skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Commentary: Internet Discussion Badly Broken, Hurting Society
Hey, guys, Andrew Lee from JamLegend. Feel free to tell us what you think.

We've been hanging out on News.YC for about a year now and know some of the YC companies personally, so please give us as much feedback as possible.

REQUEST FOR HELP: if anyone has experience with Glassfish (with Java, not Ruby), please email me at Andrew@jamlegend.com, we're experiencing some tricky load issues and are imploring for help.
I never get tired of that head tracking video... It's definitely one of the coolest hacks I've seen. :)
And teach.
For the record, I don't think it's a "new" type of brain. The reason I chose the "hyperbrain" moniker is purely arbitrary. I needed something to call this particular type of mind, and I don't believe there is a term that covers it at the moment. And hyperbrain sounds kinda cool ;-)
Incorrect. The only legally valid part of a patent is in the exact language of the claims. Any other description makes no difference, and anything not laid out precisely in the claims is not covered by the patent. In fact, the body, abstract, description makes no difference - it's only to lay the foundation for the claims themselves.
Daydreaming improves thinking
Mozilla Ubiquity: Is Mozilla building out a different kind of RIA platform?
still a long way to go however....

mainly SVG, video and audio
It seemed like it at the time. But I knew getting garage space would be almost impossible, and given how much I worried over my car whenever it was outside, I knew it'd be stupid to bring it out here if I didn't really need a car.

Mountain View is a pretty walkable and bike-able little town, more than I expected, even. I rarely miss having a car, and I certainly don't miss the hassles that come with having a car: Insurance, registration, etc. And, let me tell you...insurance on a two-seater sports car, for a male driver, under 35, with a handful of speeding tickets, is not a trivial consideration. I paid nearly as much to drive my car as I did to live in my house in Austin, and since living in a house here in the valley costs twice as much as in Austin, it all evens out pretty...umm...evenly.

I enjoy biking and walking quite a lot, and they're certainly healthier activities than driving for myself and the world, so I think it's a really good trade. I think it'd be an even better trade in SF, but it'll probably be another year before I head up that way. I like the lack of distraction in Mountain View while getting the company off the ground.
Side-effects are evil!
I see a lot of this in India. VC firms that you one would typically associate with tech investment are actually investing in many non-tech markets:

http://www.vccircle.com/news/sequoia-capital-closes-second-g...
Here's a use for the K Combinator that isn't Your Father's Imperative Programming. I sometimes want an arbitrary, one-off object when testing or prototyping things, perhaps in irb:

foo = returning(Object.new) do |f|
def f.bar
...
end
def f.bash
...
end
end
UNITY: Web Player Hardware Statistics: 2008 Q3
TIVO is Pick of the Day | TheSubway - Stock Promoter Blog
True but as game far as game developers/fans use the word - this is parallaxing.
I don't get Wikipedia at times. How is this article notable?

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

(I have use the wikipedia random page as my homepage)
For a different perspective on Object#returning, (and Symbol#to_proc and friends), see http://wiki.merbivore.com/pages/it-is-a-bug-if

merb is one of the best-written Ruby libraries I've seen, in large part because they're focused on avoiding clever code.
People just don't get it. Microsoft didn't patent Page Up, Page Down functionality. They patented a specific way of using page up and page down that goes down to the next page at the exact same section as the current page, which as far as I can tell nobody actually cares about.
Make your Data Web Friendly - W3C Q&A Weblog
Explanation for the patent in a reddit comment:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xjmq/us_patent...
YouTube finally figures out how to make money: big ads on its homepage
Yes. I'm not a game developer, but I have seen this referred to as "parallax scrolling"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_scrolling
Generally they are not especially efficient and have a problem with emissions. Because of their odd shape sealing them is much more difficult than a standard engine. By design Mazda rotaries burn a little oil to keep the seals fresh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine#Disadvantages
One way to screw hourly billing: you feel compromised to stay in a project until it's closed, but the project hasn't a close date, so it might never be properly closed. But you might actually want to get out of it to do some other interesting or more expensive work, and if your client feels like it, he/she might never really free you from your project. That's one danger of hourly billing for hourly beginners.
Placefav - keep track and share your favorite places
Top-down Planning - Good or Bad?
This reminds me a bit of Dewdney's "New Turing Omnibus"-- although that had a larger number of shorter chapters.

