skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"It's not that it's not possible to be self-taught, but you'd need a hell of a lot of passion and motivation for the subject to shack off all the problems you'd encounter without a teacher aiding and guiding you."

Bah. Personally I find the traditional teacher/student dynamic constraining. Being dependent of a teacher to learn puts an artificial ceiling on the skills you can acquire, and if your potential is significantly higher than the actual skill of the teacher (likely) then you'll keep banging your head on it, possibly without even knowing.

When I was young I was super motivated in school and was a high-achiever but most of that talent went to waste because I was always waiting for the rest of the class. Then came the later years and I wasn't doing so good because I was used to understand everything in class quickly, I wasn't expecting to have to spend time outside class to perform.

Here's a telling story: In some advanced math class in high-school, I was really having a hard time following, I had really bad grades. Then at some point I decide to tackle the material from the beginning on my own and in a couple weeks I totally turned the situation on its head and I had great grades!

Now picture this: I dropped out of college at term 5 out of 6 and since that time I've learned at a much greater pace and developed a thirst for advanced math and CS topics because I know I encounter some problems in my projects and this knowledge would give me a good framework to solve them much, much more easily. To top it off, the things I learn are now completely relevant, meaningful and fun to me.
upmodded for gratuitous use of recursion.
Unless you're huge you aren't going to connect directly in with the operators. There are too many and the implementation is hell. You connect into a middleman who has direct connections to all the majors.

Search for premium SMS providers. There are quite a few. It's probably not going to be cheap, especially if you want a dedicated short code (they rake you over the coals for that). m-bill.net is one that came up for me and I've heard of them in the past. They have agreements in place internationally, which can be a really good thing. But they don't list prices, which can be a bad sign.

Realistically you're probably looking at $1000 a month minimum. And giving up about half the revenue (I think a lot goes to the carrier, but you can't really find out the exact percentage because the providers work off volume and what not).
assuming you want to create an eBay for use in your own site/society/community and competing with eBay is a non-issue

Correct. This is just a small, personal project.
voting me into oblivion isn't going to make searching this site any easier

I didn't vote you down. Things that are worth commenting on (whether to agree or disagree) are not eligible for downvotes, as far as I'm concerned.
essential things, please explain this a bit?
It's called reverse billing. Lots of information out there, and a lot of providers. Don't use SMS as your primary source of revenue. Use reverse-billing just for a "fun" feature and hope to break even on it.
Linux kernel.

Excluding perhaps parts of the network stack - it's a clever and very compact code, but rather hard to follow for uninitiated.
> To compare this thing to anything Archimedes could have made is laughable.

Agreed. The quote about Archimedes was because I think he was ahead of his time (and technology). The idea of concentrating and focusing, not the implementation (and not necessarily the use - burning ships)
* ...an unsupervised learner has the ability to ask a supervisor for useful tasks to train on. In academia, sadly, this doesn't seem to happen below the PhD level.*

That isn't quite true. You're describing much of my high school math and physics education: I had teachers, and I "took" the official classes (i.e. I sat in class, most of the time, and I took the exams and did much of the homework...) but my teachers (who were quite awesome) recognized that I was ahead of the class and enjoyed teaching myself, so they threw me books like PSSC Physics and What is Calculus About? and told me to have fun.

That was, however, unofficial and sort of under the radar. I expect such a style of learning to continue to rise in popularity now that the Web is here. It's just easier than ever before to run an active learning program: There's so much stuff online to steer the students toward, and even the offline stuff is easier to find -- there are book-recommendation services and blogs to help you find the best print books, and used-book services to sell them to you cheap. It really is getting to the point where I could set myself up as a "professor" right here in my home office and mentor folks over Skype as they go from one online resource to another, at big savings over paying a college for the same services.
This should have been posted as a comment on the original link.
Python. Not all the code is good, but I remember reading a lot of Python code when I was trying to write an interpreter of my own, and some parts of it just left me starting at the screen in amazement, due to the beauty and simplicity of some of the ideas.

Maybe I'm not the best at reading badly commented C code, but Ruby and MzScheme were not nearly as pleasant.
I think I can do a good attempt at this over a weekend. Anyone fancy doing a weekend fun project together?
Actually, he posted the closing tag before the statement. So maybe it was meant literally.
I'd start by looking for an open source project that does what I need and has a permissive license, then modify that.

If I was starting from scratch, I'd probably use rails, and the activescaffold plugin.
It was only yesterday, when rincewind said that Neal Stephenson predicted it ten years ago, and got 3 points for that. jjfarren claimed it's a fake, and got -2. And for abstractbill, it was a windfall - two comments about the "novel and unexpected uses" of modern technology earned him 37 karma points.

