skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Friendster -> MySpace : Poor Technical Execution -> Good Technical Execution, Less Features -> More Features, Niche/Techie -> Mainstream.

I would have to say that FriendFeed may take over in the Techie crowd, but it's not the mainstream equivalent of Twitter because it is too reliant on existing usage of other techie sites.

Facebook, with a little tweaking, is well positioned to be the mainstream Twitter. It already has a 'Feed', Mobile Updates, IM client. You may argue that the essence of Twitter is more than the sum of those parts, but for the Mainstream, a tweaked Mobile Personal Facebook Messaging would probably make an acceptable Twitter.

Alternately, Plurk has a very 'teen high school girls would love this' feel to it. Very interested to see how it develops.
Automated sciences news using various machine learning techniques
The Post Money Value: Windows Live Writer and the Pain Hoop
Instant Shiny Forms with Rails and YUI
The distinction is that anyone (and lots of people) have blogs. So having a blog is itself unremarkable.

So regardless of how their accomplishment is being presented, they did actually do something of great merit.

I guess the headline is unfortunate because rather than celebrating the technical advancement of hobbyists who share their ideas with the general public, we're having semantic arguments over whether this accomplishment fits a particular connotation of the word "replicate".
When a people values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. -- Dwight D Eisenhower's, inaugural address, Tue 20 Jan 1953.
Funny, I find just the opposite to be true for me. Formulas in code are easy to understand while math in notational form isn't.
Rails 2.1 Free Book being translated at Github
Amazon.com site fails for 2 hours, cause unknown
Copy the practices that were in place when a successful company (e.g. Google) was truly innovative
Patent Filing Lays Out What's Next For IPhone
Happy early adopters don’t equal success
Pretty cool! I'm thinking aloud... would it be possible to somehow simulate two fingers at the same time (for gestures)?
I work alone for the time being even though I'd rather not, but I'm not a fan of buzzwords, so I'm not sure I'd even answer the question if someone asked me that in person...
Given that Microsoft <em>competes</em> with Mozilla, as well as almost everything Mozilla stands for, why in hell should Mozilla give them free advertising?
Cool links for programmers
Anything more than 1mm or so and my productivity would die.
Personally, I've always (well, at least since I quit programming assembler for a living[72-79]) felt that pointers, especially C type pointers, were evil, and any language that has them available without some hoop jumping or big warning signs, is to be avoided.
Guess the Logo
I do wonder how much of the black-white gap is due to teachers: I would wager that the teachers(on average) that blacks have are worse than the ones whites get.
PHP's scalability isn't the big question. It's not the thing that gives people pause when they hear there's a PHP project looking for a developer. As far as dynamic languages go, PHP scales better than most and performs pretty damn well out of the box. But it's whether or not you can be productive in PHP that's the real question.
New iPhone Images Leaked
Yes, I translated it thus:

maybe he means that parties are a good place to accidentally discover things?

You translated it thus:

some of the best things may come from those most accidental, least expected of serendipitous events that parties are, in a sense, designed to generate in the first place.

So, miy translation is shorter but the same, and so I don't thing it is fair to describe it as a "stupid interpretation".

My point is this: His style is pointlessly convoluted----obfuscation for the sake of obfuscation----and that is an age-old rhetorical trick to make a humdrum idea seem profound.
"The art of finding something by looking for something else."
What a beautiful thing. Good tip. I would like to note that when he says go to parties, he is probably talking about more than just parties. Be open to going places and seeing people, reach out, and keep your eyes open. You don't always have to have a goal in mind.
Free Tax Help
Discover the best places to get Free Tax Help.
The Next Real Estate Crisis
Engadget:  the iPhone photos are fake
Someone else emailed me asking as well, I'm thinking I'll have to write a blog article on heading out here...

