skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
has the blog author actually visited Amazon recently? Amazon is a lot more than just books, music, and dvds now. I can think of a lot of product categories borders doesn't even touch, let alone specific products.

O yeah - Amazon isn't the only company selling stuff on its website... this post seems more like a paid PR piece than anything enlightening. I don't even know how this story even got past 1 vote
(+ jl pg)
Microsoft linking Silverlight, Ruby on Rails
The curse of updates
Ask you asking because you have an idea for startup which involves other people being near public transport? Ask you asking because you are considering re-location?
I'm glad the internet doesn't make brightly colored images about my personal life.
The problem is that you (and the article) seem to define the 'end user' too narrowly. Most distros weren't meant for that particular person and shouldn't be pushed on them.

The OP criticizes open source as a 'failure' because it doesn't satisfy a demographic for which it was never meant.

'End users' as you describe them, don't need Linux, they have Windows, and for them, it works just fine.
I'm not much of a Perl guy (in the past, I used Perl 5 for one-off tasks), and I don't know much about Perl 6, so I don't understand some of the author's finer technical points. I do want to address his point about the "personal language anti-pattern" and how it comes up in Lisp.

It could be that I haven't read enough old Lisp code, but I have never yet seen this problem. Not once. Lispers use macros all the time to extend the language, but the practice has well-established conventions, and every time I see macros at play, they make the code more terse, and therefore much easier to read. Three typical examples. (1) New with- blocks, such as (with-datastore-connection ...), which abstract away recovery boilerplate. (2) New defclass macros, which provide CLOS classes with special functionality (maybe define-persistent-class). (3) New defun macros which define functions with special behavior (maybe define-memoized-function).

Of course macros in the wrong hands are dangerous. A macro called with-open-socket should open and clean up sockets, and if it actually opens a file instead, then the person who wrote it made a horrible blunder. However, this same person will probably do a lot of damage using any tools provided by any language, no matter how restrictive.

I have a feeling that a lot of this "personal language anti-pattern" FUD, which I've seen before, comes from being burned by bad developers wielding C++ and overusing operator overloading. C++ is probably not a useful template for where language programmability leads to disastrous code, because C++ itself has poorly thought-out and confusingly overloaded operators and syntax. Example: I just love that << and >> are both for bit shifting and stream operations, which brilliantly conflicts with nested templates like list<list<int>>, which must be written as list<list<int> >, note the trailing space.
Quick observation. Your eyes will need to make a dramatic focus change between a monitor on your desk and another on your wall, or it's really close to your face, in which case you'll be scanning all over the place looking for stuff). Either way you're probably going to tire them out faster.

My boss (day job) has a flat screen TV on his wall that he uses as a third monitor. Some observations:

* He doesn't use it very frequently for himself.
* It's somewhat useful if he wants to show you some content online without you squinting at his on-desk displays
* The resolution isn't that fantastic.
* My boss is a Costco freak, so I'm sure the Aquos display he has is from there.

So, in my research with a sample space of one, I'd say that it's an okay thing to do, but if you were intending to use the display as a day-to-day second monitor, you'd probably be better off getting something that'll sit next to your laptop.
Not one YC company has been funded by Boston VCs.
My plan was to develop on laptop screen then run the art on the TV. However, I was hoping that the TV would be usable for reading email, etc, if I bumped up the font size. Maybe I can find a friend with said TV and try it out for a while.
10 Things I Hate About (U)NIX
This trend is similar to the loss of creativity in education. My theory is that it's also a side effect of having teachers who aren't experts in their field; after all, how can you expect someone who doesn't understand physics to teach physics? They'll teach by rote from a textbook, which leads to exactly this. Do the same for the arts and math and every other subject, and you gradually wear the imagination, curiosity, and creativity out of students.

