skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you can't determine what Palantir is all about by looking at their home page, they will NEVER beat Google or FB. Right now, the first slide asks the nebulous question with no answer, "What powers your intelligence infrastructure?"

Marketing, people. Its not that hard...
Great suggestion about trying to shift into "ask questions" mode frequently. Is that something others do as well? Or (conversely) do you try to make "ask questions" your normal default, and shift into "get focused" mode at certain times?
On a side note as a font-lovin' designer type: I personally love it when sites break out the webfonts to great effect.

If a site is designed well then the small detail of the font AA is easily missed, ignored or forgiven as the site is a joy to use/view.

Quipsologies is a case in point.
http://www.underconsideration.com/quipsologies/

The slight clipping of their sub-heads under chrome is overlooked given beautiful layout and clear delivery of information.
I've been using Site to Phone successfully at work to push pages between multiple browsers and mobile devices for testing.

http://sitetophone.com/

It's not the most beautiful thing, but it works everywhere!
I don't write for a living, but this might be the worst constructed sentence I've ever read:

"But recently, Palantir has found itself in headlines for putting together a proposal, along with HBGary and Berico Technologies, to launch cyber-attacks and other “dirty tricks” against Wikileaks and its supporters, on behalf of Bank of America, and against website ThinkProgress on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

After reading that, I tuned out. All the investment banks are hyping all this shit to get some underwriting fees on IPOs. 2011 looks to be another big bonus yr for M&A and IPOs if they keep on successfully getting their HNW individuals to hype this shit only to tank it off to the common shareholders once it goes public.

The game is fixed!
http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

About considering you part of something:

"..There is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you."
Avoid the Watercooler Gang

http://web.archive.org/web/20080502192810/http://www.gapingv...

Move on ASAP.
First SciPy release to support Python 3
Java Application Development Blame Game | Extreme Java
Could you add 'rm -rf' to histignore? I remember it works with patterns but can't remember if you can use it for specific commands. I'm not on my linux box now so I can't test it.
I'm using Handoff for this (https://www.handoffapp.com/) which includes extensions for Chrome, Safari and Firefox.
Has anyone reading this quit a startup because of a similar experience? Or do you want to quit your current startup??!
Short answer: Yes, I think it should be this way, but with caveats.

Balance is the key. Taken to an extreme, the thinking approach can kill a project. After all, when it comes to computing, we are all standing on the shoulders of giants. The position that we should always solve our own problems by "thinking" suffers from irreducible complexity. Why not implement our own language? Brush off those compiler skills. See you in 5 years when you have the beginnings of a mature language. Meanwhile, your competitor, who used an existing language, will be 5 years ahead of you on their project. The same applies to "Googling" answers, which is just a metaphor for looking for prior work. If I find a solution to a complex problem in 2 hrs of Googling and reading, while my competitor hammers out their own solution, there's a good chance I'll gain a lead on them. There's also a good chance that my solution will be more flexible, leading me to continue development while my competitor is still extending their solution.

As usual, "it depends". What are the priorities at the time? Is the team under a deadline (ha!)? Are we solving a problem that is considered central to our solution? In other words, would we gain a competitive advantage by building a better mouse trap? Do our programmers have the experience and talent to build said mouse trap? Few companies have the resources to hire people focused enough to solve difficult CS problems, so scouring the internet for leads on the best solution is never a bad idea, IMO. This applies even if a solution immediately comes to mind. At least "check your math". Maybe you'll find something you didn't think of. If you've got Facebook/Google money, well then throw this advice out the window. Go hire a six-figure PhD in your specific domain and make history.

When faced with a difficult problem, the "think through the problem" method often requires the most time, and there is no guarantee that you'll arrive at the most efficient solution. Depending upon what you consider difficult, there may be exceptions to this rule, but if you are the kind of programmer that needs to Google solutions to trivial problems, you've got much bigger challenges ahead.

For most competent programmers, Googling usually means looking for a library that accomplishes a task, or trying to locate the most efficient approach to implementing a non-trivial task. In these situations, Googling to locate an answer has the added benefit of context. It's rare that you find a solution in a vacuum. There is usually some discussion, so you're benefiting from the contribution of many people. Few companies have the resources to hire a large team of developers who specialize in all the important areas for a given project. Normally, you end up with a team -- sometimes a team of one -- of generalists who must look for solutions to specific problems that falls outside their area of specialty. In this case, Googling solutions makes a lot of sense.
Ive to go or be CEO? The rumour mill rumbles again
Finding the longest palindromic substring in linear time
"That sounds very cost ineffective."

What specifically sounds "cost ineffective"?

3000 node clusters? That is a tiny cluster as clusters go. 7 quad core machines? Two ThinkPads? A million dollars on
one-of-a-kind hardware?

