skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No,it's not the same thing as the daycare example. The issue with daycare late fines is that they allow a person to "pay off" bad behavior, therefore reducing guilt and therefore increasing it's likelihood.

Here the OP is discussing rewarding "good" behavior. The psychology is not necessarily the same.

I am surprised at the negative comments on this thread. The feelings the OP is experiencing are real and even legitimate. The reality is that sites do profit massively from user contributed content, and an asymmetry in the perceived value of the transaction can clearly exist.

Frankly it amazes me that it has taken this long for rumblings like this to appear.
It seems to me that they should first ask how much of a fine would you be able to pay without having to check on your checking account (for instance). That way they could scale the questions a little.

There's obviously an emotional point at which the questions stop being a mathematical puzzle, and make one reflect on one's appetite for risk : that's really what they mean to be investigating.
Auditions Now Being Held. Robots Invade the Arts.
That's really good feedback thanks, I'll take it on board. This is actually just the kind of thing I was looking for because I really struggle with "The Irresistible Offer" type slogans that catch people. I'll work on it.

Stu
I don't know of anything that will give you anything even close to Gmail as far as an interface/search/chat. Also, running your own email server is basically saying "sign me up for an endless source of pain". At my current job, when we were hosting our own email, I was spending 4-5 hours a month on email issues on average. Google Apps is either free or $50/user/year - although it is a bit less flexible, it is well worth it to me.
I didn't like this test very much. The financial questions are highly dependent. I guess I was relating to a hypothetical situation rather than the one I'm in now, but I don't think the choices here have anything to do with entrepreneurship; they're all circumstantial.

As all entrepreneurs know, things can fluctuate quickly; there are times when $50 today, little as it is, is more important than the potential of $5000 in the distant future, there are times when you need all the fumes you can get to keep things running. Then there are times when there is a lot of cushion available and $50 today is almost so worthless it's not worth considering -- in that case, of course it's better to take the gamble.

This test has very little to do with entrepreneurship. I ruined it for everyone and just chose random things.
I'm not really sure of the accuracy of any of its claims, but it certainly looks interesting.
Just putting a feature on the site that links over to the Google Translate version really isn't worth the time, since it clutters up the page, and those translations aren't very good. However, despite you saying it isn't an option, if you actually serve good translations through the site that are crawled, that may draw more visitors.

If it is a saas app and you want it to be used internationally though, I say go for it and use google translate to attempt to translate labels, etc. that you use. Provide a feedback area so that people can tell you if the translation is bad, if they feed like it. But be aware that there is much more to i18n and i10n than translation (legal, other gov't issues, cultural issues, timezone, character set issues in page and DB, layout differences).
Because he is leaving Facebook at the same time! http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/12/y-combinator-paul-graham-h... Talent leave Google to FB. Now "one of the world's best hackers" leaves FB for YC.
Congratz to YC and Harj another step forward
We've always approached that question the way hackers approach scaling software: we don't know where the limits will be; they'll probably turn out to be higher than we'd expect; the only way to find them will be to repeatedly expand, and hit and remove bottlenecks.

So while we often hypothesize about what YC would look like if we funded e.g. 10x more startups, we know better than to plan to. It's a question to be decided empirically.
Congrats - That's great news for everyone
Give your couchapp some backbone with the Backbone.js CouchDB connector
How to explain your research at a party
Are there companies working on this problem? Filtering outgoing email seems to be a solvable problem just difficult enough to be lucrative.
Congrats, I suspected a higher cost of defeating this test.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891026
Ask HN: Extremely High Paying C++ Jobs?
I am not sure whether this would be an interesting topic for wanna-be entrepreneurs of HN but I don't know of any other place with such brilliant skills. The question is, "Does it make sense to try one's luck with one of the extremely high paying C++ jobs?" I am referring to FX programming and writing automated trading software. They are the best paid programmers as far as I know.

I am reasonable at C++. But I am a bit skeptical about their high pays: Why is it hard for them to find skilled C++ programmers in the FX domain?
I'm still a little confused about what the value prop is. Is this like quora for your business? Or more of UserVoice type service?
Creating a Lisp Executable
The filters are part of it, because of the way they gloss over crap/boring photos with a layer of nostalgia.

But there are plenty of camera apps on the iphone that have filters (often exactly the same ones) and can post to facebook/flickr/picasa -- and they haven't generated the interest Instagram has.

There's more to it, and it really does seem to be the social-network-seeing-what-your-friends-doing part.
Am I the only one thinking this code looks ugly and hacky. I would never code in this.
So the interesting question to me is, after learning about the history of AOL, why would Facebook want to pursue what on surface seems like a similar strategy.

