skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thanks for the sarcasm. I didn't know it was a side project. You didn't mention it in your first post. I thought it was a full-time thing.

Imagine you know a friend who quits his job to focus on his photo-sharing startup that you know will be exactly the same as Flickr.

What would you do? Would you just support him blindly or would you advise him to differentiate his product from the competition?
>Of course, having faster JavaScript on the client still leaves a lot of room for server-side frameworks, and I still think Ruby is well suited for that.

Based on the above quote, I don't think he's suggesting that Javascript will eliminate the need for server side languages at all. He seems concerned about hype, so maybe he thinks that that the hype might be moving from Ruby to Javascript.

FWIW, I don't think Ruby is going away anytime soon.
for ruby people, there's also the commercial project http://zencoder.tv/ , also the open source version http://rvideo.rubyforge.org/

but I prefer pandastream, seems a more viable solution imo
I'm not sure whether I'm excited that this was in the economist, or pissed off that they reduced error correction codes to "a mathematical trick"
"... Previously they also carried a "professional" model which featured blank keys. Not only was it "l33t", but it was supposed to improve your speed by forcing you to learn to touch type which of course is required for late night hacking sessions in the dark ..."

That is pretty sad. While I can touch-type, typing accuracy at night decreases not because I can't find 'F' & 'H'. Must be murder with long passwords.
those bikes weigh nothing, everything is made of plastic or carbon fiber. The heaviest part on them is the motor and the exhaust system. A few aesthetically pleasing fairings wouldn't have changed the performance that badly
Suicide? With a lion facing you in one direction and a tiger at the other, rushing at the tiger isn't suicide. Stupid fucking journalists.
Takeaway point is similar to what the others have said:

- Learn from your competition and differentiate yourself from them

- There are competitors all the time. So learn to live with them and out-execute them.

- Being late to the party is not a problem as long as you execute well (See dropbox)

Another good example is Box.net. They were in a crowded space. They were not first but they differentiate themselves from the competition by offering an easy + social UI that makes sharing fun. It all boils down to execution.

Good luck with your project!
Yeah - was the same for me.

When I quit, everyone asked where I'm going. When I said "I haven't worked it out yet" (as I was shaping a startup) people just couldn't process it... Half assumed I just didn't want to say.

For a lot of people I just said "I'm going travelling", because it was something they could process.
At risk of public shame, I actually use a blank keyboard. And, I switched to it from a kinesis ergo. O_o

Regarding passwords, for the past 10 years I've chosen passwords based on "shape." It is a trick I learned from a sysadmin friend, and know more than a couple other sysadmin guys who do the same. It can suck when you switch to a keyboard on a mobile device and the keys aren't where you think they are going to be.
Did you read the whole piece? I thought the reality faced was described in all of its possible dimensions and much more so than I've ever seen any where else.
If I remember correctly there's some limitation where you can only run one application at a time. I think it's something to do with the login limit in Remote Desktop, although I guess that can be avoided if the application you run is explorer.exe.
Please Vote: Do You Like the Old Fat iPod Nano or the New Skinny One?
I would take it even further. There is no evidence that whatever business models emerge after the current situation collapses, will be anywhere near as profitable on the whole as the previous one.

There is even less reason to think that the future model(s) will be as profitable for the same players.

They're on a sinking ship bucketing water. Why not get off? Maybe there aren't enough lifeboats? A sinking ship is better then open ocean after all. If the future of music doesn't contain the current players, prolonging the inevitable demise of the way things are done is 100% rational. When it sinks. It sinks. No point getting wet before you have to.
iphone/symbian/android application soon? would be awesome
"What would you do? Would you just support him blindly or would you advise him to do something else?"

Regardless of the idea, I would advise setting a squeal point in advance, a condition such as [cash < $20k] that will immediately trigger the action of giving up and looking for a job.

Aside from that caveat, I would give much the same advice as others have given here: focus on the needs of your users, keep your burn rate low, and code like a madman.

