skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
hg branches are entirely different from git branches, so resetting them in that way doesn't make sense. The closest approximation - bookmarks - can indeed be reset (hg bookmark -f).

histedit does a variety of things; I'm not sure if it covers all of rebase's branches. Mercurial does also have a rebase facility now as well.
"some motherboards are not capable of supplying enough power to their usb ports."

That's just lovely. At work someone ordered 2 western digital passports harddrives. They wouldn't work with any Apple laptops that we had (2 15in MBP, a 13in MBP, a Air) and would only work with desktops (2 iMacs). The box, WD's website, Apple's website all said these were compatible with any MacBook ... I suspected the problem was with underpowered USB ports. I even phoned WD's support (who were unprofessional) and couldn't get straight answer out of them, nor any useful info from Apple website.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions!

I never used a Mac until 1.5 years ago and I've been impressed with the quality and finish of the hardware, the overall smoothness of the UI, suspend & hibernate that work, AND a bash shell. And the ease in which non-Computer
literate can use one is impressive (unless they've used other OS's for a long time).

But, the way Apple obfuscate information, and Bill Gates ... er I mean Steve Jobs apparent desire to lock users into Apple is disturbing.
Google Content Farm Update- How Does Google Determine "Trust"
As you know, lots of programmers are anti-social, so that's less of a problem than it seems. It may well be easier for you to get a good-paying programming job than a lower-paying normal-person job. If I were you I'd find something interesting to hack on and then talk to other hackers about it. That doesn't require much social skill and is as least as likely to lead to work opportunities as the resume/interview grind.
If my memory is not failing me completely I would say that lower middle class to maybe even down to slightly above the poverty level could afford some computer ten years ago. A majority could buy a computer.
Ask HN: Stanford, HBS, or Sell Company
This arose from a debate with a friend over which event would have a greater impact on one's life:
Getting accepted to Stanford for undergrad
Getting accepted to HBS for b-school
Bootstrapping and selling a startup for $10M (assume 100% ownership)
Here's the bottom line. Don't rely on Google, Facebook, Reddit or HN for that matter. They all have their own interests, changing rules mores etc. The "best" content, app or product doesn't necessarily win in any channel. The best marketing wins and having an awesome product is just one factor in great marketing.
You're getting downvoted because of the condescending tone of your comment.

I used to work at a big consultancy and quit my job not too long ago to work on my ideas full time.

I had a comfortable paycheck, lived in a nice apartment, and drove a nice car at the age of 23. I learned that none of that matters to me. I didn't want my job and my car and my suit to define who I was.

Contrary to many people on HN, I don't do startups for the money. If I were working for the money, I would have stayed in consulting and received a guaranteed six-figures. I do it because, as a hacker, there's no better feeling in the world than creating something and seeing an idea materialize. It sure beats the feeling of waking up to the same routine every day. Turns out you can make a living at it.

The OP will probably get a job so he won't be much different from you. If I were the OP, I wouldn't regret a single thing. That's the risk you take.
Windows 7 ships with something similar to Shiftit (windows key+arrow keys). Between that and spaces' habit of randomly rearranging my windows on the z-axis I prefer Windows to OSX for window management.

I think the problem is solved, but only for people who don't use OSX or Windows and take a month or two learn how to use a scriptable tiling WM =/
Silicon Valley programmers have to compete with a growing pool of domestic and global workforce.

Hardy was a Cambridge brat; people like him were born & bred for foreign posts. The closest thing today might be being born anglo, going through military academies all your life, then graduating West Point: you ARE guaranteed certain top positions for life.
Monitor Group consultants aided Khadafy
Part of the reason is the potential upside: why should you "work as hard as a start-up founder" without the potential payoff of a startup-founder? (Probable value = size of reward * probability)

Another big part is self-determination: work on what you feel excited about. A startup can also add intangibles like experience, excitement, independence.

Will your current job help prepare you to take that "something really hot" to market? Will you be likely to even find that "something" with all your energies devoted to your current job?

I'm currently a captive employee bootstrapping some development on the side, and have previously been an early employee in a small startup, so these are factors I evaluate for myself.
The issue that I have with desktop switching on my shiny new MacBook is that OS X switches focus between applications, not windows.

Here I've got vim and Firefox open, with the focus on vim. I switch to another desktop to glance at some documentation (since the Firefox window on the first desktop is for the application I'm developing), switch back and begin typing. But alas! My key strokes are logged to Firefox, because that was the last application I had focused, rather than to the last window I was using on the desktop.

Aside from that, once I added some basic tiling functionality[0], it's not too bad working on it, even for a someone as used to a tiling wm as me.

[0]: https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt
I don't mind if iTunes sucks on Windows, because Windows has foobar2000. What really bothers me is that there are no worthwhile alternatives to iTunes for OSX.
argued that giving users the option to turn this feature off would be an “inelegant implementation.”

