skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Horses are quite inefficient; in fact, all animals are. The only reason it's cheaper to ride a bicycle someplace than a motorcycle is because of the lesser weight and speeds; if you created electricity with a human-powered generator like [this](http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html), you'd actually burn more energy in extra food than you would by getting the same amount of electricity from a gasoline-powered generator.

...which, of course, isn't a direct concern since many people bicycle for their health anyway. But it is a concern when it comes to more equine suggestions.
They're just reblogging the real article, which is more interesting: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=200947
His math looks like it's really inflating the scribd numbers. Could compete.com really be off by a factor of 5?
Most of them have been fixed, friend.

What do you want, someone to act like George W. Bush and claim that everything is going perfectly? Matz is at least willing to see the good and the bad and to openly acknowledge it.

Unlike GWB's rhetoric (which you seem to prefer) this is not a religious war. Just use the right tool for the job.
Instead of a subsidy for some specific thing - just tax the alternatives. It's far easier to get rid of taxes later on than to get rid of subsidies.
There's nothing new about depending on external parties - if your site hosts ads (or uses an external stats service) you're already running code hosted elsewhere, so you should probably be comfortable linking through to Google (I trust them a lot more than most ad networks). The question is always "do I trust this provider not to screw me over" - Google's developer network stuff HAS to be trustworthy or they'll lose the hearts and minds they've been cultivating overnight.

As for your app becoming reliant on Google's version of the framework, you can always download the JS file they've been serving and host it yourself. You can't get locked in that way.
Yup, sure, it is, off course, f'sure.
I think it's also important to document no's (and yes's). The obvious place for that would be the bug tracker.

Documenting a "no" does several good things: 1. It avoids repetition 2. I think it creates a certain sense of accomplishment for the user you're responding to? He's come forward with a suggestion and the resulting dialogue has left an artifact, which can be useful as per point #1.

It's also important to document "not now"'s for the same reasons above. I'd just make an entry with a very low priority. (oh damn I'm stating the obvious here).
Cloud Consulting + Distributed Professional Services
That is what I'd expect.

1.upto implies starting at 1... otherwise why would upto be called on 1?

If you want the behavior you expect, type:

x = 4
5.times do
x += 1
end
Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests
I'ts a massive ad for DHL, if anything ...

Have they really been doing loopings in the Atlantic ??
7 Search Engines vs. Google = Fail
I don't think you need an ETag if you're serving a Last-Modified.
I'm wokring on local climate model. But one question that bothers me - how will i sell it?... May be i should change direction, i wonder...
I will employ a driver then.
Yahoo Answers vs the Chatbot Game:  Introducing small talk into your questions and answers.
In real-life, one doesn't just broadcast questions and expect strangers to answer them. So why have this expectation online?

In real-life, there's a lot of small talk interspersed with more substantial questions and their answers.

The Chatbot Game is more like that. If you want to ask or answer questions, you can do it within the context of informal conversation.

You can decide whether to contribute small talk or more substantial chat rules (or both) to the Chatbot Game. Both sorts of contributions are important and you will be rewarded with points if you make good ones.

And yes, you can see actual conversation fragments involving your rules. So if you are asking a question or providing an answer, you can see what people think.

Check it out: http://chatbotgame.com
Jakob Nielsen: OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?
As for your app becoming reliant on Google's version of the framework, you can always download the JS file they've been serving and host it yourself. You can't get locked in that way.

This misses the point. I'm not concerned about where the file comes from. If breakage occurs with regard to where the download comes from, a few customers get annoyed while you fix it (or even better, you implemented caching and customers never know the difference). That's a normal and expected maintenance issue that you plan for.

What I'm really talking about is the content of the file. If Google fixes bugs or adds features and you don't realize it until your app has become dependent on Google-specific changes, it's not an easy thing to fix. This is a different problem than getting screwed over by ad providers.
second that. It is one the most geek friendly sports, it can be from very relaxing to very competitive (depending on who you are playing with). You don't have to be huge, extra tall, have any extra abilities to be decent in soccer.