Common advice for new Go players is "lose your first 100 games as quickly as possible." Players who follow this advice invariably win their first game long before playing 100 games.
Apple has patented "smart garments"
Wrap a dead fish up in some newspaper. Mail it to them with a kind but clear warning that they better pack it up and go elsewhere.
I haven't read the patent, but I'd be very impressed if they could actually enforce such a generic sounding set of claims given all of the prior art at the Media Lab:

http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/
In the article he explains that you need failures and will have failures.

I fail a whole lot, but I am better for it.
Tineye, a new way to search images
Fair enough. You made your point and it's a valid one.

But my observation is that it is very hard to beat the competition unless your product offers something compelling over theirs. Not impossible, but hard.

P.S. Chill out guys. It's not like as if i told menlopark to scrap his idea. I told him to change his game plan. To differentiate his product from the competition like what Fotonauts did.
I definitely second that, and the source of the problem is the same as that with WYSIWYG editors: tables.

I've solved the problem by making things like tables editable in another content management module and including it in the WYSIWYG editor as %%%DATA_TABLE1%%%.

WYSIWYG seems to only work for me when I only allow the client to choose h1,h2,h3,etc.. and bold and italic. If you're just doing that, the WYSIWYG editor is fine and there's no need to try to teach your clients Textile.

Of course, this all depends on who your client is...
What he essentially suggests is that Javascript is becoming powerful enough to eliminate the current need for server side languages.

I think it's obvious that JavaScript is as powerful a language as Ruby, on the "blub" spectrum, anyway. Where it fails is on connecting to the underlying OS--breaking out of the VM and doing something with the system, which is something that Ruby (and Perl, from which Ruby inherited most of this stuff) has in spades.

That said, when (not if) JavaScript gets a reasonable FFI and good ties to the underlying OS, on the order of Ruby, Python, and Perl, it will be the obvious choice for implementing just about everything. Faster implementations (V8 and Tracemonkey are faster for many classes of problem than any of the current dynamic language kings, and on par with Smalltalk) mean that once the "plays well with others" problem is solved sufficiently, there will be little reason to choose Ruby/Python/Perl except "I like it better"...and, though I do happen to like Ruby, Perl, and Python a lot, I also find JavaScript a very pretty language with a lot of power.

If it gets block scope (which Ruby also doesn't really have, I think?), and the previously mentioned FFI and OS integration, I will have nothing else to complain about (except the DOM).
Ask HN: Algorithm to identify the same events based on semantic similarity
I am working on a project where it needs to be able to identify the same events described with short phrases by different people. I think workflow should be something like: 1. extract the meaningful words(nouns, verbs) from the phrases. 2. measure the semantic distances between these words. 3. clustering.

I am asking for your advices. Thank you.
One interesting fork was egcs, forked from gcc in the 1990s, by people who wanted to try out the "bazaar" development model (as opposed to the "cathedral" model the FSF used, which meant very little engaging of the community.) The experiment turned out very successful and eventually the egcs version was named the one and true gcc (and the gcc we use today is a derivative of it.)
I can't see the point.

VB.NET was created to get the VB6 developers move to the .NET

C# was created to get C++ and Java developers.

Another language won't get more developers using ,NET,

Microsoft if you want more developers using the .NET here is an idea, an official .NET release (not mono) for Mac, and Linux!!!
.. or maybe the target market is different :)
Nothing. If you try to delete WebKit, though, Dashboard and a host of other apps will stop working (Adium, iChat, some aspects of the finder, Mail, etc).
I think I only ever saw it in the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I do remember it from that occasion, however. Pretty memorable photo.

I have no idea what it has to do with startups or technology, though.
Can we please stop for a minute and be aware of the world. [not pretty]
There are too many script languages and implementation as is
Competition also validates the market in that some won't buy unless there is more than one supplier; the first doesn't always win (Edison had the 19th light bulb patent); and your greatest competitor is non-consumption (not this competitor).