An interesting project, though.
I agree that it is a bug to use Symbol#to_proc or Object#returning in merb, however I suggest that neither of these things are "clever."

Instead, I note that neither of these things are part of the standard library today. Which means, you must open the Object or Symbol classes to implement them. Nothing wrong with that in your code, but when you do so in a framework like merb (or Rails!), everyone using your framework gets your little patches in their namespace as well.

My feeling is that with the way Ruby's global class namespace works today, opening a core class has much more serious consequences when you are writing a framework, gem, or plug-in then when you are writing code that does not have "downstream clients."
Perhaps your desire for success doesn't compel you as strongly as your desire for a stable family life.

That's absolutely fine, but my instincts (and some very successful people I know personally) tell me that successful entrepreneurs who start a business with families have to ask their families to make some sort of sacrifice to support their endeavor.

My wife and I have had this very conversation - we live in the Bay Area, but my Dear Wife is very level headed when it comes to prioritizing decisions like this. Life experience counts for more than immediate comfort for her. She comes from an entrepreneurial family, so that probably helps.
Why is something that is so simple & fast in almost everything else is so slow in firebug?
I, for one, found it very striking in most of it.

Generalizing isn't half bad when there's actually distinctive attributes to generalize on.
Someone lamely attempting to comment raw assembly? Not so interesting...
Open Heart Surgery on the Tesla Roadster Electric Car
HDR (High Dynamic Range) + Sunsets = Wicked
ADD is not particularly rare in my experience--certainly among hackers and entrepreneurs--and people that feel that they are special need to get out more. It's not a personality type as much as a processing mode(s). There are a number of good books full of practical advice on how to manage ADD. Three I have found particularly useful are

ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kohlberg http://www.amazon.com/ADD-Friendly-Ways-Organize-Your-Life/d...

Driven To Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell http://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction-Recognizing-Attenti...

Healing ADD by Dr. Daniel Amen http://www.amazon.com/Healing-ADD-Breakthrough-Program-Allow...
Diabetes researchers hack ordinary pancreas cells to produce insulin
Quantum computing for everyone
Hmmm...I understand what you're saying, but you seem to be presenting a false dichotomy where the only two options are starting a web company or a restaurant. For the vast majority of people with kids, the "safe" option is getting a good job that pays well and offers good benefits.

It's also a bit disingenuous to say that if your web business fails, you lose nothing. Perhaps that's true for a single guy who is starting a company with some friends, but for the average married founder w/kids, there is a significant investment that will need to made in the form of time spent on their startup, as well as mental and psychological energy. Not to mention any cash investment, and the lost income that could have been earned with the time spent on the startup. If you fail, there is a cost.
Right, I should have said "not amenable to sweeping generalizations."
First Recorded Usage of "Hacker"
They burn oil like mad to keep the tip seals of the rotor lubricated. They suck down gasoline - the RX8 gets maybe 15mpg if you drive it hard. 20 if you are careful. And it has to be premium. You have to be careful not to flood the engine - never run it for less than 30 seconds, or without revving to at least 3K RPM.

The upside is that the engine itself is tiny and mounted almost exactly in the middle of the car - under your feet. Rotary's get about 3x power for the same displacement as a reciprocating piston engine. They're great in airplanes.

