skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Toronto home mortgage
First Toronto Mortgage connects Toronto residents to mortgage lenders across Canada. With a strong network of home mortgage lenders, First Toronto Mortgage has access to a variety of mortgage products. http://www.firsttorontomortgage.com
This was basically my YC submission this cycle. I'm still working on it!
Retro Hairstyles for Women
If you are a woman the Marilyn Monroe hairstyle is a great choice of hair style , or the hairstyle of Grace Kelly.
> I wonder what AT&T uses all that extra floor space for now.

... to comply with the Patriot Act.
Indeed, the argument about pirating's ease being its biggest pro ignores one of its largest demographics—teens and college students with no or little money but a huge appetite for media.

(If you want to get pedantic about it, I suppose you could say that this is just an extension of the definition of ease-of-use; members of this demographic would have to go find and work a job in order to obtain media legally. In that sense, pirating is easier.)
I'm working on a small game for Windows Phone 7 that I need some help generating sprites and graphic content for. I have a rough spec of the gameplay mechanics and the assets that I'd like to include.

If you're interested I would love to give you the details - my Twitter handle is @Aaronontheweb - DM me and I'll give you the full story.
Although a cell phone probably won't do you much good on say...Nimbus III.
It looks like, from the game library, you can be as unique as you allow your imagination to allow.

If you just jump in and tweak one of their tutorials, you won't get far, but if you take your time, design great graphics, write a fun story, etc, why couldn't you be a huge success with this?
WikiLeaks website kicked off Amazon's servers
I'm 31 and it looks like something I'll definitely be trying - especially to help convert some of my Android apps for release in the App store.
The Chinese style cheongsam wholesale and retail.（sexy cheongsam）
Seq: chainable asynchronous flow control for node.js
This Article is crazy. Has demonoid or the private trackers stopped hosting FLAC torrents? I am cheap, there is a snowballs chance in hell of getting caught, arrr. That goes for Ugs nx 6, autocad, adobe cs master collection, server 2008r2, vs2010, everything until a superior open source alternative is developed.
I feel the conversation should end hear, otherwise we'd soon start discussing Star Wars too...and then it would simply never end.
Binary Options Guide
I agree with what others have said - if I were you, I would go for #2, and if that fails, #4. If you like your co-workers and the other non-codebase related aspects of the job, it is worth trying to make it work, but only if you can get the CTO on board :)
The point is that he won because he's a great programmer, not because he used Lisp.
I live in Europe and never heard of this. Care to share a link?
It seems that any positive inclination towards lisp is cargo cultism.

Gabor Melis is a seriously smart guy, and probably would have kicked ass in any language.

That said,
I'm going to pull out that phrase next time someone says 'Java/C# is good for Enterprise', or 'C++ is good for video games', or 'C is good for systems programming'.

Cargo cultism indeed.
>Someone please tell me what the record labels have done to deserve 75%

1)Make a really good quality recoding. I know it is possible to do it without a label, and I know that it has even been done, but the vast majority of non-label recordings are really bad.

2) Really good distribution system. I know, you didn't find your music from a record company. But, having a record companies resources behind you makes your chance of hitting it big orders of magnitude greater.
It's far from clear which way the causality runs.
I second that!
I'm amazed by the fact that half the time people seem to disregard completely this fundamental obstacle in doing a startup: you need to have at least the basics covered, like food and a roof above your head. You shouldn't live like a king but even the modest living costs.

Is it only people in US who think that? I don't think so, US is not particularly known for social security and such -- maybe this comes from people who either are already wealthy or they live with their parents :)

I have worked for 2 years plus to earn and set aside the money that will allow me 6-7 months of freedom to start something up (well, and then I screwed my hard-earned freedom, but that's another story); with this tempo you'd (I'd) need to slave away 8 years to earn 2 years of freedom, the amount I'd deem necessary to start up something serious and see money coming back to you.

So please, always mention how you have your basic needs covered and for how long before preaching bootstrapping to others :)
"You can win 6, 12 or 24 months of membership to AiGameDev.com PREMIUM if you place third, second and first in the contest respectively. We'll also provide any single person team that ranks higher than our official bot three months of AiGameDev.com PLUS — our brand-new part of the site that launched last week."

he must be excited. until google puts out non-trivial problem sets and offers non-trivial prizes i'll save my upvotes and cycles.
"Phelps is also faster at processing lactic acid, the fluid which makes muscles ache, than any other known human."

I wish I could recall some details, but that comment reminded me of something I heard about Lance Armstrong, that he possessed some way-out-of-the-norm physiological characteristics that provided some key advantages for bike races.

You have to wonder how common this is, plus the odds of someone with some physiological gift also being attracted to and motivated to pursue a well-matched sport.
I've seen another variant on this test -

What it boils down to is that:

(1) rote memorization is not an indicator of intelligence or skill.

