skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Jamahala
Selection of articles that are related to specific topics. All included links are manual selected by a category editor.
Launching missiles and other unhappy accidents
How is the recharging done by the way? Do you need a recharging-station at home?
How long does it take? I couldn't find that info on the homepage.
FireStatus - A Status Update Utility for Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed
FireStatus is an experimental Firefox plugin that allows you to quickly send notes to: Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. It also displays updates from these services in notification popups. If you wish to share a certain URL, just stand on the desirable webpage, open FireStatus, add a short note, and fire your status away.
With entrepreneurship you can't afford a big ego
The 25 Most Influential People on the Web
anti-crack-protection ;)
Google.org's ‘Threat Detective’ against diease epidemics: 'hot spots' from search queries?
Which security strategy takes more time - configuration or coding?
you don't have to be a track guy to be a car guy. some people genuinely enjoy cars that are terrible track performers.
when a guy crashes its because he is in the process of doing something stupid. When a woman crashes its because she isn't paying attention.

Women are just horrible drivers from my experience. I've been hit 5 times and members of my family were hit 3 times. In ALL but one cases the other person was a woman. And that doesn't count the hundreds of times I had to scramble to get out of the way because some woman suddenly decided that she liked my lane better

1-side swipe w/o her using any turn signals. Usually not a problem since I'm used to this, but this one was dodging rear ending another car

2-sitting at a red light and the woman thought the light turned green, caused about 4 grand in damage(she must have had the pedal to the metal)

3-entering driveway and the woman thought my turn signal was flashing the other way, so she decided to pass on a shoulder and t-boned me as I was entering

4-t-bone in a parking lot because the woman decided to look back at her kids and hit gas instead of brakes

5-rear end at a red light because the woman thought I'd run the red light and didn't

6/7-2 major hits at a parking lot because the woman didn't slow down enough entering the space

the one time I got hit by a guy it was when we were both pushing the limit at the racetrack, and was due to him understeering.

Until I modified my car's exhaust I had to avoid careless women almost daily. Now that they can actually hear me thats been cut down to once a week. An aftermarket exhaust is the best investment you can make to avoid major repairs to your car.
Ask YC: UK VC and Mentoring 
(Posted under a new account for anonymity)

A friend and I have been working on a side project for over a year, and based on what we have so far, have been contacted about working on a similar project for a company in SF.

Although no actual offer has been made yet, they've suggested they'd like us to relocate from the UK to work on a specific project at a very reasonable salary.

There is a lot of interest in the sector we're working in, and the company that has contacted us has just received $30M in funding (to cover several projects - all similar, but the majority is earmarked for this.)

We know we can do a better job of development and marketing ourselves and already have a working model that's been well received, but to be honest we know it won't ever get to the level we want while it's just a side project.

Which brings me onto the main point of this question:
What is VC funding like in UK? Does location matter, should we be looking at US funding as well?

Neither of us have any experience in getting funding and would be interested in finding an experienced mentor (ideally in the UK) to help us plan for and get funding.

Is there any other good UK centric advice?

Thanks in advance
What is early stage?
To explore Space, use big robots and big rockets
3 lessons the individual investor can learn from JPMorgan Chase
ZFS is now available on FreeBSD and it features jails. I haven't kept up with it in a while regarding dtrace support though.
IPhone Safari 3D Navigation Menu
Igri
The best selection of free arcade games.
Linux vs. Solaris -

Linux: Seg-fault in the gcc toolchain. After casting about for several days, we couldn't even find someone willing to take our money to fix it. Digging into the code (ld), it's so cryptic it may as well be written in undocumented assembler. Responses from mailing lists and forums: "Go back to Windows" "Restructure your project to avoid that problem" "Why are you complaining, fix it yourself, it's open source" etc. We couldn't submit a test case, because it would have required making public a lot of code containing trade secrets.

