skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While I agree that it's a much better way to attract talent, I'm going to say (as an OSS contributor myself) that unless it's already significantly into its funding cycle, a startup where you've got time to spend on random OSS stuff that doesn't directly benefit the company is probably focusing on the wrong things.
BTW, does anyone here knows what slightly serifed font Red Hat used for their terminal when they introduced the Bluecurve visuals?

There are days I want my terminals with a slightly warmer font than a sans-serif one.
You're right. My comment is directed only at true side projects, not real work that could be opens sourced.
Is anybody looking for a surfer dude developer ?
No, Bikeshed Sans is the ultimate font.
When hiring...
When you're hiring, do you think a person would be qualified if they can answer most of your questions in pseudo code, or write out approximately what the code would look like on a white board? Is this good enough for getting a hacker, or do you think people should be expected to write everything without any outside help?

Here's a sample question.. "what if you were asked to write two relational tables in a database and link B to the parent A"

Response given verbally "You would want to create a foreign key for table B, which would be equal to the primary key ID of table A..." and so on, they could explain the whole process, but they weren't able to write the exact SQL and PHP code from memory (or they described it from a different framework). Is this typically ok?
My hat is off to DHH and 37signals for managing to implement the simple but not easy and classic ideal of doing what you love for a (excellent) living. If you hate your job, how can you be good at it?
the problem is that for every good programmer there are a hundred that are just horrible, so I find that the whole "Rock Star/Guru" thing is just there to weed out the guy who has to lookup in his book how to do a hello world application
50 Cent Give Me a Break | TechJaws
Apple Seeks Hacker for Hire | TechJaws
Blogs also have this feature.
Google Diggs It | TechJaws
I used to love reading John Carmack's finger-based blog (flog?). "finger @idsoftware.com" still yields the company directory listing (not sure if it's still up-to-date). With the exception of the CEO, everyone has a simple, functional title like Programmer or Artist. The humility and understatement implicit in the listing -- John Carmack, Programmer -- is something that more companies and individuals should aspire to. He isn't a rock star, ninja, or even an engineer, architect, or developer. He's just a programmer. One of the best.
My favorite of all of them, from Linus:

1996

Some people have told me they don’t think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They’d be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
Stylish Lisp programming techniques
Wow the Mac version is distributed as a .sit... old school. I despise anyone who knowingly distributes files as Stuffit archives any more, but this just seems to have not been updated since the days of Mac OS 9.
Perl Bandits.
I have two healthy half-uncles and a healthy half-aunt, all of whom are younger than me.
stop with the wa wa wa... this guy did something cool and fun that some people find interesting.

why are there always haters pulling people down? stop hating.
Why would he be climbing walls if he didn't want to be exposed?
Here it is:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1159-you-dont-have-to-sel...
I am less than confident that it would significantly affect the inanity of the comments.
Apple's Cloud
That's a good example of what can be found where feminism and "science" intersect.

Here's a good rebuttal.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/duke/050106
Startup Company Looking for a Head Blogger
I am not sure if this is appropriate for news.ycombinator.com, but I have been a long time reader of this site an thought it would be a good place to find some quality writers and in turn help someone out who is looking for work. However, if it is not appropriate to place this kind of post on news.ycombinator.com please let me know.

The startup company, which is a consumer advocacy and business research sites, for which I work is look for a new head blogger. The hired blogger, who will be paid $20/post, will be posting articles for a blog which will be updated with new content around four times a week. We are shooting for 16 articles per month, but total number of posts per month will vary depending on how successful the blog posts are within the web community. So for example, the more successful each article is throughout the web, the more, we as a startup, will invest in increaseing the number of blog posts. The length of each articles/blogs will be split up 50/50. Half of the articles will be 300 words in length and half of the articles/blogs will be 500 words in length. As a recap, the hired blogger needs to write 16 articles/month half of which are 500 words in length and the other half being 300 words in length all of which need to be on topic.

The blog will have an overall "Security" theme to it, but will also focus on the following topics-- "new and upcoming web technologies", “online security (for both consumers and businesses)", "online privacy issues (consumers and business)", "how to shop smart and safely online", and hundreds of other online technology and business related topics for consumers and businesses. As long as the blogger stays within these themes, they will have complete creative freedom when writing the blogs/articles.

