skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ok, but Google didn't just start a search engine to compete with Lycos. They struck oil with a new approach to search.

It's hard to say "any argument that proves it was a bad idea to start Excite" because, you know, Ferraris and hookers and coke and all that. A great idea.

But if you're taking on Microsoft, Google and Adobe, you'd better have an awesome idea, and you probably don't need the "this is a good market" encouragement.

My point is that you're both taking cheap shots.
I'm sorry but most of those ideas seemed pretty lame... come on now ...
How is that anything other than a superficial cheap shot? I don't like to use Windows, but I respect the work that goes into securing it.
free lunch to the person that actually gets what they do. my guess:

-something like avenue a/ razorfish. a digital agency
i can think of some reasons. if you could compromise a macosx machine, your trojan wouldn't have to fight for internet bandwidth and cpu time against all the other installed trojans, as is the case on a windows box. i've heard that there are windows trojans that seek out and disable antivirus programs: well, there's no need for that on a macosx box, because mac users never install antivirus programs. and so on.

in other words, there are all the same good reasons as going into any new field with few or no competitors.
I run my own server for a hobby project and it goes down as frequently as S3 for various reasons.
Miss Nevada 2008 Juliana Erdesz Going to Miss America
I didn't know it was deprecated, but I know people still use it. Especially in casual conversation between non-geeks. I hear it all the time. "Oh, I got the CD to get on to the internet at Double-U Double-U Double-U Dot AOL Dot com"

That last part was a joke, but people still use it.
Trojans disable antivirus programs as an F-U to antivirus vendors. There are two kinds of malware authors: the people who do it for fun, and see themselves in competition with the security vendors, and the people who do it for money.

The people who do it for money couldn't give 2 shits about any of this. But they're supplied by a market of malware arms dealers who are in feature-for-feature competition with each other.

As for the bandwidth thing, that just doesn't make any sense. Everything is in competition for bandwidth with everything else.
that's pretty rich, coming from the MASTER of cheap shots. you can't tell people that their arguments are "absolute nonsense" and expect to have a nice, reasonable conversation with them.

your posting history indicates you might have something interesting to contribute, but you really need to work on your manners.
This essay is bullshit, the author doesn't understand anything he is talking about to the point of absurdity (allocating objects on the stack takes 0 time???) and he largely repeats the common-knowledge on slashdot, as geniuses like this are so often caught doing.
I don't care how the argument was put. I just care that it's wrong.
no, they disable antivirus programs so that those programs won't eradicate them.

you tend to turn any conversation you're in into a flamewar, so that's the last i'm going to say about it.
Somebody needs to point the mob in the right direction.
All that voting could become tiresome, though.
Nobody reigns forever. Rome falls. The advantages of being small and agile can't be understated.
Nice list. We've got #8 and #9 covered, including the part about how to launch it. That's not hard, actually.
a) There is more to trolling than "bigot firefights". That's amateur hour. Real trolling is coming to say a PC forum and calling them retards for not owning a mac

b) And I would hardly call 4chan a big firefight either. Its not like its stormfront, its not like the site is only about racism. That's the whole point of the site, everything that is not illegal goes. And who are you to impose your morality on other people?

c)You can run your site however you want, you have the freedom.Like I said, if you don't like it, stop your bitching, close your browser, and move on with your life.

d)Like I said thats the whole point of freedom of speech, its not there to protect "not intrusive" speech, its there to protect the speech that makes religious zealots like you, bitch and moan about, like video games, just because the main characters uses the word fuck. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

e) There you go again selectively choosing which rights people should have. Ok I'll play your little game, we aren't allowed to use freedom of speech about published content that people can see(even though if you read this wiki entry it specifically talks about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#The_Internet). But then using your distorted view of the bill of rights, we can then use the freedom of the press to justify keeping the speech on the internet free.
f) Yet this is EXACTLY what you are doing, you want to deny other people their freedom of speech, just because you disagree with what they say. Calling someone a bitch does not intrude on their freedom of speech, they can call you a faggot right on back.
One important type of freedom of speech I disagree with is that which impinges on someone else's freedom of speech.

[eye roll]
Virus's require critical density in order to spread.

The same way the flu runs rampant through crowded urban areas today, viruses only spread quickly when there's enough computers for them to infect.

The lack of standard issue malware is probably due to better (although not perfect) security, and lack of economic incentives due to lower market share.
Excuse me, where was gold standard discussed anywhere here?
Look, Allen, I could be wrong, but I don't think your arguments are very good, and I'm not going to pretend they are just to save your feelings.