And I love that there are soccer field sprinkled all over SF, and plenty of co-ed leagues (which tend to be more fun).

Plus, having a great run, gives you a certain natural high, that it is just awesome. Running all the way to Golden Gate Bridge from my home and back, feels just great.
Cost of bureaucracy, inefficiency and fraud in such a huge government program: $2 trillion
Rates vary on sale quantity and average price, it's not a flat fee like Paypal. You need to email them for a quote.
I'm really excited about this. I don't know how many times the intertubes have answered my coding questions. Very often the answer is worth a lot, but there hasn't been an easy way to give back.

This could be a good reason for both those looking for answers and those giving them to go to http://bug.gd
The title had me at a/s/l
Windows Lucky 7 | Tech Jaws
The scripts look like they're organized by versions, ie ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.0.2/prototype.js, so google can't really do any 'fixes' if they want to stick to the original authors' versions. Being afraid of have to 'depend' on this isn't a big problem; it's just a text file. You can create a constant in your codes for the URL string so that you can change it easily. The Script.aculo.us and other libraries are pretty big, so having it load from Google would help a little.
OpenID provider that uses GPG to stop phishing
Python Design Patterns (vi lecture by Alex Martelli)
Here is a reply from Steve Vinoski:

http://steve.vinoski.net/blog/2008/05/27/joe-armstrong-erlan...
I'll dig those up either late tonight or late tomorrow night but I'll get there.
The New Wave of Autism Rights Activists
Database sharding 101 - part I : Lifescaler
I read that guide, too, some time ago. Unfortunately, I am not overweight -- so no iPhone for me coming soon.
> It is one the most geek friendly sports,

Soccer is _the_ jock sport in Europe.

Ultimate Frisbee is geek friendly even here, though.
The Aptera, eh? I hadn't heard of it before, but I looked at their website and they have a "Reserve Now" button combined with a FAQ which says "We are currently in the process of setting up our production facility". I think that moves it out of the "already exists" category and into the "vaporware until proven otherwise" category.

Actually you can right now get electric cars from Zap or GEM for less than $20K which are suitable for commuting provided your commute is very short and very slow. I'd be tempted to get one myself if I actually had a garage. But we're nowhere near anything that could be called a replacement for a real car, rather than a supplement to one.
Only popstars and random bloggers?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8183966529898602701

I've seen the hearing at the congress last week, these excutives didn't look and sound very confident to me...
Aah I understand where you're coming from. I would be amazed if Google made changes to the libraries they are serving up (since it would undermine the entire concept of the hosting service).
I'd like to think it's because potential competitors take one look at our site and give up :-)

Seriously, though, thanks to everyone recommending GitHub. We're constantly trying to improve our service to remain the best (even if we're the only one) Git host.
Uh, why?
There are some good startup ideas in here. Carbon-eating trees would be fun to make.
You could have said NP-Hard if you wanted to go for the cheap thrill but remain on topic.
It would definitely seem to go against the motto, right? You need look no further than Microsoft (and other software vendors whose entire strategy is based on lock-in), and assess the probabilities for yourself.
ah, i did not know that. If you want the cheapest of the cheap they're your friend but it would appear that there's a good reason for that! I've been using vpslink.com to run my own VPS with SVN and all the rest. I've heard lots of great things about slicehost too.
I think more people will tip if you tie it to e.g. no ads for those who tip a certain amount.
That's because most of the Rails fanbois are just that, fanbois. They like Rails, so that means that it's obviously the best thing in the world, and is totally unflawed.

But, in reality, all software sucks. If they can't see the suckage, it's just because of their ignorance.
When I saw the link at HN I figured it was this. Thanks for posting it.
Mac Owners Are Liberal, Arrogant, Self-Centered, Music-Loving Greenies
Ah, the versioning is good, but still....