(2) specialty datapoints regarding farm life are no longer required

(3) English grammar teaching is in a sad state. (A known aspect of today's public schools)

For a fair comparison, one should review the 8th grade requirements in a variety of today's schools (I did so once in a cursory fashion). In my opinion, today's students have to take in at least as much information, some of it also specialized, and spit it out.

Arguably today's requirements are not as focused on exact knowledge as late 1800s requirements. I leave that to the philosopher of education to evaluate for better/worse.

What should also be considered is not just the test itself, but how tests were graded - was passing the top 90%? 60%? How lenient were teachers? An issue today is some teachers giving "free As". Did that exist in 1890?

What can also be considered is the difference between Kanas 8th grade and Boston 8th grade. Was there one? What about different schools?

There is not a simple analysis here. There must needs be a careful data-driven reflection examining the subtleties of the educational system before someone pushes out the generalization - "today's students are all worse and we are all stupid". I see many examples of smart people. Admittedly, they anecdotally seem to have "beat the system" most of the time, so, well - there's another facet to the analysis.

Note - I hear occasionally about Dewey & early 1900s educators setting up US education to optimize for factory workers and a compliant populace. Does anyone have any factual data/bibliographic sources asserting/refuting that?
I think it's a horrible URL...

I'd be fine with startup.ly, but startuply.com really doesn't speak to me
This sounds fixable, but you absolutely must create some space to fix the problems. Don't even think about #3 -- it's not doable, and it sounds like the problem isn't just software. Start with #2, pointing out that it's going to get impossible to add features, scale, fix bugs, ... until the code and its environment improves.

Read Joel Spolsky's famous list of 12 things that a software company must do (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html). If you aren't doing at least 9-10 of these, (and it sounds like you don't), you have to fix that. Or your company will die.

Your CTO may say that he'll fix things as you recommend, and then do nothing. If that happens, then go to the CEO, and explain why these things have to happen. If he says the right things and then does nothing, your company will die. This will all take 6 months to play out, at least. If after 6 months nothing has changed, you might want to consider your options. But hopefully your CTO listens and really does something.

If hiring is a top priority, you could point out that the horrendous code and environment will make it difficult to hire good people. Also, that fixing things is likely to reduce headcount requirements. Don't make your case in terms that make sense to you -- make your case in terms that make sense to your CTO and CEO.
It's not that bad of an analogy. PG notes that 'stuff' is a highly illiquid asset, but the ebay analogy promotes liquidity by buying and selling used "stuff". This helps you not accumlate junk, and you get to consume a products utility for some time and return it. I think its consistent with the theme of use what you need.
The point the guy himself makes is that lisp allows him to be a great programmer.

Of course the program could be rewritten into qbasic. It is getting your ideas and thoughts into a form that is not a compromise to the language which matters.
Be careful though. You want to make sure that you get the appropriate recognition for your work. Unless something is done explicitly to counter it, the default is that unsexy work does not receive recognition commensurate with it's impact. And paying down technical debt is the definition of unsexy work.

If the company is tech savvy enough (and it doesn't seem like it is), work with stakeholders ahead of time to define key metrics and how they are impacting the bottom line of the business. Then, get everyone to agree on what the current values for all key metrics are and try and establish goals & milestones you are shooting for.

eg: Time to deploy a release right now is 5 hours. This impacts the business because developers are unable to push out changes in an agile manner so currently, we release every 3 weeks. I propose to reduce deployment down to less than 15 minutes such that we can aim for 3 releases a week. This has business value because it allows us to respond to customer complaints in an agile manner and empowers developers to build experimental features that might end up turning into major business units. The value to the business in terms of increased customer satisfaction and more innovative development is <you have to fill this in yourself>

If you don't do this, you risk devoting blood, sweat and tears to a project which, once you've completed it, everyone forgets how painful the old system was and assumes that it was always this way.
STEP BY STEP JOOMLA TUTORIALS | LEARN How To USE JOOMLA
Joomla is an amazing content management system and can be used to create some dramatic and impressive websites. In fact it's the only content management system you'll ever need... however, it is certainly not easy to use when you first start.
Well, the 33 lisp entrants don't appear to hold the top 33 spots:

http://ai-contest.com/language_profile.php?lang=Lisp
I see that argument a lot but am not really convinced by it. Sure the US has a bunch of land for the population it has, but that is mostly because it has a lot of unpopulated areas in the middle. There's no reason that the actual urban areas need to be less dense and that's where most of the trips happen. There's plenty of countryside outside London or Paris to expand into, so European cities aren't denser because space is at a premium.