There's one danger in learning from them: don't become fixated or intimidated. What you have to offer is your passion for that "fresh take", which is still your original idea, and is still real, and is still needed by people.

It will turn out that your "fresh take" is not identical with theirs - non-identical features, non-identical audience. It could be that yours is better.

Marketing is important - if you are "far from" being an expert, one way to gain experience is to have a go.

I want to encourage you, but courage is only needed because of the unknown. A start-up is high-risk, with many risks and many ways to die. A competitor is just one of them. But fortunately, the plurality of risks doesn't really matter, as you can only die once.
Actually, often. Back when I used to write for school (with a pen) I always had the feeling of losing ideas because I couldn't write as fast as I could think. I don't feel it nearly as much when coding (or writing for that matter), I think because I type faster than I used to be able to write.
No, it's not pretty and remaining optimistic about the hope for humanities future isn't easy. To a more fundamental level, remaining optimistic about the survival of these societies is difficult, but I think what's more difficult to swallow is simply stopping and acknowledging what's going on around us without actively doing anything about it.

"being aware" and "being aware" alone is a glorified bystander effect.
Wow, the fact that iTunes has a "safe mode" is just ridiculous. Glad it helped you, though.
No. I guess I don't think it bears that much analysis. Fire hot, ground far, shit happens.
iPhone Takes Screenshots of Everything You Do
I switched from typing qwerty while looking at the keyboard (but definitely not hunt-and-peck; I knew where the keys were, I just needed a trigger) to touch-typing Dvorak. My typing speed went from 70 WPM to about 75-80. That's not all that much of a difference, and much of it may be attributable to Dvorak.

I really don't think it makes that much of a difference, as long as you're not hunt-and-peck.

Incidentally, my speed now is about 55 WPM because the T and M keys on my lapop are broken and often don't regiser. You can lose more with bad hardware than you gain wih good training.
You should look at this as a good thing. You can use them to see what work and what doesn't. Adjust your product and add features that your competitor lacks. Any market worth while will have competitors.
Financial Scenario Analysis
Morpheus Venture Partners – “India’s Y Combinator” – Announces 7 New Startup Investments
Photo.net? I don't think that sold. Still being funded by Philip Greenspun.
"Non-consumption is your greatest competitor"

I love this: In fact, your competitor may not be as entrenched as you think.
Unit testing options for JavaScript
I saw reddit as a digg.com competitor when they launched. Much, much smaller, less hyped, but guess who found an exit first? Small competitors to large, VC-funded products often do well, perhaps partially helped by the hype surrounding the leader. Jaiku would be another example.
What sort of pedal, how much did it cost, and where'd you get it?

I ask because my sister had this neat idea for a hardware hack: a digital music stand. The idea being that page turns really suck when you play any instrument that takes two hands (we're both violinists), and if you could hook it up to a foot pedal, you could control the music without putting down your instrument. I also pointed out that a digital music stand would cost at least as much as a computer, but now that you can get laptops for $98, this may be doable...

Plus, think of all the people on YouTube that you see lean over to stop recording. If it doesn't already exist, software to control a webcam through a foot pedal would be a great boon to YouTubers everywhere. The porn industry would love it too - that bra unclasp is so much sexier when she's not blatantly fiddling with her webcam.
Mediapost has nice surveys, articles all the time. I have subscribed.

And thanks for bugmenot :)
Evhead: Further notes on my TechCrunch50 session
I think you've missed the point. The photographic - in detail and in scope - is very far removed from "Fire hot, ground far, shit happens."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDBcGzHAt5Q&feature=relat...
That may have more to do with lisp than with having one's heart in it.

Edit: I'd venture to guess both are necessary, albeit to different degrees.
Kinesis has their own foot pedals.

http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/foot.htm

There are a number of midi/usb pedalboards, but they have tons of pedals and are relatively expensive.