Maybe one possible solution to my concerns would be to keep a table of sha1 sums of the version you want to depend on, and check them periodically (randomly select 1 of every 1000 visits to receive the checking code that reports back to your backend).

I just have an instinctive wariness of this kind of dependency, even if the cost of avoidance is a performance penalty.
How is this different from partitioning which has been in Oracle since version 8 in 1997, over 10 years ago? Seriously, there is no need to coin a new buzzword for this feature. Just call it what the entire rest of the database industry calls it!
Basically we'd almost all starve to death. Transporting food would become uneconomical. Hell, harvesting food would become uneconomical. The trickle of food which got into urban areas would sell for insanely high prices. The rich would still be able to afford it for a while, but with the whole economy collapsing and widescale starvation the rich wouldn't stay that way for long. Rural folks might be able to survive for a while, until the looters came pouring out of the cities and into the countryside (on foot, presumably) looking for food.

Eventually we'd be able to re-establish some kind of civilization (pseudo-steampunk?) with a severely reduced population, but there'd be all sorts of bad stuff to happen in between now and then.
Ask YC: Thoughts on remotely cofounding a startup (in India)?
A friend has asked me to start a startup with him and a third friend. They plan to do this in India and I can't join them for at least a year. The are o.k. with me working remotely (albeit full time) on it. It seems to me that doing this could be equivalent to accepting all the pain and frustration without being able to fully participate in the good parts. I don't know if this is accurate.

I have two questions for news.yc:

What is your take on working remotely on a startup? (Especially if you've done it yourself)

Has any of you started a startup in India? What have been some of your good and bad experiences? Is there any aspect of doing this in India that seems especially harder than elsewhere? (I am from India but in the US now)

Here are the reasons I am even considering this:

- I really really really want to do this
- My cofounders are awesome. One of them is one of my best friends and independently, the first person I would think of hiring even if he wasn't a friend.
- The problem space we would be working on is very promising (I know the idea can/will change)
- We have got some really encouraging responses from experienced entrepreneurs about need to solve the problem we are trying to solve.

The cons:

- My cofounders are committed to doing this in India for personal reasons. I am not in a place in my life where I can move (back) to India for another year.
- I would be working alone, full time.
- The time difference between EDT and IST is 9.30 hours which means we would have at most 6 hours and realistically 3 hours of overlapping time every day unless I sleep during the day and work at night.
- Bangalore is going down the drain in terms of infrastructure (roads, traffic, real estate prices) and there is hardly any startup ecosystem in any other city (correct me if I am wrong here)
I did that too. The problem is, this system does not work "just as well". Certainly did not for me or anyone else I've spoken to. The "rough calorie intake" thing breaks down because our lives are not as regular as you imply. There are times when you will pig out, go on a bender and eat a load of food while drunk, and that's very natural and normal in today's society. At that point you need a feedback system that works whether you're sober or not.

Sadly, a general resolution to "watch your calories" just doesn't do it.

In order to work, a weight-loss system has to remind you each day of where you're at (in perspective with where you've come from). Ultimately there's only two measurements that count: your weight and your body fat percentage. Measure those every day and you'll be much further on the way to weight loss than by calorie counting. Sure, being aware of your rough calorie intake is useful supporting data, but you need to measure the end result to get the "proper" feedback.

The end result of weight loss is not calorie intake, it's loss of weight. If you want to achieve that end result, you need to measure it. Sounds simple enough, no?
Normally you'd expect the parameter of a block to be a new variable, not to grab a variable from another scope and use that instead. So the "expected" value is 4, since x = 4 on the first line.

