skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I grew up in Newport, and the numerous non-rich people driving cars around might fool you...

That said, it looks like Volkswagons and Volvos tend to be the cars of choice among the wealthier. Not Ferraris, sure, but a step above the Toyota.
Good question. Perhaps trolling and hostile (or at least "uncivil") comments are better dealt with by different methods than spamming and irrelevant submissions?

Their motivations are probably different, at least, and comments are moderated by other people interested enough to read a particular thread's comments, while front page posts affect everyone equally.
My friend Laura's dad had LASIK in both eyes; one eye was made perfect and one eye went blind. Another friend had PRK in both eyes with no ill effects. Just two anecdotes for you to make your decision.
Comcast deserves some praise for this. They could have just continued with a stealth limit and let their customers ignore it but by placing an explicit 250 GB limit, they are offering more information to the customer and helping the customers make a more informed decision.
Dammned if you do, dammned if you don't
While the cap is very generous for the majority of internet users in the US, I can't help but feel this takes us back to the days of pay-per-min dial up. Usage based pricing is not a bad thing, especially considering the increasing range of internet users, but from a consumer's point of view, this feels like a step backwards. Also now that I see $50/mo for 250GB, I really see $50/250GB, therefore, I have the urge to 'use up' my quota.

While I've never had horrible internet service with comcast, I've almost always had bad customer service experiences with them. They hire awful people to answer their phone lines, and I always feel like the person on the other side does not understand anything that I say.

Ultimately, this lies in Comcast's best interest for customers to use their cable VOD services as opposed to online streaming services. Their profit margins on a $5 movie that you stream off their servers to your cable box is much much higher than you streaming a movie off netflix using their internet connection.
Frameworks are not equivalent to abstractions. Frameworks are prepackaged abstractions - that is, a proper subset of all abstractions. If you can make better abstractions than those used by a framework, you might advocate not using that framework because you understand the value of (good) abstraction.
You may think 250 GB is generous... today.
How long ago was it that people were happy to get 56k modems in their homes?

Its obvious we keep consuming more bandwidth, more disk space. 250GB of bandwidth is good enough for anyone is like that quote "no one will ever use more than 640k of RAM." It may be valid today, but not tomorrow.
I agree. I for one don't insist on having democracy here. If some other system provides better overall quality, it's fine for me.
Do you think he is wrong? His description of the issue is consistent with Microsofts own: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/27/introducing-comp...
Excellent write up!

One point I would add: Options do expire, and at least where I work, the expiration is tied to when you leave the company. So, if I quit, I have 60 days to exercise my (vested) options. In plain terms, that means I have 60 days to buy the stock at strike price set in the options agreement. Until I read the agreement, I didn't realize that to make use of the stock options, I would have to spend my own money to buy the stock.

I suppose this is obvious to anyone in the know, but for a first-timer like me, it took a little time to wrap my mind around. I just thought stock options were like coupons I could turn in for gold coins or something :)
I love the game and love the idea. The only issue I have had thus far is pulling off combos. Not sure if I am just too slow or if something about the keyboard is prohibiting me from moving from note to note fast enough. Has anyone else had this problem?

What would be really interesting is if you could build this into a facebook app.
The "catch" being: "Zeep Mobile supports this service by attaching 40-character teaser advertisements to each message sent to your users' mobile phones. Your users have the option to respond with the appropriate trigger word to receive more information about the advertisement."

I'm not sure what this has over http://www.textmarks.com/ -- which seems more flexible and has been recommended here (mind you, I haven't used TM so maybe they send out ads too -- but there seems to be nearly 1000 apps running of TM already).
Mathematically Interesting Games
The Thousand Best Popular Science Books
I propose: The first rule of Hacker News is you don't talk about Hacker News.

Maybe I'm alone in not finding a lot of value in meta-discussion unless pg initiates it, though, because I see the parent post has quite a few points.
Well, of course, standard venture model option grant percentages do not make sense in case of a small exit ($50M) which takes 4 years. They are designed for an exit of 5 to 10 times the size. So, if you are setting up an options pool, you should account for target exit size and time. Incidentally, the interests of full salary employees with stock options are much more closely aligned with those of VCs than founders.

In Silicon Valley as an experienced engineer working for a startup you should be getting about $150k/year + stock options. Some startups will have good exits. Expected total return per year is about $300k/year long term. But you are forced to save 1/2 of your compensation, and get tax advantages -- both good. And you get to play the become-really-rich-on-stock-options lottery. If you are hiring engineers here the packages should somehow be competitive with that.
I have heard good things about optionsXpress.com from a software developer turned quant.

But this is probably not Hacker News.
Sorry about that, you are probably right. I have no idea what is out there that is why I left sort of vague.

