skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I want to throw out a plug for my meetup group, http://pubstandards.mn

we are fun, and techie, and we drink beers
It doesn't 'prove' anything, but it does give a high level view of the overall level of revenue growth across years.
Actually you're the one who's out of line here, for attacking someone on the assumption that they downvoted you.
Or ncat (http://nmap.org/ncat/). My personal favorite useless example is the persistent webserver:

ncat -lkp 8080 --sh-exec 'echo -ne "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\n\r\nThe date is "; date;'
Be wary of the advice recommended by the article - it gets alot right, but it fails to mention that using a motorcycle specific oil inside of an engine has trade-offs. Motorcycle oils typically (depending on the type of motorcycle) do not have friction modifiers. This is because the clutch on many motorcycles is a wet-clutch, meaning it is bathed in engine oil. The nicer new oils have friction modifiers to make them more effective, which causes these clutches to slip. Hence, motorcycle oils don't have these additives.

Now, cars ran fine before the advent of friction modified oil additives, however they are definitely a good thing for the longevity of any engine. It's always a trade-off!
The most important founder skill that nobody talks about
Rather than dig into the question of whether higher-level math (like calculus) is really good for the masses or not, I think it's pretty clear that there's still plenty of room for improvement in making sure that basic quantitative and critical reasoning skills are taught more broadly and substantially than they are, at present.
I second the proper teaching of pointers. However, make sure you explain variables just as well, for they too introduce a level of indirection¹, which is almost always overlooked.

C doesn't syntactically distinguish rvalues and lvalues, so this level of indirection often goes unnoticed. I strongly suspect this is why learning pointers is often hard: trying to grasp an additional level of indirection before having comprehended the first one is nearly hopeless.

[1] Variables are containers for values. This is isomorphic to a constant pointer to a mutable cell.
Why Starbucks' iPhone app is probably not the future of mobile payments
Worded better than I did, agreed.
I do work at one of those 50k employee behemoths, and I wouldn't say it's bleak. But IMO the D&D metaphor does hold. Unfortunately, at work, not everyone can be an adventurer. Somebody has to run the grimey inn where you met your party; somebody has to be the withered old man that told you of the ancient treasure; somebody has to be the otherwise inconsequential bystander staying at the inn to keep it in business long enough to allow for these encounters. But you'll never get directions to the Temple of Elemental Evil from the latter.

Basically, you have to seek out your own quests - don't let them bury you in Beetle hunting.

If you're intelligent and creative, you're biggest obstacle is going to be getting in a room with the person who has a problem you're capable of solving - and unfortunately, they don't all have yellow question marks above their heads.
Yeah, but then you missed my talk. ;)
Worth going to your local apple store and testing with their display models. ;)
I don't think YC cares a lot about which companies are profitable. YC ideally wants homeruns. And homerun companies are rarely profitable because they are too busy growing. Take YouTube, Facebook etc. They all sacrificed profitability for growth. I bet there are YC companies in a similar position.
We Only Have Nine Digits Unless We Use Zero
Please elaborate?

At my current place of employment, "hacking tools" are banned. On that list is netcat. It is installed on every unix desktop and server, and I use it daily. I have decided to just not point out the stupidity of this -- they might do something that's even more stupid as a response.
This is true of practically any endeavor. Mr. Shaw's example applies to learning as well as teaching. Since he plays guitar, he probably appreciates the larger implications of what he's done with LPTHW.
How to prototype and influence people
I'd guess that has something to do with different subpixel orientations.
There's some selection bias here: we're reading this guy's blog not because he's successful with startups, but because he's successful with startups and concentrates on maintaining an online presence, networking, etc.
Ancient Rivers of Money
Hendrix also had the gimmick of leading a band that played excellent music, which is potentially a bigger explanatory factor in his success.
You can buy that ultra-realistic old man mask online
Thanks a lot! You've given me lots of things to think about.
Also, there are many apps/teams that don't have "clients", and a spec is not really worth writing, much less maintaining. Specs are great when you are a larger team with stakeholders who aren't part of that team, but if you're a small tech-heavy startup moving quickly, I'd consider even the presence of a spec a symptom of mismanagement.
Ok, that's fantastic! I hope you succeed.

But it's a bit misleading to call it "Learn C The Hard Way" after LPTHW, if your intended audience is experienced programmers. The whole point of LPTHW was that it was for beginners.

Top of their website:
"The book is a very beginner book for people who want to learn to code. If you can already code then the book will probably drive you insane. It's intended for people who have no coding chops to build up their skills before starting a more detailed book."
I'm working on startup called http://www.hellofax.com, so we've researched this a lot.

