skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is more about the marginal utility of money than anything else. 250 million in 5 years is great if you have little cash but if you already made 300million it's just not that important.
How we read online
Joost admits problems, to release browser-based service. But is it too late?
Just call it something more exotic sounding and charge an even higher commission on earnings.
Having a sense of design is one thing, execution when it comes to user impression and interaction is another, which is why you'll (almost, read it again, almost) never see a designer for a magazine or newspaper layout working as a web designer.

I can see he knows how to use the tools he has, and the technologies required, and for that he's done well. But it just needs improvement that only comes from practice, practice and practice. My position isn't changed, it's not BAD by any means, it just needs to be more effective.
Among the other things I'm doing right now, I actually have a book deal to write a book on yoga, that includes information on meditation and breath control along with the standard postures. It's going to be directed toward people who spend too much time in front of computers. My plan is to give them quick and easy ways to relax and reduce stress and hopefully open more people up to the benefits of yoga and meditation.
Yahoo Loses Jeff Weiner, But Probably Won't Replace Him
I know a couple of DGTSers--two, to be precise. And the one introduced me to the other as 'he's smarter than me--I might write code quickly, but his code is beautiful.' I still can't comprehend that, but I accept it as true.

My analogy for some of this is the tall-building problem (really, just perspective). Looking up at two skyscrapers, can you tell which one is taller? Sometimes. Other times they both just trail off into the sky and you're incapable of observing that one is a full 20, 30, 40 stories taller than the other. So it goes with smart people--that is, people that are less smart than you are going to think you're smart (and tell you so), but that's because they have no idea how tall the building next to you is. "If you only knew Isaac, then you wouldn't call me smart!". Actually, they probably would, because they can't even appreciate those extra levels of smartness.
Ask YC: Games programming, JavaScript or Flash?
On the one hand, it seems to be golden times for flash games, with casual gaming booming and platforms like kongregate mkaing them popular. On the other hand, flash is still flash, and JavaScript seems to become an alternative.

So if you were designing a game that could be implemented with either technology, which one would you choose?

Do you expect there will be something like kongregate for Javascript games?
my thoughts exactly - another great one liner:
"What would someone with a bigger vision have done instead?"
Don't talk to the police
Ask YC: Is the AIM Service Down at the moment?
I just tried logging into AOL Instant Messenger service from three different remote services (Pidgin, Meebo and GMail) and none of them seem to want to connect. Is the AIM service down for anyone else?
I don't think I got an email. Subject line?
i would probably design the game and figure out the best technology to get the job done.
it's down for me too.
(d) All the articles I've seen so far post the same "reasons" which fail to explain:

(1) why women are underrepresented in math heavy fields,

(2) but are not underrepresented in other high status, high skill fields such as law, business and medicine.

When an article has an explanation that is specific to technology/science, go ahead and post it. But there isn't much point in rehashing the same flawed ideas.
I'd look into serving ads (using your own system) with affiliate codes built in that target the niche your startup is servicing.

Payouts tend to be higher than AdWords, but are based on actions not clicks.
My usual IRC channels have about a 3:1 female-to-male ratio. (I'm female.) Though that's on a small network, and hardly the norm.
I think that trend reached its peak with the CPDO (http://www.interfluidity.com/posts/1163375565.shtml), which was basically a contractual obligation to pursue Gambler's Ruin.
I quit my job today, oh boy
Does AOL have a status page/blog for events like this, for the past 20 minutes I've been scrambling looking for one.
I've replied by email. Hopefully you'll receive it.
Outside.in Radar: Look at news, blog posts, and tweets around you
just came back up for me, but yes, it was down for a while.
Down here as well. I have a friend who said he is still on. He said 150 ppl on his buddy list lost connection and he's able to talk to all of the remaining 4.
Okay, I'm getting back in from Meebo, but still not desktop applications.
http://summize.com/search?q=aim
What if "being playable on the web" is an integral part of the plan? Otherwise, sure, some other technology would be much more suitable than Flash or JavaScript to create games.
I've been a seth reader for a long time, I'll admit it takes a little "Kool-aid" sometimes to get into his stuff.. but I think this one is pure gold
I could give a few reasons why you should download Firefox 1.5.0 right now.
I agree with Seth. It's hard to swallow pride, but failure is often one's greatest success. As for me, failure has been my real-life MBA and I did not have to go into debt to get it. :)
there's still quite a few levels of being playable on the web.
Announcing the Django Software Foundation
Adobe Flash Working on the iPhone Emulator
I was a little surprised at the article's comment that some programmers thought Objective C doesn't have the speed and flexibility of Java. Is this true?

