skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
First of all, I think those who brought up the question of why THIS issue when there are other, more life-and-death serious problems in the world (such as AIDS orphans in Africa) are missing the point. Sergey didn’t decide to come out in opposition to prop 8 because he was just looking for some social cause to throw Google behind or because he thought it was necessarily the most pressing or deserving issue, but because it is something that will directly affect the company and the employees he is in charge of and responsible for. As he states, it "is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8." Clearly, this decision was made not because Sergey believes that banning same-sex marriage is wrong in the larger moral sense (though obviously he does) but instead because of the comparatively specific, micro concern of how it well effect the people who work at his company.

While Google surely puts more thought into how its practices affect society than the average giant corporation, it is hardly a charity and I don’t think this statement should be any indication that it plans on becoming one. "Don't be evil" is still a long way on the altruism scale from becoming a humanitarian NGO.

...

Is it, though, appropriate for a head of a public company to officially align said company on a piece of controversial (and not strictly relevant to the business) legislation? Well, perhaps not. In this situation however, I think it was an admirable and fitting action. It reinforces Google’s "not business as usual" stance and commitment to social awareness and doing good. Of course, though, there will be many who see this as the opposite of "doing good."

The values of tolerance, diversity, and meritocratic inclusion are, though, so fundamental to the company (and, when at its best, the Valley and the tech industry in general) that this seems like a natural and reasonable move. Though I agree there is certainly room for argument, particularly over specifics, here, many will surely see opposition to Prop. 8 as reflective of the above values. I took Sergey’s blog post as more a statement of "live and let live" and respect for all than as a focused and specific endorsement of gay marriage.

I don't work at Google but I do live in the Bay Area and I'm confident that the employee culture at the company is such that those with strong feelings against gay rights are used to keeping their position largely to themselves. In other words, conservative Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Sikh/etc. individuals who work there have, I’m sure, resigned to keep their religious convictions a personal matter in order to effectively and civilly participate in a diverse environment. Consequently, I would be surprised if this pronouncement causes much of a stir even from pro-Prop. 8 Googlers.
Their crew is 20 people!

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tom+perkins%22+yacht+crew+...

mostly, as Perkins says, "to keep the hotel humming.
> Look at the FP features stripped out between Python 2.x and 3 for example.

I haven't heard of even one "FP feature stripped out". Am I missing something?
Google's IP 'anonymization' inadequate, says EU watchdog
+1. you're going to be biased whether you want to or not. being aware of the bias is 100 times better than a shallow spackle of surface fairness.
Statelessness: Erlang is not side-effect free. Sending a message is a side-effect. You depend on receives of messages from other processes as well. Truth is that you can write side-effect-free code in any language and those functions are easier to debug. The functional semantics of erlang makes this easier, but beware that you can't cheat and get a variable.

Tail recursion: Even better. Erlang has Tail-call-optimization. Any tail-call reuses the stack-frame.

Lightweight processes: Large chunks of (immutable) binary data is shared among processes. This is crucial for keeping memory usage down. Also, there are ETS-tables which can be seen as a shared in-memory datastore among processes.

Messaging: Sending a message is fast. But remember you are doing a copy of the data into the other process memory space (unless you are sending a binary, see above). For small messages, this doesn't matter, but you shouldn't be tempted to send that one million node binary tree ;)

Hotpatching: The hotpatching is mostly centered around the ability to runtime-upgrade between versions of phone-exchange software. People tend to think of Common Lisp style hotpatching where you can dynamically build up your application from scratch without restarting the CL environment. Erlang doesn't really support that, but you can hack it to give you somewhat of the same.

Fast: Erlang uses a threaded-code bytecode interpreter called BEAM (by default, there is the HiPE project). Now, the rule of the thumb is that interpretation is a factor of 10 slower than compilation. The claim of a factor 3 is wildly exaggerated. Floating points are all boxed so it is easy to get a factor 30 in difference there. The persistent memory model also costs compared to C. Some data structures are impossible to get directly. A string of 100 bytes takes up 1600 bytes on a 64-bit machine.

And my own add:

Parallelism: The language semantics maps really nice onto a parallel world where we explicitly control the parallel processes. But the SMP-interpreter in the Erlang kernel is still pretty young. Note that the language was originally built for concurrency rather than parallel computation.

Conclusion: Erlang is a really cool language, but it is not built for everything. If people think they have solved the multi-core problem by using Erlang, the world of parallel computation is just dawning on them. Remember, there is no silver bullet.
If they moved the whole thing lock, stock and barrel to the UK, they'd run into the same problems with music licensing bodies. Online radio stations in this country have been having a tough time of it lately.