Peter is right. The cost per click on faxing keywords is super high. It will be tough to compete there as 1 click costs more than 1 conversion. So, we need alternative ways to find users. We have some ideas. But, if you can think of ways we can cheaply find people like you, you should ping me.

In the meantime, you can do some one-time faxes for free. All accounts come with 3 pages. But, if you run out, email me at joseph (at) hellofax dot com and I'll refill it for free.
Good point, possibly pricing could be based on word count instead.
The quality of any martial arts training will depend much more on the teacher than the art being taught. A bad teacher can ruin any art, but a good one will teach you important things about yourself (your limits, your strengths and weaknesses, and how to change them) under the pretext of any art.

Personally, I've been training Isshinryu for ~9 years. It's been great for me, in terms of keeping me in shape, relieving stress, and learning confidence and discipline. Isshinryu is a striking art, but we also practice judo and grappling to a lesser degree. I actually wish we did more of those two, because many fights end up on the ground, and I feel underprepared for that -- though many of the people I've trained with have learned judo or wrestling separately, so it's possible I'm better prepared than I realize. (The evidence is still there, though. I rarely won on the mats. =P)

As far as starting a martial art, just find a dojo and go. Most will welcome you to watch a class so you can get a feel for the style and the instructors. Your first few weeks practicing can be embarrassing for some. Don't quit. Nobody there is expecting you to know what your doing, and you'll adapt to the dojo's norms pretty quickly.

The main thing, though, is to find a teacher who knows what they're doing. Also important: make sure you respect them. As long as you have these, your martial arts training will definitely improve you. No guarantees about making you into an unbeatable street fighter, but you won't be disappointed.
Again, I admit it's a crazy idea.

However, taking money from a good friend or family carries with it a risk far greater than losing $100k. It carries with it the risk of losing a friend or family member in the case your startup fails and you lose their money.

This idea is not one to make a good story. In fact, getting a good story out of it is incidental and that can be used in the future to generate pageviews and attention (it meets the criteria for being a "sticky" idea). The objective of this is to create a simple experiment that may possibly give you insight into whether or you may destroy your relationship with your friend or father in the case you fail and lose all $100k.

Again, I don't know if this idea will even work, but it seems like it could provide insight and another piece of information to draw open to make a decision on whether or not to take their money.

I would also venture that after this incident, they would withdraw their offer if they are the type that can't handle losing money. In other words it may serve to help both sides decide. It may help him decide whether he wants to take the money from his friend/father. It may also help his friend or father decide if they are really willing to put $100k in the hands of someone who would burn a $100 bill for any reason.

To be an entrepreneur you need to be a little bit crazy. I think that's why my suggestion got many more upvotes than I anticipated. HN is full of entrepreneurs that are a little bit crazy at the core. Sane people don't make good entrepreneurs. If a startup founder isn't capable of taking a $100 risk like this to test an idea, would he be crazy enough to spend $10,000 on a crazy idea with lots of both risk and reward potential just to get user adoption?

Here's an NY Times article on the subject:

"Just Manic Enough: Seeking Perfect Entrepreneurs"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/business/19entre.html
You combat that by having a runoff. If no one gets a majority, you take the top 2 or 3, and vote again. This time, the people that voted for one of the original 14 vote for the one liberal that made it, and the neo-nazi still has the original small group voting for him, and finally looses.
You probably want to make sure you know C, first.
Shooting. Long range rifle especially is excellent for training focus and concentration, while shotgun is more about snap judgments.
You are omniscient lately.

Retracted.
You left off the brilliant conversion to metric - "200,000lb per square inch (14,000 kg/cm²)"
I watched their video regarding this release and the user interface. They say it's Mac like. But Skype is not iTunes or the Finder. So if they wanted to do it Mac like, they should have looked at iChat or FaceTime.
I used nc to do just this for years until I switched companies and found that many of the hosts didn't have nc installed.

To get around that I just added the following to my bashrc

alias remote_host="ssh -t bastion ssh -t host1 ssh host2"
Zed Shaw does not want Ruby in His book
So, of course, we got in an argument about my attempt to translate it to ruby for _why Day.
Nicely done. I made something vaguely similar as a weekend project. Mine is a lot more minimal and focused more on just tracking things to watch. Perhaps I'll post it if i can find enough time to get it online.
I've used interfax.net for years - to send faxes, I don't receive them. I wouldn't be surprised if you can receive faxes too, though.

