skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The suggestions are Tufte's own. He spent six hours telling me to do science instead of pitching, and to work in the public interest instead of a commercial interest.
> IIRC, the primary reason that group selection is thought to be wrong is that it (apparently) can't yield an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) -- it will always be better for the persistence of any individual's DNA if that individual refuses to be altruistic.

"always will be better" seems to assume that group viability has no effect on individual survival.

While it's best to be the most selfish in the group, that doesn't imply that it's good enough. You need to also survive, and some groups help with that by having some altruism.
That is certainly so. However at the intersection of two sets {draws two circles}: 1) Idea guys with money, 2) idea guys who think programming is easy ... there probably isn't much interest in paying engineers.

The intersection is getting larger thanks in part to engineers self-deprecating like this, which is potentially good for innovation and potentially bad for my wallet.
>Maybe a self-proclaimed biz guy ought to prove himself by getting money lined up first, either by earning it, or convincing people to invest in him.

That's the difference between an "ideas man" and an entrepreneur. And it's the easiest way to successfully differentiate when someone approaches you with an idea.

A real entrepreneur understands that ideas are worthless; only implementations have any value. Thus, they will be ready and willing to pay you (gasp!) for your time.

I, like almost every programmer out there, I'd imagine, have been approached multiple times by people with great ideas. What quickly distinguishes the serious partners is asking them what they can bring -- not will bring, but can bring -- to the partnership. A true partner will show you a rough mockup of their ideas, market research, and a stack of cash they pulled together. The ideas guy will tell you that the idea alone is worth your time.
Who care's if Mozilla has more extensions? They cause too much trouble when you upgrade.

I do. TreeStyleTab and Pentadactyl essentially change Firefox into a different browser that I much prefer. There's nothing like that on Chrome, and until they get better capabilities for extension writing, there won't be. The day when they have working full replacements (not Vimium and the mediocre sidetabs option), I'll happily switch to Chrome, but until then I'll take having my nice customized browser.
Sorry. I must bite.

Your little anecdote added neither substance or context, rather than presenting a very thinly coated attempt at making fun of a guy with a different accent. Atleast that's what it felt like, reading it. So do explain why it was the presenter's fault that the "true blue Aussie" typing up his long email did not feel he should follow the presentation?

Not everyone can be a Guy Kawasaki. But over time, people can aspire to be like him, and they can do that by having the balls to stand up and speak to a crowd every chance they get. Sometimes you miss, but eventually you will figure out what works with a crowd.

So next time, skip the thinly veiled attempts at xenophobia and lay out a compelling argument instead.
So which is it? Is programming a hard-earned skill that should be paid well, or is it just so easy that a (presumably non-technical) idea guy can just pick it up and run with it? You're sending mixed messages.

He's suggesting the idea guy work hard to earn the skill of a programmer, or at least learn enough to know what's hard and what's not.
"It used to be a paper mill". Now its a data center.

Great to see factories evolving
This was with FF3, I think, but I once managed to over-write all my bookmarks with the temp ones from doing a separate install for a beta. Probably "my fault" on some level, but it still sucked. I have an aversion to trying out betas since then.
I wonder how long it will be before the combined man-power to build Wikipedia exceeds some of these other massive projects. Has it already?
I think his point was that he, personally, would have liked to play it :)
The total value of Y Combinator companies is now over $3 billion
Introducing Debugger Canvas (spatial code visualization tool)
My point was this is being released far too late for me to care. I was anxious about a sequel in the late 90's. But now it's been so long that I no longer use the technology or this type of entertainment anymore.
His overt message is: science is better than pitching, public interest is better than private interest. Is his art career consistent with that?
As a linux user I am surprised. When I download to open in my reader the pdfs go into /tmp. This is fine, because since /tmp is a ramfs it just goes away when I turn off my computer. If I want it I just save it to a permanent location.
Whatever engine Apple is using to view PDFs in Preview, it doesn't always display PDFs correctly.

