skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
At my current salary, it would take me about 10 days of work to reach £585 in straight labor costs.

Honestly, that doesn't seem to be too overly ridiculous to me. There is a lot of work that goes into designing them (and installing them into each page of a website, especially if the favicon was new and not an update). If the company in question didn't have someone perfectly familiar with the site in question, I can see it taking a week or so to get it out the door. What costs would be added by going through the process of taking bids? I wouldn't be surprised if those in themselves ran to £100 - £200.
Bret Taylor of FriendFeed/Facebook fame implemented a scalable system schema free system on top of MySQL where he could attach thin tables arbitrarily to JSON collections as the index. When migrations happened the collections would be scanned and the tables rebuilt. Digg has done similar work, but no open source project ever made the light of day. This schema free system powered most of the site (one true datastore).

After cracking open Redis and then looking at mysql-sr-lib it brought that FriendFeed idea back full circle. Basically I think mysql-sr-lib 2.0 could be a 1:1 implementation of Redis functions implemented as MySQL stored procedures. The only adaptation I would make is that functions would be namespaced (a table per namespace) so that collections could be made. It would be up to the client to decide how to take advantage of namespacing. Do use it for functional collections or sharding for example? Clients would also have to use a distribution strategy to map keys to a namespace/collection. The idea is a lot clearer in my mind now thanks to making the mysql-sr-lib discovery.
Gmail has been so reliable for me, that once or twice it was down, I actually celebrated the off time.

That said, it's not down at the moment. Damn...
Has already spawned a fake Twitter account: http://twitter.com/kennethcolePR
What does it mean?

Perhaps iPhone users really are that desperate?
I wonder if the domain and brand name would have any value to Google. As distasteful as we view it, more non-techies that I talk to know what Myspace is than know what Gmail or most non-search Google products (Chrome, Buzz, Reader, possibly even Android, etc.) are. I'd find a well engineered Google social network with a Myspace brand attached to it novel to say the least.

Not that I can see it happening.
I also have some time to kill before finishing my degree. As an entrepreneur, I'm looking for supportive platforms that can incorporate empirical research in rapid development. For instance, I really treasure the rapid development capable in lisp (particularly PLT Scheme for home-brewed libraries). My market research methodology is focussed around measurables and "surveys". Do you know of any resources where one could learn about statistical data processing in a rapid development environment? Perhaps more specifically: smooth dataflow between processes? Best of luck on your PhD.
I can only speak for one company, but I believe the vast majority of traffic comes from affiliates and not search engines. I was pushing to do more SEO and SEM, but there was a fear that the affiliates would revolt if we started taking steps to cut them out (the industry standard is 60-70% revenue share from affiliate sales, good affiliates make a LOT of money).
Any discussion of reddit here usually ends up being people complaining about it. Yes, there are often reddit links posted here, but whenever reddit is brought up, people will usually complain about how it's full of /b/tards, it's all just memes and pun threads, there's no useful comments there, etc. While this may be true for the larger subreddits, my point is simply that there are some great small ones where the quality of discussion is much higher.
Sure, but does it save money by discouraging others from ripping of the public?
Nothing about that article explicitly says anything about women being "unwilling" to contribute to Wikipedia.

The authors all implicitly agree that unwillingness is the reason. Logically, there are only two reasons women would not contribute - inability and unwillingness.

They speculate various reasons why women are unwilling - women disproportionately dislike the neutral point of view, they prefer a walled garden, they dislike edit wars or hacker elitism, or they dislike "anti-social" behavior such as sitting at home writing a wikipedia article.

They never once suggest inability as the reason women don't contribute.
Why Do People Watch Code? Survey Results Edition
BBC: "Geneva Convention" proposal for cyber war
Nothing fancy, just a new porn studio. After the basic stuff is up and running we're going to talk about making it all whiz-bang.

I still have dreams about getting the "iTunes Store for Porn" idea up and running again, since there was a lot of interest from other companies about getting their content on there (I think it's the best way to save the industry from the proliferation of free porn). Plus, with the technical/marketing/mobile knowledge I've gained since then I can make it a million times better.