It doesn't help that the masses tend to resent the intellectuals... I remember well the looks my friend and I got when we got our AP physics test results back, and the average was 59%, the high was 96%... they knew who got the 96, and they blamed us for blowing the curve.
This sure has a lot of upmods for zero comments. Nothing against pc, but is this really that spectacular of a blog post? It's like the 10th MagLev response on the front page lately, and doesn't add too much to the discussion other than a quick comparison to Common LISP.
Asus officially announces Eee Box details
If the "end user" isn't the neighbor who buys/uses software, then what is it?

Because if you define "end user" as businesses, then they're going to come in contact with Linux int he office. If "end user" is defined as "power users" then Linux is doing just fine and every "This is the year of Linux" or "My technophile girlfriend uses Ubuntu!" article is wrong off the bat.
No offence Tarquin, but what's the purpose of this test? It cannot possibly tell us anything about our own sites, or the sites we work on.

Like many of us, I've already tracked the time it takes for Google to index the changes to my own sites - about 14 hours. I work on sites that the Google robots hit only once every 2 weeks - less content, and fewer updates, though some of them earn 10 times what my more 'frequent' sites earn.

Good O, Hacker News! Which means sweet F all to me, all of my customers, and pretty much everybody else on the planet.

By the way, how long IS a piece off string?
A VistA developer's opinion of Google Health: Google gets it right for consumers
Control is a one way street
pmarca has some great articles on the topic for startup hiring. We at Snaptalent love his stuff - maybe this is something we should compile...
In my university, we the students set up a wiki for our course where we have added links to resources (lecturer's homepages and misc.) and some summarised notes on courses (along with timeless quotes from lecturers!).

Personally, I find it extremely handy and would recc. it and although it can be hard to coax participation at times, our wiki is passively quite active (pretty much everyone in our year refers to it, naturally peaking around exam time).

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mathsoc/wiki/Main_Page
funny, I always thought that Y Combinator had a hidden meaning of combining Y chromosomes, as most geeks are guys

Update: This is not a homosexual joke. Combining is meant in a business sense.
cons?
Thats pretty impressive. I have noticed my small blog posts get indexed quickly on google.
NYC Seed - funding tech companies in NYC
So a naturally laid back dude whose only experience is in a big company has no chance in a startup?
I find the transparent persistence and caching much more interesting. I wonder if you can transparently persist closures and continuations. If so you can do some really neat things.
TechCrunch 40 Startups Raising More Money- BeFunky
In happiness surveys, Latin America does pretty well -- I think as a region it comes out on top.

This is contentious, but for most of the immigrants, they didn't move because the culture was more enjoyable here. Most of the Latin American immigrants had ther livelihood strip from them in two stages: one, from general industrialization pressures that have affected practically every country, forcing specialization into cash crops to compete, two, increasing competition from the USA and other countries, coupled with crop failures endemic to semi-arid areas.

The few areas in which modestly educated Latin Americans could reliably compete were in illegal cash crops (for which they had less competition in the USA), which continues to cause economic distruption and criminal activity, and manual labor. Those forced into either business might have better chances in the USA, but on the whole they're happy countries. When you're there, you can feel it.

As for success and low IQs, if I recall correctly, someone got the bright idea of testing Caltech professors while Feynman was there -- this may have been prompted after he won the nobel prize, and found out his score from highschool was 125. When they tested the professors, the scores were surprisingly low. I forget who it was, but someone got to make a big deal of his 105 score, since it was three points higher than Feynman's.

My point is that these measures can be stunningly irrelevant, and, if so, while they might have some utility for, say, selecting an undergraduate class, they are often best ignored by an individual when it comes time to decide what one is capable of.
"If the "end user" isn't the neighbor who buys/uses software, then what is it?"

Whoever you wrote it for. In open source, it is usually yourself and people like you. Sometimes its businesses, or non-computer people, but usually its 'hackers.'

Gentoo doesn't come with Fusion because it's target user base is made of technophiles who like to tinker. Red Hat doesn't have it because it is targeted at business users who use it to power servers and backends. Ubuntu targets 'ordinary users' and does come with Fusion. It's really that simple.