Even more unexpectedly, today the "interesting window into what sort of community justin.tv is creating" has, erm, closed, obviously. Try going to http://blog.justin.tv/2008/06/caught-on-jtv.html and see for yourself.

Could it be that the real novel idea has been one about hacking Hacker News?
...this would vastly reduce opportunities for fraud.

And vastly diminish your traffic, which in turn diminishes the universe of potential buyers, which probably results in lower sale prices for goods on your site relative to other sites. Particularly since even an "automated" signup kiosk will increase the cost of a transaction in a way that needs to be passed on in the form of higher fees.

I do like the idea, though. There might be some application where it's worthwhile.

One trick is to see if you can leverage some sort of existing "automated signup kiosk". If only you could, say, ask someone to authenticate by making a transaction at one of several specific local ATM machines, and then query the banks to make sure that transaction is made...
As for simple sending/receiving SMS messages, we at gtalk2voip.com use Clickatell's SMS service, which is very flexible, offers good technical support and providers a number of APIs including SMTP, SMPP and HTTP (we use SMTP). Among their cons: their rates are quite high unless you pre-pay for 1M messages a month and they don't want to provide you with a complete list of rates associated to mobile phone (DEF) prefixes, so reselling SMSes is close to impossible, cause you have no means to know how to account your own users in real time :-(.

As for selling content over SMS, as far as I know there's no way for a small startup company to get into revenue sharing deals with mobile carriers, besides there are a lot many of them. Yet, there are some companies that provide paid content distribution service, which you can use to resell your mobile service, software or other content you have right for (some junk like ring-tones, pron, etc). They act as a proxy service and they take up to 70% of revenue. They usually have a small coverage of mobile carriers they work with. Also there is a very high rate of returns/chargebacks, as end-user is always right even if he completely abused your service or software :-(. We wanted to use such service to let our customers recharge their balances in our system with a single SMS sent. After I studied this subject (for Europe, have no ideas about US) we abandoned the idea as completely profitless. If you find out anything with better conditions, please let me know.
Check out:

http://blog.linebuzz.com/

They do the same thing without a plugin/bookmarklet.

I dunno about most folks, but I have to have some pretty serious pain and/or desire to add clutter to my browser.
here is a good calculator (This is a good starting point, not necessarily THE benchmark)...

http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html?

I am assuming you are,

a) familiar with AWS

b) able to estimate bandwidth usage based on active usage, Requests per second etc., which is your app specific anyway
Evaluating a first release like this is kinda silly. It's a road, not a destination. For a v1 (or a beta, which is what this really is), you're better off evaluating the road...

Regarding "tried many times over"... You mean like web search was before Google? Or MP3 players before the iPod? Or photosharing before Flickr?

I'm not saying I'm convinced this idea is a winner, but come on... Predicting failure for a startup is so laughably easy that I don't know why you'd bother, unless you just wanted to feel smug.
Five pounds of flax
surprised to see this on HackerNews. I run macrumors, and have plans to try to improve on this in the near future. Right now it runs the same as it has for years, which is based on a running historical average with links to recent rumors. (I know this will sound strange for anyone who follows the site, but I'll finally be quitting my day-job at the end of this month, which will give me a lot more time to work on this and other projects)

- I think the iPod predictions are a little off right now, I think they probably are not going to be updated until September, so not sure if it qualifies as an "updates soon"

- Intel transition didn't really change much, except we have a better idea what processors are coming for the next refresh
Ask HN: E-mail invites to our closed alpha. How to gather? How to send?
As my co-founder and I finish work on our prototype, we're setting up a closed alpha version that we can invite people to participate in for initial testing. We'd like to have a long list of e-mail addresses, from people wanting to participate, waiting for us when we're ready; so that means updating our neglected holding page with something beautiful, interesting, and presumably containing some kind of "Enter your e-mail address for an alpha invite" form.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, do you have any recommendations for back-end tools meant for this purpose? What's the best way we can gather (opt-in) e-mail addresses from visitors, store them, and then use them later to send out invite codes/links?

Thanks in advance for all recommendations & tips!
This is the second time one of our blog posts has randomly disappeared recently. Either one of our interns doesn't know how to work blogger, or there's some problem with blogger itself.

We found a cached copy of the blog post - I should be able to use that to get the original back online...

EDIT: I re-posted the blog entry at http://blog.justin.tv/2008/06/caught-on-jtv_22.html

Either I failed at figuring out how to tell blogger to re-use the original url, or there's just no way to do it.
Actually they appear to be caching the pages, which is how they are able to detect what is highlighted (otherwise it would be cross domain scripting). So they could just have their caching script strip out that JS and problem solved.