There are also a lot of DIY footswitch projects. Check this one out, it is for turning pages inside digital music stand software. :)

http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Foot-Pedal/

Also, I used to be in orchestras. A Kindle for sheet music would be neat. Especially if it had built in metronome and tuner for practicing. Might take away some of the old-school ambiance though.
Actually increasing the supply of alternative energy could easily increase the demand for energy as energy prices decrease. There could be net greater CO2 output.

CO2 offsets are bullshit. A more reasonable solution is to fund research into alternatives that are economically viable without subsidies.

Tracking energy used, as CO2Stats does, is still an important part of the solution. But buying offsets doesn't necessarily mean you're doing good.

On multiple levels, they are like buying an indulgence.
I contend that Linux's big market share opportunity will come not from conventional PCs no longer being sold with Windows, but from the erosion of the conventional PC markets. Nobody wants a big box of wires in their office, and I contend that even laptops are too big. I believe that the future involves smartphone class devices and accessories to make them more useful for present-day laptop type duties.

Lots of professionals are already issued BlackBerries and their ilk, and current/near future phones are shipping with 1G of system RAM, and 16-32G of flash. Give me better productivity software and remote desktop over bluetooth, and I'd kiss my ThinkPad goodbye.
Fire Your Boss
I seem to recall that there are places in the southern U.S. where soft drinks are called "dope".

Confusing....
Dude, Where's My App?
I have a question related to this:

I've heard a little about issues like this, where old data still exists even though you thought you deleted it -- or it's still in RAM for instance. When I read TrueCrypt's info, I seem to recall something about how your data is still potentially visible to others unless you shut off your PC first (and then it might still be retrievable?).

I'm not trying to hide anything, but I've always been curious as to what it takes to truly wipe all traces from a computer without physically smashing the drive, for instance.
It doesn't have to have anything to do with startups or technology to be here. It just has to be interesting to hackers.
Look at it from this angle: With ppc, the advertiser needs to make buying clicks worth his while. A big part of that is advertising in the correct place.

If you the 'publisher' want control over what ads appear, how often etc. you'll need to remove any risk from the advertiser - CPA/affiliate so that it's always worth it to the advertisers.'

When it's up to the publisher to make the advertising work, they can have control. When it's up to advertisers, they need it. I don't see an obvious way around that.
According to the article, they call it that in the Carolinas.
No discussion of meta-programming? Can you duplicate the Ruby tricks in JavaScript?
That struck me about visiting China, too. I remember I got to Beijing, saw that literally everything was Coke and there was no Pepsi in sight, and thought "Damn, I oughtta buy Coca-cola stock." Then I got to Chongqing and Wuhan and everything was Pepsi, with not a Coke in sight.
What is preventing JS from running at the OS level? Couldn't it just borrow the engine of another language?
I don't think Genius is bad; it works extremely well. I hate when people take stuff like this and put an exaggerated negative slant to drive traffic.

Patenting sneaker DRM is ridiculous enough. He didn't have to add the inflammatory commentary.
I think it's not necessarily about people using F# but rather about creating cool things to help attract intelligent people to Microsoft and to give technical-minded people a better impression of them. Secondarily it also gives puts them in a prime position within the functional programming niche in case it does catch on and is likely to become the first choice in production environments. It will attract a very different set of people to the .NET stack.

Microsoft Research have employed Simon Peyton Jones, one of the main designer of Haskell, for the best part of a decade to work on GHC so functional programming is not really new to them.
I started reading this thread and I thought, oh finally linux. But then I got really sad when I learned that nautilus was required :(
The current consensus is to use statistics without trying to write a program that "understands" human language.

A common approach is to break your items down into a vector of "features" (words, phrases, tokens, etc) and apply standard IR techniques like kNN, singular value decomposition (SVD), tf/idf, etc.

One interesting thing about your problem is that people use different words and phrasing for the same thing, which means you need a way to equate different tokens with each other. SVD is pretty good because it finds degrees of similarity based on context: 'Pikachu' becomes strongly associated with 'Pokemon' and 'Squirtle', and also with misspellings like 'Picachoo'. SVD is tricky and expensive if you implement it wrong. The good news is that it recently came off-patent so there are a lot of new libraries popping up.

