skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I wonder why most big companies become inept as they grow larger. Somehow Apple has sidestepped those effects.
Absolutely. I still find a lot of interesting things there, and the comments are really great. I especially like the comment tags (informative, funny, etc.).
Nunchuck skills.
Cool, in the US, the people would be arrested after the show (see 'to catch a predator', senator foot tapper, etc.).
This is probably true of people in any creative field.
Mencius Moldbug: A reservationist epistemology
affordable??
http://www.hostip.info/

Good if you're not completely sure of how much geolocation will do for you or you don't want to spend a fortune.
Once there is a problem and then they fix the issue they end up hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of transactions behind which is now a new problem; catch up the old transactions until the system is entirely caught up or process new transactions and old transactions so at least some of the customers will be happy and the unhappy ones, well they were already unhappy anyway.

This is hard to compare to Apple, other then they seem to have kept the iTunes service online without interruption. I would be really unhappy if Apple iTunes service went down right when I bought a bunch of my favorite Britney Spears songs.
http://www.urban75.com
Why would blackwater violate a contract with a paying customer?

Power is not zero-sum. Trade is positive sum. That is very, very basic economics.
When I work on commercial automated driving, I plan to get Budweiser to sponsor the effort. Perpetually vigilant designated driver == license to drink like a fish.
A Conversation with Michael Stonebraker and Margo Seltzer
I stopped for a while when reddit was at its peak, but now I'm back to slashdot every once in a while.
Content-aware (seam carving) image resizing in less than 350 lines of Python
I have to say I don't see why you want to do that - "browse in screenshots".
no.

gave up on reddit, too, which now consists mostly of iran conspiracy theories.
This would seem a simple feature for any existing web mail service to get a larger share of the customer. As long as all of your providers support IMAP you can even do it yourself with something like OfflineIMAP.
ClusterBy: a handy little function for the toolbox
OfficeZilla.com allows you to setup multiple pop accounts and get them all in one place, but wait till the end of this month to sign up as I have a bunch of improvements on the way, the mail module is a bit dated right now.
I rate http://groupswiki.com - nice simple UI.
When you strike at a king you must kill him.
Advanced D Programming Language Features (vid)
By sanity I'm assuming you mean serious horse's-head-in-the-refrigerator loopiness and not the sort of insanity that makes grown men construct trebuchets or think they can write novels. Also, I considered trustworthiness and honesty for that list but didn't include them because I think most people are honest and weeding out the remaining few may take time, but those are all good points.
Rails creator, DHH, on Java and the other 'junk'
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish... worked great for Microsoft for decades. How to extend that to web apps though?
Low end: http://www.ip2location.com/
High end: Akamai (akamai.com) has a ~$10k/month hyper-accurate solution.
Perhaps related:
http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=133&q=105

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
That's interesting. Can you say why you suspect that without naming names, or list some traits that would make someone too crazy to work with? Did anything specific happen at a company you can talk about?

I can't think of anything that would qualify any of the dozen or so programmers I know as crazy. It'd be interesting to know what a crazy hacker is like.
http://www.ipligence.com/en/products/

never used them, just adding it to the list
Terror futures could be a good way to factor socio-political factors into a market prediction engine.

This might be the reason they were developed in the first place.
Apples battery problems across several different product lines show they still have issues.
Programming in latest greatest language = bad.

Time is an investment in your future, when you take the time to learn a language, you have invested in yourself. If you pick some new on the block language like Ruby on Rails is that a good investment?
Adpinion and Fuzzwich are each about right for their respective companies.
If you haven't met the 1% he's talking about... it might be you :)
It'd be arrogant to rule that possibility out, but I'm cheerful.

Especially when I have dinner arrangements with Hannibal.

Hey, wanna tag along sometime? We'd love to have a friend for dinner.
Yes.

The time investment to learn a new language isn't linear.. It seems logarithmic. Learning the basic syntax details does take a little time, but then you can start thinking in that new language.

