skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What cultural expresions you found defining for this new generation?
Im 1979, so Gen X; but dont feel like im a prototypical genxer, maybe cause im at the tail (ending Gen X, beginning Gen Y.
I don't think it has anything to do with obsession with medicine, more to do with wanting to feel that the couple of hours you wasted in the ER were for something.
My girlfriend is just graduating as an architect. She just likes very modern or minimalistic designs. I do not think she appreciates classic buildings or decoration. To me it seems like a big loss. But I am only a software engineer.
"Files that are stored completely anonymous can now only be downloaded 10 times. Thereafter an error message will appear."

You're right that the title is slightly inaccurate though.
On a vt220!
He uses his own environment called Frontier. Since Frontier has a REPL there's not much need to use the OS command line. http://frontierkernel.org/
Definitely!

Seth argument makes sense for all these three: who you work for, who you work with and who works for you. It’s more about the work environment.

I have worked in great work environments as well as not so great ones...and I believe it is the single most important factor affecting your productivity and growth.
Dear Sir:

As always, Fuck You and thanks for the $700 Billion. We'll also be interested in changing more laws to make sure we don't retire and that you can't get promoted into the executive level jobs that you have waited for. We got them first, nyah nyah. Any attempt to disagree with the way we run things we be met with our votes, which will always outnumber yours.

Oh yeah, make sure you pay our kids right. Even if it's more than you ever made and bankrupts your company.

Yours,

Boomers.
You should look into the Bulverism Fallacy.
yup it needs to work on all browsers realistically. Good attempt though nonetheless.
Same here, 1979. Dont feel quite an X guy. More X than Y though.
This is a month and a half old article, snore.
I think I might go broke if there was tipping on this site.
How to Take American Health Care From Worst to First by Beane, Gingrinch, and Kerry
Ah, this reminds me of what I really identify with more than age groups: a sort of 'international' set. I'm American, from Oregon, married to an Italian woman, living in Austria. Amongst our best friends here are an Australian couple, an Italian/Mexican couple across the border in Italy, and various and sundry Americans, Italians, French and so forth.

Not having that is one of the things that scares me about going back to the US. We have a small daughter, so big cities are not as interesting as they once were, and smaller towns in the US can be incredibly homogeneous compared to what I'm used to.
Thanks, Zach. These are all areas we're concerned about right now, so your feedback is definitely appreciated (and focused on the right spots). When you say up the pitch character limit, are you thinking around 300? Or even more?
Yea...I miss my flannel shirts...
Australia Plans $1 Billion Electric Vehicle Network
I used iUi to build a web app. It was surprisingly simple!
> working one job all of your life (as our grandparents did)

You know, you hear this all the time that people used to work one job all their lives. But I keep my 88 year old grandmother company often and she doesn't shut up, relating extensive biographies of the family tree going way back. If anything it sounds like major career changes were more common in the past. You definitely get that impression reading about colonial America circa the revolution.

I think maybe there was a brief post-war period where it was true? William Whyte's "The Organization Man" talks about the era.
Two words: Competition is great :)
I think you should take a look. I found it pretty interesting. The general idea is that we sacrificed our citizenship for consumerism and the world adapted to people having this new role. It's well written and an entertaining read, even if you disagree with the points.
See what Sid Meier says:

"I’ve found that the best game designers have a well rounded education that includes the necessary Math, Science, & Computer Science courses, but also focuses on history, literature, science and other core subjects that take their imaginations to many different places. The games I’ve made have been based on topics that have interested me since I was a kid – history, airplanes, pirates, railroads etc. – topics I studied in school, read about in books, saw in movies, and learned about through boardgames and card games. It is definitely important to have strong technical skills to be a designer, but you also have to have cool ideas for games – and those ideas will come from places outside of computer science. One of our young designers graduated from Stanford with a degree in History and Computer Science which was key to his success in designing Civ IV. Other designers have studied a variety of things and honed their programming/designing skills by creating prototypes of games as a hobby, or being a part of beta testing groups. The most important thing is that your son has a passion for playing games – and plays them often (after he finishes his homework of course!)."
(from http://www.firaxis.com/community/asksid.php)

Anyone who likes computer games would be well served by playing Pirates! (and reading the manual that came with it, which is in itself a bit of a history lesson).
You know how current-generation video- and computer-games have "achievements"? I was imagining at one point that there would be a website where people could set certain "achievements" up (just an objective list of criteria for a certain way to do anything in any context), others could earn them, and neutral third parties could determine if they were, in fact, earned, and hand out the actual (virtual) goods.

They would be nothing more than an icon and a short phrase, displayed on a centralized service for verifiability, perhaps linked to a description and the "evidence" presented to the third party. Still, it's just the sort of thing I could see people raving over.