Something like traffic cams near me or gas stations near me.
250 gigabytes is about sixty DVD-quality movies. That's two a day. I'd think you would run out of movies worth watching pretty fast at that rate.
This seems like an ok entry, but are they planning on having lower requirements on different account levels?

Alright, so almost all of of us know how much Bandwidth costs. Amazon as low as 10 cents per GB when you are over 250GB. They are going to charge $15 per 10 GB this is ridiculous.

This all seems like it could only get worse.
Good point. Although the doctor is still important because they're the ones controlling the machine and other details of the surgery, but the main point is that the machine is the most critical part. Find a place that uses the latest technology, not one that's using a 10 year old machine because they don't want to pay the money to upgrade.
Man, I am so pumped for when Picwing gets out of "beta" (if you can call it that) and the price is lowered, more frames are added, etc.

I will be on this so fast because with myself out of the house, and my young brother going in 1-2 years it's the perfect gift for my mom.

Good job you guys, I hope everything works out for you!
Really? I think that's the one I hear most often.
It's a balance thing. A lot of startup founders get into bad habits--all-nighters because they've just gotta launch that new feature (which they rush into production, it breaks everything, and then they have to stay up even longer to roll it back, or fix the problems), eating nothing but ramen and cheap takeout, because they imagine cooking takes too long (though I've found making simple meals at home is more time-effective, generally), etc. Everything takes a back seat to working, which I think is counter-productive. You can't sustain that kind of thing, and when you burn out, you'll burn out hard. If you don't sell the company within the "candle at both ends" phase (however long you can maintain that), you'll hit a brick wall and slow to a crawl for a while (you'll also probably look back on your code and wonder WTF you were thinking).

In short, I agree. You probably should view having your own company as an opportunity to live right, rather than an excuse to live terribly. Maximizing health and happiness is probably not a bad way to work towards success, as long as "happiness" does not involve lots of vacations and living beyond your (probably very limited) means.
Wow, another movie i will totally NOT watch. There is a reason why non of my top 5 favorite movies is made during my lifetime.
Remote control a crane robot
What would be wrong with tiered pricing?

Shouldn't a service be priced to reflect usage?
This is nonsense. Yes, Microsoft is acknowledging that most intranet sites aren't properly configured to work with all browsers/standard compliant. But that hardly means they're breaking the promise to make IE render web pages in standards mode. This is probably the best solution to the broken intranet sites issue anyone could have come up with.

And the whining about the icon is truly ridiculous. The logic for Microsoft's choice is obvious: "Does the site look broken to you? Click on the broken page button."
This movie could actually be really interesting, especially if it can rise above the story of Facebook and tell the "real" story of the backdoor power circuit behind silicon valley.
What would be wrong with tiered pricing?

Morally, nothing. Business-wise, it's stupid, because a fiber provider (Verizon) will kick your ass, as their per-byte last-mile maintenance costs are a magnitude lower than with cable.
It's fine to use a framework, just make sure that ideally it's a framework you wrote yourself.

The worrying thing is programmers who learn a 'framework' instead of the language - eg prototype instead of javascript.
Ask Yc: What is your Favorite Keyboard?
Let's get right to the point. What is your Favorite Keyboard?
Then won't marketplace competition ensure bandwidth-capping nightmare scenarios never come to pass?
Sad.

I'm Swedish and we get un-metered 24mbit up/down for $40/month. Many of my friends have 100mbit down at home. A large chunk of the population also have 5mbit usb-cards of over 3G network in their laptops. You can get it for $30/month.

The crappy Internet infrastructure in the US is one of those things that I really don't understand. What is the reason for this? Failure of market forces?

- Gustaf
I agree. I think dzone is an example of downmod gone bad as well. There's so many people who prefer technology X as opposed to Y that they downmod Y into oblivion all the time. It's made the index pretty much useless to me.
BrowseGoods - an innovative shopping UI
Proto buffers, static interfaces
Where can one get 7% risk free return?
IE 8 what's new: accelerators, web slice
Even if you restrict yourself to true information, there is still a ton of space to manipulate stock prices. A good writer can make a company look brilliant or like a loser using the same set of true facts.
FIOS will kill comcast by giving people more bandwidth then they currently need, would use, or even notice? I'm a pretty hardcore downloader and don't see any reason I need more bandwidth today. It is not going to kill comcast that a few nerds think FIOS is "sweet". Its a great and reliable product for me.
SICP is a great book to learn some neat programming from, but it wasn't really a classic text in the same sense as the rest of the list, which is mostly original work or something close to it.

