skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
May be he will do another startup.

"And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-06150...
Talk slowly and clearly.
Nokia 3600 Slide (Unlocked)
This lightest presentation of Nokia of 97.3 g will be launched with a TFT display of 16M colors along with a unique feature of a five-way navigation key.One of the most intriguing features of 3600 Slide is its built-in camera of 3.15 MP with few additional features including autofocus.
Hackers crack Citibank's ATMs. Millons stolen
Make some internal joke, so your friends will lol and all the other people won't understand. I did it, pretty cool. =D
Yeah, this is pretty general. But I'm often interested in hearing the hacker point of view on topics outside technology.

For instance, one issue that tends to fascinate is why silicon valley is so far ahead of everyone else. I read an article (in BusinessWeek, I think) about tech centers in Europe -Barcelona and Copenhagen were listed.

I don't feel any particular need to escape San Francisco, which I absolutely love. But I've heard Copenhagen and Barcelona are extremely cool cities, and I'd dig checking them out.

Problem is, many of the elements of the Danes's happiness might night work well with startup culture. There's a powerful welfare state, and a high degree of homogeneity in the populace. Silicon Valley thrives on risk, failure, and diversity.

Who knows, maybe the Danes are too happy to be a great startup center. Maybe startups are a great way to build wealth, but not happiness, and in the end, they end up hurting a region. Or maybe that's all crap, and the happiness of Denmark will cause just the right people to move and/or stay there, and build an incredible tech community...

Either way, it seems like a good topic for conversation on hacker news.
...makes Black Hat Bloggers doing parasite hosting & link injection look like pussies.
do sites in the U.S. get this kind of "smackdown" as well? seems like an opportunity for the future, if so.
yeah, i noticed it, but im used to outdated documentation. My python book was for 2.2 and 2.3 and i still managed to handle the situation. I learn fast, so its no problem if i learn something outdated to fix the knowledge.
At some point forcing users to upgrade is to their benefit. Giving them support makes them think there is nothing wrong with using IE6 when there are better alternatives available.

No one complains about IE5.5 not being supported by most sites anymore, but people still use it.
They did a great job with this, but it's also a good exercise that other people should try. These days, a lot of development styles ask you to be able to scope your work to the available time (agile, getting real, any crunch time situation).

I did a couple two day solo versions of this and it's paid off repeatedly. My goal was to create and launch a website in two days. Usually I went in with an idea, but all the work needed to fit into two business days. The best thing I created was probably IHeartQuotes, a web front-end for Unix fortune files.
Aubrey de Grey has argued that caloric restriction can probably only extend life in humans by ~2 years. The idea is that it's not a percentage of lifespan that you can gain, but rather a fixed amount of time. He says the data supports his interpretation, and that it makes sense evolutionarily because extending lifespan in response to low calories is mostly useful if you can get through a short famine and get a chance to mate that would have otherwise been lost. If it's a long famine that's a much harder problem for evolution to solve and there's no evidence it is solved.

Therefore caloric restriction probably isn't very important. Does anyone know otherwise?
I just read "Designing for the Social Web" and there's a chapter on "Collective Intelligence" (Chapter 6)
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Social-Voices-That-Matter/dp...

It doesn't get into any technical implementation details but does cover design, strategy, and issues you should consider.

You might want to browse that chapter at your favorite bookstore.

Also check out "Programming Collective Intelligence" by Oreilly. I haven't read it yet, but it is sitting on my shelf.
This is great Colbert did a joke about this in nov 2006.

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?vide...

2 Min and 30 in, "leave youtube alone or we will take our market capitalization and buy your ass." - Stephen Colbert

Sorry video is not available on youtube.
is there a real correlation between working 100 hours weeks in isolation and earning enough of a "jackpot" to retire? the people who i know who did make enough to retire (if they wish) almost all still have friends and families (caveat: if they didn't have friends, they would also be less likely to know me).

both the post (and the sentiments) that inspired seem to be based on false premise: you can't, realistically, expect a jackpot in one year. working 100 hours won't create a jack pot for you either (but it may alienate those who are likely to increase your chances - co-founders, employees and helpful friends).
Umm, I just quit my day job. Literally 3 days ago. So I beg to disagree.
Tiger Woods Rulebook To Being A Huge Success
This isn't crankyness. If you try to generalise the thoughts on asm/C then it boils down to this:

- Abstractions will always be leaky

and

- be prepared for when an abstraction leaks.

As for the ideology part:

think for yourself and try to see beyond the hype

And I have to say I absolutely agree.

