skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some lazy registration systems capture email addresses without forcing the user to create a password. That's what ours does.

http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2009/03/16/signup-forms...

[edit] We have an email alert feature on our job board platform, that allows job-seekers to get email notifications for new job ads. Standard functionality. When we removed the registration barrier from this user journey (so it's now just a single text field and submit button), email alert creation rates basically doubled on most client sites.

http://labsblog.madgex.com/2010/10/the-impact-of-email-activ...
Ask HN: Thinking about quitting my job today
For one, I actually like certain aspects of my job - the smart people I work with everyday, responsibility for P&L, the benefits and obviously the pay. After nearly 3 years here, I have however realized that I do not have any ownership of what I am allowed to do and that I am working on someone else's dream. There is a lot of opposition to build and grow and fail and learn.

When I raised these concerns with my manager, he was clueless what I was talking about and offered me a significant raise in my pay. I have always valued the discussions that take place here, so I thought I would solicit your input.

Also, I would like to work on an enterprise solution (Saas). If there is anyone in the bay area who is in the same boat as I am and is interested in collaborating - please drop a line at ccpthink at gmail
Creativity involves combining known elements, occasionally adding novel elements.

Rather than looking an idea and saying, "Cool, but since I wasn't first, I'm too late" try approaching it as "Neat! What else can I do with that?"

kb
Not just that, but it actually ran in the Washington Post a little bit ago (bylines Fiscal Times). That's good trolling.
And to go the other way, it doen't happen like that because the rule of thumb isn't p=0.05, it's p<=0.05 - and p can be quite small indeed, if you run out of ideas before running out of data (such as might happen in a novel area).
Yes, IRC has warts, I didn't mean to declare it as the end of all things.

The point I was trying to make is that IRC would be a more sane starting point than XMPP. Even despite all the shortcomings you mentioned and some more that you didn't. And even despite it being a strictly centralized design that would require more server-side changes than XMPP to turn it into a distributed system.

I'll lean out of the window and even claim you could make a distributed IRCd backwards compatible to existing IRC clients, as far as the core business of presence/state, chat and group-chat are concerned.
ASK HN: What do you think about Whizbase (programming languauge)?
The best thing to do is to start along the path (as there's no magic bullet):

1. Pick a language (python, ruby, php; if you know someone that programs well with one of these choose that language)

2. Learn to program with that language (if you chose python, here's a good free book to get you going: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index)

3. Don't gloss over steps in whatever book you've chosen. Actually get the scripts running on your computer.

4. If you're getting an error or something doesn't make sense, search http://stackoverflow.com/

5. Once you feel comfortable writing scripts, buy yourself a cheap shared hosting service (I've used Dreamhost but there are others. If you know someone who programs choose what they are using.)

6. Download putty and/or use a web based ftp client. Interact with your server, get comfortable writing scripts in whatever language you chose.

7. Choose a framework (look here for candidates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_f...).

8. Get the framework installed on your server and do the tutorial and get whatever toy app they specify up and running.

-> somewhere in there it would also be useful/necessary to dabble with HTML, CSS, SQL (w3schools is a reasonable enough place to start)

Now you're good to go ... build, build, build.
Google's Cr-48 Chrome OS Notebook Hacked To Run Android
I read some of the chapter on the origin of cos and sine. It reads a bit like the telephone book, or possibly a dictionary. Either way, I am going to ignore the copyright, download it to my electric book, and read much of it.
Radiated Emission Measurement Conversion
On on hand, these people are blowing a lot of money. On the other they're mostly doing what is reasonable (saving for college, paying a mortgage, paying off student loans, no credit card debt, paying for childcare because they both work, etc.). If you expect people to do everything for themselves, then $250k a year doesn't seem like a whole lot, particularly when you start taking into account the (growing?) possibility that one or both of them could lose their job at any point. Where is the saving for that? If you're spending $20k a month, losing one of the jobs means you need $10k in savings per month that person isn't working.

I wish to assert that these people are not rich at all. Here's how you know: they have salary paying jobs the income from which is materially involved in their day to day life expenses (as opposed to Fortune 500 CEOs whose salaries pale in comparison to the stock related earnings they receive). In short, if you and your wife both have to work somewhere that has the power to arbitrarily lay you off, then you're not rich. The real rich own the places these people work at.
No one notice that you must get all your apps through Amazon approval before you can make them available for sale elsewhere?

b. Timing of Deliveries. ... You will deliver future Apps within 14 days before the initial availability date you designate for the App (the “Initial Availability Date”). The Initial Availability Date must be no later than the first date you permit the App to be listed for pre-order or sale on any Similar Service. ...