Antivirus programs are corporate standards in every Fortune 500 company. And yet those companies are rife with botnet infections and, yes, viruses. From a CS perspective, antivirus simply cannot work: you'd have to solve the halting problem to do it. Consumer Reports contracted ISE (Avi Rubin's company, a competitor of ours) to test AV software and found that none of it was effective against the simplest permutations of existing viruses.

AV software is not the reason Macs have fewer viruses than Windows.
Questions like this are really questions about words.

Was the Roman Empire too big to fail? Sortof, in that it so thoroughly changed how people thought and lived that even 2000 years later we are very obviously Roman in many of our laws, habits, and worldview. The key is that the ruling families of Rome are nowhere to be found as such.

So yes, the American economy will probably continue in much the same form for the next thousand years or so all over the world. Our huge amounts of natural resources, talent, and farmable land aren't going anywhere. The real question, the one coded into the title of this post, is "Is America influential enough to take a huge hit without the people who are currently very wealthy having to give up their money bins." and hopefully, for the rest of us who don't have money bins and can only become wealthy through our own work, and thus depend on a fair system, the answer is no.
The simile is imperfect.

Driving a manual car, rather than an automatic, teaches you nothing about cars, possibly bar the fact that they have gears. Even that is tenuous: the interaction between the clutch, stick and accelerator is a very abstracted interface to the actual drive mechanism of a car. Manually changing gear is just an extra dexterity skill to learn.

And the opinion is out of date.

The "learning x will make you a better programmer" argument has been made before. However, last time, x was Lisp. This makes sense, because in that case you're sacrificing performance to gain better tools to problem solve. But, in this article, the argument is that learning C++ teaches you about computing basics - memory allocation, storage, retrieval etc. But these things just aren't that relevant anymore. Problem solving tools are generally useful. Technical details are specifically useful, and thus less enriching.
Allocation on the stack is changing the stack pointer, space efficient heap allocation usually involves tracing through a bunch of tables to find space. It's the initialization that gets you, especially complex object construction, in either case.
Search For the People By The People
It's OK. The shovel I bought was a deal. I got no money down and no payments for 12 months.
I'm just pointing out an oddity in your choice to point out what security professionals use. There would have been nothing odd if you had decided not to list their OS choices.
> When the founding fathers penned the bill of rights, speech meant speech. Not intrusive speech, and not published, internationally accessible works.

First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Not sure how "intrusive speech" isn't a subset of "speech".

And if something is published here legally, what's the objection to it being "internationally accessible"? Modulo "munitions" (e.g. encryption).
I believe it is possible to start with a metaphor that everyone educated enough to want to use a computer understands: a book (my 1.5-year-old daughter qualifies: she would love to push the buttons on my laptop keyboard, were it allowed; she also loves to look at (picture) books). XO 2 is the right step in that direction: see http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006986.html for details. Once the hardware is in place, the software is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to design and build.
Or... use multiple cloud infrastructure solutions creating a fail-over in case some of them goes down. Think of this as a "Cloud Balancer".
Google didn't just "strike oil." The idea that they discovered a magical new algorithm that guaranteed their success is an urban legend. The main thing that made Google different from the portals was that they actually cared about doing search well. (When Google was started, their predecessors were trying hard to get people to stop calling them "search engines.") So there is plenty of room for a new startup to have the same sort of advantage over Google etc in web-based apps that Google did over preceding search engines.
How to confuse an Idiot.
4Chan guys think it's cool to promote the Swastika: is it to offend, to shock, or do they see nothing wrong about the Nazis? Is it both?

Western society has gone awry in many ways, and 4Chan is a manifestation of this, and a mirror of it.

They've had a dig at Scientology but is there any discretion as to what's cut down? If none, then it's just vandalism.

It's all in such bad taste. Even its creator in his personal private life has distanced himself from it.

That all being said, a site like this has a degree of freedom and spirit that in a different environment, say North Korea or China, could spearhead a revolution - however for a forum to lead a revolution, even the participants need to be identified, if not in name then at least persona. Also, what would the end product of such a revolution result in? I predict self-destruction if 4Chan was the source.
Rose (Amazing Graphic Design)
Some people are outraged. Much of the 'populace' of this forum: http://www.tickerforum.org and the originator of this one: http://financialpetition.org
I would like hear this too. I used to be a huge fan of this asp.net....not so much anymore for a number of reasons
Woman hit by Lightning (Video)
True, it would need a nice interface which makes the benefit to the user very clear. Of course you wouldn't need all users to vote all the time, as long you have enough users voting occasionally.