But yeah! Email sent. Short answer for those interested:

Internet access is... acceptable. I brought an Airport Express and upon arriving at the scuba resort here I just asked them if I could plug it in. They'd been hoping to setup wireless for a while but hadn't had a router, so they were fine with it. Voila, wireless. Problem being, it's usually 5-20kb/s, with my co-founder getting up to 200kb/s. I think it's because he has Wireless N to my Wireless B/G. Should have upgraded to a newer laptop before leaving, but live and learn.

Sure, hanging out and talking with friends at one of the beachside bars, going driving around the island and exploring, or reading/writing. I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to having fun, just give me a great conversation in a cool locale, whether that be a SF coffee shop, a BA tango club, or a Koh Tao beach, and I'm good to go.

Haven't been around, as of yet. Upon getting into Bangkok's airport I booked a domestic flight on over to Koh Samui and got there three hours after arriving in Bangkok. Koh Samui was a lot more touristy than Koh Tao, and in general just seemed to be developed too quickly. When I first got there I was amazed (beach! warm weather! jungle!), but in retrospect I prefer Koh Tao by leaps and bounds.

If anyone else has any questions, I'm not great about checking Hacker News comments, so feel free to hit me up by email as well, it's in my profile.
Icahn Presses Yahoo to Sell to Microsoft
Study: Instant Messaging Useful for Reducing Workplace Interruption
Amazon brought down by DDoS?
Dave Winer:  "Twitter is a ghost town"
In other words, "provide advice and experience", which is a nice gig if you can get it, because it leverages past experience into easier present work (writing code is harder than telling people what you think they ought to do).
Good Programming
He's wrong though -- many of those things were around early on. Charlie (the chef) was hired in 1999, long before Google was the dominant anything. The notion that treating your employees well isn't "scalable" is nonsense.
I'm a one-man shop, with both an online product and an unrelated consultancy.

If potential customers are banging down your door, and you're worried about not having the time to develop all of their software, then you need to raise your rates. At least some (more likely, most) of your customers will stay, and you'll be able to afford working on just one or two interesting software projects at a time.

There are other downsides to a lack of diversification though, like being less able to drop one of your customers if necessary.
Assuming that she was being cynical, and consistently guessing "male", then you'd be right. However, if she were truly guessing randomly, you'd only expect her to be right (.5(.8) + .5(.2)) * 100 = 50% of the time.

All you can conclude is that whatever strategy she's using, it's about as good as the best non-random strategy you could devise given prior knowledge of the situation.
Obviously fake, why post this?
A Technique For Lazy Script Loading
Really I think it's just applied poetry. The rational argument associated with the point is boring. Parsing out "envelope of serendipity" might take epsilon more time/effort but it's that epsilon which causes you to feel a small spark of discovery WHILE parsing the sentence. That feeling of discovery convolves with the conceptual meaning of the sentence and immediately you mentally associate with the similar spark-like feeling of serendipity, and probably also remember a couple of times things like this HAVE happened at parties too. It seems pretty elegant to me. Perhaps it is a rhetorical trick but it's also good people-hacking.
Wouldn't surprise me... there are some huge ghost botnets right now...
Looks a lot like the existing iPod Touch.

I'd love to get one but my plan on Sprint is just too good to give up... lots of minutes + unlimited text messaging + EVDO for $30/month.

Also this phone looks pretty good... Windows Mobile but a VGA touch screen.
Twitter is very active from where I'm standing.
So, the interesting thing, to me, is that a few weeks ago everyone was discussing the axing of Blaine Cook from the Twitter team for his "failure to scale". Turns out, nobody else in the company can scale Twitter or keep it online reliably, either. Huh. Must be a hard problem. It's probably a good time for folks to apologize to Blaine for piling all the blame on one guy for a problem that, in reality, took the whole development team to create and will take the whole development team to solve. (And it's time for everyone to stop pretending scaling can be solved by one magic bullet or another...if you don't build, or rebuild, to scale, you won't scale.)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/07/loads-of-fake-apple-shots...
OK. I trust you've built the scalable replacement for Twitter already and were just waiting for the opportune moment to launch? Now's the time!
No, it's not the same. Taleb points to the "envelope of serendipity" to emphasize just how important the element of chance really is. I.e., you can't discount even the "chanciest" of chance events. That emphasis is lost in your translation.

