skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hmm, when I first joined, being a silly high school kid who wasn't really good at being mature online, I learned how to interact in the community via trial-and-error. It was really just that.

One specific instance was when I submitted an XKCD shortly after joining. I eventually realized it wasn't really what people here were looking for. When elections rolled around, I submitted a Wapo editorial that was really off-base, and the reaction I got in response was deservedly negative.

However, in this process of learning to be a more civil and well-reasoned person (which I do credit a lot of to the good folks here on HN), I've always found a measure of grace. I don't think the reactions I've gotten for anything I've submitted or commented with have ever been really mean. Criticism has always been positive. This is the main aspect of HN, besides being intellectually stimulating, that I've come to appreciate most. It has really helped me to grow (I'm a college sophomore now and I really am grateful to the kind people here who've taught me so much since high school).

I agree with pg's general observation that things seem to have become a bit meaner and less constructive. I'm not sure how to fix the front page, but the type of comments I find representative of the old HN are informative, well-reasoned, and forgiving comments. I entirely agree with your bit about "I disagree" comments, though I don't think it would be as much of a problem if it were done a little more nicely. It's okay to disagree with an article, but the tone that some people take, mehh. That said, I almost always read the comments prior to reading the article, because I count on the contrarians to shed some light that I might otherwise be ignorant to.

I think everything would be okay if everyone just reminded themselves to be civil and not to use downvotes to disagree.
Not everyone that lives in the US has a social security number. I'm not well educated on this, but I believe the census intends to count all residents, including those that are here illegally.
This is a baffling question to be asking, given that the evidence that computers are a wonderful aid to learning is scant. Making it easier to putz around on cellphones at school hardly sounds like a educational advance.
Yeah, HN is on the death bed. I used to come here to find good relevent computer information, now its gone the way of reddit. Reddit has gone the way of digg. All I am left with the ability to do is TROLLLLLLLL http://whoshouldbethenextpresident.com/
in Canada, a CS undergrad can expect to get a paid internship with about CAD $40,000 annual salary (thought that may varies on where you do your internship, which year you're in, where in Canada, etc).

CS undergrads here know that and hardly any of them would go for any unpaid internships.
Well, that's what the compiler is for! PyPy uses SSE under the hood for various float handing things.
I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum. I was initially completely satisfied with my 19" single monitor set up (ignorance is bliss). However, when I upgraded to my current dual monitor set up my life was forever changed. I definitely agree with the more real estate more productivity school of thought.
The fact that these meta discussions predictably offer a wide array of solutions -- many of which are at odds with one another -- leads me to believe there isn't a solution.

I don't agree at all. Just because many people disagree does not mean there is no answer. I think the problem is that this is a hacker site, hackers like to put together technical solutions for moderating a forum, and forum moderation is primarily a people-problem. Thus the best answers here seem to get largely overlooked while people debate endlessly how to tweak the voting system (or some variation thereof). I don't know what the solution to that issue is but that doesn't mean it cannot be done.

Peace.
In a hollywood romanticized way, I think Anonymous is a great idea, along the lines of Robin Hood. But in a practical way it causes me concern. Both for, and because of. Politically my biggest concern is with power, who has it and why. This sort of tactic goes against everything I believe in. There is a fine line between fighting tyranny, and fighting to be the new tyrants, which these tactics can easily cross that line. I also think of the 1960's when groups like this were vastly more common, and how those groups were broken up and taken down. I fear such a decentralized group, seemingly manifesting their missions out of chaos, could easily succumb to some tactile social engineering to destroy them from with in. No centralized command, leaves any sort of agenda in a constant state of flux, and leaves the identity Anonymous up for grabs when taking the blame for anything that is done. Which considering they are a threat, and relish in that, their image amongst the people who do not understand, who do not follow, can be easily swayed, ending up doing more harm than good, towards any agenda Anonymous and myself share in common. I wish them well in sticking up for the masses, against centralized abuses of power. But I fear this does not end will, either for them, or because of them. Power always seems to have a way to corrupt the good that can be wielded with it.
There's a reason sarcasm is called the lowest form of wit. It's much easier to sarcastically say P than to put forth a logical argument for not-P. And it's really rather annoying, because if you do happen to believe P (or some moderate point of view between P and not P) then a sarcastic comment gives no actual hook to start a discussion.

That is why I think comments like yours should be discouraged.
Ids are sequential, so there's a time machine at your disposal: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=
Rhythm for beginners
ISTM you're thinking of merging duplicate content as a punitive measure. I think of it as a mostly positive thing: I wouldn't mind seeing a discussion on SICM once a quarter--but it'd be nice to have all the older insightful comments on it readily available.

