one hour after their start, so that the fly had just an hour for his travels; the answer must therefore be 15 miles. When the question was put to von Neumann, he solved it in an instant, and thereby disappointed the questioner: "Oh, you must have heard the trick before!" "What trick?" asked von Neumann; "all I did was sum the infinite series." '
I've had an investigation on the backburner for a while on whether there's a zipper-like structure for representing 2D grids (eg, a game board). I feel like this may be a blind alley, because a grid would have cycles and no inherent ordering. Can anybody shed some light on this?
Andrea Agassi - Open, if you love tennis and ever wondered whether Sampras was in fact as tight as they say then this explains it all.
Top universities don't produce students, students make top universities.
Yes, published by the people that did Compute!

Just some of the greatest magazines ever written.

Even with the web and the wealth of info I miss the excitement of getting an issue of Compute! and reading the programs and the articles by Jim Butterfield.

Chocolate milk, powdered donuts, the Gazette magazine, a C64, a dad, and his 10 year old son... Darn near brought a tear to my eye.
Python, unlike any other language I've dealt with, lends itself very nicely to producing stuff that's reusable and easy to understand. I chalk this up to

* lack of elitism in documentation (e.g. there are always plenty of examples)

* lack of elitism in conventions for code use: everything "just works", generally without any boilerplate

* installing libraries is a snap, and the whole module organization system is intuitive and elegant

* assumption that anything that's not a script is a library

* documentation conventions (doctests, e.g., are a nice stepping stone to good documentation _and_ code testing)

* the "there's only one way to do it" attitude

* large standard library

On the other topic: you are describing the way research works "today", which is actually pretty poorly (why, e.g., does all data need to be surrounded by so many words of introduction and discussion? why can't I just add something to someone else's work like I can add to an open source project?). This model of research will change, at one point or another, to resemble the much more efficient, effective, and fun, open source project model.
Roadrace!!! I have the disk with that on it sitting on my desk next to me :)
Rob Pike is behind this? He must be busy between this and Go.
Two things (from perspective of a data startup founder)

- Datasets needn't be huge to be high value. In these instances, scale is not and should not be your primary worry (esp day one).
- Figure out if people want your data before worrying about scaling it.
I completely love this. Its fast and I love the iTunes/Amazon links when available. I would absolutely love to see Netflix integration. Be able to watch a movie directly from moki.tv via Netflix.
Interesting. Can you elaborate?
Yahoo Open Sources S4, Distributed Stream Computing Platform
Based on the outcome of the scratched nano lawsuit, it should go something like this:

All iPhone 3 owners will get a $10 Apple store credit.

The lawyers will get about $10 million in cash.

Ms. Wofford, as the lead plaintiff, will get a bonus of about $10k in cash.
The amazing part of Chapman's 105mph fastball is hearing hitters describe how different it is trying to hit it versus other pitchers' 95-100mph fastballs. You wouldn't think 5% faster would make a big difference, but it apparently does.
umm, I dunno, maybe since the time he beat friggin supercomputer at chess?
Thanks for the kind words. We'll be adding Netflix integration soon.
You're absolutely right, I hadn't considered analytics as an example.

Some data startups I've seen as well as my own project take in existing data sets and simply generate reports from it for customers. Makes it a lot easier to scale.
On the old BBC micros, I wrote a script that would loop through all possible passwords and try to log into the teachers password. Nothing was stored on computers in those days, so it wasn't such a big thing.

I got busted, had to go to the Principle, and despite explaining that it would have taken approximately 2 years to loop through all possibilities, he still threatened suspension.
Three ways that smories.com uses Redis
That's interesting, I do like the personal approach, but I'm not sure I see how you know to say, 'okay you've progressed enough that you can now call yourself a Senior Software Developer'

Ideally, I think I'd prefer not to have to assign labels at all (for the very good reasons outlined in this thread), but in practice I've found this not to be practical.
This also shows us the importance of documentation.

Still, I miss _why. There are a few hackers that have equally inspiring projects, and even some that come close to _why's love for teaching or _why's creative ability, but none of them are the _why. I hope he's still somewhere out there, doing something great.
I'm not sure it's knowledge so much as hope: they didn't have the guts to skip school and just start a business, but they hope someone else will. Whether it'll work or not is an open question, but I would've had more respect if they took that route themselves, rather than paying other kids to do their experiment for them.

(I doubly distrust Thiel in particular on this, because not only did he not take this advice himself, but he also has a decades-long political feud with what he views as the too-liberal political climate in higher education, so would like it to be bypassed, regardless of whether he honestly believes it's a good choice for the kids in question.)
Yah, this is the company I mean. They are huge in China.
> Posting this on techcrunch is, to me, an effective way of warning people not to mess with him and preventing future suits.

I would like to respectfully disagree with you on this point. If I entered into a contract with Mr Arrington and had a dispute, I'd try to resolve through all non-legal means possible. If these fail then as a last resort I'd go to the courts. Posting on techcrunch acts as an effective warning never to enter into a contract with him that could result in a lawsuit.

