skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I believe the key problem is that (most) students who enroll to a CS program expect to become engineers, but the CS curriculum is supposed to form scientists, not engineers. The key distinction is that in a SW Eng program the emphasis is on the process to build software (stuff like CMM, XP, quality processes, architecture methods, etc...).

Sure CS grads can make fantastic engineers, but my point here is that the difference between CS and SE is not well understood in the industry.
"... they add features ..."

Reading FOW, Ch12, p164 Paul Buchheit it is more like trying to fit new functionality into the search engine infrastructure, ("we only do web search"). Though to be fair pb does suggest this has changed.
In a sense, pg, don't you think that you are perhaps still funding ideas that are in fringe markets?

In the future can we expect to see a fund for a) a standard search engine and b) a standard social network....
Well, Paul's coming at it from an artist's perspective. Don't get in business to do art - beautiful algorithms, a movie that has a message for modern America, a meditation on the color blue. Forget about doing that to make money. L'art pour l'art. That's what I get out of it, anyway.

Walt Disney, whom I never thought much about until I read a biography a few years back and I now consider a unique American genius, certainly wouldn't disagree with that. But his alternative wasn't "get money," it was to give people a certain kind of experience. But, in a sense, that's a great business plan too. So it works out.
"... So, on that point you're actually wrong. Brevity isn't important. ..."

I don't think it as just brevity. I like to think of it as "high efficiency" in design, less moving, simpler parts. The less parts, the less the overheads in maintaining and understanding.

Having concepts of what happens is not the same as having actual understanding of what happens. So does this mean I ditch all my other tools and use say "lisp" exclusively for brevity's sake?

No, I make a pragmatic choice of python (or perl, php etc). I get similiar succinctness but access to tried and tested tools others have created. I don't want to re-invent web servers, databases or the RSS for instance.
Fortunately, the Armstrong book is better than this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5830318882717959520

;)
a) To beat Google will take a clever new technology/algorithm. I'm sure if someone came to YC with an idea for a fundamentally better search engine they would get funding.

b) Same thing here. It's hard to beat facebook as far as a general interest social network. There needs to be something unique.
That's great. I hope someone published it.
People don't know what they want.
Seems a little flakey. The overuse of bold characters for apparently unimportant phrases (viz, "we are artists") doesn't help. Most CEOs will either want a 6-figure salary or a huge chunk of equity, and will expect at least one layer of management below them. These are the things Ronen should think about, and not whether a CEO will be "that third partner that will support our personal needs".

No, that's a valet.
The Futility of Emergence ["Emergence" as today's vacuous one-size-fits-all explanation]
There are people who say that name-calling is not an ad hominem unless is it explicitly claims causal connection between one's character and one's argument, with words like "because" (eg "you're wrong BECAUSE you're an idiot"). Here is one such view:

http://tinyurl.com/2fg8fu

But forum posts are not mathematical proofs, and nobody explicitly shows causal connection when it can be inferred from the context. When you read a disagreeing reply, it's reasonable to assume that what you are reading is a counter-argument (as opposed to, say, an attempt to make someone cry), and so everything in it should be treated as a premise of that counter-argument.
Agreed... something simple to match up people to hack together (for fun or for $) would be neat...
Nothing is preventing you from submitting a job; it just won't show up in the jobs tab.
Agreed. The most investors would be comfortable with would be to acknowledge that they might not have the expertise to run a large business and say that they'd be OK with a CEO replacement down the road. Right now they are coming off as you say they are.
While the "essential character" stuff sound like a thinly veiled attempt to show off that the building is old and therefore valuable, I can see a different argument against full restoration. Gentle signs of aging, as long as you don't erase them selectively, show how well the house is able to withstand age. If it quickly turns ugly without costly maintenance, it's a bad house.
Yes. But only because I assume that a lot of people with money (VCs/angels) lurk here, so everyone reading YC would be a lot of people with money + all the hackers. It'll never happen.