I've spent a lot of time in an RX8 and it's a blast to drive if you're willing to deal with the cost and finicky nature of the beast. When the engine spools up and it just starts whirring... that's a beautiful thing.
Google Apps still not taking off in the enterprise. Fine for now -- that's not the point
That's a bit of a generalization, don't you think? ;-)
Steve Jobs Reported Dead | TechJaws
Landfill sites are being viewed as mines with buried riches (plastics are made from oil)
Everything You Thought You Knew About the Business of YouTube Was Wrong
I think this is a useful analogy, if only because it uses the "followers" concept.
Zoom into concrete [video]
"Parallax is an apparent displacement or difference of orientation of an object viewed along two different lines of sight"

I don't recall anything about parallax requiring receiving multiple images simultaneously. Can you elaborate?
A map of spacetime dimensions (maybe answering: why 3 space, and 1 time dimensions?) [pic]
A little defiant, eh? I like it.

When is it ever worth not applying? I'm sure that certain things hurt your chances in YC's eyes, but hopefully they don't have such blinders on that all of those things are immediate deal-killers. I feel that the exercise of filling out the application is useful in itself, and if they pass, no loss.
which theory is this ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
Keep in mind that this is only helpful for sites that publish large numbers of feeds. For a site that has only one or two feeds (that is, the typical self-hosted weblog or company site), SUP will hurt more than it helps.

Basically, it is just a feed where each entry links to an updated feed-- a RSS-formatted sitemap (http://sitemap.org) where all the non-feed entries are removed.

Sixapart has had a similar interface for a while: http://updates.sixapart.com/
Steve Jobs obituary published by accident
Watch Avatar the Last Airbender TV Show
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Another one for the "you are sick" perspective?

Looks like two types of stereotypical psych people: the "just be yourself"/"embrace your inner dolphin" crowd and the "wanna prosac?" types.

I'm suspicious of all of you-- especially given the testimonies from guys like me that took your advice and are now numb non-creating slobs.
Why use invite codes?
You've built a cool website and want to get some real, actual, users. In this situation, some companies create a mechanism by which only people that have invite codes can log in, and then these people are given a few invite codes for their friends. What is the reason to use invite codes in this manner as opposed to just allowing anyone to sign up?

Is it a marketing ploy, attempts to limit server load, something to make TechCrunch write about you?

Thanks!
Hopefully the posts are coming from different users each time. You'd expect it for pretty much any non-tiny community.
I liked the omnibus, in my hazy recollection

http://ezrakilty.net/research/2008/04/i_like_this_vision_mic...
My first "pro" hourly gig ended up going week-to-week with no end in sight. We were doing a great job, but the VP who was paying us was fighting with another VP over who owned the program. After 2 months I had enough and left. A year later the team was still there.
Download City Of Ember Movie
Walden Media and Fox had two special retro Pullman cars set up chock full of gear and footage from the upcoming film City Of Ember, and packed some lucky press sardines inside to get a peek on the way down to Comic-Con. While the Amtrak train I took wasn’t quite as cool, I was able to catch up with director Gil Kenan and talk to him about the movie, his passion for sci-fi “without laser beams”, and what he’s added to the source material to aesthetically flesh out the novel’s “steampunk” world.
So long as it's the same deal as the other founders/partners.
This is another in our long discussion about how internet voting systems suck, but with several News.YC examples.
Google Insights for Search: Competitive Intelligence Analysis
Check out JLA Ventures. They are based in Toronto and just recently raised a new $100 million fund. Rick Segal is their most visible partner and he seems to be a very stand-up guy. http://ricksegal.typepad.com/
Link Bombing 2 and Updates
I can't read the patent because I don't want to infringe it by using my PgDn.
All three! Same reason nightclubs keep a line out front even when they're half-empty.
Mitsubishi to Make 2,000 i MiEV Electric Cars in 2009
Invite codes are a good way to limit access as you ramp up and also let you have a rough idea of which users are externally connected, even if it is not very accurate.

I'd say use as a marketing ploy is limited, unless one can successfully foster some kind of "gotta have" site before and during launch, and the vast majority of sites don't fit this bill.
Congrats to Andrew and the JamLegend crew. We met them awhile ago and have been following their progress ever since. Amazing progress in a short timeframe.

