skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This feels like a demographic problem of a larger population dragging down the average. If that's the case, then some sort of curation (vote-weighting or otherwise privileging certain users' input over others) is probably necessary, because the overall level of dumbness, meanness, or mediocrity just isn't going to change that much in response to anything HN does. (I'd much prefer to be wrong about this. Any elitist solution seems regrettable.)

I wonder if this could be tested. Even something as simple as http://news.ycombinator.com/classic applied to comments would be interesting. Or let PG pick, say, a hundred users and let each of them pick an additional two or three. Could the software show us the site as it would appear if those users' votes counted for more? It seems to me it wouldn't take long to get a feel for whether it had helped or hurt.
These are the kinds of useless comments that make Hacker News unpleasant to read.
The classic version of this is:

http://availableincanada.com/
Agreed entirely. My best lessons, ones that integrate technology and really engage the students who don't usually care, take hours to plan, test, iterate and improve.

Some days, I think about trying to make a company dedicated to period-long drop-in replacement lessons. I'm just not quite sure the market is there.
Chrome 11 as well. Can anyone that's using a version of Chrome where this does occur post a picture of it?
SEEKING WORK.
Remote.

Recently moved back to India from Bay Area.

HTML, CSS, Javascript Developer.

http://github.com/ashitvora
http://ashitvora.com
I normally do too, but if there's a cool prize at stake I'll happily drag in 3 people on a splash page. Dropbox's +250MB incentive probably got me to invite more friends than I have to anything else (although they do have a great product that I probably would have told people about anyway).

Not sure I agree with your first point. Sure, a truly revolutionary product (if those even exist) can gain users organically, but there's nothing wrong with trying to speed up that process. And for every one of those there are a hundred merely good products that can still be successful if marketed well.
Python-appengine is really cool. However, i wish they provide full text search soon. I am using whoosh-appengine search which work fine for me. I am not sure whoosh-appengine search fit in all use case or not. Can you make it clear, for what type of projects app-engine is not a good choice?
If you want a better job. Just create your own Job (startup)
Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and GQ have really surprised me with the quality of their reporting over the past few years, in areas like national security where I would not have expected them to cover anything. They may have some liberal bias, but not ezcessively so; especially on a military embed, they are being fee information from "authorities", so if being biased but honest journalists makes them more questioning of statements by the military, I am ok with it. It is almost worse when an unthinkingly unquestioning local reporter shows up and just repeats the press releases.

Michael Yon is a great primary source, along with military personnel blogs, and especially freerangeinternational.com/blog/ but the major publications are doing a better job than tv or newspapers.
I'm using 12.0.712.0 on Windows at the moment, and the bug definitely exists in that version.
It doesn't dissuade anyone who doesn't care about their karma, or who feels strongly enough about what they want to say.

A karma penalty is a very soft slap on the wrist, at best.

It won't stop trolls, or assholes, or anyone with an agenda.

Subtracting a fixed amount of karma also gets less effective the more karma one has accumulated. So people with a lot of karma will be able to get away with more than people with less karma.

This has an upside, in that it allows more valued members of the community to express themselves more freely. The downside is that they can act like assholes without much repercussion. If the community winds up rewarding them for acting like assholes (by, say, upvoting their assholish comment) then that's even worse.

Of course, any community that not only tolerates but encourages assholes is not a community I want to be part of, and I've left a number of communities over that sort of behavior.

But there are other solutions short of "love it or leave it". I describe one such alternative in another comment in this thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2405266
Expansion Strategy: Amazon Deepens Digital Reach
If you have your existing Engadget editorial team in place apparently - and presumably the same contacts and access to news stories and new products - why would you have to wait until the Fall to launch?
Engadget will have moved on by then and by the Fall, this particular group of people will have been forgotten.
> because the Australian startup community is too dominated by scammy-looking weirdoes trying to sell you "101 tips on somethingorother"

Correct!

Including this "Finntastic" guy, who sits around submitting links to these inane stories.

One of our engineers was just bitching about the ridiculous number of people in Australia who are 'trying to help' the startup community from the outside.
Security, security, security
Here's a screenshot of how Chrome 10.0.648.204 renders it:

http://i.imgur.com/auBKm.png

EDIT: Forgot to mention this is on Windows XP
Chrome 12.0.712.0 Windows 7
http://imgur.com/qtkBe

I don't see this with Chrome on the Mac though.
In that vein, I was way too excited to see Mark Zuckerberg hacking in Emacs in The Social Network. It's so rare that movies get this stuff right that when they do I can't help but smile.
When I first saw it, I thought "it's signaling for help."
i don't get the problem? double dot at the start of the dashes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing#Death

(Unconfirmed) Rumor has it that's the reason behind apple's "half eaten" logo and original rainbow colors.
Movie material
In the interests of being contrary:

Suppose you find that the hedge managers are only 0.1% better than the grads.

