skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Maybe it's because I live in Massachusetts and not Kansas, but I really deplore the fighting back and forth between armchair (and actual) evolutionary biologists with the anti-science rightwing religious groups. While I am on the side of science of course, it annoys me how counterproductive the whole fight has become. The need for evo bio people to fend off ID types in arguments has made the pro-science public less humble, and less accurate too, because we forget how little we actually know about how evolution works, and instead cling to the politically strongest ideas that science generates. In fact, many fundamental problems that need to be solved are being bullied into the margins by the need to make evolutionary theory seem stronger than it really is. In the last 10-15 years The MIT Press has put out several good books delving into the cutting edge of evolutionary theory, among other things exploring the role of complexity in evolution. It may surprise some that "natural selection" is not universally agreed on, as there is a competing paradigm in which the production of forms is the driver of change, and selection is hypothesized to be a filter, having more of a conserving than progressive force on organisms. The problem is that too many scientists outside of biology assume that the neo-Darwinian synthesis popularized by philosophers like Dennett and Dawkins (also fighters in the battle against religion, not coincidentally), is the one and established view, and allow it to shape the interpretation of results in other fields. Perhaps if we were to ignore the creationists instead of fighting them, then we could acknowledge the primitive state of our models and make some real progress.
I guess nobody clued this guy in on extensions. As Firefox gains more marketshare, it also gains more extension developers and users. It also allows the web to advance. That is the aggregated benefit of more marketshare for Firefox. The social features this guy recommends belong in extensions, and, incidentally, extensions with that functionality already exist.

I think the "social media" obsession has gone on long enough. I was so sick of "social [x]" for everything (social laundromat finder, wee!) more than a year ago, when's it going to wear out?
Well, it will be interesting to see how it works out, since Merrill owns 49% of BlackRock.
But who's on the other side of all this loss? I bet someone's got tricks up their sleeve.
I liked:

"I would wake up wishing that I had followed my classmates into something simple and easy, like investment banking.".

Don't speak too soon...
I wonder if the MBA programs will get flooded with all these ex-bankers
now to find one person to read my writings, besides me.
I would have marked it up way more than 150 percent; I would have charged USD 10.00. If this guy could make USD 9.50 off each condom, instead of USD .75, he might have done much better.

Of course, I don't think this guy's a bad businessman. I'm just saying I would have done that one thing differently. I'd say that, latex notwithstanding, the demand for condoms in the right place and the right time is very inelastic. Shit, you could charge $300 for a condom if you were in the right place in the right time. Which place and which time those are I will leave to your imagination.
Actually these are very valid points. FYI I think he means that Linode gives you more memory for the same price as slicehost. At any rate check out this linode review for more details:
http://www.linodereview.com
The scary thing is that by the end of the year or so, we could be left without any of the former big five investment banks. The only remaining titans would be the commercial banks -- Citi, BofA, JPMorgan. I'd expect new market leaders to emerge from the current cohort of smaller regional dealers, boutique special-purpose investment banks, hedge funds, etc., but it will be a while before all this is sorted out. Even Goldman is endangered... anyone without a significant deposit base who is forced to rely on borrowed money can be struck down at any time.

This afternoon, the cost of insuring Goldman and Morgan Stanley's debt via credit default swaps went through the roof. We'll see how things play out.
Just to clarify, Coase wrote (in "The Lighthouse in Economics" in the 1970's) specifically on the case of lighthouses in the British Isles.

Lighthouses in England are maintained by Trinity House (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_House) which is not in any recognizable way a private organization. While it operates with a large degree of autonomy, it is part of the UK government.

According to Coase, Trinity House funds its activities through "light dues" that are assessed on a per-tonnage basis to ships arriving at or departing from British ports. Assuming that there are never shortfalls or times when TH needs to draw on outside funds, then the scheme is self-supporting.

IOW, We're not looking at a bunch of hard-working libertarian lighthouse keepers each independently negotiating with ship captains in a free market.
Emacs is a lot to learn but I didn't find the learning curve steep.

It was just the first tries I didn't get what was so good about it, IDEs seemed more powerful and professional but then it clicked and nothing else(except for vi perhaps) even compares.

I find Eclipse and Netbeans ridiculous. So big and slow and they do loads of things I have no use for and then they can't do the things I have use for.

And the more you learn about emacs it just gets more and more superior.
Here's a roughly-scanned version of Coase's paper: http://ccer.pku.edu.cn/download/7874-2.pdf
This is off topic, but I'll bite.

Chrome isn't an IE killer, its a Firefox killer. Why? because Chrome (like IE) is a chosen browser. IE is a default.

