skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Would HN be better without votes and with tagged streams?
A thought occurred to me this morning... A lot of reputable people posting interesting topics are stuck in the "new" page getting pushed down the page, further cementing their demise. I used to think it was just me but today Florian Mueller, the chief blogger at FOSSPatents is drowning with only 2 points for this submission ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880510 ). Is it a boring topic? Let's examine it...

Google... check!
Software patents... check!
Lodsys... check!

These seem to topics of interest to the HN crowd and very timely news. We're not talking "The history of yarn and knitting patterns" here.

Did it just go unnoticed or is there gaming at play here to promote the submissions of a select few?

I honestly don't know. My own submissions, which I thought would be inline with the average HN reader's interests, have suffered a similar fate and I took it upon myself to research getting on the HN front page.

The advice is bleak...
1. Be a super-important person.
2. Be part of a Digg-like clique which trades up-votes.
3. Make your own fake users and up-vote yourself.

I'm not super important and I don't want to lower myself by cheating.
Instead I want to propose another option...

SCRAP THE VOTING SYSTEM ALTOGETHER!

Instead offer...
1. A giant fire hose with all the submissions for those who can handle it.
2. Tag-based streams where submissions can assign up to 3 tags to describe their content. (ex: "patents", "google", "lodsys")

HN readers can specify tags they're interested in (as many as they like in fact) as well as tags they are not interested in. This filters the fire hose!
They see news they want to see and avoid the news that doesn't interest them and there is no incentive to game the system. They can turn off the filter and explore new topics if they wish too!

I PUT THESE QUESTIONS TO YOU...

Have you had your contributions to HN languish in obscurity when the next person posts something similar only to be launched to the front page within minutes?
What do you think of these ideas?
Glorious Images Of Apple’s New Spaceship Headquarters
Here's an old school place to start:
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/
(click on the MBA tabs)

Keep in mind that if you're into tech you'll get an advantage from a campus like MIT or Stanford. And it may not be a bad idea to visit a campus...
This looks neat. I have been using restkit[1] for a little while now, but I am certainly going to check this out.

[1]: http://benoitc.github.com/restkit/
Agreed. If the spectrum had been treated like other property all along, owners would have a strong incentive to figure out how to carry more data.

Landowners have a similar incentive. And, where it makes sense to do so, we see buildings that are many stories high, effectively using the same land many times over for the same purpose.

But in spectrum, we have spectrum lying around unused, while emergency services can't even get usable spectrum to save your butt in an emergency. Its well known that cops and firefighters couldn't even be alerted to leave one of the towers.

And this problem has still not been solved. But they can buy land with no problem.
I thought this was going to be Bezos making a mockery of the patent system by patenting full size airbags AT&T he'd to cell phones. That would have been better.
This website is awful. I have to read the site's front page in order to infer that it's some kind of instant messenging protocol.

People aren't going to your site to see that big picture of a field, they're going to your site to either A) See what Movim is, or B) Download Movim. Tell us what Movim is, and provide us a download link, front and center.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem.

Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact.

There are exceptions in the information age; Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and perhaps over time Document Cloud. But these too are only useful for people who have computers, not people who lack food.

In general countries only drag themselves out of poverty through capitalism and industry. India and China had decades of foreign aid before they turned to capitalism; now there are many industries in which they are net exporters.
the whole tone of the post just rubs me completely the wrong way

I could say the same thing about the blog post. It's seems to me it's not saying anything except "I'm a smart guy".

Very often, posts of that character are rooted in personal vendettas.

Now THIS is uncalled for. As is saying his post is smearing, worthless, and constitutes a personal attack, but this is most uncalled for.

I think onan_barbarian just thought that the idea from this blog post isn't really novel or interesting enough to be submitted here and that the author stated it in a way that makes him sound a little full of himself. He was being a little mean while making his point but people often react like that when something "rubs them the wrong way", no?
No idea, but it seems like most jobs these days require sitting in front of a computer all day. Five years ago I might have suggested going the Office Space route and taking up construction work but obviously that's not such a hot idea right now.
All three of my favorite non-profit tech charities are hiring programmers:

Kiva - http://www.kiva.org/jobs
DonorsChoose - http://www.donorschoose.org/docs/software-engineer.htm
GlobalGiving - http://www.globalgiving.org/aboutus/jobs/software-engineer-f...
World fresh news: WFP expands relief work in famine-hit Somalia
My estimate is that the US currently spends roughly $3 Billion (with a B) on medical care for a mere 30,000 people with CF. This is mostly covered by insurance, state aid, federal aid, and charities. The families are typically under enormous financial stress and can ill afford to spend money on some risky unproven source of advice, which is the category my experiences fall into. I think it's very repeatable and people who have chosen to act on even limited bits of my advice have reported very good results. I have so far not had anyone tell me "I tried that and it so failed". Given the degree to which I am routinely vilified by the CF community (for advocating "dangerous" things like eating better), I strongly suspect if there were any significant failures of my approach, I would never hear the end of it.