The requirements to becoming the head blogger are as follows. Experience is a plus but not a requirement for this position, the startup is more focused on hiring someone who is passionate about the previously mentioned topics and who can throw some of their personality into the posts. Having passion for the topic at hand is the most important requirement. The other requirement is for interested candidates to provide an example article about one of the topics. They can email that article to rsylvesterl-php [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Once the startup receives some quality submissions they will chose the candidate that they feel is a best fit for the company. If interested, please email the sample article or if you have more questions about the company, and in particular its name, please feel free to contact me at rsylvesterl-php [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Y Combinator on IRC?
Is there any interest at all in starting up an IRC channel on freenode for YCombinator? Or is this just a dumb idea? Just thought I'd throw it out there, I'm always on Freenode, but there's not really any hacker or entrepreneurial spaces there.
"Normal", in this sense just describes an imaginary HCD pseudo-human. There is no such thing. There was once a time when normal people didn't have computers, cell-phones, tv's, radios, cars, refrigerators... you get the idea.

Don't fear the niche, or the early adopter. Today's weird geek toy might be tomorrow's necessity.
If a kind soul can help, I found a screenshot where it appears.

http://osdir.com/screenshots/fedoracore3test2/87.gif
Ask HN: Is the Asus Eee PC a good gift for a 13 year old?
My nephew just turned 13, and I want to buy him his first computer. He currently uses his parents PC in the livingroom, but his dad doesn't take care of it and I think he's old enough to have his own machine. The Eee PC is intriguing for its price and that it runs Linux. I think it might be a good tool for him at school and at home, but am not sure if it is too limited. Anyone here have one and can chime in? I also like the small size. Thanks for your input!
Not sure this is legal, considering the SDK is still under NDA.
So did everyone else :) Here is the next prediction: pg will post a reply comment here.
Touchy topics, to be sure. I think they all can and should be asked. Whether each is really worth of much debate is a different question.

Most are worth debating, some aren't: depending on your audience. I think most people think these are things you "can't ask" because many folks lack an intelligent, informed opinion on the topic, and therefore resort to emotional closed-minded positions that result in little exchange of ideas.

So, intelligent people think: "Maybe I can't ask that question."
Nearly every 37signals blog post seems to say the same thing.
Excellent response. It perfectly distills the difference between Paul's claims and DHH's (and my) perspective.
Really useful. Thank you. I echo the sentiment that most Linux tip sites offer only rudimentary tips aimed at beginners.

These are excellent.
Getting rid of the awful McDonald's copy-cat "Pike's Place Roast" could save Starbucks. It became more awful when they decided to make that the only drip-coffee they sell after 2PM. The only way it tastes good is with Bailey's.
TIPS or I-bonds would seem to be the prototypical example: they guarantee a certain real rate of return (about 2% when I looked a couple years ago, though I heard it's gone negative with the credit crunch), so if you've got $10M or so you're guaranteed your $200k. Only thing you have to worry about is a government default, but if they do that, you have bigger problems to worry about than what happened to your money.
Definitely not too limited, people a lot older than 13 years old use Eee PCs. Sounds like a great gift.
Having "invite issues" at the moment - I'll batch up all invite requests and send them out this evening. You can also hit me up at ben [at] 12seconds.tv if you're interested. Thanks for checking it out!
Amen. Although let's all acknowledge the music industry will try it again in another form. They just never learn.
I can certainly agree with some of this, but I really do enjoy working alot on a software project of some sort. I COULD work 40 hours/week on it, but I'd be perfectly happy working 60 or more and "chasing" this goal.

It's very rewarding for me.
I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important "operating system, and possibly program, of all time." - Bill Gates, 1987

This reminded me of an old t-shirt my dad had, wish I could find it:
"Flight 4.0 to Chicago has been delayed, I'm taking off with OS/2"

The 4.0 and Chicago referring to Windows 95.
Silverback — usability testing app for mac - released
They introduced the article as a rebuttal to PG's article.

But, like most of their recent articles, its just promoting the bootstrapped stay-small business ideal.

If your looking to make a lifestyle business then they have some good advice. But all businesses are not equal.

The market, industry, and success all play a big role in determining whether or not VCs, M&As or IPO's are right for your business.

I've said this before, 37Signals is selling a work-style philosophy.

Which is probably why they didn't make much of an argument, besides "we work 4 days a week and still take vacation" and "other people have stayed small so you can too".

Let's not forget that 37signals is no longer an early stage start-up. If your making a million+ in revenues, of course you can make flexible hours for your staff.
I have one, it's very handy, lots of cool things you can do with it.

HOWEVER, I think it's more of a laptop augmentation than full replacement. If he wants to really hack around with it and load any additional software he'll soon find himself out of storage. The screen is a tad small and lo-res, and the keyboard is cramped (but maybe not so much for a 13 year old).

I'd look around for desktop in the same price range and/or at craigslist and ebay "gently worn" offerings for the money of an EEE for this application.
Your willingness and enthusiasm to improve on this is greatly appreciated. I'm excited to see the final product!
Since it's a new approach, it's more likely to lead to a better eventual complexity than some technique that's already been milked for all it's worth.

Stay upstream.
In general, when people use cliche, uncreative analogies to describe something, it comes off as ridiculous.