The learning curve only gets gentler as you learn more languages.
"Nail the core features. Everything else will follow"
Adsense Diary - almost reality show
I didn't mean to jack the thread, just to observe that Apple is one example of a large company that has sidestepped the mysterious force that makes big companies appear inept. I'd like to define what exactly that force is and define how to prevent it.
The Maxmind GeoIP database is what most people are using. It's quite accurate, has good libraries for many languages, but it's proprietary and costs money.

(Starting an open source competitor is on my list of fun projects to do)
I've been waiting for this.
Title is a bit misleading. The 'junk' DHH refers to is the baggage of enterprise apps generally (which everyone knows), not a specific diss against Java.
Apple became massively inept as they grew larger. Do you remember what they were like from 1985-1998? They had a wonderful product with the Mac, a lackluster followup, a huge explosion of new models around 1993 (most of which weren't all that good), and then they nearly went out of business around 1997. I was a die-hard Mac user for most of my childhood, but gave up on them in 1998 when they took the Microsoft investment and copied all the worst features of Windows.

They only got better when Steve Jobs returned and axed most of their product lines. (Okay, Gil Amelio was really responsible for most of the axing and some of the new development, but Jobs has an eye for design.) Apple now is lean and simple. Apple ten years ago had a byzantine product line of mediocre machines and buggy software.
One I'd add: Resilience. The ability to have frustrating disagreements or problems and get past them easily without the build up of any residual resentment.
Ah, informative, thanks. Nah, I don't remember those years.. I was born in '88.

So maybe the excellence of a company is directly tied to strong leadership. Wal-mart used to be an excellent company too, when Walton was around (or so I've read), and now they appear merely efficient.
About the only time I read it anymore is when something else links to a post there.

The editors are Slashdot's twist on tech news, but the editors are almost uniformly awful. The stories they break are consistently days behind Digg/Reddit, and of no better quality.
What, based on your experience, should we do?
DokuWiki is great for documentation. That's the only type of wiki I've built so far, and I definitely have to recommend it.
People that were shocked at the idea of a futures market in terrorism and other global events had probably never understood the term "futures market" to begin with. It was a great idea. Though it had questionable utility given the nature of deliberately hidden information before terror attacks, it would have been more useful in guessing things like revolutions.
My Glorious Defeat?
Read through all 4 pages. It is a good article. The best quotes:
"Maybe failure isn't the problem. Maybe expectation is",

"The great thing about surviving a storm is that you're much better prepared the next time the winds start kicking up. You recognize the early warnings. You stock up on essentials. And, most crucial, you go in knowing that no matter what happens, you can always rebuild.",

"Because I'd failed, I wasn't afraid of failing. And that enabled me to push a lot harder for what I believed in.",

"Given all these risks, why do it? Because even in failure, I knew I'd grow from it. ",

"It's just like weight training, really. You push yourself until your muscles fail. That's how you grow stronger."
Google Phone being shown to select Boston VCs and entrepreneurs
I think you might be checking too many things, which will make it almost impossible to hire someone. I would just evaluate on A,C, E, F, H, K
schevo.org integrates well with pylons
Google baldy wounded Yahoo in that fashion. Facebook is trying to be more than it is. I think it could easily fail, but it is probably the right goal.
I can't quite explain why, but I find this blog hilarious.
NTU Student survey - Funny comments
The language is Ruby. "Ruby on Rails" could be considered a domain-specific language, but most think of it as a web application framework built on Ruby. Learning a language that exposes you to new ways of programming is a good thing (tm). Learning a language that broadens your mind AND makes you more productive is even better. Is it a good investment for you? Depends on what you already know. If you already have good knowledge of a reasonable language + framework (e.g., Python/Django), then you might just want to go off and build your business. If all you know is PHP and you've been hand-coding spaghetti web apps, then learning RoR is a good investment, if at least to expose you to some reasonable programming patterns.
This is almost depressing. On the one hand, it makes you feel happy to know stuff, then sad that so much time is wasted.
Actual Cost vs Benefit calculation = not simple.
Once a day for the headlines and insightful or interesting comments.
Check out Aaron's (partial?) response: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/perfectionism
10 more reasons why web startups fail
> "They don't break any stories to me anymore"