Most Firefox users have chosen to use it. Downloaded it. Installed it. Tried it & use it. Most IE users have not.*

Once someone is making a choice, you can reach her. Say 'but wait there's more.' IE users aren't even going to know about Chrome. They won't ever be consciously deciding between browsers. If they are, resistance to change is a big factor. If Chrome becomes demonstrably better choice, it will be chosen. But only by those making a choice. Everyone else isn't listening.

So basically FF users make a choice & Chrome gets to make its pitch. IE users don't. Product similarity has nothing to do with it. Its market similarity that runs this show.

*Obviously some IE users made a choice. They're in the FF category.
"Posterous is the most innovative blogging platform available today."

No offense to Posterous staff, but I think they have a lot of work to do before it can really claim that title. I think WordPress currently holds that title.
And to think that less than a year ago I was thinking "I'm sick of this physics thing, I'm going to go and become one of those overpaid finance guys"

I'm so glad I didn't. Otherwise I'd probably be unemployed in New York City right now, with a $3000 a month lease.
Can you imagine the embarrassment of not being able to write a sentence on a piece of paper? The issue is not that everyone needs to have great penmanship, the issue is a basic fundamental skill that we all take for granted precisely because it was taught to us in school.
Notes in math class? Pay attention to the lecture, and understand it. Taking notes is worse than useless - it gets in the way of your understanding.
What'd you think of the comment comparing BlackRock's fate to ML's? Are BlackRock and Citadel and places like that the new ML's and Lehmans?
Not only that, but Google tries to be too smart. Years ago, when I searched for "x y z", google would only return results for "x y z". Now it returns results with things resemblying x, y, and z, most of which are NOT what I was searching for.

I used to be able to craft a search query that would be able to cut out the fuzz from the search and give me the specific results I wanted, but now Google is working very hard to bring that same fuzz back in.

Sorry, until computers can read my mind, trying to make your program guess at what I meant to say means you've already lost.

I think that Guy L. Steele said it best, although he was talking about DWIM (Do What I Mean) in Lisp implementations:

So to this DWIM
Let's say farewell;
The crocks therein
Prove it can't win
And ring its knell:

(Google 'A Time for DWIM' to find the rest of it, although it's not quite as relevant to my point as this stanza. And look at the rest of GLS' poetry/songs too -- very amusing)
Actually DTrace and ZFS are exactly what people are looking for.

DTrace: Visibility into running processes and ability to debug a system without having to reboot or go offline.

ZFS: instant, easy to use snapshots, built in ECC for all your files, ability to grow filesystems, etc. And, the snapshots actually WORK, unlike on Linux where you may or may not be able to snapshot the filesystem, depending on how big your snapshot volume is and how much the changes are while you are taking the snapshot.

Solaris, believe it or not, is more stable 1) in terms of programming interfaces, 2) in terms of multi-threading 3) in terms of performance under load. It has a better virtual memory subsystem, and performs far, far better under memory pressure conditions (conditions where you are low on RAM) than Linux.

They have not changed any public interfaces since Solaris 8, and guarantee that a program that runs on Solaris8 (shipped in 2000) will still run on Solaris 10 (shipped through at least now, which is 2008).

Contrast that with Linux where the threading model changed a couple of times during the same period, the scheduler changed, device drivers had to be updated, etc. etc.

And yes, I have seen all of the above, on production systems.
Citadel, definitely. They already have started doing certain things once the domain of investment banks -- they make markets in stocks and options, for example. Recently they've hired a number of prominent fixed income traders, e.g. the head of JPMorgan's mortgage trading department. I think they're well on their way to becoming a leading securities firm. They're certainly big enough to purchase a smaller boutique to bring in expertise in mergers, IPOs, debt offerings, etc. The only problem is regulatory, given that they're a hedge fund, but I imagine this eventually could be resolved -- after all, Citi and JPMorgan all have large internal hedge fund arms.

Blackrock is a very different company. They manage more than a trillion dollars worth of assets, making Citadel seem paltry at ~$25bn. They haven't really shown much interest in branching away from their area of expertise: fixed income asset management.
Wamu (washington mutual) is also feared to be next
Asian banks who has been crediting this whole mess for the last 20 years and now started asking for the pay back.

The day foreigners realize creditworthness of this nation, it will be so much done.

Can you imagine this country without credit. Not only easy credit, but without access to credit at all. And mountains of debt to pay off before anyone will even think about buying another T-bill.

Capitalism: system in which you save to raise capital to fund investment (production).

Definitely not one where you spend on credit that you hope to never pay back living from credited bubble to credited bubble.
Blockage on iPhone apps begins to properly annoy developers
Google Chrome, a Shell for the Web
Yes he did. That part of the post makes sense.