The fundamental problem appears to be that people define CF in the following manner (quote from a doctor): "People like you don't get well." Since I got well, I must be lying. I can't really have CF.

I have no plans to charge money for information. I have no idea how it would be monetized. I generally assume I am better off pursuing other things for money and keeping this fairly low on the radar. Attempts to shout it from the rooftops has only served to convince people in the CF that I am a liar, a charlatan and a snake oil salesman -- that I suffer from Munchhausen Syndrome and am doing this out of a sick need for attention rather than a sincere desire to help other people like me.

Anyway, there is a link to my site in my profile. It's the one with the word "health" in the URL. :-) I have no idea how that $3 billion could be tapped into to support a saner, more humane and cheaper treatment approach. God knows I would be on it in a heartbeat if I could figure that out as I have a pile of debts from getting myself well.

Peace.
I don't really follow any tech writers and my remarks are probably pretty off topic but I think it's important to recognize the differences. To some it might just be semantics but for others it's a whole world in difference because it affect their lives.

My comment is merely meant as an insignificant resistance towards the uprising of the misunderstood reflector and doubter. Far too often are people promoting division with it's constant "us"-and-"them"-rhetoric and "Either you're with us or against us"-policy.
It's healthy to doubt and question.

It's exactly how hacktivists such as Anonymous are alienated and how projects such as WikiLeaks is attempted to be criminalized. Whistleblowers are not the enemy nor the ones threatening the safety of the people.
The reason they fall into obscurity is there's a crapton of people who are only here to submit their own website, or to build karma by submitting fluff (eg a gruber article where he literally just links to another site).

I do like your idea, except it destroys discovering stuff that is just plain interesting - like that "How can I do something meaningful" thread on the front page now.
I know it's like whatever he posts is golden and gets way more upvotes than it should.
I used 1/(1+100^(-20(x-k))) as my step function, because you only have to put k in once.
Funny thought: what if a UFO landed in the middle of the Apple HQ. lol :)
> The "experiment" was to see if a system based purely on goodwill, like take-a-penny, leave-a-penny, can survive.

Although this is a whole other discussion, the experiment had a few more implications than that, and Odio pointed them out.

>I'm baffled by your surprise at the reaction. Are you likewise surprised by the fact that people don't like the guy who comes up to the bowl labeled "Free Candy" and takes all of the candy, leaving none for anyone else? "But I'm just demonstrating that any system based on goodwill is open to abuse!" Well, yeah. We know. People hate that.

I should say I'm more surprised at the magnitude and nature of the outrage. There's lots of thoughtful commentary, but at the same time, I've read lots of blind hatred towards Sam. The community around Jonathan's Card appear to be outraged and are touting their moral superiority over Odio. He may have been a dick, but to me, it appears like so many were acting as if Jonathan's Card was their only act of goodwill - and many were acting like this was going to benefit those in need (debatable). Sam said it was about 'yuppies buying other yuppies coffee.' He was pointing out an issue that other people who were taking advantage of the cards were not doing. Unfortunately he chose to game the system.

The Jonathan's Card experiment is not over, and what people do next is the critical result of the experiment.
David Kirkpatrick's book, "The Facebook Effect"[1] seems to gel with Mark's vision and attitude about Facebook in this video - that he's an ambitious & smart guy who started with a relatively small idea, and kind of stumbled upon its evolution into a much grander vision.

According to the book and Wikipedia[2], there was even a time when Mark was even more focused on another idea of his, Wirehog. It's possible he may have even had some doubts about Facebook, or lost interest in it for a little while.

And hey, what startup founder hasn't had those thoughts? They're totally natural. I'm sure some have a razor-sharp focus & vision from Day One, but I would never fault a founder for having a few shaky moments of doubt here & there.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connect...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehog
Had a longer answer here, but managed to delete it.

In short: Stanford stands out in my mind as head-and-shoulders above the rest. After that, UC Berkeley.

If you shift to engineering (moreso than an entrepreneurship focus) MIT and Carnegie Mellon both have programs with good reputations.

