skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There are plenty of gamer forums out there. I would start there.
Building rapport:

1. Share your experiences or ask questions about gaming.

2. Answer any gamers questions with insightful replies.

3. See if your product addresses their need.

It takes a lot of time to build a community.
If you're in the bay area, we have startup meetups every now and then. It might help if you reach out to the community in person as well. http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1737/
Hope that helps!

Nick
Most companies think they're good at hiring. I'm guessing the ones that deliberately offer below-market salary in exchange for illiquid private company options aren't.
what's the address of your app?
Funny you should mention that I'm immigrating next year to England. :)
Your profile contains the string #--hackrtrackr:3dwKMm0SsrZSeNg08YUOnuJBfQ3igl#

All your doing is polluting this site (and the web) with nonsense. You should really stop it.
Run Cat5e, not Cat5. Get sockets with crimped contacts, not screws. That'll avoid any problems with getting it to run at gigabit - my workstation's onboard network chip is really picky about cable quality for example and will drop to 100Mbit/s on cables that all my other gigabit gear handles just fine. Use cables with shielded RJ-45 connectors, the all-plastic ones can cause trouble when running at 1Gbit/s over longer distances.

I don't think there's much of an art to it, just follow the instructions on the web. Crimping your own patch cables is pretty fiddly and tedious, so I try to avoid it. Wall sockets are somewhat better in that respect.
first off - you already have your own blog/site right? I knew nothing about web languages/CSS/etc except for basic html three years ago. Then I started my own blog, got used to wordpress, was active in a theme community and started tinkering around. Now I would say I have the skills to become a freelance xhtml/css guy if I wanted.
Gas could fall to $2 if Congress acts, analysts say
We're not actually getting 30% CTR in the google sense which is of 100 impressions of your ad, 30 clicked on it. That CTR is of the order of 1%. But of the 1% that reach our site 30% go on to download.
The answer is 'yes'.
I went to a borderline elite school, Notre Dame. Many of the students had this sort of an elitist attitude. However, I noticed that those students who aspired to true greatness - who saw Einstein, Newton etc. as setting the bar - often had a more humble attitude. I think that this is because such an attitude is a hindrance imho, a waste of energy.
Tech Start-ups + Government Programs = Bad Mix
A write-up about my experience applying for a government run young entrepreneur program offering a $3000 grant (not much but its a start).

These programs are not suited for tech start-ups facing legitimate opportunities; instead they foster companies that are created in bad industries with low barriers to entry.
I don't know, seems like a waste to me. I haven't had to hand out business cards out though, but I can see a lot of them being tossed out.
http://tinyurl.com/6hg8ol
Nice post. Sad to see them turn down legitimate ideas in favor or bootleg t-shirt peddling.
Short'n inane.
"The worst case scenario is that Facebook doesn't own its core code and that it's been using someone else's code for the foundation of its company. That could lead to damages that are catastrophic," said Eric Goldman, assistant professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law and director of SCU's High Tech Law Institute. "In the worst case scenario, this could be a fight for Facebook's life."

I am pretty shocked that Silicon Valley's most prominent newspaper is so helplessly uninformed.
Not just freebsd, of course. Backporting patches is standard practice for all the serious Linux distributors as well.
Nonsense. Anyone who knows his talent and worth, and has an ounce of pride wouldn't stand being jockeyed or lowballed. If I figure at any interview that it's being played like the article says, I'd walk right out. It's the company's freaking loss. Any guy worth his salt should do it.
If it was a real ninja then they wouldn't have seen him!
I think this is the right approach. I think by being inventive and creating ideas like www.freerice.com you can make a hell of a difference. John Breen the guy who created this has sent much $$$$ to the World Food Programme.
It's a WIN/WIN situations users love it because they are learning, and the hungry get fed.

www.codewithcause.com
Maybe you are right, on the other hand "dumping produce below market price" could also be considered a gift.

