skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Google's track record with companies hasn't been stellar: see GrandCentral and Delicious.

A list of all Google Acquisitions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions
Colorado 'Spam King' Walks Away From Prison Camp
Few hackers post that they are religious on left-leaning social news sites is different than few hackers are religious.
If there was a god, we wouldn't be subjected to posts like these.
Yahoo acquired del.icio.us
Would love to see Kindle take a swipe at the textbook market. Less weight on your back and god only hopes, cheaper books.
That seems like a ridiculously high number to me.
Brian's conclusion seems to be that Facebook is failing at something.

I think the more proper conclusion is that Facebook's audience doesn't care about this stuff.

Facebook is still growing at a break-neck pace. Why should they dedicate resources towards speeding up their site unless there's strong evidence it will help them achieve their strategic goals?
do you also complain about how ugly 'modern' computers are? How bout emacs?

No. He's right, it is more about function than form.

as a runner, you don't really care how they look (unless you're on the cover of Runner's World you ain't gonna look pretty anyways), but rather how they are built.

honey combed webbing? for breathability
.
metallic silver? reflectors so you don't get run over by that guy in his F-150 who 'didn't' see you, or maybe that lady obsessively talking on her cell phone.

'gel-ified?' gel in the soles to help the shoes endure the punishment a real runner will give them.

shiny gold? see: metallic silver

Do these shoes correct the flat-footed stride that I have? Do they correct the over-pronation of my ankles? Will they endure 100-mile weeks while I train for a marathon? Do they have enough padding and support because I'm overweight?

go take your 'stan smiths' and run 5 miles and come back when your calves are shot to hell and flinders. would be better off running bare feet than in those junkers.
Came across this today:

http://wegame.com/
The author was trying to make the case for your first point but instead makes the case for your second.
(Yahoo got Delicious)
that's true google does have a nice track record with acquisitions.

wait, I thought, Delicious was purchased by Yahoo...
I am too confused to either up or down vote you. Well played, sir, well played.
Delicious is owned by Yahoo, not Google.

But c.f. JotSpot nonetheless...
They're ugly because the market which was once (in, say, the 1980s) the "sneaker" market has segmented into two markets: casual sneakers, whose purpose is to look cool, and serious exercise shoes, whose purpose is exercise.

Serious exercise shoes need to be ugly to distinguish themselves from all-purpose sneakers.
Rumor: MacBook touch Coming in October
It's not "insanely efficient", it's just really small. Like Forth, but without the expressive power, conceptual elegance, efficiency, or speed of development. :)

I wrote a bf interpreter a few weeks ago. (It's one of those things which is just tricky enough to be good for trying out languages, btw.) You can't call anything that makes you deal with strings by repeatedly incrementing cells to set ASCII codes efficient, seriously. One of my test programs was a rot-13 program, and it was slo-o-o-o-o-ow.

Also (wear a helmet before you read this ;) ), there's an i386 native code brainfuck compiler, written in brainfuck: http://www.nada.kth.se/~matslina/awib/
Yes. About vim and unit testing.
The distribution here, if you believe this sample, is more biased to the heathens! than is the general population:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=237517
IndyMac stockholders took a big bath, so did Countrywide, so did Bear Stearns. Whether the management at those companies were given due anguish is another question.
Obviously an error by the poster. On that note, Google has acquired a lot of properties that never really went anywhere afterward.
Delicious acquired Yahoo.

sorry couldn't help myself
> I’d prefer the minimalist look of a pair of Stan Smiths

Those are very ugly shoes.
Is there a video? I Googled for his name, and got your comment as the top hit ;)

Edit: that's because his name is spelled with two t's at the end.
Create an iPhone video site from any feed
Submit an RSS feed and the videos are automatically transcoded into iPhone friendly formats. You can then stream your videos from iphone.episodic.com/yournamehere
I do believe in God and religion makes me somewhat uncomfortable as well! I find nearly all of it to be a bunch of superstitions that people would like to believe, both without evidence or logic.

I respect people of every faith, (and no faith) that have developed for themselves a systematic theology/cosmology that has some modicum of internal consistency. I have no time to talk to or debate those who can't be bothered and just go around believing "by faith" whatever they feel like.
Misuse of technology, XML case
If You Have a Problem, Use Innocentive to Ask Everyone [Ideas are worth money]
Really? It's not clear to me that they are an obvious pair.

Google really excels at building technical solutions to challenging problems, while Digg has done a great job building a community-based solution to a challenging problem.

It seems to me every time Google attempts community, they more or less fail (Dodgeball, Jaiku, the new Lively hasn't done much, etc).
go take your 'stan smiths' and run 5 miles and come back when your calves are shot to hell and flinders. would be better off running bare feet than in those junkers.