For example, I've written maybe a handful of lines of assembly, and maybe as many lines of inline assembly. However, understanding assembly language has saved me many times. Compiler bugs exist. Sometimes you don't have access to debug info and a debugger, just the instruction pointer and a register dump. Sometimes the compiler just can't optimise well enough.

C is just one level of abstraction higher, so that's probably the level that's going to leak through when your high-level-language interpreter fails for some bizarre reason. (recent Ruby segfaults anyone?)

It's not turtles all the way down, but rather a menagerie of different abstractions, and it's useful to know your zoology, as it were.
Colbert talking about Viacom and Google during the word segment.
... yet another island of users who wouldn't have IE6 anyway. I'd be way more impressed with either Google/Yahoo/MSN dropping IE6 - THAT would be an awesome gift for all of us.
FWIW Portland's average yearly temperature is exactly the same as San Francisco's. It gets about 10 degrees colder in the winter but makes up for it by being 10-20 degrees warmer in the summer. It is a wonderful place to live and hang out but is totally overrated as a good place to start a tech business.

Just curious as to why you put "too cold" next to Portland but not next to the places that are actually cold. Maybe you're talking about the one in Maine? ;-)
Then just make a lot of small requests that take less then 8 seconds.
Maybe Google will allow background jobs.
The good news is all the problems mentioned were had to do with Lisp's lack of popularity.
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A few are focusing on the literal aspect of building a web app -- why there are so many PR people, why did it cost so much -- while this seems to be an exercise of what a few people can accomplish in a short amount of time, a la Startup Weekend.

He even admits as much "I would say you only need three people if you want to strip it back to the bare minimum..."

The focus seems to be more on how teams can iteratively build new features, a quick app as proof of concept, or take time away from normal business to inject some excitement into the team.
Hm, with an 8.x horepower engine, how well can the thing handle?
... meanwhile the entire Internet is powered by software written in C, including the very same browser you typed this message in.

I've been hearing how obsolete C is ever since high school (1994) yet pieces of successful programs not written in C-family is an order of magnitude less common: everything form web-servers to browsers, OSes and office suites and imaging software - all C. Meanwhile I've never had to install JVM on any of my computers, somehow I never run across a single piece of useful software written in Java (with exception of evaluating Jython and toying with Eclipse&Netbeans at work).

Perhaps it's running on my phone. If so, that's probably why the damn thing feels so anemic compared to Objective-C powered iPhone.

I don't know how C programmers do it, but somehow they just get things done.

Moreover, C remains the only choice of writing the most portable code ever. There isn't a reasonably popular CPU on this planet that doesn't have a C compiler for it, while Java runs only on "java computers".
I agree, it's just that most undergrad programs are funded by companies.
Dunno, I think it looks pretty cool. Bikes are much cheaper and get still better milage, though.
So, it would take W hours to get Lisp working well. He will spend X hours writing and maintaining his python over the next Y years. And if he used Lisp instead, after the initial W hour investment, he would save Z hours on less maintenance and coding time thanks to Lisp's power.

Is Z greater than W, or less than W? That's the critical question for him.

How can he decide which approach is best without estimating the hour values of each variable?

Edit: of course there's some other issues. maybe he'd spend 80 hours on python maintenance vs 100 writing lisp unicode support. the numbers are made up, but the point is that maintenance probably isn't much fun, so one might choose the lisp path even if it takes a bit more time. besides fun, one might learn more that way.
Wish List: 8 Ways to Improve Google Maps
1) Bring a jacket. I did a TV appearance and apparently when I get nervous, I get cold and start shivering.

2) Be prepared to fly blind. You might think that in a TV studio, you'd be able to see what you look like on TV. Not so! There's generally no loopback feed because there's often a satellite (so they say) delay, which can confuse you since you'd be watching yourself from a few seconds ago. It was really disconcerting for me not knowing what I looked like, but I guess you get used to it.

3) For West Coast people: refuse to do 7 AM East Coast talk shows. It means being awake at 2 AM to talk clearly and coherently at 4 AM, and it just doesn't work.

Good luck!
Ok, but the point is, if you're willing to call people "crazy" because of their political opinions, I doubt that you're as committed to intellectual diversity as you claim to be.
Wow, downmodded for that comment? I just think we shouldnt discourage people, especially entrepreneurs in this community, from taking the leap of faith. I think its a great experience, success or failure. People may disagree, but not sure about the downmodding!
Good question - I'd also like to know if anyone has had any success in building or interfacing with one of these external services like Strands.
It turns out this is a really hard problem. If you haven't seen it already check out http://www.netflixprize.com/ to set your expectations appropriately.
Clojure might be a good choice.