Also, I didn't mean to call your interpretation stupid...rather, that you're interpretation assumes a sort of stupidity on behalf of the speaker.
Maybe MSFT hasn't ponied up the same $$$ as Google and Yahoo to appear in Firefox?

I don't think a nonprofit that battles MSFT should have to give them free valuable promotional space, and conversely MSFT may not want to fund a competitor.
I have never understood peoples thoughts about which languages scale better than others, because all web languages do the same thing - process data and return it to the user.

The only thing you need to worry about is caching and sessions, but that's not a language specific task.

To scale any web language, you just need to add more servers to the cluster. Its the database which is the real scaling problem.
I like to be able to take it all in at one glance. Sure, I can read code, but only "command by command", it is hard to see the big picture - for me, anyway.

I think math notation evolved over centuries, too. That's not a proof that it could not be improved upon, but I remain sceptic.

What will be next, musical notation? OK, admittedly

play_c play_d play_e play_f# is more readable than musical notes in a way (namely, if you can't read notes), but I bet that if you want to actually play the notes with an instrument, you might eventually prefer the classical notation. Although for music, there are alternative notations that make sense in special cases. Maybe for maths it will be the same.

Anyway, anybody who writes a maths paper is free to choose the representation they want.
Presumably the code doesn't change very often, so we actually just preprocess it once per revision and serve up the static files, so there's no extra load on the server or the client.
Compared to the reinvigoration of browser competition and standards-compliance that the Mozilla project has achieved, this issue is a minor quibble. You can add Microsoft and many others with a few clicks.

Someone has got to be the default, and selling preferential placement means this project, an important counterbalance to MSFT, gets around 1/1000th the revenue of MSFT.

Let MSFT outbid Google for the top spot if they want. MSFT doesn't need anyone's charity.
Why Pure Computer Science Theory Is Wasteful
"Of course, it would be bad if some reader got confused and thought that sociological considerations settle technical questions."

So what else was the point of Crichton's article? I am seriously asking. Did he really wrote that lengthy article just to point out that some unnamed GW defenders chose the wrong words in defending their theory? That seems highly unlikely.
Check out http://www.the1secondfilm.com/ : There are people there who you will probably click well with.
Would you not agree that Twitter is a subset of the functionalities found in existing technology that does scale? email, IM networks, blogs...

Obviously you're entitled to your opinion about sending messages being a very hard problem, but I think it's been solved a few times now.
Ironic that the blogger is wearing a tie ;-)
"I am thinking about Software Engineering researchers who never write software and never study people who write software. [...] I am thinking about Algorithm Design people who claim one algorithm is better than another, but they never bothered to implement it."

Who are these people? I read a fair bit of research about both Software Engineering and Algorithm Design, and can't think of any instances off-hand.
Mostly I learn while I go along and probably I'm not doing this for much longer than yourself (1 year now). I have a similar background, as I tried to start a game company before that. That didn't work out because even though we created the game which we had planned, it had taken us too long to finish and it completely failed to sell afterwards. So I started to work as freelancer using at first mostly the technology which I had developed in that company.

I care now a lot that new projects will always improve my tool chain. I think in the long run that's my best chance as a solopreneur. So I try to get projects where I can learn new skills and I make contracts which allow me to use the sources I developed afterwards.

And now I mostly hope I manage to learn fast enough to survive. I learned already a lot about negotiating by now, for example that I will always underestimate project time (even if I know it...) and therefore I really need to demand higher rates than I had originally expected.

Also I have some long-term targets for own products. So I'm not just doing blindly projects, but I care that projects always get me closer to that. Originally I had hoped to find time beside the official projects, but that was not the case so far.

