skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you want ammunition against those claims, you should go back to math, not these studies: all claims show the gap to be small and the mean to be very close.

Most importantly he variance between groups is smaller than between individuals. This means that you have no way of knowing when you meet someone whether they are good at math because of their sex. That's the most important lesson for most people: don't be biased, because you're probably wrong.

The same argument applies to the race/IQ discussion. Variance between groups is smaller than between individuals.

So even if the claims of innate superiority are correct, you should treat individuals with respect.
Good article for C# & Java boys. Hacker News worthy? Hardly.
The accuracy of the conclusion depends on how the computers played the sonatas. I would hope they were programmed to play with variance and imperfections, otherwise it’s more like comparing beginning musicians’ rote performances to professionals’ emotive ones.
Thanks. The link has a lot of good info.
Reverse Godwin's law?
You hit the nail on the head. B is the real problem. There's nothing intrinsically bad about having billions of authors/programmers. But if you can't separate noise from signal, you start to think maybe a whitelist isn't such a bad idea.
Bungled all the way to the bank! But seriously, it was fixed within 24 hours, and was a fairly minor problem overall. I'm going to rank it pretty low on the "bungle" scale.
You make it sound as though they're mutually exclusive. Economics is a body of knowledge. Marketing is an action.

Incidentally any action taken in a free market can be described in terms of Economics, even when there's no currency changing hands (e.g. opportunity costs on the part of the seller/buyer).

If you're looking for the scarcities in the "Economics of free," I think 2 are pretty straightforward: Buyers' and sellers' Time (current), and the sellers' Product (future) that's certain to follow any "free" strategy.
Aye, people should link to the print version - single page, minimal graphics. The way the web was meant to be :-)
Why? I'm not hacking the kernel or anything, but I write plenty of systems-level code on Mac OS first and then port to Linux (usually painlessly). It's like any other unix. The only pain I can remember encountering was dealing with a MacOS calling convention weirdness (it uses 16 byte stack pointer alignment even on x86).
1 degree isn't very good, and isn't accurate either, really, as policy consensus amongst economists isn't really one of the regular topics here. Try for a higher score with something like this:

The article recommends higher skilled worker quotas -> some hackers aren't from the US -> skilled worker visas would let them get in the country -> eventually, they could create startups -> ... it's really hacker news!

To tell the truth, I liked the article, but I see a slippery slope: 1) economics articles 2) mises.org articles 3) ... 4) Ron Paul rules the home page, or at best, flame wars break out about things like, say, the gold standard (which I know some people here think is a great idea, and others think is batshittery).
It's not not a port of Gentoo Portage, but here's something similar: http://macports.org

There's also Fink, but for some reason I didn't like it when I first tried it (over 2 years ago).
Have you spoken to them about what their expectations are? You might be dealing with people who say, "Nah - I don't expect anything. You did all the work - good luck!"

Giving uninterested folks equity now could really be regretted later. What sort of grant are you going to give them? I've seen agreements in which the minority stockholder(s) had to agree to any deal that would dilute their percent ownership. That can kill a company since any investment would dilute common stock.

Just be careful doing this. I would talk with each one and work out separate deals with each if I could, even if it meant paying them a monthly amount over a two year period. I hate to pay out of pocket but I'd hate to give out equity for non-contribution even more.
Rails: Where to put the 'other' files
Send SMS for Free via AIM on iPhone
This was tried in England, and was a complete failure. The bicycles were almost immediately vandalized by chavs. Some cities are ready for it, some just aren't.

BoJo, the new Mayor of London, is a keen cyclist, we shall have to see what he comes up with.
In which case I could charge you for playing the "6 degrees of separation from 'Ron Paul rules the home page' " game :)
Isn't Atwood one of the types who get all indignant about the "Blub" argument? Maybe he should think twice before utterly confirming it.
Fair enough, but it did go pretty much like that on reddit:-)
If a skill is truly vital then I will _want_ to learn it, sooner or later, whatever my present interests are.