What's different this time with Facebook? And are the threats to its growth, success and longevity in principle the same as AOL's.
1. Download docs.

2. Code for a day offline with the docs.

3. Test your code (online).

4. Submit a ton of bug reports for the docs.

5. Yay, improved documentation!
I think there are four things you want to look for:

A personality that meshes with your office environment – Will this person be an asset to the corporate culture and smoothly assimilate?

Signs of Competence – Will this person be able to complete the tasks assigned successfully and do they display a history of doing so?

Signs of Diligence and Follow Through – Will this person show initiative and make common sense decisions without having to ask permission every step of the way? Getting things done without excuses is important as the details always matter.

References – Can this person provide a list of quality references? Clearly if you can get referenced from an existing mployee that should always carry additional positive consideration.

I think that is about all you can ask for in a generalist position.
Any idea why a cab driver would want to reject a journey? Is there some other bureaucracy that makes it hard for them to turn a profit if they abide by this?

For example it is very common in England for "distance and a half" fares to be invoked when journeys are outside of a particular region. This is in place so that if a cab driver takes you to "Stixwich" they're not out of pocket on the drive back since there are likely no return fairs from that point. Does NYC deny this 1.5x for further journeys?
Validate The Idea
Purchase Party Supplies in bulk
I could not agree more, however I don't want to leave my job for two HUGE resons:
1) Family
2) If I can manage to get past this project, there are very good projects with very bright people working on them, that I am certain will motivate me.
No problem. I suggest you check out the lean startup principles if you already haven't. Perhaps you might need to pivot. Eric is really balling hard there.

Keep it lean.
There are plenty of other indicators as well, but then that leads you to kick off the obsessive-compulsive maths prodigies comfortable playing six tournaments at once to grind out an income.
So if the TSA says groping your genitals is not sexual assault, then it isn't?
This is the point that I'm trying to get at. For Arrington to assert that entrepreneurs are "different" because they like risk, adventure, he is claiming that they knowingly choose bad deals. He is saying that these bad deals are compensated for not by money, reward, but the thrill of doing a startup. Hmm.

We get a thrill from gambling sometimes even though we know that the odds are stacked against us. Arrington is drawing the same analogy for entrepreneurs, and that's a bad analogy. It's a romantic notion, but I don't think the monetary valuation of an entrpreneurial venture is negative in the minds of entrepreneurs.
"Yes, I’m talking about banner ads and yes, they still work."

I am quite unsure as to why I should take your word for it.
I once did the reverse of this: I made a rule that I would never decline an invitation, no matter what it was. At the time rejection wasn't even on my radar. I was new in town, and without an established social circle, my tendency toward introversion could have lead me to completely isolate myself.

It worked out really well. I found myself doing things I would otherwise never have considered. Join an ultimate frisbee league? Well, uh, I'm not much of an athlete, but... ok. Go to a non-alcoholic dinner put on by a church? I uh, well, religion's not my... ok. Dance the funky chicken? <wince> ok.

Later on, I followed up by focussing on initiating things myself, rather than just accepting what others proposed, but I never thought of explicitly looking for rejection. Neat idea.
I've only used Less, though I may look into Sass again to get a more recent comparison.

Compass hasn't interested me much.
Wow. This changes my opinion of Facebook's webmail offering significantly.

Congrats to Mr. Buchheit and YC, you're both making out like bandits.
Ehh, pretty silly article. It's essentially just taking an old story (release of HipHop) and modifying the context to (barely) fit with current Facebook press.
Frankly there isn't a language in existence that's "easy to read" and I'm kind of sick of seeing that claim. There's no way you can read anyone's code without knowing at least something about the language.

That said, I really like the ideas this language is offering and I'm definitely interested in giving it at try.
"and finish with a little-known traffic tip I’ve never told anyone before"

Nice post. I wonder if replacing "tip" with "secret" would improve blog signup conversions.

Also, please add email subscription so I can get emails of new posts.
I am fully aware of this rule, and I have a strategy to deal with it.

The last time I had trouble I was trying to get a ride from the Javits to Queens. Having a friend helped. First we would take a picture of the cab as it approached, getting the number on the roof and proof that he was on duty.

What guys will do who refuse you, but know they aren't allowed to, is switch their on/off duty light. If you tell them you are going to report them and have a picture, they might suck it up and give you the ride.

If they refuse, call 311.

On a moderately related note, did you know that it is a violation of a merchant account agreement for anyone who accepts a credit card as payment to have a minimum charge or to charge you a different price because you chose to pay by credit/debit? If someone is giving you trouble, call the number on the back of the credit card to report them.
Same here. The only "interesting" choice was when the safe/risky options had the same expected value.