I think the real difference is that even in urban areas the US has a much larger tendency to build suburban, single-family housing whereas in Europe apartment buildings are much more common. People prioritize living close to the city center and having a 5 minute commute over having a house and a garden and spending 1+ hours on the highway every day. So it's much more about local density and that is a function of urban planning decisions/preferences and has nothing to do with TotalPopulation/TotalLandMass.
> I wonder how long it would have taken Microsoft to respond to a similar situation.

When ASP.NET's AES implementation was exposed to automated attack recently, the DevDiv guys got out in front of the issue with a workaround in about four days:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/18/important-...

Then, they continued to stay on top of it, providing guidance until a real patch was available:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/20/frequently...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/24/update-on-...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/27/asp-net-se...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/28/asp-net-se...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/30/asp-net-se...
As a person-that-likes-to-walk-around-his-house-naked, I do not want a company to be able to come in to my house at any time to make sure I'm not violating any rules.

Also, that contract would not apply in this case. Sure, the owner is violating the contract, but the person adding the mod chip isn't. He never signed anything.
Anyone know what flavor SQL it is? MySQL/Postgres or something else?
Yeah but currently the XBox isn't licensed to you; You own it, unless I was ill informed.
Most "scene" releases are still at ~192 VBR (-V2 LAME). I think the second sentence of the quote is more apt.

> (Actually, most ears are listening through crummy earbuds anyway, but whatever.)
> Awesome, I'd like to take one of my Lamborghinis for a spin.
>
> Oh, wait, I can't, because I don't actually own any.

If you have a spare £600:

http://www.dreamcarhire.com/cars/lamborghini_lp560_4_spyder....
Online Gift Certificates & Gift Vouchers
I still a student but I'm building my small Internet Empire, so that I don't need to apply for a job when I finish studies (or better, don't think about it). I completed around 35% of my studies and yet, this month, made (around $400) what an Engineer would make in my area.

I'm enthusiastic about the future, especially the next month, when I'll release my Wordpress Premium plugin (and estimate $1K in sales in one month).

Even if you have a nice job, make sure you always have an alternative, in case of... you don't get sucked, by anyone.
You have Grados, that puts you in the top 1%.
How do you block noise? Data looks pretty good, but IAC is not a startup!
Most purpose built datacenters are >100 lb/sf. You only really need in excess of that for rooms full of batteries. Even generators, while individually heavy, usually have enough spare space around them that the overall loading in the room isn't approaching banks of batteries.

Most datacenters which are in excess of that were either originally built for telcos (crazy battery banks for the DC plant), or were industrial (e.g. the TANK FACTORY in SF which became 360 Spear/365 Main).
The first year of it was spent living with family, paying the bills via some light contract work. At that point, I wasn't really sure of where I wanted to go startup-wise, so I leaned on them for a bit.

From there, I moved to Atlanta and into the house of a business partner of mine. Initially, he was working fulltime at a day job while I worked on our product. This lasted for about a year and a half before he left that job.

The last year and a half were spent surviving off savings, stocks, about two months of contracting, etc. In the end, the runway ran out, and the house was foreclosed on (kinda happens when you don't pay the mortgage for a few months). We launched our product the day we moved out of there.

It was the most stressful time of my life, the most work I've ever done, and I feel like I aged a decade in that 3.5 years. But it was easily the most amazing time of my life.

I'm now living in Manhattan and working for an awesome company, but I still miss the startup life. I figure I'll end up doing it all over again in a few years, once I come across the right idea and strategy.
Interesting. I would assume that the Mac+dev-program+testing-device combo would convince people to either go for a full-fledged port or not go through with the idea. (Do note that iOS users aren't accustomed to anything non-native, even just an alternative-styled button can throw them off, although this is less of a restriction in games.)
Family. You can live with your parents, actually nothing wrong about it in many countries. If you eat with them and they have Internet, your living costs are around 0.
I recently purchased a subscription to Grooveshark because of a simple reason. The value I get for buying a song at 64 cents (or 2.99) is not in check with the use I might give said song.

Before Napster I had to buy a cd because I might like a band and probably heard a few songs from them, but I'd have pay 15 bucks for a disk with a 10 to 20 songs which I might or might not like. Then came the Apple store and now I can actually choose the songs I want, but how am I to be certain about the quality and value of most of the songs, when I have probably only heard the most popular ones?

With Grooveshark I pay a monthly/yearly fee and I can just try all the songs I want. If I really want to have a certain song on my iPod to take wherever I want and in a decent audiophile quality, I'll buy it. I think it's thievery to pay a dollar for a song and listen to it for a week and then get tired of it and never listen to it again. Multiply that for an album, and then multiply it for the couple of artists you might like. This is the way that Tv should work also. I get to pay for you to stream me shows, and if I actually like a show enough that I'm sure I'm going to want to either own a digital or physical copy of the product, I'll buy it.

