skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Style-wise, this wooden binary adder wins:
http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/

This MIT project uses Fluidics, making computers from water:
http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/projects/project_water.html

So if electrons are fire, we now have wood and water. I suppose these wind-powered walking robots complete the set:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Ny5BYc-Fs
I'm wondering if this includes mobile internet usage. Since as luccastera pointed out, Africa is small (yet there mobile usage is comparatively high).
Campfire set up for organizing and just general ChiTown talk. http://ycombinator.campfirenow.com if you want an invite mail cubend#gmail.com Works well as a message board or a chatroom. I'll be in there off and on all week
Keith does a good job to develop community here though it seems beta is a bit stagnant. I believe he's still working on JobCoin as well as a pretty successful facebook app
Yeah, I'd like to have some proof myself. And details. Is this cash we're talking about?
It's important, but it's not important for the initial release. Because when you're just starting out, nobody on the site has any friends (that visit the site, at least ;-)).

Friends lists seem more useful after a community grows, because they let it fragment. That seems to be the only way to avoid the scale problems that plague bigger news sites like Digg and Reddit. If you're truly niche and don't anticipate growing, you won't need them at all. (But then, if you're truly niche, you've really got a hobby and not a startup...)

I'd put them off till your users ask for them, basically.
YC West Coast Demo Day: Can We Have More Info Please?
I am very interested in what went on at YC West Coast Demo Day. Except for the Techcrunch article and the Flickr photo stream I am struggling to find some good content about demo day. Did someone shoot some video or grab some audio content? Common YC graduates, blog your heart out.
Often a summary or small excerpt is useful for readers, so they can decide whether it's worth following the link.

No more than a paragraph or so, though. It should not take more time to skim the summary/excerpt than to follow the link.
Top Ten Reasons To Avoid Venture Capital
venture capital's downside.
But they are storing a copy of your files. Wouldn't copyright law forbid any copying as such? Like I couldn't put a copy of a song I had on my friends computer even if I said "only play this when I'm here". Or is that example not analogous?

(I'm sure this is a dumb question, I don't know much about copyright law.)
Venture Voice - Podcasts of interviews with Entreprenuers
I'd be more interested in % of participating visitors than visits. Also, commenters count, too!
Keep it Simple, Stupid Applies to Your Landing Pages, Too!
Hmm, on second thought, they are only storing the file for you. So I guess if they were illegal, then online backup apps would also be illegal.

So I guess as long as they keep everyones' files seperate they would be ok.

So does that imply that if two people have the same file, they still have to store it two times? And still have to do the upload twice?
Here is some juicy stuff - Tripadvisor says the report is not true:
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9761584-7.html
Top 5 SEO blogs to read to keep up with SEO trends for your startup
The "Pareto Rule" specifically refers to an 80/20 ratio.

Pareto didn't prove anything, he just made an observation about the italian economy. Other people noticed the ratio elsewhere, and named the rule after him.
The difference with online backups is that it's dedicated to music. No one wants to share their online backup account, but they might share or even sell their Anywhere.fm account. The legit use for the service is probably legally safe, but things can get gray quickly.

They should definitely requite all new uploads and store entirely separate copies of everyone's music. Doing optimization based on a file's checksum, like you'd do for a straight backup service, would be harder to explain to a judge.

They should very quickly implement a mechanism for locking accounts that get too many logins from different IP ranges in a short period of time. It shouldn't be too difficult to make it annoying for naughty users without impacting legit users. Staying on top of abuse and not letting their site get overrun like Veoh is key.
OpenID: Great idea, bewildering consumer experience
Google AdSense Teams up with 'Family Guy' Creator
Zivity, an adult social network, raises $1M before launch
Updated: TripAdvisor Denies Buying Facebook App
Advertising As Content Sites Proliferate, But Viewers Might Skip Altogether
Unneeded Upgrades
Yup. I posted it in this thread a while back, but looks like it got buried under earlier posts:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43352
Who makes a top ten list and then doesn't number the items? I guess these people...
Sounds like falsehood. If he really wanted to go online, lots of ways were available: CDMA 3G [cheap, though requires approx. $200 hw expenses], GSM GPRS/EDGE [usually expensive], dialup (relatively cheap), internet cafes (quite cheap), TV cable company, other ISPs.. so...
What is going on with the editing of submission titles?
Twice now, I've seen my submission titles edited by someone else (probably Graham or his admins, if he has any for this site).