He said he preferred the look.
Congratulations ;)
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I think any serious answer would be preposterous and probably irrelevant. Even if it was spot on. Let's say we could prove we live in a computer simulation. Would you really stop living your life? Would you try to talk with the admins of the universe? Isn't that a bit pointless? Reminds me of the South Park episode where they discover the Earth is a giant reality show for aliens.
>most mainstream economists, right or left, view the gold standard as more or less nutty

Sorry for continuing this particular topic of conversation, but that is entirely false. Most economists don't advocate a gold standard, but you will find serious discussion of it in any mainstream economic journal that touches on monetary policy or history. The monetary system that served most of the Western world for several millennia is not considered "nutty" in academic circles.

At least, we discussed works by several modern advocates of the gold standard that regularly publish in mainstream economic journals in my Money and Banking class.
meh, I think religion in this context is merely morality side-taking.
morality is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind, I can see the appeal of taking a shortcut. I myself have struggled with the balance between objective and subjective morals. I take an evolutionary psychology approach to why humans behave how they do, but that doesn't answer what we should do. I think this question is very relevant to hackers who work on AI. What happens when an artificial consciousness wakes up and it doesn't do anything because it doesn't have any idea of what it "should" do? there's axiometry, but in the absence of perfect information about the future you have to resort to Bayesian statistical models in order to choose between likely outcomes. I also think it's pretty clear that a 100% consistent interpretation of any axiomatic rule would have unintended consequences.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/terminal-values.html
it moved on to create the next trillion parallel universes
You could just say "online applications and communities are pretty poor" and be mostly right, too.

My wife participates in several online communities associated with our faith. They're technically a lot like most other such (could be better but quite adequate), and they cover a range in quality of discussion.

I run an online community of Christian web professionals/volunteers/whatever.. Our website is awful. I inherited it from the previous operators and haven't had time to redo it. I'll be taking the site in a whole new direction--i.e., new applications, not just a prettier face--but it's not there yet. Our community (which operates mostly via mailing list) is quite pleasant and mutually helpful.

You'll see competition and innovation most anywhere there's money, which is why you can find any number of automated website management services directed at churches (for example). But a lot of religion either is inappropriate to online expression, has no easy path to monetization, or both.
its more of the evolution approach, the belief is more of: it probably started out with a tiny spec that was created due to special circumstances and the universe grew from it
They could do a flickr-type model and charge only heavy users (say, more than 1000 friends) or charge for premium services (high-res photos or similar features).

EDIT: Even if social ads don't work out, I think Facebook will probably find a way to make lots of money. Although, maybe not enough money to justify the highest valuations we've heard.
It sounds like they are rationally taking advantage of a situation that they are not forcibly creating. That's not going mad with power; they are just charging what people will pay.
its a good acquisition if Google wanted its own highly visible brand for a social network(like youtube), but I can't see this doing that much to their bottom line, since the same person who knows that a site like digg exists is also probably aware of Google, has a Gmail account, and uses other Google products.

Its probably just a way for google to show investors: "See we are buying stuff"
Thanks for the tips! My day job is that I write in SilkTest for test automation, but occasionally have to do some c for stuff silk cannot handle. So I recently bought the K&R book on C programming, and have been enjoying that. If nothing else I suppose bf gives one a good "excuse" to learn c in some more depth by "translating" bf to c or vice-versa. :-)
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Order in the Universe and Pattern Recognition (implications for SETI)
I'm mormon and I do practice all the "rules" of my religion and go to church every Sunday. I've been coding now for 11 years. I've been a contractor all that time. My religion is important to me but if you met me you wouldn't get the feeling that I'm all overly-religious. I don't try to pull any religious crap on people and I'm not trying to convert anyone unless they want to be.
Some of them seem juvenile, but the fact that your reading habits can be monitored without court proceedings is something that every library user should be aware of.
So, any truth to it ;). You can tell us... no one will know.

PS: Speaking of Valleywag, they're now saying that Github will be purchased by Yahoo as soon as the new board is elected.
Why shouldn't unlimited mean unlimited? For six months my only Internet connection was through my Blackberry. T-Mobile is very good about not restricting what you can do with your phone, and not complaining when you do things like this.
> Microsoft doesn't seem to be able to fix the fact that Vista has no compelling features

Without getting into specifics, Vista is a much more secure operating system than XP. It also has much better support for detecting and resolving errors. I run Vista (with 2 GB of RAM), and it runs great.