I have no problem buying a digital or physical song/album to support the creator of a product I really like, but a I have a huge issue with having to pay 10 bucks to get an album I'm not sure I want to own, or even listen to more than a couple of times.
Congratulations, jriley on not one, but two monumental decisions. The ring for your girlfriend should turn out to be a contribution to your success equal to your decision to leave your job. Good luck to you both!
I'm sorry how is that a catch? Seems to me that is key to it being Open Source and freely available?
I think you nailed it :)
You can also just buy old (ICBM) missile silos; unfortunately, they are often in pretty bad repair, flooded, and may contain PCBs or asbestos.

http://www.silohome.com/atlas_f_missile_silo_for_sale_ultima... is a particularly nice example of a residential conversion, though.

Moses Lake, WA has a site which got used for ToorCamp, a hacker conference, a couple years ago. http://joachimp.fotki.com/events/toorcamp/page4.html
Such a sentiment says more about the speaker than the world.
Municipality Phone
And, thanks to United Airlines, I now have an additional 4 hours in the airport (the Virgin America terminal, to be exact) – the perfect setting for an enraged blogger.

I wonder if airlines have ever put seriously delayed passengers up in a first class or other special lounge, to distract them from potential stewing.
Absolutely. The state isn't expending all this energy (the development of the DHS, warrantless wiretapping infrastructure, etc.) for no purpose. The purpose is likely counter-insurgency, not terrorism.
Maybe it is cheaper .... but maybe not in terms of time as you are now responsible for maintaining said server and keeping it up. I am the team lead of a small 3 dev team, we manage about 9 applications that all tie together and were self hosting git, until the server melted down and they didn't have a replacement PC for us to put it onto, and a bug fix got held up for almost two days because we couldn't deploy the bastard. Finally I convinced the powers that be that $20 a month for GitHub was money well spent and we have never looked back.
I can only speculate. FSF propaganda influenced me as a teenager. I too would reckon that piracy played a larger role; whatever smaller role things like protesters played may have been useful in articulating the problems that prompted piracy to occur.
I'm a bit surprised that there was no mention of Jef Raskin's information appliance concept

http://gizmodo.com/5452501/the-apple-tablet-interface-must-b...
In this case it didn't follow, because they used PFCs on the rat during the filming of the movie.
Four Flavors of Freemium
So more than a fifth of the lisp entries are in the bottom twentyfifth of the competition. So you could also use the contest results to argue that lisp is five times worse for AI than the average language.

(Or, rather, that language alone doesn't guarantee success, but that would be too rational and boring for an online forum).
If you work a couple of years in a "boring, corporate gig" and watch your spending carefully (i.e. rent a "decent enough" flat, buy a used and "working well enough" car, eating reasonably cheap), you should be able to save enough to support yourself for the same amount of time, in my experience (and I'm on a Spanish salary, considerably less than the equivalent in the US or nordic countries here in EU.)

Of course the whole time you must be prepared to sacrifice bits of your quality of life, before and during the bootstrapping period (hopefully not after).

I really depends on your goals in life.
Bahnhof is pretty amazing. They have great interior design too, almost like a movie set (although I haven't visited in person yet).

While for reasons of principle, hosting controversial content is great, and if it's legal in your jurisdiction, it is up to you if you want to do it, as a practical matter, a site getting >10Gbps DDoS while paying presumably close to nothing is going to potentially impair the usability of other sites in the datacenter. Even if you don't put profits above principle, you have a responsibility to your other customers to not fuck them over.

A pure colocation (vs. managed or hosting) facility in a legal to host jurisdiction, near or at a carrier hotel where you can cheaply buy bandwidth from a bunch of different providers (on their core networks), and with great filtering agreements in place with the upstreams, is probably the only way to go. The colocation facility is just renting you space and power, and it's a much more arms length relationship; you can rapidly turn up network connections from other providers within the facility, vs. your own building somewhere (where running fiber often requires digging up the streets).

Back in 2000 I did this with ~2Gbps of aggregate transit/peering to people inside London Telehouse, and 4xE1 + WiFi to the hosting location, with VPN over VSAT as a backup.

You want to be able to put "problem" customers on their own subnets, potentially on their own routers and even transit connections, to isolate them from the rest of your customers. Combined with the regulatory constraints, Stockholm and Amsterdam are probably the best places to do this right now (or SFBA if it's a customer who will not be a legal problem in the US).
Lots of good advice here.

One other thing to keep in mind: everything is a business decision, whether or not the people knew it when they built it.

He may not be a great CTO but they do have a profitable product. There are many companies with beautiful code bases and no money.
I'm curious if wikileaks picked Amazon knowing they'd be kicked off (either for political or technical reasons), just to increase their own media profile.