skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> I would look to solar and certain other viable alternative energy options right now as the next major tech growth sector.

Right. The next wave is further electrification, new power generation, and first world infrastructure renewal. New advanced rail and massive rail line build outs. Rebuilding sewage and water systems. Alternative energy. Revamping agriculture for expensive oil and scarce fresh water will also be a big hi-tech area.

I'm sure the garage hackers will make money here and there as part of the wave, but they will be auxiliary; not like with the PC or internet booms. The main stage will be the capital intensive stuff working with actual raw materials.
Of course, the cell phone will probably have a much better chance to make this a reality first before the Zune, but they can try.

So far, Microsoft have been a step behind Apple... every step of the way. They brought out a 30GB product just as Apple were pushing the Nano. They introduced Wifi, but Apple were the first to sell music over Wifi and brows the internet on an iPod.

And now they are battling to sell music players while Apple is concentrating on small tablets that happen to be phones and happen to be music players.

My advice to Microsoft: Just as you backstabbed your PlaysForSure partners to launch Zune, I think you should backstab your Windows Mobile partners: Buy RIM and merge Zune into RIM phones.

Special note to Ballmer: Microsft-RIM is Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more interesting than Micosoft-Yahoo. In my opinion.
Each nation need both (Socialism + Capitalism)

1. Prevent Race To The Bottom (aka Socialism)
Free Public Transportation, Ration shops,Reservations,Basic Income Guarantee,Minimum Wages,Free Education etc

2. Promote Race To The Top (aka Capitalism)
Incentives,Subsidies,Markets,Extrinsic motivation,Appreciation,Awards, Rewards etc
Ask HN: Django hosting
I'm fiddling with django and I'd like to find some inexpensive hosts that'll get me going - testing wise. Hosts where I can upgrade if need be, i.e. my app becomes popular.

Where do I look?
Any good implementation of asoftware feature is inversely proportional to the number of lines of code.
The Anti-Schoolers
I sure hope they google me - I am apparently with Copenhagen Business school, a filmmaker, a photographer and (twice) a carpenter. Well at least I am no longer a gay porn star.
Health and Fitness Needed for a Badminton Player
A healthy and fit body means better flexibility on the court. As a badminton player, flexibility of the body is a great determining factor. The more fit the player, the more flexible will be his or her body and the easier it will be for him or her to play even difficult shots with finesse.
The purpose of Star Wars was to bankrupt the Soviet Union, at which it succeeded magnificently. Cold War won, without a shot fired. That is strategy, my friend.

The purpose of this is to fill the pockets of EDS shareholders. No-one in the government has the slightest clue about IT, they believe whatever the consultants tell them. From the outside it's obviously a ridiculous idea. But inside the civil service, you've got this budget, you've got to spend it otherwise you'll get less next year, and it's not like you'll get fired whatever you do.
I found webfaction.com from recommendations here, and I haven't been disappointed.
I would be more likely to agree with you if they hadn't already bought jaiku.
I'm excited for the great music, I'm still listening to classic rock from the 70s and 80s.
Being successful is key and money is an addon.
I've been designing since I had to pack up my art supplies when I moved at 14. http://sicret.net has some of my work, though less of my recent stuff which is more based on typography and establishing a well-constructed grid.grid.

While I am working on my own startups, I'm also a university student and need to pay the bills through freelancing.
Stop Junk Mail Free | TechJaws
This article seems to ignore the main argument I've heard: exit strategies are fewer in a recession. IPOs are out of the question and few companies are in an acquisition mood. So instead of growing fast and selling out before you hit your plateau, you have keep your traffic climbing until the market picks back up. That's really hard, esp. since founders have a tendency to get bored. I expect many will start something new at that point anyway, so I can see why it'd be tempting to skip the step in between. (That said, it's hard to think of a better way to spend the time -- even a failed startup's more educational than grad school.)
Must be why it doesn't load correctly in FireFox?
M2Z's free wireless service aims to disrupt a telco cash cow
Unless you know that it's inherently valuable... oh wait most of it is worth less than it was after the dot-com bubble burst
As far as I've looked I've found webfaction and these guys - http://machine.kerplunc.com/ . Don't know if they're any good though.