Care to explain why breaking news stories are relevant at all? I don't see their point.
Top 10 Reasons Why Web Startups Fail
taken from site that's been slashdotted.
Leaked pictures of new iPod nano (3rd gen) - these look pretty real to me
If you are a consultant then definitely, Rails consulting is paying 2-4x what most PHP developers are getting at current market rates.
Silverlight is EEE for the web.

First, MSFT deploys Silverlight clients broadly. In this phase, they will do just about anything to see it deployed on any platform available, specifically including Linux and MacOS. Continue until essentially all new computers include a Silverlight client.

Secondly, persuade developers that Silverlight is a viable platform. This requires (1) - mass developer adoption of a sparsely-deployed or Windows-only web platform won't happen, not even with MSFT's marketing muscle. Continue until Silverlight achieves Flash-like ubiquity.

Thirdly, either through patents, DMCA, obscurity, or all three, kill off any non-MSFT Silverlight server-side solutions. Ensure that Silverlight app quality is superior to web apps by, if necessary, sabotaging web standards efforts and keeping IE buggy.

At that point, if you want to deploy a 'serious' app over the Internet, you'll (hopefully, from MSFT's perspective) feel strongly compelled to pay the MSFT tax and buy Silverlight servers. (For extra fun, in a few years, maybe MSFT chokes off non-Windows Silverlight client implementations. That's extra-speculative, however. My core speculation is that Silverlight is best understood as MSFT's play for the datacenter.)

A lot of money has been made by companies who successfully set up 'toll booths' between buyers and sellers. MSFT's OS monopoly was based upon providing the means for application developers to deliver their wares to consumers. Game console maker's profits are based upon their ability to restrict access to the gamers who own their consoles to companies who give them money. (I'm not saying this is unethical, just how the money is made.) The web undermines this model; the standards are open and (pretty) simple, clients and servers are freely available, and therefore there's no way to erect a toll booth between app developers/content publishers and consumers.

It looks to me that MSFT would like to change that. (So would Adobe, but they're a lot less able to pull it off.)

Anyway, a little paranoia for you there. Enjoy!
schevo does look interesting, I'll have to give it a closer look. Though as far as I can tell it isn't widely used... how is your experience of it?
Yes, I'm pretty much checking out the solution-space as a whole. I'll probably end up slinking back to SQL, but at least I'll know why.
+1, it is lightweight and feature rich enough.
This isn't all that paranoid; Adobe's business model for Flash is similar, although they haven't attacked Red5 yet.
Nelly2pcm may allow affordable Flash/VoIP gateways
Feedjit Customized Widget Shows Real Time SiteTraffic
From the CouchDB Wiki:

What it is not

A relational database.

A replacement for relational databases.

An object-oriented database. Or more specifically, meant to function as a seamless persistence layer for an OO programming language.
Impressive growth for a widget first mentioned here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43124