Solaris: Seg-fault in the Solaris compiler toolchain. We called Sun, and were talking directly to dev tools engineers within minutes. They put the case on 24 hour support and had a patch for us to test a day later. We could submit a reproducible case because Sun accepted the code under NDA.

Not the kind of thing that shows up in feature bullet point comparisons, but when you have 30 developers held up on one side and the clients need the code to calculate their bid for an eleven-figure project (as in this case), it makes a difference.

In other words, Sun is at a disadvantage, since one of their main selling points requires an understanding of IT risks that most people, unfortunately, do not have. IT guys may think linux is 'cheaper' but they don't have their end-users' acute desire to minimise the already-remote chances of some random problem costing them millions in commission. Edit - it is also an unfortunate reality that being able to pin the problem on Sun (or Microsoft, etc) can save your career in a situation like this. There's no-one to blame if you are using open source and it goes wrong. The buck stops with you not just for your code, but for the code of any free tools you are using. I wish that wasn't how it worked, but there it is.

Plus, if you stay 'on piste' doing stuff that has been proven to work (you could hardly argue against Linux + apache for example), you have a relatively small chance of stepping on these engineering landmines.
You're welcome. Here is the 40-minute version that includes Elon Musk's post-launch address to the SpaceX employees in Hawthorne, California, and post-launch interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQhtMrUQlE
Citigroup Buys Wachovia
I didn't know the blue ball was actually a somethingawful thing. And I've been a goon for a couple years.
Why the banks collapsed and how a paper on Haskell can help stop it happening next time
Could you move to the Valley and do your own thing there? If they've just received $30M for a similar project then it suggests there will be more interested investors.
VC and angel funding in the UK is improving, but still far short of the valley. Plus there are general 'ecosystem' benefits - more technical people to bounce ideas off and find synergies with, and more potential acquirers. If you had rather stay in the UK, there is a new breed of British consumer tech entrepreneur who are looking to invest back in the UK tech scene - perhaps a good way of crossing the UK - valley divide. Check out the Nesta events in London.
Apple Selling Unlocked iPhone 3G in Hong Kong
Nero Debuts TiVo for PCs | TechJaws
Insurance For Your Soul -Ayazmo Remedy
A remedy that will improve your health, harmonize and balance your body, calm your emotions and raise your energy / life force.
I believe this is the home page of one of the researchers:
http://www.ilsb.tuwien.ac.at/~tajmar/

Link to a pertinent paper:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0603033v1
“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” - Dijkstra
A "moral calculus" is not something that one "does". Dictionary definition of calculus:

a system or arrangement of intricate or interrelated parts <the calculus of forces in world affairs — Martin Mayer>

.

A moral calculus is a moral system. The moral calculus is the moral system.
Living and working in the US is a blast, and it is something that is very tough to do without company backing (even for educated Brits). Opportunities like this are pretty rare. The contacts you make will last a lifetime, so if you ever want to go back later in life you can do so with less risk and uncertainty.

You would be giving up control of your idea. Probably that isn't a huge problem provided you are compensated in equity - there are always more ideas. The other area of compensation that shouldn't be overlooked is that you will be working with and hopefully learning from people who do have experience in acquiring funding, which would be very useful for the next thing.

If you do decide to work in the UK then depending on the sector I might know some people who would be worth talking to (mail in profile). Most activity seems to originate in London, but it's a small country and even from as far as Manchester coming down once a week for meetings is not hard or expensive provided you live on a train line.
Thanks both of you for the great answers, it makes a more sense now.
Sure you can. The answer is called nullity.
The independent road is tough, really tough, particularly at the beginning of the road. As you progress, things get easier, more people want to talk to you, you have more contacts, etc.