I do agree, this sort of approach would require significantly more engagement/interaction from users than news readers are accustomed to. But there is a lot of people who want news, if some small fraction were convinced they benefit from a bit of input they could get much better news, and it would also help give better news to people who do little or no explicit inputting.
Rules #1 & #2.
Ok, you two have now descended to mere reiteration. Let's call it a tie.
I think the problem with 'simpler' computers is similar to the problem with WYSIWYG development and database platforms: they are too simple for anyone whose job or interest it is to create a webpage or database and too complex for the ocassional user. This is why MySpace took off where all the many DIY webpage creation tools did not. MySpace redefined the goal with tools that leveraged the hidden desires of people to have a webpage. In the case of MySpace is was to socialize. Most people don't think of MySpace and Facebook as a web development tool but if you look at what the end result is, you'll see that people are creating online content using these social networks.

So the problem of "simpler browsers" will likely only be solved by solutions that redefine the experience and goal and it will likely be very close to what we now call a smartphone.
I think your best option under the circumstances is to raise money from a VC fund.
You should also consider adding a filter for "fulltime yes/no" and "telecommute yes/no".
Dude, I wouldn't defend Hitler for having the right to publish Mein Kamp. At the end of the day, you've got to use your discretion as to who you're defending. And in your defense, are you merely attacking the attacker? If so, then you can expect a counter attack, and you are being a hypocrite.
I think your idea is great and I'd like to get your advice on my copy too.

But! Is it just me, or are the above two paragraphs too salesy? Group decision making is hard, and I don't think a web service would make it easy overnight. Misunderstandings will never be a thing of the past. Pitching should not involve large blanket statements. I'm missing exactly how this web app will do it. In a paragraph. And if possible, why the idea is so compelling that I need to move my team to this service.

So I'm missing how and why. The two above paragraphs sound like blowing hot air to me.

This doesn't mean that I don't trust your copywriting ability. Maybe my intuitions are wrong and lay people go gaga with the above write-up.
Jaanix isn't really what I have in mind, though it is hard to explain why. The problem I think may be a combination of interface, the basic conceptual decisions, and the chicken-and-egg problem. To get a site like this to work may require a big initial splash of publicity, as well as a very strong, subtle design.
At least twitter is smart and only uses S3 for profile images. The service can survive without S3. Tumblr images and audio posts are also affected by the downtime.
I don't know. Have Americans forgotten how to work hard? This article is a year late, which seems to be fashionable these days in the financial world.
The truth is, 4Chan is full of some of the best people in the world.

It has changed in the last few years and the change has been even more dramatic in the last 6 months or so. The long September started last year and now people are coming to 4Chan expecting nothing more than to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. They have no interest in the history of 4Chan or in creating new content.

They come because it's trendy.

Just like Usenet, /., Digg, Reddit, and someday HN, the people who matter will leave and find a new home.
No, the thing you put before .com is part of the brand. The .com just adds legitimacy.
Driving a stick shift well teaches you not only that cars have gears, but that the power output by an engine depends on RPM, that your car has synchronizers and that you can reduce the wear on them, etc.
I don't think IT will ever become that important. IT will just take its rightful place next to Law Firms and Accounting Firms as a necessary part of the business but not the core.

It is kind of surprising that IT, with its self references as fast-paced and innovative has taken so long to realize its own inefficiencies. IT (in the sense of internal computer systems for businesses) was greatly over invested starting in the 90s because the executives of the time were so scared. I remember stories of Hollywood executives who would ask their assistants to surf websites they were going to invest in and videotape it. They would take these video tapes home for 'research' the same way they would research actors, directors and movies to invest in. They completely didn't get it. So what did they do? They did what most people do when they are scared, they try to buy insurance. This insurance came in over-investment in all things technology both externally and internally, leading to huge IT departments that then used their bulk to buy more technology and increase their internal political might until all this over investment corrected itself in the legendary bubble pop.

I think when all is said and done, IT will be just like Payroll. When was the last time you met a person who works 40 hours a week processing payroll? They used to exist at every company - now everyone's checks come from ADP or PayChex. IT will be done by an outside company and will part of the budget for each person on the payroll. But of course I am a little biased...

Hmm, payroll - There is an industry to be disrupted...
Ugh, this article is full of misconceptions about quantum mechanics.

Particle wave duality: Particles are not either particles or waves depending on how you measure them. A more accurate description might be quantized waves, but really calling an electron a particle or a wave is applying a faulty analogy to them.