Is it still a good idea to pick the hedge manager?

When you're talking about billions dollars -- it might be.
Do you speak Spanish?
Costa Rica should be high on your list - you can get cheap flights from Atlanta to San Jose and live decently for ~$25-35/day when there. It's a great place to explore - There are volcanoes and beaches.

If interested in staying on a private island and doing some work, consider http://www.cocovivo.com/ It's run by a friend of mine. He would probably host you for really cheap and would like someone there taking care of the place anyway.
It's in Bocas Del Toro in northern Panama - you can get most of the way there using public transportation.
How would you know that someone's used their real name?

That might work when there are a small number of participants and everyone has met everyone else face to face or when there's at least someone to vouch for the identity of every participant, but it doesn't scale very well to a community the size of HN.
Ask HN: Where can I find marketing/business development internships?
I'm interested in applying for an internship at a start-up in silicon valley. I'm a business student but I took time off from college to focus on my own ventures/investments full-time. I feel like moving to the bay area even if it is just for a little while and working at a start-up would be an awesome experience. I am in the process of learning to code so I couldn't apply for anything programming related as I don't think I'm qualified yet. Thank you for your help.
10 and 11 in OSX work fine too.
how do you fix the issue of getting Google Voice on your phone with a proxy?
Yes! REMOTE ONLY
It's entirely possible to read two (or even more!) sources of news.
IMHO: The printer friendly version isn't particularly easy to read. Go here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-stoner-arms-de...
Please Give 2010 English Movie Watch Online
The long term stability of such a heat source is poor (it would start very hot, then cool exponentially). But it's an interesting idea.
Not to turn this into a bug thread, but this is also Chrome 10.0.648.204 on OS X 10.6.6. Nothing at all like the parent.

http://i.imgur.com/RD5vR.png
agilo, you can get a GVoice like account on TellFi (https://tellfi.ca)

disclaimer: I'm a founder there
Yes, but in this case the upvoters could have simply upvoted the parent comment pg was replying to.

Short "i agree" or "i disagree" type of comments are usually discouraged on HN, as they don't really contribute to the discussion. Usually.
I have said this at least a few times and I will say it again -- a story and comment moderation model based on the way it is done at reddit truly would help.

I find it really odd that you cant downvote until 500 karma, and it appears you can never? downvote stories?

And then there are comments in this thread that say "its a really hard problem to figure out" -- no it isn't, you just need to have faith that moderation power will be used appropriately by the site's audience and give them the appropriate ability to do so.

Just like on quora, they seem to have blinders on to systems that work because they want to believe that only their design team could possibly come up with something novel and in that novelty find the best solution.
You're of course right. I'm questioning whether it's a wise price to pay. A lot of funds' results take a big hit once you account for fees.
i should note that i'm on chrome on a mac
Secret to Life: To Get What You Need, You Have To Ask
Hey PG, have you read Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody? It has lots in there about the problems inherent in big communities, especially in how they function on the internet.

The later parts of the book (chapter 8 and beyond) seem applicable to the problems HN is facing.

PM me if you want, I'll send you my copy of the book.
That would probably make things worse. Populist snide remarks would still get lots of votes, but intelligent slightly longer comments that just don't attract attention would carry a risk.
Ask HN: Design a government from scratch, how would it look?
The framework for our government was designed in the 1700's, and I can't help but think today's economic problems are a result of the historical tradition of Statism. The founding fathers implemented a government as best they could using information available at the time. It's now 2011 and we've experienced a technological revolution. If we were to design a new government using today's technology, how would it be different?

This question is both exciting and depressing. On one hand there is so much potential to improve the way humans interact and direct resources. On the other hand, it doesn't matter what solution is found, because governments exist outside any market. Steve Jobs could have designed the most brilliant Constitution of his time, but it wouldn't matter because following a new constitution would still be considered illegal.

Given I'm a dreamer, why not imagine. The weakest component of a fighter jet is the human pilot. Now we have jets without human operators. I believe the weakest component of our government is also the human. Humans experience emotions, are susceptible to bribes, and aren't consistently reliable. Why not use computers to cut out the middle man, drive down costs, and increase satisfaction? Imagine how algorithms can be used to implement real-time, direct democracy. Imagine how multi-factor authentication can be used to ensure voter authenticity. Laws can be applied to geographical zones, while zones are dynamically created based on voter attributes and commonalities. Computers have restore points, so should governments. If the State gets our of control, a roll-back function could be implemented. Fact is there is infinite room for improvement.