EDIT: And updates as well. So no more releasing emergency break fixes.
Fuck you Paul Graham
I just read Paul Graham's rant on trolls.
Spencer Fry — Building the Trunk, First
Mobile data seems very expensive in the US compared to Europe, but the States seem to be cheaper in most other areas: e.g. Petrol/Gasoline - $3 per gallon in the States, over $8 per gallon in the UK now.
I read the sentiment as "this sector is hopelessly corrupt", which, assuming they're not making stuff up, seems to be the case.

Where'd you get to "should be illegal" from?
I was redirected to a confusing page the moment after I clicked Allow. There was no clear call to action, except to explore/follow some users on the top-right corner. How can I start making my list? Is there somewhere that I can browse all the movies on your database, and then annotate them according to whether I've seen it, not seen it, etc.?

My suggestion is to suggest a few movies to the user right from the get-go, so they can start making their list immediately. Also, make a viral loop: say, let people share their movie list on their Facebook profiles and entice their friends to make and share their lists, which in turn creates a viral marketing cycle.

Last but not least, if you're going to build a Facebook app for the Facebook demographic, you really need to hang out more on Facebook.

All the best.
They have a 3 or 4 bedroom house, which is more than sufficient for a 4-person family.

It's true, there is no universal definition of rich. But many of the items you list as luxuries are available even to a good chunk of the poor (using the US govt definition of "poverty").

60% of households below the poverty level [1] have 3-4 bedrooms and 66% of households below the poverty level have at least 2 rooms per person. 25% of households below the poverty level have at least 2 cars, trucks or vans.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

I'm not saying we should feel sorry for this family. I'm just pointing out that many of the items you mention as luxuries which make you rich are available to a huge chunk of the US.

[1] This is 60% of all households below the poverty level, not just households of 4 people.
Technical job post tips for the desperate
Ask HN: Anyone interested in meeting other HNers?
I created a website that lets HN-ers post their lunch plans and allows others to join in. I submitted it to HN a week ago but it did not get much attention, so I'm submitting it again hoping that it'll fare better this time.

The website is http://www.hackerlunch.com

You can basically post a lunch plan, where you introduce yourself, mention your location, and write something interesting about yourself, and other HN-ers who find you interesting will be able to contact you and maybe join you for lunch.

This is essentially my first project (I'm a designer and I just learned PHP enough to build this), so it would be really motivating to get some feedback on this. Regardless of whether you would be using it or not, what do you think of the site? Should I spend more time on it?
Clickable: http://www.hackerlunch.com/
already using it :)
Could it have something to do with the reading speed of users?

I know that I read a lot faster than some of my old school friends. And not as fast as some old uni friends. But I'd guess the average HN reader was a fair bit faster reader than your average reader.

Though compared to the your average reader, I suspect Fred Wilson's are probably faster than average... so are HN visitors faster readers than average avc readers?

Original article:
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/rss-continued.html
I would at least have a "plan" before you quit your job. You suggest that you're at a well paying job, so it would be a shame to quit only to figure out that after 3-4 months you realize you had it pretty good.

In regards to working for somebody else, well, that's what most of the people out there do. It's not easy to successfully start your own profitable operation. It's even less easy to become an adopted enterprise solution. It is easy to begin working towards your own dream, though. If that's what you're aiming for then it sounds like you already have an idea of how to do it.

Good luck.
Yeah, it does.
vim does automatic indention, too, fwiw. Although the author talked about manual shifting, he did not mention vim's "=". This is equivalent to emacs's default behavior for tab (for when emacs's automatic indention is bypassed).

I agree with the other responder: slime. It is pretty much the only allure for me to emacs, and the only feature I really miss with current vim packages is the intellisense that understands what package I am working in, what new symbols I introduced. I am okay without, but I could probably work slightly faster if I had it.
Joel Spolsky - CEO & Co-founder of Stack Overflow on We Are NY Tech
Plus the install is super fast. USB key to SSD drive Windows 7 install is about 10 to 15 minutes top.

(I've done this several times as I've upgraded the computers in the home to SSD drives.)
Cool: Collection Of Bollywood Actors Govinda Wallpaper
How Google is changing the equation in machine translation
Let me tackle this from a different angle:

How long did it take you bring your client into a reliably working state? And have you tried to do the same with a XMPP client for comparison?

As said, I didn't mean to claim IRC is perfect - nothing is.