Perhaps there should be a "hard merge" that prevents duplicates from sharing the front page, and a "soft merge" that multiplexes comments from duplicates at any time range under any of the submissions?
Maybe there's a space for "if you spent an average amount of time optimizing" :) For example my PyPy optimizations took maybe 4 hours total, with 0 time spent looking at assembly.
A real part of the value of HN is that you often get comments from the people involved in the story itself - whether it be the author of a post or the developer of a piece of software being discussed or Matt Cutts giving the lowdown on Google's policies.

Some of these people just create an account to make a few contributions on specific threads and then they're gone. Having an invite system would increase the friction in being able to do this.
For the curious: http://www.tarsnap.com/legal-why.html#NOCANADIANS
What's wrong with Cacti?

I ask this not as a veiled suggestion to "just use Cacti", but as a serious question, to figure out what it is you are trying to do and specifically why that's not good enough.
I know it's not a big name consumer service, but cperciva's Tarsnap backup service is not available to Canadians because he doesn't want to deal with Canadian taxes.
"...he faced prosecution by the British government because he was gay. In 1954, Turing committed suicide at age 41 after being forced to undergo hormone therapy to “fix” his sexual orientation."

I don't know how I never heard of that before. It's certainly not from lack of hearing about Alan Turing in comp sci lectures. I feel kind of cheated that I didn't find out about it until now. Did the professors just not know? Were they too squeamish to talk about it? Did they think his biography was irrelevant in discussing his contributions to the field? It's just kind of unsettling to have heard him talked about as a genius so many times yet to have never heard it acknowledged that he was so profoundly mistreated.
Most open-source programmers put their names on their projects. When you are contributing to society, creating something good, or building something, you put your name on it. Just look at how many buildings and things are named after their creators.

On the hand, if you are doing something destructive, harmful, or criminal, then you hid your name from others. You can't do much harm by yourself though, so these people organize together under this so-called "self-applied label."
Wow. After reading this, I actually feel bad for Canadians. We Americans definitely take so much for granted.
Some great discussion about part 1 here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326502
I'm considering that, possibly without disclosing on the site who the user is; just having to authenticate oneself at all would probably help.
Whoever wrote this app understood two simple business techniques:

1) In non-technological industries there are golden opportunities for software developers. A small app like this can make a huge difference for first responders.

2) Sometimes it pays to target small, specific niches instead of the entire market. Even if your potential users make up 0.1% of all users (e.g. iPhone owners) your specificity can pay off by capturing all of that 0.1%.
Consider starting (or merely sanctifying) a HN IRC channel or webchat. I think a lot of people comment and visit HN now just for something to do; they are bored and want to do some intellectual sparing.

If there was a irc.ycombinator.com with real-time chat topics, it might help separate "the wheat from the chaff," so to speak.

E.G. #japan-nuclear-chat

If not a chat, I'd say focus on something that doesn't fight the size of the community. Personally, I'd prefer if HN was shrunk to like '08 levels, but that's not going to happen. I think adding a service that allows for water cooler talk but keeps it isolated from deep technical discussions would work better than karmic tinkering at this point.
Technically it just means you're in the minority of people who upvote things.

Hang out on the front page more and vote there, like RiderOfGiraffes mentioned in his farewell post (or the ensuing discussion, can't remember). It is really important that if you are dissatisfied with the quality of HN (as I currently am) you should do something about it.
> AR Magazine said Mr. Shaw, who gave up day-to-day oversight of [D.E. Shaw's funds] in 2002, made the list because the firm charged a 3 percent management fee and took 30 percent of the investment gains.

What's the justification for management fees at all, let alone such a steep one? Their cut of the profit in fat years should be enough to keep the doors open in lean ones. Such fees also create a perverse incentive to simply get as much money under management as possible.
In third world countries a similar dynamic is common for government jobs. For a job where you can collect a lot of bribes, you will usually have to pay to get the job in the first place, and also kick back a certain portion of your income to whoever you got the job from. In this case you are paying to merely add to your resume, which in a sense is even worse than being an underpaid third world government employee.