Join these people, and keep your eyes and ears open for opportunity. Let these people pay for the tough part of your journey, and when the time is right, jump ship and start by yourself. You're more likely to succeed because you have the contacts, you know the industry and you are already in the U.S.
Optics and genetics are allowing neuroscientists to identify and control brain circuits
Glassmaking was one of the reasons given. Is it more likely that in their hearts of hearts the colonists believed that:

1. They were going to be able to manufacture, and export to Europe, glass from the New World at a lower price/quality than that from European glass manufacturers.

or

2. They wanted to believe that, while possessing deeper motives involving change-of-scenery.

.

Do you believe that you would have been able to make and ship glass cheaper in the New World than to make the same in England? Does nothing sound fishy to you about that?
I see a common thread between your post and the gp--marriage vs. civil union is an artificial distinction. The best solution I've heard is to remove government-sanctioned marriage, and replace it with civil union. Religious institutions can still perform religiously-recognized marriages; so there's no controversy over eroding definitions. Government gives the same rights and privileges to civil unions, regardless of who's involved in them, so there's no controversy over differing levels of privilege.

The only push-back I anticipate would be from the Dominionists who can't stand seeing church and state separate a little further.
In order to make this post a hacker-relevant discussion (I enjoyed the article, by the way) how about this quote:

"Everybody tries to 'game' the system on their route to vast personal fortunes - whether short-selling, packaging up dud mortgages as prime mortgages or telling lies about their financial viability - and the result is that the system is getting wise. The best course today in any financial transaction is to presume zero integrity. Credit is drying up and with it the very lifeblood of the economy."

When I read this, the first thing I thought of were the inevitable enhancements to the credit rating systems at personal and corporate levels which will arise in the next few years as a result of all of this.

If we're going to continue to abandon trust and integrity for their own sake and only include them as features of self-serving transactions, then it seems natural that we will have to push our current credit-rating systems much further to the (temporal and relational) edges than where they currently are.
Was in the Alan Kay story, when he was talking about engineers.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=317962
I don't drive, but when I'm out cycling -- and I do a lot of cycling (something like 900km this summer) -- I behave like a car on the roads. I've never been hit myself, but I've had many close calls:

1) About two months back I saw a girl on a bike get hit by a guy who "didn't see her" because, as he claims, he was watching me (I was about 10m back). He was on a minor street crossing a major street. We were on the major street, and she got hit side-on. She was fine, by the way, just scrapes on her legs and hands (a doctor happened to be nearby, and he checked her over).

2) I almost got sideswiped by a guy turning right off a minor highway. Had to pull on the brakes and swerve left into the lane to avoid him. Thankfully there were no cars there.

3) As I was stopping at a stoplight, a pickup truck pulled up behind me. The guy inside apparently didn't like how far from the curb I was. He stuck his head out the window, swearing about how he's going to run me over. I yell back, tell him to mind his own business, then make a quick right turn to avoid him.

I could go on. In fact, of all the times I've gotten a look at the driver, it was a woman driver very few times. To use a word I saw here recently, my anecdata contradicts your anecdata.
If you pay for support, you get support. I doubt that there would have been much difference in your experience if you were paying for a support contract with one of the larger Linux distributors, like Redhat or Novell. Linux doesn't mean you're stuck without vendor support, although that's a common misconception.

I don't know how Sun's support compares to the various commercial distros, but comparing an unsupported Linux install to a supported Solaris install isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
Man Crosses English Channel with Homemade Jet | TechJaws
Is it me or is there somewhat of a tech bubble forming as well? Very early stages but it is there, no?
Therapy has worked wonders for me. But it's not something you do for a couple of months and then conclude the process by living a happy life. Your problems are part of you, and you can't just throw a part of yourself out of the window in a short time.

I've been in various forms of psychotherapy for two years now, taking medication when it was necessary. To be specific: characteristics of OCD and schizoid PD as symptoms of depression and social anxiety. The personality traits were not prominent enough to warrant a diagnosis in itself.