The percentages are much less clear, as are the payoffs. I was attracted less by the monetary payoff of the entrepreneurial life than the other, less tangible benefits: responsibility, control, independence, learning opportunities, challenge, etc. I'm not attracted to safety, I'm afraid of boredom.
It is pretty rare that a cab drives around with his doors un-locked. I almost always have to tell them where I am going before they unlock the door.

Another pro-tip: many times Lincoln town cars will take you like a taxi but they are not allowed to pick you up unless you called for a car so get in before negotiating the price
The GPL states that if you fail to grant downstream users rights to use and redistribute the code (which includes any patented code contributed by the patent holder to the product from any party that did it, not only Oracle) you cannot distribute your code under the GPL.

If Oracle included patented technology it did not control, then it must stop distribution of infringing code under the GPL. That's one of the reasons it took so long for Sun to license its code under GPL - it was cleaning up code, removing patent-infringing code.

The terms of the TCK will not protect you from lawsuits for infringing on patents Oracle had not the right to grant you usage. In fact, no agreement with Oracle would.
Yup you got it - brandable Quora. Can't say that though on the home page or we could get in trouble
I'm really not sure it means much to say that people are "risk-adverse" or not; humans (and monkeys! see http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html) are BOTH: they prefer to play it safe when they expect a gain, and prefer risk when they expect a loss.

For example, people (in general) prefer $500 now than a 50% chance of $1000, but the same people prefer to take a 50% chance of losing $1000 than losing $500 now with certainty.

Behaviorists call this "irrational" because the two cases are the same: whatever you prefer, you should prefer the same, that is:

- if you're "risk adverse", you should prefer the certain outcome in both cases

- if you have a preference for risk, you should take the chance every time.

But it's not what happens; to repeat, the same individual usually prefers the outcome that is certain when the expected outcome is a gain, and usually prefers to take a chance when the expected outcome is a loss, even when those options are mathematically identical.

So, if one wants to show that entrepreneurs are different from ordinary people as regards to risk, they should study at least those two dimensions: gain/loss. And since most people prefer risk when confronted with a possible loss, then entrepreneurs would have to either

- prefer risk always when confronted with a possible loss

- prefer risk more often when confronted with a possible gain.

- - -

If there actually is a difference between "entrepreneurs" and other people, it may be that entrepreneurs have a higher confidence in their own capacities, so that they think that they can influence the future in a good way.
Wave always made more short-term sense as plumbing to unify google docs/notebook/chat/mail/etc.

Having, say, robots watching/operating on Google Docs and Email would be a huge feature advantage that competitors would have a very hard time catching up to. And you can offer that to users without trying to force them through the gauntlet that was the unified Wave interface.

And, years down the line, when people are ready and the unified interface was polished, you could bring it back for people who want it.
Ask HN: is Facebook's "GMail Killer" Going to Succeed?
So Facebook is planning to unveil their "GMail Killer" on Monday? Does anyone think they're going to be successful in their stated goal of killing GMail?

More realistically, how do you see this product turning out? I think it could be a great product if they do it right and aim it to be the e-mail client of choice for the tens of millions of their users who predominantly use Facebook when they're online. If it keeps them on Facebook even more than they already are, then I think it has to be considered a success. No doubt Facebook plans to serve ads with it and integrate it with their existing products.

On the other hand...am I the only one concerned that Facebook could potentially screw this up? Would it surprise anyone if they launched the product on Monday and then 'accidentally' let your installed applications also retrieve your entire list of e-mails? Do they get rid of the whole "Delete" button entirely?
Well, I think that's true for pretty much all surveys. If you are reasonably intelligent, it is actually hard to not figure out what is really asked and give answers based on how you would react instead of how you should react.

I've never seen a survey that wasn't easily manipulatable. So I guess we have to rely on people to try to be honest...
Emerson's essay Self-Reliance translated into modern English
Y Combinator is the next Facebook.
$ man life
No manual entry for life

That's what I was afraid of.
fine distinction point which i somehow still don't get
Google has a "Got the wrong Bob?" labs feature. It's not perfect, but it does prompt you if it thinks you're sending to the wrong person. Unfortunately it seems to mostly work with emails sent to multiple recipients. If you send it to the wrong person, but they're the only person you're sending to, it seems less effective.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-in-labs-got-wrong-...
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can't wait for Frey to get some competition. On the other, he's actually a pretty good commercial writer (competing with him will be pretty tough on that front) and I almost hope he branches out into the kind of formulaic, Oprah-bait adult fiction that mostly fills bookstore shelves - the stuff that's actually insufficiently pretentious (yes, that is possible). It's practically genre fiction already; why not have somebody drive the point home?
This is awesome - yeah, I think that's a great idea too. Kind of like the improve concept "Yes, and..." http://greenlightwiki.com/improv/Yes_And
Nice and clean, with a catchy name.