This is really a consequence of the very weak job market we have now. You can see some people here commenting that they have no problem getting well-paid internships, but this is only true for people who are at the top of the heap, in terms of attractiveness to employers - there are a lot of such people who read Hacker News. Relative to the population at large though, it's a small percentage of the population.
EwanG, this seems contrary to the democratic spirit of community news sites. Who is to say what's good and bad? I don't trust a dictator (editor).
We have a bunch of bugs filed on ABP leaks when other extensions are installed. The author of that extension is very responsive, and I gather we will see progress soon.
having been here for a few years, i feel that any time i comment or post anything interesting it will be downvoted. unless your a rockstar having an opinion doesn't count.. expecting downvotes...
If they charge such massive fees, why do rich people continue to invest in hedge funds? Is it simply a luxury pastime that might occasionally pay off big like collecting art or antique cars?
I've been a Rackspace customer on and off for about six years. In that time, I've definitely seen a drop in the overall quality of support. Their managed mail product is less much mature than Noteworthy used to be (it blows my mind that I have to submit support tickets to cancel mailboxes), and it's a roll of the dice every time I submit a support ticket. Still, I made a six-month detour to another 'premium' provider last year, and that was an absolute nightmare. I had something like thirty hours of downtime with this other host, and that experience was enough to send me back to Rackspace.
Those are just a few of services unavailable not only in Canada but also in most of the world, which sucks big time and which is one of the main reasons why I want to move to the States, especially Silicon Valley.
Ask HN: I am a depressed student, looking to travel + just be, please advice.
Hi, I am depressed college student, and I have 2,000 dollars in savings. I am trying to take some time off, and looking for some advice with that in mind.

My plan is to read books, just lay down and do nothing, and think about life. What else should be I doing ?

I would appreciate it if you could recommend a place (with nice weather / internet / beaches optional ) where I can live cheaply for a month to six weeks. I am located in Atlanta, and any location would work.

Thanks.
I believe the decrease of 'quality' is due to the failure of HN to create a society of like-minded people. This failure is on two levels. Firstly, the open voting system and comments drive has a tendency to revert to the mean. Secondly, HN needs to create hackers the way a school creates students. I realize there is an anti authoritarian streak among hackers but a geek club is pretty exclusive in its taste. New members have to be "schooled" into the ways of a hacker. In real life, it is impossible to have a town hall meeting where everybody talks at once, but HN is already bigger than a town hall.

I believe Quora does rather well in this respect because it encourages longer, considered posts. The (fast) rate of decay on the front page partially contributes to the problem because it models a news site, rather than a technical discussion site, where most techniques and approaches remain timeless.

Here are some possible approaches:

1. Encourage longer answers and comments at the top level. This can be either implemented as a simple word limit, or automatically placing longer comments at the top of the comments list.

2. Recycle old posts which have good comments. This should fix the disincentive for people to provide long-lived answers.

3. Make HN a "not" news site. This means that the incubation period is longer before posts make it to the front page. Unless something has a long term value, it will less likely be voted up because the reader would have already seen and discussed it on TC, Reddit, Digg etc..

4. (option to #3). Have posters classify whether the post is a news or a technical discussion one. News links will have a different rate of decay, and will occupy limited number of spots on the front page. Furthermore, these posts will not be recycled.

5. Require a link to be submitted with some comments. This is to encourage submitters reason like hackers do. Provide some guidance - e.g. does this news contain some data? What are the insights/inferences one might draw from this? Does this article discuss a problem domain? Does the post illustrate an assumption that is subject to hacking? What is your personal take on this? It also acts as a disincentive for people to submit links without giving the topic due consideration. I recall that eHarmony was very succesful in its early days because internet dating sites usually have more men than women. By subject the men to a barrage of interview questions, eHarmony was able to maintain a balance between the male and female participants. I thought this was a great hack.

6. Implement some sort of disincentive for upvoting of inane comments. For an example, do an automatic Quora-style follow, where you will start to see this person's comments at the top of the comments page. Make it difficult to "unfollow" (say three clicks). It will encourage people to be more careful about polluting their personalizations.
We did setup Cacti but we were wanting to focus on tracking data particularly about the CPU of each server, as well as 1 particular process running on it. For that process, we wanted to track various stats like thread count, open network connections by it, open files by it, etc. We also wanted to monitor some environment metrics. The system we wrote is simply a Python app running under a cron job, reporting this data to our database server(s). We're going to be adding some notification type functionality to it so that we will be notified if things go awry, which they tend to do at least once a week. :(

I'm pleased with out data collecting setup - it's working well. But, obviously the power is in the reporting which is what we will be working on this upcoming week. I'm just researching the best methods for doing this in a scalable manner.
To be even more precise, Canadian SkypeIn numbers are not available in Canada. I've certainly had a US number that worked in Canada (makes sense for receiving calls from America).
Have you tried doing this in real time yet, or near real time with maybe a short lived cache? I mean, 100 points doesn't seem like much. If you just want the last load measurement for 100 servers, seems like a pretty lightweight mapreduce with an inline/streamed return value. You could cache the results in your app server for ~10seconds and have the front-end refresh every 10 seconds (giving you max-stale data of 20 seconds).