So there's no need for 'needs' to overrule 'wants'. (And in particular no need for thousands of people to be paid to deem what children's needs supposedly are.)

For example, if I'm interested in a sport then eventually I'll want to learn elementary arithmetic to keep track of scores and the league tables.

If my favourite thing is fantasy computer games I'll eventually want to read the names of other characters, etc.

The new knowledge in both cases will enhance my love of the activity and I will not regard it as a sacrifice to learn it.
...and maybe worry a little bit that I actually am like that

So? No where in the article do I see her complaining about anything. I am an "engineer" at a startup as well, and I have never treated a girlfriend poorly. She wouldn't skip work to spend time with you and you can't either. The difference is you work far longer and less set hours than she does. When you're building or running a business you have to be realize that there are people in that relationship that are counting on you, likely for their livelihood. Due to this fact, "dates" become less important than keeping the website up because missing a date doesn't cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars -- and it keeps the people you work with from becoming frustrated or angry by your lack of proper priorities.

I exhibit many of the tendencies she describes in the article, albeit toned down to a less extreme level (I would never do an SEO campaign for a gf's birthday site (or make said site), for example). Saying "If you want to understand your boyfriend, understand computers" is accurate so long as you take it to mean, to understand what he talks about if you ask about work or what's causing stress, etc. In previous relationships, sometimes the woman took a genuine interest in what I did, wanted to learn a bit about it, etc. Others would just affectionately tell me I'm "such a nerd" and tell me to come back to bed. Either way, it requires understanding on their part.

As for being boring, I can honestly say I've never had a boring relationship. Just because she works at a bank doesn't mean she's boring, just like coding doesn't make you boring. It's what you do with the time you're together that matters. In general, it's what you do when you're not working that makes life exciting and adventurous. Your profession should have nothing to do with that (unless you're an international assassin or something, then it's always exciting). An old friend of mine, who barely ever uses his computer, has routinely been described by his girlfriends as an extremely boring person. He doesn't like going out and would prefer to just lounge around his apartment all day and play video games or watch TV, regardless of whether or not his girlfriend is there. I have never once been with a woman and said "lets just sit around and you can watch me play this game." You're making assumptions based on outdated stereotypes.

Yes, in general "we" are highly technical, logical people. We like challenges and taking risks. We hate mediocrity and lose interest in anything as soon as it becomes boring. We can be very passionate, opinionated and headstrong. We have a constant desire to learn and grow in new ways.

Now, what in the hell is bad about that?
I'm in Rome now and these things are everywhere.
so beautiful. especially the ones with green

i like airplane flights during the day because i can see these sorts of details
How can you say this?

Yahoo! is a big company. Blaming their trouble on one thing seems to be absurd.

One thing that comes to my mind is that when your company grows, you need business savvy and a good management team. These two are something not "hacker"-ish trait.

Google seems to do quite well [Note: For A While] because they made good decisions.

It has nothing to do at all with Sergey or Larry coding skill [Reference to your earlier statement that they seem to be a good founder because they're "hacker"]. Remember they almost sold their hit-single to Yahoo! for just about One Million Dollar.

It has everything to do with time, luck, and their decisions.
I'm not being pig-headed, but honestly, I have yet to hear a good reason why I should switch to a system where I'm no longer in control of my comments and don't get any of their SEO value.

I spent years building up my blog and its readership, I've worked really hard to get the people making the comments, and I've spent a hell of a lot of work writing the story that gets people to comment... but I don't get the Google search results, I don't get why anyone would want to part with such an important asset.