But if you think the differences that IRC networks have introduced are problematic then I invite you to try and build a most basic jabber client.
"Goldman will be creating a “special purpose vehicle” to sell the stock to its wealthy clients and then will charge them a 4 percent initial fee plus 5 percent of any profits."

hahaha what a shitty trade, sounds like standard goldman to me.
Sadly, I think it's because it gives people something to talk about, and that's about it.
If this guy is the "Lead Web Services Evangelist at Amazon.com" why is he running such crap hardware? "ancient" scanner, etc?
Five Predictions for your Database in 2011
In Xeround's latest blog post, Razi Sharir provides five predictions for your database to start off the new year.
Apple vs Microsoft vs Google vs IBM market capitalization
Guess where html5.com goes to (domain squatting?)
I agree that blind use without understanding is not the best case, but I still believe these boilerplates are helpful. Especially if the choice is between someone copy-pasting an HTML5 boilerplate or sticking with their IDE's HTML4/XHTML1 boilerplate because they don't have the time or inclination to fully grok the quirks of using HTML5 on a production site.

I finished the first iteration of a project recently, using HTML5Boilerplate merged with HTML/CSS purchased from ThemeForest. Even though I'm pretty well familiar with HTML5 and ended up pruning a bit of the boilerplate that wasn't necessary for my project, it was still a very welcome jumpstart.
You may host it but if i visit khanapp.com on my android it tries to make me install openappmkt. I should be able to just use the app. It's html, I have a browser that supports html, so let me use the app.
I think I will put some links for users to help them start building their movie lists (Movies watched, Movies you want to watch, and movies which in your opinion are trash).

I guess one way would be to show user say IMDB 250 list or any other such All Time list.

Plus the thing you said about getting viral. I will need to come up with a way to do that. Sharing list is definitely one of them. I also integrated FB Like for all movies which may help in spreading the word.
I wasn't aware that the FSF agreement needed to be physically posted, so thank you for pointing that out.

I will point out in return that their requirements have indeed caused a number of forks (some of which ended up being merged back in without copyright assignment TTBOMK) and acrimonious arguments despite giving strong legal assurances to the contributor that the FSF will only use the assignment for a few limited purposes.

The fact that it requires physical transfer of document stands though, so I'm satisfied that you have actually read what I wrote rather than dismissing it out of hand, and will hence shut up on the topic :P.
Following http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Exxon+Mobil+vs+Apple+ma... (Exxon Mobil is the largest traded company)

Also: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Apple+vs+Microsoft+vs+G...
Has your reading of HN directly resulted in a measurable profit for yourself or others in a commonly accepted currency, such as USD or Euro?

If not, then it is leisure, not business.
So make your list price higher than your current price and let Amazon figure out what's best. Unless I'm missing something, Amazon's getting a percentage, so their income is maximized when your income is maximized.
Is it bad I read this as The Mangina Manifesto ?
There's an engineering principle, if you address a complex problem (or any problem) with a complex system, it's going to be buggy. Addressing complex social issues with complex legislation (Dodd-Frank, Sarbox, etc.) results in loopholes (bugs). Many lawmakers surely realize this, but their main goal is re-election, and doing something (the equivalent of Dilbert moving his mouse around) gives the media something to report, which in turn keeps the lawmakers' names in front of the public and feeds the perception of positive action.

The equivalent of engineers are the staff lawyers who actually write the legislation, and cycle between government and industry positions, much like contract programmers; but in their case they get rewarded for the bugs they write in their code by advising industry clients on how to exploit them. (That of course is a simplification. Goldman is using lawyers experienced in parsing complex security laws, not necessarily the same ones who wrote the laws.)
Just a followup on how you start building your lists. You can visit profile page of users mentioned on the top right. Or you can visit any of the "Lists" present on the header section. You can search for a movie you wish to recommend too.
I haven't used Mint (as it's US-based right?) but from what I understand is similar. The main difference however is that Rabbit is more focused on orders, invoices, and payments not just about recording the things you bought. Also Mint is mostly for consumers right?
Modular Cocoa User Interfaces
Jabber, the universal chat protocol latterly known as XMPP^w^w^w^w^w^w^w^wThe federated message passing network known as XMPP.

The virtues of a realtime decentralized but federated message passing network... reduced to "chat".

Yeah, the chat network turns 12. Congratulations XMPP folk.
This was a really interesting article. I like this subject, does anyone know of any books, websites or articles that might have more of the same?
Interesting project. A few of the immediate problems I see:

1) It looks far more like people just posting an introduction about themselves. Let's say that a month from now you have 200 posts on it, and I'm looking to see if anyone wants to get lunch in Santa Monica. This doesn't appear terribly easy, and being lazy I'm not going to spend more than about 1 minute trying to find people.

2) I don't see that any of these expires. If I post for lunch in an hour and a half or so, it will live on forever. This is much more an event and time-based thing, yet the records live on more like a blog/news/announcement section.