It would make life itself into the world's biggest, distributed, MMO. Rather than manually specifying achievements on the service for doing things in actual games, though, then submitting evidence in the form of a video and signed by the anti-cheating service running on your computer at the time, the game could just integrate its own achievements into the service using an API, automatically assigning people the achievements it's sure about. (Of course, this doesn't mean that people couldn't still create their own manual ones.)

Oddly, this could then become a trust and verification scheme (<College Board> achievement "College Degree" unlocked!) that could be attached to, say, an OpenID identity. It would be a qualitative, rather than quantitative, measure, though, though you could get an "over 2500 HN karma" achievement. This service would then be a sort of "meta-wuffie" that correlates different, subjective trust ratings without trying to make any linear, objective assessment from them.
While the car companies and the media is focused on the creation of better electric cars - "Better Place" is planning ahead and betting on building a fortune by servicing these electric cars. They've started creating electric networks which these cars will need to recharge.
I can't use this and know if I'm really giving useful feedback, but: everything is pretty except for the Search bar up top. It takes up a lot of space and doesn't provide much, and I don't like the blue.

Also, you have something like three different effects when I focus on three different fields.
Yeah, I'm sure that's just me feeling defensive.

And it's interesting you point out that the parents will have to deal with their own children, because it's probably the case that children of the "management elite" (who are now facing a problem) are likely to be the ones with the greatest sense of entitlement, as opposed to say the kid whose dad was a construction worker.
I've seen a few sites that used 250, and that seems like the sweet spot to me. It forces you to condense, but it gives you enough space to broadcast a thought.
Some meager, middle-class lifestyle

Spoken like an arrogant suburban raised kid. Do you know that literally BILLIONS would love to have that "meager middle-class lifestyle"? Did you ever pause to consider the luxuries afforded by a middle class lifestyle. By all sane metrics we live like fucking kings.
Electric cars that don't exist yet. It's still a risky bet, but as you point out the payoff is huge.
* Making a web site when I was a wee tyke and being told not to mention my name, or my location, or my interests, because according to my father anything online would be used to stalk and kill you.

* Going on Newgrounds and being utterly awed; submitting something to Newgrounds and realizing that the people I fawned over were actually people.

* Going to my home town's message board and fearing for how incredibly stupid a lot of people sound online. Realizing that having a commanding voice online doesn't make you cool offline and vice versa.
His ego, coining of vapor words and other people's awe of him do not match that description.
Presumably he wants you to do it like this:

> Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker, and never touch it until retirement
Thank for you the clarification on where the recommendations fell down.

I have resisted letting people upload their record collection because I want to focus on making the site work well when I don't know anything about the user.

Letting users spy on the recommendations of people they admire or feel they are similar to is in the works. Once I get enough users, I plan to have a thing that says, "Hi Jill, your taste is similar to Bill. Would you like to be updated on his recommendations?"

I already pull in the band descriptions from Wikipedia.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback - it's really useful.
Adams argues that the individual should not be buying individual stocks.

I tend to disagree for individuals willing to keep up with their stocks, and can read 10-Qs and other investment material. if you're doing the "buy and ignore" thing, however, it doesn't make much sense.

I've been guilty of not being as active as I should be, relying on meta information far too often. However, the vast majority of my investment is outside individual stocks and in indexes.
401k != stocks. You can have it in a money market account while still receiving the 401k/IRA benefits.
No problem! Thanks for the reply.
A bug in the polling software: I was able to report myself as part of each generation. Multifaceted I may be, but not multiaged.

(Generation X, btw.)
Something related to this: when you have a constraint, use it to your advantage. Make that constraint into your edge.

I think my favorite TV show of all time was Arrested Development, which is odd because it's nearly the only show that I like that wasn't either British or on a pay-for network. And one of the reasons for that is that they took the things they knew they couldn't do - like swear - and turned that into a joke of its own. One of my favorite early jokes in that show featured an incredibly lengthy censored story. I don't think you'd ever look at that show and feel like it was avoiding any subject because it was a network show.
I'm not entirely sure why everyone is always hating on Seth. His blog posts are hit or miss, but that doesn't mean he's an arsehole.
Is it known for people to "run free and create viruses and malware" on Linux? I thought that was more of a Windows problem.
I bought one yesterday at a T-Mobile store in New York. And I generally agree that the fit and finish is far from the iPhone. But I don't think buyers of this phone -- or their phone-admiring friends and acquaintances -- will care.

For this phone, it's about the three S-es: screen, software, slide-out keyboard. They are all top-notch, and they are the features that will have people gawking, talking, and eventually buying the G1. I had a clerk at a different store who had never seen or heard of the G1 ask me to look at it half an hour after I bought it. They were in love after about 30 seconds.