Everything from GE calling their Six Sigma employees "black belts", to sales forces looking for "movers and shakers", to Fortune 500 companies overusing sports analogies, to people looking for "rockstar" developers.

It's trite and makes them look awful.
Because the split there is about 55:45, which is close enough to even to be a wash. If men were 20-25% of the workforce in the life sciences (as women are in engineering and CS), then yes, it would be a problem. But they're not, so it isn't.

You did look at the linked article, right?
all of these focus on what the government "should" do. The government is broken. good luck getting it to do anything.
We've solved that another way. Our employees get to choose their own title (except they can't use a legally significant name or VP without permission).

We have:

* Head Greenskeeper
* Mighty God of Thunder
* Princess

... along with the usual "senior software engineer" and such. You might think that would remove the meaning from titles, but I can tell you... I'll take a Mighty God of Thunder or a Head Greenskeeper for my project any day over someone that put Senior Software Architect on their business card.
I find it hard to believe working on the projects they do is the most interesting thing those guys can think of to do for 30+ hours/week. Either they're incredibly boring people or a bit delusional.

I think they continue to work on them because it's mostly pleasant work, they have total control, there's a lot of inertia, and of course because it's making them wealthy.
The whiteboard and pseudocode questions work for me, but personally I like to put a laptop in front of them with an IDE and a coding problem.

I allow outside help (google, etc) because in their work environment, they are permitted to use any reference materials they want.

I also let them ask me questions.

Exact syntax, without the benefit of the compiler or IDE, is unimportant to me. And, candidates that are on the spot to write code on a whiteboard are usually more nervous when working in an unusual medium (who codes on a whiteboard?)

So yes: in my opinion, they should write code in some fashion, and if that medium doesn't include a syntax checker, the simple errors are OK.
Help! I installed it, even restarted ff3, and it displays when i right click on the monkey, but i don't see a change... i'm on 1024x748 if that makes a difference.
I don't see why eugenics should be a touchy issue. It's no different than any other argument between science and religion. The idea that the human race can be improved through eugenics is a purely religious belief, and I see no reason why any rational person would support it.
Our target market is the people you described. I'll let you know how it goes.
Exactly.

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT
Message-ID: <1991Oct5.054106.4647@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 5 Oct 91 05:41:06 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying

</quote> http://www.educ.umu.se/~bjorn/linux/misc/linux-history.html

2001 is a dead-tree version's reference:

Torvalds, Linus and David Diamond (2001). Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary, Collins.
</quote> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

By the way,

Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
</quote> http://lkml.org/lkml/2000/8/25/132

This quote is not from 2006 but at least 2000.
ah it was hiding from me =] thank you
Nice idea. Nice presentation.

Awhile back, YC listed some ideas they wanted to fund. Simplified browsing was one of them. Seems like your technology could be applicable to simplifying the online experience for people who want that.

It doesn't look tuned for that now, but it's an idea.

I'll sign up. Thanks.
That seems like a great approach, thanks for chiming in to help.
I wouldn't call him a nutjob for believing in God, I'd call him a nutjob for trying to prove God's existance in the manner that he did, because it's wacko.
If you want to formalize that prediction there is a medium to do so.

http://www.intrade.com/
hu, I'm not really sure why it wouldn't work. As far as external resources, it pulls jQuery off of the Google AJAX Library CDN. Maybe something is blocking it from getting the jQuery script?

Did you edit the screen size preference in the code? Maybe an extra character got tacked in there or forgotten.

HN community, any ideas?
I didn't bother to mention the even bigger, better-known problem with OpenID: Users don't understand it. Only geeks understand it, and a subset of geeks at that.

Any plan which involves asking users to build a more complicated mental model of OpenID -- like asking them to understand the notion of multiple IDs aliased to the same account -- is just going to make that fundamental problem worse.
thanks for your input, I'm looking for something he can carry with him to school and use anywhere. and I'm trying to find a computer he can call his own without spending too much money.
I don't see the big deal. Especially if it's just a job post title. Think of it as just another way to say 'Senior' without implying any specific years of experience or worse, age.
Ruby Wranglers.
Hmm, have you tried a Chemex? Every single comparison I've seen between the two basically point out the inconvenience of the aeropress when you're trying to make coffee for, say, more than one or two people, which is inconvenient for me...but it's another alternative to french press.
I think you do need to sell your company. The ideal of living of residuals shouldn't apply to the internet businesses. They are just way too unpredictable, look at companies from 1998...how many are still around? Only a few of the few are still around, and that's only because they have become synonyms with their niches. Google? Search, eBay? Auctions, Amazon? Online Stores etc. But for each one there are a hundred dead companies that had a good 5 years, and then died.