You my friend, have zero clue in this. Since you have no idea what the specific cost benefit analysis on this project is that statement is built on nothing but your prejudices. I grant that it may "sound" ineffective to someone with no experience working on such projects. If I were to blather about whether a drug development proposal (something about which I know next to nothing) is "cost effective" without even looking at the financial documentation, I'd come close to what you are doing with that statement.

"I'd be more productive with a personal helicopter with landing pads in various locations with an oncall pilot"

In the right situation, expensing a personal helicopter would be trivial. What is "cost effective" depends on the derived benefit. Applies to startups too. The cost depends on the benefit derived not on what the raw materials cost.

So (fwiw, I could care less about convincing you) It is not really "cost ineffective". Machine/networking etc costs on this project are trivial compared to the total budget (spent on other resources) and (much) more importantly the derived benefit.

(just making up an example since I can't talk about what this project really does) If you were able to decrypt, and classify (in the Machine Learning sense) all enemy communication in real time, how much is that capability worth to a nation? Worth spending a few millions on? Not every project in the world has the financial structure of two guys in a garage coding up the next silly web app.

Iow you are talking about "unknown unknowns" with nothing to back up your conclusions. Amusing but not really relevant.
>Apparently fashions weren't ever going to change!

It is very sensible of them not to attempt to predict fashion IMO, because it is by its very nature unpredictable, and possibly irrational and random, depending on how you look at it.

Imagine how much more ridiculous these would have been were all the people depicted in one-piece silver jumpsuits or something.
Deriving cosine: higher-order functions in python,javascript, ruby, Fortress..
This video is a good chance for us to stop drinking our own Kool-Aid for a bit and seriously think about the why of what we are doing. What is the end benefit to society of what we are producing and why is that benefit needed? While Nader may sound dated, an outside perspective can be the best wake up call to adjust our world-view.
Show HN: wntd.in, a very simple social recruiting site
you know what. I know someone is going to criticize me for my hypothetical. So I'm going to just say, this is not far from reality (although it is not the reason why US healthcare costs so damn much). In 2004 Novartis reported that they were making the anticancer drug discodermolide. From scratch. (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/op034130e) This process started from petrochemical feedstocks and largely used chromatographic purification steps. According to FDA regulations, chromatographic media must be discarded after each use and basically cannot be efficiently recycled. The amount of resources that went into producing 60 grams of this drug is staggering - keep in mind that it is estimated that in the known universe only about 6 milligrams total of the material exists. Unless this was some sort of sick PR stunt, Novartis clearly thought that in the short term it could actually make enough for this drug to be profitable (it failed phase I trials on safety grounds, which gives you an idea of how bad an idea this was in the first place since to fail a safety trial on a cancer drug means your candidate really sucks). But the question of long-term sustainability of medical care is going to become very real in the not too distant future, whether or not this country and others gets the cost of our medical care down due to its structural problems.

Whether or not we like it, the issue of health care rationing is going to but up against the problem of limited global resources.
Ask HN: B2B Software Evaluation Licence Template
We're a startup that will be selling components to large companies which they will then incorporate in their product. We have an SDK that contains a API to our (compiled) code, and would like to share it with potential customers (<20 in total, good relationships with all) for evaluation purposes.

We're going to ask our lawyers to draft a licence along these lines, but are there any published contracts out there that give us a starting point?

We're keen to make the documents as simple as possible, and not include anything that would put off a large company. I guess the evaluation period would be 90 days from signature, and we would require all copies of the SDK to be removed at the end of the period, and no release of software containing the SDK prior to agreement over licensing.

It would be great to get some feedback from companies who have been through a similar stage in their development.
Silicon Valley hubris watch, Mary Meeker edition
Why I believe Microsoft will buy Nokia
I hope that you will take the time to review my site wntd.in ( http://wntd.in ), a social recruiting site. I know there are others out there, but my goal was to make a really simple one. Users just post their jobs and profiles, and they automatically get broadcasted weekly to their friends on twitter.

I need your feedback telling me if I have achieved my goal or not.

And let me know what you think about the interface. I think the name of the site is really appropriate and catchy. Also, I will keep this basic functionality free and hope to build more premium features like detailed analytics.

If users think it is useful, I will add Facebook and LinkedIn integration as well.

Also, do you think a weekly broadcast is good or should I make it daily?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to review my site.
Who is Behind the PR Campaign Poking Holes in Google's Search Quality?
Chrome To Phone actually does a little more than just shunt links between the two devices: it actually dispatches to an appropriate application based on the content you send.

For instance, highlighting a phone number opens the dialer with it pre-filled. Manually modified routes on Google Maps are preserved when being sent, and also open in the native Maps application. YouTube links open in the YouTube app. Selected text gets sent to the device's clipboard.