It's much faster than the bloated beast that is Acrobat, but I'd say about 20% of the documents I open in Preview have to be viewed in Acrobat to be usable, so I've just defaulted to avoiding Preview instead.

A good, fast PDF viewer in the browser would be far better than either of those options.
So the Freakonomics guys famously (and controversially) attributed the decline in crime in the 90's to four factors, abortion being the most controversial [1]:

– Increased reliance on prisons

– Increased number of police

– The bursting of the crack bubble

– The legalization of abortion

The NYT article says that incarceration rates have dropped, which would eliminate the first factor. I wonder how the other 3 correlate with the recent drop in crime. It's unlikely the number of police have increased, given the recession. Instead of, or in addition to, crack, I am assuming you may have to consider other drugs like Meth (?).

Levitt et al. also presented evidence that a strong economy does not cause a drop in crime, so the challenge to that thesis, mentioned in the NYT article, is not new.

[1] http://www.freakonomics.com/2006/03/16/lets-do-the-crime-dro...
Qi is a lisp-like language with Haskell-style type-checking which can be turned on and off at will:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_(programming_language)#Type_...
Made a little utility app for Mac that I needed, about 2 months ago, I was giving it away free with donations but after a lot of emails promising donations for this or that decided to flip the switch and start selling it. Been selling for a week now making $100+ a day!
Im working on a few other projects in hope that combined they can become my main income.
I'd also strongly recommend foobar2000. It's incredibly fast, automatically adds music pretty much as soon as it's in the directory, is extremely customizable, and can look really, really nice. It has customizable global hotkeys, addon support, but works well out of the box.

If any one is still trying to use iTunes on Windows, I strongly urge you to at least try foobar2000. Once I switched, there was just no way I was going back to iTunes. It alleviates so many of the stupid daily annoyances I had with iTunes.
> As a developer I'm not going to work closely with someone I don't like.

I'd be interested in knowing how many non-technical people actually consider this issue prior to recruiting a developer to work on a project. Is it obscured because of supply/demand/leverage or is it the case that non-technical people aren't exposed to the personalities of seasoned developers?
From one photog to another:

- everyone sucks at taking pictures. The difference between a good photographer and a bad one is largely how well they curate their work. Don't go to the MOMA and get depressed because the walls are lined with incredible works by incredible photographers - realize that it's an incredibly selected subset of everything they've done. After all, you're taking decades of a career and choosing only the finest, oh, 50 photographs?

- your keep rate shouldn't be much above 1%. 99% of the pictures you take will be shit, and that's just the natural order of things. Throw these out - preview them at home from the SD/CF card, and make sure none of them ever survive to your HDD. Treat the remaining 1% carefully (back them up). Spend time editing them and looking at them with a critical eye to see if they can be better.

- slow down, think more. New photographers mash the shutter release as if it dispenses candy, particularly in the digital age. Put a jar on the kitchen table at home - put a quarter into it for every single picture you take (or $0.50, or $1, depending on what is good for you). Donate this jar to charity or something - the point here is to force you to take fewer pictures. You will work harder for each one, and think more before each shot, and these will make your work dramatically better. Personally, I do this by shooting film. I rarely leave home with more than 50 exposures or so in the camera/bag. On a good day I'll shoot maybe 15 pictures.

- go shooting more. What work inspires you? Ansel Adams? Winogrand? Cartier-Bresson? Look at lots of photographs and think about what makes them great and what you like about them. Then go out and try to "see" the same images in real life. A photographer's eye is far more important than their ability to operate a DSLR.

- join a critique group. Yes, this will suck for your ego, but it is extremely helpful for your development. Join a small group (5-10 people max) so it's not a complete zoo. These people will tell you how to make your pictures better and give you actual directionality in your improvement.