> The message I got was "Don't sue Michael Arrington unless you absolutely know you have the right of it".

The message I think you should've got was, "Don't enter into a contract with Michael Arrington unless you absolutely know you have the right of it."

To be fair to Mr Arrington, I think this article says a lot about Jason Calcanis as well.

I think my point about Drama still stands. It doesn't lead to anything good business wise. It's just not a good move for anyone from where I stand, although YMMV.
The first year was the best year! And I went on for another 6 ones. I didn't know much programming at that time and just the feeling of working and being around really smart people was really good.
There are very few WinMo phones that have upgrades. If this would be as easy as you imply, phone OS upgrades would be more common.

Phone manufacturers prefer you buy another phone instead of upgrading yours. The only reason iPhones allow software upgrades is because Apple wants you to perceive them as high-value items instead of disposable ones (like most phones are). Making upgrades easy for the manufacturer would not help much.

What would help is a clear separation of OS and application layers that could be upgraded independently. In this way, the core OS would be the hardware specific part and the rest of the platform could become user-upgradable.
If You Are a Startup Founder, You Need To See This
1. Both
2. The suggestions I made would make the site more visually pleasing, easier for users to find info, more professional appearance.
3. OK, I understand why its there now.
4. Its a judgement call on this one. I'm saying remove based on my experience.
Death of an Oracle: RIP, Paul the Octopus
The other clubs did lose out, since he was taking spots in the lunch queue he did not need, and stopping other clubs from using.

Nowhere does it say they council changed its restrictions due to the chess club.

The fact is, chess club does not need much money, nor fancy chess sets.

Nevertheless, good work, nobody was really hurt, survival of the smartest club and all that.
They're really not that good. While his personal beliefs are way way more conservative than his novels, he does keep a pretty good separation.

He really hasn't written anything that good since the late 90s.

The Red v Blue wars in America? Weird. The latter Enderverse novels could have been cranked out by current AI. Treasure Box? Enchantment? Snoozers.
I read most of the books in the Ender's game series a few years ago, only having read the original before. There was a significant decline in quality in the later books, coinciding with more propaganda.
Mt. Everest is in Nepal, which is a country between India and China. Although IMO, it's more like India than China.
While we're quoting Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Ladder.html

I wonder if Fog Creek has had the similar frustrations with engineering ladders that Piaw mentions. Although given the distinct difference in company size, it might not be a valid comparison.
Why Nike Is Only Partly Right (Just Doing It Is Not Enough...)
Those weren't their only two choices, since iOS 4.1 fixed the performance problems with the 3G. (Not that this suit has any merit, especially in light of that.)
He's also vehemently opposed to good writing if any of his more recent books are any example. I have honestly seen better fan fiction.
Unfortunately registration cannot be dropped from ContactResumePoster page

http://www.postjobfree.com/ContactResumePoster.aspx?id=4c6be...

The reason -- scammers and spammers.
If it's easy to send a message without registration -- spammers immediately abuse it.

On the other hand, I may allow to enter email and message without registration, but do not deliver message to the resume poster until recruiter confirms her email.

Would that make sense?
Idea HN: Uninterrupted 
All too often I'm scrolling though a website (most often a blog) click to play a piece of audio or video (music, podcast, etc) and carry on scrolling. Without thinking I press 'next page' or close the website all together whilst the media is playing in the background. I then have to either go back a page or re-open the tab.

I'd like an extension for my browser that realises that I've left the page but keeps on playing the audio (or video) uninterrupted in the background.
Mark Zuckerberg and Misery as Motivation
Idea HN: Uninterrupted audio playback (even when I leave a website)
All too often I'm scrolling though a website (most often a blog) click to play a piece of audio or video (music, podcast, etc) and carry on scrolling. Without thinking I press 'next page' or close the website all together whilst the media is playing in the background. I then have to either go back a page or re-open the tab.

I'd like an extension for my browser that realises that I've left the page but keeps on playing the audio (or video) uninterrupted in the background.
One of my investors told a story about a company he invested in because the guys were Navy SEALs, and seems like they'd stick to their guns through the startup life. They caved after a little over a year...

I tend to see a lot of the stick-to-it-tiveness in athletes, but a lot of times I see them doing a bunch of "reps" while essentially spinning their wheels. Good entrepreneurs are a perfect storm of many things, and they rarely start with all the pre-reqs. I think "Know thy self" and having a willingness to keep improving yourself is a big part of being an entrepreneur.
You raise some very interesting points. I think your point about Arrington not sinking to the lows that Calcanis had is a very interesting thing to say (as Calcanis' side of the story hadn't been heard at the time). What I do believe is that Arrington has 'sunk', perhaps not to the lows he implies or explicitly accuses calcanis of sinking to (and I'm not suggesting calcanis has or hasn't sunk to those lows) but by publishing it separately instead of just waiting for the case he's played his hand early and I think he's at the very least 'sunk', although I could be wrong. That's the great thing about legal judgements, everyone looks like an arsehole, no matter what the truth.