This is a good recipe for making me hate you as a designer. You don't always know better than the user. Options reflect that there multiple ways people prefer to do things. Eliminating options may be more "elegant", but elegance means nothing if I hate using you interface.
SizeUp looks like a paid-for version of https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt .
Cool Idea. lets see if I can get you some followers :)
makes sense since mercurial is written in python, it's like eating your own dogfood in some senses.
A Glance at Mafia Wars on Apple iPhone4 | AllTime Best
As someone not familiar at all with the material presented, I enjoyed it very much.
Stack Overflow didn't bootstrap to viability off Google traffic. The other guy brought Joel onboard to get his audience, no? Which is not to be critical of Stack Overflow, but it's a bad example, not the least because Google had to manually intervene to solve its SEO issues.
There have been times that I've created a branch just to have a stopping point to which I can go back, but I wasn't going to do any work on it, at least not yet, like two choices on how to re-factor something, try one, if it fails try the other, but keep both around for testing.
> It's also a bad example because Google had to manually intervene to solve their SEO problems.

That was kind of my point--SEO makes a huge difference in the content business. They got beat with their own content!
Unfortunately people working with git at work are still doing exactly that. Not sure how to make them stop either, since so far telling them it is wrong hasn't helped ...
I'm in an office adjacent to you - nice job on BSA. ;)
the entire concept of downvoting is based on disagreement.

(haha, awesome whoever just downvoted that)
Most people that use SVN on Windows seem to use TortoiseSVN instead of a command line.

Similarly, most Windows developers that I encounter who run Git just use TortoiseGit. (And TortoiseHg for Mercurial for that matter).

The whole "Git on Windows" issue? Completely overblown.
After suffering with the #dickbar for a couple of days now, it's become apparent to me that Twitter refuses to acknowledge that they're a protocol, not a service, and by implementing lightweight annoyances to monetize the userbase, inelegantly as DickC puts it, pushes users to find alternatives where they can still use the protocol as a communication device without the hassles of the hamfisted business approach.

Ask yourself, would ATT interrupt your calls to alert you of popular conversations from other users, even if they were sponsored? I highly doubt that.
We're looking for someone with Python experience, you could work mostly from home as soon you've proven your ability to deliver on time, otherwise we're in Sunnyvale, right off the CalTrain.

Get some code posted up at GitHub. You don't need to solve a new problem, just find an interesting way to solve any problem or show your skills off. The are 1000's of data sources out there, mash some stuff together.

Get active on StackOverflow, I've hired a couple of people based solely on what I saw there.
Do we have statistics on how many people with 4-year degrees transition from "unemployed" to "not in work force?"
Why is PHP not a "real" programming language? Why is subversion not a "real" version control tool?

Yes, I've programmed in PHP and know it has some downsides, and that it has some big warts that are ugly, but it is a real programming language. Real projects are built with PHP.

Now I understand the frustration with Subversion, but it still is a version control system that is used in the real world. Would I love it if everyone decided to move away from SVN and onto something more capable like Git or Mercurial, yes, but that doesn't mean we have to belittle people who are using those tools.
Greetings,

That is one of the reasons I objected to the article - it uses emotionally loaded language. We're in agreement there. But continuing in that vein doesn't advance anyone's knowledge.
Bitbucket has public, discussable Pull Requests? I'd love to see them.
I'm going to sound harsh but please don't take it the wrong way. Take it for the literal words.

This has to(almost) be the worst user interface I have ever seen.

I can understand the Yes/No but if a user says No I do not have a smartphone, you STILL need to show them your product.

Otherwise you're alienating a possible future customer, and more importantly you're leaving a bad taste in someone's mouth and I'm going to go tell 3 friends who are going to tell 3 friends. You understand the rest I'm sure.
AT&T might not be the best choice as an example of a non-hamfisted company.
Kinect hacks, performance art edition: pin boards, puppets and RoboThespians
This is definitely true. I'll often check to see if a candidate has a github account when making a hiring decision. Having some interesting/good code up there can definitely move the needle a bit on a hire/no hire decision.
If you look at the average pay for a HBS grad student, I think I'd definitely take selling a company for 10M even if you look at it from a pure monetary perspective.

If you consider the meta aspect of it, say, why are you even learning marketing at HBS, then I'd come back to startups, but it might be different for another person.
Indexed is not the same thing as available, or else Google would not be able to tweak their algorithm against so-called spam networks like Demand Media.

Historically, Yahoo trumped itself as having the best search results thanks to human curation of its search directory. Bing, even today, labels itself as a "decision engine".