Is this a deliberate scheme by European countries to destroy the African economy, or why are they dumping the goods? Or maybe their production methods are just more efficient and therefore the goods are so cheap?
This is an asinine response, especially for the top comment. Of course the only way to learn is by practicing, but the right guidance can enhance the amount of learning you get out of each hour practicing. It's like asking for a violin teacher recommendation -- there are good and bad resources for web design out there.
"... They depend on their small-unit leaders, who contend with an infinite assortment of situations and variables, to understand the mission, evaluate the circumstances carefully, and exercise initiative in the absence of orders. The military's training has undergone painstaking changes over the past decade to produce exactly this kind of soldier ..."

What happened to the "Strategic Corporal" vision that was borne from the lessons of Mogadishu? Krulak tried to lower the command level of decision making required in todays complex battleground and called it the "Three block War".
From peace keeper to low intensity warfare to full out civil war ~ http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?document...

"... A strategic corporal is a soldier that possesses technical mastery in the skill of arms while
being aware that his judgment, decision-making and action can all have strategic and
political consequences that can affect the outcome of a given mission and the reputation
of his country
..."

Read here how the Aus military is approaching this (pdf, 60Kb) ~ http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/liddy.pdf A measured leadership at the lowest level. A lot like startups.
↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A: Google Reader does Konami code
Why do you hate Forth?
Good point, wmeredith. The principles do apply to both, though. When I've seen print designers fail, it's been when they try to force the web to behave like a magazine or a book. Seems like the author is already accomplished at building websites, so he probably has a good idea of what works and what doesn't.
"dead" means "killed by a yc editor." somebody with some authority around here thought the comment was extremely inappropriate, trolling, spam, etc
No, in the "art" worlds much of what is respected by other artists is completely incomprehensible to ordinary people. Unless you're trying to win design competitions, the measure of a good web design is how well it is received by your site's typical users.
"What version of what browser are you using?"

Fox3, I'll try it with quotes with wget. I like the idea of personalised RSS feeds.
If you parachute into mainland Africa, the most likely outcome for you is death.

I had a friend who worked in Kenya for a few months and the class conflict was so tense there that he had six armed bodyguards on the advice of his employer.
<rant>It's bad enough that we have to see all this Tech Crunch/Reddit/Digg type of garbage on HN all the time... Now we have people posting stuff from cracked.com? This is too much. To add insult to injury this guy even has higher karma than I do. Can someone please flag this or mod it down into oblivion? A block user/block domain feature would be nice too.</rant>
The "Ruby Enterprise Edition" team has backported their patches too.

Watch out if you have a non-standard directory though. For some strange reason --with-prefix= didn't work for me and I had to manually change the prefix in the configure script.
Imho, there is an important technical side to this discussion. How scalable is your application? A bunch of friends scalable is a far cry from TechCrunch scalable. Are you confident that if you break on TechCrunch, your app won't fail? There's nothing worse than breaking big and then... breaking big. People will lose all faith in you. If your site is ready technically, why not just put it out there? There are probably way more potential compteitors here, so in some sense you are launching to an unusual pool.

On the other hand side, if your application is not yet scalable - private or invite only beta is probably your only option.
We are working on some devices for the home of the future operated through the Internet. I know a hardware guy so we are diversifying our product offerings.
He doesn't mean the tag is optional, he means he likes how it gives you a choice between just going to the raw pdf and using scribd, so it's a tag making the use of scribd optional.
I don't know for sure. My best guess is they have a calorimeter, a device which measures the irradiance on a surface. The Bodybugg companies then does a series of calibrations to convert the irradiance into the power the body outputs. The power used per (second?) is integrated up over the course of a day, and converted into calories.

Essentially, it's a fancy thermometer.
im in the middle of the structures 08 conference, some important ceo on stage, and im dying laughing due to this. epic epic win.
Symbian, iPhone and the New Mobile reality
What doesn't kill Ruby should hopefully make it stronger.
I want to build a better set top box because everything I have seen is either tied to some service (apple, tivo, netflix), is not polished enough for mass market (too many features in Linux MCE), or is too expensive > $500.