If government is a service it should be a commodity. The best and brightest should be competing to write the most effective government. It’s unfortunate we’re content with our one party system. Citizens believe in the notion of Republicans and Democrats, while the only option is war and welfare.
Congress weighs deep cuts to funding for federal open government data platforms
I've never seen success when an organization organizes around business function. Invariably, the function takes precedence over the product.
Given the comments, and three versions of Chrome on my machine (OSX, no errors), I'm guessing this is restricted to Windows. Anyone have any idea why? Anyone have a Linux version handy that can check?
The History of Web Browsers (Picture)
I see a blob in the top left, but not nearly to the extent of the problem as is in the screenshots posted.
Real SexDates
Thousands of Real Men and Women Looking for Friend, Sexual Encounters and More!
Which is funny since he lives in Canada.
Based on your logic, calculators shouldn't have ever been introduced in the classroom either because an abacus filled our needs. Or perhaps 128k of memory really was enough, since what possible use could we have for more memory or advanced technology if the status quo fills our current needs?

We are just beginning to untap the possibilities of mobile devices in the classroom, and to completely dismiss them as "nifty tech" is very short sighted. People tried to do the same ten years ago when laptops started appearing in classrooms. Had they succeeded, companies like Google would not even exist today.

We are seeing many interesting uses of mobile devices in education now that the devices are finally appearing in classrooms. However, until they become more ubiquitous and accepted, it will be impossible to fully demonstrate how much they can impact education.

Having spoken to professors who have personally experimented with iPads in classrooms, I can tell you it makes a day and night difference just in student engagement when they are given a textbook to study from versus being encouraged to explore a topic and discuss it using mobile devices like the iPad. I've observed biology classes where roughly half of the students used an iPad. These students consistently participated more than the other students. There are several reasons for this behavioral change, but I think the most important one is the design of the device and OS. It focuses on the single task at hand. When an app becomes the whole device and actually discourages multitasking, students pay attention more compared to their distracting laptop screens. Compared to laptop users, they also benefitted from a lack of a physical barrier from the laptop screen between the student and instructor. Those students that had no electronic device and just depended on the textbook generally participated the least and seemed least interested. It will be interesting to see how these devices continue to change how classrooms operate as more and more schools open up to the idea.

Keep in mind that the target audience is not tech savvy nerds, but the typical student, who for the most part is still afraid of using traditional laptops. These students, however, live off of their cell phones, so why not take advantage of an environment they are already comfortable in to encourage learning instead of forcing them into a foreign environment?
1/ The point of the karma system, as far as a user is concerned, is to increase one's karma number.

2/ External values such as "democratic" likely oppose the actual objectives of HN.

3/ Within HN culture, there is an element of gate-keeping.
Sorry to hear about the weight on your chest.

I overcame my own depression years ago but I help others when I can. Elvis said, "I believe the key to happiness is: someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to." I'm not a big Elvis fan but if you agree with the quote, then what is missing from your life? That's a good place to start.

For books, I'd recommend reading Epictetus' Discourses, he was raised a slave and became a great teacher, Way of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.
How To Keep Your Domain Name Searches Safe From Poachers
I agree they would have got more brand for the buck with these domains, they can still buy them up, they have the money, and keeps it out of the hands of others.
Vote scarcity. The way all these karma systems work now is that you, the user, have unlimited votes. But ask yourself, when did you ever value anything you had unlimited quantity of? There needs to be some limit to the number of up or down votes a user can cast in any given time frequency or other metric. The key point is to make votes 'cost' something.

Also, weighted votes based on the karma of the user casting said vote.
Again, I specifically am speaking of the HN post and the link-bait title. I did not make any moment on the article: you made that part up (like rbarooah).
Ask HN: What colleges out there have good web design degrees?
First of all, I want lots of answers.

Second of all, I'm graduating high school this year and I want to continue my love of web design and pursue a web design degree. I've looked around and haven't found many schools that have a good degree. Anyone out there with experience have any tips or advice? And what is a good average salary for a web designer?
Honestly that sounds typical of a large organization, everyone wants to put their fingerprint on a project when it's way up. Once everyone gets their hands on it, every vp packs the team with their buddies, burdens you with no-show contractors from a firm they have a "relationship" with. Then everyone starts scuttling away to the next big thing. Of course someone gets bored one day, and decides to redefine the entire scope of the project, pushes it as the next big thing, then everyone come scuttling back.
Fork this democracy on Github?

