skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
the only thing I'm 100% sure is valueless and off-topic is the "this is off-topic" comment that

Actually, I'm not even sure about that. It seems to me that the average opinion here is in favour of most posts being about technical/startup topics, but that it's good to have a few interesting posts that fall outside that category - provided they don't overwhelm the 'normal' content of the site.

In that case, then, the comments saying "This is off-topic" - and the degree to which they are voted up - provide a barometer: They indicate to what extent people feel that the 'off-topic' posts are: a) Low in quality, b) drowning out 'normal' tech/startup content. This, in turn, provides social pressure to reduce the number (and increase the quality) of 'off-topic' submissions.

(Of course, you then hit a form of Giles's paradox of social news sites: the people most likely to submit to this social pressure may be the ones with the most interesting 'off-topic' links to share)
because email servers have stopped validating addresses on demand a long time ago. That was the easiest way to get a list of valid emails for spam. It used to be that you could even ask for a list of valid emails for a server.

You want to validate an email address, send an actual email to it and see if anyone who cares answers it. Don't even expect much of an error if you try to send an email to a bad address, a lot of servers will just send them in /dev/null directly.
I love Michael's blog, he's a really insightful guy. Seems like a super smart guy too!

I've had a few of these holy shit moments. It's a fantastic feeling when your jaw literally drops at something. :)
Time for China's web advertising industry to grow up?
...staying away from American politics...

Good gracious. Might I suggest that America does not have a monopoly on political controversy (nor on visitors to this site)? It may be an election year, and the country fairly heavily polarised at the moment, but fierce partisanship is no more exclusively American than apple pie is.

(For an immediate example, take a peek at the proportion of reddit currently obsessed with the situation in Georgia.)
Building Smart Teams
Sync; sync
So make a gaming/advanced user plan (and while you're at it make it static IPs) and a NATted connection for everyone else.
Using Regular Expressions for Lexical Analysis
Wuala - P2P Online Storage Cloud
In fact, Windows 95 would optionally have "<- Click here to begin" slide across the taskbar from right to left when the system started up.
Individual sites will still generate 404s, what this guy is actually talking about is typo-squatting by isps
The Market For Venture Capital: Investments
Predicting the future - with the power of betting
My Startup project: ErrorKey.com, a tool for hackers.
MapServer - A completely unbiased overview
Let's see, the usability tests showed that a lot of people stared at the windows desktop on startup and were at a loss.

Given that they were copying the macintosh what, a decade after the original mac's release, you'd think they might actually look at some user tests of people using a mac.

I'm sure they would find that given that the only obvious thing on the screen is a computer icon, they would click on it, and tada, there they are now staring at a window filled with what is IN their computer.

The metaphor is simple, and it works.

Now more than a decade later, and we are still stuck with this idiocy that the desktop is a totally useless wasteland for auto-installed shortcuts and crap, while the start menu of an average user's system has, not application names, but a mile long list of company names to play the "now who the hell made my text editor?" game.
Validating the account on the server is a problem but that doesn't affect the usefulness of validating the hostname itself as something which can accept mail. E.g.: I just queried a database of about 40k email addresses in a production system for "hotmal.com" and found two. "Hotmal.com" isn't running anything on port 25 so it's likely that these people meant to enter "hotmail.com." I'm sure if we filtered this entire pool of addresses for misspellings we'd find a lot more. We could get something approaching 100% accuracy if we required users to receive an email and click on a link to verify; perhaps that's not a bad idea, but that often takes the user off of the page where he or she entered the address and breaks the process and we'd probably lose a few people. We're not going to get massive improvements in the process because it's already pretty good but even a small improvement is worth something.

