skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If it's just in terms of what you say to students, I can see that working, especially in K-12 education. I've seen some of the "grade on effort" approach in universities, though, and it produces some pretty perverse incentives. It sends the message that effort is more important than results, so students end up optimizing not for "quality of final project", but "effort the professor thinks I put into the final project".

Of course, perhaps that's good training for certain corporate jobs, where the person who stays late every day and works weekends, writing terrible code, often gets promoted ahead of the person who leaves at 5pm every day and actually does most of the work--- because the person who stays late is a "diligent worker".

In both settings, it also leads to an incentive to withhold work and parcel it out. If you did something impressive in two hours, some people might reward you for that: wow, great fix, and in only two hours? you're amazing!. But if it's more of an effort-based reward system, you're better off keeping that fix in your pocket for another week or two while you pretend to still be working on it, in order to get: wow thanks for working so hard on this for two weeks, the fix works great!.

To generalize broadly, I think startups tend to have more of the "results matter" culture, while large companies more often have an "effort matters" culture. The manager will remember the guy who spent two weeks of long nights working on a problem, while the startup will remember the guy who performed wizardry to fix some seemingly intractable problem in 45 minutes.
You kinda missed my point, i dont see why you need a specific occasion to do any of those things, i like doing those things as much as the next guy, its christmas itself i cant stand.
FBI informant infiltrates mosque, gets reported as terrorist by members.
> Lesson learned: get investors; share the wealth, share the risk.

Or go to a 3rd word country and live happily with $0 of debt like me ;)
> I found it disappointing that they limit the height to 10
> ft above the ground.

Time to hack it? Afaik, it has an ultrasonic range finder that it uses to maintain a safe distance to the ground (this could be tested by launching it from the top of a roof and observing its behavior). After that it's just a matter of finding the right pin and giving the onboard controller the right PWM signal. :)

Of course the radio might be too weak for any sort of serious teleoperation.
I use remember-mode in conjunction with org-mode for the same thing. Random notes go in my personal file or the file for the client/project they relate to. Then periodically I review the "notes" section and work it into the doc better.
Colorful electron microscope pictures of random objects
I'm confused how you'd classify anything a great success, considering that every product on that list except for their most recent (Google TV) has millions of active users.

You act like acquisitions and building on others' work means that Google didn't play a significant role in development and success of those products. That's like saying OSX wasn't made by Apple because it was built on Unix, or that the iPod isn't considered an Apple product because they released just another MP3 player, or that Facebook was just another social networking site so they don't deserve any credit by not coming up with the original idea.

YouTube and Android were nice proof-of-concepts back before they became under the Google umbrella. Have you taken a look at what Android was like way back when? It barely resembles the modern product, because that's how much work and dedication Google put into the software.

Once Chrome was released the commits to the WebKit source quadrupled. WebKit was based off of KHTML. Google took something good and made it great.

You trying to downplay their accomplishments because they didn't write the very first line of each of their products in-house is childish.
When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?
Sorry, I never answered your actual question.

First, learn from your mistakes. It sounds to me like you negotiated your current deal poorly. Next time around, if you are committing or risking more to a given project than your other partners, you ought to demand more in return.

Second, monetize. If you have the userbase you say you do, $150k can probably be whittled away very easily.

Third, if your userbase is somehow unmonetizable, there is always the option of selling into a bubble. To be blunt: find a sucker and sell. Just be aware that the ONLY time anyone should ever do this is if they have lost faith in their business model. If you are still passionate about your idea, DO NOT DO THIS.
I've tried (been made to try) working with another while coding. It was in each case frustrating, slow and a complete waste of time. I would want to fly down three objects deeper, amend an API, change the approach from list to bucket etc. And instead spent my time talking to this guy.

It didn't help that I knew the code, it was large and complex, and the design pattern was not one that was often used. So my partner was often catching up and never contributing.

Still, for systems programming, new development and especially debugging I do NOT recommend pair programming.
I'll take anything on my Citizun profile

http://citizun.com/profile/ryan-glasgow

Funding for my startup works too.
I'm surprised PLoS hasn't been mentioned in the thread yet.

http://www.plos.org/
How do you define millions of users? Daily visits, daily hits, monthly hits, hits ever, db user entries, active sessions....

If you have millions of active users, and can share some information about how active they actually are, the users here may have some good ideas on how to monetize better.

If OTOH you have had millions of visits over some very long period (and not repeat users), perhaps a chapter 13 makes sense.

~ $15k/yr income is not enough to justify maintaining any but the most minimal of web applications; how much do you pay yourself?
It is because of my 800 credit score that the cards in my name were upped automatically. Too much of a good thing! It is now 590.

