skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Interspersing all kinds of rebuttals to complaints others have made about the post inside the post itself looks really defensive. It disrupted my reading.
That's my SWAG, although you can go a little further than your friends list given a social graph. You can score an email based on all sorts of social data. Are you friends? Friends of a common friend? Do you have "likes" in common? Do you belong to common groups? Have you commented on the same thing? And so on.

Any large email player can do some of the same things with a history of emails, but FB could (I am only guessing) do interesting things.

Whitelisting is one approach to the spam problem. Inbox prioritization is an interesting problem as well. Once we have emails in your message box, you could log into FB and find 100 or more emails even after filtering for spam. So... Which emails should appear on your home page and which should wait quietly in your inbox for you to take action?
Incidentally, facebook has SSL as well: https://facebook.com. Unfortunately, it's not the default and there doesn't appear to be any way to force it.
Record low mortgage rates? Too bad no one is taking advantage of them
Ask HN: Surviving life while gaining traction in London?
Recently due to the British spending cuts I lost my job in digital security that I've had for the last couple of years. I've always had big ambitions for a startup, but I've yet to refine my idea down enough to get it fully functioning.
My main issue is I'm living in London still and that due to living so central the cost of living is quite high. I know the logical thing to do would be to move, but I've lived here for the last four years and I rather like it here.
So my question is how have you guys survived whilst building your organisations? The job market it flooded right now, I tried applying for some office jobs but they're overwhelmed with entries and in between things like working in a coffee shop have been unsuccessful for me due to the positions either being filled by students or me being knocked back for being overqualified. So where would be a good place for me to try and find some income opportunities and how do you guys survive?
Node Isn't...
"Diagonalization" strikes again.

There's a lesson here kids: when you can't prove something, "diagonilization" is the proof-tool of choice. Sure, if you include it, you won't have proven anything either, or useful, or correct, but you might just get a PhD.

(For those who are curious: diagonilization is a proof that takes the form: "Imagine you did this impossible thing. With the result of doing that impossible thing, now try and do this other, reasonable thing. You can't! So whatever properties I can derive from not being able to do this other, reasonable thing are true. (Please ignore that the first step is impossible, and focus on my brilliance in discussing the second, reasonable step.)"

That is, in a nutshell, the diagonilization "proof". The rest of the details are just there to make it look like it's actually logic or math. Best not to look too closely.

Also, you'll be shocked, SHOCKED to learn that not a single result in the real world relies on the diagonilization proof (though a lot of real-world PhDs would no doubt be affected by it's loss). sigh Mathematicians are idiots when they try and do logic. Stick with numbers, boys.
The "fidelity" is typically much higher with .NET assemblies, because of the type metadata. (Still a silly article, though.)
Directing the flow of people on a sidewalk
Interesting. I'm not sure if my moves were right mathematically. I basically played as though I had one shot i.e., I pull a lever with a 5% chance once and I either win or get nothing. Similarly for the losing position. However, if I get to play a lot my answers would be completely different. While the expected value of $1000 with a 13% chance and multiple plays is $130, the probable value for a 13% chance and one play is zero dollars.
Just went through it and feel, as it seems many here do, that my financial risk-aversion quotient will be no higher than that of the general population.

Does anyone else think that what really makes us entrepreneurs wasn't touched upon by the survey?
I'm sure that my behavior does not reflect my answers on this test. Given the numbers, I calculate expected value and answer rationally. In real life, a) the values and percentages are much less clear and b) even if they weren't I know I don't follow them as rationally.
Trust at the Top - Stefan Stern - HBR blog conversation
Propriety software is privately owned by the makers of the software, they control everything.

GNU and the FSF were born because this model was deemed unethical by RMS and many who basically agree with him.
Don't .NET assemblies also encode name metadata, making the transformation from source to assembly mostly reversible?
"Maybe you can't appreciate this now, but the summer of 2003 was the biggest turning point that independent music has ever had."

This has always struck me as interesting point from a music fan's perspective. It seems like the confluence of a lot of factor's led to expansion of independent music around this time.

2001, 2002 was around when cable and DSL prices started to drop outside of major cities. The opening of Itunes. And seemingly a lot of big time independent artists began to jump to major labels (or made major releases from smaller labels) and released very successful albums. Death Cab for Cutie, The Shines, and Modest Mouse off the top of my head.

Just an interesting phenomena I've always been curious about. This article was eye opening as to what one of the key forces in this move might have been.
Oracle isn't the only company with patents in the JRE though, when a third party contributes patented technology to the JRE they have to agree to the patent waiver for all TCK passing implementations.

Dependent on the language of these waivers, Oracle may or may not be considered to be "controlling" the patents. If they're not controlling the patents then it means they can't give the GPL waiver on behalf of the other contributors, and thus any non-TCK compliant OpenJDK fork may be in violation.