The screen is bright and crisp, as good-looking as the iPhone, and despite the lack of multitouch, works well. Android is shockingly good in round one. The notification system alone is a huge step forward in mobile phone design. And the keyboard bridges the gap to all the ex-Blackberry users (such as myself), who don't want to tap-tap away on a screen.
These days, it's probably safer to just be in stock. :)
Microsoft: New MacBooks Are Pricey, Deceptive, and Unfair. Even Dictatorial!
Yes, he's right, but I'd rather have a glimmer of hope than simply closed business as usual. And Android is a step in the right direction, even if we're not there 100%. Also, you can't blame Android for the problems with lame carriers.
Ruby Stylista
Microsoft launches a development-tool-focused incubator
Do No Evil? Google Uses Shady Ad Tactics To Edge Out Competitor
'79 - feel more like a Y than an X.
But isn't the idea that we can draw hard-lines around generations the very problem here?
It's these hard-line definitions that enable articles like the WSJ one to exist in the first place.

Change happens gradually and continually, but if you sample it at a frequency of ~20 years then you see all sorts of artifacts.
Yahoo’s Big Bet on the Cornhusker State
I have several friends that graduated college and just play video games and party while working part time or temp jobs.

They are poor (in the sense that they have no savings or assets), but they make enough to sustain that lifestyle and seem content with it for now.

I think a large component of 'our generation' is that a lot of us aren't in a hurry to climb the car-house-spouse-kids ladder.

Heck I'm not much better. I do basically the same thing, only with video games and coding rather than video games and parties.
Facebook's Scribe technology now open source
haha touche. Man the beer is going to taste extra good tonight.
Overview:

- Scribe aggregates logged messages from every type of server application for Facebook.

- It has a simple design in that it takes 2 string arguments: category and message.

- There are no predefined categories; new logs are created with new categories.

- Servers are arranged as a digraph with 1 outbound and 1 inbound edge.

- To compensate for network and hardware failure messages are spooled to disk to be distributed when things are working again.

- Uses thrift to accept log data from all different applications/languages.

Hosted on SF: http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribeserver/
In Defense of Anonymity
Meebo Talks Monetization: Introduces Ads from VideoEgg
Also end of 1981.

I've got a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit (haven't got anything off the ground yet, though), and I'm pretty sure that if I was five years older, I'd be a ex-Porche owner :)
Snide comment aside, two months right now is an eternity for how fast these engines are evolving.
There's certainly some overlap there...

Me, I'm happy that I'm still able to see bands like Buffalo Tom and Local H perform.
Thanks for the informative and inspirational message. I linked to it from http://ploneglenn.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-angels-fear-to-...

You are right. It is all about cost containment in times like this and providing a cheaper alternative is the ticket. That is why I started http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com with its flagship product http://www.code-roller.com whose vision is a marketplace of entrepreneurs, evangelists, experts, and enthusiasts of software development that uses time tested, best-of-breed SDLC deliverables and work flow for a higher quality, faster time to market, yet more affordable alternative to getting custom software done.
Roger Ebert on writing more, and better, after losing the ability to speak
"The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone."

Am I missing something?
Choice quote:

"Trouble is, when I’m being cured of something, I don’t care if I don’t understand. But what happens when I do care? When, say, the people we vote for are making decisions that effect our lives deeply, `cause that is, after all, when we get our say, isn’t it? When we vote? But say the issue relates to a bit of science and technology we don’t understand? Like, how safe is a reactor somebody wants to build? Or, should we make supersonic airplanes? Then, in the absence of knowledge, what is there to appeal to except our emotions? And then the issue becomes “national prestige,” or “good for jobs,” or “defense of our way of life,” or something. And suddenly you’re not voting for the real issue at all."
Funnily enough, the article is a good description of the 1997 movie The Fifth Element (which is supposed to take place in the 2200's).
when I had bronchitis, my doctor told me "I can give you antibiotics and it will go away in three weeks. You can go without antibiotics and it will still go away in three weeks. What do you want to do?"

I declined.
Indeed, all sorts of faith healing (homeopathy, Jesus-powered medicine, crystal energies, etc) would be useful in this regard. Faith healing has the advantages of being cheap and free of side effects. Medicine has the advantage that it sometimes works.

For the cases when medicine doesn't work, faith healing wins. It's cheaper, and equally effective. Of course, it will never happen, due to irrational faith in doctors.

Robin Hanson is an interesting read on this topic.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/faith-in-docs.html

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/rand_health_ins.html
I must have been 11 or so, and I remember having a brief instant message exchange with Hoon Im, one of the founders of Electric Gravity (they made "The Village", which Microsoft bought became the basis for what is now MSN Games). I don't remember exactly what was said, but after the conversation I started learning how to program. Good times
...and then they closed at 8,378, just 3.6% down over the day.