Thanks for the inspiration! Just knowing recovery is possible is half of the mental battle. I look forward to making such encouraging words myself at some point in the future.
The Inner Life of the Cell [animation]
I do not think that is accurate. A guy using fifty-year-old technology can still be useful (COBOL, for example). Knowledge (of the problem domain) should definitely be of more recent vintage.
The Launch Checklist and Questionnaire
Hate to lengthen the thread, but it's too late to add this to the original post--

Remember that the Mozart family toured Europe only a few years after these pieces were written, and he was improvising pieces of considerable harmonic difficulty based on audience suggestions. The documentation of this tour is extensive, as the tour was a sensation, attended by many of the most important people of the day, and made young W. A. famous throughout Europe.

The alleged four-year-old compositions are considerably simpler than the things he was reported to improvise a few years later. Really, with this level of talent, it's more wild to say that Mozart was not writing music at a young age; that his ability to imagine melodies and harmonies just popped into his head shortly before the tour started. I was arguing talent is very much natural, but not so natural as that!
Wikileaks just set up their own Mass Mirror System, see http://wikileaks.ch/mass-mirror.html
There are barely visible links at the bottom of the page for "Shop the Best Verizon Wireless Deals" and "Thanks to Top CD Rates, Bank Rates and Bad Credit".

Nobody can verify the affiliation with John Draper.

I suspect this is a both a scam and black hat SEO.
He almost certainly does have insurance. A "Co-pay" is the small amount of the medical procedure cost that the insurance company bills to you.
Millions of visitors a month, and millions of registered users (not the same set, only a fraction of the visitors in a given month are registered). Freemium model. I'll post another question next Sunday on how to monetize, as now I see that perhaps that should have been the first question. Not that we haven't worked over the issue a million times, but we haven't had fresh perspectives at all.

Getting paid? Hahaha. Not now.
You gotta love the peer review process working in public. Now (thanks to the internet) readers correct mistakes so that by the time the paper reaches the journals, it's already been vetted quite a bit. Before that, the public pre-publication vetting process would have been a lot slower (e.g. to be done in conferences) if done at all.
Those 3 things aren't really listed on his site, just some of the negative behaviors around them. If you'd care to refute the things listed, you'd have a point.

The prevalence of gift giving using consumer credit is just dumb, moreso when it's crappy gift cards that don't mean anything. Only spending time with family during Christmas doesn't feel genuine, and the arbitrariness of getting time off for the holidays is irksome to anyone who is aware of how fabricated the holiday is. Call me scrooge too if you like, but I agree with most of the stuff listed.
Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS (2008)
I take it that you would need to go to a specialist? I know nothing about eye doctors but are there special ortho-k providers that only do that type of treatment or would it fall under a normal optometrist? I guess the top dog of the eye care totem pole would be an ophthalmologist.

Do you know roughly the cost?
Interesting. Do you know how long it takes before your vision returns to pre treatment levels?
I understand exactly what you mean, and perhaps it was bad to make it seem like it's a binary paid work or startup distinction between the waves. I guess the reality is that it is more about which is the focus.

I agree that there is likely to be that itching inside to work to build your startup, but by the same token do you not think that whilst working a 9-5 job and doing a startup on the side, you will always be itching to know what it would be like to work full-time on your startup?
Being that Martin has been an avid art collector for many years it seems a rare missed opportunity to really get some insight from a qualified source. It would seem by his own admission a discussion of his book may have been premature considering it had been out such a short while. Given that Solomon has a history and ability to interview it again seems a missed opportunity that she should have acknowledged gracefully
A lot of the paywalls fade away if you access from a computer at a subscribing institution such as a university library.

I live very close to a university whose libraries are open to the public. Quite handy.
Because they are a business, and they need the money to survive. As far as I know, advertising isn't common in scientific journals.

You can usually read them for free in most universities, since they are subscribed.
There was research in "How We Decide" by Jonah lehrer that in a string of 3 tests, control group students who were told they succeeded on the first test because they worked hard did far better on the last test than students who were told they did well because they were smart.
A lesson in customer retention from Blizzard.
Yes, good to know. They kept things under the EIN until it went unpaid, then they switched to my SSN. That got my attention, of course, and I've learned a lot since then.
Agreed. I mean, according to his Wikipedia article, he was the CTO of En2go a company "that delivers music, video and other digital content to desktops."

Most definitely shenanigans of some kind are going on here...
It won't work with that. I'm replacing the (implicit) global window.css with a closure the first time it's invoked. Your modification will cause future css sections to create their own <style> tags even if the they reference the same selectors.

Perhaps this is clearer: http://keithmajhor.pastebin.com/5KA7Ecn0
I beg to differ. Windows 7 is among the best pieces of software I've ever used, and it's certainly the best OS I've ever had. I signed up for the beta when it first came out and got it as soon as it was out full.

