skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think part of the issue here is the nature of the beast--for most English teachers, teaching is less about showing their students how to successfully parse the symbolism and subtext, and more about clubbing them over the head with the teacher's own interpretation. I imagine it's easy to fall into that trap. If you give a student the tools to find the answer instead of just giving the answer, you risk the possibility of the student coming back with something you deem "incorrect". In quantitative subjects, it's easy to say, "Nope, that's wrong. The answer is this..." In the arts and humanities however, one can almost always argue for the validity of his/her interpretation. So, an English teacher has a difficult job. On the one hand, you can give your students methods to come up with their own interpretations of the readings (which will inevitably result in "incorrect" interpretations and conflict as the students fight with you over the validity of their ideas). On the other hand, you can teach your own answers, and encourage your students to lightly reinterpret and regurgitate them. In keeping with that old saying about teaching a man to fish, many (if not most) English teachers simply give their students the fish. So, when the pupils come upon a teacher that assumes they already know how to fish, they starve. Disclaimer: I was an English major in college, so this is based on my own experience.
If you're feeling frisky, you can make your own :

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/usbkey
Saying "these discussions are even worse than the ones they seek to avoid" is an easy out though, unless there's some other way to express our dissatisfaction with said politics articles (down arrow, or whatever else). Furthermore, they serve to pass on information to new members of the community.
But, but... what happens when the Professor IS a Ninja?
I Guess IP Addresses Are Personal, After All
My feeling is that over the past few weeks, there has been a small but significant rise in 'bad' stories. Stuff like this is getting voted up:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247404
EasyTweets: The Multi Account Microblogging Platform
Social peer-to-peer and Tribler
Hmm. So, basically it boils down to adding new novelties, bells and whistles took precedence to implementing basic functionality and utility?

If this is Apple's reason for not adding cut/paste, they need to pull their collective heads out of their collective arses.
The cord seems a bit too long to make it a useful/comfortable flash drive to keep with me. If it were a bit shorter, I'd almost consider it. :)
EasyTweets is an app that I built that allows users to leverage multiple Twitter accounts to promote their web sites, brands, and businesses. I just launched it last night.
I think people overestimate the difficulty of learning a new language. Compared to my Portuguese, their English is downright embarrassing and shameful, and I'm not proud of my current Portuguese due to lack of practice.

It's not that hard to learn decent grammar, especially with the resources available to those with Internet access. The fact that these kids can hammer out imbecilic English sentences doesn't impress me.
HID Conversion Kits
A global online distributor of auto parts and car accessories, car diagnostic tools , HID Conversion Kits, wheel rims, car alarm systems and many more.
At the risk of missing the joke, couldn't you just cut it?
New 3G iPhone Unlocked
User Value in Digital Communities
I had the same question too. I am from India, I want to apply for Winter Cycle and the product is for all the users. I had read a post where they say it is tough to get into ycombinator if you are not from Ivy League colleges or from USA.
This is a scary part for me, I took leave from college this year to get into winter cycle and then i read about it how difficult it is for people from other countries to get into ycombinator. They said it is difficult not impossible, so trying my 100% to get in.
I am starting up a new fund (with backing), what is your email?
The wood world
If you are already set on doing it, don't worry about the fact that YC didn't or wouldn't accept you. Go ahead and launch whatever it is you wanted to launch, iterate, and see what happens.

In any event, there are companies out there that hire great hackers and the best way to showcase your hacking skills is to actually launch something (that works!).
Paul's been pretty active here in saying that he doesn't think that coming from a brand name college is important. Oh, and by the way, "Ivy" isn't the word you want. MIT and Stanford for instance aren't "Ivy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#Members

I'm certain that there have been English and Canadian teams accepted, so I think your inhibitions are unfounded. More problematic would be getting your visa sorted out.

Also note that YC accepts less than 10% of applicants, so you shouldn't bank on being accepted. Figure out your plans with or without YC and how you'd go through with it either way.
azharcs,