I image that page caching could lead to problems with some sites though. I wanted to do something similar for a project I was working on but scrapped the idea because I couldn't get around the whole cross domain scripting issue, and caching just introduces a host of other problems.
I can't quite remember when I saw it, but it was an amazing self build, all stramlined - even the rivets had been made flush with the body work. I think it was an employee of Scaled Composites who did it for a learning experience to pick up credit with work. I remember being pretty amazed.
Can I find it doing a search? Nope.
I wish that I could remember just a little more!
I'll agree the fear of rejection is bad, but if one focuses on not being shy, one will find out why one was shy in the first place. One needs to know protocol first.

(Ackward + shy) - shy = Dumbass.
What twist?
I did not really notice it, too. Only when I read that complaint.
I would go to hotscripts.com or drupal.org and see if there is already something pretty close.
The source code for the Prex real-time kernel is very well-written: http://prex.sourceforge.net/src/
http://www.textmarks.com/

is free but they insert ads sometimes (always?)
"Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in industries like fast food, which evolved to exploit precisely this fact. In almost any other kind of work, they'd be a net loss. But they're also too young to be left unsupervised. Someone has to watch over them, and the most efficient way to do this is to collect them together in one place. Then a few adults can watch all of them." -- [http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html]
http://www.launchsplash.com/ sounds like what you're after. Theres an overview at http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9973373-2.html?part=rss...
Think Fruit: Apple Parody Hidden Inside GTA IV
I had to stop reading when I got to this part, I was laughing too hard:

Austin Shoemaker, technology chief at Cooliris, says
Internet users are "subconsciously frustrated" with
clicking "next, next, next" to view content.

1|2|Next >
The bookmarklet does not work for me in Safari 3.1.1 The toolbar shows up and then disappears. Has anyone else tried it in Safari?
If it could be tied into the DMV/Post Office/National ID card that would be the best. As it is there are a number of retailers that implement something similar; Costco for instance has a memberID card that has a lowrez photo on the back.

Joining an existing ID system to a PKCS used with the website would be relatively straightforward.

Your point about it reducing the universe of available buyers is true up to a point the variable there is the value of the goods being traded. Confirmed trustworthy identities aren't important if you're selling relatively low value goods, but if you're buying and selling cars, houses or industrial goods it suddenly becomes much more attractive to reduce the pool of buyers to those to on whom some due diligence has already been performed. As always; risk carries a premium.

The basic problem of course is that our current monetary system is not well suited to todays internet.
Ask HN: Digital Signal Processing
Can anyone recommend a book or books on mathematics and DSP?

Ultimately I want to take an analog signal, convert it to a digital signal, then proceed to manipulate it to suit my needs.
That's not for PSMS though (which is what the OP was talking about, transactions and all that).
Damn... and I thought all the belly aching about Vista came from the techie people who liked *nix or Mac... but to hear a real live story about it being that bad is almost, well, touching. Good luck setting it up to actually work!
I had the opposite experience: the formal education system systematically and carefully sucked out the beauty of the subject and replaced it with boring monotonous busy work. I wish someone would've just stopped me from going to college altogether instead of having to suffer for two years before realizing that self-study was far better for me.

Obviously school works for the vast majority of people, but I wish there wasn't such a prejudice against self-directed study. Right now society doesn't even admit that self-study could possibly work, they just tell you that it's a path to guaranteed failure.

There was one significant gap in my skillset that I can directly blame on being self-taught through Wikipedia and other web resources: I didn't know how to take a textbook and systematically study from it. I was too used to jumping around or starting from some thing-to-learn and just reading the specific concepts it depends on. This works great when you're studying subjects that are well-covered by online resources or looking up reference information, but it really falls short for more advanced or esoteric topics. Over the last few months I've been consciously trying to develop the ability to study from a textbook and I've been getting better.
The outcome of the interview is a little vague! Its not a solid yes or no.
Is there an un-Next'r bookmarklet yet?
Another Incoherent Gillmor Post + Fed-up Techcrunch Commenters = Great Comedy
The title was so Onion-like that I seriously thought nwsource.com was going to redirect to the Onion. Does Vista have any long-term chance for survival, with stories like this?
Edgar Allen Poe story reveals a flaw in game theory
Link to Lockhart's Lament: http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_03_08.html
Vista required UAC to be enabled in order to install any network printer. And with UAC enabled, the drivers won't install for non-made-for-Vista products... it's a total Catch-22.

http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/windows-forces-you-to-use-uac-...
Reminds me of Benjamin Graham (the "Dean of Wall Street" and Warren Buffett's mentor), who basically ignored girls altogether until he was well into his 20s, and then became one of Wall Street's most notable womanizers in his 50s and 60s. It probably helped that by then he was filthy rich and quite famous in his field.
Can we finally retire the "robots are gonna kill us all" theme? I mean honestly, its not funny anymore.
Look for WASP... Wireless Application Service providers, they usually have links to all the mobile operators and they charge you a fee.
Are you asking how to save form data in a database?
Thanks for linking to this. I read the article last night but didn't hit the comments. They are absolutely hilarious.