In therapy, you get to know yourself better: there are probably reasons why you have certain problems. If you dig deeper in them, you probably get to a point where there are no more reasons. As a random example: you obsess because you fear (x) because you were on multiple occasions in a painful situation regarding (x), and this situation was painful because of (y) and (y) is painful for you but not for others because...and at one point, you might run out of good reasons. But getting to know yourself better helps, and exposing yourself to these issues can give you tools to make them less pressing. Dampening the oscillations, as it were. I have seen plenty of examples where this has made life easier for people, but it takes at least a couple of years. In the US, this might be a tricky proposition because 300 hours of attention from a psychologist is expensive. I hope you have good health insurance, but if you have a well-paying job, I'd say it is worth it.

We nerds are often suspicious of processes that are unpredictable, messy and nondeterministic, but any treatment to psychological issues will necessarily have these characteristics. It doesn't mean that it is pointless. These issues can rarely be cured, but they can be managed and mended.
You mean Micro-"six editions of Vista"-soft ?
Why isn't this news?
One of the things that crept up in reddit as it went downhill was a propensity for "doom! gloom!" headlines. There's certainly a lot to worry about with the current crisis, but let's be careful.
Come to the HN/news.yc meetup in London this Thursday as there will be many hackers and entrepreneurs there who have/had the same problem(s) and can offer detailed first-hand advice and guidance and possibly more e.g. introductions and practical help and finding mentors.

Hacker Meetups London
02 Cotober 2008
Flat 1,
103 Commercial Street,
London
E1 6BG
(Five minutes walk from Liverpool St tube)
(Google map: http://is.gd/4zZ)
I feel as though I'm reading the menu at a particularly fine restaurant. There's lots of, "Oh! That's interesting." but what I really want to do is taste the food.

edit: Abstracts are available at http://www.e-pages.dk/tilsted/96/
Good post. It is also the end of the anglo-saxon "know it all" diktat over finance. It was unthinkable a couple of months ago that New York and London would suddenly disappear from the map of global finance, bringing down with them the whole world of investment banking and its rules. It'll eventually come back, but it'll never be the same.

Still, it is puzzling why the United States are keeping the people who led them into this mess in position. Historically wise, there is absolutely no reason to expect them making good decisions of all the sudden. On the contrary, it fuels an aura of suspicion (biaised interests, corruption, lack of competence, ...) that is prejuciable when you need the other countries to trust you. Isn't it time to make room for the people who got it right and have the kind of global vision necessary to lead during such a crisis ?
I never really accepted Cantor's idea. First off if you have a sequence ...1 and ...0 at infinity they are the same number so saying you flip the last bit does not demonstrate that the above number is not in your set.

Secondly, if you take the Integer set and say N = the sum of all numbers > 0 you have counted, then you will never reach N as you go to infinity.

PS: This is why I went to CS there is no way to verify that a given proof or program is accurate but that does not stop a program from being useful.

Edit: Restating the second argument: Start with all zero's, count in binary from the left, 1000.. > 0100.. > 1100.. > ... and the diagonal becomes 1111111 which is basically just a higher order of infinity like N = the sum of all prior numbers.
Reddit is at http://www.reddit.com and Digg is at http://digg.com - they love this sort of post there.
Success is complex, Failure is a no-brainer
You should be able to switch off the lantern, but keep the sensor on. So you can sneak up on the others. Actually, there's a low tech solution: cover the LED with your hand.
Niche social network Uber.com shuts down today
Charlie Brooker: Go on holiday, they said...
Waylon Jennings said, "I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane." And I'd have to agree with him...
Isn't it something like this?

0=a-a, for all a

(where a-a is actually, a+(-a))

so:
mul(b,0)=mul(b,(a-a))=mul(b,a)-mul(b,a)=z-z=0
"I barely had any communication skills, absolutely zero sexual experience (haven't even walked holding hands with a female - even today) and the reputation of being a geek. And you know what? I realized I wasn't a happy person anymore."