When I worked on a keyword search engine prototype for Brasil, I found that a mix of Tanimoto and Ferber similarity scores worked very well for finding similarity between short phrases, and I didn't even need to know how to read Portuguese.

PressFlip is using support vector machines for a similar task of clustering news items. The Vowpal Wabbit is a stellar library used by Yahoo. I think they recently open-sourced it. allvoices.com is tackling the same area as well. (disclaimer: I am a dev at allvoices, though I don't work on that part :)
Mechanical Turk Meets Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals"
One of the key trends over the last 20 years is how many countries have actually emerged from endemic poverty, with China being a fairly prominent example (yes, there's still poverty there, but there is in the US too). Most of them will attribute the success to 2 things. A market-based economy, and "trade not aid."
In 2003, me and a partner decided it'd be pretty neat if companies could deploy firewalls that filtered AOL Instant Messenger, Jabber, and MSN IM, with rules for users and groups, not IP addresses, and with automatic encryption and message relaying to keep corporate secrets off the OSCAR servers.

Then AOL announced they were going to go release the same thing. We had pretty much everything but the user interface done.

Like the man said, "In a situation like this, there's a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out". We bitched out.

A few months later, AOL dropped the product. Akonix and IMlogic, two companies that didn't bitch out, went on to gross something like 30-40MM in revenue each. I stopped paying attention to them; I assume they exited nicely.

Your competitors don't decide whether you're going to succeed. Your judgement and execution do. We probably would have failed even if we kept moving --- our hearts weren't in it. Is yours? If you have to ask whether you're going to keep going, maybe you should do something else.
http://photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00MyWz
I stand corrected. Since I once actually got a job through photo.net's classifieds (back in the Ars Digita days) I'm glad to see it. The comments there however (the mention of debt, "terms were not disclosed") suggest it wasn't a terribly lucrative exit.
Welcome back to Reddit, everyone! After we stop for a minute to be aware of the world, can we then discuss how Ron Paul and Mike Gravell will fix it, and then compare pictures of kittens?

There's a whole big wide Intertube out there. Plenty of places to discuss politics and social justice. whalliburton, do you have a technical or entrepreneurial insight to share about this?
The second Seinfeld and Gates Microsoft ad
Are you KIDDING me??? We're all adults here and we all have varying degrees of understanding about what's going on in the world and we all have different levels of involvement in trying to make it better. I don't need that shit thrown in my face on this forum.
Much better than the first.
You have the "second move" in this chess game of monopolistic competition. Even highly successful, technically superior, first-to-market products have been beaten out by competitors.
Just killing a process will leave its core intact in memory until the pages are reused by the operating system. If the computer is then hibernated (and by default Mac OS X writes hibernation data when you suspend it), a memory dump is written to disk that may include this data. If a process was manipulating sensitive data -- cleartext passwords, cryptographic keys, or so forth -- then that data may be persisted even after a program is killed.

The good thing is that, as far as I know, most operating systems use a first-in first-out page allocation algorithm. This means that newly-freed pages will be given out first, so the life-span of this "zombie data" will probably be short.

Also good news is that RAM is volatile by nature, so it doesn't store "imprints" like hard drives may after a write. If a byte of RAM is overwritten, all traces of the old data is gone within a few nanoseconds. This means that if you are paranoid about this sort of data leak, you should zero sensitive memory buffers before returning them to the system.

I know a bit about the analagous problems with hard drives, if you're interested.
I fear I wasn't clear.

The main problem of the .NET is its distribution. I had to write million lines of C++ win32 code, because no one wants to distribute a 22MB .NET installer.

As goes to ASP.NET that only works with IIS.

F# could be a great thing, but I wish MS would have solved this prime issue before adding all kind of funky languages to the .NET Framework