It's always been a great service, and no ongoing fees - I just pay a few cents every time I send a fax.

Pretty old-school site, but it has a SOAP API that works. Hope that helps.
I have always, always wondered that. The answer seems to be "have lunch".
Another poster in this thread claimed that we've had higher amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past without runaway global warming. Is he simply incorrect on this point? Has the point been addressed/disproven anywhere?

And my point with the post you responded to was simply to point out that there is a lot of claims being made by people ignorant on the subject from both sides.
Interesting. Turns out there are a couple instructors in my area, one certified and another working on it. Is it mostly young fit guys, or is it doable for a skinny oldster with nagging injuries?

I've been thinking about tai chi too, for somewhat different reasons. It sounds like they might dovetail kinda nicely.
In my life I find all kinds of people giving advice. Advice isn't worth anything unless you reach those conclusions through your own accord. If you're a rationally minded person, a little bit knowledge of economics can go a long way.
Add to that that it's one of the rare publications willing to admit mistakes in judgment

One of the more recent examples is the Iraq war, which they supported. They don't deny that they did that, but think it was a mistake in hindsight. Note that this is quite different then hanging the flag into the direction of the wind of public opinion.

Opinion journalism? Hell yes, and they'd probably be the first to admit this.

There are areas where I very much disagree with their opinion. This is not only to be expected, but it's actually quite rewarding for the reader.

See, reading a well reasoned and researched opinion, which differs fundamentally from my own, actually makes me think through such reasoning and it helps to achieve a world view, which has far more shades of gray then black & white.

[edited, typo]
My current employer has about 50 programmers and another 50 semi-programmer scientists all working on Linux. None of them have root access to any machine except their OSX laptop and most don't know how to install software thats more difficult than drag and drop.

There's certainly multiple levels of comfort with software installation in this environment. Many of our good programmers get frustrated and end up asking systems to install programs or work almost entirely on their OSX laptop. Personally I don't find it too limiting because I am comfortable installing in my home directory.
1. Schlepping files between computers.

computer A:

nc -l $ARBITRARY_PORT | tar vzxf -

computer B:

tar vzcf - files_or_directories | nc computer_a $ARBITRARY_PORT

2. Testing socket servers:

cat canned_request | nc server 80

There are probably other things, but I don't think, "Oh, this is a good use for netcat", I just do it. It's almost as handy as awk.
The kettle makes sense because of all the tea drinking.
Ah, no - it seems to have a monthly subscription if you want an inbound number, about $15.
That's not true. Sitting in the Boston meetup recently they spoke directly to people who wanted a BIG exit and those who wanted a lifestyle company. They will fund either. Only VCs need the homeruns constantly to earn their risk/reward profile returns.
> Plus, their GUI was just scratching the surface of what one needs, and even got in the way some of the time (by clobbering command-line work).

Having experienced this firsthand, I am wondering how much of an effect this had on Xserve adoption overall, ie for companies other than smallish design shops.
I think you're so right about that. I can definitely imagine just about all of us overestimate our own tolerance. Something to definitely consider. I recently had a chance to see the Dalai Lama during his visit to Atlanta, and he talked a lot about the benefits to us of actively practicing compassion. Something that probably most of us, including me, don't do enough of day to day.
For a wide range of economic situations it is true. Ignoring theft and other edge cases where the system breaks down the fact that Google's founders made a ridiculous amount of money directly relates to the value they created. Do you really think they would have created more value for humanity at larges as kindergarten teachers?

There are many ways that this breaks down. In a world of finite resources Money provides a feedback loop which says "repairing and selling car X is worth it but nobody will buy car Y so it's not worth repairing." It also says becoming a Dentist has more value than a Plumber and Poor artists should find something that creates more value.

PS: Conceder that the world is not filled with identical copies of you. Individuals have different values, goals, talents, and resources. Finding the best way to utilize humanity and its resources is a ridiculously complex problem, but the act of buying / biding on what you want communicates your desires. It also bribes people into doing things that they don't want to do because they can then get other people to do things that they want.
> Looking at the code I wander why didnt they allow this for the iPhone

Time, I would guess, this was apparently built and deployed in 3 days.
C Interfaces and Implementations is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Interfaces-Implementations-Techniques-...
"Object Oriented Programming in ANSI C". Full PDF here: http://www.planetpdf.com/codecuts/pdfs/ooc.pdf
You're probably right. Most VCs want a liquidity event. I don't see why YC would be different --- except that they are more like a seed stage incubator than a traditional VC firm. Either way, they want a return, I'd think.