Also I realize that if an email account is running on a server in someone's kitchen it may be down at one moment but still able to receive emails so I'm thinking more of an ajax call from the entry page to a validation routine which would check for obvious things - the hostname doesn't exist, isn't running, isn't running a mail server, is similar to known misspellings... and then alerts the user inline that there MAY be a problem... but still allows the user to proceed with the address entered.
Earth 2.0: The Search for a World Like Our Own
It gets pretty ridiculous in programming languages, too:

"So, you've just discovered Scala? (scoff) Briefly interesting, till I realized it just apes Haskell's type system and adds cruft from Java. Oh, you're getting into Haskell now? (rolls eyes) Too bad the type system's not even Turing complete. I've been playing with Qi lately, has its pros and cons, you know."
It always makes me smile when I get one of these on my Arch box. Especially when it claims to have found a critical virus in C:\Program Files\....
Why would big companies with money to spend be a less sustainable customer than music single consumers?
The term startup implies that the company wont be around in 6 years, it will likely either have folded or exited so judging by sales numbers after 6 years is not the right measure.

And really? Sales data from 1996 to 2002? That's ancient in terms of the web
The diet that really works
You've created a lot of these search things haven't you? What are you planning to do with them all? Any plan on trying to monetize, or are they all just projects for fun?
During the 90s I tried to learn enough to code some intros, but the learning curve is super steep to do something like your demoscene idols create. Also tried to find momentum here in Chile but failed, so finally I joined a mostly European team called 'Ethereal' which produced at least one demo:

http://pouet.net/nfo.php?which=3965&f=none

(I feature under the nickname 'eccp', on handdrawn graphics) ... I really enjoyed it while it lasted.
Our primary goal is to build tools that people can use, and then we will focus more on the money side. By the way the previous engines are already bringing in money; they are fully using the power of affiliate marketing. Check them out: qwili.com, qhoga.com, karatr.com.

Error key is a tool we build for hackers, ourselves it is more for a useful purpose than to make money.
Yet another opportunity for ISP's to drop rates/features and then charge even more for users to keep what they had for years and years....
It's the slowest two weeks of the year...does that mean boring posts like this get to rise to the top of HN?
The eye tracking required for the glass would be pretty slick. It's conceptually simple for a human being to imagine, but you'd need very accurate real-time location information on the device and the head of the onlooking user. I don't think this is feasible right now.

But what functionality would you get out of it that you couldn't get with an iPhone real-time video overlay with a set of cross hairs as a cursor? Isn't there a demo already where a couple of Scandinavian guys implemented this? You'd get the same functionality within the limits of the current infrastructure and technology.
The Best IoC Container?
Just a quick note: in your credits I think you mean to reference people's Trademarks, not Copyrights (you use the (c) instead of (tm))
Imagine the "user experience" of accidentally buying a $999 app, then returning it. Feeling stupid, even if it's well deserved, just tends to distract from the user experience.

And for the onlookers not buying the app, it's bad PR for Apple as well. Yes, it's a restrictive gated community. Yes, the lack of freedom sucks. But some people are willing to play along to be taken care of by Steve & co.
If I may agree with your sentiment, while disagreeing with your conclusion:

the original post on Sarah Lacy's blog is atrocious, I can't see why MA bothered to respond

It seems like publishing link bait never fails to garner an undue amount of attention.
Well, how about not allowing browser windows to maximise and minimise themselves in such a way?
The first time I sat down in front of an Xbox 360, I had to be informed that holding down the (X) button on the gamepad turned on the system. And then later on, that holding it down brought up a menu to shut it off.

The Wii remote has a Power button, in the same place as the power button on my TV remote control. No explanation required.
Right! We will fix that ASAP. Thanks for the remark.
Currently, it's possible to go to the App Store every day and peruse all of the new apps as they come out. I can go to the App Store and click on "New" then "See All" sorted by recent. If Apple's smart, they'd make this even more convenient for users.
>> Will Apple again lose its to early technical lead to a generic platform like DOS?

Isn't "Windows Mobile" a "generic platform"? Didn't that come out years before the iPhone?