It's pretty fantastic. Hopefully Push Browser can grow those features as well.
You should value your time, if time saved measured in money is more than the cost of product - then buy it.
Show HN: A Facebook app I made that maps your friends' locations.
I think this is because people have gotten so used to rapid innovation that they no longer look to the far future for the arrival of new tech, because it now arrives week on week.

As a consumer, why speculate on the next 100 years when you know from experience that you will have some undreamed of tech next year?

I don't see this as a bad thing. As long as those in society that actually do the innovating don't completely succumb to a similar myopia.
This workflow is efficient for the programmer, but not for the co-workers or the company. When you go ask a co-worker, you break their flow, which can cost them 15 minutes of productive work while they get their flow back.

If you can figure it out in under 15 minutes, you've saved time overall versus asking the co-worker.
> What are the best practices for building JavaScript-heavy webapps in an environment where latency matters?

Well, what are they?
While as a non-smoker I totally understand the sentiment here, as a scientist, that claim seems kind of unfathomable.
On a somewhat unrelated note, is there any publicly available information on how the split might have been structured (cap table, etc) ? (I'm right in the middle of splitting off a new startup from an existing company...)
No, they went to emergency rooms, and got pro bono care. It wasn't even charged to someone else's account! Or they worked out simple payment plans directly with the hospital.
That question makes a lot of sense to their target market. A CSO or CIO who sees this site will understand the question and realize that their current answer is quite probably "nothing" or "something not very good". The result:

"Palantir signed a multi-year contract with the bank in December 2009 in the $5 million to $20 million range, and JPMorgan Chase Chief Information Officer Guy Chiarello gushes about the company, calling Palantir “the best bet I’ve made in quite a while.”
Consider that you can go to Bestbuy (or your local computer retailer or choice) and buy a $500 laptop capable of running Windows 7. A Mac is 2 to 5 times that. (Highest price PC at Bestbuy $1200, highest priced Mac ~$2200) (Macbook is $1000, pc is $300-$500).

I installed Windows 7 on 2 laptops of family members. These laptops were $300 from Walmart. Windows 7 runs just fine.

I installed Windows 7 on an Asus EEE pc. Runs about as well as Windows XP (only computer where I can tell it runs a littler slower).

Considering a ~$800 ipad that isn't a full computer...

I fail to grasp what kind of performance you expect to get out of Windows 7, while at the same time having a full featured OS at the same time running on _affordable_ hardware.
As someone who grew up loving Lord of the Rings, I definitely love the name they chose. I am curious though, was that all joke or is a lawsuit a possibility? I know the Tolkien estate is very careful regarding their copyrights.
25 Unusual Methods for Making a Trillion Dollars
What about Toshiba, Dell and Lenovo?
But, but just ask a MacOS fanboi, they don't suffer from trojans/malware! So this must be a mistake </sarcasm>
Could this be a sign of things to come with AT&T's relationship with Apple?

The iPad 2 is rumored to include CDMA support, which could mean that like the iPhone 4 recently, the iPad 2 will be sold through Verizon and AT&T. This could be AT&T's way of fighting back by including a non-direct competitor of the iPad into their inventory. Especially with Apple starting to get aggressive in the ebook business.
funny. I moved from france to holland three years ago, but have now started my business in France this month. I'm currently traveling but am still undecided on where to "settle" :-)
9 Ways to Write an Online Dating Profile to Attract Men/Guys
This page doesn't give any context for the images.

This is a series of Villemard postcards from 1910. There's a set of 24 on flickr (with titles): http://www.flickr.com/photos/amphalon/sets/72157615623434624... , but I think their origin on the web is from the BNF (National Library of France) exposition here: http://expositions.bnf.fr/utopie/feuill/index.htm
ASUS Eee Pad MeMO and MeMic hands-on
Security firm details new Trojan written for Apple's Mac OS X
Not entirely:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/26/48hours/main570187...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/19/60II/main612675.sh...
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Did-thes...

I'm sure I can find more evidence, but I'm procrastinating and need to get back to work.
Palantir is B2B; it's a different sales cycle. You're not likely to work with them because you saw the homepage--you'll probably see the homepage after getting referred to them by an executive you know, getting a cold-call, reading a whitepaper, etc.
Currently looking for a PHP developer (Magento & Drupal experience is a plus), email oli@vozlabs.com
I've been playing around with Protovis and like it. It takes a bit of time to understand how it works but once everything clicks you end up being very productive.
Can you explain more about your setup? I didn't know about this and it sounds very interesting (I was considering using Backupify)
A better headline would have been

"Palantir founder and lead investor: we're the next Facebook or Google"

Film at 11.
Bonus points for "What should it look like if he is [right]?" and "Maybe there's something I should do differently?"

What I really like about LessWrong is that the advices are actionable. I had Philosophy and Sociology classes in high-school and I didn't get anything out of them because we weren't taught how to use the things they threw at us.