IMHO, with Disqus, the blog author always loses.
Just tested this. It sends a text from 26950. If the receiver does not know your AIM screen name, the text will be very confusing. Also, if you have the Gen 1 iPhone, you get 200 texts by default with the data plan so this won't save you a ton of money.
Don't compare GNU/Linux with Windows or MacOS - they are not in the same game
Fine. use of native language == intellectual status. And if you disagree with me there, I'd like to know why.
Debunker: Google execs say they're not building a gphone
You're underestimating the amount of work that is put into creating a complete font family -- each glyph must be drawn, tweaked for visual balance, kerned properly, etc. Bold weights and italics are sometimes created algorithmically from the base typeface, but still require further editing to look good on the page. It's the attention to detail that matters.
I will never cease to be amazed by how nerds can imagine anything (and read crazy sci-fi about it), but if an object can be described as "pretty", it cannot have any other positive traits.
The fact that the government's keeping a cap on gas prices doesn't help either. On the other hand, since my trip there in 2000, electric mopeds/scooters were already immensely popular there, way before I started see them here in North America.
FYI marketing folks: this is how you snap an idea into people's brains: use an existing concept that everyone gets (buyers and sellers of drugs both distrust each other) and then link it to a more complicated concept.

And paper writers: using stories like this is genius.
They might have solved that problem...I was just there a couple of months ago, and didn't see any sign of a glut of bikes in the lower arrondissements on weekdays. If anything, there was a shortage.
Computers make me tear my hair out.
The iPhone Haters
Luckily, you can usually just hit "print this article" for a cleaner and single page version of the same article. Nytimes has a single page option in addition to the print version.
I read that some cities had problems with too many bikes ending up at a select few stations. For instance, you'd bike to the shopping center and then take your groceries home via train or bus. Have you noticed this problem happening in Copenhagen johnnyzee?
I got to level 35, awesome!
"Free" stuff still falls under the purview of economics because there is some scarcity lurking somewhere, as you correctly point out. It's just funny to read "economics of scarcity" if you are familiar with one of the traditional definitions of economics.
That wasn't my point at all, and there are plenty of things to which I would ascribe many positive attributes including pretty - first and foremost my wife, who quite smart, and also pretty.
"Get ready for the second coming: the iPhone 3G—which can run only on AT&T's third-generation (3G) cellular network—goes on sale today."

I found the error, what do I win?
I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago and saw a load of these bikes being moved by truck. I assumed at the time that they were being redistributed rather than, say, taken in for servicing.
DjangoCon 2008: Sept 6-7 at the Googleplex
Well I guess you got me there, but you can give scarce stuff away for allocation...
The html is the data, this is the correct place for it. The javascript should be behavior and not contain additional data.
Nifty game.

It runs slow on my 4-year old computer. Maybe because of all the ads on the page. Using the .swf file directly works better: http://www.scarybuggames.com/chronotron.swf
And in the UK you get 600 free SMS a month so it's not really an issue here unless you spend your life texting.
You can reap other benefits from scarcity besides charging for the scarce product. To take an example from your list, I think "scarcity" helped Facebook a lot in the early days when you had to have a valid email address from one of a small list of schools in order to have an account.
'There is no free software marketing team, no advertising budget, no "mission statement". Free software and GNU/Linux are simply there.'

The author is using the term 'GNU/Linux' but appears not to have heard of Richard Stallman.
I read your response and the other thread of replies and all I can think of is this:

since feeling is first / who pays any attention /
to the syntax of things /
will never wholly kiss you
In college, there may be some, but they're few and far between--largely because they, like you, are holed up in their dorms all day playing WoW. Once you graduate, and you both start having more normal lives, it gets much easier. Here in NYC, I've not had any trouble finding geek-compatible girls, and have been in several overall very pleasant relationships over the past couple of years. You just have to be willing to look.
What a Business Makes
You don't need to read the Economist. All you have to do is look at the numbers from DOE themselves, and make up your own mind.

Personally I believe we are nowhere near peak oil, due to Bakken, the unexplored resources off USA coastal shorelines, ANWR drilling that should be undertaken, etc.