I too planned to do the same thing as you did - taking leave from college. But you know how strict it is in India. You must be lucky that your college gave you the 'requested' leave. I planned of taking leave and then the idea itself scared me off(what if I don't get selected and I am on leave).
OK this made me smile, but really not the type of thing I want to see voted to the top of HN.
Gmail does such a good job at filtering spam that I hardly worry about it anymore.
In my old school, if you fail a year (average below 60%) you repeat that year, if you fail three times, you're kicked out.
FREE Coloring Pages - High School Musical Group B
Potential buyers: criminals who think they can hide their data in a pile of trash. Boyfriends who think they can hide their erotic photo collection.
Why People Still Use IE 6
I agree, but I don't think it's an issue of equality in the sense that we're all given trophies and told we're all winners. I think it stems from the fact that most people totally abhor the concept of being thought of as common. Not everyone can be a leader--hell, if that were the case nothing would get done. Really though, there is nothing wrong with being an ordinary working citizen. If you have a hobby, pursue it in your free time. Conversely, if you like watching TV and jerking off, by all means, indulge in it.
yup very much true. Visa is the biggest problem after being accepted.
ditto

edit:downmod for agreement?
There is useful information about advisers. Perhaps not as much as is desirable, but certainly enough to avoid making bad choices. Very important: what happened to their old students?

My adviser: all students got academic jobs (some multiple offers) and finished in 5 years (5 years from B.S. to Ph.D. is normal for math). The most recent student, with whom I had overlap, said he rocked.

Another adviser I considered: fastest student took 6 years. One student took 9.5 years, and told everyone "pick a different adviser". Several never graduated. I scratched him off my list.

As for the "three dates", it's not optimal, but you can eliminate some bad choices. If the guy forgets to show up for "date #2"? He'll probably do that a lot. He probably doesn't care. One guy (perfectly decent fellow) was very formal, which doesn't really work for me. Several women students mentioned to me they want someone encouraging. The point of the meetings is to judge whether your personalities are compatible.

There is information out there, but lots of people don't actively seek it out. Then they become miserable grad students. One guy in my year ignored the advice of "9.5 years", and went on to become a miserable grad student (and now a happy actuary with an M.S.).

I had a fantastic adviser, which might have been luck. I had an adviser who didn't suck, which was the result of good choices.
I can always get educated whenever i want to but market is not always favorable for launching products always. It is not like i am not getting educated now, everyday learning little bit more than i knew yesterday be it programming, designing or start up culture. I am self-learning now and it feels great not to be spoon fed.

I know it is tough to quit education in India, they think of education as spiritual rather than a commodity they purchase by paying yearly fees. Which city in India do u stay, I am from Bangalore.
Microsoft tried to get micropayments rolling at least half a decade ago, that's probably why there isn't a workable system in place yet.
I wonder if their college-graduation bias is based on preconceptions or actual HR data from their past hires.
To put it in the same context, there's lots of jobs out there that essentially require a car - the job is in an area poorly served by mass transit, or its a job that requires visiting clients' offices. It's clearly not short-sighted then.

In addition, up until the recent gas price increase, there was a perceived tradeoff between living in a small apartment in the center of a city, or living in a larger, cheaper house in the suburbs. The total cost of car+house was generally perceived as paying less for more versus the inner-city apartment.

Finally, if you have children, there's going to be tons of activities (sports, summer camp, etc.) that basically require a car. It's an investment in their future.
Looks interesting. Is anyone using this? Or planning to use it?
He said concerns about "moral hazard" - stoked by hard-line free-marketeers at the White House and vocal parts of the US media - were holding up a solution [for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]

Not so - the reason Paulson's plan hasn't been finalized is that Congressmen from both parties don't want to give the Treasury a blank check (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOdJ...).
people vote based on emotion

Yes! Even more so with their purchasing dollars. A nonintuitive but incredibly important lesson for any budding entrepreneur.
everytime i read this stuff it gets more real ''2 to 3 days to fix'' or '' i cant see the curerent situation holding for 6 months'' scary shit!
You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss
Mind you, there's plenty of non-marxist reasons to predict that the parts of the world economy will be royally fucked for the next few years.
I second gojomo.

It's certainly sobering, but it's sloppily done. There are some facts in there, but the synthesis and analysis aren't intelligent. It seems more like wishful thinking.
One of the most useless, awesome, and orginal bits of programming I've seen for a long time. Perhaps a version that uses the status icons in the windows task bar could be a next step!
> > Object recognition is a completely unsolved computer vision problem.

It's funny you quoted that part. I can't tell you how many "next-gen" captchas I've broken trivially with the object recognition software our company has developed (http://demo.pittpatt.com). Granted, our software is useless against this type of Captcha, but many aren't.

Captchas have become a really interesting area of research for us because it's essentially the opposite problem that we are trying to solve. What's really curious about this is object recognition people seem keenly aware of the advancements in Captcha design and Captcha designers seem blissfully ignorant of the advances in object recognition.