Both times, the edits were innocuous (the first one improved the title ever so slightly) but unnecessary.

It's not a huge problem, but it is a bit annoying.
snipshot
What were the changes?
Sounds like there is a kernel of truth that got passed around the rumor mill.
Basically, this article stinks and just uses a sensationalist headline for the sake of it.
It's also interesting that the same pattern did not show up in Japan or China. Why? Were the rich there not genetically superior enough?
Seth's Blog: No business model
I had a similar WTF moment when I read how Buffett was picking the new manager of Berkshire Hathaway. It seems to go against everything he's taught in 30 years of letters from the chairman. He's written specifically about how short-term incentives like this lead to poor performance over time.

It makes me wonder if there's something else at work. Maybe Buffett plans to watch what the managers do with the money over 2 years, ignore the results, and pick the one whose actions best fit Buffett's investing style. The "contest" aspect is to see how managers react to temptation - after all, they will face incentives like this every time they need to write Berkshire's annual reports. Buffett wants something who will do the right thing even when the incentives are not aligned with it. This way, he can weed out the ones that will prioritize short term gain over long term health when people ask for short term gain, and select only the ones that actually know what they're doing.
Exactly. Visits is not a useful measurement at all. It's the percentage of users that contribute something that's interesting and there are a lot of ways to contribute.

Hitwise is also a third party without full access to the actual data for these sites. Their reports are definitely inaccurate, the question is just how inaccurate. Someone already pointed out they upload data with a downloadable client that would likely not be counted.
I think it'd be nice if there were some simple page displaying what instructions the admins are operating under. They're white knights not gestapo, right? :-)
When I heard the $3mm figure, I immediately started questioning it. That much money for something that can't be monetized that easily is just silly. Sure, that app owner has amassed all these users but these users are not his! He has no relationship with them so the value that he's trying to sell is heavily discounted.
I've had this happen to one of my submissions too. It was this post:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41988

I didn't put the authors name in title and it was edited to reflect that.
Then don't hire those people. :)
Time to stop coding and reimplement yet another JS framework
In the same way as Seth's example Hacker News is providing a service to the community and at the same time they are promoting their company YCombinator. Very clever.
Why's it matter? They have our interests in mind. This works because we're small and Paul's visible.

I'm sure there are no specific 'instructions'. They're trying to keep the site nice because it's a reflection of YCombinator.
Are you implying that my reaction to genetic determinism is just a result of my uncritical acceptance of liberal, academic mores?

Personally, I think racism is more socially acceptable than most of us would like to admit. I've met people who left research in biotech because the ubermensch mentality was so pervasive there.

There is little evidence that social behaviours are transmitted genetically -- but you need only examine the history of Buddhist monasticism to realize that social behaviours can be transmitted, with extreme uniformity, in the absence of consanguinity. Why do people fall back on genetic determinism? It has a lot to do, I think, with logical positivism -- something that is very attractive to academics of every persuasion, except those close enough to its roots (physicists) to understand its limitations.
hmmm, I guess I didn't really do my homework: it looks like bigsight.org is a people directory, and Craig's entry is open to public editing (http://www.bigsight.org/directory/501/edit).
Microsoft Opens Up Windows Live ID
Also, note that a group of us are meeting weekly for a development sprint. An initial site is here:

http://www.tekniks.org/

We're meeting later today, at 7p, right downtown. Hope to see you folks out.