Google as far as I know has no public statements implying that there's a 1:1 correspondence between the set of possible Google results for all queries and the internet. This relationship is far more important than merely a 1:1 between index and internet.
Game Dev Story for iPhone ?
Install applications from the internet
You seem to have a lot of righteous anger on this topic.
sending email in a day isn't the same thing as reading newsletters. and ads on websites are spam. they usually don't engage, add value, or do anything worthwhile.
My assumption is that growth in knowledge work is dependent on there being growth in disposable income for the population. In my scenario where a large portion of the population has no marketable skills and therefore can't find a job, this effectively puts a cap on the amount of knowledge work the economy can sustain. See my reply to stretchwithme for a further explanation of my thoughts on this scenario.
The things I think Last.fm has going for them:

* Charts (of course)

* Recommendations: I use last.fm for two kinds of recommendations: (1) where it uses listener history to figure out similar bands and albums, which in some ways is inferior to feature-based recommender systems like Pandora, and (2) where it uses neighbor listening history (e.g., neighbor radio) -- I can't count the number of times I've been introduced to awesome bands in genres I wasn't looking for just because a neighbor had it on their charts.

* Shoutboxes for each artist, album, and song: I can't count the number of times I've just instantly "loved" a song and needed someplace to shout something out with others who like the song.

Last.fm has a huge user base and should try to be a one-stop shop for music, like Netflix is for video. Here're some tips

* Revamp your business model: copy Grooveshark's business model if you have to, but get anyone who wants to listen to a song come to your site and not go to Youtube for a low-quality version.

* Increase avg. time on site: If you implement the suggestion above (where I can play any song I like), then you have a wealth of _real_ related song/album/artist to offer the user. You may be able to remove annoying audio ads and just rely on click ads. It also helps if you implement a site-wide list like youtube's playlist.

* Improve recommendations: Netflix had a decent algorithm, but conducting the Netflix prize got them a lot of publicity _and_ a much better algorithm. You could do the same with the ton of data that you have. Yahoo! is already ahead of you in this: see this year's KDD cup: http://www.kdd.org/kdd2011/kddcup.shtml
I was starting to lose my faith in diaspora as months went by and there was no progress to be seen but I love the concept of a service with distributed infrastructure. If diaspora proves it to be a working and applicable model I think a lot of other services will emerge using similar models. especially music stuff, think new napster.
I was pretty amazed to discover there's already a workaround for Jailbroken devices: https://twitter.com/chpwn/status/43493433217789952
In other countries, no.
The Echo Nest Makes Pandora Look Like a Transistor Radio
it does not work in opera 11.01.

stops at lobby, start game does not do anything.
They aren't really equivalent stages in your career. Getting into Stanford or HBS is the beginning of your career; selling a startup for $10M is (if you want it to be) the end of your career.

A better comparison might be getting into HBS vs. getting accepted to YCombinator. Even for that, I'd pick YCombinator, but at least it's an even match.
Croudsourcing commercial flagging
An idea to help HTPC builders skip commercials more reliably and quicker than any of the current methods.
I think this is what they're planning. I note that they have made very slow progress on their on-site platform bits (and actually hurt them in many ways by reducing virality) but are constantly improving their off-site stuff, like Like stream stories, the share widgets, and the FB Comments widget. This makes me think their medium to long term strategy is to convert the entire web into a sellable FB ad unit, rather then get everyone to spend their time on FB directly. I know the logic is a bit strange here but I can't find any other reasoning for their actions.
The salary part might be true (I have no idea), but there are definitely not many entry level positions - most everyone as far as I've seen wants at least mid-level skillsets.

And if you're not talking about just the bay area specifically, you're definitely off base.
his character in the film was my favorite. i didn't think he was portrayed as an asshole at all; in fact, he seemed pretty badass. and the scene with the stanford girl was like the quintessential moment every geek dreams of. "you just slept on sean parker." classic.
I'm a developer, but I find this kind of criticism (that usually is in the designer's/PM's domain) exasperating.

People write frustrated and angry posts saying things like "you don't always know better than the user." You're decrying the method, not the choices, but its the choices you hate.

When people make "opinionated software" we end up with much more useful tools, better experiences, and innovative ideas. Without designers forcing things on you that you don't necessarily want, and not giving you an option to turn it off, you end up with animated Myspace backgrounds, skinable MP3 players, and corporate portals. With that attitude, we get clean, informational, useful Facebook profiles, elderly and technophobic people using music software instead of carrying CDs, and Basecamp/Emacs org-mode/appropriate organization tools for the right job.

I agree - the trending topics bar is not only buggy, it's freaking annoying. I personally haven't started looking to switch clients because I'm assuming it wont be long before it gets nixed. But I applaud the gall that goes behind pushing it out. I want people developing the software I use to try and enable (and push us along towards) greater things. If something happens I don't like, the world is a large place. I can go find someone else who hasn't gone crazy who writes competing software. But I'm not going to trash Twitter for taking that risk. Should they have thought it through more? I think so. Should they keep doing things in a similar spirit? Yes.
If you're mostly using your computer to check email and facebook, you don't need a quad core.