I've seen so many proposed "next-gen" captchas that I could break before I finished reading their powerpoint slides.
Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
Agreed... The idea isn't bad, but this particular implementation is.

If the challenge of your captcha is parsing 3D images, there's no need to make the label letters a tiny unreadable magenta. In fact, you don't need letters at all -- this is merely an artifact of the "enter text for an image" structure of current captchas. It would be far better to have clickable target squares in the image, and just use JavaScript to ask the user to click on several targets in succession -- which is maybe even easier than text-based captchas. Using JavaScript has the additional advantage that it won't fit as well within existing captcha-forwarding spammer frameworks.
Credit Card Forensics
Don’t write from scratch
Sprint and Embarq Class Action Lawsuit for Terminating Retirees Insurance
Apple is stuck in the 90s
Intel announced record revenue and income last night. That article eventually ends up talking about the high-tech giants GM, UPS and Exxon.
Sounds like a good time to invest.
The Startup Journey: 'Leading by Example"
Unit PNG Fix
On a 3-month tourist/business visa, it's not a big problem, assuming you have a clean record - just a form, a wait and $131. You should assume that you won't be able to stay in the USA afterwards though.
When The Laughing Stops - The Darker Side of LOLCats
Monkey Patching For Robots
> I don’t really understand why Jeff is writing these slime pieces on metaprogramming. ASP.Net must be like a drug inducing delusional thinking. Jeff’s logic is equivalent to reasoning that driving should be outlawed because cars are dangerous. However, just because a few people drive drunk doesn’t mean that no one should drive!

> Oddly, I would get behind a law to make drunken monkeypatching a felony.
A Really, Really, Really Good Introduction to XML
If you don't want to get email
"One initiative, Y Combinator, is trying to change that dynamic - futilely, so far."

They must see that this is not true. Are they not aware of the many success stories so far? VC circles/models across the globe are being changed by YC based on these successes.
What? No complaints about how HN is turning into reddit/digg/4chan? That's what I upvoted this for! :-/
How to make a Silicon Valley in Europe
[Ask YC] Icon suggestions for 1 button Zoom / Unzoom
I need to add a button to my site that will toggle a series of graphs from zoomed in to zoomed out. Some users will want to see all the sparklines against the same range. Some users will want to see each sparkline zoomed to it's own range.

sometimes you want to compare each graph against the others. sometimes you want to look at the detailed trend in one graph.

I only have room for 1 button in the design (in the top left corner of the grid).

I'm having a hard time coming up with a button that makes it clear that it will change the zoom / unzoom the graphs and show the current status of the zoom.

all the designs I've seen use 2 buttons (small / large magnifying glass, close / far mountains).

Anyone have any good ideas on how to do this with only 1 button?
Um, let's see: maybe the stock is already at it's lowest point, then investing would be good. On the other hand, the stock might fall even lower, then investing would not be good.

Information gained: 0.
The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said "Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?" Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, "Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man's closures."

Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire "Lambda: The Ultimate..." series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress.

On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying "Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man's closures." Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying "When will you learn? Closures are a poor man's object." At that moment, Anton became enlightened.
Sure. The high bit for us (and for you) is whether or not you're going to succeed. Songkick seems to be mainly based in the UK, and we're glad we funded them.
While moving the light source results in different pixels, the object silhouettes don't change, and even internal edges will remain reasonably consistent under different lighting.

Given an object under different lighting and vantage points, the captcha breaker can build a similar object and automatically generate a database of silhouettes from a sparsely sampled set of vantage points. Then, given a captcha image, he can search the database for an approximate silhouette match, then iteratively improve the vantage point by matching the silhouettes of nearby views. Since the vantage point and the labeled object entirely determines the captcha answer, this approach may be good enough to break the captcha.

A more dynamic scene would be more challenging for this approach, but it would also be more difficult for the server to come up with human-solvable scenes.
The version that appeared in the Financial Times...

Europe: a piquant recipe for a Silicon Valley (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ddf92b84-52ce-11dd-9ba7-000077b076...)
The Loopt debacle
"I've finally found an application for closures" is almost as daft as "I've finally found an application for variables".

If you haven't found an application for such-and-such basic programming concept yet, chances are that's because your experience is so limited that you should probably spend more time coding instead of writing ejaculatory blog posts.

