skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Here's an idea that's kind of like BigEye, but instead of a telescope, it's an orbital launch system!

Modular Laser Launch (Mostly reposted from another comment. If you've already seen it, sorry, just move on.)

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:uMWQ_kQFvKcJ:w...

Use lasers to remotely energize (zap the bottom surface, all of which is a heat exchanger) lightweight craft carrying hydrogen. The hydrogen wouldn't burn. Instead, it would just act as a reaction mass of very low weight, thus producing very high exhaust velocities. Basically, this would give you the exhaust velocity (read: fuel efficiency) of the upper theoretical end of solid core nuclear rockets, but without the heavy nuclear equipment onboard, making the craft even lighter and more efficient. And while hitting fast moving craft with a laser isn't trivial, it will be moving on a fixed track and can be designed deliberately to be hit. (retroreflectors, telemetry, etc)

But that's not even the clever bit. The clever bit of Jordin's proposal is that the laser tracking/energizing system can be built modularly. You can build one prototype module that can launch one toy craft. Then you figure out how to mass produce it and build a whole bunch of these puppies that can lock onto and zap a much larger heat-exchanger carrying craft.

What you get is very cheap access to orbit without ungodly huge R&D and infrastructure costs up front. (In this case "ungodly huge" = price of a space elevator.) Even if it's never safe enough to be man rated, the ability to send bulk cargoes up cheaply would be a massively disruptive technology. I bet a good start on this proposal could be funded by just a handful of dot-com multimillionaires.
That's interesting... I am one of the participants in the program and I can tell you that you definitely do not have to incorporate in Chile OR hire any Chileans. They're doing this to build an international network, not to produce jobs directly (their economy is doing quite well at the moment). They do want you to go to events, but the events are very valuable. We are treated as guests of the government... it's an amazing opportunity. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.
- Hank, info@knowledgestreem.com
Re: The Black Sun

The only communities I've witnessed that maintained or increased their quality over time were private, invitation-only affairs overseen by a respected and benevolent dictator.

MUD-Dev was like this in its heyday. JCL invited people based on their rec.games.mud.* postings, and existing members could invite new ones. Then it went public around 1998 and that started its initially slow decline and later rapid descent into chaos and noise. The last few years of its existence there was barely any technical content, and the design talk was too high level and disconnected. As it happens, Heroku cofounders Adam Wiggins and Orion Henry were early members and Adam in particular wrote a lot of great posts.

I've been a member of another private forum since 2004. It's somewhat secret, so I can only speak in generalities. Current members can suggest new ones for consideration, though not everyone is accepted. The owner is a well-known industry figure who bootstrapped the forum with his personal network. The membership count never exceeds more than a few hundred, and there are periodic purges of non-posting members; lurkers are not allowed. You can make anonymous posts but personal attacks in that form are deleted. The tone is generally professional and brutally honest, but there is still room for shooting the shit (if there is a lull with too many casual threads, the moderator will start to lock them).

It works very, very well.
URL appears to be a 404.
Why not? Even if you compared it as "half the iPad at half the price" - it still is a touch based tablet computer with similar hardware to the iPad, albeit a smaller screen.

Nook color full specs:

Processor: ARM Cortex A8-based Ti OMAP 3621 @ 800 MHz (same processor as Droid 2 and Droid X)
GPU Processor: PowerVR SGX530 Graphics Rendering: Open GLES1.1/2.0 Hardware Scaling: 854x480 scaled to 1024x600 Video Formats: .3GP, .MP4, .3G2 Video Codecs: H.263, H.264, MPEG-4, ON2 VP7 Image Formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP (same GPU as Droid 2 and Droid X)
RAM: 512MB Hynix H8MBX00U0MER-0EM MCM (Stacked Chips 2x256MB each die mDDR)
Internal Flash: 8GB Sandisk SDIN4C1-8g
Removable Flash: 32GB via microSDHC
Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n Security: WEP/WPA/WPA2/802.1x Mode: Infrastructure
Display: 7" 1024x600 IPS Display w\VividView Cypress Semiconductor TTSP Gen 3 (TMA340) Touchscreen , kernel driver , reference LG Display LD070WS1 (SL)(02) LED Backlight Pixels per Inch: 169 Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Colors: 16 Million Viewing Angle: 178° (same as HTC 7 Surround and HTC 7 Mozart)
battery Battery Life: ~8 hours
Micro-B USB 2.0 High-Speed
Accelerometer

So B&N is able to deliver a device with matching specs minus smaller display for $250 less than iPad. I am not counting magic or experience anywhere - we are talking about concrete stuff like hardware components here - with Honeycomb we could argue that it is possible to ship a iPad alternative with better hardware and equal or better software for $499.
Another take on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2242002
while I like the general flow and the resulted applications, I think this is just one more tool to add lots of low-quality content apps to the Android Market, already full with useless stuff. There are at least a dozen of similar services available right now (mostly paid though) doing that.
I'm in London and I'm curious.