Thanks for the recommendation.
Silly idea really because terrorists will just route around it.

My personal theory is that the poor quality of comments on YouTube is actually a code system being used by terrorists to communicate.

All the sleeper agent has to do is visit a web cafe and watch the following http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpfYAghuNtU while reading the comments. When he sees the comment "ZOMG cutest eva" he carries out his attack.
It's a pain to add artists one-by-one, and the service isn't valuable until I do.

I (and a lot of my friends) already have a list of artists in my Facebook profile. You should let me paste that in and parse it.
"Capitalism as we used to know it is on its deathbed."

Come on people. Let's not forget that it was socialist principles (everyone deserves a house) that started this mess.
While exit strategies might be fewer during a recession, the point of starting now is that the economy will (hopefully) be out of the recession by the time you want to exit (typically beyond 12-18 months).
Take it in the spirit it was offered.... namely, that of post-debate talking headism. Something of a communicable disease, I fear. ;)
Crowd-sourcing the monitoring of the world economy
It is fascinating for me to watch the governments of the world stumble around in the wake of the financial crisis not knowing what to do.

How did this crisis sneak up on everyone? How can we prevent the next one from sneaking up?

I wonder if keeping an eye on banks and government monentary policy isn't something that can be crowd sourced.

What sort of metrics might be useful ones to keep an eye on?
Nothing but potatoes?

What about the Idaho National Laboratory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_National_Laboratory

EBR-1?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_I

Arco, the first town lit by nuclear power?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arco,_Idaho
The concept is fine but I find the design a little drab. In my opinion this is an "entertainment" based site and you mentioned possibly selling music... you need to jazz it up, give it some pop - create a vibrant color scheme - then I think people will feel more in-tune with your site.
Farley wins the Internet as envisioned by the elderly, Randall wins String Theory and 1999, and it's a tie on your favorite animal eating your favorite food. It's Randall by a nose.
It's not necessarily a problem if customers feel pinched: you may even be able to benefit from it, by making things that save money.

Funny, you can take the exact same software and position it as a totally different product in a different economy.

Instead of "This software does a better job," imagine, "Our subscription fee is 10% your current cost of ownership. How will that affect your budget?"

Once your customers start shopping with a "recession mindset", you'll already be positioned before your competitors.

Without changing a single line of code.
this is cool, but the real reason I'd want this? honestly?

When the albums get leaked to what.cd.

I like the layout, I really like the sign up form (nice and simple)
one thing, when searching for something with multiple results there is no way to go "back" once you've clicked "n more artists"

its a bit weird that the album links dont go direct to amazon/iTMS -- i assumed that was your revenue stream?
Yeah, like there's thousands of people holding off using Python because print is a keyword and not a function.
The less inconsistencies in a programming language, the easier it is to teach.
Good call, I'm going to add import from last.fm, facebook and probably iTunes.
To be fair, you did say exactly the words 'I predict Google will pick up Twitter'.
You could run a design competition at 99designs.com.

You would then follow-up with the winner if you needed any extra work.
A lump of bash(ish) scripts for doing auto deployment is after 9 weeks average around 130 lines added a day and around 4 removed.

Interesting the peak is 1201 lines, and the lowest is 1.
this is cool, but the real reason I'd want this? honestly?

I guess it depends on how many artists you want to follow. And also how obscure they are. I personally have about 80 artists I absolutely want to know when they have a new release (to sample it or at least to read a review). And 80% of them are not even on Amazon.

its a bit weird that the album links dont go direct to amazon/iTMS -- i assumed that was your revenue stream?