To me, startups that actually make profit are much more interesting primarily because so many just want to create some buzz then sell out.
> I don't want to write bulletproof code, I want to teach them how and why to write bulletproof code.

This confuses me. How can you teach someone to do something if you won't do it yourself? Reading your statement literally, you are effectively going to say, "This is how and why to write bulletproof code, but I'm not going to." The whole point of LxTHW is to learn by doing. If you're doing it wrong, they're learning it wrong.

> I'm not qualified to meet that kind of lofty standard anyway.

Then you shouldn't write the book. Honestly. I know you intend to do some good and to be productive, but serving as a teacher and a reference point in an area that you're not qualified in is actually counterproductive.

I'm not saying don't write the book. Get qualified first.
Most recruiters really are terrible. What we need is some kind of peer-to-peer job-hunting site that will let you find out what jobs other people are doing in software engineering, and just go straight to other engineers who know what the job actually requires.

I call it wantmyjob.com, and I launched it a couple of days ago. The current (few) jobs on it are US-based, but you can be the first to change that if you like.
A "before" image would be helpful.
"A good example is "give me the square of all the items in this sequence who are divisible by 3""

A good example? Really? You get paid to write stuff like that? Because I don't. If you're going to promote a language as a better solution, try solving real problems.

What happens when there's a string in the sequence? The C++ example solved that, why didn't your code?
In regards to your better election design, I have three main complaints.

1. Having candidates review each other seems like a good way to have the worst candidates float to the top. If you're in a contest with your competitors, given the option to knock the best options out of the race, wouldn't you do so? It seems like you're taking an overly optimistic view of human nature.

2. Having a large portion of the election based on randomness seems like it would diminish voter turnout even further. I understand its an attempt to reduce the noise created by the surrounded hype of a candidate, and that it would cause people to research these people on their own, but I dont think that would happen. I think people would see 2 random people, have no interest in either of them at a surface value, and then not vote as a result.

3. I dislike your criteria for selecting candidates, particularly for financial value. I don't think that a wealthy person is necessarily any more qualified than a poor man. I like the idea that the common man is able to obtain a position of power, regardless of background, but maybe I've watched Mr Smith Goes to Washington too many times.

I do agree that there's an issue with polarization, but I think that at the end of the day, you'll still have two candidates, and that you'll end up with polarization anyways. At the same time, I think there are problems with having too many candidate options, as I mentioned in my other post in this thread. Maybe 2 is too few, and 10 is too many, and theres a happy medium in the middle somewhere.
They also have a language blog [1] which often expounds on some of the details and consequences of their and others' style guides.

[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson
I think it would be cool to see any of the following:

Learn Haskell the Hard Way

Learn Erlang the Hard Way

Learn Common Lisp the Hard Way

Learn R the Hard Way

Besides a "Learn X the Hard Way", I would actually like to see more people try to recreate the style of "The Little Scheme", which uses the socratic method to teach the learner. I think the socratic method requires the user to rack their brain a bit more, but results in much greater enjoyment and retention.

I would much prefer to see these two:

"The Little Haskeller"

"The Little Erlanger"

For example, it would be brilliant if someone can explain monads and list comprehension with the same eloquence as The Little Schemer explains currying and YCombinator.
It sucks so bad we are changing the name.:) Sorry for the typo, can't edit.
Ask HN: Interested in a South of France/Sophia-Antipolis HN meetup?
I am living in the south of France and was wondering if there were other people from HN living in the some area, who would be interested in meeting?

E.g discussing startup related stuff and having some good beer and some pizza?

Anybody interested? Would be cool :-) .
couple guys from Hollywood called and said that i should go to LA for big guys in Movies and entertainment industries

Is it your full-time job? If not, don't do this. You are talking about a huge investment of time for sales. Are you a good salesman? If not, you will need to become so to make this work.

Alternatively, you have 50 registrations and a couple of paid ones. Perhaps you could find out who your first few customers were, and do more of that?
The Autodesk File: a founder's notes on a famous startup
As Zed stated, his concept of LCTHW isn't for beginners to programming.

K&R has sated that need.

It's easier to understand what I'm aiming for when you've already gone through the rigamarole of learning C from the existing texts.
That does not make it a Role-Playing Game. That makes it primitive Magic the Gathering.
Ironically, Microsoft was founded on reverse engineering DOS. What if IBM had built hardware that precluded MS-DOS from running? We are better off today, regardless of how we feel about Microsoft. Hacking adds value.