But alas I have no hardware skills so I will have to wait till someone else does it. :-)
I certainly agree that computer programming doesn't matter much, but what about hacking in the more general sense? I'm sure there are tons of problems in Africa where a simple solution could make a big difference (the recent thing with wheel-shaped water containers comes to mind).
You said: "[b]ecause Apple's dev tools have always had such a huge impact on the software development industry".

I simply provided a single example that refuted your conjecture that Apple had no influence in the development world. It's irrelevant what either one of us thinks of Java or its future; Java was a significant, mainstream development tool and it was impacted by Apple development technologies.
A profile is useful. Spamming comments with tags is completely irrelevant and useless to anyone reading it. It's duplication of content.

Please stop it.
Hmm, so why doesn't it just get deleted?
Hackers Crack London Tube's Ticketing System
You're going to have the most luck in NYC and Boston, with some smaller success in the D.C. and SFO areas.

As far as I can tell, FP is mostly being used in the financial sector, with some smaller uses in research.
Apache CouchDB 0.8.0 escapes!
George Carlin's Last Interview
Ask HN: Platform that requires Java == only requires JVM?
The Android mobile platform is supported only by JAVA? Correct me if i am wrong.

Anyway, what does that mean? That you can only program in Java for it or only that you need to compile to bytecode via the Java virtual machine?

So could I write apps in Jython, Scala or Clojure for sucha platform and that would be fine since they run on the JVM?
I wish I still had the links handy, but there's over a century's worth of research out there showing that it's a bad idea to go over 40 hours in a workweek for any extended period of time.

Of course, everyone's different, but I've noticed I have 4-6 hours of productive time in me per day for knowledge work (e.g. programming). I'm guessing I could get multiples of 4 provided there were long breaks in between, enjoyed what I was doing, and wasn't constantly being interrupted.
So people can't cry "censorship"
generally speaking, they are. if you don't want to see them, set the "showdead" parameter in your profile to "no." i assume they're kept around in zombie state for forensic purposes.
The Monk and the Riddle
First thing: get over it. Companies "sniff around" like this all the time. You're likely far away from an actual acquisition. It's to the point now where we almost don't talk with anybody without them asking for financial details of our company (to suss out the possibility of an acquisition).

Get them to give you an offer before you spend any significant money or time on this thing. If they're serious about it, the should give you numbers.
I found that piece to be not well thought out when it first appeared. For starters, it makes the argument that because Thursday is the best day to post, and noon the best time, therefore Thursday at noon is the best time to post. Which does not follow. Plus it talks about time zones a bit, but doesn't seem to clue into the fact that using a different timezone for your data would actually change your per-day results.
Better than nothing, but I'd love an option so that all PDF articles into Scribd links in the preferences. Maybe that's just because I'm in the minority of people that likes the Scribd links though. Also, this would allow anyone that never clicks the Scribd links to have a little less clutter on the front page.
I'm actually trying to do that too. Also trying to create internet content delivery and record viewing habits and statistics for a metrics/recommendation engine.
The A-Z of Programming Languages: Ada
I find if you go for a walk, it can help. Not as good as a nap but it can make you more alert for the rest of the day.

Plus it seems to be more acceptable in the workplace to actually disappear for a half hour than it is to nap.
Yeah, facebook's Microsoft round was valued at roughly 100x revenue which is a ridiculous multiple.

Basically you're worth what people are willing to pay (which isn't very helpful, I know). See how you fit in strategically with the potential acquirer, and see how much leverage that gives you.
http://mantrid.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/do-android-dream-of-...

Summary: Sort of. Scala yes, JRuby/Jython no.
...then you'll think it is funny if I say the sighting should be noted here http://www.realultimatepower.net/ninja/sightings.htm ;)
InGameNow launches - Twitter for Sports
sports-focused and event-based twitter discussions... slick interface too
CS is basically a branch of applied mathematics, and is interesting enough. But it doesn't even remotely approach the kind of profundity you see in the basic sciences.