But what do you expect when the MCPS/PRS collecting body is run by the sort of jobsworths who send letters to shops telling them to turn the staffroom radio off or face a big bill?!
Have a read of this:

http://sandersn.com/blog/index.php?title=real_world_haskell&...
Does it matter if a writer can't write well? Yes.
The founders, their ethics, morals, and actions are in many senses responsible for the culture they have created and the products therefrom. They didn't even try to monetize Google in the first period: they were just trying to make good technology, and help people out.

You cannot extinguish this one flame without extinguishing others.
I don't know about elsewhere, but in Britain commercial radio stations have to pay a certain percentage of their turnover to the music licensing bodies. It works out at about 6-10% depending on the size of the station, and it doesn't help that we have two bodies doing slightly different things and both taking their 3-5% cut, plus extra fees if you want to simulcast online or via satellite or do anything vaguely innovative in the vein of Last.fm or Pandora. And god forbid anyone include commercial music in podcasts!

The amounts internet stations pay are peanuts compared to the hundreds of thousands going out of FM/AM stations, particularly those which are trying to use tech to become more than just FM/AM stations.
How We Value the Super-Rich - Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley
The vicious cycle of deleveraging | A fate worse than debt
Knight Rider Journey To The End Of The Knight
MIKE MUST INFILTRATE A RACING GANG WITH THE HELP OF AN OLD ARMY BUDDY - Mike (Justin Bruening) reunites with a former Army buddy (guest star Johnny Messner, “The O.C.”) to bring down a drag racing gang that is smuggling weapons overseas. Sarah (Deanna Russo) joins Mike and KITT (voiced by Val Kilmer) on this dangerous undercover mission, much to her father’s (Bruce Davison) dismay
CSI Miami ‘Won’t Get Fueled Again’(7×2) Episode Details
"Won’t Get Fueled Again” - When gasoline gets so expensive that Miami’s residents are literally killing for it, the CSIs come face to face with one of the city’s most sadistic crime rings, on CSI: MIAMI, Monday, Sept. 29 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Be the change you want to see in the world - Gandhi

People often see public figures as deities, and abdicate their own center of action to these gods. Saying "the government/corporations/rich should do something" strengthens their power and diminishes yours.

But they aren't gods. They aren't that powerful.
http://hackaday.com/

You might find some ideas here to inspire you.
"the end boss"... funniest thing I have heard today. I will now on refer to the ultimate aim of a project/app as the "end boss".
Well the dollar seriously could go, when the world stops trading oil in it. That's already starting to happening.

Also the chinese and other large sovereign banks don't need to necessarily dump their dollars. That would be shooting themselves in the foot. Kind of like Gates selling all his MS stock. All they need do is change the mix and slow down their purchases of dollars, replacing those with euros.

That's also happening, started several months ago now.

I'm not sure credit will be so hard to get. There's plenty of money around, just a lot less stupid money. For folks who are credit worthy there will be credit. This will be a new concept to many people.
Wow, you're right. I wish my brain had a better crap filter.
The Shield Episode 7.05 Game Face
When the daughter of a drug kingpin is kidnapped, the Strike Team must free her without drawing attention to the fact that Agent Olivia Murray is following them. Meanwhile, serial killer Kleavon Gardner, soon to go on trial and defending himself, hits a nerve when he deposes Claudette
Pandora, Webcasting appear headed for Senate victory
Dirty Sexy Money Episode 2.01 The Birthday Present
Even as Lisa and Nick planned to celebrate his birthday privately and quietly, Tripp and Letitia Darling decided to throw a lavish party for Nick on their yacht. Nick helps in reconciling Tripp and Patrick, who is still burdened with his troubled marriage and missing transgendered lover
Installing Google Android SDK 1.0 On Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop
You may notice that this letter is not to a private citizen working with their own resources - it's to one of the wealthiest individuals leading one of the wealthiest companies in the world. A company that is not primarily owned by him, but by investors all over the world. This is about using Google - a multi-national giant funded by the investments of others to take a large risk alienating users to help a cause that already has wealthy and vocal advocates. Big risk with other people's resources and little potential upside for those people - doesn't seem like a great idea.
This is so silly, there are A LOT of people with unusual or fake-sounding names. A funny one I remember from personal experience...I used to work in a sporting goods store and one day when I was ringing up customers a man handed me his credit card to pay and the name on the card caught my eye, in raised gold letters: "MR. WANG DONG." ;p
Is Google a real business?

It took them few years to be profitable.
Yeah, I still liked using it best pre-apps. It was a fast, legible, efficient, all-around pleasant to use myspace alternative. Between the endless invites, long, messy pages, pointless add-ons, and now the poorly received redesign it does feel like a long time since they've actually made any good changes.
Businesses fail for one of 3 reasons:

1. Bad idea
2. Bad execution
3. Outside forces.

Astonishing! what a revelation!
MUST READ: Guy Kawasaki: do the opposite of what a venture capitalist says.
Today you help gay people, tommorow you help aids. Not mutually exclusive, one does not prevent the other. One step at a time, and try for real change.