You'd expect these two examples to output the same number:

x = 1
my_fun do |x|
x = 5
end
puts x # => 5

and

x = 1
my_fun do |y|
y = 5
end
puts x # => 1

where my_fun could be defined as:

def my_fun
yield 2
end
I still think I'd prefer to host them myself. When I used YUI style sheets hosted on Yahoo's servers they always took longer to load than local files. Also, Google ads are always the slowest item in a page to load. Until these libraries are embedded in the browser I don't see much benefit.
South Bronx Paradise!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_%28Aqua_Teen_Hunger_Force_...

Seriously though, if coffee is an appetite suppressant, what about the sugar and cream most people put in their coffee? Not to mention the fact that coffee servings can come in large containers too.

And recommending smoking to replace drinking? Surely he can't be serious.
Y'know, I cycle to work every day too, but that doesn't mean I want to be a dick to everybody who doesn't.
Soccer is _the_ jock sport in Europe.

Yeah, it's strange. I convinced a friend who was visiting from Holland for a semester to play on a team with me, but he said he'd never do that at home.
>In general, I'm all for free market solutions and only free market solutions, but they don't work as well when you're talking about defense and things that are in the commons like air and water.

I understand the "public good" argument in favor of governments, but when I see governments producing so many "public bads" I question whether they are doing any net good at all, let alone enough good to justify their cost.

For example, the United States "defense" department doesn't produce defense, but rather produces useless destabilizing wars on the other side of the globe. Is that worth the $600 billion that we spend on defense each year? Hardly. Congress just passed a $300 billion farm bill to subsidize people with average family incomes of over $200,000. An effective use of my money? I don't think so. They spend an additional $100 billion or so each year to spy on me and make sure I don't get high. I'd like my money back.

Yes, I am an anarchist. It's a pleasure to meet you.
"• Open - Mac owners test high in the open-personality category. They are more likely to buy organic food, drink Starbucks, and drive a hybrid."

What is open about behaving like the upper middle class, NPR listening, "Stuff White People like" median?

"• Not Dogmatic - Apple fans are liberal, both socially and politically. They tend to shy away from looking to religious or moral leaders for guidance and believe kids should be exposed to moral circumstances and free to draw their own conclusions."

A Mac is very easy to customize within a very small range. Beyond that, you're stuck. The typical Mac user is not necessarily someone who is non-dogmatic, "open", a "perfectionist", or "eco-minded" (http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/), etc., but is someone who is willing to pay a premium to signal these attitudes with their computer.
Feedback for your Boss
As a non-technical baby boomer boss, I would like some new, interesting and real world ideas, examples and stories on how better to lead technical teams. The ideas will be used in my blog at http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds and on the Outside Careers section of USNEWS and World Report. How can we do a better job?
Investors are driven by optimism. M&A guys are as brutally pragmatic as sharks. Neither one is intrinsically more right than the other; they're just two different kinds of people.
In this universe, we almost got rid of a tax to pay for the Spanish American war.

What taxes have been abolished in your universe?
don't forget where our fertilizer comes from.
The funny thing is, according to the trustworthy Swedish tech mag Ny Teknik, DHL denies the artist's claim.

Quick translation from their article:

"- Is it really true DHL transported this GPS brief case around the world?
- No, it's a totally made up story. We have nothing to do with this, says DHL Sweden's press spokesperson Cornilla von Plomgren."

http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/it_telekom/internet/article35...

Also, at least I find the artist's choice of motif quite uninspired...
you have asked many questions ... startup scene is not bad in india - the VC fundings are also available there ... apart from that you need to decide by yourself whether you can commit time and energy that can add value to your friend's dream. also if you are in US then you can also take advantage of all the startup programs and apply for it to see whether you can get launching pad. you may also explore about incorporating your company in USA to leverage benefits (if any). Also communication with your partners will be the key ... all 3 of you will be required to be on the same page as far as vision of your product/service is concerned. Lots of time will be invested in tele-conference, also make sure how you are going to get your partner equity, keep everything on paper and legal so that you dont face any problem in the future.