Read his responses in 2 places:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/21/surviving-the-net/#comm...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/21/surviving-the-net/#comm...
launchsplash looks cool.

And once you've collected the names, you could use something like http://campaignmonitor.com/ to send email blasts.
I also liked this picture of a girl with a fitting T-shirt:
http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/corvair/cc2002/02052770.jpg
who is this product targeted at? many hackers don't give out their emails, import contacts, but if you've received email spam from your other friends, you probably know they will willingly do so ...
But maybe other networking and cooperation forums, online and off, can also replace that function of degree programs?

If you can decompose traditional degree-granting education into its constituent parts -- true learning, certification, networking, socialization -- each may in the future be better served by new structures that take as a given the computer and communications technology we have now.
@iamelgringo/arn

What do you think of this paper on iatrogenic deaths?

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed.htm

I ask as a genuine question, I haven't done enough research to evaluate the truthfulness of it.
i wouldnt suggest reverse billing, this is messy and complicated. Reverse billing indicates that the recipient pays(This is usually used when requesting content, that is not initiated via SMS i.e from WAP/Internet)
However if you are requesting something via SMS the easiest option is for a premium rated SMS number.

Also, reverse billing is usually more difficult to setup premium sms can be bought from any of the WASP's
It's cool and all, but it's the kind of thing that probably has ways to go. I figure it will take ten years to get an expensive prototype (back of the napkin calculation). It can do 200-pound pulldowns, but it didn't do much else that was particularly impressive...how much can it bench?
Actually, that does work! I forget the precise names (this is studied in Behavioral Economics), but there are a number of cognitive biases which cause people to wrongly evaluate their decisions.

For example, say you have two choices A and B. Imagine they have different characteristics along 2 dimensions X and Y.

Imagine A is higher along dimension X, while B is higher along dimension Y. Now, suppose that looking at A and B, you would choose A.
Add a third choice C which is more strongly along dimension Y than A or B. Now, you have a choice A which is strongly along X, choice C which is strongly along Y, and choice B which is a little X and a little Y. Also, you don't really like or care about C. These results were shown with numerous experiments: presented with choices A, B, and C, you will often choose B. Notice that before, without the irrelevant alternative C, you chose A. But add in a choice that you don't even care about, you prefer B. Rationally, that shouldn't happen, and economists try their best to explain that but fail.

As for having a super-high priced item, that makes sense for a number of reasons. For example, one reason may be the halo effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect). Just the existence of a very high-priced, very high-value item can make people perceive your brand to generally be of a higher quality.

Also, some behavioral economists (e.g. Benabou) postulate that people have "identities" for themselves which they refer to when making consumption decisions. So, someone might think of themselves as the frugal buyer, and so they will always go for the cheapest alternative which gets the job done. A lot of people probably think of themselves as the middle-of-the-road average person. So if you make an super-double-over-priced option, then more people will buy the over-priced option because they perceive it to be more average. Plus, some of the people who consider themselves to be big spenders will buy the super-double-over-priced option anyway!
Well, that's 4 minutes of my life that I'm going to have to work hard to get back.
the fact that the interview ends with "Thanks a lot, we'll contact you in 6-12 months" instead if a rejection/hire
No. I'm looking for recommendations for specific tools for a specific process, and tips relevant to that specific process. I'm asking how to train for and win a 10 mile marathon, not how to use my legs. :)
Why don't we just cut all the pretenses and have news.ycombinator.com redirect to reddit?
maybe because he drives traffic with his posts ... sometimes called linkbaiting.
This appears to be machine generated. Apparently the generator has passed the Turing test as many suckers (err, I mean people) have fallen for it.

Please see http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ for an example.
Carbon Nanotubes for Heat Dissipation (plus interesting graph)
Awesome, thank you. I've been looking for more information on this stuff. I'm helping a friend with his service's pricing matrix (trying to simplify and increase conversions).
That's a pretty crappy twist. In my opinion anyway, I was expecting something at least moderately interesting, something that might have made it worth reading the article.
Forgive me if I don't share your excitement at this fact. However, owing to the fact that I am not you, this has very little relevance and is not at all interesting to me.

Good luck with it though, hope you get the job.
I did something very similar a couple years ago. Details are covered by an NDA, but the software stack consisted of SBCL, TBNL (now Hunchentoot), CLSQL, CL-WHO, PostgeSQL and a few other random libraries. The archetecture was informally MVC.
The Fruit OS has been mentioned before in the GTA series, in a radio debate between Bill and Steve...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_Liberty_City_...