It might prove almost impossible to fix. OK I'm talking from about a bit different perspective because for me programming (when I was young) an only occasional hobby and I was rather the "otaku" type of nerd, I spent most of my time with swords & sorcery -style books, games, etc. So it might be different, but:

I tried to fix it at around 17. I wanted a girlfriend. I focused on the superficial parts of it: went to a gym, got some muscles, boughts some designer clothes, went to clubs (alone), got piss drunk and tried to pick up girls. And convinced myself this is how normal, extroverted people do. Of course, with one difference: they don't go to places alone. I did - I didn't have friends and when I had something like friends I didn't like it, to go with them to places, it felt it limits my freedom, it was just so convenient to go alone. So what I did was actually I tried to copy the superficial parts of extrovertedness such as the fancy clothes, without the substance of it (actually making and keeping friends, or generally, enjoying the company of others including things like "chatting", "just dropping in to say hello", and so on). I think I must have been unusual - someone who looks like a typical extra-cool disco gigolo (I think in the States it's called "guido"), but a typical shy introverted guy nevertheless who keeps looking at his shoe and likes to be alone.

Guess what, it didn't work. I tried it for 7 years, until about 25, had very little success, 3-4 relationships each lasting about 3 weeks. That's not too much, I guess.

Now at 30 I became something sort of a philosophy geek, I'm more introverted than ever, because after reading up a lot of philosophy, history, economics etc. I just can't talk with most people at all, simply because they are not interested in anything I would like to talk about, and I am not interested in what they want to talk about (they usually want to talk about other people, which is the least interesting subject to me).

If I could start over, if I was again at 17, with a still fairly open and malleable mind, when I was not yet too deep and detached to be unable to talk with people and make friends, I would take care not to become too knowledgeable, not to read too much, don't go too deep into philosophy etc. and instead of all those superficial approaches to extrovertedness (gym, designer clothes, clubs) I'd probably try to become more sociable, try to learn to chat and to like to chat.

(But you can't start over, of course. By 30 some parts of the mind just get rigider every year and you just keep doing what you did before. Habits, you know. )
The website is full of anti-semite propaganda (the article isn't). If you can't identify it - you are poorly informed. Modern anti-semitism is very subtle and masqued as a form liberalism (which is too bad).

(not to mention it's a poorly written article)
BT to kick off fresh Phorm trial
Fitting Into My Routine
How much are you looking to raise? If it's only a small amount initially (up to £250k)it's probably best to go with UK angels; who are actually quite good. They can also use their network to gain further financing and VC can be used at a later stage.

If you have a good revenue model then it will be easier to get angel interest.

Where in the UK are you from?
[Hank Paulson's plan] made no demands that any financial executives sacrifice pay or bonuses despite having driven their firms and wider economy to the point of bankruptcy. He does not want the government to provide new bank capital to help recapitalise a bust banking system. Instead, he wants the government to buy their toxic debt and so leave the banks unreformed. On top he wanted complete discretion to act as he chose without any oversight.

And this is the man who originaly designed the bailout plan ? This guy obviously doesn't want to save the US & world economy, he wants to save Wall Street first and go on like nothing happened. Why him ?!
Blue pageant gowns & pageant dresses - darius cordell couture designs
What if I want "shared MS Word" (presumably online) or "collaborative MS Word docs"?

If signing up is complicated enough that a video is a reasonable way to explain it, the signup process is broken. Why not fix it instead of explaining it better?

Why have sign-up at all? Why not let new users "start a doc and tell people about it", which should be very simple. After they've established that they can do what they want, biz users will then ask "how do I protect my docs?".
I think they mean a lot to your confidence. I had an average of 4.3 where 4 means like B in the States and 5 is like A, and I almost convinced myself I'm too lazy to get into a college. People a bit below me, like, 4.1 didn't get into anything good just some shitty majors like librarian or high-school teacher where the entry requirements are extremely low.
DNA is object code
> What tools do you use?

Having a long-term girlfriend, now my fiancee, has been an amazing counterbalance for me. I now get much less high and do not fall as far.

Daily exercise has definitely helped as well.