Good to see more startups using .co domains since I am launching one with it.
Kinda reflects my experience. Get stuck on some problem at work, then leave to home, after 10mins of walking in fresh air, and some kind of new idea springs surely in mind.
Just because there are rules saying that something should happen, does not mean in reality that the thing will happen.

Reasons why cab drivers could not pick you up: 1.) shift change in 15 minutes. So they can take you 15 minutes away but they can't drive an hour into Brooklyn and miss their shift change. 2.) Car maintenance, refueling. If the car is running low on fuel they can pick people up on short drives towards the gas station but it wouldn't make sense for them to go the opposite way.

I am all for dialing 3-1-1 and think people should, however sometimes knowing the full context will take you from being upset at the cab driver to being understanding.
Faster than C – this is explained in the FAQ as most C programs being single threaded and ANI being inherently multithreaded.

ANIC was posted to HN most of a year ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1042122 with much commentary.
I don't think that's how it works. YC didn't decide that 'its time to add two partners' and then start looking for candidates. What actually happened is that there were people who were already acting like partners in everything but title, and this is just a formalization of that.
I think they did a pretty good job of explaining how things work, though. They didn't make outrageous claims and they kept a sense of perspective - they emphasized the application-specific nature of things.

I especially liked the sentence "But since C++ is rawer, in a sense--closer to those ones and zeroes that computers ultimately run on--it means there is less digestion, so to speak, involved."
The profitable bots are a lot more than just shove bots. They take into account:
Hand ranges, Nash Equilibrium (This is really cool stuff imo),EV of flop/turn/river, return from promotions, rake,reaction time of user, position, table image

The last I saw the custom bots being run were buying up hand histories by the millions and using pre-flop agression and all the other factors to preform clustering. Then they clusters were used to choose a strategy.

Stars and FTP are both pretty good about finding bots. But poker bot writers are learning from game bot makers. They are pretty well protected on the client end. So as long as the bots have some variance they are really hard to spot. And a lot of the variance comes from choosing how to play the person who is betting. Though it looks like some bot writers have not been putting enough variance into their bots.

For a long time the big push was to find ways to make the input look like it came from a human. Moving the cursor to the exact middle of the button you want to push every time in <100ms is a dead give away. I don't really know if this was ever something that FTP and stars used though.
http://www.computerpokercompetition.org/

> At its heart, the Annual Computer Poker Competition aims to benefit artificial intelligence by promoting, aiding, and evaluating research in the challenging problems presented by the wide variety of poker games.
That's a rather important point. Loss and gain are not symmetrical in most cases. I actually wonder if there's a study that looks at that in relation to actual wealth - it's easier to risk a loss if it doesn't materially affect you.

HN, anybody know of something like that?
Or look at something like Chrome or Microsoft who says, all these application crashes point directly back to this product, we're going to write shims and provide auto-updaters, to get this problem under control.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky
You think the "laws" of attraction are somehow writ in stone, unchanging, dictated by biology only and unrelated to culture? Here's a quick counterexample of the western standard of skinny=attractive: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Cow-steroids-fatten-sex-wor...

The problem isn't what we do/don't find attractive: it is the double standard of (de) valuing women solely based upon their (un) attractiveness, while men are judged upon a much wider range of criteria or not judged at all.
The Engineering Talent Bubble
I agree. If he truly wants to create a system that can be updated only from the server side he needs some sort of human readable description for the control. displayAs = "Book Appointment" for example in this case.
I recommend people never take a non-yellow cab. They have far fewer regulations, so they can charge ludicrous amounts. Even if you negotiate a price beforehand, it might surprisingly change when you arrive.
The Great Pirates: Origins of Specialization
You should have asked some questions with larger amounts of money at stake, and also asked our current net worth, income, and savings rate. I have enough savings now that my preference for certain outcomes over $2500 intervals is pretty small. If I were living paycheck-to-paycheck I would have given very different answers.
Scoble doesn't point out why he see's instagram as the pinnacle of innovation, apart from the fact they've received a high number of downloads.

Instagram's success stems from the viral nature of wanting to try out these filter's that you've seen others using. Dont get me wrong, Instagram is a nice little service. But not the right example when compared to Google's recent failures in Wave and Buzz.

Besides, Google houses plenty of innovative products that match the success of Instagram.

Google's problem with its lack off 'innovation' within its recent failures stems from its products not being user led. Wave and Buzz solved no immediate problem for your average user. And I'm not so certain Instagram does.

Google could never create Instagram simply because creating a frivolous app based around styling your photos just doesn't align with their brand values. I can imagine the Google Engineers now, "So why are we using a sepia filter exactly?"