Besides, no one really wants to move to Buffalo just like no one wants to move to Pittsburgh, unless they're trying to escape a high cost of living.
Living In The Future
tut tut, I see human input.
It would be interesting if there existed a medium somewhere between Lego and molecules, in scale and versatility. A sort of programming language for physical stuff, and one that's usable enough to create Things People Want, or at least prototype them.
I agree to a certain extent. I don't expect to see any mind-blowing innovations on the Internet until bandwidth constraints dissipate, but that definitely doesn't mean it's dead.

Think about the automobile. Fundamentally, it hasn't changed since the Model T. However, there have been many incremental improvements that have made a significant impact on our lives (A/C, seat belts, power-steering/brakes, GPS, auto-parking).

In about 20 years, the technology they're working on right now at Stanford for the DARPA Challenge will be commercialized and cars will drive themselves. That will be mind-blowing.

Hopefully we'll see something game-changing on the net sooner rather than later.
I reserve the privilege to be in a grumpy mood and get modded down appropriately.
Bottom-up Approach to WiMAX / Wireless MANs
What are the numbers people have on start-up cost (equipment and installation of base stations), operations cost, and effective coverage range, plus downstream and upstream rates with recent WiMAX hardware especially w/r/t to operations by WISPs in fairly small cities?
Hey, I've said much dumber things on the internet.
This is the same type of "dead" as when Paul Graham said Microsoft is dead. Of course they aren't literally dead. They're still profitable. But they aren't leading in innovations and they never will again. Similarly, the internet is dead because many breakthrough technologies will require exponentially more bandwidth.

PG calling Microsoft dead worked better because all it takes for the internet to become undead (alive?) is fiber to many homes.
if people knew what they wanted, the most successful companies would be the ones with the largest focus groups.
Users Trash Wal-Mart On Its Facebook Site (advertising on social sites gets harder)
Are you in the US? I believe you would need to purchase a license for the spectrum, which Clearwire and Sprint own in most regions. But you might be able to lease from them.

Here is a listing of deployed WiMAX networks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Deployed_WiMAX_networks

If someone else already owns the license for the spectrum in a particular region you would need to lease from them. I dont know specific costs, but my guess is very expensive.
I agree with you that a good house needs to withstand age, but "showing off" that your house withstands age while denying the full enjoyment of the aesthetic experience of the house seems like a foolish trade off to me. I argue that the experience inside the house is the top priority in this context, not the sub sub feature that it ages well.
I don't think so. I think Hacker News should only allow job postings from companies that hackers would be happy working for, which probably includes most companies funded by YC. Filtering companies outside of that seems like a hard problem.
By not having one. ;)
Well, occasionally it is. There are a few pioneers like Wright and van der Rohe whose fame is well-deserved, and then hoards of half-conscious imitators shouting "let's make Facebook for, uh... iguana owners!". But I suppose that makes it just like anything else in life.
I think you miss PG's point. He is saying that you should have a civil discussion .
Ironically, I'm building a web application to address this problem... you can check it out: http://muchcloser.com

Right now it's still at an early alpha. For now it just has some features from highrise, but this will change in a few months.

It's public so if you're interested, you (or anyone else) can let me know what you feel needs to be changed or added to meet your needs
I don't think that having a FB profile is important. I don't have one myself (for many reasons, privacy being the first one) but I see why so many people have one and I would never fault anyone for using FB. As for your second question, I think it really depends. If both of the candidates are "equal" in your mind (and I have to admit that I've never had that problem), FB can both help and harm. It all depends on who you are and what you have in there :).
The above post was meant in jest and is not to be taken seriously...
For another example, see http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/profile. All the Pepsi virtual gifts are a protest against sponsored virtual gifts by paid users, who were promised that paid/permanent accounts would never have advertising on them.
What do you think needs to be redesigned?
Hey all :) So there have been some changes to Chain. I've tried to emphasize more of the social aspect of the site, but we're still wondering if there's anything that could be emphasized a little better. I've tried to keep the process of actually managing what you're accomplishing as simple as possible.

