skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Knol? Knoll?

Will there be any confusion with Knoll, the 80 year-old internationally recognized and respected design institution?
Nice to know I am not the only one that thinks he sounds like a sociopath.
In other news, knol.com seems awfully slow today.
Finding New Memory Structures at HP Labs
I like your categorisation of wedding photographers under "fear" - thats exactly what it is. I know from experience, your wedding photos will only serve as a source of embarrasment for many many years in the future. they only real value is for future generations to have a chuckle.
>People are paid exactly as much as they are worth to their employer.

Or is it as much as they can "charge" their employer?
I didn't realise it worked like that. Perhaps that is the problem, its the common perception rather then the reality.
Ask HN: Are Frameworks the Way to Go?
As both languages are new to me, I completed tutorials, scanned through a couple of books on the Safari Books Online site regarding both Ruby and Python (day job is .NET work). Though both were nice, I enjoyed Python a little more.

I have an idea for a website that I think may be able to help folks out a bit, it could be considered a startup I suppose, but ultimately I am aiming to gain ‘real’ experience in the language that may be applicable in becoming a developer for a startup.

Which leads me to my questions, are frameworks ultimately the way to go and are most startups using frameworks? Also, both django and pylons are both appealing; I won’t ask a broad question like which one is better, but simply ask for any advice for selecting one instead of the other (or another one that I may have overlooked)?

Thanks.
Wont it be more like a blog then? Except ofcourse worrying about how to get traffic
Our Newest Portfolio Company: Meetup
I'm saying that with your definition of "walking away" (can stop giving a shit and the income still comes steady forever), not even people who do sell their company can walk away. All they're doing is shifting from a business that they love and have poured their hearts into (their startup) to one which they may well hate and which they may know nothing about (investment management).

Both require attention to thrive.
Shuttleworth: Make Desktop Linux Better than Apple
what... the ones with VB code samples seem more legit? WTF isn't worth time
(excuse my ignorance but..) did heavy unionisation happen in the US motor industry?
Neil Young takes on the iPod
It's surprisingly frustrating to see "more that 25 million" in an online encyclopedia and not be able to fix the typo.
Tux3, a Versioning Filesystem for Linux
If you like Python, you might want to consider web.py too:
http://webpy.org/
The tallest building on Sand Hill Road is 4-5 stories. Most are 2-3 and some folks have offices on the first floor.
I think part of the issue is that so many people think that photography is easy, just because digital cameras these days are so capable.

The reality is that even excluding the pressure associated with photographing something that may well be a once-in-a-lifetime event for the couple who hired you, good photography requires skill, talent, and experience.
Definitely will, thanks!
Cloud versus cloud: A guided tour of Amazon, Google, AppNexus, and GoGrid
He should have said that you'd be stupid to hire a mediocre wedding photographer instead of a good one.

The catch is that the good ones charge more than the mediocre ones, who shouldn't get paid at all.
It all depends on what you're trying to build.

If your application fits well into (e.g.) Drupal or Wordpress it might not make sense to reinvent those wheels.

If you're mostly trying to educate yourself Ruby or Python will be great. Building tiny sites or individual modules without a framework is educational, but, yes, generally people gravitate toward frameworks or modular systems once they need productivity.
Yeah. That's the problem I have with Google. They have functionality that's second-to-none, but they have no taste for visuals. I'm debating moving entirely over to MobileMe for email, for instance, forsaking lack of tabs for the sake of not hating my screen when Gmail's showing. (I also find it funny that Google-leaving founders have the same taste: FriendFeed's visual update is one of the few updates that was noticeably a step backwards.)

And for the love of God, you're right. That is embarrassing logo if I ever saw one. Writing the message out in plaintext, the logo itself, and the miniature scaling... I was hoping Knol could actually look BETTER than Wikipedia, and this is not looking good.
um, yes.
You answered your own question when you said, "both languages are new to me".

Then you should not be using a framework just yet.

Sure, a framework may speed your app along, but at what cost? At this point, you should be more concerned with getting a solid grounding in your technology of choice. That means coding as close to native mode as possible.

Once you have spent time "in the trenches" and even "suffered" a little, you'll have a much clearer picture of exactly why you may need a framework. Then you'll be in a much better position to evaluate which one is best for you.

In the meantime, have as much fun as you can.
Yeah, Google needs to add some kind of benefit that you can't get from just posting an article on your blog. The real name verification is interesting but hardly compelling.
Maybe Wikipedia can compete by giving you a free Tufte quote with every edit.
Something like this happened at a company I used to work for. Morale there is quite low, now... after the 3rd round of layoffs.
A standard ING account is at 4% right now. on $5M, that's $200K.