Plus for natural gas we have the undersea hydrates that we haven't quite figured out how to mine cheaply (yet).
The web is a fuzz test: patch your browser and your web server
Reminder: Monday is D-Day for Facebook apps
Facebook is going to gradually start rolling in the new profile on Monday. If you have Facebook apps, or if you just want to get an early peek at the redesigned profile, visit:

http://www.new.facebook.com/

(you might have to go there after logging in to Facebook through the normal URL).

More details of the changes (for app developers) here:

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=130
Phoneix had free totally open WiFi in the US Airways terminal. I was pretty surprised.
I'm not sure I would consider RMS a "marketing team"... he would be an evangelist at best. And as far as a mission statement he's probably thinking of something people can understand and relate to. Say something like "a PC in every desk" and not a spiel about how you should prefer inferior software just because it gives you the option of looking at/modifying the code... when 90% of the users would never do that.

An analogy I've heard used several times. Proprietary software is like a tea set. There are differences in quality and features and it's limited in its use (you probably don't want to use your tea set to cook rice). FLOSS is like a piece of clay... sure, you can use it to build a better tea set, and it can even come already shaped like one that you just have to cook, but most of the times you're buying a tea set because you just want to drink tea.

heh... just $.02 on it.
Cell phones?
Don't you have to be online for receive the responses? If so, it's kinda silly if the person doesn't respond immediately
Xerox PARC
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of [The Black Swan](http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp...) suggests not listening to men who wears ties, especially when they are making predictions about the future.

The fellow's predictions in the past have missed the big events: don't bother trusting his newest predictions.
Cell phones are more than 20 years old. In fact, the first commercial mobile phone service is from 1978.
Nephrologist To Mac Blogger: The Unlikely Career Path Of MacRumors' Arnold Kim
Speaking of Microsoft, C# and VB have picked up a host of features from academic languages. This eight-year old essay is obsolete.

-systems grad student (fair disclaimer)
Disqus only manages other people's comments. You're the blogger so as far as your comments are concerned you lose neither control or SEO value.

That is unless you were counting other people's comments as yours.

Looking closer, it appears you spent "years" to build up the following 5 items in the NeoSmart files:

Richard Stallman Attacks the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (83 comments)
Possible Severe Gmail Security Vulnerability (Updated) (8 comments)
OS X Snow Leopard to Use ULE Scheduler? (8 comments)
Firefox 3 is Still a Memory Hog (86 comments)
Shipping Seven is a Fraud. (36 comments)

A quick glance shows that there is about 4 times as much user-contributed content as the content you wrote and the most discussed posts (presumably the ones you "worked really hard" at) are flamebait, including the recent Stallman item that spilled over into Hacker News.
I disagree. HTML is a specific serialization of the display/UI. Yes it is data, but it should be data related to display.

Writing a webapp you don't even really need to use html at all apart from to bootstrap your app. Then you can build the UI yourself instead, which I think ends up as a nicer design and more elegant solution often. (Yes it's not accessible or graceful in terms of degrading)
Vitality everywhere: the Gone List, Facebook’s News Feed, and the rise of the feed.
Facebook-like News Feed for everything else.
Douglas Engelbart
So Google was ok with turning over anonymized logs for it's users but backed out when requested to turn over similar logs for it's employees.

Shouldn't everyone be entitled to the same degree of privacy? Or is privacy something you only get if you work for Google now?
I'm probably going to attend. Tipjoy is built in Django: http://tipjoy.com
I was in Paris when they introduced these things and it was really great. Everybody collectively figuring out how to use these things; tourists teaching locals about the system and all-round fun. I really loved it.
The companies who best answer the questions in this post aren't guaranteed to be successful, but the disproportionate number of companies who answer the questions in detail are.
>You're the blogger so as far as your comments are concerned you lose neither control or SEO value.

This is very different than the current model, so you can understand why people would want to maintain the status quo. As far as SEO goes, Disqus is decidedly worse, even if it is a good idea to allow people to manage their comments.
Atwood seems to equivocate between "monkey patching," "monkey patching built in classes like String," and "metaprogramming."