I guess in the eyes of most users, security isn't a "compelling feature" because it's not very visible -- but it's a big improvement over XP. Most people who use Vista with capable hardware (yes, I admit this is a weakness of Vista) are happy with it. When it was released, there were lots of compatibilty issues. But today, it's a much better OS than its reputation might suggest.
How to Read Reddit the Fanatic Programmer Way
Hopefully the Greater Fool theory will work in their favour.
Aren't digg ads run by Microsoft? If so any idea how long that contract is?
Xerox internal memo about the Alto (1972)
I don't find this convincing. The arguments are thousands of years old, but most of the relevant data is <200 years old. The reason most religious hackers don't talk about it is that they know better - that unless you're sufficiently vague, believing in supernatural stories born of bronze age cultures is logically indefensible.
What more do you want an email client to do? What does Outlook do well?
This strongly resonates with Naur's brilliant "Programming as Theory Building". Unfortunately what seems to be the main site for it (http://www.zafar.se/bkz/Articles/NaurProgrammingTheory) is down.
rtfa - 3 years
yea, but those properties weren't that big to begin with. digg has already "gone somewhere"
As they say, that's a feature. After everyone is using the idea there are more potential royalties to collect. You do have to stay in business until the patent issues, though.
The arguments also tend to turn uncharacteristically ugly.
Yea, many schools of Buddhism have a lot of supernatural trappings that are basically ornaments and interpretations from the cultures they grew to prominence in. I think this is why the most popular school of Buddhism in the west is Zen, which strips most of that away.
That'll be the case in anything where people have strong attachments.
I don't see how Digg and Google "fit" in any way other than their San Francisco, compulsively liberal leanings. Digg's user-base is heavily dominated by anti-authority adolescent miscreants and apparent adults suffering from perpetual adolescence (Mr. Rose).

And Google? A company almost exclusively limited to people who fit the academic mold--having advanced degrees from advanced schools, with all the earmarks indicating tolerance for nerdy endeavors but without too much of an inclination toward free thought.

This must be a purely strategic, embrace and smother move. Google must realize the "Digg Army" will be too busy pursuing superficial pleasures to notice their gradual assimilation, not to mention the fine print.
Hey now, don't be so cynical. Software patents also allow startups (composed entirely of lawyers) to patent-troll large corporations.
I think what makes them an obvious pair is their differences. Google is seeking community, relevant news, and more user interaction. On the other hand, Digg has seen it's pitfalls in the technical sense (most undoubtedly with the previous commenting system), and in some senses widespread acceptance.

That is why, in my mind, they're an obvious pair to improve one another.
> Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites.

I think this is too cynical a view of religion. Most religious people I've known value truth as much as any atheist, and would know it if they were the subject of this sort of idea control. I know there are plenty of counterexamples, but I think we only see the worst side of religion through the media.

(fwiw., I'm atheist, and I've read Dawkins, but I don't get the whole "militant atheist" movement.)
Why are ads on social sites so hard? They know my age, location, favorite bands and movies! It just seems like it should be really easy.
Some of the better ones they are deleting are in the most watched videos of their site. It doesn't make much sense to me, I think the founders would rather think of themselves of artists than business men. That is all fine, but there is a reason youTube is the market leader despite Vimeo starting first. If I were an investor in the company I would be pissed - they went about it in entirely the wrong way with their condescension and will invariably piss off a large group of potential audience.
Maybe, but its a very well known online brand name, its only going to keep growing. Though as it grows it has less and less tech stuff and more and more mainstream content, but I guess from the standpoint of investors that is only a good thing. Tech people don't like ads and even go as far as blocking them, non-techies don't (or are less likely too).

It would be a good investment, and I would hope it goes to Google rather than Microsoft, AOL, or any other company who will seek to change it in a major way.
Right. I remember reading something where the author's teacher, when asked what some chanting in a sutra meant, basically said, "Oh, that? That's just Hindu stuff."

Historically, buddhism has partially melded with the local worldview as it has been carried from culture to culture: Theravada in India seems to have a lot of elements from Hinduism in it, Mahayana in China and Japan incorporated Taoism and Shinto respectively, Tibetan Vajrayana melded with Bon, etc. It seems to me that buddhism in America has been absorbing psychology, though it may be too early to say.

Also, I think another reason for the relative popularity of Zen / Mahayana here is that some of the Beats, particularly Alan Watts, attracted people to Shunryu Suzuki and the San Francisco Zen Center. Other buddhisms are common in immigrant communities, for example, but the Zen Center had a head start.
You're being pedantic. It's quite obvious that they mean unlimited on a 3G cellphone modem, which has a fundamentally limited throughput.

Seriously...this is like debating with the people who think it's okay to bring Tupperware to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
He didn't say they did.
Most realists believe in only one observable universe. Solipsists just go one universe farther.
The Road to Lisp Survey
So what is it worth? Once you get into numbers that high, how do you even make a reasonable decision?
>there is a reason youTube is the market leader despite Vimeo starting first

Huh, learn something new every day. I had no idea Vimeo is older than YouTube, I've only really seen it around since they started offering HD.