(not directed at the parent directly, more at the article, which wasted a minute of my precious life)
How long has it been since you left college? I had exactly the same experience recently, but I also only left college 15 months ago.
Bad News For The Kindle: iPhone 3G + Apps
This article is a poorly done "look how smart I am". First, the title makes little sense. If you were going to compare and contrast Python to Java, this first thing to come to mind would be static typing, not a compile step. Second, I was going to complain about the first-class functions as well. By his example, PHP has first class functions as well because you can define a function out side of a class. But we all know PHP does not, in fact, have first class functions because you cannot pass a function as an argument or return a function as a value from another function in PHP. I think you can get the point across better with this example...

def fun_factory(scale):

def inner_func(arg1,arg2):

return scale * ( arg1 + arg2)

return inner_func

class myclass(object):

def __init__(self,scale_func):

self.better_example = scale_func

if __name__ == "__main__":

print fun_factory(10)(5,5)

myinst = myclass(fun_factory(10))

print myinst.better_example(5,5)
I visit HN and pop all the links into new tabs, then go do some work, then come back. I see the above and I think, did I got to reddit by mistake, I used to go there.

Oh well, I guess it won't be long before we all move on to the next, next place.
Which is why I titled it this way; I'd love to see them come up with a good way to do it, but these excuses are pretty weak. Copy/paste is definitely something that would be nice to have, but it's certainly not debilitating.
EPH On Schneier On Chinese Hackers.
LiquidID: OpenID + Email Aliasing = Less Spam, Safer Logins
UPDATED DATA on SCAMS : is America Headed for Scam-Nation? - Associated Content
Radiohead releases video data for user manipulation
Mocha VNC Lite (iPhone VNC)
I agree. Its hacker, but its not news.
"Me so sorry" -Apple (Apology for MobileMe downtime and for fake "push")
I'm painting a grim future for the Register.
Ask HN: Books on meta-learning
I think meta-learning (i.e., learning how to learn) is a way too commonly overlooked subject. Unpopularity notwithstanding, there are some excellent books on the subject. What are some of your favorites?

Mine is probably Tony Buzan's "Use Your Head".
Not bad news at all. The devices have completely different purposes and solve completely different problems. The reasons that the Kindle (and other e-ink-based readers) exists are the negatives that other devices like phones and PDAs bring with them that hinder normal reading.

Smaller screens, abysmal battery life when it comes to an activity like reading and the general discomfort of using it. The article linked to here is identical to those published when the first Palm pilots were coming out, claiming the end to books. Yes, some people will use the iPhone to read but it will be far from optimal.

While the iPhone has a gorgeous high-resolution display, it isn't exactly suited for reading anything longer than a web page or an email. Scrolling to a new page every 8 seconds, watching your battery slowly drain and not having the stability that a larger device/screen gets you are all reasons people won't be reading books anytime soon on such devices.

Kindle and kindle-like all have displays that make looking at them for extended periods of time comfortable, have the physical dimensions that won't give you a headache while reading them on the train and won't drain the battery of a device you rely on.

I feel the mark of any good tool is its ability to get out of your way. Sure, you can take Pulitzer-winning photos with a point-and-shoot, but photographers spend thousands on proper equipment because they know exactly what they want out of their cameras and the better equipment gets out of their way and lets them express themselves without having to trick their gear into conforming to their intents. Ditto for operating systems, programming languages, cars, sports equipment, etc.

Using the iPhone for reading is tricking it into doing something it wasn't intended for.
Laparoscopy Hospital Blog
I always wondered before I joined my medical college regarding how our professor will teach us surgery and laparoscopy. In the beginning I was surprised and afraid when I learnt in my first year that the professor of anatomy used the cadavers for this purpose
Robot maker’s fortune built on a simple idea
What about the processing costs?
Actually, Hacker Webzine on Schneier on Chinese Hackers
He just means futilely trying to change the atmosphere in Boston. Which was true till recently. But I'm getting more hopeful. So many investors are signing up for the Boston Demo Day that we're starting to worry whether we'll have room.
For the business side or the coding side?
"[denormalizing for performance reasons is] the only way to make big, massive databases work correctly"

How about a column-oriented database? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column-oriented_DBMS

Would that help much? (I don't know much about databases :S)
Thanks guys and thanks pg, looking forward to getting the prototype done and begin the application process.
that ivy league thing is bunk, I think. Our team had a CS degree that took 9 years, a psychology degree from a little liberal arts college, and a CS dropout from University of Alaska.
Hm, J2ME had it's problems, but at least there always was a popup asking the user for permission before a costly network operation was allowed.