They will, we are working on this.
lol you caught me, I'll give it a 51% chance of happening.
This from Atlassian on Balsamiq:
http://blogs.atlassian.com/news/2008/10/quit_your_job_a.html
A Million-user Comet Application with Mochiweb, Part 1
pg was a lot more fun when he used to talk about other things than making money all the time.
Agreed. With some exceptions, startups are more like marathons than sprints. Investors often look for an exit in ~5 years, while too many founders think that they'll be out, as a success or failure, in 18 months.
I think you should enable some public features, for example a user can easily see any new releases within the last week. This will also boost your saturation on search engines.

Great suggestion, thanks!
Broadband speed tests questioned
Long have we moaned to our ISP's that the speed we pay for is not what we're getting. Now Virgin Media (UK) are launching a super-fast service, that they argue will be faster than everyone will actually measure. . .

They've got some interesting points, but I still don't think that the speeds advertised are anywhere near what they should be.
Unlikely. This is a theoretical paper, not based on any actual data. What the authors get wrong is assuming that there is no correlation between intelligence and original thinking. It is an unwarranted and frankly stupid assumption.

The claim that diversity trumps ability is defeated in nearly every real world test.

I notice that the author's advice, to hire a random sample of candidates for the position instead of the best, is not followed by any great companies that I can think of. In fact, it's 180 degrees away from the hiring practices of places like Google, etc.
We like it plain and simple, but we may review the design in the future. Thanks for your suggestion!
Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” Experiment was a Success
Great point. For some more anecdotal evidence, check out the first tech company I worked for:

http://finance.google.ca/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds...

Immediately after the dot com bust, they were acquiring companies and hiring like crazy. The general pace of the stock market had little to do with how they were performing. It was a bit surprising considering they produce an enterprise software package and you would expect sales to be heavily tied to the market. But they produced a quality product that people wanted, and were able to push the knowledge management/collaboration angle well enough that companies felt like it was an investment they were making.
The most awesome firefox extension: VertTabbar
Mozilla Firefox Başlangıç Sayfası
His web design work is fairly nice:
http://www.streetread.com/about
http://www.tweako.com/
Not that this means much to his argument, but still interesting...
Think of it as an easy way to screen out people who would be uncreative and uncommited. Less signal, but a higher signal to noise ratio.
It's not an either-or choice. Best-case is to hire a highly-intelligent, intellectually diverse team. Bingo Presto, life is good.
I think you have it backwards. I do a lot of interviews, and I would love to see more interviewees who care about Python versus Java, why can't Rails scale, et cetera. Everyone spends their spare time doing something - if you spend it talking about relevant technologies that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Does anybody else fantasize about George Washington coming back and becoming president?
Hmm. It would be interesting to have a way to boost neurons - a neuron rich drink every day . . Something for the bio-scientists I think.
I sure wouldn't want a prospective employer, headhunter, or customer of contract services to find any of my posts here that start with, "My startup...".

Why would they want to hire someone who would be gone as soon as their startup took off?
Even then, I wonder whether maximizing intellectual diversity is really the best strategy. Teams with hefty philosophical disagreements can have trouble getting on the same page enough to accomplish goals.

There may be an optimal level for intellectual diversity, but I wonder if it isn't closer to the minimum than the maximum for most tasks. It would be interesting to see real data on that; I have none.
As someone thinking about hiring an employee to help me, finding his name in such a conversation would be strong hire sign for me... Anybody who is passionate enough about programing to spend some time in such communities is a potential strong hire...
2009 TED Prize Winners
I'm a professor at Cornell, a doctor in NYC, and an antique dealer in Florida.

It took google to finally make me cool.
Openness is a step forward - the real shame is in doing it covertly, while saying otherwise. Email records should be assumed in this day and age. The electronic trail that everyone leaves through credit cards, atms, security cameras in intersections (license plates). I didn't assume that it was as early as pre-9/11, but electronic data is so prevalent now that it's hard not to track people. Do you really care about the CIA/FBI having records though?
Technology doesn't evolve independently of a market for it. While "make something people want" is true in any economy, the problem is that what people want changes with the state of the economy. So startup founders need to reassess the market for their products (building iPods or building pacemakers?), and I'd guess many will decide this is not the right economy for their startups, and some will now discover new opportunities.