What would you like to see? What would make the site useful or entertaining for you? I'm at your command.
Hey all :) So there have been some changes to Chain. I've tried to emphasize more of the social aspect of the site, but we're still wondering if there's anything that could be emphasized a little better. I've tried to keep the process of actually managing what you're accomplishing as simple as possible.

What would you like to see? What would make the site useful or entertaining for you? I'm at your command.
Comcast : The Big Ten Network and false ads. - TvByDemand | Forums | News
'A bit more difficult' ?!?

What kind of relationship do you have? An asexual one?
It is a trade off, but it doesn't seem foolish.

There is no full enjoyment, just varying degrees of almost-full enjoyment. A house that somebody lives in will always look worse than a house that has been prepared to look its absolute swankest, with every dust particle removed and every pillow fluffed. It makes more sense to talk of "full enjoyment" as a range rather than a point. To me, things like dulled metal surfaces would not be out of that range, if the house is designed well. If minor things like that put it outside the range, then it's a bad house.

Maybe there is something to that "essential character" business after all. Worn things are pleasant, and I think there is a reason. They put you at ease because they tell you that they've been used, and it's OK to use them. Shiny things seem fragile and distant.
Creativity and usefulness Re: Why smart people have bad ideas
I think this is topic that interests most of us at hacker news. Please comment here and consider this a draft, I'll be happy to change the post based on feedback.
Getting real means lets see some numbers.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
You asked for it...

I'm gonna keep editing this post with suggestions.

- Too many colors. I count like nine or ten. Taking that down to three or four would be awesome and make the site feel less complex. http://kuler.adobe.com/ to get some pretty ones.

- A tag cloud style visualization for "popular chains" would be cool and would illustrate the data in a way that's not so tabular and numerical.

- New user join times would be cooler as relative to now english statements (like "5 minutes ago" instead of 10:01). Same for new chains. And new posts.

- I think you should put some thought into what people are going to be thinking when they see the front page. Odds are, a brand new user is going to be totally confused, because there's so much content named with some pretty site-particular jargon. Why not explain the concept there, rather than hiding it two links deep (About->link to a blog post)?

- I have to admit, I don't understand what's going on when I click the name of an activity. Like, the chain pictures, what are they linking to? And what are the numbers underneath? Maybe I'm an idiot, but I'm seriously confused.

- I see up arrows around the site. I eventually figured out that I could try to click them, but I have no clue why I'd want to (what do they do??) and when I try to click, it asks me to login (for what??). I'm so confused...

- The register process was nice. Threw me right into using the site. I like. Maybe it would be nice, though, to give me the option to choose the interval of time when I'm putting in what I'm doing (rather than forcing daily, then letting me fix it).

- So now I know what a chain gang is! But a faq would be nice.

- Clicking the +0 next to my post took me to image moderation. That was wholly unexpected.

- On the "What everyone's doing page," the link for me to do that activity too looks like a plus-or-minus symbol with the underline. I would vote for a real icon here instead of text, to avoid confusion. And maybe make it more clear what happens if I click it. Text that says "I'm doing this too!" (but in fewer words) might speak better to its effect.

- Assuming I'm a continual user of the site, my number one priority when I visit is probably the ability to easily confirm that I've done the stuff I wanted to do. So, I think if I'm logged in, my front page that I see when I arrive should give me a way to check off everything I've done. As it stands, I have to click my name to get something like this, which is pretty unintuitive, I think.

I'll be back later to add more. I apologize retroactively if any of these suggestions come across offensively. Just my raw thoughts as I use the site.
This inspired me to write a bit about creativity vs usefulness, which I subbed to hacker news as this link:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46850
Do hackers care about workstation ergonomics?
Do hackers care about seat height, table height, monitor height and distance, etc.?
I hate sourging for sources, and it seems obvious enough, but fair point. This is from a quick google.