There are good reasons to be careful of monkey-patching, especially monkey-patching of built in classes, but they are essentially identical to the reasons that you want to be careful of all global state. There are other forms of metaprogramming, such as macros or templates, which are more local and safe.

I guess the real issue is between "make potentially bad choices annoying and difficult to use, so that programmers feel bad about using them," versus "support all programming as well as possible, trusting the programmer to avoid bad patterns." I think that the latter attitude is more realistic: a determined bad programmer can write bad code even in Haskell or Ada or Java, and sometimes those "bad" patterns are useful (e.g., gotos are a great way to write a DFA).
Wow, every site looks like News.YC!
Losing someone (like most other things) gets easier the more times you do it...
Ask YC.sfbay: Anyone for drinks in Palo Alto, circa 28th Jul?
Hi folks,

I'm a database developer from Edinburgh, Scotland, and I'll be visiting the bay area in a couple of weeks time, so I thought I'd take the chance to throw out an invite for drinks+chat in Palo Alto while I'm around.

My regular watering-hole used to be the 'Rose and Crown' pub, but I'm open to any other suggestions; preferably ale-friendly :)

http://www.roseandcrownpa.com

Hopefully catch some of you around!
I haven't noticed or heard complaints about it. They have teams of people taking care of the fleet in exchange for unemployment benefits, I believe this includes redistributing once in a while.
TopSpin Media gets Series B, long term relationships help
Their chat system is by far the most retarded. If you have multiple aliases tied into one gmail account then gmail chat will readily leak out all of your identities to everyone.
damnit - clicked before I saw it was docstoc.
Gotta have an atty. I was able to incorporate myself but I needed an atty to talk to you about what the best structure was.
The thing that the original article(by atwood) seems to be complaining about is not actually metaprogramming. It seems more like the standard gripe that functional programmers have about state, even though it is not phrased that way.

He is objecting to dynamically changing some of the methods in the string class leading to subtle bugs as some code is written assuming the old string class and some using the new string class. Pheraps just explicitly define a separate custom-string class, or as he points out use mixins.
Misleading title...
Seems fitting that DjangoCon would be held at the Googleplex. Google and Django have been best friends for awhile now, and having 1.0 coming out is a huge deal for all Django developers . I'm going to be watching this to see what the release of 1.0 will bring, even as I continue to read the pylons book.
The good news is that Atwood's blog is targeted at Joe Average Code Monkey. He's probably right to tell his audience to ignore metaprogramming; if they are willing to do what he says, it's probably a good thing they're not trying to write good code. All they would do is break things horribly, and then complain about how badly powerful tools suck. His writing mostly exists to make the people writing PHP pages with SQL queries mixed in with <table> tags feel like they are good programmers. Whatever.

For those of us that actually know how to use powerful tools without cutting off our fingers... we have other blogs to read, and can safely ignore pretty much anything Atwood says. I even like XML a little more than I used to, just because he wrote a blog post against it ;)
Your choice of username is interesting. To me, a computer guru is someone like Guy Steele or Don Knuth. Did you choose that handle in jest?
I have mixed feelings about Disqus.

- my JS is turned off so I can't see Disqus comments

+ keeping JS turned off reduces a lot of Disqus blog comment noise

- Disqus presumably hurts blog comment SEO

+ none of the quality blogs I read care about blog comment SEO (they don't even have ads)

+ Disqus presumably could easily add useful features later, probably faster than individual bloggers would.

- Disqus comments are managed by one organization, with all the inherent problems (availability, security, privacy, ...)

I think I'd be more interested in them if they supported a way of pushing static HTML comment pages to third parties that both the blogger and the commenter could choose.
What's The Safest Seat On An Airplane?
Yeah, I always found this aspect quite amusing, but I always liked the auto-add