You do touch upon this a little bit in your article, where you mention startups that save customers money will succeed more in a bad economy. But I thought the more general assertion wasn't made.
This article is titled wrongly. It should not be called "Why to startup in a bad economy", but "Why to startup, even if the economy is bad".
You Techno: Bills day nightmare.
How in the world did you know?
I still think it's best to hire full time designers then going to an outside firm. I am biased because I am a user interface designer for startups. But I think working on something full time lets you understand the application much better.
Yeah, buying on recession is great. But you have to have the cash first. Not exactly a startup situation.
MediaTemple has Django grid containers now. Starts at $20/mo.

http://mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/features/containers.php...
Niche Audience: Earn with RevResponse
Right, you have to build something people want - not something companies want. Solve the first and the second will always take care of itself.

EDIT: Just to be clear: That doesn't rule out enterprise applications. People in companies have needs too!
You don't need exit strategies. Issue dividends.
Yes. I think you have to add social skills into the mix. Ideally maximum intellectual diversity with maximum social (negotiation, facilitation, humility, leadership) abilities, but you'd have to scale back on intellectual diversity depending on the social ability of the group.
I recommend a VPS with slicehost.com at 20$ month, with Nginx to serve static files and fastcgi for Django. Nginx+FastCGI is the answer to the memory constraints(256mb).

There are multiple plan you can update to. And since it's a VPS, updating is painless.
We just launched ErrorHelp.com: Has a coworker already solved your error?
A widget/plug-in thingy that scans your music library and adds the artists to your list would be nice.
"Last year you had to be prepared to explain how your startup was viral. Next year you'll have to explain how it's recession-proof."

You should have to explain how it's going to make money, no matter the economy. Founders need to stop thinking they can just magically monetize later after reaching one fobillion users. If it happens, awesome, but don't bank on it. Google was an anomaly, but you wouldn't know it from the attitudes of others towards them.
What kind of situation do you think we're in right now? I think it's a little relevant to the times ;)
That would be great. I'm in the exact same boat. I've also recently realized that googling my name gives me someone else for the number one result, and that dude isn't even in the software industry.

I've always kept a fairly high degree of anonymity online just because I'm used to the old BBS days of pirate nicknames; but in places like here, it feels awkward for me to respond to someone by name, when my nickname is a misspelled word.
WebFaction blows me away. They are, quite simply, awesome.
Forgive me for asking, but hasn't this been done before for years? What makes this implementation unique?
EDIT: Not sure why HN.YC killed this post. :( Would love to know so we don't do it again.

We'd love your feedback on this. We've done a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of our error search engine, http://bug.gd. (You might remember you guys hated the black/white scary design we had before. Hopefully you'll like this better.)

In addition, we're launching http://www.errorhelp.com, which aims to help companies avoid losing research done by their employees. We've tweaked the signup process (as inspired by Yammer) and are interested in how well that works out.

It's totally free, but we'll be adding pay features eventually that make life easier for IT managers.

We're very excited and would love your feedback. Thanks in advance.

More info on our blog here:
http://blog.bug.gd
I agree with the voice over suggestion.

Try to humanize the site as much as possible.

Based on QA, I wonder what feedback you would get if you placed the video above the fold....
I only care about them misusing the data they have if there isn't sufficient oversight. I don't mind them having my data, but I'm bothered when I find out that police officers are misusing security cameras to spy on naked women for example (also in the UK IIRC).
The thing about the Apple icons is that they're all surprisingly well thought-out. Despite the general joke, they've very rarely overshiny and that gives them a really nice, solid feel. Things like the default Leopard folder and the TextEdit icon are entirely non-shiny. So when people aim to out-Apple Apple, it feels overdone, like this icon set in particular.
Our company, then, will be taking a small slice of a big pie, rather than on these players head-on.