Princeton, Harvard, and Yale also have great reputations, but I'm not sure how much of that comes from entrepreneurship in particular, and how much is just from their Ivy League aura in general.
How is a Flash applet any better than a Java applet?
Why did you not keep going with your project?
A Computer Absolutely Can Be Sexy - Jonathan Ive
How about personal trainer? Definitely get to stay away from the computer and it's a highly technical profession (if you choose to be highly informed about the body and nutrition) so it should still satisfy the engineer/programmer in you.
Working in the Peace Corps could change your life and your perspective on the world in ways that working in corporate America probably won't.

It's all well and good to plan to work in a high paying job so that you can do good by donating some of the surplus you earn.

But being immersed in corporate culture and being surrounded by people who's aim is largely to make money, to look out for #1, and to value consumerism has a way of corrupting people with the best intentions.

Many start out wanting to make a difference, and wind up fretting over whether their next bonus will be enough to buy a timeshare in Cancun.
it's interesting that no one mentioned the good produced when a company that does not do "good," per se, makes good money (for profit) and then donates some of it to worthy causes. I personally think this is the ultimate win-win situation: you provide a service people want (that is, increase of happiness), but at the same time also help those who cannot afford you service (increase in good).
"[...] it was just me programming what was a facebook, really, at that time for Harvard [...] they didn't have anything like that. [...] I realized that because I didn't have people's information like a school would in making a facebook, I had to make it interesting enough..."

I think what he meant was that Harvard itself didn't provide an online facebook to its students. Wasn't Harvard supposedly working on a university-run online facebook during that time? Or am I just thinking of houseSYSTEM?
"This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem."

It's certainly not an unpopular opinion on HN, home to hordes of corporation-loving, free-market worshiping libertarians.
Quake Engine source review
You are correct that Windows was responsible for the commoditization of computing. You are also correct that many hacks occurred through means other than unpatched Windows machines. Neither of those truths changes the fact that Windows XP has been and continues to be a serious issue for national and corporate security.

Almost every computer in China runs a pirated version of XP that can not be patched and is vulnerable and likely infected with some sort of botnet software. Many corporations and agencies in the US have been compromised in this way as well.
Looking at the iOS App Store & Netflix model I can't help but feel that Apple has found the way for both the consumer and content creators to be happy. Price it low and go for volume. Yes, there will always be pirates but I get the impression it is a very small minority that would continue to do so.

Content creators are going to have to get over the fear that reducing the price of your content doesn't devalue it.
...In an established code base that is reasonably well designed and well written, the performance is rarely dominated by a small number of very expensive bottlenecks that are ripe for local optimisation. Such things have usually been worked out a long time ago and there is no low hanging fruit left to pick.

Uh yeah. But I think this discussion is about creating a code and when to optimize it. It is kind of a tautology that when the code has been optimized and low-hanging fruit have been picked, they are, uh, gone.
> I don't buy that it's a social experiment more than someone trying to be clever and game a system.

That's fair. But would you be more inclined to think of it as a social experiment if it wasn't limited to Jonathan's physical gift card? To elaborate, what if you consider the Jonathan's Card spinoffs and broader reaction to Odio's actions?
Reading this, I had this thought:

The internet is my world. Therefore all my ideas are The Next Better Widget (tm). I think I need to go on an internet diet for a month.

Will have to think about this, thanks for giving me personally dangerous ideas DotOrg.
I've noticed that the layout of the site is uncannily similar to flask's documentation (http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/), down to the "Fork me on Github" in the top right corner. Is there some sort of software producing this kind of documentation?
I'm not sure if there's a direct correlation with age or not, but I noticed that when I hit my 30s, I started getting tired around 3pm. It's like clockwork. 3pm rolls around and my eyelids start feeling heavy.

I don't usually take a nap however, but the few times I did, admittedly, I felt reinvigorated.

But before my 30s and this odd 3pm sleep clock, taking a nap didn't reinvigorate me at all. Instead, I would wake up even more tired than before. Go figure.
I really don't get how you can defend his post and turn around and state that mine is uncalled for. I am well aware that my posts are not "polite" and there is no good way to rebut the remarks that were made -- that stating "that's a personal attack" almost always ends up being a personal attack. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Many people on HN come across as socially awkward, full of themselves and so on. Hackers are not exactly known for their suaveness as a group. (Personally, I have no fondness for suave people, but I imagine commenting on that would really strike people as "uncalled for", personal attacks, sweeping generalizations, and so on.) I don't see how sounding to someone else (not me) like he was full of himself invalidates the point or makes it uninteresting. I also don't see how even if it were guilty of such things that merits the characterizations in onan_barbarians remarks of "fatuous self praise" and so on. For me, it is good food for thought. I tend to be too talkative. I've had to work on such issues. I rarely find good insights into the type of problems that causes.

