skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
huh? I am european, and everybody plays soccer back home. I mean everybody (girls a little less, but usually at the beach). I hope you don't think everybody is a jock.

Are you FAT, you would be a great for a golie (if playing small goals). Are you tough, but kinda slow, play defenese. Do you have great endurance, then midefield, are you good at sprinting and shooting, then offense.

In soccer there is a place for everybody, as long as you can run some.

Ah, probably ultimate frisby is a very geeky sport, in kinda lame way. It is a very demasculating sport.
The revolution will be canceled due to road construction.
Yeah, "motivation crowding" is an interesting problem. I think the lightness of TJ helps that a bit, and for our site, it's an opt-in process so they have to be that sort of person if they want that.

I think you see more confusion in the revenue-sharing models. When you bill it as "We'll pay you for content!" then it really puts people into a mindset of $$$ which can effect how much they want to contribute in their spare time.

I think there's a good chance that won't happen in this model when you say "Hey, you can let people tip you a dime for this content if you want."

Still, I'm interested to see how well our community enjoys it.
Stuff To Do has time tracking features. It's not quite as advanced as Toggl in some ways, but it's now open source, as I decided that that market is way overcrowded. I still use it myself though, and would be happy to have a few collaborators.

http://stufftodo.dedasys.com/
How can so many smart people be so bad at something as simple as Javascript on a web page?
Actually, this UseIt article is odd in two ways:

First, it starts by suggesting the OK-Cancel order doesn't matter (bikeshed issue), but then goes on to nearly double the size of the article with a convincing case that you should stick with the platform's defaults.

Second, it doesn't even mention that 'Cancel' buttons are often superfluous on the web, because 'Back' is available and usually preferable. UseIt even has an article on that subject he could have linked to:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000416.html
The Daily WTF: Productivity 2.0
www.asiapay.com
disclaimer: I'm a director for www.asiapay.com.ph
Oil prices will continue to rise in the long term because Oil reserves are finite, prices reflect cost to extract a barrel or oil not the cost to produce a barrel of oil.

And people forget that oil has another important uses that aren't related at all to energy, it is used as base material for a most plastics, lubricants and so on.
I agree. Although it only has 300 sites using it so far, it's still early days. If they don't become starved of cash I reckon this will do very nicely. Good luck Tipjoy!
see this is the problem I have with progressives. Your entire paradigm relies on collectivism. No, the government shouldn't take my money and decide how to spend it "for the good of the people". People should decide for themselves and the market will be forced to reflect people's real desires rather than some artificial notion of "good". Who are you to decide what's good for me?

Gasoline isn't a problem. Eventually supply will be constricted and demand will slow down. It's not going to be The Grapes of Wrath overnight, we'll be forced to gradually move to more efficient transportation. Economics trumps feel good social programs.
The Entrepreneur’s Mind: It takes Ignorance
prometheus beat me to all the anarcho-libertarian points. good on ya.

I have a dream, a dream that someday people will actually pay attention to what economists tell us.
I've written system administration tools in both Perl and Python. Perl is the better tool for the job (Ruby might be better still, once Unicode and performance are straightened out).

My Python code always ended up being significantly longer and slower than the same task written in Perl. Partly due to CPAN (if you can imagine it, there's at least three libraries for it in CPAN), and partly due to the nature of Perl. Perl is like a DSL built for system administration. Sometimes it gets a little clumsy on non-system administration related tasks, but when you're working in Perl's sweet spot of functionality, it's a very nice experience.

That said, Perl can be intimidating, because it is such a wide ranging language, and some of its features aren't quite right (references, and the way lists and arrays behave, can be confusing, and they're still a source of confusion for me after years of working with Perl). Python has its own quirks, and though I spent a couple of years working almost exclusively in Python, I didn't find it at all painful to come back to Perl.

Ruby, on the other hand, is a language that could probably steal my heart. Between deciding to shutdown my old company and starting up Virtualmin, I was undecided on what to do with myself. I learned some Ruby and tinkered with Ruby on Rails. Loved Ruby instantly. RoR, not as much.
This was on reddit before it showed up on news.yc. I suspect that people read it and discussed it on reddit, then came over here and gave it a bump with no comment.
We is all mix up
Chew more times per bite and use smaller plates. Reduces available food and taking longer to eat let's your brain realize you're not hungry anymore.
I'm less excited about this. Tipjoy only lets you gather your tips after you've gotten up past $5 in tips.

Now, since bug.gd mentioned $0.10 tips in their post, only the very very prolific (and very very helpful) bug solution poster will ever have a chance of cashing in (and then only for an Amazon gift card). Everyone else will just have 0 to 50 cents lying around taunting them.