Implemented out of the box, it should get Java's Unicode support for free.
Well, I don't know. Popularity definitely gets you libraries, but to a large extent, the runtimes are VERY daunting even to interested people. The author raises some valid issues with CL implementations. I'd also add concurrency/threading, for example. Part of the problem is that the standard (in my opinion) standardises some of the "wrong" things. In part, that's just down to its age, but also just the whole "design by committee" problem. So if there are important omissions in the standard, you get a load of implementations that technically comply, but in effect are incompatible with one another for any real work.

Most of the popular newer languages have a "benevolent dictator" (or not so benevolent in some cases), which means there's a reference implementation which almost everyone uses. Okay, maybe you lose out a bit on runtime quality, but I think the current trend towards building on top of the JVM, etc. will continue and alleviate that particular problem.

I also tried to use Common Lisp, I really did. I liked the core, but in the end it was the sheer volume of little problems that drove me away. Luckily, I've found a lovely compromise in Clojure.
Do you have any data to support that claim? The conservatives I know oppose gay marriage because they consider it immoral, not because of some abstract stuff about the democratic process.
How can "C++ still seems to be slower" if C (or C++) is essentially a macro-assembler, i.e. you're free to hand-optimize any particular bottleneck.

Every time I hear someone say (or show a benchmark) where "C++ is slower than C" it always comes down to some STL usage instead of flat arrays or something (which is still valid C++)
It may not be your favorite flavor, but it's a perfectly valid and reasonable choice.

I didn't say not to use C; there is plenty of good software written in C. Like... everything :)

But, I don't think it's very valuable to know. It doesn't put you in a good position to write correct, maintainable software. There are no tools for that, only for twiddling bits. Therefore, I think C should be relegated to interfacing with UNIX (which you Just Have To Do) and small number-crunching routines. In those cases, there's really nothing to screw up (UNIX interface -- allocate resources, mutate them, deallocate; number crunching, call a function with some arguments). For both of those uses, C has been very successful. Just don't write a big application with it, there are much better tools for that.
At which point they would laugh at you. =)
OpenSource Linux video camera Geo tags and Writes to SATA drive.
karma is overrated.
"It's true that for some problems (web development being a good example) there are better tools (scripting languages, databases)..."

most likely implemented in C.
C is entrenched. Everyone uses it, and because everyone uses it, everyone continues to use it. That doesn't make it good, though, just popular. Read pg's "Beating the Averages" for a more eloquent explanation.

You seem to think that Java is C's competition. It's not. I think we can all agree that Java is one of the worst programming languages ever created. (The VM is nice though.) Nobody is telling you to use Java or C++. They are telling you to use a dynamic language (Perl/Python/Ruby) or a functional language (Haskell/OCaml/Lisp).

I don't know how C programmers do it, but somehow they just get things done.

Sure, but their programs usually leak memory (ever use Firefox?), and their libraries handle errors by terminating the whole program (see PulseAudio; any error condition immediately calls exit(1)).

There isn't a reasonably popular CPU on this planet that doesn't have a C compiler for it, while Java runs only on "java computers".

I don't optimize my life for solving problems I don't have. Every machine I want my code to run on has Perl, Lisp, Haskell... whatever. If C was the highest-level language I could use, then obviously I'd use it. But it's not, so I don't.

Finally, gcj will compile Java down to machine code; ghc compiles Haskell to native code. So I don't ever see a situation where I will absolutely have to use C for some reason (other than interfacing with C libraries, of course).
What's the answer to the p, q, r question?
"The app we built is a simple tool that allows you to post to multiple Twitter accounts."

So, the real title of this article should have been "How to waste $10,000 on a pointless web app."
Well, I guess they're going on the assumption that no one would purchase a more expensive shirt when a cheaper one was available. I see your point, though, and it does kind of negate what I said.
Lee Abrams/Tribune
This is about resveratrol, which isn't a new drug. It's been in and out of the news for quite a few years now. The article is a little confusing, but it seems that the current research has linked it to a mechanism which is also involved in the "starving mice live longer" phenomenon. That's definitely good news, scientifically.

But the "wonder drug" theme is a little overstated. There have been lots of teasingly good results with this drug in mice over the last decade or so, but we're still waiting for a pharmaceutical to result.
I've known Kartik since high school. One thing's for sure, he is as sharp as a button, and a natural born leader. I'd vouch for him...in fact I already did: http://www.onetj.com/tjs_kaleidoscope/2008/05/and-how-the-do...
A social hack: Boston Convivium
You can copy and paste from Scribd documents: http://img.skitch.com/20080703-fqjkc23nr92t31htq42quirmhe.jp...
I'd say Erlang enforces functional style more than Lisp does... there's no Erlang object system.
Obviously you should be familiar with C. This entire conversation, however, is misguided by comparing it to Java or to fancy high-level languages. It's apples and oranges.