I think it is very unfortunate that rationality is not widely advertised as the tool it is.
Graphing is central to our product. Right now we're using Flot. It's a great library for the price (free), but we're looking for more (specifically the live charts animation features). After a lot of looking, we've settled on Highcharts. We decided on Highcharts for the following reasons:

* Uses native code (no plug-ins) in a wide variety of browsers (even IE6)
* Supports a wide variety of charts, including candlestick, which is important for finance charts (our product is in the "finance" vertical)
* Works with jQuery, which is the JS library we use
* Documentation has a fantastic introduction; from there it's just a matter of picking a chart and reviewing the API ref
* Active support forum
* Reasonable pricing

If you're looking at Flot, and want to take your charts a little further, I think Highcharts is a great choice. If you're looking to do something more abstract, it may not fit the confines of your standard bar, stack, line, etc chart. In these cases, you should look at one of the visualization libraries. Highcharts is the kind of library that is ready to take a data set and render a graph in just a few lines of code.

EDIT: It's worth noting that Flot will work with IE when combined with the excanvas project. So far we've done a TON with Flot and been very happy for a free product.
My co-worker calls this "even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."
It's not surprising that we'll see more instances of this. If the mac user base continues to grow they'll make an ever bigger target for malware producers. I'm surprised that we haven't seen a real botnet of Macs yet.
I'd love to check this out, it sounds kind of cool but I never authorize apps that request " may post status messages, notes, photos, and videos to my Wall" It is just to vague for my tastes.

Can you tell me when exactly the app would be posting things to my wall? Is there a way to opt out of that bit?
Never would have believed this - Great!
Yield the new generation on Python
We've been using the flow control helpers in async.js to help us with the nesting issue: (https://github.com/caolan/async).

We use the waterfall most, as it allows one to run an array of function in a series with a callback at the end of the series.
Wolfram Alpha doesn't "get it"
Full URL: http://blog.agiletortoise.com/post/3564424414/wolfram-alpha-doesnt-get-it
Is "agile design" a thing? If not, should it exist?
I'd like to imagine that if faced with such a situation, I'd pride myself with being a good person who actually creates something of value in the world, he's just some jerk peon who's doomed to live the rest of his life treating people like shit, yada yada.

But I've never had to go through anything like that. After putting your heart into something and some guy whose job is to make you feel worthless makes you feel worthless, I don't know if I could. That kind of thing can break a man.
"the trend over the past decade has been that uninsured people go to the emergency room when they're very ill."

I really don't understand that. I was unemployed for a few months last fall when I went to go take care of a friend who was dying of cancer, and during this time I got a really terrible case of giardia from drinking poorly purified tap water (the US is rapidly becoming a third world country). I went to a local medical clinic and got to see a doctor the same day, for about a half hour and it cost me $35. Heck, I even offered to pay the actual cost of $55 but they insisted i pay the lower rate because I was unemployed (I think they get some extra kickback from the local government if they report unemployed people coming in). The wait was relatively short and I got a scrip for a drug that worked. The clinic really did a good job of taking care of low income individuals at very reasonable cost.

I'm really not certain why there is such a need to go to emergency rooms when there are great places like this. Are people just misinformed about their options, or are places like this few and far between? I don't know.
I thought that this is known to all major operating systems. There have been such malware already.

The apparent "lack of walware, trojans and worms" is just a fact that they are less seen. Mac OS X also has bugs and vulnerabilities (even 0day ones) and with those it can't be at all times always saver than Windows just to say.

But of course, it's not like Windows XP where UAC is not even possible, so the amount of damage undertaken by trojans should in theory not as bad (but should be the same if vulnerabilities are being exploited).
Forrester: Online Retail Industry In The US Will Be Worth $279 Billion In 2015
Do you genuinely believe that pro bono care comes at no cost? That the doctors and nurses opt not to get paid for the time that they deal with people who don't have insurance? That the electricity company doesn't charge to keep the lights on when there are uninsured people being cared for? That the landlord says "eh, 20% of your patients didn't have insurance, how about a reduction in your rent this month"?

Simple payment plans don't really work out when an emergency visit to the hospital can easily cost more than $100,000.
How Come Apple and Microsoft Xbox 360 Do Not Support Blu-ray?
Ask HN: What are licenses for algorithm-design articles similar to GPL
As an algorithm designed, I am often compelled to write articles about how to solve non-trivial algorithmic problems.

I would like my ideas to be disseminated/used/improved and yet my original authorship acknowledged.

For source code, this is achieved with a license like GPL.

But what would be an equivalent for algorithm descriptions (in plain English)?

Thanks,
--Petar
This technique reminds me of Lambda Lifting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_lifting
3. Palantir was funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture arm.
Can Free Markets and Democracy lead to Ethnic Tension and Genocide?
What should Linux Fund do with open.org?