- John Quigley
I believe in my submission I had put the authors name at the end, and it has now been moved to the front of the title. Either that or I'm just really tired.
Videos that can change you (or your startup)
I disagree with both of his points.

For the first, it is convenient to automatically search for all of your aim buddies instead of having to do so manually. Of course I'd only do this on a site that I trust (Facebook is one example). It adds value for the users. Plus it is purely optional.

Secondly, while I can see that some people might find these email alerts annoying, I feel they are quite useful. Adds a bit of clutter to the inbox, but it allows me to keep up-to-date with the goings on. However, there is a link on the emails to change what types of alerts they send you.

These are my thoughts on these points from the Facebook perspective.
Great point man.

"In the space of one day, we've gone from startup news to rehashed reddit news."

I love reddit, but I loved the old yc news also. I don't understand how this happens. PG says we're changing focus and all of a sudden people start linking and upvoting different stories??

How is this more interesting to hackers than startup news. I don't understand how a rather top-down decree has changed the output of a definitively democratic system.
Yeah it's strange for a group that wanted to be more business savvy than the Free Software guys not to trademark Open Source Software.
Skype shuts down
Editors edit submission titles for two reasons:

1. To keep the site clean (no spelling mistakes, gratuitously long titles, SHOUTING!!!, etc.)

2. To keep titles fairly neutral. People have a right to say what they want in comments, but because a story can only be submitted once, if we didn't edit submission titles, the first submitter could put whatever spin on the story, and all readers would have to read it as that.
I wish they could explain further what caused the outage. I think it'll help in future designs of p2p networks.
In today's world, the rich have fewer children than the poor. Perhaps the Japanese and Chinese were ahead of their times, or maybe the rich there had some understanding of birth control.
Sounds good.

What about posting a link to the original content. Here is an example:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43528

From the article it is clear that the original news was broken at:
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9761584-7.html?part=rss&...

I am not sure why the submitter decided to post a site that quoted the news instead of the original news source.
Nick Black of Mappam on location based advertising
Spell check. Its always nice to posts with less mistakes.
Natural selection favors nerdiness...awesome.
I am strongly in favor of genetically engineering myself and my children. Improving ourselves using biology is inevitable. Is this the ubermensch mentality you're referring to?
Empires: Ajax Axis and Allies, a game of expansion and conflict
JavaScript Model Objects (JMO) - An Idea
American Airlines Sues Google over Keyword Ads
I think we're quickly approaching a slippery slope here. Seeing as a username is attached to every post, isn't the user somewhat responsible for every link (s)he posts? It now constitutes part of their reputation. Now, if an editor modifies the post but the username is still attached to the post and their is no indication that it's been edited , is the original poster still responsible for the post? (S)he can turn around and say, "That's not what I posted. I don't want that attached to my submission history. I don't want any karma that's associated with that altered post, whether good or bad."
Paul Hsieh on Hash functions
I always felt business models were kind of unnecessary...you just need to be able to sell something down the line.
Emacs visual cheat sheet
Word is that they're trying to comply with Patriot Act and wiretapping provisions. Since Skype's a P2P app, they need to somehow capture all these conversations.
Or maybe this deal is so anomalous because it's fictitious. I guess I was being too naive.
What's the difference between the proposed solution and yui's datatable/datasource?
This just proves what everyone knew all along...unless there truly are a few super-prostitutes that make the median go up to 7 for men.
http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/08/tests-with-robo.html

Apparently I'm not the only one who got a kick out of "Tests with robotic squirrels". :)
Neither scenario describes my original titles.

Perhaps it was just over-zealous editing, but budu3 makes an excellent point about attribution.

I post here under my real name, and I'm always careful to think through what I post.

If I get the sense that what I type here is going to be changed arbitrarily by 3rd parties, that is going to end my participation.