He's encouraging FF to have an in-built mechanism for giving users incentive to recommend something, anything. What he proposes is bad.
Possible Layoffs at eBay, Golden Parachutes for Execs
EA and Take-Two give up on merger talks
According to the report, in the U.S.:

* There are 6 procedures required to start a business (versus 1 in New Zealand and Canada)

* A startup must wait 6 days after submitting an application in order to begin operation (1 in New Zealand)

* It takes 12 days to register property (2 in New Zealand)

* Taxes must be paid 10 times per year (twice in Sweden)

* It takes 187 hours per year to pay taxes (80 in Hong Kong)

* Total tax rate for entrepreneurs is 42.3% (24% in Hong Kong)
The deformations are there on purpose, I was trying to give it an edgy style, otherwise it just doesn't appeal to the audience I am trying to reach.

I fixed the other typos, as there were unintentional, just a byproduct of fast sloppy editing :-) It's writing, and it's an opinion, so I rather get it out there with a few typos, spelling mistakes and bad grammar, then just sit on it forever.
"More than three decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life"

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-sm...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297737
I completely agree, I might be able to read a series of notes, but just because I'm no Yehudi Menuhin doesn't mean that we should stop appreciating music should we?

It's a ludicrous argument, but given her next post it seems that this is her modus operandi.
... so instead they go and buy Merrill? Not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work there, Lou.
I disagree with almost every point. Palm had flash memory, color screens, and wireless before, or with, everyone else. (I do concede that they made incremental hardware "improvements" with every new Treo, instead of researching and adding innovative features.)

On the other hand, Palm did not add features to their operating system for what must be 7 years now. They did go up a version by adding 320x320 resolution support, but it was more of a hack than anything else. Each individual component (app, database) was still limited to 64k in size from what I recall. Palm was run by business people (more so than Android and the iPhone have since) who thought incremental updates of screen and camera resolution and doubling the onboard memory from 32MB to 64MB were good enough improvements each year.

Palm also did not have a Blackberry-like push e-mail app until maybe two years ago (and even that was because of a third party e-mail app; the default app that Palm owned and installed with every Treo did not even support IMAP.) But around the same time as adding IMAP support by purchasing the rights to a 3rd party e-mail client, they decided to start supporting Microsoft Exchange and running Windows Mobile on half of their new devices every year.

What happened? Apple fans originally loved PalmOS because it wasn't Microsoft. It was based on Apple's Newton. Secondly, the Palms worked better with Apple computers than Microsoft's devices did. Third, supporting the Palm could prevent Microsoft from dominating the mobile world on top of the PC world. Finally, Palm "sold out" and went with Windows Mobile, instead of improving or rewriting their aging operating system.

With the iPhone, Mac lovers could now get a real, current Apple product. I think that was the greatest gift to Mac users and Palm fans who were getting sick of Palm's insignificant incremental improvements.

Now if by software you mean the freedom anyone has to write and distribute a 3rd party app for a Palm device, then yes, they are still the easiest to release apps for. A developer doesn't need anybody's permission except that of the user themselves. But as far as the software PalmOS created and owned--such as the operating system and mail client--only minor improvements were made over the past seven years.
I learned it on my first job - probably the best way to learn since you can learn from other pros.
Good thing for Merrill that the Glass-Steagall Act has been repealed. If the credit crisis had happened before 1999, Merrill would simply have to declare bankruptcy if it couldn't find a non-bank buyer. A lot of leftist politicians have been calling to reinstate the restrictions on depository institutions and Investment Banks being owned by the same entity. However, when you restrict the capital flows in an industry you reduce the possibilities for restructuring in times of crisis, thereby making it more likely that some firms will fail.

It's no coincidence that the US had some of the most restrictive banking laws in the world in the 1930s and it also had the most bank failures during the depression. This deal shows the advantages of deregulation.
Um... What makes you think that Goldman is endangered? It stock price is only down 20% from 09/2007 which is bad but not even close to catastrophic (and significantly better than most other investment banks). Furthermore, it is one of the few financial institutions which foresaw (to a small degree) the oncoming subprime crisis (and made over $4 billion through shorts).
He's 100% correct. There is a market opportunity here. The threat of wasting resources is minor in comparison.