Unfortunately, without the content and resources of Naughty America behind me it would be tough to break away from client work long enough to build something that I could pimp out to content producers.
[EDIT: The last polls are from a user with 250 points, so the following explanation is wrong.]

In the last months the site grow a lot, and the administrator made all(?) the karma thresholds bigger. Probably he changed the threshold for polls, but he forgot to update the error string.
It's actually in the CTRC's mandate that while they are arms-length, parliament has the right to overrule any of its decisions.
Exactly - I was hoping for some analysis, perhaps nuts & bolts of when to know it's time, rather than when it feels right.
'Getting paid' and/or winning a prize is a very different thing from taking an investment. You don't 'win' a convertible note, you agree to give up an as-yet-to-be-determined portion of your company for it.

The participants will almost certainly understand this, but I still find the rhetoric a bit off-putting.
The entire Television industry is being supported by ad revenue for decades. Why can't the same model work for the web?
Free Hacking for Damned Dummies PDF Ebook
Thanks for both pieces of advice. :)
Alright. I had checked ten minutes later and it was ~30, and I wasn't sure if anyone else had taken a count right after the change was made.
hi Vlad!
favicon was not quoted separately, wasn't 585 pounds, non-story
I don't know whether I'm disgusted or full of glee that my company is working hard on government tenders.
Scala Update with Martin Odersky
Well done! I love my career in IT but if I could've done the same I'd have jumped at it. Sadly my instrument skills aren't ideally suited (I play the trumpet) and I knew I wasn't up to playing with a pro orchestra, but I still miss the rush of the audience. Well done to have gone for it, best wishes for getting back there in the future if you want it.
The law is crap.

If you want to change it, and live in Scotland, you might want to vote for the Pirate Party this May.

BTW, I'm Pirate Party candidate for Edinburgh/Lothians region.
Not being a scientific programmer, I'm not exposed to the vibrancy of the community that you refer to. Would you recommend any websites where I could follow some discussions on the topic to get a better understand of the available community resources? I will look into Python and its libraries for the research I perform.
I am a CPAN author myself and I am not from that place you're describing :) I put almost all of my code on github to rot there too. This article is from the open source community perspective. Maybe it's just not emphasized enough.

I do agree that I don't have any right to expect anything from the open source software, I am just saying why I won't use some of it.
I'm willing to believe this is entirely aboveboard.

But the name rhymes too well with "fly by night".
And all this time I've been studying.
Without concrete examples, it's difficult to tell what problem you are solving and how exactly you are solving it. From reading it twice I've gathered that you defer the execution/access of something until sometime. I don't mean to be flippant, but your explanation is too abstract.

Concrete examples, even contrived ones, would give me a sense of how it's different to write your views or your controller logic, as opposed to how I might do it in Symfony (for example.)
I am not saying that I think hot or not apps are more important than advancing the technology of a civilization, but I do think that these decisions should be made by the market.

If someone makes money it is because they provided the rest of us with something that we value. It isn't our business to tell them exactly how to spend that money, it is theirs.

I may have different priorities than other people, but it is wrong to tax away their money that they could have spent on what they value, and to spend it on what I value.

I agree a lot of the companies VC's invest in are pretty stupid. However, the reason they are investing in a lot of these companies is because companies like Google are willing to pay large sums of money for them. Given this, it makes sense for them to invest in these companies.

Most of these acquisitions of web companies for millions of dollars are by most standards a complete waste of money. But it is not my place to tell Google or anyone else that they should not be offering to buy companies like Path for a rumored $100m because I have a better use for their money.

Google can afford to make these acquisitions at a loss though because they provide people with other things that are of value.

I'm not saying I disagree with your priorities, but I think it is wrong to tax others to pursue them.
Ask HN: How to monetize 10 million photos
I have to opportunity to buy about 10 million photos for pretty small amount. The photos are from amateur photographers and I would get the exclusive right to do, what I want with photos.