I'll talk regarding the Asian market, which is far from saturated (this I'm not going to go compile more research on, so challenge me if you will)

http://www.blogherald.com/2005/05/25/world-wide-blog-count-f...
Old, but if this is good, 15M blogs in South Korea is quite a large market.

http://blog.mozilla.com/gen/2007/06/27/yahoo-japan-more-page...
Recent, but here again I will go uncited: Yahoo dies against Google in USA, but in Asia they have been king. Yahoo is plenty real, and Asia matters to them, a lot.

You might be fine with the North American market. It's hella big. But if you have an entry point into Asia and don't use it, that's wasted potential, because cloning works on an international scale.
http://mashable.com/2007/08/19/doktus/

What's so real about the internet is that it's zero distance from anywhere around the globe, and only a relatively small number of companies exploit this fully. If more companies did, Mark Cuban wouldn't be complaining about it being boring today.
I think that one of the problems that will need to be solved before molecular nanotechnology arrives is how to put together (and take apart) units of atoms using very similar atoms as the dis/assembler. So, if it can be done in Legos using a much smaller number of pieces, it can serve as a model for the molecular dis/assembler.
If they don't, they should. RSI sucks.

At Google, they've got ergonomics evaluators on staff. You can schedule one to come by and check out how you're working. They'll fix your chair, remind you how to sit, mouse, and keyboard, and also put in orders for special equipment should you need it. Things like vertical oriented mice, natural keyboards, and boosters for your monitor can make a lot of difference for comfort.
so what do you suggest I (and people like aswanson) do then?
WiFi Will be changing and soon - TvByDemand | Forums | News
I think so. I care enormously much. I spent an inordinate amount of time finding a correct keyboard position and chair configuration. I ended up with a GoldTouch adjustable-angle keyboard I found lying around my workplace, plus two books taped together held up by a waterbottle stolen from a coworker to hold up my wrists. Then, I pilfered a sideways mouse that wasn't being used in another part of the office.

Nobody else at the company goes quite so far, but the two other main programmers do have Aeron chairs, at least.
I do not have any suggestions for you; I'm not especially good at relationships and don't have much experience with startups. Looking at your screenshot, it looks like your app is essentially a to-do list and messaging tool. Most of us already have those. I don't see how yours will help people balance their work and personal lives any better. Sorry to be negative, but this doesn't look like it does much to address the problem you want to solve.
Seats? Tables? What are those? ;-)

I suspect I'd give any ergonomic evaluator a heart attack. Right now, I'm lying down on the floor, propped up on my elbows. Other favored positions include cross-legged on the floor, kneeling on my bed with the laptop on my thighs, half-kneeling on the floor with my chin on my knee, prone in bed with about 3 pillows under my chest, in bed on my side wit my elbow propping my upper body up, reclining in a chair with the laptop on my lap and feet up, and sitting in a tree (no, I don't take the laptop up there, but I'll frequently bring pencil & paper to work out some design problem).

The one place I absolutely will not work if I have a choice about it is at a table or desk. Been like that since before I had a computer; in elementary school, I absolutely refused to do my homework at the table, always preferring the floor.

You'd think this would result in lots of RSI problems, but I haven't had anything since I was 12, which ironically was when my parents made a concerted effort to get me to sit at a desk and do my homework like a normal person. I suspect it's because I don't actually do anything repetitive at a computer. I get up to pace a lot - 5 times in the process of writing this comment, and I've switched to 3 different positions. That's another reason I really dislike desks - they make getting up a chore, so I don't get up, and so I find my productivity dropping off from lack of exercise.
By clicking "details", you can see the voting for posts for which the total is not yet displayed on the main page.
I have no problem with constructive criticism. I just really hate it when people say vague things without any logic or details attached. From my point of view, you're not helping me either realize it's a dead end or how to fix it; you're just saying it sucks

On the other hand what you just wrote is a valid constructive criticism which I really truly appreciate...

yeah I am aware of it and we're working to fix it... like I said, there's a lot more coming in the near future; whether it's useful or not I'll let other people decide once it's done
hey bootstrapper, what is your company?
What is this mythical beast of which you speak?
Wow. You're awesome

1) Colors: Yes.