I understand why tipjoy does it the way they do - intrinsic micropayment issues and such. It just doesn't seem like a good way to get money to anyone but the popular bloggers/internet personalities.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe people like leaving $10 tips for bug help...
the gas savings outweighed the cost of the parachute or they wouldn't have done it. 1% savings on a ship that size is significant money.
Im not sure what you are charging for or what your business is, but beware that Braintree routinely turns down businesses that their underwriter considers 'risky'. MANY Web2.0 businesses fall into this category. Social networking, some SaaS, online dating, etc.

You may have to shop around to find a payment solution that fits your business. Just a heads up.
Ask HN: Closed beta or release the product now?
I'm working on a community generated media (images) website for a particular niche, that's almost ready for release (or beta testing). I've never launched a website which relies so much on the creation of a very active community.

My current thought is that it would make sense to have a closed beta to begin with and actively recruit people who may be interested in participating, and then allow each beta tester to invite a specified number of other people to the website.

There of course will be very little content and community interaction to begin with, and by making it a closed beta I'm thinking that early users won't be put off by that fact, as they understand it hasn't been released to the public and that they can have a role in shaping the community and the website. If I just release the thing now with little content and no community then it could just look like a failed website to anyone visiting.

Also, it seems that users would be more likely to invite others if it's a closed beta because it's a bit more exclusive.

Does this sound logical, or would it make more sense to release the website to the public right away?
I think this happens to everyone. How about a website that tracks down old (2 years or more) "Breakthrough technology" articles and gives updates on what's going on?

I know I'd browse such a site. actually isn't this what worldchanging.com should be doing?
I'm of the mind this is the case study for the upcoming generation of consumers. It's about the IP, not the medium. How else could a TV show be about so much more than the 40 minute episode?
it's about telling us what we like instead of the other way around. and the scary thing is that it is working so well.
Oh, now it is clear why any other interpretation of the global warming is met with name calling and personal attacks (mostly trying to engineer some link between the opponent and the oil industry). It's because we are dealing with a religion. Beliefs are not to be questioned by definition. That's OK, but only up as long as the believers do not try to shut the scientists up. Which sadly is commonplace nowadays.

Thankfully, it seems a topic like this can at least be discussed on HN. I've seen some scientists' discenting views published in mainstream British press... The resulting outcry was not pretty.
The suggestion isn't for calorie counting to supplant regular weighings, but to supplement it.

Also, the end result is fat loss, not weight. Which is why I think weight is not the best metric, but performance in physical tasks. (As most people can't get their bodyfat percentage checked regularly, and performing various physical tasks is what allows you to keep or increase muscle mass while losing body fat.)
The only thing going for Authorize.net is that it is supported everywhere in every language and every framework. And, of course, they aren't actually a merchant services provider. They are just a gateway service. You need both to accept credit card payments (if I could find a company that did both really well, I'd switch to them).

Authorize.net is a bit pricey and a bit difficult to use. But, it is the gateway service that we currently use...and when I switched to another shopping cart, we didn't have to change gateway providers or write new processing code. Which was nice.

When we write our own shopping cart (which seems impossible to avoid, because everything we've tried is such a poor fit for the way we sell our software), it won't tie into Authorize.net. It'll use PayPal, Google Checkout, and some other payment gateway (whichever one works with the cheapest merchant services provider, while still offering recurring payment support, probably).
It's really beside the point, and it's a shame that Twitter's scaling woes are at all associated with Rails. Rails is a framework for making web applications. How many of Twitter's problems stem from generating HTML pages? At its core, Twitter is a massive messaging system; the web app part is a tiny layer on top. Blaming Rails for Twitter's downtime is like blaming your chat client if AIM goes down.
What I'm arguing is that being able to tell the Saudis to kiss off means we won't ever have a reason to invade them.

Realize I'm using "the Saudis" as a proxy here. But further:

Can you imagine a scenario in which the following things are true:

a) we buy, say, 40% less oil overall

b) we have the same tensions with SA and Iran as we do now

c) SA and Iran are as rich as they are now (translate: capable of financing terror groups to fight proxy wars)
?

I can't.
(Because people can't stand the thought of robots touching their food with their shiny metal robo-claws!)

Farming on private property is an entirely different scenario than having robot vehicles on public roads. I doubt he'd need anybody's approval to set things up that way.
It's guilt-free for me.
it's fun to watch the growing pains of a new form of communication. I bet there were similar bubbles at the dawn of television as the modern day super-stations formed.
Well, consider the alternative, where there was no real way to tip a solution poster at all.
I'd agree with the article that consistency is most important, and it applies to anything: for instance, when I add code to a project, I try to emulate an existing coding style (even if I hate it).