Speaking more generally GPL v2 was never really designed to handle patents, the patent clauses are pretty much secondary to the rest of the GPL, and probably are much more vulnerable to attack via loopholes than the rest of the GPL due to their vague and implicit nature.
My complaints are mostly around the Javascript mess that has stolen our direct access to the images.

The image I want is usually in the top row of results anyway, so an endless collection of thumbnails isn't much help.

I don't want to view an image in some kind of weird half-sized shadow box. I want to see it alone, at full size -- or directly download it. In the old Google image search, these tasks were as easy as a right click on a context menu.

Now we get strange hover boxes that are only 50% larger than the thumbnails, and clicking a thumbnail takes you to a confusing pseudo-page that isn't the full size image, nor the actual source site. Who does this help?
Sarah Palin Email 'Hacker' Gets Year in Jail
Bay Area folks who've read down this far, you'll absolutely love the Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Angie's List Attracts $2.5 Million More in Investment
Y Combinator Names First New Partners Since 2005: Paul Buchheit And Harj Taggar
This practice has been alive in various forms of art (ghostwriters on songs, apprentice painters, writers-for-hire, etc.) for the last several decades (at least).

As others have mentioned, the work often provides little creative value, but builds huge cult followings and massive profits for the artists. Koons' art regularly sells for $10-25mm and one of Hirst's auctions generated $198mm in 2008. Likewise, musical artists who employ ghostwriters often make it to the top of the charts, and authors like Frey can reap millions from their hired "co-writers."

Using "assistants" has been around for many years, and it's not going away anytime soon - there's still money to be made. One of the best examples of the absurdity occurring in the creative world is Banksy's Mr. Brainwash character in 'Exit Through the Gift Shop.' Highly recommended to all.
Clarify what "I don't have full control" means in this situation. Do you want to run procmail? Bulk sends? Mailing lists?
It's a risk/reward calculation. There is a small possibility of pre-IPO stock being worth fuck you money. Google can't even off the possibility of fuck you money, but they can offer decent money (although anecdotal evidence says they underpay) with low risk. Unfortunately for Google, many of their employees have risk/reward profiles closer to Facebook than Google.

Random numbers:

Facebook: Shares with a 1% chance of being worth $10m

Google: Guaranteed $100,000.

Same expected value, different tolerances for risk.
I'm not sure incentivising reviewers is the problem here. It's the respect given to 'pure' non-financially motivated advice that generates trust.

The democratization of information that the internet seems to promise is in direct competition with paid-for "page-rank".
Robert Scoble Bashes HN "Engineer Types"?
> He had done his own startup and knew the man-month myth. For every person you add to a team, he said, iteration speed goes down.

That phenomenon is Brooks's Law, and first appeared in The Mythical Man-Month:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
Gmail did the same thing, then added mobile number. Now...
Yeah, but like contextfree mentions, there's enough metadata in MSIL to basically reconstruct flawless C# out of your executable, so it's a somewhat different degree of problem.
Well, you could use USERS_FOREACH as your delimiter instead of EOD... I don't mind the short tags (and agree you should be able to enable/disable them in almost all cases) but just don't find them worth it, what I do dislike is the abundance of angle brackets and question marks and calling a function at the moment of output. (It just looks odd, and when people use their own h() function it just muddies the water. I liked Smarty for removing this.)

I think PHP and Perl got it right when they allowed embedding of normal vars in strings without any special syntax thanks to the $ sigil, we should take advantage of it where possible. When you have a bunch of non-PHP I think it makes sense to drop out into normal HTML, but otherwise, PHP strings are fine and your editor should support syntaxifying them as HTML.
Agreed. Flagged for inaccurate title.
There's a lot of misinformation in this thread.
First of all, recent versions of SASS include support for SCSS syntax, which means you can basically start with plain old CSS and learn to use variables, mixins, nesting, etc from there. Second, learning SASS syntax is not at all difficult. It's exactly like CSS, except without curly braces and semicolons, and it's whitespace sensitive. I find this results in much more readable code, and is much faster to write than standard CSS. In fact, writing regular CSS now feels like a chore, so I've started using Staticmatic (which supports HAML/SASS) when I want to do quick static prototypes.
Even if I got that part wrong, the main point stands. Definitely no need to make this a discussion about "José" and his "homies."
You're not going to do functional (or any other interesting) programming as an IT programmer in a generic financial services company.

If you work for an actual software company (or perhaps an innovative financial services company) as a software engineer (or even on an operations team in some cases e.g., Sysadmins at Google using Haskell, ops tools at Yahoo once built in OCaml), there's plenty of chances to do functional programming (or something else that interests you).