Beyond that, for your scaling question, I am a fan of generating reportable data asynchronously and keeping the UI stuff as a very simple select/find (which seems to be where you want to start). Each report would be its own transform - some of which might be more real-time than others. If your data is really huge and a single report is limited by MongoDB's single-threaded map-reduce, you'll need to look at the Mongo-Hadoop bridge.

Another solution is to simply store your data into a reportable format upfront. Of course, if you need to look at your data 50 different ways, it now turns into 50 inserts instead of just 1.

I think I'd try in real time, especially just for your initial cpu load, then move to an asynchronous transformation..and when that no longer meets your needs, deal with it then...I think it'll be a while before you get there.

You might be well served by asking this in the [active] MongoDB user group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mongodb-user
A proxy wouldn't fix the issue?
I don't blame the kids for saying this is what they want, but I would blame any adult who listened to 'em.

Ask kids what they want, and school will be optional and lunch will be ice cream.
I have an Android phone, and I just use TuneSync to wirelessly sync my iTunes library to my phone over wi-fi. Then, I can use whatever media software I want to play my songs.

Perversely, I only use iTunes on my PC because of... my car. My car has great iPod integration, with a dock in the center console that allows me to plug an iPod in, and then have the metadata for songs show up on the dashboard. It also has controls on the dash that allow you to navigate the menus, including a knob you can turn as an analog to the iPod wheel.

Since listening to music in my car is a primary use case, I'm then forced to use iTunes to manage that iPod, which makes using some other software to also manage music seem redundant.
Wow, this is a fantastic link, thanks for sharing!
Interesting.

He creates a new government entity, wins right for eminent domain, and can issue tax-free bonds.

That article could be a part of any book on world domination.
You should clone the site and swap Canada with Australia, would be about right.
How about giving users two upvote buttons. The second one appears X seconds after the first one has been hit. Because really great comments, I've noticed, often provoke first: yeah, good. And then, later: wow, that was really really good. I wish I could upvote it again. (the second upvote can have a different meaning)

Google Hotpot does something like this, limiting the number of Really Great votes you can make with unlimited +1's.
and would probably be cheaper.
How to Write Dissertations
Most students quake at the thought of writing dissertations. These are considered the most difficult tasks encountered by students. However, dissertation writing will not be difficult if students understood how to write dissertations.
I'm afraid I can't get behind this idea.

First, we've had excellent "Ask HN" submissions in the past which tried to discuss private startup-specific problems that a partner or founder was having. These discussions were timely and relevant, and we were only able to have them because the poster felt they could present their issue anonymously.

Second, I don't believe you've thought through the overhead of your suggestion. Does pg hand-approve new accounts, requiring a faxed copy of a driver's license or other state-issued identification? Or do we wait until someone flags an account as "possiblity not a true identify", and, again, burden pg with chasing that person down until they prove they are who they claim, and with dealing with the complaints it will generate?
I'm a university student, and as a thesis project I've been working on a static type-checker for Python. I'm interested to see if people think this would be of practical good (my advisor and I certainly think it could be).
I could train it on stuff from "the good old days."
Musicians Turn your iPhone into a real instrument, not just a game
The minimum length of your comment is inversely proportional to the amount of karma you have
Heres one: Last.fm's iphone app is not available in Canada.
If I don't know someone it's much easier for me to say mean, dumb things

Sooo, use facebook for auth? :)

I think HN is an ideal place for personally identifiable comments, we're all professionals here right?
Their justification is that participation is entirely voluntary and their track record makes those participating want to be there.
It would be cool to note if you can get around a service with a proxy or US billing address.
I'm tempted to say "Hey, if you don't like it then don't invest your money with D. E. Shaw".

On the other hand, how much of the money that goes into D. E. Shaw is invested by folks who aren't actually investing their own money? (eg managers of pension funds, et cetera).
If you want to promote your t-shirts (or just browse 15,000 tees) I've recently bought http://rumplo.com

I'll be relaunching the site soon. It's great to be finally working on my own startup.
Asking students what they think they need to learn? Problem is, they don't know - so they answer with whatever is the niftyest gizmo they adhere to.

The real answer is: they need to learn to DO THE WORK with whatever tools they have. I teach introductory programming, and the biggest problem students have is lack of inclination to simply perform and submit assignments (about 1/3rd suffer this affliction); it is not for lack of understanding, but for lack of action. Getting wound up in arguments about the suitability of various technologies completely misses the problem: if a student is unwilling to absorb the material as given, and to perform assignments on whatever medium is available, they will not learn.

An old copy of Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" and a willing student will make a far more talented engineer than giving a disinterested student an iPad with anywhere/anytime access to the totality of human knowledge (including Angry Birds).
I've been using StrongVPN, a similar service, with great success.