Small companies/large companies, most of them eventually fail to be competitive. Internet has almost 0 barriers to entry, there is absolutely nothing stopping another startup from coming in and taking you out, doesn't matter if you have a bigger piggy bank.

Better to sell while you are still on top, and then if you really want to, you can use some of that capital to build something else that you can be happy about. And lets face it, if its 6 years later, chances are you have plenty of new ideas you want to try out.

If I have a 5 year old company that makes $250,000/yr for me, and Google offers to buy it for 10-20 mil, I'd take the deal, because it means I'll now have guaranteed money to live the lifestyle I want for the rest of my life, and I'll be able to use a portion of that to do my next startup that I'll be just as excited, as I was about my original idea
Alternatively, are there any "fun" job titles that are actually decent? Our founders are trying to think of something to call themselves that's not as boring as CEO/CTO/etc.
I still stand by my opinion from long, long ago that the Clover can't save Starbucks because of the quality of their beans. If anything it'll be the "ooh $11,000 coffee machine!" effect.

I'm wondering what my two favorite local coffee shops both with Clovers are going to do..I'm half hoping they're going to keep them around, but I personally don't think they need a Clover to brew some amazingly delish coffee.
At least to me, it seems this entire recession (or whatever you want to call it) is an entirely natural occurrence. When the average debt for a household becomes 120% of income, something is drastically wrong. From indiscriminate lending to sub-prime mortgages, it all makes me wonder, "Well, what did you think was going to happen?"
Whatever next? The Stone of Destiny is a fake? There's no Loch Ness Monster?
The idea that the human race can be improved through eugenics is a purely religious belief, and I see no reason why any rational person would support it.

The idea that unlike all species, humans cannot be selectively bred for various traits, is a purely religious belief, and I see no reason why any rational person would support it.
Bill Gates, in 1998:

"Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don’t evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, ‘how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?’

[...]

One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other people’s browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities."

Such a great man. o_o
Which incidentally also reflects the personalities of the three Operating Systems
When I see ads that advertise for RockStar Developers(!!!!!) I think about companies that describe themselves as "cool".

If you have to say you're cool....you're probably not.
All the Apple news you'll ever need
Roast your own. A decent bean is usually $4-5 a pound (less when bought in bulk) and lasts well over 6 months. If you drink a pound of coffee a week, the savings would return the initial cost of a roaster ($200-300) within two years.

A $20 blade grinder works just fine with a little care. You can pick up an additional filter screen for the press for a couple of bucks to compensate for the increase in grit.

Not sure why you think a press requires any additional cleanup than any other coffee maker, even the clover has to be wiped down and have the grounds removed. At the end of the day I have a dirty press and coffee mug which I simply rinse out and reuse while the water is boiling.
I think you were dead-on with your assessment right up until your last paragraph where you say that Facebook doesn't want to be anything more than a brief time-waster. I think they very clearly do want to be something much bigger, given their rhetoric "we're a social utility! we want to reward more productive apps! we want to be a platform for the social web and make information everywhere more open!" and given the tremendous financial incentive to do so. Does anyone think that FB would fetch anywhere near 15 billion if it were aspiring to be just a brief time waster and not a new major platform for the web? Not that the 15B was a real valuation, but you can bet they are still aiming that high.

Anyway, I think that Facebook very much wants to be a new Microsoft, a platform for other valuable apps (if the apps that sit on top of Facebook aren't valuable, then the platform itself isn't very valuable), but they find themselves being stuck as a simple time-waster because that's what the bulk of their userbase wants.
I was mocking the parent, actually, as if there being "nothing new" computationally somehow made it boring.
Grind it coarser and add one of these:

http://www.sweetmarias.com/frpress.nylon-screens.jpg

Makes a big difference.
You don't have to live off residuals. You can live off the money you put away while running your business. That's one of the things that DHH points out in his post.

I have a friend who ran an online business for 4 years while doing a medical degree and put away about half a million pounds (~$1m) while doing so (that's on top of the money that he actually spent). That's enough money to be quite comfortable for a long time.
The top 200 most cited works in Computer Science (list)
> Why is there a deep-seated, cross-cultural tendency to be de facto anti-sex, even among the “liberal” left? What is the genetic or social basis of this tendency?

Who is anti-sex? I don't know any people who are against sex. Does this question mean something else? Or is this US specific?
Thats fair, but wouldn't it be more constructive to explicitly articulate that?
On a related note, nobody in Ireland appears to say, "Top o' the mornin to ya!"

But they do get drunk a lot.
What about a "great hacker"? Here is a position we advertised in a local LUG. While writing it up I kept asking myself if I would reply to an email like this. Feel free to take it apart:

http://lists.clug.org.za/pipermail/clug-work/2008-July/00062...