What can I do with 10 million photos?
1. sell the high quality photos as stock image an delete the rest.
2. put all photos on a site an monetize them with ads. I much can I earn with ads around photos?

thanks
Comprehensive css3 button maker
There are a few css3 button makers already out there, but this one seems like one of the most comprehensive, complete ones that I've seen thus far.
Services, software, and languages used by our startup
jonathon from ludlow ventures again... i apologize if any of the language is misleading. our goal is to be as transparent as possible. in fact, we will be posting the actual note soon... this way everyone knows what's being offered.
I have to agree with you. Every musician I know still has a myspace page, and many still use yahoo or hotmail. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea just to get the domain name and content..
The rudest thing about what GP describes is that the interviewers had demanded quite a bit of his time via the AJAX app but weren't willing to investment an equivalent amount of time in determining his skills - especially when they had the AJAX app they could have asked questions about.
Actually, it would be correct to say NeXT acquired Apple for minus USD 424M and renamed itself Apple.
I wonder if you can always turn a double-marketplace problem into a situation where the buyers and seller is the same person.

Or, if it means figuring out a way to change your business model to make sure they do become the same person.
Barrie Zwicker with Former MI5 Whistleblower Annie Machon Pt 5-5 (2009)
Ask HN: Incoming mail service for domains?
Does anyone know of any services out there where you can add a DNS mail record for your domain, and the service will configure an incoming email system for you? Pretty much like what Google Apps does, but non-Google (I'd like something with better customer service)

Thanks
Fishing For An Agreement At The Heart of Every Argument
I was wondering why they never got back to me! 6,000 new hires this year though? That's downright massive!

I wonder what type of work-load their HR department is under.
#1 is dependent upon the quality of the photos.
#2 is dependent upon your ability to drive traffic to the photos (which may be proportional to the quality of the photos.)

This is totally not my field, but I suspect there may be a very good reason why you are able to buy 10 million assorted amateur photos very cheaply, and that's assuming that the rights are all in order (i.e., each of the photographers have signed documents transferring the rights to the photos to you.)
Do you have any stats on the CPU/memory usage difference using this approach? Obviously your database/memcache calls are optimized, but I'm curious what the overall effect is.
Is there any value for a company (probably not a startup, since they are still pretty expensive from that perspective) to buy MySpace as a "pick n pull" of sorts, to repackage as a new social product? I am not a software engineer, is this kind of thing feasible?
My dad had a HP25 (not C), which was the first calc I ever used. I can't use a algebraic calc (drives me nuts). I had an 11C, then a HP15C in college, sold em both to get a HP71B. Now I collect these when I can. There's something nice about holding the HP quality in your hand. I've picked up a number of HP48's off craigslist over the years for cheap: I've never used them "in anger" but wow they've so much better than the single-line display calcs (to say nothing of their programmability) that got me thru college. My dad still uses his HP32SII for engineering calcs on the go...
But (purely for brevity) using r=sqrt(2) we find that the sequence r, r^r, r^r^r, r^r^r^r, ... converges to 2. To my mind that makes it perfectly reasonable to say that 2=x^x^x^... has a solution with x=sqrt(2).
Well, Revenue does!
Shaken-Baby Syndrome Faces New Questions in Court
Not shown: 1000s of goofy iphone apps that generated close to $0

If the moral of the story is "Do funky apps for fun and be happily surprised if they make any money" then I agree. If the moral is "Do funky apps and expect to make $16k over a weekend" then I have to disagree.

Note: I say this as the co-author of a very nice funky app: http://fakewhale.com I am currently waiting by the phone for investors or acquirers to call.
How does the partnership work in this case? % of revenues? % of the project/venture? What if the designer gets too busy with other projects?

Sorry, I am being curious because most of us hackers are in the same boat when it comes to design.
Wow. I wonder if a recommendation from a Googler counts for even more than it used to under these conditions. If any of you Googlers have a sense of this, I'd be curious to hear what you think.