Yes - you have to take a little while to install it and configure it, but after that everything is a breeze.
Calling someone a sheep is a metaphor. When you think of 'complacent' what animal better fits it than sheep. It is a very commonly used turn of phrase because of this.
Cool interview by Scoble! I've been using this for a while now and I read so much more simply because it saves me that one important click, love this thing!
I have been working through the book, and I'm just getting into the meat of it. I'm tempted to skip ahead to the JInterface chapter though to noodle around with some erlang powered graphics.
Someone I know suffered a stroke from an overzealous hug. Old people are fragile.
Seems to be a browser-specific bug. I see 9 hyphens total on Chrome on Win 7. 8 total on IE 8.
rather than blinking, use morse code and output the message.
If you know, or at least strongly suspect, that someone is an FBI informant/provocateur, what are you doing to do - call the FBI? In that crappy situation, I think their choice of getting a restraining order sounds like the best they could do. At the very least it forces jurisdictional conflicts between the FBI and the local authorities.

Anyone know how other groups have handled this historically?
That isn't necessarily true- for example, look into the phenomenon of open-access journals. There are also plenty of non-profit journals that act primarily to spread information, and as peer-reviewed gateways.
I am not sure that is true. If it is true, then they are committing tax fraud since nearly every journal is published by a non-profit foundation or organization.
> You think just any 4-year-old can play amazing music just
> because they have a lot of time to practice?

Honestly, it's a pretty reasonable hypothesis. That's not to say that narrow-minded focus and incessant practice on a single skill at such a young age (or any age) produces a balanced or happy individual, but I have no problem believing that it would produce someone with skills far in excess of 99% of their peers.
Thanks to everyone commenting on this, even though it is a few pages back on "new" and not on the home page. You all rock!
One-page, text-only version: http://pastebin.com/zAysvHcw
the problem with the video is that it doesn't really show these events as stochastically driven - the molecules all magically 'seem to know where to go' whereas in realtiy they are bouncing against each other randomly and the correct interactions occur because they 'stick', whereas the incorrect interactions just keep bouncing off.
Review, rate and share your favorite movies
One of the three would go with it if he wanted, or it were possible. But with two bailing for sure...
Ender's Game by OSC
No it's not.

There's actually a lot of ongoing debate about what exactly we mean when we call somebody "the best" at making music. Every brand of music has its own series of ethos, and many of them actively disagree with many others. I love Mozart and think he was a brilliant writer of pop music — his work is very hook-driven and similarly repeats parts until they get stuck in your head — but I have friends who find his work too simplistic to take interest in. Then there's Beethoven, whose works disappoint my more technically-obsessed friends but are so gorgeously emotional. And on the other end of it you have the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols and Merzbow and a line of musicians who go for things Mozart never dreamed of pursuing.

Brian Eno, pioneer of glam rock, pioneer of ambient music, one of the greatest living producers of music of all kinds, is actually very critical of classical music for this reason; he claims it bores him. He has a quote where he expresses skepticism for that kind of prodigious talent where he basically implies that any music so easy to make that you can be a prodigy at it isn't worthy of accolade:

"Classical — perhaps I should say ‘orchestral’ — music is so digital, so cut up, rhythmically, pitchwise and in terms of the roles of the musicians. It’s all in little boxes. The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities."

Not that I entirely agree with him, either. But the point he's making is that it's stupid for us to make these assumptions that there's such a thing as "better" or "worse" music other than what we subjectively like and dislike. In my opinion, Mozart is very, very, very good; I might even decide he's great as I continue to listen to him. But somebody else can call him shit, and I have no way to argue that they're objectively wrong. (Unless they say he's uneducated, or incompetent, because competence can be objectively argued.)
FTA: WikiLeaks right now is a giant pile of shit from a legal standpoint

What law has WikiLeaks broken?

More specifically, what law can be applied to WikiLeaks that cannot be applied to NYT, The Guardian and the other media that is publishing the leaks?

Also, how many laws have been broken by governments (the US and many others) as is reported in the leaks?
The FBI sound like a bunch of dicks.
The Mobile Photo Sharing Boom Is Here
Does anyone have a good definition of talent?
I went to Columbia's SIPA competitor, Georgetown MSFS, and received that mail via a fwd from an MSFS'er's friend at Columbia. All it says is "alumnus" and it's highly possible it's just some recent grad who is now some functionary at State or maybe even some junior FSO. Knowing a lot of new FSOs, they're all totally paranoid about doing anything wrong.I would not suspect right off the bat that it was some high-level plan at intimidation. It's probably someone being proactive, like I originally said.At best, it's still misleading because you didn't have more information to leap to "OFFICIAL STATE DEPARTMENT STATEMENT OR DIRECTIVE".
I noticed that too. It's a problem lots of students seem to have in understanding molecular reactions. This video seems to correct this to some extent:

It shows of how apoptosis works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KTDz-ZisZ0
According to a study done with violin players, highly structured practice is what separates the great from the very-good. Those that were very good but didn't practice as much ended up becoming violin teachers: http://imgur.com/Wxjqa.png.