It's just generally people are programmed to think "it's just a job" and choose their jobs based on salary, name recognition, commute hours etc... (Some also have very specialized skills like systems programming or machine learning and aren't particularly interested in programming languages, although I think they're missing out)
I wasn't clear in my original comment: it's not that I require API docs (though they're nice), it's that I require the API itself, usually a REST web service, or in the case of mapping, a bunch of remote resources (images and JavaScript).

When you say you "download/clone", are you talking about just the docs, or do you actually clone the API locally?

For example, create a local, mock Twitter OAuth API so that you can program against the Twitter API without being online.

I'm genuinely curious. I like the idea of going offline, but it seems like it's not worth the effort if you're working on applications that are codependent on network APIs.
Interesting. Though not sure I'd call selling to one person (Spielberg) the same as publishing (selling to the masses). But it's a lot better credential than only selling your own stuff.
I really don't understand your point. What is the difference between a "programmer" and an "engineer"? Why doesn't "functional programmer" as a category include things like "F#", which you suggest is a valid category.

As for me, I interviewed at several jobs that featured functional programming during my last jobsearch. I actually turned down offers that were not devoted to functional (or at least hybrid object/functional) technologies.
Gmail Creator Paul Buchheit Leaves Facebook for Y Combinator
Here's a previous discussion extolling the virtues of Davis Square: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1555113
How this new startup looking/working?
I'm sure my choices here have been completely spoiled by all the pop-science books I read, in that my first thought upon each type of question was "Ah, that's from this and this research, where they found out that..." They need an "are you familiar with these types of questions?" question, because both the statistically expected answer and the rational answer were already known to me. I assume this is the case for more entrepreneurs, so I doubt this questionnaire will display a large discrepancy between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs.

All I can say is, Pop-science books are fun, everyone should read more of them.
How to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps
You beat me to the punch on this. I am very impressed with Instagram's success, but to say 'why can't Google build a product with half a million users?' is so completely wrong-headed that I don't even know where to begin.
Only if Y Combinator took total control of your idea, how it was sold, put only their name on it, and dealt with all the money coming into your business. So no, not really.
IOS 4.2 reportedly delayed, iPad WiFi issues to blame
called it: http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508 :)
A couple points

- The idea is great, and something I think a lot of people would find useful.

- The UI in general needs a lot of work. I'll point out a few things that could be quick fixes, but I think you'd really really benefit from paying a good UI designer to rework it.

- The "City" dropdown on registration was confusing for me since I don't live in any of the cities listed and almost didn't see the "Select another city" option. Might be better off with a text field and possibly autocomplete.

- Even though I said I'm looking for a mentor on registration, on the next page, none of the "Looking For" checkboxes were checked. I get that that was probably intended since that's a search, but it still confused me.

- You might want to change the Thank You For Registration message to Thank You For Registering.

- This is what my Location dropdown looks like: http://i.imgur.com/CjHqb.png even though I don't live in California...not sure why that's on the list.

- The "Please Complete Your Profile" box in the sidebar doesn't look like a link even though it is.

- IMO it could do without the Microblog/Following sections...people are still going to use Twitter for that, and I think it just adds confusion to the backend to see that included. The other alternative is just to have it integrate with Twitter, so that if you follow someone, you're really following their twitter user and yafounder is just providing an alternative interface, but even that is IMO unnecessary.

- It could really benefit from some sort of tour/wizard to help navigate the backend. There are a lot of links and it's not immediately apparent what most of them do.

Great idea! Hope it takes off for you.
Ask HN: pre-screening the generalist employee
How does one go about evaluating and pre-screening a worker for a job with generalist or generic duties? (meaning anyone with a decent background is qualified) Some jobs include admin asst, office manager, data entry, and telephone customer service rep., but it also may include jobs that can be done by any liberal arts grad for which specific technical skills are either not required or can be learned on the job.

Since most people would be able to fulfill the duties of the job, how do you screen candidates in and out? Do you look at past experience or is it better to have someone who is a fresh face? Are extra-curicculars or signs of merit/recommendations a valid screen? What are the tradeoffs in making your search either too narrow or too broad?
Yeah, I'm afraid I also did the "I'm a rational economic actor" answers,
Rifle-Oriented Programming with Clojure [2009]
Your own reference refutes your claim.

From the Wikipedia article:

"In 1965, after breaking with the Nation of Islam and denouncing its separatist doctrine, Malcolm X told his followers that the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad had made agreements with the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan that 'were not in the interest of Negros.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harjeet_Taggar
I will be very happy to see SOAP go away forever. A GET/POST with a JSON or XML response is just so much easier to deal with.