Edit: emphasis
By my calculations, you'd only need to spin up 50 or so amazon instances, and they could cover the entire IP space in a day doing 1k pings/second each.

That's pretty doable.
Ask HN: Is 26 too old to start a startup?
How many of you started with 26+ year?

I'm doing some side projects, but until now never managed to start anything (personal problems), and it always bugs me if I'm "too old" to start a startup.

HN take on this?
He must have meant http://wordoid.com/

Of course, here's a perfect example of a novelty-name recollection failure.
Don't ignore your stupid ideas... that only waste a few hours of your time if they don't go anywhere; otherwise, your first instinct is probably the one to go with.
fizzbuzz is an oft cited example of a simple test:

Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”.

http://imranontech.com/2007/01/24/using-fizzbuzz-to-find-dev...
http://fastmail.fm/

http://www.dnamail.com/
Ye, when I am preparing a CPAN dist I usually clean up everything. I think it helps to create a more usable and independent distribution. And everybody wins.

Good API++
A Bathing Ape Takes a Final Bath
I noticed this a lot when I tried blogging a couple of summers ago. The articles I thought would be hits bombed, and the stupid ones I wrote just for fun [1] ended up being huge successes.

Inevitably, I just resigned myself to the fact that I don't know what'll be successful, and the only way to find out if something will work is to do it.

[1] http://phillipcohen.net/articles/simcity/ (got like 30,000 hits)
I'm quite certain its always been a positive thing under any circumstance. I don't think the influx in new candidates will make a difference.
It's that a stealth start-up? :p
Except there isn't a 20-30 range, though I expected 20-24 and 25-29. The poll maker didn't use typical 0-based ranges and thus ended with the awkward 66+ option.
Excellent site, very nicely designed.

On the privacy policy, the principles you state are excellent. It would also help to be a little more concrete, for example under what circumstances (if any) will you share information with partners and advertisers?

I love the idea of creating connections between vendors. Is there anything more community-oriented than a mailing list? A LinkedIn or Facebook group for example if most of the vendors hang out one place or another.
Suggestions for How to Make Start-Up America Really Succeed
Go listen to all the Mixergy.com interviews.

You'll see that people who create startups come in all ages and walks of life.
At least searching and ranking a mere 75,000 documents to find good employees shouldn't be a problem for them.
Google Sues Bing For Copying Its Search Results
Attention Seeking: A Guide For Startups
My dad worked for HP when I was at high school so I had a 12C. It was great, mostly because no-one else would just "borrow it for a second" due to the RPN.

A few years later I bought a paddock car for $150 (for a demolition derby on a friend's property) and it had a 12C in the glovebox. I sold it for $100. 150 [enter] 100 [minus] = $50 car.
hi hurricane!
Not at all. I was 31 when I did my first startup, and I know people who have been in their 40s and 50s. You're never too old.
Ask HN: Any developers in Kansas City looking to work on a startup? (launched)
I launched www.disrupt.fm almost a month ago. I've started to see some traction with over 500 songs uploaded so far by various musicians.

I've been working on the site part time for the last 4 months while I'm not at my full time job. I'm looking for a Kansas City PHP developer (preferably with CodeIgniter experience) to join the team and ramp up the coding efforts to push out new features.

If you're interested shoot me an email at dave@disrupt.fm with a few examples of your work and a way to get in touch with you.
Why were you wondering about this in the SHOWER?!
Refactoring for Task Concurrency
I don't understand how someone can not understand pointers and recursion. There are very intuitive, you have to probably have to study bits of math which is more unintuitive to get on computer science in the first place.
Ask HN: How HN changed your life?
What changes in your life started in a HN post? Whatever: starting a business, loosing your job, meditating, dieting
26 is not old at all. Most people who have successful start-ups actually start in their 30s
Interesting comparison from 1998:

http://slashdot.org/poll/421/My-Age-is

In 1998, 22% of respondents were ages 16-20, 53% were in their 20s, 15% in their 30s and 5% over 40.