Well, that was pretty anticlimactic, wasn't it?
I was born in 82 and have way too much in common with kids in HS. Perhaps this is because my first job was for a high school social network and my wife is a Young Adult Librarian.
I think that's subliminal advertising, which, say, isn't detectable with the naked eye or ear. Good marketing always triggers something in the subconscious though - an emotion of some kind, which apparently makes your memory more receptive.
It's the water he's talking about: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003529990...
I remember realizing that I could use JavaScript to fake include()s so I wouldn't have to update every page on my crappy middle school website.
Amen Brother Cuban
Linux Is Making Me Insane
Where a fair assessment is apparently they're awesome and going to change the world.

I wonder if these self-identifying trophy kids ever considered the fact that maybe they have been given fair assessments and have been found wanting?
I agreed with the article too, but I feel like it was because it was flattering, not because I could tell that it was necessarily correct.
Precisely why you shouldn't have people who don't start businesses enacting policy for people who do... I make a general effort to vote for politicans who have eaten their own dog food on their policy platform, be it having spent time in the energy sector, run their own business, or whatever else...
Right, he's saying don't trade individual stocks, buy indexes instead.
I fully subscribe to this view, unless the individual is trading for a living (putting in many hours), and has enough capital that they aren't wiping out their gains (relative to the index) with trading costs and the opportunity cost of their time.
IMO, you can read all the investment material that you like, but if you have access to the same information as the market then you wont outperform the market on a gross basis, and if you have lesser scale than professional traders then you will under-perform it on a net basis (after costs).
What? Wasn't the Constitution written in this "Constitution-Free Zone"?

This is the first time I've ever said this, but is this really Hacker News? The government is hacking our lives apparently.
I agree that the new SF Federal Building is really hideous looking, but it has some state of the art sustainability features that far surpass the good old days. Could this have been an attractive building with those same features? Sure, but the trend followers want it this way - ugly.
Not quite true. I know a lot of scientists who program in Java (depends on the community) and there are any number of companies supporting scientific computing that are Java shops as well. Usually you will see a mix of Java or C++, a scripting language (python seems to be the most common) and Matlab. And yep some Fortran holdouts
question is: would yamli be able to enter adwords on google's service name? I believe yes. In that case, what google did is fair game. The other issue is the fact that it's much cheaper (or free) for google to enter ads into adwords, but I don't think anyone would propose google refrain from using adwords altogether. Or would they?
> People told her that she had too much of a sense of entitlement, when all she wants is a job doing what she's now very qualified to do: write.

There are plenty of jobs for tech-writers. Advertising and marketing is a lot of writing and pays well.

If she can write and can't find a job writing, then either she's in a "no employment" zone or she's unwilling to write what other people will pay her to write.
(Woot, BMW!) :D
Standard and Poor's just rated the bond as junk yesterday evening. Hopefully they find some way to make money, NYT is basically the only newspaper I read. http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN23535859200810...
I guess this is better than:

-Acquire gobs of users

-???

-Profit!
Sheesh. I have a job offer in Seattle too... Americans, please fix your country.
We made a comet application on Mochiweb that lets us push arbitrary messages to users
identified by an integer ID. After pumping 1000 msgs/sec through it for 24 hours, with
10,000 connected users, we observed it using 80MB, or 8KB per user. We even made pretty
graphs.

Much better. It is on the level of the rest of the field now (save Liberator.) Still, a million looks far from this. I can't wait for the conclusion. If it doesn't happen we'll have to get some torches. ;)
Also 1981 here. A lot of people consider the border between Gen X and Millenials (usually 1981-1982, but sometimes as early as 1979 or as late as 1984) to be a distinct generation, with characteristics of both. Wikipedia calls it the "Cold Y Generation".
The Guardian Gives Readers the Whole Story via RSS
401(k)s can contain many types of assets, depending on the provider. For example, mine has stock-only indexes, bond indexes, mixed funds (stocks and bonds) but ALSO it has fixed income funds, which return ~4.8% pa. That's not going to make you salivate, but it's not a bad place to be if you believe the market is over priced.

401(k)s can (and should) be invested across a portfolio of different asset classes (and geos) according to your retirement needs. Asset allocations should be changed over time as retirement nears. this is my personal opinion, not financial advice :)
In all fairness, they didn't redefine anything, thay made a term that can be easily communicated, just like any marketer would. Just because they are non-profit means that they have to forego valid strategies to spread their message?
Co-Op Launches... Yammer Who?
Blank Generation
Using one number to represent 14 benchmarks is meaningless. Check out the original blog to see the breakdown by benchmark, which is more informative: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/09/trac...
Generation X. Born in 1981, so I just barely snuck in to that category, lol! :-)

I prefer to think of myself as from the "Beverly Hills, 90210" generation. Dylan McKay is my soul mate.
And this differs from astrology because ... ?
Screw it, use Redmine.
Obama campaign running Ubuntu nationally?