What exactly do you have to manage again?
The actual report is here: http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/soups/2008/proceedings/p117Falk.pdf

I wonder what sort of attack they had in mind to exploit the fact that contact information and security advice was on an insecure page? A man in the middle attack is what came to my mind, but it is early, and I may be missing something obvious. I skimmed the paper, but didn't see any specifics.

I'd think BofA were a lot cooler if they gave me the option to upload a PGP key, and then used it to encrypt any emails that they send my way. It'd solve the snooping email server admin problem, and, assuming that they signed their messages and kept their private key safe, would make it a lot easier to spot phishing. I guess there's not enough demand for that, though.
Inflation: Another Reason To Launch Your Start-Up Now:
Great service, I love it! I'm surely going to use it next time I'm looking for a show. I don't know all the places where I live so the map is important.

I agree the UI needs some work to make it look more calm generally. I guess colours are a matter of taste but the alignment of UI widgets is terrible right now (Firefox on Mac).

What I'd like to see changed is the genre list. It's much too detailed. Particularly because I can make only one choice at a time. Most people will want all rock and pop or all latin music, etc. It doesn't make sense to have more than, say, 5 genres. If you don't want to cut them down that much you should allow users to make multiple selections at a time.

The date filter should read "today", "tomorrow", "select from calendar".

I know that's going to be controversial, but I really like layouts that use the entire screen real estate and don't make me scroll. Can you put the ads vertically along the right or left border?

When I search for shows at a different location, the previously selected show (the one at the top) isn't removed as it should be.

As I said, I really like that service and I wish you a lot of success with it!
Oldest Bible (4th Century New Testament) Pieced Together, to be Made Available Online
There's always at least one person that will say, "give them food or water instead", and another saying, "how will this prepare them for the future? the OLPC's GUI is nothing like Windows, Mac or Linux. How can they get a job working with computers??"

Maybe that isn't a lot of trash talk, but it quickly gets annoying and old.
There's a school of libertarianism that doesn't derive its conclusions from property rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialist_libertarianism
People are already willing to pay facebook to give a "panties" icon to another member of facebook--I don't think it is nearly the stretch you are claiming it is that they might also be willing to pay for apps.
Sarah Lacy Gets It | My Philly Network
Well, if it's not a very serious project, why not try using something you've never used before. Side projects are great opportunities to learn and grow as a developer, so my advice is to not let unfamiliarity of a language hold you back.

That said, I agree that frameworks are not a silver bullet by any means. There are many problems where frameworks are appropriate, and there are many where they aren't
Yeah this list is pretty old -- it doesn't have 'social media consultants'.
Java is not Object Oriented
Pulling The Lever On Social Media | My Philly Network
I think the niche for these tiny PCs is for embedded controllers... which don't need a keyboard or monitor. Although I'd guess for long-term battery operation (eg in remote applications), 5W is much too power-hungry.

Incidentally, I'm typing this on a eee PC, which has 4GB of flash for storage... also, it runs at 600MHz (slightly faster than the 500 in the article), and webrowsing is (mostly) fine.
Somebody should run diff on that...
Google Public Policy Blog: What if you could own your Internet connection?
> I hope you're not implying that kids have the same failure rates as startup companies.

Of course not. We've been making startup humans for a lot longer than we've been making startup companies. So it's no surprise that we're better at it. (Still room for improvement though IMHO.)
"... One day while bored I fished out some of the best startup links from my Delicious bookmarks and put them on there. When I went to put an introduction to it that quote popped into my head. Hope you don't mind ..."

Cited.
Thanks, Luke! I am subscribed to the RSS feed with radius search now. Too bad I can't actually leave my Fortune 100 job for a few more months...
I am one of those weird people that can remember where I put files.

I would have a hard time remembering when I put files so I am not sure I would like that interface.
So it worked out just super !
Why would he leave at the zenith of Xobni? What is a year or two more? Would you leave -- even if you had aspirations of doing your own startp?
Too bad - I was thinking New York style, were presumably it could take a couple of minutes to get to the top.

For a 4 stories building, I would suggest taking the stairs. One more incentive to stay fit, so that you are not too out of breath to pitch while climbing the stairs.
Cisco to buy home-network software vendor for $120M
Entertain users with your progress bar
There are many things about this project that don't make any sense, as others have commented; it is not a wiki, does not compete with Wikipedia, seems to stand alone from other Google products in terms of design and yet they still haven't changed the name even after the owner of knol.com refused to sell.

One of the things that I like about Wikipedia is that I can just hand craft a /wiki/Title URL - Knol's URLs are obfuscated behind strange ID's and author's names. Do they not consider these things?

On a similar topic, I'll never understand why they decided to shelve Google Answers - there could have been a great synergy between that community and a wiki.

Knol will fail simply because it does not beat Wikipedia in any respect.