"Ideally (to me), some distro could have website that could autodetect hardware and have a bunch of {check, drop down, radial} boxes for software to put on it. (Want Fusion? OpenOffice? Gnome or KDE or XFCE or so on? How much information to see? Everything/Quick blurb/Errors only/Whatever else? Hell, if its for the end user, let them upload their own desktop background to use right away. Little things are important too) The site would then customize the distro and create the iso as needed for the individual."

That would be a cool distro but I don't think that it's feasible. Besides, part of the fun of Linux is exploring what's available. Ubuntu comes with a large repository and it makes it easy to explore all the different applications that are available. Trying different things out was one of the things that always kept me on Linux, it was a lot more fun than the Windows model, never mind that I couldn't use Photoshop.
Counting in hexadecimal on your fingers
A neat trick to express multi-clause if statements in C++, C# or Java
OSX would fail completely without free software. BSD is the subsystem, their browser is based on konqueror's html engine, they rely on cups for printing, samba for file sharing with windows... the list goes on and on.

What's important about this isn't so much that free software didn't fail, but that modern computing could not and would not exist without free software. End of story. Mac classic would be all but dead now, and Windows would have "innovated" us all in to a ditch. Remember what Microsoft did to IE when Netscape wasn't a threat? It'd be the same story. Without free software, there wouldn't be a mozilla, an OSX, or anything like it. Modern computing absolutely requires free software in order to function.
Then the problem is not that it was pointless, but that it was not novel. The article in question for your C++ programmer has a point; the programmer just doesn't care.

As a college student, defending copyright is rare in MY world, and people look at me funny when I tell them I buy CDs, and my brother laughs at me when I say I'm going to support Obsidian by buying their next game full price as soon as it comes out. I liked Matt's article; it was pretty basic analysis, but it was reasonable.
You've got to look at the native resolution of the LCD, which for a 1080p TV would is 1920x1080. For a comparison, a 30" Apple Cinema Display is capable of 2560X1600. So, fewer pixels over a greater screen area = kinda chunky!
Theft of a song is no more natural than theft of a car, so should we take those laws off the books too?

Please stop reading this comment Matt. You're stealing it from all the other people who want to read it.
Yawn. This article is three years old, and even in 2005 was mostly trite, recycled trash (X11 sucks on a line with 200ms latency? Do tell...). And big chunks of it are just plain wrong (no, stdin and stdout are not always pipes, are not forced to be unidirectional, and yes you can tell the difference) or incomplete (the author apparently has never heard of the scatter/gather I/O using readv/writev, nor kqueues/epoll, and doesn't seem to know much about signals either).

Basically everything in this is either wrong or disingenuous. Stay away, it's just flame bait. If you want to read a good flame about unix, "The UNIX-HATER's Handbook" did all this much, much better. Read that. The linked article isn't worth your time.
Why Doesnt Mixx Have More Users?
It might work if you bump up the font size, but then when your email app is on your regular screen the fonts will seem HUGE.

You might be able to use the TV for "skimming" email.
Acrobat.com is SAASy
People who can't type the "U" of "Unix"
for those of us who have never run high authority websites -- if google indexes you that frequently, how much bandwidth do they use up?
Thanks for the clarification on your definition of "end user" - we were just looking at things from different perspectives I guess.

As for the feasibility of the idea? Its not feasible for me to do - beyond my knowledge. But I don't see why someone can't manage it at some point in the future if they wanted to. But that could just be because I thought of it and no one likes to think that they've thought of a bad/impossible to implement idea.
Sparse site, but interesting. Questions from their PDF application:

* What’s the idea?

* Why now?

* Who are your competitors?

* How will you make money?

* How will you use the funding?

* Please describe your product development roadmap. How long will it take to complete your first version?

* Please provide bios for each founder.