Lots of people in photography are hackers. If you're ever in Seattle, give me a shout and we'll go shooting. Otherwise, keep snapping.
genex '(o|O|0)(_)(o|O|0)'
"Forget about everything you've read about aperture settings and exposure. Leave that stuff for the people that depend of their photos for their income."

I couldn't disagree more with this. I'm not a professional photographer but knowing basics about aperture/shutter speed/ISO is pretty important to knowing how to get the right look that you want.

At the very least, just put it on Apeture Priority and set the ISO/Aperture manually because then you'll develop an instinct as to how to adjust to certain light settings, and how well your lens does at specific depths of field.
Link doesn't work for me, try: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002164.html
I blame video games.
Preacher says world will actually end in October
Really puts things in perspective once you switch to linear from log view (Top left corner).
Engineering/CS pays 50% greater than humanities in lifetime earnings
Not quite true (music purchased on the iPod will be synced back) but near enough.

pedant face
Cookies for feedback
I'd like to introduce my startup to you www.fadmashion.com and to offer a box of Mrs Fields Cookies to anyone who has any really awesome feedback.

We're launching the full site in about a month, PR plan on its way, and really just wanted to join this community. My name is Jason and I wish you a wonderful day.
There's also the (insulting) concept that many of these folks seem to have, which is: Did it never cross your mind that a lot of us spend the bulk of our free time developing our own ideas?

For the majority of Idea Man pitches I've spent time with, there's been a ridiculous amount of assumption involved. These folks are so excited by their own idea, they can't wait to tell me about it. Then what?

Do they want to help me build it? No.

Do they want to design it for me? No.

Do they want to contribute in any way? No.

Do they even usually have money or resources to lay down? No.

Will they pimp it when it's time to? No.

Will they go and seek venture capital to facilitate it? No.

At this point, it is undeniable that their involvement is as close to nil as makes no odds. It may as well be my idea, but usually the ideas I hear are bad, as well. So it would be my idea, that I file away as a concept not worth doing.

And the underlying assumption, of course, that I don't have my own pet projects that I'd much rather develop for free, in my spare time, is ridiculous.

Ideas themselves shouldn't be completely discounted. But if you do not have the impetus to follow up or power your idea, I think that generally speaking you ought to keep it to yourself until you feel like following through in some way or another.
More like Superman III.
You don't use mice anymore?

Geez, you're either living in Emacs, or playing with fart apps all day.
Security hole or not, Sony clearly has a whole lot of negative momentum in regards to security. Sony are already estimating $171m loss for as a result of the PSN outage[1].

[1]http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/23/psn-breach-and-restoration...
Another Day, Another Sony Hack: Targets Japan Music Site
Success in startups takes time. It's a long, long road.
Clickables:

http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/watchlaterapp/id423572879?mt=...

http://9elements.com/io/?p=580

http://watchlaterapp.com/welcome
Remember when the craze was to build water cooled gaming systems? I have a feeling some of those people ended up working on this project at google.
That number seems to be based on total valuations based on money raised. For example, if a YC company raises $1 million in exchange for 10% of the company then the company's total valuation is $10 million. However, unless there's a profitable exit strategy or YC sells its stake, YC gains nothing.
Joe Belfiore shows off Windows Phone Mango
How To Get Into Y Combinator: Be A Disobedient Employee
To give a sense of scale to the development time, the list of things that have taken less time than Duke Nukem Forever: http://duke.a-13.net/

This includes the space race, from initial challenge to actually landing on the moon.
Given how many companies have worked on the game and the engine changes and just the sheer amount of turnover in that 15 year time frame, I think they need to point this out. When you start with one set of people making the game and end with another set (along with a constantly cycling number of folks in between), I would seriously worry about the continuity in the game. But this is Gearbox, so I think they can pull it off.
I'm going to need a new vaporware joke now! This one has served me since the dot com bubble days.