Was this born from a 20% side project by any chance? I can imagine some executive sitting behind his desk thinking "we need to buy wikipedia, but we can't.. so anyway, this knol thing looks close enough.. let's promote it to production".
The trouble is, cheap central bank credit also led to the Great Depression and the 1970's stagflation, yet no one seems to learn the lesson. Perhaps that's why Austrians tend to sound like a broken record. I think the reason no one learns the lesson is that cheap credit is just too tempting for politicians ( and the people that vote for them). It seems like a free lunch - until the malinvestment piles up and the credit pyramid starts to topple.

Also, I'd note that Austrians tend to be much more knowledgeable of "mainstream" economics than mainstream economists are of Austrian economics ( see http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/04/austrian-economics.ht... and http://www.slate.com/id/9593, the latter article by Paul Krugman shows a stunning ignorance of what the Austrians are saying ).

The three biggest economic issues today are:
1) the stagnation of the American standard living since 1970
2) the massive trade deficit and the hollowing of the American economy
3) the financial crisis

All three of these problems are related to fiat currency, maturity mismatching, and inflationary policies by various banks. That's why I think the Austrians, while not perfect, are much closer to the truth than the other economic schools.
Well, yeah, that is a particularly negative way of stating it, but mostly true. Most people favor political ideologies that favor them.

(e.g. those who identify with those who are unable to earn much tend to prefer more collectivist ideologies, and to call tallent luck, while those who identify with people who earn a lot tend to support more individualist ideologies, and call luck tallent.)

I think it is somewhat self-reinforcing, a person who believes that it is all a roll of the dice is less likely to put as much effort into self-improvement than someone who doesn't believe in luck.

But then, I don't believe in luck.

A religious friend has suggested that this is because I'm just lucky :)
I've wanted to build a workplace where people can be creative, productive, and happy, and a product that delights users and improves their lives. I feel like the time is now.

Pretty canned response. I'd like to hear the real reasons as well.
I missed the cartoons bit. Where can I access the cartoons collection of the New Yorker magazine?

I am totally just going ratings whore on those knols. If a nice cartoons makes users rate my knols higher, that's fine by me - whatever. It is simply a game Google forces me to play to increase the search rank of my web sites.
"... SysAdmins often have less formal education than Developers, so some of this was just that I 'got lucky' - but I do know many others who have done ok without formal education. ..."

You could argue SysAdmins with "a bit" of training make high quality developers. Of the best developers I know a lot are from the SysAdmin tree. The one downside of back room work though is it is just ripe for outsourcing. Narrow focus has it's own evolutionary disadvantages and it is "our" doing. This is one thing Phil Greenspun mentioned in JL's "Founders" and another reason startups kick-ass - outsource the management not the engineering.
Maybe he would have liked to sell to Microsoft.
I think the more interesting part of this story is to delve into Brad Burnham’s musings on Web meets World. Especially his quoting of Tim O’Reilly: “We can post and comment and tweet and tag and follow all we want in cyberspace; but if it ultimately doesn’t change anything in real space, we haven’t really accomplished anything.”
It is simply a game Google forces me to play to increase the search rank of my web sites.

Can you expand on that?
I don't think that the problem with changing careers has to do so much with paying for college as it does with paying your bills while you change careers.
Actually your every day pew bibles usually already have small footnotes explaining where some translations or manuscripts differ, like "the earliest manuscripts do not have the following verses" or "some translations also add blah"

if actually interested, the article does mention where one such difference is found.
What, exactly, do you think biblical textual scholars spend their time doing? This isn't something newly discovered; it's been studied for decades. It's incorporated into the Nestle-Aland critical text, which most modern translations use.
I assume that links from Knols will factor quite well into the search rank, at least if they also have good ratings. Therefore to compete with other sites on the same subject as my web site, I will have to create a knol with good ratings linking to my site.

Of course the professional SEOs will also fake the ratings by creating their own voting networks and so on. We will see...
It seems that there is some kind of conflict in between. I see no other reason for somebody to leave. Maybe hiring somebody from yahoo as "adult supervision" was not such a great idea. Who knows?

Ps. I'd love to hear more on what happened. Maybe in few months, after his trip, Gabor will write some more about this, and the real reasons he left. Maybe we can all learn some more from his experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16 has more detail. Suffice to say that this isn't remotely a new development.
Whatever the reasons, good for him (and it is very likely that he already owns some equity so he gains even if xobni gets bought out later though not so much).
Can I get a hookup too? I've been looking for decent online storage site all week long. hdehal at gmail.
I'd love to hear more on what happened

Wouldn't we all?

But I suspect all these people have too much class to give us the real dish.
So You want to be a Programmer?
Is Google's Proprietary Tech Stack Destroying Its Acquisitions?
Mass Reorg at Microsoft Platforms & Services Division
F8: fbFund Winners
Google does see them a threat ever since the Wiki project founders started work on an open search engine: http://re.search.wikia.com/index.html
F8: Great Apps, No Crap
An anecdote is not a trend.
I'm a libertarian because I appreciate how order can develop in seemingly chaotic systems without central control. In human history, this organic order has been shown to provide the best incentives for progress. It causes life to improve for the most people at the fastest rate.