I understand you're trying to prevent what happened to slashdot and reddit, but there is such a thing as going too far in the other direction.
Those things were once cutting-edge; I believe Charles Babbage designed one in the 1830s, and Richard Feynman worked on another mechanical computer in WW2.
They were minor edits for brevity, just the removal of one or two adjectives and conjunctions.

I.e., they were the types of things that if I were writing a paper and a draft reviewer suggested removing them, I would have said "ok".

But that's not the point.
If you can't detect, a priori, which research projects will be successful, why in God's name do we have a grant process?

You're making my point for me, which is that the process of allocating research funding is driven by nothing other than political power.

The university system is built upon the premise that basic research can justify its funding annually by explaining to Congress the many benefits it will yield to American citizens. There is no "all of it" to fund. An infinite amount of funding will generate an infinite amount of research.

I can tell you exactly why the next big development in computing won't come out of type theory. It's because type theory, at least as it exists presently, is impossible for anyone with an IQ of less than 140 to understand. And it is getting more complex, not less complex.

Isn't a PL designer what I called Steele? Note that he doesn't call himself a PL researcher.
I sure wouldn't want to be associated with my submission anymore if the editors changed my title from "UPDATED!!!!1" to "Updated".
"If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
I actually agree with all of this - in theory.

The problem is that the actual process by which this guesswork is done, actually right now in the real world, is nonsense. It is permeated by intentional distortions of reality. As a result, in my opinion, research is pointed in directions which a reasonable observer would guess are dry holes. The fundamental difficulty is that Congress is not a reasonable observer - it is a political one.

This is inextricable from the phenomenon of official research funding. I suspect that private philanthropic funding - the way it worked before WWII, a period in which there was no computer science, but quite a lot of other science - would do a much better job of "guesswork."
Note: Campfire turns out to be less than optimal for these purposes. Working on setting something better up.
One fix might be to implement something like Facepunch Studio's forum system. You're auto-banned for a day if you don't capitalize your thread titles and banned by moderators if you shout in ALL CAPS or misspell words.

Here's their ban list: http://forums.facepunchstudios.com/showbans.php?
I don't disagree at all, but neither do I repent. I just think the world needs equal and opposite hyperbole.

But I also think it needs PL design - in the sense of Guy Steele, Paul Graham, Guido von Rossum, etc, etc, etc. And I do think the existence of "PL research" is a serious detriment to the organization and development of PL design. At the very least, they should be parallel subfields.
Tripadvisor's ambiguous statement actually fuels the rumour even more.
It spoils the others because the relationship between science and personal honesty is extremely close and important. Science has to be utterly intolerant of nonsense. Its spirit is to attack it and take no prisoners. If you have this spirit - like D.J. Bernstein - you will not be welcome in any CS faculty that exhibits curate's egg nature, for fairly obvious reasons.

(I'm a particularly big fan of DJB because his very existence is a sort of counterattack - he's a programmer who's infiltrated the math department! Unfortunately there is only one of him, but we could certainly use a dozen more.)
Don't take it just in the context of a hacker/programmer. Think about all those other professions/occupations/specializations. We tend to zoom in one specific aspect of accomplishing something. I'm simply hypothesizing that comes at the expense of seeing the big picture. The best of us are those that see it from multiple angles and gain multiple specializations. Then again, they become "jack of all trades, master of none". That's another discussion. Is that useful?
Totally agree. I am pretty sure I would test positive for bipolarity, and distractions are about the only things that can make me happy when I'm depressed.
Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied
On second thought, if the need is there I'll just put out the cash and get a 12 user room for the month. Campfire seems like a good way to do this. Any other suggestions?
Historical Federal Reserve Data
http://www.groupomatic.com/
This is so weird... To whose advantage is it to lie about this so blatantly?
Agreed. I was just wondering out of interest.
Great post. I'm working on an OpenID implementation for my site right now so I've been thinking about this stuff. I really want to use OpenID exclusively, but not sure it's ready for prime time.