Something similar:

https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy
A less totalitarian way would be to give each user a karma slider that would act as a threshold for just their view.
The best advice I can give you is use www.couchsurfing.org - it will save you on housing, often get you free tour guides and make you friends.
I was just going to suggest decentralization.
The core of HN is summing votes- a popularity contest. As the number of community members grow, the likelihood of a popularity contest working declines.
The data set is too small to achieve a conclusive outcome yet. As more classrooms experiment with these technologies, we'll get more insights. Until then, surveys are the best way to get an idea of how something is working for students.

As for the random dump of research papers, I tried originally offering a more succinct argument with an anecdote, but you wanted more evidence so I obliged.
The author, Josh Nimoy, gave a great talk at last month's LA Hacker News meetup. Unfortunately, can't find a video recap.
Why wasn't the Linux kernel written in C++?
I think calling Google processes "mistakes" is a little strong. For example, I recall at one point at Google where they were trying to improve latency on the products, so you weren't allowed to launch a new feature if it hurt latency.

I could imagine somebody who just made an awesome feature that made an application 5% slower complain about how stupid that policy is. However, they don't realize that however awesome their feature is, speed of applications is a hidden cost that everybody bears, and sometimes the priority for a company may differ with a specific developers vision. Google wants their products to be fast, wants them to be available, and wants them to be secure. I'm not saying that everything they do is great and their processes and checklists are optimal, but when they have processes designed to do a certain thing, it isn't fair to say their processes are a mistake because they don't do something else.
Because massively successful Australian startups can be counted on one hand.
This is a point that I made in my own post. Amazon has been quite restricted in what they can and cannot do in Canada.
Not only do the trains run on time... they run on Metric time!
Winning? The 17" CRT I had 13 years ago was good at 1280x1024 and could do 1600x1200.

We're so not-winning that everyday resolution has barely changed since then; for a similar price now a careful 24" purchase gets 1900x1200 and a careless one gets 23" 1920x1080.

For comparison, IBM was releasing an 18Gb mid-range notebook hard drive in 1999, now 320/500/640Gb fight out the mid £40 price range.
But don't abuse it. Rest when you must.
What can Google do to fix those underlying issues?
Do they have some special arrangement with the companies in question?

My brother has a business DSL line, and that was enough for Hulu to decide that he's using a proxy and block him. They've repeatedly called support and support repeatedly told them to "stop using your proxy" (despite the fact that they are using no such thing.) So Hulu isn't at all afraid of false positives, and that kind of blanket ban should be effective unless unblock-us has a deal of some sort worked out.
If you read carefully, this is almost a technology decision. They specifically mention the cms they had to use at aol as being very old, and that the cms in use at SB Nation has great support for live-events and ad-hoc tabular data.
I think that gridspy's comment is worthy of some upvotes. He made a valid point, and in a meta-joke kind of way. I'm perfectly happy with flippant posts, so long as they're not mean, and they add something to the discussion (be it humor or insight or both).
Elsewhere in this thread I proposed a scheme that meets both of your requirements: it discerns votes based on a metric (how closely the voters vote to your own preferences), and it doesn't disadvantage new users:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2405266
However, since we Canadians get such a huge amount of our media from the US

a fact about which Canadians and other non-Americans never seem to tire of complaining, until the day they discover that the e-spigot has been shut-off for them, then it's whambulance time: "Where are my American TV shows and movies!"
Vanity Fair has a very serious team of people doing long-form narrative journalism, having laid claim to much of the best talent from the late '90s-era Atlantic Monthly.

Unfortunately, the magazine itself is an unreadable mess of advertising and perfume samples.
Also unreadable on an Android phone.
We just need a reliable way of keeping a Good King in power at all times. Nothing could be more efficient or ideal.

The Immortal Good King will be an intelligent computer. I, for one, shall welcome our new silicon overlord.
Reader has probably 100 other features that are very important to companies who produce documents consumed by it, that you're probably not even aware of.

If you're using it as a PDF reader, you're doing it wrong. Try FoxIt (or since they're going the bloat/install-ware route), the lighter Sumatra. If you're not on Windows, I have no idea why you'd go installing Adobe Reader anyway, less you need those previously alluded to features.
Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_democracy#Electronic...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_e-democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_transparency
The problem with flags and downvotes isn't that they fail to kill the offending comment, or that they fail to cause a karma penalty. The first effect is localized to the thread and the second is very indirect.

The problem with downvotes is that they do not give meaningful feedback or encourage positive contributions. They are not even especially effective at discouraging negativity. When not lost in a sea of upvotes, downvotes only encourage defensiveness and complaining.

Flags should be visible by the commenter only, and the issue of whether to kill comments or penalize karma doesn't have to be decided immediately.
Just email startups you'd be interested in working for, tell them what you could do, and I'm sure a few would be happy to have you.

Edit: I think Zurb takes marketing interns.