Personally, I think surveys of a field like Russel/Norvig's AI textbook, SICP, or CLRS are more worthwhile to spend time reading compared to original literature.
Hardware of the casual gamer
Tech Making Traditional VCs Obsolete
my fav: searchyc.com

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=185743

My real fav: the keyboards on apple and toshiba laptops, just cause that's what i'm used to. And the latest gen Apple wired KB
"Classic", surely?
He seems to argue that you can build a more robust application from the ground up. In my limited experience it's the hand rolled applications that are and out hand and unstable. A major advantage of a good framework is that it does force you to stick to it's conventions which typically follow best practices.

As for the barrier of entry I found that learning a framework is like learning a new programming language to a certain extent and to really take full advantage of the framework you need to know the underlying language as well. It seems the barrier of entry is actually raised by frameworks.
One without someone else's food crumbs and skin flakes in it.

One that's designed to be washed in the dishwasher.
That's absolutely horrible, since Google indexes individual replies here and often times you end up clicking 10 links that all belong to one post.
I think pg's solution is to ignore what you don't like:

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

He's talking about "inappropriate for the site" submissions, not "poor quality" submissions - but I think the same reasoning applies.

Perhaps the solution isn't a downmod button, but for the community to change its response? To ignore bad submissions instead of commenting on how bad they are. Commenting just draws attention to the submission and contributes to the problem.

I think there's a deeper philosophy here, that it would be worth hearing more about...
A twat.
Do you remember exact name of the procedure ?

Was there a healing period or did it just go straight to
better than 20/20 ?

Did you have dry eyes at all ?

Just curious about the details. Tia.
I'm no fitness buff but doing push-ups doesn't strike me as the thing for losing weight.

Push-ups are also horribly unergonomic - just see how guys in the video are arching their backs. Better to go to the gym and use a machine that isolates the excercise to the exact muscles you want while not straining unrelated muscles and joints in evil ways.
XpressMedia Phones Nokia N85 And Nokia N79
Nokia N85 is a quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS dual slider, inspired by the controversial design of the Nokia N81. It’s also got HSDPA support to improve network data transfer speed even further.
Congrats to the picwing team for a great widget. It's really well done! They're a super talented team, and it's rare to get together people that can just really kick ass on both hardware and software.

Also, not all of those photos are mine, so I can't take 100% credit ;-)
"Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful
Just Joined. Bruno
Just a data point: in Belgium I pay 57 euro (about 83 USD) per month for a 60 GB limit - which used to be 30 GB until last month. I was buying extra bandwidth at 1 euro/GB most months, but the 60 GB limit seems just about okay now.
This is no doubt due to the stranglehold ex-monopolyholder Skynet (yup...) has on the ADSL market here in Belgium. Small markets suck.
Posh Facebook conference canceled
Ask News.YC Mac users: How's Picturesync?
Mac users: Have any of you tried Picturesync? How did you like it? If it's a good product I want to add support for its Mediasock API to OurDoings.”
There are 3 copies available on ABE:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Stephenson&...
Unit testing is doomed when it’s an elephant
I was born with congenital cataracts and have had several operations on my eyes. My vision is around 20/30 with contacts, but I'm legally blind without them (20/400).

I know my condition isn't quite the same as yours, but here's some advice:

1. Do not get surgery unless it is absolutely essential. If you're only mildly nearsighted, then stick with glasses. Your eyes are very intricate, and any amount of surgery is going to do additional damage.

2. Sending time on the computer, even 18 hours a day (as I sometimes do), won't have major long-term impact on your vision. I specifically asked my doctor about this in May when I went in for a new contact prescription. Time on the computer will make your eyes tired, but that's all. Just take a break and you'll be fine.

Keep in mind I am not a doctor, and you should consult your own ophthalmologist.
You could always wait another 5 years, right? I would suggest consulting with an eye doctor and surgeon and figure out if you can get the results you want right now or if it will require waiting for a few years.
10 Weblog Engines Reviewed
Proto buff ported to C#: builders are mutable,  messages immutable
Stop Those XSS Cookie Bandits iRule Style
Agreed - my parents and grandparents would love it. In fact once they get the shipping time down I think price isn't even that big of a deal to a lot of consumers. If my dad could put it in my grandma's living room next week he'd definitely pay $250.
It probably breaches the terms of service which wouldn't make it illegal but it would be a civil offence. They could probably sue you for damages or loss of income (due to loss of legitimate traffic) or some such.
The beauty of memcached is that it isn't on steroids. It just works, and works well from VPS-running-rails-side-project scale all the way up to multi-datacenter-Facebook-platform scale.

You can't push intelligence into your memcached tier because it's all spine, no brain. Exactly how I want my cache to be.
You have an "'unlimited' line" from Comcast? Did you get that in writing, because their website doesn't seem to indicate anywhere that it's unlimited. In fact, in the first 5 pages of google results, the only time Comcast uses the term unlimited with their internet service is to say "High-speed bandwidth and network resources are not unlimited." (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&..., http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?ID=4567).