* Please provide 3 references for each founder.
Yes. But the only such jobs available are in retail. %$@&! suburbia!
Ask YC: What are some of the Python blogs you read?
What are some of the Python blogs you read?
The CNN.com Effect: Mixx More Than Doubles Visitors in May To Nearly One Million
My guess (and I haven't RTFA): because "social news sites" are so 2005.
Microsoft, please just fix your goddamn browser :[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_combinator
I know somebody who seems quite happy with CoLinux.
Ha! Funny! Too bad the homophobes on here can't appreciate a good joke...
From the article: they're constantly trying to play catch-up with others.

That hasn't changed. Microsoft has rarely been the first mover in a market. The difference nowadays is that consumers are becoming more educated. There was a time when an eight bit computer, a cruddy spreadsheet and a floppy drive compressed the tedium of an accountant from 38 hours per week to two hours per week. When that was the case, you could become part of a network effect or leverage an existing monopoly to sell bad knock-offs. It didn't matter if it crashed once per week because you'd still be four times more productive than doing the task manually.

Nowadays, expectations are higher, choices are wider and value lies elsewhere. Many people on this forum will remember when computer hardware and consumables were only available from specialist suppliers. That isn't the case anymore. Nor is it a de facto monopoly. Anyone in any major city can walk into a retailer and walk out with a computer that doesn't run Windows. Furthermore, anyone's nephew can install OpenOffice. People are now discovering that they can pay less and gain a productivity advantage. Having control of your data is a fringe benefit which they rarely consider.

Microsoft now has to work extremely hard and an increasing number are disatisfied. Unfortunately, too many consumers remain grateful for minimal productivity gains. Unfortunately, too many consumers take vendor shenanegans at face value. Fortunately, an increasing number of consumers have become wary of encumbants with a long history of market abuse.
What Is Programming?
The Gentoo documentation is absolutely astonishingly great. But it's the only aspect of the system that I consider good. Everything else is a mess.

Gentoo feels like someone sat down to a Debian or CentOS system, used it for a while, and said, "You know, I really like it when I have to compile stuff from scratch, and make all of my own decisions about options and stuff and what tools to use, even though I have no idea what the difference is between various init systems, FTP servers, versions of Apache, configuration tools, etc. I don't like how easy and quick installing software from apt-get or yum is, or how it all seems to Just Work when it's done. I know, I'll borrow some ideas from FreeBSD's far more complicated to use and error-prone package management tools, and make a whole new Linux distribution that requires significantly more time and effort to use! It'll be awesome!" And a billion and one nerds with too much time on their hands saw it, loved it, and climbed right on board.

I'm sure I'll be voted down for this, as Gentoo has rabid fans, but I'm always stunned by how effectively the community markets Gentoo to new Linux users, and what an astonishingly bad experience it provides to those new users. Encouraging learning is wonderful, but foisting a seriously challenging learning experience on to users while calling it an "easy to use" Linux distribution is doing them, and Linux in general, a grave disservice. Gentoo is not easy to use, and it is extremely easy to break.
Any popular distro with good package management and a long lifecycle is fine.

Of course, that narrows it down to Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, and CentOS. But all of those are absolutely fantastic in current versions (though I generally like Debian better on servers than Ubuntu--I just don't think the changes they've made make it a better system).
I see what you did there. Nobody uses Windows on servers.
Doesn't seem to say anywhere how much they invest. How are you supposed to know if you want to apply?
Ouch. I feel bad for Xconomy. They're going to be wishing they could pull this headline back.
Copyright Infringement != Theft
>No idea is too early for consideration for NYC Seed.

>We will ask to review a prototype of your product.

Bit of a contradiction.
I created this in response to Matt Maroon's essay on IP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=207125
As is "irregardless." Not that anyone should begrudge you the use of either word.
I would guess it is in the ~100k range, 5kn+ 5k wouldn't work in NYC.