I think there's a lot of unfulfilled potential here, and I'm really glad the emerging tablet space is exploring GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure sensors, touch sensors, light sensors, Apple is pushing FaceTime, Android and iOS are getting augmented reality apps, etc.
you know your right.

you get two guys in a room coding all day for months, and as much as we try to step back and walk through it again, we always seem to miss something so obvious. beta testers bypass this screen so we never got input.

thanks!
Well, I was disappointed.
Talk (Therapy) Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy
Also http://longform.org/ + http://www.instapaper.com/
In addition to LongReads, I frequent the following, making heavy use of Instapaper and pushing to my Kindle to get a weekly periodical which makes for some great reading

http://givemesomethingtoread.com/

http://longform.org/
Is that all you're contributing to the already long and offtopic discussion? really?
I cannot speak to being accepted at Stanford. Obviously, one would have to ask a certain Eldrick Tont Woods what impact that fine institution had on his life, but I digress.

If you're a shithead business type with shallow friends and a twin-Volvo outlook on life, then maybe the church that is HBS may provide you with the kind of social cred and justification that a spineless social-climber seeks, then being accepted there, or any other Ivy-league B-school program, may give you the unwarranted hard-on you seek.

However, if you get off on eating peanut-butter sandwiches for weeks straight in a shared apartment in the Mission, while you write and rewrite code as you contemplate the benefits of listing suicide attempts on your CV under the heading "Recent Experience", then maybe bootstrapping a startup is something you should consider if your medical team has no objections.

Again, undergrads are a dime a dozen, B-school schmucks are mainly followers of a established social paradigm and entrepreneurs are a collection of nuts, burnouts and unregimented losers who'll package their mother in a two-fer if it brought in more business.
I think that supports Chris' point. He isn't saying SEO doesn't matter, he's saying that pursuing SEO as a marketing strategy means you have to be very aggressive in order to get any traffic. Which makes it a non-viable strategy for startups that care about the user experience.

My personal experience says he's right. And I think the Stack Overflow example does too. Even when SO redesigned itself to make the site more SEO-friendly it couldn't compete with some of its imitators -- presumably because Joel and team were averse to making changes that would hurt site usability and aesthetics.
I am in NYC, I would like to know who is hiring?
“If you’re aiming for a 99 cent price point, aim higher.“
They're trying to "only have to win once" by going after the top PS3 hackers.

That's just plain wrong. All Sony is going to do is to drive all the hacking completely underground. All of it will be black hat.

That's not what I meant about "only winning once." That's just another whack of the whack-a-mole mallet. Here's how you "only win once" while you are forcing your enemy to "win every time."

1) Let people copy and run your game, but require them to pay when connecting to the official company servers.

2) Devote all of your technology and development resources to only detecting pirates, but don't ever take any direct action against them. Don't even let them know immediately if they've even been detected.

3) Ensure that all of the highest glory, fame, and bragging rights in your userbase go to winners of tournaments on the official servers.

4) Take indirect action against pirates, but only in ways which are hard for the pirates to substantiate. Never lock them out, outright, but start degrading their gameplay experience in ways which make them look like they're "whiners." Attack their gameplay experience, but only periodically and when it will hurt them the worst. Start rumors that various cracked versions of the games have bugs. Ban pirates and warez users, but only from the big official tournaments on the official servers, perhaps many months after they've been detected as pirates.

5) Continually update the game, including the detection technology.

In this scenario, those running your software illegally are the ones who will always be looking over their shoulder, wondering if they've been caught. At least at first, no one will have strong motivation to crack the detection technology, since they can run the game anyways. Be continually changing the detection technology, so that any given crack only lasts a month or so. One can even compartmentalize the detection technology, such that any given crack will only work on a fraction of the installed base. If done correctly, you can convince people to simply pay for the game.

This isn't "getting medieval." It's "getting Machiavellian."
Case in point: the only ad I have ever clicked on purpose was on Facebook. highly targeted: It was for a class on buying a house later that week in the town I live in (I was just starting to look into buying a house).
The real killer for auto-correction is that it seems to require many users to work - artists in the thousands don't seem to ever get corrected.

It also doesn't help that Pandora has terrible tagging. I have a number of "Horner, James - Braveheart, Film Score"-esqe scrobbles that originate from them.
I thought this was a good comment up until "Contrary to many people on HN, I don't do startups for the money." By what metric are you judging this?
Kalid got this one, but I'll put in a plug for my alternate explanation:

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AR9d_8p4dUK2ZGdiZno...