What we really need is a way to wrap the OpenID sign up process within our site registration, and when the registration is done tell the user 'Hey, you now have an OpenID which you can use on tons of other sites!'. I doubt that many non-geek users will be wading through all OpenID pages to find out how to actually get one - they will use it if they can sign up for one on my site.

Also, there should be an OpenID signup form right on the front of the openid.net site - why isn't there? They could just send it to a random provider or something. OpenIDs are so easy to use once you have one, yet so difficult to get.

Here's another thing I'm considering: since all AIM addresses are OpenID's now, just ask people for their AIM address and never even mention OpenID. Maybe make the login form default to AIM with a little text link to switch to OpenID, for people who know what it is.

If I figure out a frictionless OpenID strategy, I'll post it up here on news.yc.
Now that they're owned by EBay, maybe they should have scheduled downtime once a week.
Can anyone think of an example of another equally successful service having this much downtime?
There's a YC company (sitepass, I believe) that is working on using OpenID. I assume they are working to assuage these problems?
Cringely: Surviving Immortality
Some possibilities (Edited):

- Facebook lied, which would benefit them if the lie wasn't exposed since it would give people more incentive to develop Facebook applications. Except it would be silly for Facebook to start random applications like "Where I've Been" and hope that one catches on so that they can lie. So, as the comment below says, this possibility is out.

- Someone else lied hoping it would catch on and make Facebook look bad.

- Someone for no reason started the rumor that Craig was bought when in reality he wasn't, and insideFB picked up the story.

- insideFB lied about it for the sole purpose of gaining traffic to its site.

I hope Craig settles the issue soon.
It's ClickPass:

http://www.clickpass.com

Launching this month, according to their site. I'll be curious to see this.
Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible
Or maybe not:

Updated: TripAdvisor Denies Buying Facebook App
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43528
How is FBSecrets the same as FB? To me it just seems to be some blog that is cashing in on the FB brand. I don't think Mark or Facebook has anything to do with this.
You've confused issues :) There was the Facebook source code leak, which is what you're talking about, then this.
Brian i think a wrap system would be a great idea. it would probably be the best way to get a program like this off the ground, while benefiting other webmasters at the same time. Unfortunately such a thing like that reqiures coordination between webmasters (or hackers should i say) that still doesn't exist in the commerical webscene (we all see each other as competitors trying to steal one anothers members).

It seems like the only way something like OpenID could get its start is if a big player adopts it like wikipedia and the rest of us follow.

But a great creators community is starting to emerge here at ycombinator, perhaps with a forum or something here at hackers news we can lead the way to a universal ID system that would make the web better for everyone.
You are right :)... Too many blogs about FB! I meant to say insideFB, but typed FBsecrets instead... but its the same argument. Neither of these is owned by FB so its not Mark or FB lying.
Paul,
Regarding your first point:

This title could use editing if any title needs editing - "Fuck Facebook Conversion: Be platform agnostic and use your own APIs. "
I appreciate that the title of the blog entry is such, but then the site doesn't look clean with this title. I must also say, I think this aspect of the new changes might be a tad over zealous perhaps even anti-septic.

Regarding your second point -
Titles are made to tempt people to click and most times the original blogger or author might use such a ploy.We might use the original authors title and he may be doing the spinning. How far down the line can you edit? Again the "Fuck Facebook" title is a case in point.

I urge you to reconsider the editing. Thoughts?
This is true for my Comcast connection in Pittsburgh.
I totally agree. I was just examining one possibility, however remote, so it could be discounted. So it's not Facebook.

I don't understand why someone would make something popular and then lie about its acquisition though.. Which means I've spun a big old circle back to far33d's original question.
Links like that are regularly edited to point to the original article instead
Can't we just make something? :P
This is my best guess too. Damn wiretapping. I've been cut off for 2 days now. At least I get more work done... or get more YC News read.