You may want to send an e-mail to the http://london.hackspace.org.uk/ list. Depending on size you may be able to use their venue also.
There are almost certainly people that have gone from stuffing envelopes to fulfilling, renumerative careers in technology, but that has vanishingly little to recommend it as strategy. Instead, try describing shadowing as something which creates value rather than ties up a valuable employee. (Humming a few bars: say you're working with the valuable employee and will, as a deliverable for the project, create X, where X is anything from the set of "things programmers know they should make but often fail to execute on", like documentation, a repeatable build/install/test process, etc etc etc. Plus as an added bonus, after you succeed on this project, you'll have intimate knowledge of the problem domain and company practices, they'll have intimate knowledge of your capabilities and personality, and will be a slam dunk hire for them.)
This was done as a free summer course. Language bigotry aside, offering a course to learn another language outside those taught in the standard curriciulum, especially one which costs students nothing, is a win for everyone.
I find the rationalization that this is a cheaper alternative to be morally abhorrent. Why not make it even cheaper and euthanize them at the door?
Donated.

Look at it this way. Sony has repeatedly fucked me as a consumer. Rootkits, copy protection schemes, fucking memory stick. I put thousands of dollars into Minidisc before I gave up.

Now, geohot. Well, this guy gives me free code and insight into the Kinect sensor. Helps a bunch of people openly enjoy the capabilities of the hardware they own. This isn't even about trust- this is about a big contributor being harassed by bullies. I know what side I'm backing. Cash to EFF, cash to geohot.
There's plenty of people willing to give you something to sell.

Programmers and salesmen deserve compensation proportionate with the value they provide. I am a programmer myself and believe that engineer-centric companies are usually better than companies with MBA management. The dynamics of each company vary -- my comment was merely in the vein of "why do people that provide little moral value make money?" They make money because they do things that generate money even if those things are of relatively little objective value.
Ask HN: Web framewwork for non-programmers
I need a solution for small scale data base and management tools,
for something like 10 users, tens of tables and thousands of records,
with simple forms to view, search and update it.

Although I am a programmer,
the application will (hopefully) be developed / maintained
by my wife for her medical laboratory, who had never developed software.

Requirements:
* Free, better open-source
* Suitable for non-tech people
* Zero or almost zero programming (i. e. writing code)
* Preferably not PHP-based, because I dislike it and don't want to learn it.

In MS-DOS I used something like [[Magic Software Enterprises]]
Later I used Access for similar goals,
Later, like 10 years ago, I would use Delphi + any free DB
3 years ago I thought web dot-net solution (C# + DB) is best.

What about today? Is there any web-based development tools that can meet my goals?
I tried to check about Drupal, Google Spreadsheets + forms, Ruby on Rails
but was unsatisfied.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure this is about price. Yes, I have the $499 Wi-Fi iPad, but I bought it over the Kindle, Nook, and Galaxy because it's a perfect blend of technology and efficiency.

The Galaxy feels like a clunker, and the Nook isn't versatile.

I don't believe the iPad can replace a decent netbook or macbook for working on the road, but it works great for doing what it's supposed to do.

The reason the competition can't get it right is because they're trying to compete by adding more junk that we don't need. They do the same with phones too. Loading more memory or faster processors isn't what works for me - what works for me is a lightweight device that works.

I rarely use my iPad, but I wouldn't sell it because it serves a great purpose, which is as a tweener. The competition is trying to turn their tablets into souped up netbooks with touch screens, and that's why they are failing.
In my case, it was a requirement that I spend like 40 hours doing volunteer work at a homeless shelter or similar for a class on homelessness and public policy. The class was online through a San Francisco college but I was in Fairfield, about 45 miles away. So folks actually in SF had a list to work from to seek internships. I had to find my own if I was going to do something local. I went and asked to speak with the director and explained that I needed this for the class, when I could be there, some of the things I could offer, etc. I had to get a drug test before they would say "yes".

Since you don't need this for a class, you will need to be a little more convincing. "What color is your parachute" may be helpful in that regard. I would go talk to the guy in charge and tell him what you have told us: "I really want to do X with my life and am changing careers. Your company is the only one in the local area doing stuff I find really interesting. I would love to have the opportunity to spend time here and learn from people who are smarter and more experienced than I am. I am willing to do whatever you need done that will let me spend time here. I am willing to do so without pay if there are no current job openings for which I qualify. Is there any way you would consider letting me do that?" It might also be helpful to mention that you are aware of monthly meetups but scheduling conflicts do not allow you to attend. You should be prepared to state what times you are available and how many hours per week you can commit to this. If turned down, be very gracious about it and thank him for his time. If you do get turned down, if possible, close with "Keep me in mind if you change your mind/if something changes/whatever the appropriate remark is for how the conversation went (ie the stated reason for saying no)."
Two highly-recommended resources for those struggling with diabetes:

http://www.rawfor30days.com/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
I'm getting an error on their status page (https://status.riseup.net).