2) Tag Cloud: Ehh.. Tag clouds seemed a little annoying, but it might be better than a straight table view.

3) Relative times instead of absolute times ("5 minutes ago"..): Strongly agree. Implemented.

4) Okay. I'll try to figure out how to make things more obvious for new users.

5) Hmm. Yeah, that is confusing. Whenever you're doing something (for example, "run") and you make a post about it, that post gets added to the "run" chaingang. From there, other people can read it and upvote it. If you happened to upload a picture along with it, that picture is displayed as a thumbnail.

6) That's for upvoting user content. It's probably less obvious on Chain than it is on say, YCombinator or Reddit.

7) Hm.. You can choose the interval time on the next page. I wanted to keep the frontpage as simple as possible, so I didn't include a dropdown time interval there.

8) Yes, a FAQ is probably way more useful than an About page.

9) The +0 represents how many community points you have. I need to represent it differently. This is tied in with, "How do I encourage users to moderate images?" The idea was you'd earn community points for moderating images, then it would be displayed next to your name whenever you posted a comment or a cheer. However, that's a little confusing too..

10) I was thinking consistency was better than making a new icon for that, and the consistent part is that it looks like a link. It looks like something you can click on. Whereas the uparrow does not, but I was hoping people would figure it out. But maybe an icon is required.

11) Yeah, I'm going to add cookie-based authentication so that you can stay logged in. That's a great idea to make the first thing you see be your own chains.

12) No way, not offensive or anything. That was exactly the kind of criticism I was looking for. Thank you so much! Got any more?
Even the most obscure words (which this is not) probably warrant a silent google.
Humane Society Goes After Amazon for Selling Cockfighting Magazines
Your research paper is the work of brilliance. Thanks for sharing it. I'm definitely going to be using some of your techniques. The citation will be yours my friend....the citation will be yours.
&#8235;&#8236;&#8237;&#8238;&#8234;&#8235;&#8236;&#8237;&#8238;&#1161;(epiws tidder) !drieW
If you paste that last character and type, everything goes backwards!
The woman they're talking about said "everything was suddenly more vivid and memorable." Presumably the event was so important that she remembered trivial details around her that she normally would have forgotten. It happens to everyone.
Yet another example of how derivatives are transforming financial markets for the better by transferring risk to those best able to handle it. It's also a great example of how mathematical and computer-driven models are helping us understand the world in practical ways.
Doesn't work in Firefox 3; it's still pretty cool.

From the comments on Reddit, there are many unicode characters that have the RTL control character.
http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/msdn/Control.aspx
Is someone getting optimized here other than the NYT? Their pagerank doesn't need much help.
Just a tip I picked up: if you're resting your wrists on anything, you're putting contact force on them that could lead to exhaustion if it's too hard or for too long. Try to keep your wrists floating, if possible.
If you haven't tried Firefox 3 yet, you should. It's fast.
I've been running the Firefox 3 alpha for a while now. It's gotten much more stable over the last couple weeks. I'm down to less than a crash a day now.

I find Firefox 2 to be almost unusable because rendering lots of complex Javascript and Flash eats up an enormous amount of memory. Firefox 3's rendering engine is much better; I'd recommend everyone try it and see if it works for them. There are some other nice new features, like URL auto completion suggesting your most commonly visited sites/directories first.

Use this tool to force your extensions to work with Firefox 3. http://www.oxymoronical.com/web/firefox/nightly
Listen to them, they are right.

Now get off the computer. :-)
I've managed to get Eclipse to write backwards before and could never figure out why... this might explain it :p
Mark Cuban explains his "The Internet is Dead and Boring" statement