Aside from that, the biggest looming threat is probably Android..
The title is a little misleading. The attorney requested more information, what is a initial refusal.
This is cool stuff, but remember Real Artists Ship. :-)
IDG Ventures' Sudhir Sethi on the Indian VC Space
I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I think the main problem with spyware, malware and viruses today is that it is treated mainly as a technological problem, not a social one.

People are simply not capable or willing to get knowledgeable enough about computers to know what is normal computer-behaviour, and hence are unable to detect when things out of the ordinary happens. Like the Fake UIs in the article.

The result is people always pressing "Yes", "Ok" and similar when confronted with a choice. This is the problem. No technological means can stop an attack based on this vector: people willingly opening up their machine.

Selling people anti-spyware and AV-software and telling them that it will keep them safe is fraud at best.
Microsoft: of course we spy on our users. But not as much as the other guys
It looks like a potentially nice service. I use Amazon stuff a lot, so I'll look into this.

But the fading page elements are really annoying. Especially the navigation links at the top. Just let the page load so I can click around.
I learned by myself to ignore those when i was 14. I didn't have any scanners or anti-virus software installed, so it was easy to figure out that these were fake. Jeff Atwood is probably smart enough to realize that by choosing to use windows, he is dooming himself to the death by a thousand pop-ups.
Android in your living room? Don't hold your breath
The ultimate tool for generating optimal my.cnf files for MySQL
Here's another thought: if we made people write a sentence or two before downvoting we'd get to know very quickly what kinds of articles we don't want here -- the ones which prompt people into having a mostly irrational, emotional responses.

I'm just guessing, but I think we want intersting, reasoned discussions -- whatever the topic.

In that sense, what's okay or not has less to do with the site than the people who populate it. I bet you could re-run some of the stuff from last year and get completely different user responses this time around.
Now Let's Piggy Back On Bookmarking Sites A little More
Is it going to be better than just putting the code in a search engine like google or something. Most of the codes I come across are unique enough that I get a direct match pretty quickly. Also what helps me is seeing related forum posts and other comments on resolving the issue, the definition in on itself is often useless.
Because there are less of them, and the value they get out of buying companies - especially companies who don't earn money - isn't completely clear. (I'm not saying there isn't any, just that it may be harder to explain to stock owners in a down market)
I'm surprised to hear that they're using the alt erlang-thrift binding in production. In Powerset's application of it, it begins to rattle and break down when you push it about 90r/s. I wonder if FBChat's per-connection load is lower than that?

Thrift is a great idea and I've used it alot, but it's frustrating to see it so tied to C++. The idea of code generation for your IDL interfaces is so last decade. We've got experimental thrift bindings that treat the IDL as a runtime-compiled source, so on the Ruby or Erlang side you can use their dynamic strong typing to avoid the necessity of code generation that the C++ side suffers.
This is truly one of the worst startups I have ever seen.

Everyone in this forum is stupider for having seen it.

I award its founders no points, and may God have mercy on their miserable souls.
Google's Orkut down?
Honestly I think getting into the search market is a waste of time. Too many fish in the sea, and too many sea monsters.

Also: why no API? :)
Does Apple mind losing its "lead"? If they continue to command a significant minority of the smartphone market, isn't this a viable business?
Depending on the system your working on finding a fix or explanation to an error is not always easy.
The next step is to allow users to post alternative fix to errors or link to forum where research can be extended.
I like the idea and think it will be powerful once you allow users to post info on how they resolved the errors. But Splunk already does this, no? Will this provide any new / easier / cheaper features?
API is a great Idea thanks for the hint. : )
entering E_ERROR gives wierd results. If I were you, I'd save all searches, create a static page for that result and index it in google.

Since you're an affiliate marketer...
The text underneath the button also says "Power" for the completely clueless.