Error 202 (net::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID): Unknown error.
Is this limited tomthe US or is this a global phenomenon?

I would guess that all developed countries suffer from these issues to some degree, but the homeland of fast food and food franchises is probably world champion.

Nevertheless, you can't really blame McDonalds--People choose what they do and eat. Choose poorly, die young. But how can you argue for actual cooking with fresh ingredients in a society that does not value these activities? How can you make people see that fresh food actually tastes better and literally makes you a more happy person? How can you show people that light workout can do more to enhance your life than any drug or TV show ever will?
Its actually easier to sell vaporware than a real product. Vaporware never has any bugs or problems. Or as one of my colleagues during my equipment selling days said "The brochure never fails to boot up". We were selling Pentium100 based equipment at the time.
Felix is still working on Chicken. He's also active on the mailing list. There are a number of people actively working on it as well.
Not just Reddit; every site that I read that has voting, except HN, has unclick.
Blue Zones: Places where people routinely live to 90
We attended the Foursquare hackathon yesterday as participants and ended up winning with our thedealio.at private messaging app.

To be honest, the only thing we had completed prior to arriving at 1:00p was that we knew the idea. We had no name, no code written, had not heard about the new API features released, nothing. So at least it's one datapoint that the winners aren't all pre-developed, polished products.

For me, the biggest benefit of hackathons are that you are absolutely forced to use all sorts of skills, not all developer-focused. We had to discover a problem that was worth solving for a lot of people (P/M fit, I suppose). We had to battle with stupid issues like buying an .at domain name and having my credit card get locked up due to an overseas suspicious purchase, then having to wait for DNS to propagate so we could get an SSL certificate issued as required by a new feature of the Foursquare API. Also how the look and feel should be, the UX--simplicity, fun, and engaging. We spent the first three hours writing no code, just getting our game plan in place.

Then of course in the actual development we broke all kinds of rules like code duplication, no testing, editing code directly on the production server, etc. We focused squarely on speed, knowing that time would be our biggest threat.

Which brings me to my main point. Building any software product is all about compromises, and knowing when to make them. It does go against the spirit of a hackathon to bring a polished product to demo, while just networking all day. We didn't do that and did okay. But only by using every means available (including pretty much skipping dinner).

I hope that the possibility of polished products doesn't hurt the hackathon spirit, and this post is mostly to offer encouragment that single-day hacks can still hold their own. There were some really great hacks there, and the ones I know that were built just yesterday were among my favorites (4squareand7years being my particular fave).
This article also links to the following article on "Blue Zones", which is also very interesting:

http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/20/blue-zones-places-in-th...
Calling it dropping out is a bit misleading, because those entrepreneurs typically worked harder during their college years (and immediately after) than the people that didn't drop out. It would be more appropriate to say that they lifted off, and college served as their launchpad.

Being successful is typically something that requires you to work harder than the people around you, so instead of framing it in terms of staying in college or dropping out, perhaps we should frame it as investing effort in obtaining degrees versus investing it in setting up businesses.
FWIW: I did end up doing a lot with computers for them -- bought them a domain name, set up a paypal account, updated their website, created custom excel sheets to modernize their handling of their overwhelming paperwork (apparently the norm in not-for-profit land) etc. But, no, it wasn't a technology company. So it was a different setting and I had different goals.
I was very skeptical as well and applied almost as a lark. When we were accepted I was completely shocked. As others have said, they do NOT take any equity and they ask very very little of you while you're down here. Plus you are given tons of free resources to help you meet your goals. The "catch" is that you have to pick up your life and move to Chile for 6 months. For some this is very easy, but for most (myself included) it is more logistically challenging than one would assume.

The important thing to remember is that the Chilean government is not doing this for job creation or direct financial return (their economy is strong), they are doing it to build out an international network and to encourage their own entrepreneurs to think more globally and take bigger risks. If you look at what they're spending ($10M to $50M USD) versus what they're getting, it starts to make more sense.
In dynamic languages where arrays can be homogenous, the array can still have a sum method, it just assumes decent coercion rules and overloaded + (or it barfs...).
What fraction of "pre-diabetics" develop diabetes?

Note that people who live a long time actually consume more health care than folks who don't. Yes, even if the oldsters are "healthy" because they get more expensive and they keep consuming.