Dates, times, and locations should be displayed well, a search by city would be most useful as well.
OS X filenames use decomposed form, e.g. Å is represented as A˚ ("A" followed by "combining ring"), which makes it sort just after A.
I generally use DrRacket to edit files and rlwrap to interact with a REPL. I do this with Arc (which I use most often) and Common Lisp (which I use now and then), and I use pure DrRacket to deal with Racket. It works pretty well for me.

DrRacket does indentation (which can be customized), paren-matching, and syntax coloring, plus it has some Emacs-like keybindings. rlwrap does paren-matching, provides up-arrow access to previous commands (ctrl-p also works), and allows in-line editing (an improvement over the raw REPL, which isn't saying much).
They still price test and have added nearly $80B in market cap since they were "burned", so I don't think they were burned too badly.
Buggy software can be better than none.
Well that really sucks.

I wonder how they'll be implementing it, and how plausible it will be for other video sites to make themselves unblockable.
What I have learned: Take Munin (or your solution of choice) and install all plugins for infrastructure to use. It's hard to monitor too much, only too little.
I stumbled onto this a while ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_antenna
Evolution doesn't think you're special
Can you ask your manager for reduced hours instead of increased pay, and use the extra time for personal projects?
It would be nice to add location info to each entry rather than expecting the person to mention it in the content. This could also be helpful to create a tag cloud or location based filters in the future.
Ten Innovative Tech Companies Showcasing At CES Tweetup 2011
Wait, isn't investing in something and then making a huge announcement like this called 'insider trading'? The same people who are investing are also purposefully changing the value of the stock through non-market means.
Ok, thanks guys. Didn't see that post. I wonder why this isn't in the FAQ?
He should use his female accounts to message his real account, and only "reply" to a few of those. OkCupid would then inform other girls that he "replies very selectively" when they message him, and would thus see him as hard to get!
Is an email address really the mark of an 'acquired customer'?
"Amazon gets to set the price on your app. Developers only get to recommend. Certainly original."

This is how the vast majority of retail products work. The manufacturer suggests a retail price, but it is up to the retailer to determine what the consumer ultimately pays. Software was sold this way for several decades.

So it strikes me as more "retro" than "original". Not that it's a bad thing -- I love the idea of Amazon split-testing my pricing, because it lets me focus more on the app itself.
You're looking at this and seeing the wrong problem. You have a family that is doing well enough that they can save sufficient money to retire at a similar level and put their kids through college to be able to attain a similar economic and social status.

In doing that, they aren't netting out a ton of money. The problem is, that wasn't always the case. My grandparents in the 60's and 70's were able to own a home in NYC, own new or late model cars without loans, and put 5 kids through college with minimal debt on a single, blue-collar income.

Most of the replies in this thread are whining about elitism, blah blah blah. $250k of earned income sounds like alot, but this hypothetical family is just as much a wage slave as anyone else. They just have more stuff to lose than you.
Is that the cost of an early termination fee?
Oh, I'm sure it's not too late... And I'm working on my own projects in my free time. But it's games like this that finally pushed me into doing that. If I hadn't thought 'Man, I wish I'd written that' I'd probably still be doing nothing about it.
You definitely kept your book fun, and thank you for writing it. Though some mention of Lisp files would be handy. You sort of have to figure it out on your own now, or get through the entire book in one long REPL session.
Unless I read things incorrectly, current contracts are grandfathered in. Just don't renew.
Screening or Sourcing candidates? - what's the bigger problem
In S/w industry hiring, what's a bigger problem ? - screening candidates (or) sourcing them ?
In the grand scheme of things, the user base of HN is relatively small. Now, divide that into a much smaller number and that's the potential user base for your site. My point with this is that targeting only HN users for something like this will result in what you're seeing - not much attention.

I say this because HN (and online forums, message boards, etc, in general), in my opinion, helps to solve a problem that existed prior to its existence. That problem being that there are a lot of people with the knowledge and ability to help each other with tech and business, but they're all spread out so it's difficult to meet in person. Message boards like Stack Overflow, Quora and HN help bridge that separation. Your site, on the other hand, is attempting to tackle that issue head on by providing a way to help people setup in person meetups, except that you have an added difficulty in the fact that you're pitching it to a crowd of people using a service that allowed them to come together because they're all spread apart in the first place! (whew)

Now, obviously your idea works elsewhere - meetup.com. They're focusing on a much broader target market, though. Perhaps for your idea to work you could include ways to help HNers make it possible to meet up in person? Perhaps locate cheap plane ticket pricing, or groupon-esque deals for restaurants and let them make reservations. Those are just some less informal ideas, but I think something along those lines might be helpful to your service.