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~brossen/ve/images/wiimote.jpg
Great Idea!!! bookmarked.
So wait, should I do #3 ("Host files locally") or should I do #15 ("Use a content delivery network")?
Nobody expects the second derivative
Game of Business : Things to learn from games while doing business
I don’t think Splunk is an error search engine.
why is food always the culprit? what ever happened to just increasing the amount of exercise you do? Michael Phelps seems to be doing ok on 10,000+ calories a day

This also bothers me: "But what’s different about Arthur is, first, he is not selling anything, except for subscriptions to his website."
FCC approves Android-powered HTC Dream a.k.a. 'GPhone'
Good Idea, Thanks. BTW we are not affiliate marketers; we build engines that leverage the power of affiliate marketing to deliver fairly good product search.
I'm unsure what that I said that you're responding to.
I hope someone blogs about why/how
interesting. the yahoo chat system built in the 90s was somewhat similar, using java instead at the client layer to deal with the limits of browsers of the time. using erlang instead of apache seems like a commonsense way of dealing with so many long-lived but relatively light connections to clients. big issue - how hardened is the erlang stack against common security issues? hardening is the big reason to use apache
Agreed. Any security based on users being knowledgeable about something is doomed to fail. There are those who comment on this site that insist that SSL certs are fine as they are, but that's really wishful thinking. It's just not realistic to expect that all users, or even all programmers, understand the semantics of a man in the middle attack. (There have been lots of posters here who wish that self-signed certs would just go through without any user notification!)

But I disagree in one sense: "No technological means can stop an attack based on this vector: people willingly opening up their machine" in an absolute sense is true. But greatly increased compartmentalization can greatly curtail the damage. Right now, opening up your machine instantly gives the attacker the keys to everything. If systems used something like capabilities, then it would be more like. "Okay, first it asked to install software. Now it's asking for more disk access. Now it wants my contact information...maybe something is up here?"

Perhaps malware can be reduced to the level of SPAM today -- something that's only still a real problem to the most clueless and gullible fraction of the populace.
We sleep less than most so that we can have the time to be distracted yet still work more than 4 other humans... Or maybe that's just me!
Just connecting to port 25 isn't enough to verify this, however. The various email RFCs allow for temporary failure and retries of most operations, including connection. Additionally, you'd have to walk down every host listed in MX for the given domain (since it's not actually the machine "hotmail.com" that you connect to), which for hotmail.com look something like "mail1.msft.net".

Really, the only way to verify an email address is to send mail to it.
I'm commenting in context of the thread as a whole and the article, not your comment in particular.
I've never seen a WSJ paywall on HN? Is it possible I'm blocking a cookie or something which disables them?
What happened to the Star Wars Kid can happen to anyone, and it can happen in an instant.

This part of the article omits the bit about how he was filming himself doing something embarrassing. I think the lesson is that 1) If you do stuff you would not want strangers to see, 2) You film yourself doing it, and 3) Someone gets and disseminates this video, only then can what happened to the Star Wars Kid happen to you in an instant.
Anyone knows how much heat a GPU nowadays produces compared to a general purpose CPU or a Cell-BE? My guess is that if you measure FLOPS/Energy then the field is a little different.
Sigh. You've convinced me of one thing: these arguments are a pointless merry-go-round and I'm making things worse by adding to it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find some articles about Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" to post here. :)
I thought low-carb was already the fad of the past.

From "The China Study" about high-protein diets:

"And yet these books are immensely popular. Why? Because people DO lose weight, at least in the short term.[...](about a study) The first sign that all is not rosy is that these obese subjects were severely restricting their calorie intake during the study (35% fewer calories). [...](list some problems) Additionally, they found that the dieters had a stunning 53% increase in the amount of calcium they excreted in their urine, which may spell disaster for their bone health. The weight loss, some of which is simply initial fluid loss, might come with a very high price. [...](from an Australion study:) 'Complications such as heart arrhythmias, cardiac contractile function impairment, sudden death, osteoporosis, kidney damage, increased cancer risk, impairment of physical activity and lipid abnormalities can all be linked to long-term restriction of carbohydrates in the diet.'".
Swimming 6 hours a day is simply not an option for everybody. Besides, even with enough exercise I would imagine that some diets would still make you sick, for example if all you ate were chocolate and ice cream. (Note that I don't advocate the low-carb diet from the article).