I hope that neither you nor I face a major lawsuit, especially over something so frivolous as a disagreement between grown men.
Tim Ferris has a new post about this subject as well

How to E-mail Virtual Assistants (or Any Assistants): Proven Templates http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/02/virtual-assi...
I just wish _why would come back, regardless of the reasons he left (wanting to be anonymous). Those of us who like him do so regardless of whether we can find out his 'real' name. The character of _why is larger than that.
When I first started hacking away at the Hackety source, I was referring to it as "software archeology." _why's personal coding style, his distaste for comments, and his advanced Ruby knowledge made fixing bugs a real treat. (I say this non-sarcastically: I love puzzles.)

I don't have a citation, but I remember seeing something where he said he never learned as much about Ruby internals as he did when creating Shoes. I feel the same way... doing more than just building Rails apps has made me learn more about Ruby than I would have otherwise, and I'm becoming increasingly appreciative of it.

Here's another screenshot of drawing stuff with the editor, and a color picker: http://imgur.com/2jEEm.png I'm adding it to the article, but just in case you've already checked it out.
The performance problems affected the older models of iPod touch, too, didn't they? And the updated iPod touch (with retina display/camera/etc) wasn't out then, so it's clear Apple wasn't pushing people to upgrade to the brand new model in that case. Besides, the performance problems were cleared up with iOS 4.1.
And of course Mr. Feynman Goes To Washington . I think the ultimate point is that all of his books are awesome. I even liked some of the science stuff. ;-)
"You're building something intricate and fine."

Odds are, you're not. Well, intricate yes, but fine, no.
Awesome! How did you obtain the data, btw?
I think there's a happy middle ground between premature optimization and naive development.

While the former should not be allowed to impede one's progress toward a MVP, real customer feedback, and the potential need to adapt or pivot, neither should one ignore early optimization decisions where they are inexpensive and may only minimally impede (if at all) that progress.

Being able to recognize the difference is a talent that comes with experience.
uh, actually in my company, the amount of profit we've earned wouldn't even cover the value of the servers we have, and the company is probably worth about 3x the value of the servers. Sad but true.
I am more gun shy about posting comments that might get a below the average response.

This is what makes this a dangerous road to go down.
This is really similar to the argument that it is foolish to bicker over seed valuation. It is difficult to compare skill set value during the first week of a product launch and when the company has critical mass or momentum. There are a ton of mitigating factors that push a company out of founding stage that arent product, code, marketing, relationship or related to traditional skill.

Its an imperfect science and an abstract distraction at a time when it is not a top priority.
As a counterpoint, I had a teacher with limited computer skills who taught 'keyboarding' in middle school. Given that I was already at 80wpm, he decided to let me use the school's brand new computer lab next door during class hours, as long as I reported back with what use I put the computers too. So, not all non-technical teachers teaching computer classes are bad.
In the facebook movie mark zuckenberg used pen and paper, I think. Pretty crazy.
It's not very surprising at all. People have invested a lot of time and money in it, and each student is worth about $100,000 to a university. So if you speak out against it of course there is going to be a backlash, a) from the people who invested in it and b) from those who profit from it.

They're just talking their book.
Why I chose Portland over Seattle and Silicon Valley to locate my startup
Helpful Tips on Influencing Your Boyfriend to Propose
If you are dating a man who seems content with the status quo, what should you do? It is actually possible to take measures that will influence your man to propose to you soon. Here are some of the methods that you can use to influence your boyfriend...
This is one of those questionably ethical "hacks" that entrepreneurs commonly use to gain advantage. There was no great harm, but there was deceit and some harm. Socrates would not approve, but I think Paul Graham would.

When the victor tells the history, everyone cheers around the campfire, while the defeated cry foul and regroup their forces for revenge.
Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation (2nd edition) by Hopcroft, Motwani, and Ullman.

Compilers, Principles, Techniques, and Tools, 2nd ed ("The Dragon Book") by Aho, Lam, Sethi, and Ullman.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky
Fair enough, but the comment is not meant to denigrate the teacher. I would much rather see a system that paid teachers appropriate salaries for their skill sets so that they could get qualified educators instead of the least common denominator.

Why should qualified high-tech people work for substandard salaries? You can say out of the goodness of our hearts, but if the service they provide is valuable enough, and I think it is, they should be compensated appropriately.
I agree erikig.

1.) A part of it is also that one should choose the university one attends carefully - if that's possible. I went to a pure tech school my first year. There was no concern about wasted time in nonessential classes. We jumped right into the mix, taking what was relevant to our majors along with the typical foundational classes - chemistry, calculus and physics.
I apparently missed the part were he took part of the money for himself and his friends after his "business" failed.