Seriously, this looks great. I am afraid I am no longer the target audience but I'll probably try it for nostalgia's sake. I have the strangest feeling that - like rewatching Star Blazers now that I'm not ten - it's not going to hold up that well, but if anyone can do it right, it's Gearbox.
If you're getting by in NYC without a car, then the car is unnecessary, whether you can afford to park it or not.
I see you're getting downvotes, but it would be interesting if distractions do lead to a decrease in crime.
I don't know. How many pedantic teenagers having a revert war over how to format articles about Pokemon does it take to move one giant stone block?
I used to use Miro, just to download torrents, about a year ago. My use case was to watch Ted Talks. You can search for RSS feeds from within it and once subscribed, select what items it downloads from within a feed. Once a video is watched, It'd be auto-deleted a week later, unless the user decides to keep it. It was actually pretty good. Eventually I ran out of hard disk space and decided to delete all the videos and uninstall Miro.
Ugh, I had a physical chemistry textbook like that. All math, very little explanation of why or how to apply the math. I remember reading one chapter over and over again, desperately attempting to glean what shreds of meaning I could from the bare minimum of information presented. It was like trying to solve a puzzle.

Please, please don't write textbooks like that.
(down vote me, it will still not change the fact that for example what is deleted is someones priority, not necessary in accordance with academia.)

I downvoted you for making a vague statement which could have been interesting if properly backed up, and then I downvoted you again for inviting me to downvote you.
Real-time Website Stats through Node.js
Except all of Microsoft's profitable business lines are in a dying industry, the personal computing industry. It's kind of an ironic role-reversal for IBM and Microsoft given their history and the way MS became the behemoth it is.
IMO, both you and smokeyj are correct.

The real advantage in telling the "idea guy" to try to build it themselves comes when they realize that programming is difficult. Sure, they could master it if they were willing to put in the time and effort, but their interests center around the business: sales, investors, etc.

At this point, the idea guy has two choices: either understand that they've got to bring something more than ideas to a partnership, or stubbornly cling to the hope that their idea is enough.

The more people that realize that ideas alone have no value, the better.
This just goes to show how Apple and Amazon have their act together so much more than everyone else in the industry.

From the article and pictures, this thing looks really neat. I'm especially impressed by the size of it. I want to know more, so I go to http://bn.com and I'm greeted with the equivalent of chirping crickets. Nowhere on their main page is this new Nook mentioned. The Nook Color is displayed front and center though.

So I click on the Nook link from the side menu. You get the Nook Color and the old Nook side by side. Not even a link to a press release suggesting a new version even exists. I scoured their site and couldn't find word one about the new Nook.

If this were Amazon, the new Nook would be plastered front and center on their main page with a personal letter from Jeff Bezos about how excited he is. They'd prominently display the price, availability dates and be taking pre-orders right this second. Apple does the same thing with new product: front and center and (usually) available now.

But I have no idea when the new Nook will be available, or the full details on weight and measurements. And I'm probably not going to keep checking back to see when they eventually update the site. BN basically just lost an impulse sale.
So how do you scrape the sites and how do you store the data?
Seems like that would be the way things would work, wouldn't it? Again, it's been many years since it happened. The precise details of what happened are a bit fuzzy at this point, as is often the case with very painful events in life. It may have merely "forgotten" where to find all the music and emptied the library. And, it may be that the actual file deletions happened on the iPod rather than the PC (I'm still pretty sure it deleted files on the PC, though). I remember being furious and confused by the behavior of the software...and I remember having to re-rip several albums that I hadn't backed up lately, and I lost a few mixtapes that someone had made for me.

That reminds me of another thing I hated about iTunes...it was always re-indexing its library. All the damned time. Every time I would start it, it would go galloping all over my PC (this was back in the days when I had three or four hard disks, plus a file server) for like 30 minutes.