See scaling discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45104
If someone has curiosity, good communication skills, and a modicum of coding skills, that's all you really need. Domain, platform, and computer science knowledge can all be acquired as needed. Compatible personality is moderately useful; however, you can always get around conflicts by partitioning the project into areas where you designate one or the other of you as the head overseer who gets dictatorial powers in that area.
If I recall, didn't he create this in one day as an experiment? I am very impressed. This is a golden example of why to set realistic goals and release early.
Slashdot is useful in that it aggregates content differently than do reddit/digg. As such, you find stories there selected by the editors that the rabid mob at reddit would otherwise ignore. Also, because the comments are moderated and scored, I find them to be fairly useful when viewed at a high enough filtering threshold.
Could GPay Be Google's Killer Phone App?
He says 10.5 hours: http://markmaunder.com/2007/how-to-create-a-startup-in-105-h...
Why is the violin so hard to play?
Anyone have any suggestions on some straight up locality databases (city,state,zip,country, international)?
From what I understand it's also multiplicative. So for example if someone were both a hacker and a painter...
7 Reasons Why Microsoft is Doomed
Not this year, not next year... but soon - almost certainly by the next decade.
Business Angels for your Startup Business
Setting up a new business can be a daunting prospect. There's the possibility of failure, and with it, the risk of losing the money you've invested in your company, as well as seeing all your months or even years of hard work go to waste. But, there's truth in the old saying, "nothing ventured, nothing gained." The biggest rewards accrue to those who not only have a vision for their business, but also are prepared to see it through and have the courage of their convictions.
OpenCoffeeClub - For People Interested in Entrepreneurship
Not having frets doesn't help, either.
Thank you so much for the link, it's the best I've read on the subject.
BarCode Maker: With ADD-IN now, use it with your editor like office, open office
BarCode Maker: With ADD-IN now, use it with your editor like office, open office
Yep, we're using it -- I think it was $20 for 20,000 queries. Which for us means 20,000 sign-ups. We're happy to pay 0.1 cent to get a sign-up. :-)

And we like their simple "API" -- no icky SOAP, just a GET to a URL.
That is it, I had not heard of Ruby until I started seeing a lot of postings about Ruby on Rails.

I never got past the part where you have to make a configuration file or something to generate the code for your page. That just seems to me a bad idea. I realize now that is just the RoR part to make getting into Ruby easier.
Isn't there a YC startup that's related to futures markets of sorts? (or fantasy markets)

... Wisdom of Crowds was a great read, too..
Would anyone mind refuting anything I've said here?
Ah, all this time I thought you had to buy the whole database.
Sort of like Ender's game? Such a good book....
You probably know this already, but I'd like to clarify for future readers:

The one configuration file you have to set up when you first start a Rails project is database.yml. It tells Rails how to talk to your database. There are two fields for you to fill in, "database" and "password". The rest of the fields are filled in automatically.

Here's an example database.yml file. Notice that it has three environments (development, production, and test), and that different databases are used for each. If you're developing your application, you're using yourapp_dev. Rails uses yourapp_test during unit testing:

common: &common
adapter: mysql
host: localhost
username: root
password: somepassword

development:
database: yourapp_dev
<<: *common

production:
database: yourapp_prod
<<: *common

test:
database: yourapp_test
<<: *common
I agree - sheer enthusiasm and get it done attitude makes up and then some more for raw brainpower.

Something else that is important in the context of compatible personality is someone who is very direct and critical when needed.
Broadband in SF
Hello all,

I just moved to SF, and am in the midst of making the most important decision of my move: What broadband service should I subscribe to? I think ATT, Verizon and Comcast are available in my area. Anyone have any recommendations? I like to spend my nights hacking away, but don't need an uber-fast connection. Reliability is most important to me.

Thanks,

Eddie
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Ruby still an OOP language? so in a way, there is no "new ways" of programming so to speak. Just that Ruby is dynamic whereas C-based family languages aren't.
What's so much better about the pay solutions?
It is very late and I am too tired for a more detailed reply to this. The dude is wrong.

By the way, isn't anyone else tired of this endless "shift to services" BS that we've been fed by tech-media since around year 2000? And even if it's a "shift" indeed, as opposed to just another possible option, isn't Microsoft in the best position to simply start charging everybody $XX/mo for Vista subscription?

Microsoft does have its problems, but they certainly have nothing to do with their business model or "lack of friends". As much as I dislike their products these days, nobody else managed to charge people for software as much as they did (and still do). Almost everybody else, having failed to produce something valuable enough to have users pay them money, is busy deciding on the same lame question: "shall we put the ads up or we still have enough cash to wait until someone acquires us?" The business is simple: make something people want and they will pay you. Either up front or monthly - is it really that important?