Black men in the US are pretty close to ideal from the public perspective. Their biggest contribution is that they die right around retirement, so they never see a dime of what they paid for govt retirement programs. However, not only do they pay the taxes that the rest of us pay (SSI and medicare), they also pay a disproportionate share of "lifestyle" taxes.

Yes, dying from lung cancer at 65 is cheaper from the public health perspective than living to 95.
Try with a circular list.
Doesn't solve the iPad problem.
It happens <1% of the time for me. It's not that big of a deal to me.

Of course, something might as well be done to prevent it entirely. It's weird how I get a hover icon on what is supposed to be the void between the upvote and downvote arrows.
With reference to patio11's comment above: Your talking point is "I want to write some code in Python for your company."

Then, if and when they turn you down for that job, you can approach the CEO at one of those local meetups and say, "Hey, I'm trying to become a better programmer; what should I study next? Here's a couple of my projects on Github so you can see the sort of things I've been working on."

You keep talking about how unqualified you are. Perhaps you are merely too shy. But if you're certain that you don't know Python well enough to write code in Python for money... learn more Python! You will have to teach yourself, of course, using books and blogs and example code from Github and Stack Overflow and semi-random Googling and surfing through your system's source code. You will have to get used to that: Web programmers are autodidacts, as they have had to be since the Web was invented, and as they will continue to be for at least another decade.
It is possible to have more than one trademark for a given word, and Apple has (at least) two for "retina":

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4003:o8...
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4003:o8...

The one not mentioned in the article is for "Computers; computer hardware; computer displays; computer software; handheld mobile digital electronic devices used as a telephone, handheld computer, personal digital assistant, electronic organizer, and electronic notepad, and used to access the Internet, electronic mail, and other digital data".
Do you know how difficult and motivate oneself to an exercise routine, much less change diet to a healthy and more expensive one?

Yes, it's the individual's fault that he didn't do much about it. However, we must also recognize the obstacles that made it difficult for individuals to do something about it.

I drive to school. I don't ride bikes or walk to school. The road aren't bike friendly. The suburban landscape in which I live in, doesn't have sidewalks to anywhere. There are sidewalks, and there's the uncomfortable feeling of walking too close to traffics.

Whose fault is to promote and subsidize the car industry at the expense of human health and everything else?

Someday, I will move to a town where I can walk and ride bikes to my heart's content. Until then, I am focusing on becoming a viable programming freelancer.

Meanwhile, million of Americans don't have the same option. They got a house mortgage to pay, family to take care of..
If you click right through this one is a paid service too, really. While you can put a "free" app out there it's "not guaranteed" to be owned by you and they'll make ad. revenue from it. Useless.
It basically says "give us your idea for an app, so that we can code it and then put our own ad code in there." Great way to get ideas from the crowd for free.
First Digital 3D Rendered Film (from 1972) and My Visit to Pixar
In 1972 Ed Catmull (founder of Pixar) and a colleague created the world's first 3D rendered movie, an animated version of Ed's left hand. This is the film that they produced. It includes some "making of" footage and some other early experiments.
You are absolutely correct. That was written too quickly and I didn't quite think I would end up on the front of Hacker news. A friend of mine submitted the blog article.

I'll fix it.
Are you running under Windows, OS X, Linux, something else?
I'm one of the current participants.

If you have questions on the application process you can send me an email at info@knowledgestreem.com
This is a bad solution; a voting system on a discussion site should allow people to undo their vote, but not let people change opinions on a whim.

People can stand by their point or concede that they were wrong somehow.

If your opinion does a 180, it's probably for the better that your - new - opinion doesn't count.
Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?
Thanks for the longer explanation. I lived in Santa Clara until about 8 months ago, and visited Fairfield regularly for work. I know exactly how remote it is (relative to the Bay Area), so big ups on taking your ass to the city for an internship.

I'll keep your words in mind as I prepare what my email/remarks. Thanks.
I wonder how many people have been caught by this bug on this post alone. ;)
Re: BigEye. This is called Aperture Synthesis in astronomy, and if I recall correctly a Nobel Prize was given for it's invention. You can do radar (Synthetic Aperture Radar) this way as well.
Yes, it's a wart. You learn the patterns he mentions pretty quickly.
Speaking as an engineer myself, there is more to life than minimizing costs to society. You could argue that the cheapest path for society is to commit mass suicide, reducing our collective social burden to zero. I do think this is a good article for HN precisely because it highlights the fundamental moral question: what exactly is social engineering supposed to optimize?
I found the relative scores on these two comments irritating too. You're clearly right. I pitched in and modded, but: wouldn't a better solution here be to just stop showing the scores on the comments please Paul Graham? Just show us our own scores. There is no reason for us to waste energy fretting about the kind of person who would value this comment lower than its parent.