Trying to get a new project while still working on the old is also tricky. I learned by now that I need full concentration for the current task. This means delaying everything that has no connection with my current project by all means until I can spend a full day on the other project. And then I will stay on the other until everything that was accumulated is done even if it needs more than the time I planned for it.
I'm not even sure it depends on the situation, it could be a uniformly dumb idea that he succeeded in spite of. Every business has at least one of those.
It's the Platform, Stupid:
i mean, i run a mac. jesus.
It doesn't even prove either of those. He could have just been a case of right place, right time.
All of those systems apart from IM follow the same route to success - a large number of independent systems with a common interchange format that makes it possible to create the illusion of integration.

Every mail server, every news server, every blog is a little island that runs on it's own. I would bet that behind the scenes even the big IM networks are actually a mountain of small, effectively independent, service providing systems that understand how to talk to each other - that's certainly how the XMPP/gTalk network functions.

This is only possible because all of those designs are fundamentally highly parallel - if your communication method has data dependencies (real or the result of bad design) that cannot be managed in that way then you get something that won't scale.
NitroDesk: A New Way to Manage Photos, Video
The Greatest Invention in Computer Science
Here's a straw man. Boo hoo, it sucks.

throws grenade

Look, the straw man got knocked down! Let all marvel at my skill and intelligence.

Quite ironic considering what he's criticising. Maybe the author should go out and meet some of those "pure theorists" he claims to be attacking.
In my view, if you're going to do a business on your own, you have to be focused. Between the other parts of life that need some attention, the care-and-feeding of the business, sales, marketing, and promotion, there isn't that much time left for actual development. So, you need to pare down your problem space/feature set to the absolute minimum that provides real value to people. This sounds like what you're doing with your "consulting only, no development" approach to most clients.

In my case, the project I just finished prototyping (yes, this is a plug/request for feedback, although the product is of extremely limited interest to this community) solves a narrow problem in the electricity industry: Energy meter data is passed around in an obscure binary file format (MDEF) that few people can understand, read, or troubleshoot when they receive a broken file from a 3rd party. There's a need for a tool to wrangle this format, and I believe I can do one that's better and cheaper than anything out there, with a modest effort.

As for why I'm a solopreneur: I didn't know any good co-founder candidates, and didn't have a compelling sales pitch. ("Hey - let's quit our jobs, and poke around for a product that we can try to build into a successful business" is a little too honest!) I also didn't want any more of my life to drain away writing vbScript (long, long, long story) and, as the great Peter Gibbons put it: "I don't think I'd like another job".

I'm not philosophically opposed to growing the company, but it will have to be from a "given this problem, I need more people" angle, rather than a "let's enlarge the team, and hope something good happens" view.

P.S. http://www.mlsite.net/meterdoc
Could you please expound on the marketing you did? I have been in a comparable situation (indie games developer) but found myself a bit lost when it came to successful marketing. I basically ended up spending thousands of dollars on Google Adwords, and the return was questionable. I also dropped $1000 on GamesBannerNet, which had horrible return and was a waste of money. What worked for you?
This is a wild guess, but from what I've seen Tumblr is picking up a lot of momentum. It's started to attract a pretty smart community and it's building steam. I don't know if it's a REPLACEMENT for Twitter, but it serves the same purpose but without the downtime.
"Just how will Apple meet expectations? Using the patent application as a guide, Apple appears to be making room on the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple's standoff with Adobe (ADBE) that's kept iPhones from easily viewing a plethora of Internet videos."

Er.... Flash memory != Flash

"Location services, like friend finders, package trackers and directories, are also likely to be a major thrust for the new iPhone to be introduced Monday and also in the future, the filing suggests."

Yeah, right, because Apple's always been all about exciting stuff like package trackers and "friend finders".