PA has a bunch of early stage state funded seed funders, they are known for doing extraordinary amounts of due diligence.
Argh. I can't stand it when people conflate theft and copyright infringement. They are different things and it's lazy to treat them the same.

I tried to explain the differences as best as I could: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=207440
I think they could do better. "Strap on some plumbs" sounds vaguely sexual.
Smart move, mhartl. Now 30 people will vote this up in 2 hours, and the next top story will be about PG too.
As a sometimes musician, I really want someone to get a little more creative about the future of the music industry than just "make all of your money from live concerts." If the only musicians that can make money from recordings are ones who are so widely known and liked that people stealing their music online is irrelevant, the gap between "unknown" and "world famous" is basically impossible to cross.
Matt, you're confusing IP with copyrights. I've dealt with IP lawyers in the past, and those two terms mean very different things. Copyright law is actually a very murky water and certain kind of fish (lawyers) feel pretty comfortable swimming in there. Early YouTube investors clearly knew what's coming and they're prepared, they've get their fishies ready.

But those are boring technicalities. What matters is the fundamental question if one can proclaim things like music, literature and images as his property. Technically I can repeat one of your sentences and you can accuse me of stealing.

That's all huge bullshit in my opinion. A song or a movie by itself shouldn't be copyrightable simply because it's not fair: it takes a lot of money to enforce such laws, this is why there are only a few privileged "customers" of this system. I can copy and distribute your blog posts all I want and there is nothing you'll (likely) do about it. This "copyright club" doesn't treat outsiders nicely, this is why Google (clearly and outsider) has been bit so often by those assholes, even something as awesome as their "Street View" is facing idiotic copyright complaints.

And, personally, I believe they will all fail and technology will overtake. We will not be paying for songs and movies, we'll be paying for comfortable theaters with nice sound and live concert performances. And someone with a law degree will have to find a real job.
Give us a break. A wedding is happy news - and celebrating it for a few hours on a website the guy brought to fruition is hardly joining a cult of personality.

Two atoms become a list. What could be more romantic?
Hacker Hijacks Website of Hacking Tool Maker
The Utopian Origin of Cubicles
Socializer Now Localist; Just Another Local Events Site?
Yahoo Finance is much, much older than Google Finance. Google was actually using Yahoo's data for their finance product.
I didn't actually know that. I know incent was just put there because people started using it widely, even before it was a word, but for some reason I like that and not irregardless.

Maybe we should go one step further and start saying irregardlessly?
Well, the fantasy leagues have deep enough pockets to hold up their end as well. It's precisely because the business is so profitable that the leagues want to get a stranglehold on it.
The hype build-up continues. Note how a friend of MagLev devs points out that it's "up to 60x", which technically could mean anything including "60x for one specific case and 1x for the rest of them". With claims that are this wishy-washy, the only sensible option is to wait for the benchmarks of the public release. Anything else merely fuels the hype machine.

(edit) Hmm, interesting .. getting down-modded. I guess independent benchmarking is no longer a preferred way of confirming rather bold vendor claims.
It's cool to see other designers with a strong design sense that can also code... some times I feel a little alone in that respect. Seems useful for startups but not so great for finding a job else where.
The question whether it is possible to make Ruby faster is very close to how fast can we make other similar languages. If we can make a system run Smalltalk much faster than the same system can run the best Ruby implementation, we know something in the Ruby implementation is very wrong.

Every language in this league solves very similar problems. It's the techniques people use to solve them that make the difference in performance.

While not as good as directly comparing different Ruby implementations, the results of comparing similar languages lend some credibility to the Maglev claims.
I'm a big fan of saying whatever you want as long as people understand you. Shakespeare made up stuff all the time, and people got it. Meanwhile, I can't understand Steve Gillmor, even when he's using all one syllable words.
The next step is to integrate this into bash.
Also see http://www.ycombinator.search.xirium.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?... to exclude items before making a custom RSS feed.