However, the reality is that there are many enterprise tools that only work via SOAP. Standards organization or not, SOAP will be with us for a long time.
Welcome to the wonderful world of buzzwords. Remember the goal is to pick a name that helps you sell stuff not to be technically useful.

You may recall that DHTML became Ajax even though no new technology comes about. NoSQL did not solve everyone’s problems so it's time to rename the same idea and start the hype cycle up again. Expect the same thing to happen again and again.

PS: Despite the name, the use of XML is not actually required, nor do the requests need to be asynchronous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming))
Nginx Internals
Thanks for the tip, I see people getting refused for Queens/Bronx/Staten Island from Manhattan all the time.
The experimental setup isn't great: the HN population almost certainly has an elevated level of education in areas like math and statistics. I don't think you should ever compare subjects who can compute "expected value" with ones who can't. Personally, I don't believe I can give great answers for this, because I'm conscious there's an experiment going on.
Without a doubt. For instance, I will always take a $50 loss over any chance of a $1000 loss, because $50 one way or the other barely has in impact on my day, let alone my life. $1000, on the other hand is significant.

If however, the questions had been about $500 vs. $10,000, I'd have to think a bit more carefully.
RE: PayPal.

It gets worse. There are several situations where the docs say one thing, the sandbox behaves a different way, and the live API behaves in a third, different way. It's a mess.
US Voters: Tell congress not to create Internet blacklist
I just can't believe it took so long. PB has always seemed (from the outside) like a de facto partner. This can only make YC better. Congrats PB, Harj, and YC.
I just checked out startup.kroud.com and it seems super fast.

* This might just be me, but I'd suggest you improve your home page, perhaps add "Why use Kroud" or "Features" and such. To be honest, no one really cares unless you're some hotshot(don't mean to rad). Instead of that put what people say about Q&A. Here's an example: "63% of communities lose their members because of engagement. — WSJ" and then some button below that says something like: "Rewin those members with kroud"

* You're "selling" your product not yourself - remove the "Hey I'm Stu." Replace it with something regarding WHY JOIN

* Your headline is a bit vague("Questions and answers for your community"). When I first saw the headline I thought, oh this is probably some week open source project. I checked out your product and I think something like "Get your free hosted Q&A community up in minuets" or something.

* Good work on building some sort of comfortability with social proof.

I'm curious, how is this different than already-existing services like Sponge(getsponge.com) or

Oh, and, start charging for it.

Best of luck to you
At this point, you guys have seen a significant slice of the startup world. Has YC ever thought about how large your batches could become? You've said several times that the only real limit is the number of quality teams... but have you ever thought about how big that number really is?
congrats to Y Combinator, Paul, and Harj.

it's an interesting choice to reinforce the demographic biases rather than trying to counter them. when you decided to add two partners, did you consider any women?
Scoble responds to our HN discussion:

http://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/status/3154038992412672
That's funny--I had no trouble figuring out what I'd actually prefer, and even though I'm familiar with the various stories about risk-aversion and such, I think my answers make sense in the context of my income and finances.
At a time where Google, FB fight w/ $M to get best people, that's one of the greatest talent win one can imagine.
I was pointed here as an installable Gmail alternate:
http://roundcube.net/
Comparing SoyLatte to Apple's JVM
SCSS = SASS-y CSS
If possible, launch first, then start looking for investors. It'll be much easier to get noticed by investors when you have actual users.
The questions are flawed because many entrepreneurs have already used up all their risk seeking "slack" and might quite rationally prefer to lose $50 over a 1% chance of losing $1500, since a $50 loss could be dealt with more easily in the context of a ramen budget... while a $1500 loss might destroy the company entirely.

In other words, just because you are in a casino and put all your money on double zero doesn't mean that you should also play russian roulette with a pistol while the roulette wheel is spinning.
Nice little app, but here are two I've used it fails on:

Please join these two "words" together (without spaces): zrtvyoav and ekozuarn
A: FAILURE

What starts with "bow" and ends with "ser"?
A: FAILURE
You find it hard to believe that _Martin Fowler_ has built real systems that work? He is a rather well known programmer, author, speaker, and Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks.
You should build a relationship with potential investors over time, starting from when you have a prototype. Don't wait until you actually need to raise a round.

Investors like to see traction in your product, and if you lack it, they'll continually label you as "early."

Avoid cold calls unless you have no other way in. Get introductions through your network.
Here's a question: how does this assertion sync with Arrington's claim that entrepreneurs would choose low-to-negative expected value projects simply for the thrill of gambling, as it were? What's going on here?
Online Education | Your Classified Articles
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/terminal_colours/
He's right though about the small things being more disruptive. I'm more likely to integrate something small and conceptually well-scoped into my e-life than something big and monolithic that starts out with delusional mission statements like "will fundamentally change the way people $blablablah$ forever".