Having said that, there are logical reasons why the Mac/GNOME style (Cancel, OK) is a bit better.

One is the case of a different set of buttons. On a Mac, the default button is always in exactly the same place, even if there is no "Cancel" button. So your eye and your mouse will find "OK" without even thinking.

Another is the back/forward concept, where Cancel is a backward action. The default/OK button is a forward action, placed to the right of the backward action as it would be in a browser toolbar or a wizard. And "even more backward" actions, such as Don't Save, appear further left.
yes the link fails...am i missing the point?
It's the same in Canada. I heard a phone-in show on CBC radio where a climatologist with unorthodox views was subjected to hysterical, nasty personal attacks like nothing I'd observed before. (Among which, you're right, he was accused of taking bribes from the oil industry.) Meanwhile his arguments were never addressed. Which, of course, doesn't mean his arguments were correct. It does say something about what Dyson calls secular religion, though.

Edit: I just remembered something funny that's related. I went with my son's class on a field trip to the planetarium once. Instead of the nice star show everyone was expecting, the kids were shown a film about global warming. That wasn't so bad, except that it was the worst kind of propaganda: millions of people are going to die in flooding and other natural disasters, millions more will die of malaria, all kinds of cute animals are going to die, etc, etc... unless you kids grow up to do something about it. How low do you have to stoop to propagandize grade-school children by scaring the crap out of them?! Anyway, the film ended with some advice about turning off dripping faucets (I swear)! The lights were turned on and we all looked at each other in stunned silence. Then one hilarious child said, quite loudly, "Do as we say, or hurricanes will destroy your house!" The entire audience cracked up. We laughed it out of our system and moved on happily to the next event. I swear that kid has a future in show business...
Web 2.0 fails to produce "200 OK"...
You should apply to Justin.tv! We have nice hard flash problems here...
Something that Alex Martelli said in one of his talks when I was starting off with Python was something along the lines of: "Ignore OOP!"

I had never heard anyone suggest anything like that before, I think some developers think OOP is "the way forward." I spent many months trying to force my mind to think in an OOP manner, now I don't even bother. Occasionally I find a place where it does work, but it's definitely not a magical bullet.
I'm sorry, but what the hell are you talking about? How did we go from talking about what's been fixed or not fixed in Ruby to accusing someone of being a Bush propagandist?
www.AlertPay.com
You can also turn on the light.
Pages 243 to 256 are, in my copy at least, the Interpreter pattern

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_pattern

From what I can tell, using this is a pretty clear sign you should be using a language with macros...
It would also help if robots that could do the work actually existed.
In most scenarios where robots would be replacing human labor (especially in safety-critical areas like trucking), the engineering problems are a lot more tractable than the political ones.

GPS-guided farming seems like one of the simpler scenarios, and if finding labor is as difficult as the original post claims, one of the more likely ones, as well.
Because they did not had the insight to become hackers and fund startups.
3rd Annual Web 2.0 Awards - Multiple Y Combinator Winners
I am from Europe, too.

Ultimate did not feel demasculating the last time I played. It is a very competitive sport but in terms of physical aggression is almost the opposite of soccer. You have to run a lot, too.

As soon as I am back home I'll go back to juggling, unicycling, lock picking and walking on a slackline. The real geek sports.
Microsoft Jumping Into Social Bookmarking
What if Microsoft had picked a different Chief Software Architect?
More Than One Billion Users Will View Online Video in 2013
Google Fights for the Right to Hide Its Privacy Policy
MBA students go for Google
That's a point, indeed.

But somehow I feel I aimed at something different in the original post. I can not point to it now, though.
The tip amount is up to the tipper. The default is $0.10, but you can set it up to $0.50. After you tip, there is a link to give more, where you can give quite a lot. You can change your tip amount here: http://tipjoy.com/settings/

So an active user of their site probably won't have to worry about accumulating enough to reach $5.
Storm warning for cloud computing
One of the things which definitely improve online tipping is making it clear what it will be used for. Making it easier and more visible also helps.