As of this writing (and assuming that I did my arithmetic correctly), ~7% of respondents on this poll are ages 16-20, ~60% are in their 20s, ~25% in their 30s, and ~7% are over 40.

Obviously there are a lot of caveats here, but the slight increase in the overall age of techies between these two polls is nothing like you'd expect if everyone who started in their 20s in 1998 stuck around until today.

*edit: fixed arithmetic error. D'oh!
I think it gave me ADD and OCD because I'm addicted to HN but I can't read everything so I just try to read stuff I find interesting but end up not really remember anything.
Our site, which was on HN a few days back actually does the price comparison shopping, as well as integrating with traditional registries. There was a lot that went in under the cover of how to import and push a registry to a traditional registry, but allows us a complete solution of showing guests the best price. (http://www.registrystop.com) We're more targeted towards wedding, but would love to do the same for baby registries.
I don't understand why your step 3 is relevant. Observe that using r=sqrt(2) we have that the sequence r, r^r, r^r^r, r^r^r^r, ... does converge to 2. We are not performing arbitrarily large exponentiation of x.

Or, to pull a Calc 1 term, x^x^x^... does converge for x=sqrt(2).
An indie developer blog a day
That's great. And impressive. :)
I've done it on my computer. Clearly it works, but without a computer at hand, I am pretty sure I would have made many errors. For example initialize strsize to 1 instead of 0 (in order to add the '\0' at the end of the string).

I believe it is far harder than one could imagine, even more if you are nervous during the interview.

Why not just a binary search. I remember an article claiming 90% of engineer can't write it without bug.

I personnaly asked simply to write a function foo(c,string) (in any language) such that if the string contain the character c, then it returns true. And even with a question as simple as that I had more error I could have imagined.

char itoa(int i) {
int strsize;
int tmp;
char res;
int j;

if (i==0) return "0";

// allocate the right size
strsize=0;
if (i<0) strsize++;
tmp=i>0?i:-i;
while (tmp > 0) {
strsize++;
tmp /= 10;
}
res=(char *)malloc(strsize);

// write the values
j=strsize;
res[j]='\0';
if (i<0) {
i=-i;
res[0]= '-';
}
while (i != 0) {
// printf(".%d(%c)", j, '0'+i%10);
res[--j] = '0' + i%10;
i/=10;
}
return res;
}
How is this a sign of a bubble? Offering a $100k purse to a startup is not unheard of (see TC Disrupt etc.)

This is actually worse that those prizes since its an _investment_ and not free cash.
Hangout goes easy
Non-Myths About Programming
Tell HN: The 4-Hour (Profitable) Startup - How I Did It
Submitted many, many times:

http://searchyc.com/pybrain?sort=by_date

Some of these have substantial commentary.
There are some success stories demonstrating that creating a buyer-seller hybrid is not always necessary. Take http://www.uship.com/ for example. Most ebay sellers and small business needing to ship packages will rarely have experience (or interest) in the trucking industry, but still need reliable delivery. The truckers using the service may list an item to be shipped in the future, but are most likely not the typical customer on the site.

The uship team just found two groups that were not paired and probably did a tremendous amount of legwork to create activity on both sides. I think sometimes you can just replace "they need to be the same person" with "we need to be solving a specific problem."
1. Google is the easy and fast way. If you don't find anything on Google look for industry associations or industry publications. The hard way is to actually go out and conduct a survey.

2. If there are other businesses, it is actually a good sign. Customers maybe educated about the importance of your product and they are willing to buy it.

3. A simple idea is "just to make it better". It's nothing wrong with looking on your competitor's software, asking their customers what they like and what sucks and built a better version of it.

Your point with development tools and "cool" apps is important. There are a lot of industries which are neglected with great software solutions. A friend of mine works in PR consulting for dentists and he told me that many of his clients use a software for administrating their patients which is horrible, unintuitive and expensive. His other clients just use Excel.

Edit: A simple method to find ideas for software is observing. Observe how people use computers. There are a lot of possibilities where a) you could improve the software or b) you could introduce new software to make their lifes easier.