I guess soon I will have to give the official report on how well this works hooking up a Wii guitar to my mactop and playing Jam Legend.
Io v. Veoh: Important ruling for sites comprised of 'user-generated content'
The article is a good summary, but you should really read the entire ruling. Really important stuff for any company that takes advantage of the DMCA safe harbor.
President Meg Whitman: Is Ex-eBay CEO a Good Choice As McCain VP?
perhaps relative to the fact its below the fold for the 50% of people on 1024x768. when they used to not be...
Ask HN: Software for diagramming a system?
I need to create a diagram of the classes in my program and how they are laid out from a high level. What I'm trying to make is a big picture diagram, as opposed to a UML class diagram. I'm on OS X. Any suggestions for easy to use, preferably open source, and ideally cross-platform, tools for doing something like this?
This is turning into reddit. Please get rid of this.
DRM a major barrier to e-textbook adoption
I think their answer to that was the short development cycles. If they're not the team you want, you'll see that in two weeks instead of 6 months.
I'd even say it is a hasty generalization.
JealousBrother.Com - Review | SlashBe
Ask HN: DIY storage or not?
We have developed a generic syncing app (web, desktop, mobile) on top of cloud storage (S3 initially). We are moving to testing soon and can offer either a hosted version or let customers use their S3 account. Which offering would you advice we focus and why?

Our thoughts:

1. Focusing on latter differentiates us
2. Allows us to "plug" into future cloud storage (Goog, Msft, etc)
3. However, not sure if market today is "too niche"
4. Audience is individuals and businesses

Thanks in advance.
The advantage is equally huge for time & materials. $25/hr vs $75/hr. Do you think management anticipates that it will take three times as long?
From the Wikipedia Notability Guidlines page:

If it is likely that independent sources could be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources. For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort.

That's why people "go nuts." Whoever nominated this for deletion was either lazy and stupid or just looking for some drama.
I've always felt that everybody should learn some assembly. It helps in understanding C, which in turn helps in understanding most of the other languages we work with.

That being said, to actually understand what was going on would take hours of carefully inspecting the code. That's why knowing assembly is like knowing latin.
We are moving to testing soon and can offer either a hosted version or let customers use their S3 account. Which offering would you advice we focus and why?

Is there something that precludes you from offering the option to use either (or even both), like development time?
Piracy is not Theft, Its Piracy.
It's pretty sad how the telecom gold rush of the late 90s/early 2000s killed Bell Labs and Bell Northern Research (Nortel).
Meanwhile, reporters anxiously anticipate Steve Jobs to quote Mark Twain.
TheSUBWAY on TIVO - TiVo Inc - SocialPicks
job well done and nice execution!!! key press timing seems a little buggy but suppose that's to be expected given it's a beta.
We wanted to focus on one option. Having both initially takes more dev time, support, different marketing message, etc.
People like you always say that.
Don't feel too bad. Zilog still makes and sells them 33 years on. I should be so lucky if anything I do lasts so long.
It is OS X only, not open source, and I haven't used it myself, but I've heard a lot of recommendations for OmniGraffle.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/

I was in the market for just such a beast a couple of years back: open source, high quality, cross platform. I'm not sure it exists yet.
Only problem for me is the return key. It isn't quick enough to register it sometimes, I tried playing a song on medium and I do suck, but I did notice it not registering the key :S

edit: Also, more indie bands. Try and get Vampire Weekend or someone else to toss their songs on the site. Man, that would rock
I'm a .Net Developer and wants to learn another programming language
I'm a .Net guy and looking to find a job in a startup/Web 2.0 company.

There are some .Net jobs for startups but not as much as Php and Ruby.

I'm developing a new app and I want to use a new programming language.

Any suggestions on what I should use?

To be honest, I want a programming language to brighten my job prospects and future.
that article was disturbing. things i've known about myself for a long time but hesitated to put into words for fear someone else would get too good a handle.

it's somehow comforting to know that it's not just me.
National Inquirer founder had previously worked on psy-ops at CIA
Quantcast.com
resent theories, at least according to the diagram's caption.
What The Veoh Decision Means For YouTube And Others
Nanosolar Raises $300 Million, Plans to Further Accelerate Production
I love my Z. But I suppose if you succeed you could go splurge and get yourself a new Skyline.
I don't really care about which set of characteristics you think make you 'special'. The only things that really matter are results. Tell us about what you've built or what you've started instead. Then I might actually be interested in learning more about what makes you tick.