Based on my limited understanding of Objective C, it compiles to native code plus message passing, while Java compiles to bytecode -- which should give both languages similar performance. The Language Shootout bears this out, on PCs, at least:

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=...
Any tips to someone who just got interested enough to give it a try?
Firefox 3: New front in the browser war
Millennials (Gen Y): Will they really reinvent IT?
Kinda reminds me of Guy Kawasaki's, "Make Meaning". It's so easy for a hacker to fall into the trap of working on something cool that is of little value to anyone. Taking a step back and asking, "Is it worthy?" may be the best time management technique of all.
iRobot launches Chemical Robots for the military
I don't have anything against meditation. I practice it with some regularity, but... This title is somewhat misleading. According to the article, a causal relationship between meditation and changed brain structure has been established, and I would love to see the study that established a correlation between persistent meditation and a thicker cortex in areas linked to perception.

It seems like more poorly researched science reporting from the Times.
Bookhuddle groups or book clubs is a tool to help you organize and run groups or book clubs. Whether your book club has in person meetings or is a purely virtual club, you can benefit from this aspect of Bookhuddle.

You can invite Bookhuddle members or people outside of Bookhuddle to join your group; you can control who can join the group via the group settings.

Your group will have three default book lists that you can use to manage the group's reading. The default lists are: Read Books, Books To Read, Currently Reading, but you can create any number of lists.

Each group also has a forum where group members can discuss.

Give it a try.
Glam buys U.K. ad company, surpasses Facebook in “reach”
This article really hit the nail on the head about what's wrong with large corporate IT. Unless your business is IT, the upper management just don't understand it, therefore it's just part of doing business.
Ask HN: High-stakes promotions
What if promotions/raises within a company included a corresponding (enforceable) increase in accountability? What if someone making 4x as much had a 4x greater chance (risk) of being fired tomorrow? This is obviously not the way corporate America works now. Has it ever been done?
Sure. Read up a bit on the different types of yoga firstly (if you want to do this too - I'd strongly suggest it). I went for Hatha yoga which is very gentle and feels just like stretching and breathing first. The instructor started us off with basic breathing exercises first and then took us more into meditation. I now have an instructor who comes to my house and the 1-on-1 makes a big difference. It took some time to really "get it" (about 6 months) but once I did and I could see and feel the benefits it made me more passionate. Whatever you do, don't start yoga without an instructor - ie DVDs. They are a good tool but only (in my opinion) in conjunction with an instructor until you are more advanced. For meditation, I think you could start this without an instructor, though it would help to accelerate the learning. Finally, remember that there's no competition - you are doing it for you and as long as you improve thats the main thing. Feel free to contact me outside of here if you wish
The majority of changes in CA IT are driven by the business.

Exactly! As it should be. (As it better be.) The challenge for IT is to prove what they want is in the best interest of the business, not the IT department. We know that, we just have trouble communicating it.

Why should the business care about getting new servers or having developers waste their time rewriting already functioning code?

It's your job to answer that question. They just don't know. I had a client with slow response times the previous holiday season. Business had doubled since then. I had to paint a clear picture of what it would be like on the same infrastruture for the upcoming holiday season. x dollars spent vs. y business lost. That's a language they can understand.

Most people in corporate IT want to do a good job.

And that job is much more than development or administration. One of corporate IT's biggest job is education. We shouldn't blame others for not understanding what is clear to us. It's also our job to get them to "see the light".

(Maybe that's why I like hacking so much. I find it much easier communicating with my computer than with the bosses.)
From CNN using Twitter to the explosion of startups and low capital business offering service based products I think it's fair to say Gen Y already has reinvented IT if not already knocking down the door.
Sounds great! Would love to help out if you need anything. My contact info is in my profile
I agree. I think a lot of the advice that I see above is: "come as you are, and if they won't take you, you didn't want to work there anyway."

This is wrong. I work for a startup (my third one). I wore a suit to the interview. My now-boss said to me, "We should have told you that you didn't have to wear a tie to the interview. Sorry!". I would have worn the tie anyway.

I have personally hired 16 people since starting work at my current startup. They all dressed professionally for the interview, and subsequently changed into shorts and t-shirts.

The issue is: while the startup is casual dress, I might need to take you with me to pitch Fidelity Investments for the B-round of funding. If I'm taking you with me to my investment bank, you better wear a suit and be comfortable in it.
New features in the upcoming FitNesse release
We can expect a new release of FitNesse in the next couple of weeks. Some of the changes will make it much easier to edit and manage complex test pages, and there are quite a few shortcuts to make page editing more efficient. Here are the changes that I found the most interesting...
Looking forward to this. I've put off learning Django in-depth until 1.0 because the APIs for fundamental things like forms keep changing. I don't want to invest in learning obsolete methods or port code to newer versions. And much of the documentation is full of version-related caveats. Having a canonical, consistent API to build on will be great.
The exploitation of Aids
The richer a society or peer group, the less important visible spending becomes.
How about http://www.projectwonderful.com/ ?