EDIT: it also depends what role you're going to play from here, will you be a main hacker? if yes, then you will be busy in communicating to your partners - if you are going to handle online sales, marketing and PR from here then it could be easy and fast due to broadband connection and other infrastructure.

All the Best !!!
> Caffeine is an appetite suppressant.

It is not.
I am not a liberal...
Some horrible manager in a previous career must have really tortured Jason by wasting time with Gantt charts.

Gantt charts are probably not all that useful for a group of 3 YC founders living in an apartment paid for with pg's spare change, but when you're got multiple departments and companies on a deadline, they can be very valuable. Knowing how your bit fits in and who's doing what this week are valuable things.
Then let the gas prices rise! So far, we're up to $4/gal here.

Telecommuting FTW! I know I'd hate my job less if I could telecommute full-time. My equipment at home is better than what I have to work on at the office.
In other words, this is a bikeshed argument.

http://www.bikeshed.com/
I vacation more than two weeks a year. I take trips on weekends too.
I own a mac, and every one of those points he made describes who I am NOT, except for the last one about being satisfied with my purchase.
I already started an article "In Defense of $20/gal gas" on

http://showtimeoncapitalism.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-defense-...

I got bored and quit because I thought it was pretty clear to anyone with relative intelligence exactly what would occur.
1. Oracle is not free
2. Oracle doesn't do it for huge amounts of data - because it's too expensive
3. It's not partitioning, because it's done at app level
Why? Ad-free browsing is already free.
This seems a lot clunkier than using client certificates.
Where's your market ? And what kind of product is it ?
Oops, you are right. For some reason I thought using the If-None-Match header was the "right" way of doing this, it just adds flexibility to how you cache stuff.

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags

"If you're not taking advantage of the flexible validation model that ETags provide, it's better to just remove the ETag altogether. The Last-Modified header validates based on the component's timestamp. And removing the ETag reduces the size of the HTTP headers in both the response and subsequent requests."
Well, I wish you luck :)
"No, it's a totally made up story."

That was my first guess. There aren't enough straight lines in the drawing for it to be regular shipping, and I can't see DHL agreeing to fly a plane on such an irregular route for the fairly minimal publicity it would give.
I'm referring actually to the transportation system within the United States and the "last mile" effort required to deliver goods. As fanciful as it is to think that rails is the replacement, it's not. It's a supplement to the system.
Wait, I thought he meant 25% of however many people actually click the button to tip. That would fit with my experience.
by the way - if you are going to work full-time (from here) then how are you going to survive? do you have enough savings? i think you must have plan-b ready just in case if things go wrong ...
Love the tipjoy concept, but development in this direction seems to be 'slicing a thin pie even more finely'.

Also, there are issues of 'motivation crowding' to consider -- most sites/projects that rely on user contributions could hurt themselves if they made it seem that financial rewards were the main reason to contribute. Cf: Google Answers vs. Yahoo Answers, among others.

The real challenge, I suspect, is creating a cultural expectation that certain kinds of online content/service should be supported by casual tipping. That's a matter to be addressed with marketing/trendmaking/usability/ubiquity/patience, rather than complexifying the process with backend payout-sharing.
"Certain companies are overvalued, but the valuations aren't supported by any form of mass hysteria: if anyone is burned, the effects will be local."

Where do you think the money is coming from? There may not be an IPO market, but Joe VC is getting his capital from individual investors and organizations that are just as flighty and nervous as they were in 1999.

All it will take is one or two high-profile failures, and it'll be nuclear winter in the valley again. The mechanism may be different, but the results will be the same.
Ad-free browsing is not guilt-free for those who want to support the sites they use, nor aggravation-free, because a download is required, and sometimes ad-blockers inflict collateral damage.
Sure, but a picture used to extol the multitudinous virtues of the pot plant? It seems like there must be some algorithm that thought that picture fit that line, and not a human being.
Interesting idea, but that sail looks tiny for that size ship. I can't imagine it does much.