Very nice way of thinking about it. Good luck.
Major shock: Eavesdropping powers abused without oversight
Nokia Should’t Fiddle While Its Market Leadership Burns
> I still think someone or some group should buy Microsoft outright, halt all R&D and get a nice 20-30% per year in dividends for the next 10-20 years until it dies. (similar idea)

And what happens to the employee's who get part of their pay based on stock grants? How motivated would you be to work there knowing that you will be out of a job when the owners have milked you for all you are worth, and cut back on all the fun parts of your work to keep their dividends up.

This is a neat thought exercise but would be a complete non starter in the real world.
Flash Player 10 Solves Some, but not all ‘Clickjacking’ Attacks
Flock To Developers: We're Using Firefox Add-Ons Now
It's a very high level indicator that has so many * it really should only serve as a starting point to evaluating a companies worth.

Debt, and actual cash on hand (and any toxic investments) are the next levels of analysis.
It's possible, although not easy.
> $1B in profit, every quarter.

Well that's gross profit, which isn't really profit at all.

Their net profit for the recent quarter was 131.22 million and $600 million for 2007, a far cry from the 4 billion you specify.

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:YHOO
I heard that the strategy of investing the same amount of money every month ("stock goes up, good, stock goes down, you just bought more shares, good") is not actually a very good strategy at all. Supposedly, brokers use it to get you to spend money with them on a regular basis, especially if the fund or broker makes commission or a fee per trade.
Ben Graham was interested in companies selling for less than their net working capital, which is current assets minus current liabilities, not merely less than the cash on their books. Bank of America has 312 billion in cash and 629 billion in debt. The article's "conclusion" does not follow from looking at the market or companies mentioned through the lens of Ben Graham. sigh
Jack: Mocking JavaScript the good way
Lead Generation Best Practices
Well the free market is made up of The People? I think that's close enough.
Linux on a laptop has never worked out well for me every time I tried. Getting an external project to work usually has issues, wireless is sometimes flakey and battery life typically sucks. I highly recommend checking out OS X on a laptop. I always found the Mac desktops to be too expensive for what I need (since I already have a laptop I don't need heavy multimedia just an always-on workhorse).
OSGI and JavaScript; Frameworks and building blocks for Ajax apps
Reasons for...
> The classic example is when people try to use a NSTableView and ask "how do I send it the data?" This is the wrong question.

If this is what makes Cocoa "hard," then it's not unique to Cocoa. I'm seeing the same design patterns and philosophies of event-driven programming in recent toolkits and frameworks, even in places where languages like Java and C# are dominant. The drift away from imperative programming to more object-oriented and functional paradigms (sorry) is even showing up in unexpected places, like how jQuery made JavaScript take on OOP and functional aspects in coding style.

It's a learning curve everyone will have to traverse, since, in the future, heavy parallelism and capped clock speeds of future computer systems will more heavily favor such "modern" design techniques (a misnomer, since the concepts have been around for decades). Like many, the first languages I learned were stuff like BASIC, COBOL and Pascal, and I spent most of my college career unlearning stuff to program the "correct way."

(Just for the record, to the grandparent poster, Objective-C should only take you a day to learn. It's a strict superset of vanilla C, so much so that the first ObjC "compiler" was a set of pre-processor macros for a C compiler. All the real work is in learning the coding conventions in Cocoa; the language enforces surprisingly little.)
Bravo! One of the most useful submissions to HN in a while. This is the kind of thing that gives my faith in tech a little boost - "throwing sheep at your friends on facebook" or cute productivity apps that reduce your productivity are not.
Going in Unprepared
I'm using cheapish shared hosting Site5, which supports PHP, Django and Rails. The Django instalation wasn't exactly easy, but it worked (if you need help I can give a hand).

However you might prefer going for a more Django focused host, you can find a few @ http://djangofriendly.com/hosts/.
Reminds me of the old Lazarus Long quote: "Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."