Of all of those, only C/C++ offers extremely high performance as its key feature. Being primarily a shorthand for assembly, C occupies a permanent place as the systems and performance language of choice and will remain there. If your application demands performance, use it. If not, then don't.
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Yeah, I agree. I could hack this together in 15 minutes with Net::Twitter and Continuity, with maybe 30 minutes more to make the CSS look nice.

Total cost? $250.

(Oh, and $400/month hosting for an app nobody uses? I would just use my $20/month Slicehost until that stopped being possible.)
Based on that page, I'd say Clojure is pretty well suited to scale over multiple machines. It's not an either/or thing; Erlang can work just as well on one machine as on ten. The point, though, is that something which can run on several machines at once is always more robust than something which can only run on several cores at once.

The downside to the share-nothing model (which, as you pointed out, Clojure uses) is that it potentially reduces the speed of communication between processes on the same system. I don't think this is a problem in most cases, but it is a consideration.
I'm laughing at high gas prices from my bicycle.
I'll second the "Programming Collective Intelligence" recommendation. It's a good introduction to the field.
Stop blaming PowerPoint. Learn how to kick some arse with it
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity Passes Yet Another Current Day Technology Test
Apparently we're hearing about this because of those three PR people, not because of the obvious large-scale payola going on between Carsonified and TechCrunch - it is purely because of the amazing viral marketing talents of those non-coding, non-designing, non-art-directing, non-blogging PR people!
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I'm pretty sure there is a psychological model for "activation energy" on making a decision that changes the status quo. Deciding not to X a lot easier than deciding to X. Hopefully someone who knows more about this can elaborate.

On the issue of cities vs. suburban, people drastically undervalue the increased variety and choice in cities. Economically speaking, wine is wine - despite the fact that a wine store with 1000 varieties is better than a corner store with 5. The rub is that this kind of value is difficult to account for.
Jane Tranter speech to the RTS
Yeah, Unicode is really painful. One one hand, most languages have half-assed support (Python, Ruby, PHP), which makes it hard to "pick up" good unicode habits. On the other hand, programmers using the langauges that do have real support (Perl, Java) don't use it correctly. The result is that any correctly-displayed international characters in the data those programs process is merely a coincidence. That's scary.

The problem is that reading UTF-8 from a web browser, then storing it in an 8-bit clean database (everything), and then displaying that binary data back to the web browser usually works OK. So people don't realize their app is completely broken until it starts behaving in a weird way, then they blame whoever is nearby.

Anyway, I wish all the major languages would make misusing unicode a fatal error. That way things could never appear to work. (In Perl, you can do that with "use encoding::warnings 'fatal'", but nobody ever uses that... they just cross their fingers and hope for the best.)

The really depressing part is that for every time I answer someone's unicode question on a mailing list, there are 10 other people who immediately ask the same question a week or two later. I'm not sure I understand why. It doesn't happen with other classes of questions. I guess people don't realize that other people could possibly have had the same problem, and don't Google it? Dunno.

</rant>
You don't have to do anything too sophisticated to get some great results for your users.

Check out this article and collaborative filtering library:

http://www.igvita.com/2007/01/15/svd-recommendation-system-i...

I actually want to play with this more, so if anyone wants to create a google group to share implementation approaches, etc., just reply to this and I'll create it.
What p points to shouldn't be modified (but p can be changed to point to something else).

q mustn't be changed to point to something else (but what it points to can be changed -- except that in this particular example, q will point to a string constant, which shouldn't be modified).

Both of the above.
209 seconds of time on 910 2ghz nodes gives about 3.8e14 instructions, or about 380 instructions per byte (assuming only one of the dual cores on each Xeon was active). That's quite a lot of overhead especially given that they could have most of the sort in the 7TB of available cluster memory.

They were probably hitting their interconnect limits.
Older article by the looks. Could be powerPC thing.

I'm using SBCL and Slime (aquamacs) on my Macbook right now - or more accurately I would be if I wasn't procrastinating on HN ;)
Getting Laconica up and running
Uh, what? SBCL + SLIME works fine on OS X. In fact, the canonical SLIME video uses that exact combination.

I haven't use CLISP on a Mac... but I'm sure it works fine.

I also think it's interesting that he describes Python as having "outstanding" Unicode support. There's an article on the front page right now about how poor Python's Unicode support is. (There's some support, but it's not outstanding. Merely acceptable.)
Jobs 2.0
Stolen: Google employees' personal data
Its well worded. I imagine the original drafts would have been pretty harsh on IE6 (although 2001 - that was a LOOONG time ago, to be fair).
Gawker cuts staff pay rate for second consecutive quarter