I guess we'll have to disagree, but I think artificial intelligence, machine learning, complexity theory (PCP theorem, zero knowledge proofs, etc), and algorithmic information theory (Chatin's number, etc.) are as interesting and profound as anything in the basic sciences. CS also has the advantage that much of the field is still in development, unlike almost every other field of science.

I'm really more of a scientist by training.

No offense, but completing most of an undergrad physics degree doesn't make you a "scientist by training". To be a properly trained scientist, I think you need to have done multiple pieces of significant, original research, and more than likely have a PhD.
Wumi, clearly you didn't heed the advice of this article you posted. Tisk tisk.
That sounds a little out of place for Hacker News.

As a hacker with the freedom to be creative with how I work on web applications, I can choose Ruby because I'm not an enterprise architecture astronaut working on Serious Applications.

The ruby thing was annoying but hasn't stopped me writing and deploying web apps in Rails. Hopefully it won't happen again.
This is a great application of the live microblogging concept. People simply love to get live updates about sports specially when you at work. Every live game spectator has a mobile phone, I can imagine them sending thousands of updates per game.

I do not care for sports, but this is one great idea.
and the release email: http://apache.markmail.org/message/bchydjlojwbbkqkl?q=couchd...
Escapism nails it.

Diablo was designed as a series of clicks and rewards. When you clicked on an item in your inventory, a pleasant sound chimed. When you killed Diablo, you got a better series of sounds and more things to click in your inventory.

WoW is so successful because it provides such a compelling alternative to reality. In reality, there is risk, there is emotion, there is change. In WoW, you just have a steady stream of clicks, a steady stream of rewards, and a steady group of pseudo-friends (pseudo because they only exist as long as you play WoW and they won't help you move) that don't judge you. In some ways, it is better than reality. If nothing else, it is much easier. The only way to get better is to play more, and the more you play, the more fun you have.
I'm LOVING the aesthetic you're putting off with the web design. It's pretty overwhelming at first, though. I'd put a tag line or something right on the home page that's basically your 10 second pitch. Something like, "A better way to communicate and with other gamers." It'll give people an entry point. I looked at the site for about 45 seconds before finding and clicking on the "about" tab. Had I not come from this Hacker news thread, I may likely have just moved on after 44... or 10.

I'd also tone down the apologetic tone in the about section. There's nothing worse than starting a story by telling people you're a bad story teller.

I like it, good luck.
1% for something that takes virtually no effort at all

For any resource, including electricity, there will be an optimum level of wastage. Perhaps you would place it 0.1%? Attempting to reduce the wastage below this point, wherever it lies, will defeat the purposes that drive consumption in the first place: to live and enjoy a good life.

It's worth remembering that the reason greenies want to squeeze electricity are environmental rather than financial. Pages and pages of our media are filled with pious discussion of small lifestyle changes. This is wasted effort too!
There are some good books on other languages too such as Python, Java, J2ME, C++, C# etc., including many that are yet to be published e.g. Think Python due for print by Cambridge University Press in 2009.
How to Find Your Angel
Wow lets you create YOU.

Unlike the outside world WoW lets you create YOU as you imagine it in your wildest dreams. A 360 degree control that cannot be found anywhere in real life. The game is fair, you are who you want to be as long as you put the necessary effort into it.

I can guarantee you that a lot of players would respond to their screen name if you called them out in the street. You think they escape their bills and work and family by playing, but it is the opposite. They escape their WoW life by doing mundane things.
Freaking love the site. Totally addictive.
Gardening Project: How to Make a Mini Greenhouse - Associated Content
Profile temporarily changed.
A Cross-Language Generics Trick - Java, Scala and C#
Add a tinyurl (actually use another service that let's you delete links), then delete that link in like a day :)
If I heard somewhere had a sleeping room when interviewing, I'd be afraid that they were expecting me to stay so long that it was unsafe to drive home on a regular occasion.