In fact, it's impossible to be unlimited since that would imply infinite bandwidth per second. Once it isn't infinite bandwidth per second, you can interpret "unlimited" in a number of ways. You want it to be unlimited in terms of bandwidth transfer. Comcast could argue (if they ever used the term unlimited) that it is referring to how long you are allowed to be online and not how much you can transfer.

There are lots of legal things that cost money. Running your computer 24/7 costs more money (in electricity) than running it 8 hours a day. Go yell at the electric company! This isn't a matter of legality vs. illegality or proper use vs. improper use. The fact is that resources (whether it be bandwidth, electricity, or food) is limited. With bandwidth, it's easy to accommodate heavy users which is awesome (unlike electricity and food which generally scale up linearly in costs). That's great! It doesn't make bandwidth magic and there are still limitations. Yeah, limitations suck whether it be the fact that bandwidth needs some sort of metering or the fact that I can't transport myself across the country Star-Trek style. To be successful, one needs to understand, accept, and work within limitations to create and act in ways that work.
I use etrade and have been very happy with them.
I actually think that in some ways having a sucky post on the homepage can be a good thing. For a newer developer reading the comments of their peers and heroes smack down a turd like the "real programmers" post is a good thing.

If a terrible idea/post/rant makes it on to the frontpage there are obviously some people that need the wisdom of this crowd to set them straight.

I love that HN is about positive energy. We don't downmod we explain why something shouldn't be upmodded any more.
I thought we weren't supposed to have religious or political content on HN. :-)
Sweet, I just joined giveme27.com after reading this. Haven't done push-ups for a few weeks, but I saw that the site's high scorers were only at 60 and 40. Couldn't quite hit the #1 myself, but seeing others' numbers certainly motivated me to try harder too!

Really, it's all about balance if you're running a startup, a regular business, or working a 9-5. We all need something to create/maintain/release some energy besides sitting in front of a computer, and it definitely gives you more energy overall.

My personal fave is mountain biking, and I'm looking to get back into kickboxing in the fall (maybe now that I've said so publicly I'll be more motivated not to poop out on that statement ;)

Joining a recreational sports team is another good option, plus you get out and meet/hang out with people that way, which can be tough when you're in startup mode.

Here's an idea: YC ought to try a sports night where the startup founders all get together and play a bit...
Absolutely agree. My health has gotten quite a bit better since I started my own business.
Yeah, you technically need money to buy options, but in most cases you're buying the stock only to immediately sell it again at its current (higher) value. If there's no buyer for your stock you can probably safely let them go, since the market (private as it may be) has determined they're worth nothing.
you know whats funny? I am actually now in better shape than what I was in when I started. Part of it is that, thanks to doing the startup I learned to multitask. And its fairly easy to get in shape if you multitask, we all need a break, so during the 1 hour I spend watching TV I also work out.

And I actually recommended that 100 push ups challenge(I'm up to 65 full fledged pushups, by which I mean you go all the way down hold, then go all the way up and hold), it really helps to get you into shape by getting you into the whole mindset towards working out. + its a huge confidence builder
It's different. Though I can't really tell if it's "different good", or "different ridiculous".

The typical "online store" has such a long and boring history on the web. I'm inclined to like anything new in this arena.
How To Use Videos To Improve Your E-Commerce Conversions
But maybe Comcast's intent is to get people used to the idea of a cap. Today it is 250G - what's to say it might not be 150G in 2 years and 50G base in 5 years time and you pay for anything over and above. At that time there won't be such an outcry since the 'unlimited' concept would have become history.
Population density and a free market.
There was nothing offensive or harmful in Dijkstra's original article about the go-to statement; on the contrary, it was brilliant and for many people (including me) communicated a deep and lasting insight in a flash.
If money isn't the problem, just get a regular wifi frame now and get a Picwing later.

http://bountii.com/search.php?item=SPF-83V
11. Users.
"There are those cases where such essays are written because the author enjoys grandstanding, and knows that use of the "considered harmful" format will get them noticed. A piece of this type is usually so over the top that it is easy to spot. For example, a piece titled "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful" would very likely be a case of using the "considered harmful" format to draw attention for its own sake. We will ignore such essays in this commentary."

The essay will ignore itself?
I'm not a veteran, but in High School I did attend a summer program at the Coast Guard academy that was aimed at Juniors who wanted to become engineers.
The USCG is tough. The academy (I know, you're entering as a reservist, not active duty, but the concept holds) prides themselves on being militarily the toughest of all the academies. Since a large percentage of the kids in the program applied to the Academy later, they always put you through one day in the life of a 'swab' (freshman cadet) and it ain't easy. I didn't enter the Guard, but did go to Merchant Marine school after that and it was cake compared to what New London would have been.

Being a Coastie looks like a rewarding, challenging life, but it ain't gonna be easy!