What's also striking is that amateurs practice far, far less than the best: http://imgur.com/vIB6i.png. While they may have practiced for the same number of years (e.g., from 4 years old to 20 years old), the amount per day was substantially less.

This is from "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance": http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti..., pages 17 and 21, respectively.
Boot him of the premises.
Instead of advertising, many make up for their costs through endowments and charging an author to publish.
Mark Zuckerberg's work desk. Check the video.
NIXTY: Education Engine for the Web (Scobleizer interview)
john draper excelled in an area which doesn't make much money. bill gates, larry ellison, etc might not be too nice people, but they don't need your help financially.

i've had a couple of interactions with him and he was nice to me. he's a little odd but i think it comes with the territory.
If you have some money, you can negotiate your credit cards down to almost nothing (eg $30k = $4k payoff). Call the credit card company, tell them you have $X (X being about 10-15% of your balance) and you are calling all of your creditors to see who will take it as payment in full. $X is all you have...and if they will accept it, you will send it to them...otherwise you are sending it to the next card on the list.

It will be a little scary making that first call and making such a low-ball offer, but it is where you want to start and you will be amazed at the results...I guarantee it. Be sure to get the accepted deal in writing before sending any money.

This is a tough thing to go through. As an entrepreneur, you have to be able to compartmentalize these types of problems. Put these problems in a box, put the box on a shelf, and continue to build things and solve problems. Don't forget about the box, but set it aside and refocus on kicking ass. This is just a wall. You will run into a lot of walls on your journey. Walls are not there to keep us out, they are there to keep those who do not want it bad enough out.

tl;dr It's not over until you quit. Never quit.
To Imagine Fearlessly
Next question: what other single character variable names do people use? I've always wanted to work up a master list somewhere.

Speaking to my own usage, I use i and j for indices, x, y, and z for Cartesian coordinates, n for "number", k and v for "key" and "value" when iterating through a hash, and r for a variable I'm using for a return value later on.
BTW, why does the US constitution protect religion per se? Isn't free speech enough?
New Federal Law: Zero Taxes on Gains on Small Business Investments
>"Unless you're running Windows 7/Vista in 64-bit mode. Then no 16-bit apps will run, and it's emulation time."

Same situation with Windows XP Professional x64 edition.

But, if you're still running 16-bit apps, the 20 minutes it takes to set up a 32 bit virtual machine is a pretty small price to pay. Microsoft even provides a Virtual PC as a no cost download.
yes, i think you may be right. if yes, then this is an insidious tactic to get seo-juice, but sadly probably very effective..
I'm sure I have stacks of old computer magazines from the mid-80s with listings that are now begging to be typed in. Does it do graphics, perchance?
Malcolm Gladwell defined talent as "the love of practicing". That's the best definition I've heard.
Good post Joel ;-)
I'm generally in agreement with working in "waves" (it's an approach I've used for past 10 years)

A couple of other thoughts that might be worth considering:
1. Once you decide that the "start-up career" is your full-time career path - then you need to start thinking about "serious stuff like pensions and investing". I generally put 50% of the money that I make between "start-up waves" into investments (for me it's properties) that generate cash flow

2. Find a business partner with complimentary skills to you (understand that they can - and probably will change as your business develops)

3. Before your embark on a start-up wave try to make sure that the market is already there (ie spend the evenings and weekends of your "paying job time" doing Customer Development research (you don't need to cut very much code to do this)

;-)
Well, free speech alone could also theoretically be enough to cover freedom of the press, assembly, and right to petition, but I'd rather have my rights spelled out explicitly so no court decision can take them from me.
Use debit cards. It will only allow you to spend money you have.
It would be nice if it happened before the press conference too.
My understanding is that the problem with making scientific journals freely available is usually one of reputation. Reputable journals need strong peer review and editing, which isn't always free. Further, until a journal is reputable, few people want to publish in it.

In the US, all works funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) are required to be made freely available to the public within one (?) year of publication. Given, that's only valid for the field of medicine, but there's been a push for all academic work funded bu the government to get similar treatment.

Extremely relevant - Ars Technica wrote an article on moving to open-access a few days ago. Open access is a movement in academia similar to open source in software, and is becoming more popular in fields like math and computer science.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/the-economic-cas...