This leads to the question if online tipping is a luxury good. Tipping in restaurants for instance is so ingrained both socially and because the staff need the money that tips may be squeezed in an economic downturn (see http://waiterrant.net/?p=436), but they will hold up. For online content, that remains to be seen, but we can definitely try.
Seriously, mqt, do you have a script that just sits there and polls paulgraham.com/articles.html for changes?
Raised by an academic and musician/programmer in Palo Alto, I wanted to start a salad dressing business when I was 13 before Whole Foods had already taken over the country. I would have, but didn't realize I could by olive oil wholesale and buying retail wasn't profitable. It wasn't until I moved to Manhattan that I started my first business at 22. Now, I'm about to get going with something online and am most likely going to move (temporarily) to Israel . Smart, ambitious, talented people and a much lower cost of living than in America. Sometimes being an outsider can be motivating.

We'll see how it goes. I'm psyched.
paulgraham.com has an RSS feed. So it probably just shows up in his RSS reader, and then he submits it.
This Blog Sits at the: the willing embrace of complexity
Adobe Flash exploit raises concern
Because they bought costly to operate and maintain things bigger than they needed. A few years later they became even more costly, and suddenly they feel like they can't afford it. Tradesmen are one thing (but can't they write off fuel purchases as a business expense? (I'm not entirely certain about this.)), but most of the people tooling around in their SUVs aren't tradesmen, and, like I said, I have a hard time feeling sorry for them. They made a bad decision and now have to deal with the consequences.
Borders returns to Web retailing after 7 years
OMG STFU
Acquirers are looking for synergies that they can see with their current business (which they know well). Investors are looking at a range of possible exits and may be more open to possibilities. Firms like the Corum Group http://www.corumgroup.com/ specialize in software mergers and acquisition and offer a great "Selling Up, Selling Out" conference that's worth attending.
And here I was wondering why there was no RSS feed on the essays page.
See http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/ispm.html for a well reasoned dissent with global warming.
Well, someone has to keep us safe from Spain!
Clicking back is not enough. You also have to refresh the page to get a new continuation.

On IE the text is gone after you hit refresh. On firefox the text stays when you hit refresh. Since I'm used to the behavior of firefox...

Printing the http-post data on the error page would also help. Because the moment I realize my post is gone I can still hit "forward" to get back to the error message. It's not a perfect solution, but since it only takes 15 seconds to implement it's a fair compromise.
The Internet is so...Hollywood
Scalable Nonblocking Data Structures
(Not directly related, only some annotations:)

New ideas easily win over any sort of ambition:

But cities are too distracting for really new ideas:

In order for them to happen, you need the quiet of some sort of island (in any sense).

(BTW, where are you coming from, exactly? The isle of GB, and the isle of Lisp, right?)
If you think you have a great product and will surely hit the roof with traffic, an invite only service is recommended. Else, you might as well open it up now and see what happens.
Their sandbox really sucks. 404s galore. I decided to develop on their live site which has been more reliable. No my credit card bill is 10 pages and every transaction has a reversal.

The documentation is lacking and inaccurate in many places. They don't consider these bugs so I was unable to provide them feedback.

Their support staff acts like bugs and other issues are not that important. I asked if they could provide a list of PP bugs to the public so that I could mitigate, if possible, and they said no because it would make them look bad.

I'd jump ship if there was another solution that provided the features.
"New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking. But the clearest message is that you should be richer.

What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books you've been meaning to."

From two years ago here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070102025129/http://paulgraham.... :

"I find every ambitious town sends you a message. New York tells you "you should make more money." LA tells you "you should be better looking." Rome tells you "you should dress better." London tells you "you should be hipper." The Bay Area tells you "you should live better." And Cambridge tells you "you should read some of those books you've been meaning to.""
Ermm, have you ever even set foot outside of a city? You do know that people live outside cities, right? You know there are these things called small towns, and farms? Can your smug little mind even comprehend that there are people who drive pickup trucks (NOT SUVs) and other vehicles because that's what's necessary where they live?

Carry on living in your self-absorbed little world, and wonder why the price of food goes up when the people who grow it and transport it to you have to pay more for fuel.
Thank you! And thank you very much Gabe Weinberg!
Implementing A Suggest-A-Friend Feature
My solution in University: The "Dana" by Alphasmart. It's a computer which is just a keyboard with a small screen showing three lines; once you are finished, plug it into a regular computer and press "send."

NO internet, no distractions, no REDDIT.com, etc!

And yes, I am writing this at work.
> Maybe the Internet will change things further. Maybe one day the most important community you belong to will be a virtual one, and it won't matter where you live physically. But I wouldn't bet on it. The physical world is very high bandwidth, and some of the ways cities send you messages are quite subtle.

I detect an opportunity...
This was inspired by a Nature article, but I decided to focus on the space more generally.

For those who want to read the Nature article, here it is: http://20bits.com/downloads/nature06830.pdf

It's pretty thick, so let me know if you have any questions.