The "not selling anything but..." bothered me too, also "Thirdly, he is very smart. His reasoning is immaculate and he knows a lot more than your average doctor or nutritionist." The doctors on TV trying to sell me on chocolate bars also look very smart...
Most people consider the real-estate bubble to be a massive shock to the financial system that could quite easily lead to a severe recession and the government takeover of $1 trillion in Fannie & Freddie debt (plus another few hundred billion for FDIC). You won't hear anyone in the know describe this as a "small beer problem".
Pandora can't make money, may pull the plug
Tenerife Skunkworks: My road to Lisp
First thought is that this seems to be much the same as http://bug.gd, except without the email thing. This is probably a good thing, if your results are good enough quality.
Maybe I'm just defending my own pride here, but I have to believe that "not currently working at a startup" and "has nothing to do with startups" are distinct, if not disjoint, sets.
I have an embarrassing video of me on the internet too, and i didn't upload it.
Ask YC:  Non “camp” seed funding alternatives?
Hi everyone, as an aspiring entrepreneur, I faced an uncommon problem set. I just graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, which wasn’t conducive to people interested in technology or entrepreneurship, so the majority of my learning was done with out guidance, where I would spend my time scouring the web and using Delicious to create a topic textbook of sorts.

I’m an economist and non-coder, yet I felt fully capable of tackling the larger issues. I wanted to fix the current state of music by creating a viable business model that could disrupt current market conditions. Despite a lot of negative feedback – “you can’t start a tech company if you can’t code it” - I persevered and after a half year, came full circle on a solution to the current music problem.

As a sole non-technical founder, I looked at programs like Ycombinator and Techstars only to realize that I would not be fully considered. I decided to sign on Prototype Invest to act as the technological strong arm for my venture. I was very impressed with their insight and their proposal for development milestones. Our first beta should be finished in October.

With the recent controversy over Pandora, I am sure people are now aware of the financial challenges music startups face. There are separate fees from both publishers and labels for selling digital downloads and then to add streaming capabilities, the fees imposed by the labels become enormous. But the pioneers get the arrows, so I feel there is impending change.

I plan to raise a seed round of under a million, to pay for all legal fees, set up an office in NYC, and bring on board an experienced COO. While looking for seed funds, most seemed to follow the camp model. Here’s a short list of the funds I think I could reach out to.

http://www.nycseed.com
http://www.mailroomfund.com/submit.html
http://www.crv.com/quickstart
http://www.tandementrepreneurs.com/
http://www.nyangels.com

Does anyone know any other groups that I should be pursuing or have any further advice? Also, should I only be focusing on the east coast or should I pursue more West Coast groups? I plan to send out my applications to all these firms before the end of the week. However, since it’s crucial I also protect the integrity of my business model, I am a little skeptical of venture firm’s that may be using seed program offerings as a way to accumulate market research.

Thanks for reading this longer post. This sight has been an invaluable resource in my quest for a better understanding of web dynamics and I really enjoy the community PG has fostered – even if I can’t directly be part of it through startup camp.

Thanks in advance,
Joe
Music Mobile Global
Visual search engine is photographer's best friend
Because, unless you are very genetically gifted and/or using steroids, there are surprisingly low limits on the amount of exercise you can do and still see gains. After 45 minutes or so cortisol (stress hormone) levels rise and a process called gluconeogenesis sets in - your body begins burning muscle tissue for energy. The net effect of this is to lower your resting metabolic rate, which is what burns most of most people's calories. Which means you can cut back on the calories you consume, train like a madman and still get fatter.

3-4 sessions of 45 minutes per week, at a decent level of intensity, is about right for most people.