I actually used it once to advertise my blog. It worked fairly well, but I wasn't really interested in advertising my blog; I was just interested in trying Project Wonderful.
Vuzit (iPaper competitor) chosen by DreamIt (YC clone)
I agree with the first paragraph and disagree with the last sentence.

For me, it's less about the typing or language skills and more about proving that you can produce a complete work-product. A typo-laden resume indicates to me that you failed to have at least one native speaker of the language review it.

If you have a known weak area (English is not your most fluent language and is also required for the job), I would expect a thorough individual to seek help.

Just like I would expect a rock-star hacker to call tech support or post on open-source forums for help if they have a particularly difficult bug that they aren't making headway with.
Why Unit Tests Matter and How They Will Save You Time
The Perfect 3 Column Liquid Layout
I interview a lot of people. When candidates ask me this, they often say "I'm coming from work, and I don't want to over-dress and tip them off that I am interviewing. May I dress casually?"

I never say "no." This is always acceptable to me.
What exactly should IT be to a non-IT business? Why should it get any better treatment than Finance or HR?
The part about the jocks was funny, which makes people smile, which makes them excited about reading the rest. Happy readers keep reading.
Are you suggesting Template tags are too complex? How would you do it?

(Not being facetious, I just thought they were one of the cooler parts of django and am interested in your thoughts.)
Not necessarily as it should be. Many modern business models really are, at their core, automation problems. Think of the heavily automated factory, or brokerage. These firms clearly need "domain expertise" in what they do, but the minute-to-minute operation of the business is done not by the experts, but by the automation systems.

In such a circumstance, it might make sense for the "IT" department to actually run the show, and use the experts in a consulting role. Instead, as the linked blog points out, the opposite is usually true.

And it's not like this hasn't been done. Look at Amazon: that's exactly what they are. Business-wise, they're just another mail order retailer. But they think of themselves as a software company, and they've been immensely successful.
Reading things like this makes me feel guilty for spending so much time reading blogs and not enough time actually creating anything.
>So from my particular programming non-web background, django can sorely stand to be improved.

I think that's the key statement though. As well, your comparison to MFC/OWL is pretty apples to oranges as well. django isn't a library, it's a framework.
Everybody frickin' knows that Yegge writes a lot. He even wrote about how he does that on purpose. Now, lets start complaining every time pg writes an essay with no pictures.
My version of this has always been that some people are as smart relative to myself as I am to my cat. There's no way I can even comprehend the chasm between us.
A pretty vague article. ALA used to be much better about addressing the "how" of their topics. Yeah, there are countless ways to prototype, but some expert examples would be valuable.
> "Heck, the Markov-chain synopses of my blogs that people post in quasi-jest tend to look like I wrote them."

... Someone has been reading Hacker News.
Whenever someone posts one of those "How to you like my app" posts, and I have to scroll horizontally, I mention it. And I usually get shouted down. They tell me to "graduate" from 800 x 600.

My argument has never been that any resolution is any better than any other. It's been that your app should work no matter what resolution your visitor arrives at.

This article is one excellent solution to that problem.
Finance and HR are seen as an integral part of the company, IT is seen as a vendor. It is very much and patron-client relationship, when it should be a partnership
Not really. As I wrote in my article, it's only working on the iPhone emulator on a Mac. Not on the phone yet.

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/adobe_flash_apple_iphone_...
Yahoo hiring freeze confirmed
Yahoo is still making offers - but just barely. "Pretty darn chilly". Not a good sign for current business
What's wrong with VP, Bank Manager, or whatnot?

Not everybody wants to be a programmer. In fact, it is perceived that programmer has no life, awkward in social situation, and tend to have a child with autism.
Can you solve the Facebook/MySpace/Bebo revenue problem with avatars?
Social networks need a second revenue stream, argues a guy who wants to provide them with one: CEO of Meez.com
Amazon's excellent technology is the result of IT serving its business requirements, not the cause of it.

Although they started out selling books, they had a grander vision. Sometimes I wonder if AWS was really planned or if it's just a byproduct of IT doing its job so well. This wouldn't be the first time a non-tech firm has become a tech firm once it realized that its most valuable asset was the techology it developed to serve its original needs.
Interesting lawsuit
Men and women are different; they think and act differently. I think we shouldn't make such a big deal about it. Just let the natural forces of it play out. Sexism will only prevent a woman from achieving her dreams if she lets it. Sometimes I think that people complain politically out of incompetence in the real world to just deal with it and succeed.
Ask YC: Ajax Basics Help
I am currently learning the basics of Ajax and going through tutorials. Right now, I'm learning how to build a simple RSS feed reader. All of the examples I have seen so far, however, use getElementByTagName() to go through the XML document by hard coding in each of the tag's names. This doesn't seem right to me, though; shouldn't I just be able to use the JavaScript DOM instead and write a script that would work regardless of XML input?