This experiment will prove something new about entanglement: Scientists have already sent entangled photons and demonstrated quantum cryptography over long distances through the air. 144 km is the current record.(http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0607182)

Quantum cryptography will make things more secure: Public key encryption is actually really good and you can make things arbitrary secure by changing the key length used (You can make accurate predictions about how long and how much money it will cost to break a given key length). People talk about quantum computing blowing open public key encryption, but in reality that just isn't going to happen. (see http://www.emergentchaos.com/archives/2008/03/quantum_progre... for a good discussion of that). Quantum cryptography also has a ton of other practical limitations which means it will probably only be used by people who don't understand public key encryption (right now there is no known way to route photons or repeat them so not only are you limited on distance but you have to trust every node that the message passes through for the actual communication to be secure).
<b><a href="http://hypermatrix.net/">HYPERMATRIX</a></b>
The Internet--  a private eye's best friend
maybe you should just move to China, I think their bill of rights will suit you better.
These tools are great and I love DabbleDB. But I think the powerful version of these same concepts is a 'Data Repository and Reporting' service. A service that lets you suck in data from many sources (csv, Web Feeds, Database Queries, Emailed Reports, SMS, mailing lists, etc). It would not be scared to hold all this data for me and keep it secure (and would charge me for usage so that people with lots of data pay their due). It would then give me a very flexible "Crystal Reports 2.0" meets DabbleDB interface to relate, dedupe, create conflict rules and schedule data refreshes. It would then let me create beautiful reports that can be embedded in a CMS, emailed, published like a Google Doc and versioned. If anyone is working on something like this, I have lots of ideas of how it should work that I would be happy to share.
The main difference being that finding the memory leaks in Java, or rather: unintentional object retention, is far simpler than in most C++ environments.
No, I'm certain it wouldn't.
Send GPS coordinates from your Thuraya to Twitter
My understanding is, Google didn't start as a "search engine that cared about doing search well". It started as a company to capitalize on Page and Brin's doctoral work. Their original plan was to be an arms dealer for other search engines. It was an idea first.
I think that is a very good idea.

We would have to take two factors into account, I think, those are; (1) clarity (2) accuracy. An “entry” can be very easy to understand but completely inaccurate, or completely accurate and horribly difficult to understand, and so forth. So one could vote on clarity and/or accuracy, depending on whether you are competent or incompetent.

I envisage going onto this site and thinking “I want to learn something new about the Fibonacci sequence”, or: “how does Quicksort work?” and so: “show me results tagged ‘quicksort’”.

One could shrug this idea off as a “Wikipedia clone-- with voting”, but Wikipedia is just an encyclopaedia; it does not aim to teach you things. But, we can take some ideas from Wikipedia...

If entries -- which would essentially be factoids, as I am hypothesising -- contain a few paragraphs and cover one very narrow topic, that would necessitate cross-linking of entries. Just as you read Wikipedia and follow hundreds of links because you just “have to!” know more about this topic, this could be applied to entries. Perhaps even “related entries” or “series” (an ordered set of related entries) could be created.

This is a very exciting idea to me. Does anyone know of anything like it? I may implement it if I see nothing like it. Let me condense the criteria:

1) A web site for learning things, however popular or esoteric
2) Learning is done by reading entries, submitted anonymously or otherwise.
3) Entries are short, to the point, and very narrow. (“What is polymorphism?”, “How do I implement RAII in C++?”)
4) Entries are voted upon by two factors indicating overall quality; (1) clarity (2) accuray.
5) Cross-linking, like a wiki.

Damn you, Hacker News!
Does not deliver!
funny. i helped a friend of mine recently with their C++ homework. in their school C++ is the introductory programming class. i likened it to trying to drive a manual car up and down san francisco without first learning to manage the wheel

apparently it's a weeder course
By today's standards, your surveillance solution would qualify as an embedded solution and a fairly resource constrained one at that. It would make sense to use C or C++ in that situation: you can afford to spent a lot of effort on a fairly minimal set of features.

The same may not apply for other projects. I for one spend most of my time worrying about IO, availability and how to best take advantage of multiple CPUs and cores. In this, C++ isn't exactly giving developers anything for free (concurrency still not even being part of the language).

As for Java on mobile: there are projects that are going that route. I'd wait and see before I postulated whether this is a good idea or not.

I don't really understand how Vista fits into this discussion at all. In my opinion, Vista is the result of developers being paralyzed by the sheer weight of their legacy code and interoperability with legacy code. Completely different issue.
Amazon's S3 Storage Outage Felt Everywhere: Even My iPhone
I would defend Hitler's right to publish Mein Kampf. Unfortunately the Internet is forever and this could be taken the wrong way so I'm posting under a sockpuppet.
Superficially speaking, it's a great way to scare a generation of to-be parents or those considering becoming parents into behaving responsibly.

Personally, coming from a background where family members go to n-th limits to keep pregnant women happy with the belief that happy emotions keep balanced hormonal levels beneficial to the unborn child, this just seems to add to the truism in the old wives tales.
"Cambridge" includes companies in the UK.

But then again, most of the companies that come up for Boston are not actually in Boston. Need something like address:Boston, but they don't seem to have implemented that yet.