Anyway, it would probably be best to drop this. I'm quite tired, which is not a good place from which to try to politely disagree or parse out such things. And I strongly suspect that we are both merely putting out the fire with gasoline (since I really don't think you intend to be ugly and I certainly don't either), which really adds nothing of value any way you slice it.

Peace.
I started getting involved in startups when I was around 16, there's a lot I'd do differently and a lot I would do the same if I could go back. Here are some thoughts:

1) Build a network: I'd say that the valuable thing I have done is build a network. Attend industry conferences and events in your area, and become engrained in the startup community. Your age is an advantage, it gets you noticed, and means almost anyone will take a meeting with you. Put yourself in lots of situations that scare you, you'll look back and wonder what the big deal was. The best opportunities come when you're you're at the right place at the right time.

2) Learn to program: I'm 'non-technical', having just finished a degree in business marketing. Only recently have I really started making an effort to learn to program (mostly ruby), but I wish I had done it much earlier. Its important even if you never want to be a developer that you have a strong understanding of how things work and what's possible. Its also frustrating not to have the skills to have an idea and create a prototype, without spending your life savings or bringing on a partner.

3) Seize Opportunities: Early on I wasn't too particular about what opportunities I helped out with, if it got me excited, I was in. This mentality let me try a lot of different things and helped me learn better time management. You'll learn what you like and what you don't like. Don't be afraid to get in over your head.

Best of luck!
Thanks for the link to LW, those guys are frequently insightful.

Another thing to consider is consumer choice. Very few people donate as much as they can to charity.

I also think that "good" startups create a lot of social value by improving wealth - the bigger the pie the more to distribute.

One could get wrapped up in logic games all day. For my life, I prefer the general heuristic of "ABC" - "Alway Be Creating" as opposed to destroying or fighting over my share of the pie (which from an opportunity cost POV is actually destructive). This is just a personal preference of mine (and probably most people who read HN), BUT I also think it's prudent economics as someone who is generally creating useful stuff for those around them will be guaranteed compensation of one form or another (hourly wage, salary, startup equity, etc). The obvious exception to this is those who help the disadvantaged since they can't compensate you. And that's where donations (and for non-right-wing-libertarians, tax dollars) come into play.
Thanks a lot for this very interesting message, especially the part about professional helpers. I would second your opinion there - that's where I found the most broken people, who seem to prefer to live in a word of suffering - a good place for their bleeding heart!
They're not complaining about foreign joint-ventures. The Economist, of all publications, knows that they're essential to do sophisticated drilling in developing countries.

What they're complaining about is that the proceeds are being directed through private hands, as opposed to the actual governments of the developing countries that need to drill their way out of poverty - for example, how the group is dealing with and paying Zimbabwe's secret police directly for access to the country's diamond mines, as opposed to dealing with the actual government (who may be less friendly).
Meanwhile, more than 1500 people per day starve to death in Somalia.
Well, a few points.

1) The Economist is owned by a corporation, as is the New York Times and the Washington Post. Isn't it interesting how they never run exposes on each other, or that Joe Average company can't get access to their internal documents? This article is unsigned and we have no account of the means by which the article was put together...yet they call for more transparency?

The media's agenda is to sensationalize and sell papers. A demotic tone often helps. But truth usually doesn't.

2) Whenever you see a piece in which A is complaining that B is not paying C enough money, the question always arises: why doesn't A jump into the fray himself and make a better offer to C? The answer usually betrays that A really doesn't care enough about C's plight to quit his job or even fork over $1000. Moreover, and more fundamentally, A does not know enough about the industry to know whether it's possible to pay C more and still make a profit.

Put another way, it is not as easy as it looks to run an international oil drilling company operating in China and Angola! Think about the political risk on both sides. You'll only get the derricks and the surveyors and the hydrologists if you can show this to be more profitable than safer bets like drilling in Norway.

The right role model is Ford: he actually showed that you can get higher productivity and profits by paying workers more. Latter day examples include Price Club and Whole Foods.

But until the Economist actually does something -- and they certainly have the resources -- they have no legitimacy to criticize the guys who actually are providing jobs and hard currency to poor people.
Best Arabic Rooms Chat Zone
Who should be closing shop today?
Dark matter may be an illusion caused by the quantum vacuum
> Most will say the time to optimize is once you're fairly well along in development.

I call BS. But, if most do say that they are stunningly wrong. The time to optimize is after it is determined that some portion of code is too slow to meet a (non)functional or business requirement.
Well, the irony was that I was being actively condemned by a girl doing the same thing as me.