Here is the example I am working with:
http://www.w3schools.com/Ajax/tryit.asp?filename=tryajax_httprequest_js4

Any help would be appreciated.
Sorry but I disagree.

I find the commonality are IT people who struggle with communicating technology in-plain-english to those that do not live it 24/7. If there is a logical business case to be made, then you should not have a problem getting budget approval (all things considered). That said, I've experienced IT departments looking to build a Rolls Royce infrastructure (disregarding cost-benefit) just because it looks good on paper, when in fact a Lexus-equivalent would have done just fine.

Furthermore, some IT people live in fear of their jobs becoming commoditized by self-sustaining technology so they enact extremely complex systems to bring value to their job. Upper management does not turn-over like an IT department... they remember the claims brought about by the former, and rightfully hesitant in their decision to embrace the latest and greatest kool-aid.

Certainly corporate America has it's faults, no doubt. But a majority of the time I've found the IT department to be one of the most miserable teams to work with at a non-tech company.
http://coderific.com/employers/7
World to run out of Internet addresses by 2010
"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

- Steve Jobs
Not Hacker News.
Still, those refactorings can be justified as necessary enhancements, important to the survival of the business.

For that, of course, you need a relationship where there is a strong leader at the head of the IT organisation, who's willing to set priorities that will satisfy both the business and IT, and where the business side respects the IT organisation so that they don't constantly attempt to steam-roller over IT initiatives with their own urgent changes.

So, effectively, a stronger IT organisation is required. Despite the OP's assertion that IT departments are full of smart people, they are also full of not-so-smart people who don't do a good job. Once the business side is stung by repeated delays and issues, they stop trusting the IT side and the problems start increasing...
21 Laws of Computer Programming
Do the 3rd and 4th paragraphs about jocks really contribute anything to his point?

Did you notice the title of the blog?
Over the years I found that the fundamental problem between IT and Business people is trust.

IT folks (me included) consider themselves too smart for the MBA guys, as they call them, incapable of understanding the basics principles. IT folks rarely bother to speak frankly in company meetings because they thinks other folks will never get it; they push everyone else to consider then as a black box with ability to solve business life saving problems.

The reality is the MBA guys runs the business and are force to interact with the inhuman black box like they will do with a vending machine: You place an order, get results and move on.
Interesting, but it ignores the other half of the phenomenon: richer peer groups generally tend to frown upon ostentatious displays of wealth.
I went from a nice cushy job in the mailroom of the Denny's world HQ to a rather dangerous, disastrous and very frustrating job in the same building as a maintenance technician.

Yes. It's been done.
Thanks. The firewall at my current employer blocks scribd.
Flash is definitely the way to go. Flash's capabilities as of Flash 9 are astounding, and from what I've read about Flash 10, its only going to get better.

There are also other plugin platforms to look at. Shockwave for example.

With that in mind, there are some games that simply can't be produced in an online format. So make sure that a web browser is the right channel for your game.
Really? I imagine the Millionaire Fair will be going out of business very soon then.

http://www.millionairfair.ru/eng/main/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7109164.stm
Have you looked into using jQuery for your AJAX and XML parsing?
I think the assertion was not that they should get better treatment, but that they should get equal treatment. I may have misinterpreted, of course.
This seems to be about the only reasonable comment on this page, and yet the ones that are getting upvoted are the ones that are making excuses for mediocrity and criticizing 37signals for using attention to detail as a hiring criterion. (I can't upvote yours -- I lost my vote months ago when I downvoted all 20 or 30 copies of a multiply-posted comment, which the system interpreted as karma-bombing.)

I hadn't believed news.yc was really headed downhill until I saw the comments here. If "details don't matter" is really the winning view, lolcats and "we'll do it live" post chains are probably not too far behind.

(Edit: I just noticed the reason the parent comment is being ignored is more than likely just a timing issue.)
Find business partners, co-founders, startup gigs and more.
And how much will the carrier expect to take out of that transaction? If you think they are going to do it for free or for less than they take on app sales for other handsets just because Google tells them so you are making a very dicey gamble.
I'm definitely going to be using jQuery or another JavaScript library in the future. However, I'd first like to understand how to do regular JavaScript XML parsing by hand.
And commenting on them!