Every point he makes is either invalid or plain stupid. How can one say that "Microsoft is doomed because their stock isn't rising anymore"? He is confusing a reason with consequence.
I murdered a lot of people; lets get rich.
Ruby's main advantage is that they've nailed the syntax sugar in all the right places. For example, given function foo:

foo()

is equivilant to

foo

Also, code blocks are specified outside the function argument list. Something that looks like this in javascript:

foo(a,b,c,d,function() {
console.log("some callback")
})

would look like this in Ruby:

foo(a,b,c,d) do
puts "some callback"
end

or even just:

foo(a,b,c,d) { puts "some callback" }

That last one isn't a function definition.. it's a function call equivalent to the example before it.

It's mostly the fact that it -looks- cleaner in all the right places that makes it appealing. That and the massively powerful web framework built on top of it.
PG is setting blogging trends in a similar way to how David Beckham set hairstyles in the early 00's.
But Ruby is still OOP right? And these syntatic sugars don't really change the way people program in a hardcore way no?

Basically this is another way to make your loop looks nicer but nothing more.

You could argue this case if the language in the topic is something like LISP or Haskell compare to the C-based languages.
Last time I checked, IBM is still selling software. Custom or shrink-wrap.
But.. Erm.. making a program nicer is the sole purpose of all high level programming languages. Programmers read a lot more than they code. The nicer it makes your program, the more powerful it is.
Comcast throttles bittorrent; you may want to avoid them for pragmatic or idealistic reasons.
Wow, good find, and a worthwhile read - he touches on everything from the past and future of databases, programming languages to east vs west coast VCs.
Wow, just say "Java is junk" and you get 20 points of karma?
The documentation is limited. But it is very powerful and easy to use. The support on the IRC is excellent although the response time is around a day.
There's more to a language than whether it's object-oriented or not. It sounds like you are saying, well it's just OOP so it's not any different than C++. It's almost like saying "CLOS is still OOP, right?"

Yes, Ruby is dynamic. It's so dynamic that you have open classes so you can dynamically insert methods. It has deep introspection. It has closures. It has #method_missing which lets you do some interesting things. Basically, Ruby is just powerful enough, just over that tipping point, so programmers wind up doing metaprogramming (programs that write programs) more than they would in other languages. I'm sure Paul Graham has an article or two on the power of languages (smiley face here), and in at least one of them, he suggests that some people might mistake Ruby for a dialect of LISP.

See why_the_lucky_stiff's tutorial on D&D metaprogramming (Dwemthy's Array section at http://qa.poignantguide.net/chapter-6.html) and Rich Kilmer's use of Ruby for an aircraft management DSL (you'll have to google for that example). It's not that metaprogramming is impossible in C/C++ because you could always build a whole mechanism from the ground-up. (In other words, at some point you can claim that all these languages are Turing equivalent if I remember correctly.) The point is that some languages make interesting ways of programming easier, and when you hang out among the practioners of that language, you begin to see different ways of coding. This is why I've got Erlang on my TODO list, if I can squeeze it in my schedule.
I didn't down vote (I up'd to balance it :D) but I think it's a bit much to compare corporate work relationship to slavery. Real slavery is a huge step away from "wage slavery". I think we can discuss how much corporate jobs suck without the need to compare it to people who have it much worse.

Wage slaves are mostly slaves of their own mind. That's a big difference from having a ball and chain around your ankles.
"Not this year, not next year... but soon - almost certainly by the next decade."

More likely is that they simply won't be nearly as dominant as they are now. They have like 50,000 employees.

There are still plenty of great people at Microsoft and if someone can cut down on the bureaucratic bullshit that keeps everyone from getting stuff done they'll be a force to be reckoned with for decades to come.
As pretty as it may be, picking a language is an important choice, the oldest web application I have designed has already been online for 7 years and I expect it to last more or less forever. So making a choice of language is important, jumping on the bandwagon of the latest and greatest (and it does sound pretty good) might be a problem later on. My point was more about making a long term decision.
are PHP programmers only making ten dollars an hour?
are rails consultants only getting 20 an hour?