Sounds to me like the author of this article doesn't know what he's talking about. Now wonder he feels that predictions based on patent filings don't always come true..
Brewing Wireless Wars
Interesting discussion of Google,Apple and Nokia and their recent moves to go after the mobile device market
WTF/minute..the only valid measurement of code quality
Python for JavaScript Programmers
Microsoft Silverlight to back Ruby, Python in browser
I'm in the same boat as you, and it's rough. At first I didn't believe in PG's advice for multiple cofounders, but as time goes by I definitely think it's important now.

As a one person shop I can't do much more than consulting, and as a technically minded person I find that I'm not particularly motivated to do the promotion / PR / SEO side of things. I'm on the lookout for a cofounder now but it's hard(er) to pick one up after college and all my friends want stable jobs instead of entrepreneurship.

If it's working for you now then I wouldn't worry about it. I find that getting myself motivated to do the non-technical things was the key to getting more success when going solo.
Japan: barcodes on tombstones
This podcast is long, but well worth the listen:

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail135.html
This is great idea, all the rails hosting scene should follow this path. Also, a migration tool from VMWARE to XEN would be cool.
I've jumped on Plurk, and I like it a lot.
not hacker news
>Has nationalism really killed more people?

It's certainly plausible. Top 10 genocides of the 20'th century:

1: Great Leap Forward (Communist)

2: Soviet Purges/Ukrainian Famine (Communist)

3: Nazis (Nationalist)

3 (Roughly Tied): Congo Wars (Nationalist)

4: Imperial Japanese (Nationalist)

5: Pol Pot (Communist)

6: Kim (Communist)

7: Mengistu in Ethiopia (Mix of Communist and Nationalist)

8: Armenian Genocide by Turks (Nationalist)

9: Igbo genocide of Nigeria (Nationalist)

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html

(Note: some of these numbers are sketchy, especially towards the bottom of the list. The list also missed the Congo (WTF!), which I added.)
The design process behind the new Google icon
Beware Of Social Networks 
According to a report, by the European Network and Information Security Agency, outlining the 15 most important threats to users and providers of Social Networking Sites(SNSs),
"Online Social Networking Sites(SNSs), although a source of significant value to its users, pose certain significant privacy and security risks too."
Well if you're going to implement a crypto protocol over just using an off-the-shelf solution you're probably screwed anyway[1]. SRP over SSL is secure as far as I know, and SRP is certainly better than most of the other home-brew solutions proposed here.

[1] I've read your blog before and know that I don't need to tell you this, but the generally community might :-)
The magic simply has vanished. Twitter just isn't as....fun anymore. It's kind of like the eerie silence you have when you've been informed someone you know has passed away.
Interesting choice with the routine. I'd argue for the CMOS, without which none of this would be possible...but let me know if that's too much on the EE side to fit the title.
Why do they never find anyone to interview for these articles who hasn't gone and made an apallingly stupid decision? Like this woman:

"The option ARM was initially a blessing and then a curse for Deborah Shaw, a 52-year-old systems analyst for Santa Cruz County, Calif. In 2004 she bought a $575,000 two-bedroom house with her boyfriend with a 40-year fixed mortgage. But when she and her boyfriend split..."

Even leaving aside the fact that it's a bad idea to buy a house with someone you're not married to, why would a 52-year-old get a 40-year mortgage anyway?
Definitely enjoying the article so far. Literate programming seems to fit Haskell very well.
The little 'Selah' is very Kurt Vonnegut, which is the high praise.
public static void main.
From TFA:

> Just how will Apple meet expectations? Using the patent
> application as a guide, Apple appears to be making room on
> the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple's
> standoff with Adobe (ADBE) that's kept iPhones from easily
> viewing a plethora of Internet videos.

Translation: At CNN we have _no idea_ what we are talking about. Flash Memory != Adobe Flash.
I think this might seriously be one of the most helpful replies I've seen on YC - Thank you!
I started using twitter a lot more right before blaine left. Now I barely use it because the IM integration is gone. Hopefully someone will move forward to implement the distributed twitter on top of XMPP and Pubsub. There is already a tentative little XEP: http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/inbox/microblogging.html
The strange allure of making your own fonts