Now, if it were just for midday naps, I'd love it.
Great new site. Too bad the Mets suck, or I could really load some great posts!
Why the new wire tapping law is a lot worse than you think
Thanks! I know I am not very good at that, I just don't know what else to say.
> 3. There is nothing wrong with your technology choice.

Exactly. LAMP is a good, safe choice. Many of the largest websites are LAMP (Slashdot, Wikipedia) and its the others that have the most scalability problems (EBay, Twitter).

From the article: I come from a Microsoft background, and you can say what you want about Microsoft, but their development tools and libraries are rock solid. If they have a library called System.Web.Mail, you can rest assured that it will actually send emails when you ask it to. Unfortunately, this is not the case with PHP.

I'm astounded by this comment. Some Hotmail's most spectacular outages were from failed attempts to migrate away from a Unix MTA.
Robust Java Benchmarking
This is really tough - we have a product that I was sure would be covered all over the place, on both the gaming and the tech blogs. (Online marketplace just for gaming, as I think most people here know.)

But we launched without inventory, so even though we talked to a lot of people, the best press we got was Mashable. No TC, VB, Kotaku, or Joystiq. They just said "there's nothing there, I'm not going to risk my credibility on a cool idea".

My belief is that if your project requires users to be "cool", then wait. Just release it, get some users through SEO and WOM, then pitch it to TC and the crew. If you never pitch it to them, they'll never know you exist. Hell, even now, we're not in CrunchBase. And I can definitively say we're the largest gaming pure-play marketplace out there. We'll approach the lot again when we're good and ready.

My thesis is that they'll cover you anyway if you're important enough.
Maddox being the author of the link, I suppose that yes, I was. Sorry if that sounded too aggressive -I just don't think that the link really added anything or was appropriate to the parent.
I'll be a pedant and note that the dataset is 10,000 posts to Delicious, Digg, Reddit and Mixx. The results may be less relevant on this forum.
Yeah, a friend of mine is.

He's built a video game console kit. hardware is complete, software mostly done, teaching material still to come. What it aims to do is take you through the steps required to build a game console, from how to get a signal on the screen, how video memory and sound etc work right up to building games.
"We believe great things are accomplished 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration."

Sounds like one of those banalities you might see on the back of a T-shirt.

I'd have a real hard time working for anyone who really thinks that programming has that kind of ratio. It smells too much like the construction-worker metaphor.
Nobody ever shut a school down due to a pirate.
It's the only way you can get to the end of Google Reader... it's too hard man!
A me too of twitter..? Does this site have a business model?
I don't quite follow.. what do you mean by decentralization?

.. do you mean something like having your desktop settings on a central server? ..something like apple's new Mobile Me?
Ask YC: What tool to build a web widget
Hi. I am debating what the best way to build a web widget is. Two methods I am thinking are as follows:
1. Create a page on my site and use an iFrame code with the link to that page.
2. Create a javascript code and use a script with the link to the javascript.

Is there really a difference? Which do you like more? I see Flash is another option, but I would want to avoid it. Any other options?
Updates by fans that are at the games - great site!
Site, is twitter for sports on ROIDS!
No examples on the front page, so for anyone wondering what it looks like:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=227737
I'm curious if someone got this in secretly or if the Google Reader people planned it.
"Ruby Enterprise Edition" has a copy of the relevant patch here: http://blog.phusion.nl/assets/r8ee-security-patch-20080623.t...

[from a quick skim of the patch:] The changes to array.c and string.c look pretty worrying, seems like there are unchecked error conditions that aren't too hard to exploit, possibly allowing buffer overflows in String.... e.g. any code where the attacker could specify the right-hand-side argument to the in-place string concatenation operators (String#concat and String#<<) may be affected. Most string concatenations probably aren't in-place (using String#+ instead), but there's probably at least a handful of in-place string concats in popular packages like Rails.
Somewhat similarly, my last startup (i-conserve.com) was developing a wireless sensor network to automate energy conservation.