Also, I enjoy living in a free and prosperous society, I want my future children to live in a free and prosperous society, and I think the organic order of the market, which is a product of freedom itself, is the most likely organization of society to preserve freedom and prosperity.

All the alternatives to the market that have been tried throughout history are versions of Plato's philosopher-king. Whether leaders are elected or chosen by birth, the idea is that society needs a few wise people to have more power than everybody else in order to guide the rest. The arguments for a philosopher-king are simple and straight-forward, so many people advocate the idea. However, although arguments for the market are more subtle, I believe evidence and logic shows that the organic order it produces is better for society than order imposed by a philosopher-king. Bottom-up is better than top-down.

I'm not particularly successful, although I guess I am of above-average competence and have a fair chance at success. I resent the implication that I hold the ideas I do for solely self-serving reasons. I don't accuse the billionaire leftists I know of being self-serving.
You aren't giving elevator pitches for these products; you're giving the one sentence description the NYTimes would use to describe these products to my grandmother. Your sentences accurately describe what these products -are-, but they wouldn't inspire an investor to believe that they were multi-billion dollar opportunities.

Facebook - When Thiel invested in Facebook, the prototypical social network was Friendster, a massive failure. Facebook wasn't the first or the only social network for college students. What made it different from the competition? That's a more interesting question, and one that isn't easily answered in an elevator pitch, not today and not in 2004 when it was first funded.

iPhone - Let's go back to the iPod then. In the words of Slashdot's CmdrTaco when the iPod first launched: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." Barring a prototype, how do you describe to an investor what makes the iPod different? My best attempts would fall flat: "You see, it has this little wheel..." Now we understand what the Nomad --> iPod jump is (innovative technology giving much better usability). Now we can spread hype in anticipation of the Palm/WindowsMobile/Blackberry --> iPhone jump. Now we trust that Apple is able to deliver on this hype. But who would have thought all this was possible in the years before the iPod?
Learning exercise, swoon the opposite sex, personal interest. In order of prevalence.
Of b-schools, scores and scandal
Apologies in advance for the snark but let me paraphrase:

"It's not necessary to give your startup your complete attention to run it. I treated my shareware business as a part time job. Mind you, other companies that could focus attention on their competing products drove me out of business."

Did I get that right?
How We Built a Web Hosting Infrastructure on EC2
Be Your Own Guru
The thalia.org Humor Archives: Computers
In accordance with Godwin's Law, I hereby declare this subthread dead.
"... Even in situations where we’re learning to do something – say hang-gliding or building a campfire – it can be helpful to surrender authority to the teacher. Certainly in their area of expertise, and for the duration of the lesson, the teacher is the master.

Where it gets tricky is when we assume that our protector’s expertise in one area makes him or her, somehow, better than us in all in all things. The Outward Bound leader knows how to build a fire and eat nettles – so in the context of the wilderness, he’s certainly got a leg up on you. But does this mean the little life lessons and platitudes he drops on you during difficult moments on the trail are universally valid teachings? ..."

The crux of the article. Back to work.
> Far too many people go to college.

I am convinced that many people go to college only to become employable, not because they have any academic interest to pursue.

If a high school diploma actually meant that you could read and write and multiply and divide, then maybe there wouldn't be as many jobs out there requiring college degrees when all they really need are the skills you should have learned in high school.
i would rather have a different way to point out this typo, but, alas, i could not locate your email, pg. "to good to be true" -> "too good to be true"
Fox News Fake Product Placement
"... Small Screen UI Startuply didn’t “degrade gracefully” to fit smaller/lower resolution monitors and windows. It’s not OK for people using 1024×768 to have to scroll to see the whole screen, so we’ve pushed out a UI update. ..."

Luke how many are running <= 1024x768? is it a function of the job-seeking market? I would have thought 1024 monitor users would be a minority.
They're both best, best doesn't have to be unique
Er. No, then it's not best, but I have no idea where this is coming from. This has nothing to do with whether or not you know it's the best or not
"... Just because the cream of the crop get paid well, doesn't mean the entire industry is overpaid ..."

There is also a perception Pilots get paid for flying instead of training, training, training to avoid crashing. In my view they don't get paid enough.
I was looking for this; thanks.
It looks like a Squidoo clone to me, more than an About.com or Wikipedia clone.
"... . Because pilots are evaluated by their performance in super stressful situations that require quick thinking, combat is valued ..."

And the aptitude and training to deal with catastrophic failure. Why is it we demand the "best surgeons" to operate on individuals but not the "best aviators" where many lives are at risk?