Regardless of the specifics, iTunes made an enemy for life out of me by being so damned confusing, and so hostile to my existing workflow. I'd been using digital music for a decade before iTunes came along, and iTunes just did not fit into how I'd been using it.
I'm confused, you seem to be assuming that my favorite state is democratic somehow? Otherwise I can only deduce fuckedupness of the politicians, which is not in dispute.
Rubinius is using it successfully though (I think anyways, does the Ruby community have benchmarking infrastructure?)
Yes. I can't really talk about it, but, yes.
I wonder what the Freakonomics guys will say about this - curious to see if they can draw an unexpected correlation (like twenty year ago birth rate or the like).
And my point is that the fundamentals matter insofar as they drive investor beliefs about other investors. I think what you are saying and what I am saying are compatible. As to whether their "fundamentals" will outweigh a decline in confidence brought about by this kind of negative press coverage... If I knew what would happen for sure, I could make a comfortable living as an investor.
Steve Jobs to Give Keynote at WWDC 2011
Short Celebrity Hairstyles
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Bundled with TextMate 2?
if Firefox 17 came out 3 months ago and we are currently on Firefox 20, I don't think that's any less secure than running 3.6.5 when 3.6.7 came out...
The Muppets are back, and more meta than ever - Movie news
Hedge-fund secrets 101
They can't make country's networks secure by covering them with an `one-size-fits-all' global firewall either. Once they cover up all existing holes, new ones have to be `punched through' to achieve useful functionality -- opening new attack surfaces. Cat and mouse at best, countless hacks more realistically. Never mind inside jobs -- and also remember the Google hack springboarded from within via vulnerable IE.

Could you explain what does that `anthropomorphic Stuxnet' stand for?
Half Life [episode] 3 is your new vaporware joke.
Alternate alternate mirror here: http://www.filesonic.com/file/1061063604/video_ours_4x_h264.... had trouble with ifile.it at work)
I excusively use touchpads now. Even at a desk I use an external Apple touchpad synced with my laptop.
"Replacement" is a bit too tough a word.

It doesn't sync with (Apple) mobile devices, the primary reason I stick with iTunes.

It also seems more sluggish and bloated than iTunes on my MBP i7 running 10.6.

Seems like it was released way too prematurely. They could have spent more time building features & polish and utilized their launch hype much better.

Sorting through all the marketing fluff, what are the true advantages of Miro?
i wrote a few 'transl(iter)ation' from math/physics papers to be understandable by a CS degree, and yes, the jargon is in the way for a CS student. The biggest leap is to associate a greek letter with a definition. a CS student, in my experience, wants the letter (short variable name) to be a meaningful word (longer descriptive variable names). i am not a mathematician. physicists, in my experience, had no problem though.
It's the Dollar store. You can everything for a dollar now and we've accumulated such an enormous amount of cheap stuff that nobody needs to resort to crime anymore.
I don't think that ideas are worthless when they are coming from a position of deep domain knowledge.

For example, I'm currently involved in a seed-stage startup that aims to bring technical and quantitative stock analysis tools to the masses (i.e. protect your 401k by being able to read the market). We have contacts in the finance industry, and each one of those is golden because they bring a wealth of domain experience that is hard if not impossible to find out through books.
I believe it. It's epic. June@ourtownzip.com founder
I haven't touched this stuff since last October (boo), but I put it on Github in the hopes someone might find it useful (yay!) Currently distracted with other personal projects, but hope to revisit this at some point.
I took that title as the question that everyone asks. It's unfortunate, but it's true. "I'm just an idea guy; do you know any developers?" is the platitude of the startup scene, tech or otherwise.
"Facebook passes Microsoft's market cap" - Thats 3-5 yrs down the road. FB will go up, MS down, and walla. Nobody lasts forever. Apple won't, FB won't, and MS isn't.
"When crime rates go up, the police say it is because they are encouraging more victims to come forward, Mr. Silverman said, 'but when crime goes down, it’s the work of the police.'"

I find that sentence really confusing. Does Silverman believe that a decrease in crime is the work of the police, or is he still quoting the police?

Also, I'm curious: did I quote the quote correctly?