The rest is just self-indulgence.
Sure, but pg is also an old bull now. He wasn't married when he started Viaweb.
Web 2.0: reinventing the wheel.

Seriously, how is 20 yr (30?) old client-side technology implemented in a browser considered news? Yes, browser programming is a pain in the ass, but a PITA platform is nothing new.
Why you should go with your gut feeling
If friendfeed queries your SUP feed N times as frequently, the breakeven point for http requests is approximately N regular feeds, assuming those feeds aren't constantly updating. In fact, the SUP feed is small, so it's not at all hard to break even on bandwidth, even with 1 or 2 feeds.
Capturing 3D Surfaces Simply With a Flash Camera
Fuck the VCs (or not fuck the VCs)
I'd offer a hosted version. Most people will not want to go about setting up S3, dealing with private keys etc. Where's your market?
This is now in the Ruby 1.9 core:

http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9/classes/Object.html#M000309
It's the Small Steps
If you're honestly just interested in learning another language for better job prospects, I would recommend staying a .Net guy and getting deep with Sharepoint (I'm assuming you are already familiar with the new 3.5 framework. If you aren't, then start there). It's not glamorous work, but it is high-paying work.

Otherwise, if you're really interested in startups, I would guess that Ruby is probably one of the more popular languages out there right now, with Rails being a very popular framework. This will depend somewhat on your location.

Start checking Craigslist ads for jobs, that should give you a feel of what startups are looking for.
Subliminal advertising may work after all
Nothing wrong with that. I think the standard response to your situation would be to take a look at Ruby or Python.

And for frameworks, I'd recommend looking at Rails and Merb (ruby land, don't know python options well enough to comment).

I'm sure there are other languages you could learn which might boost your pay scale, but the number of jobs requiring Erlang isn't quite as high...
It could be an advantage. It's nice to have one person in the family with a stable income you can fall back on, while trying to get things off the ground.
The Ultimate Guide to Google Knol: 50+ Tips and Tricks
Google Knol is turning into an excellent resource for both researchers and experts alike. It offers information consumers a platform for finding encyclopedia-like articles. Read on to learn how you can make the most of this useful new tool.
I disagree with the premise that anger towards VCs isn't warranted. The author paints a picture of the VC as an innocent victim of changing times:

"VC doesn’t have a greater share of bad actors than the ecommerce or gaming sectors. Large-scale, software VC is simply a formerly great business in decline, and there are a lot of good, smart people who haven’t made in VC yet who are worried about their (and their families’) economic futures. It’s not evil — it’s their job and they may not feel they can switch."

Those poor VCs who have no other career options available to them, and must therefore resort to squeezing every last drop of blood from entrepreneurs who don't know any better.

I absolutely believe that there are some fantastic VCs out there, but anger against the industry is only natural when you've been screwed over like some of these companies have.
This is a good day for user-generated site owners, and it sounds like their willingness to comply with the law is what saved them. I guess that's the difference between them getting off the hook and other sites who just "play dumb" to having tons of illegal content and end up being held responsible for it. Still, with many such sites nowadays, they're just providing search results, not much different than Google...
If you know .NET already, IronRuby seems like a natural fit.
That does look nice. Thanks!
Definitely go hosted. S3 is not fun or easy for most people to set up.
I trust you've read what Joel has to say on generic syncing apps: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html

So I would say, 3.
It's also built into Rails.
Being angry with VC's is like being angry with mother-in-law. They will always be a pain if you insist on sleeping with their daughters. So make your choice, stop taking their money and they will cease to be your problem. Be angry ... but move on.
fuck'em
He has little patience for articles that start with "How to" and never actually say how to.