I agree that it seems like a somewhat strange decision. It introduces an arbitrary judgement call - "this is a gaming video, this is machinima, this is somewhere in between but we'll remove it anyway", bitterness from their users, and lots of "this video was removed" links which will lead people to conclude that Vimeo is quite broken.

I can only conclude that the legal component of the issue is a lot more significant than it seems, or that the hardware costs are too high (in which case, how much revenue do "regular" videos bring?)
On Keyboards
No. I used to be a devout Catholic, but I lost my faith in the Church during high school. By the time my sophomore year in college rolled around, I decided I was agnostic. Now, a few years later, I have gone the extra step: I am atheist.

That said, I have become convinced that some sort of order exists in the universe. Things work out so elegantly so often... Perhaps that is a "god" of sorts, though not the sort of omnipotent (or even self-aware) being that is held up by most religions.
It should show up on the SD Ruby podcast within a month or two.

Also Giles has slides on the web, code on Github, videos on Vimeo, and blog posts about it. He's not exactly keeping this private. :)
I guess in the eyes of most users, security isn't a "compelling feature" because it's not very visible

You got it.

And there are two other big problems with marketing Vista strictly on security grounds. One is that Microsoft has very little credibility on security. I seem to recall a long, long era when security was an afterthought at Microsoft, and when security issues were downplayed. That, plus the energetic PR efforts of thousands of malware authors around the world, has pretty much tarnished the brand as far as security is concerned. The company does not start from a position of strength.

The other is that Microsoft's market probably doesn't contain a lot of security-sensitive customers anymore. Those that haven't been driven to the Mac or Unix have evolved defenses: They're acclimated to running tons of antivirus software and periodically reinstalling their systems, or they've firewalled and proxied the living death out of everything. Or, you know, their machines have been 0wned and they're living in blissful ignorance.

At this point, trying to convince long-time Microsoft customers that the new OS is safe and secure is like trying to talk grizzled survivalists out of their shelters in the mountains. ("We have no weapons! You can put down the rootkit scanner! You don't need to fear anymore! It's the 21st century out here and we've got a utopia!")
Most baseball fanatics pull for only one team. People who hate baseball just go one team farther.
Can anyone please link to the original pdf? Scribd doesn't work for me at all and freezes my computer.
Nobody tells me anything. Really.
Hmm. Well you are not allowed to tether the phone. So if they are not expecting users to do that it is reasonable to have a 5Gb limit since no one would break that.

Whether it is ethical to enforce a no-tether policy is a separate debate.
http://valleywag.com/5024012/digg-ceo-and-google-cofounder-s...
cliche but: and what created the creator?
And the cost of living for developers is not approaching zero, it's going the other way.
Reginald Braithwaite - It's too bad Ruby isn't more like Lisp or Haskell.

In the other post today (http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/07/brief-history-of-dangero...) he says he is retiring from Ruby Hacking and Blogging. They always indicate what is to come in the future.
Clicking the main link takes you to the original. Clicking [scribd] takes you to scribd.
Perhaps because people's beliefs are so diverse. In Toronto, there is about 8 groups of beliefs (if no affiliation is a group in itself) with over 100,000 members. That is in a city of ~2.5 million

I personally find that sort of mixing of cultures is fantastic for a city.
GigaOm Buys A Mobile Blog - One Less Independent Blog In The World
I think a lot of people underestimate the value of web front pages. Capitalising on them has been a mixed bag but Digg has been around for a while.
Because people don't go to those sites looking for stuff. They go to hang out. Google ads work so well because people go there searching for something.
Maybe most good hackers are pragmatic? I'm spiritual, but not religious.

The biggest tenet of my philosophy is "I don't know". I've always found that those people that turn to religion with dead-set certainty are usually running away from something and using religion as a shield.

The one point I have faith in is that we do not live in a random universe, that there is some design and point to our existence. This is actually a purely pragmatic point of view.

Either something happens after we die that can be influenced by the way we live, or nothing happens. If nothing happens - who cares? So, I choose to believe and seek whatever it is that is our species' purpose and follow it.

The problem is I have no idea what that is. So, I try to take care of myself first, my family second and my community next. The problem is just getting by on the day to day life is incredibly time consuming.

I hope to resolve my financial pressures (insert shameless startup plug here?) and then worry about these things when I'm a bit more wrinkly.
RubyFringe 2008 - Killing Floor In Toronto
in our universe nothing, has been around from the start, in another universe? when god's parents wanted another bundle of joy the father inserted the primary tentacle into the mother's secondary nasal orifice, he then triggered the deposit sperm function in his iPhone, which then sent the message to his tentacle and initiated the release of sperm and BAM creator got created.
I'm Hindu clergy.
I wouldn't agree with "debt based currencies are backed by the ingenuity of the people". Debt based currencies are backed by the trustworthiness of the debt issuing entity. It doesn't matter how ingenious Americans are as long as the Fed prints money to fund the welfare and warfare state.