Going by pure business realities, iphone developers that stop developing just because of this are going to be extreme end-cases.
Well, I don't know the internals but Merrill might have a better balance sheet than Lehman. Also, BOA might be trying the whole "get too big to fail" thing - riding the wave of moral hazard and hoping for a government bail out if they ever hit the rocks hard.
wow thanks for the link! Some interesting ideas on there for sure. While it meets the criteria of "passive interaction" it doesn't really touch on mutation/evolution.
Should HN stay on computer science topic or be open to politics, economy, etc?
I like HN because it's a great "developer-geek-nerd-computer-whatever" community.<p>I also like talking about politics and many other things, but since there are no categories or tags in HN... shouldn't we stay on the main topic? After all, this is 'hacker news'<p>We have reddit and other similar sites to discuss other things!
Right now things seem stable there, but the same could have been said of Lehman pre-Bear crisis. The problem is that like Bear and Lehman, Goldman relies on financing from other Wall Street firms to finance its operations. While a commercial bank like BofA also borrows money on a daily basis, it also has a massive base of deposits which it can use. More than 10% of our nation's deposits are held at BofA -- a staggering number. That's why BofA could afford to buy Countrywide and now Merrill, and why JPMorganChase could afford to buy Bear. If LIBOR (the interbank lending rate) spikes, if repo rates spike, if funding desks increase their haircuts (thereby limiting the amount of money that can be borrowed against a given par amount of collateral), firms like Goldman will find it much more expensive to operate. And given the troubles that other investment banks have had, I don't think banks are going to be very willing to lend to each other when we open up tomorrow morning.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297737
the finance industry has a very short-term memory though...

in less than 5 years, you will see them again inventing all sorts of financial schemes and create billions of wealth magically out of nowhere
While I don't agree with the article, it's not 100% fair to compare the requirement of this motor (or communications) skill with all those unrelated studies of human knowledge.
So his idea is to add a addon-like functionality to the browser itself? ...
Workaround: Install Stylish (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108) and add "pre { white-space: pre-wrap; }" for this domain.
That explains why I love the training sections of kung fu movies so much.

achievement through great effort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_fu_(term)
Hmm. Do you try and respect everyone purely for personal happiness reasons, or do you really believe that everybody should be respected, no matter what kind of person they are?
I, Pencil - My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read
"Hack #1: Accept a lower valuation

[...] If you want to close your funding sooner, take your valuation down a notch and give your investors 'a great deal.' This means selling me one-third of your company for $500,000, which is still a smart, $1 million pre-money valuation."

What percentage discount on pre-money valuation is generally given to really smart money [read: ideal investor(s)] vs totally dumb money?
It's a classic piece of economics: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=304160
How do you define competence? Competence seems like a word that can mean anything, just as long as the job is done. Do you respect certain kinds of competence (ie. coding) more than others (ie. political maneuvering)?

For a politician, being 'competent' might mean, at times, being the most ruthless, machiavellian snake in the room (with the smiling, innocent face of a bunny-rabbit of course) -- because at the end of the day, he's the guy who gets the laws made / votes plugged-in and thus furthers the mission of the party. (and that mission might be an honourable one.)

For an entrepreneur, it might mean being an amazing smooth-talking sales guy (the kind who actually makes sales, not the kind who turns everybody off with an annoying voice) who makes you uncomfortable with the promises he makes, yet allows the company to just-barely-survive through a tough spot.

If a guy starts a web app company and drives it to success by outsourcing the programming offshore, do you respect him less than the guy who codes it himself?

Just curious because you said that somebody can have "apparently achieved great things" yet still display a "severe lack of competence".
Peripheral question: what do you think ML looks like 18 months from now? Is there still an ML? I watched BofA buy ABN up close, and they were pretty aggressive.
Seems pretty cool, but what's with the cursing in the page title?
Google wants your Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL contacts
It sounds like he might have some great talents, but they're obviously not in the areas the startup hired him for (so he's misrepresenting himself?).

I once worked with an amazingly talented, ambitious young guy who ended up causing extreme problems for the company and for himself, not because he was incompetent per se -- but because he misrepresented where his talents lay (as a political maneuver, a power play). I lost a lot of respect for him -- for his lack of awareness and integrity. (He wasn't humble either, but I think that could have been OK if only he'd have been able to make good on his big claims).
IT staff don't know what to look for in running processes, and don't debug production software in the field. DTrace is a great developer tool. Developers don't buy enough to sustain Sun's revenue model. Likewise ZFS doesn't solve problems in the corporate space, where all the important data is stored in database products that already provide snapshoting and integrity protection (and lots more). Having that stuff available in the filesystem is cool for a developer because it changes the list of feature you need to get elsewhere. To an IT staff, it's just a bunch of checklist features.

I'm sure you like Solaris very much. That's not my point. My point was that you, and developers like you, don't make for a sufficiently large market to sustain Sun Microsystem's position in the market.
The funny thing to me is how unreadable that site is...
Solar Astronomy Film: Brilliant Noise
Interesting. So if a guy can learn how to do something quite inconsequential but extremely well -- is that a faster path to respect than doing a more difficult task in an average manner?

Reminds me of a study I read some time ago about how when you give a gift, get the most bang-for-the-buck by purchasing the most expensive product in a cheap product category. ie. You get a lot more credit in their mind if you give them a $100 scarf than a $150 dress.
I'm sure they will. Maybe I'll show up then, and claim my billion.
I respect those that have found a job they truly enjoy doing.