Look at Bill Gates - they open this "charity" and then invites all his friends to save on their taxes by donating money in there. Utter bullcrap. Charities are the new Tax Havens. And they just hit people like you with propaganda on what needs to be done. It's all about:

Aids, Cancer, Malaria, Darfur, Earthquake in Sichuan, Tsunami, Pandas, Eagles, Dolphins, Whales, Cats & Dogs, Zimbabwe.

The media topics are almost always the same, but are you telling me you really think that the bulk of the worlds suffering is in any of those topics? Are Dolphins more worthy than Hyenas?

Charity is a big-industry, and they use marketing techniques to get money from people. And in marketing, you need to get a clear brand - Darfur is a brand, Aids is a brand, Starving Children are a brand. They don't run billboards with real and unsexy problems in the world.

I spent a lot of time in Africa and in China, and the people I really respect are very small - I met this American couple who have been running a haven for monkeys in the border of Cameroun for the last 20 years. They make a real difference - they have put everything they have into that project, and they have saved so many animals. But these large charities will collect millions and do nothing there! I've met doctors who go to villages and treat the poor people there for free. Those are REAL heroes! They touch disgusting wounds and look at wretched people without flinching. They are people to look up to, people to admire.

Not cigar smoking men sitting in offices in New York and meeting with advertising agencies on how best to create a fundraiser for the new batch of teenage stars.

I would just ignore these people if I could, but when I see them influencing otherwise intelligent people, it really pisses me off.

THINK! If people are asking you for money, don't believe everything they tell you!
Wow, thanks for the thoughtful reply. Seriously, great points. On a lighter note - I guess if we can get more AIDS orphans to work at Google, it would shift priorities ;)
What’s after the Social Web?
What's wrong with U.S society? The richest country in the world, one of the best educated, diverse, peaceful, law abiding, willing to vote ethnic minorities to the highest office?

Stop whining, the U.S may have some scratches, but by most yardsticks, it's one of the greatest countries in the world.
Jack Thompson, game industry scourge, disbarred
I guess if I was in your situation I would feel the same, but from the outside, it seems a bit weird. Apparently you are doing fine without a business plan, so why let a VC force you to use one? What other things will they force you to do that are not really aligned with your preferences and that will only suck away your energy and time?

Isn't there another option: tell the VCs that sure, you can present to them, but that you don't have a business plan?

Creating a business plan just for them would also be an upfront investment on your part. If no deal goes through, you wasted that effort. Why should you be forced to make that upfront investment at this point?

As I said, I know it is easy to talk...
I've got an idea. Find some new revenue streams. Like, for example, the Pandora iPhone app. It's the one iPhone app I use on a consistent basis, and is worth its weight in gold. How much do they charge for it? Nothing. That's nice and all, but they should split it into "free" and "premium" versions (a la Twitterific from IconFactory). Most people would just use the free version, but as IconFactory proved there are plenty of people out there who'd support the app by purchasing a premium blend.
Kicking off a new website - appreciated feeback (good and bad)
Wasn't sure about whether to only use OpenID just now - made the authentication easier - can concentrate on the functionality more that way.
Part of the registration process is that you testify that don't know of any prior existing uses of the trademark by 3rd parties in the field. If you are aware of existing prior uses of your trademark you might have committed fraud in your application.
AskHN: Why are chinese getting good at programming contests?
Day by day I'm observing chinese to be doing very well at programming contests... what has been responsible for such a change ?
Was running on grid XP.

Wonder what it did to say it found it - Messagebox? Beep?
One could argue, that "raw foodism" isn't really technology. In your example the technology would be "fire" or "cooking".
I'm not an expert in python, but this works. It looks like a multi-line lambda to me.

print map(
lambda word:
len(word),
'no multiline lambdas, not nobody not nohow'.split()
)
They now have English keyboards.
Why a feed reader?
>>He's positing that 50-80% of venture-backed start-ups will die before making it to their next funding round or reaching profitability.

I guess this is a semantic issue. But essentially, yes, he's defining sratups as those things dependant on investment of some kind.

>>Our company costs $3,000/mo to run, including living expenses for two people, and we technically have a staff as well -- we just pay them with kickbacks instead of ridiculous salaries.

Is that an equilibrium? Without investment, exit or revenue increase in the mid-term future, are you still going to survive? Founders & employees living low in exchange for potential future earning are also investors. An they are also influenced by the same sort of things other investors are influenced by.

I'm not saying I agree with this piece, but would you admit that it might get difficult to hire someone with noodles & options if there hadn't been any exits in your vicinity for a while, little startups where going bust left & right, and a few big scares hit home (eg Facebook shuts down).

I agree with your basic premise. A business that makes more money then it spends is safer. If it's in the business of selling bread & butter, even better. But startups as a sector are less like that.
That's not even remotely close to the point - you're looking at it using the magical power of hindsight.

Not being a VC myself I can't really comment with any certainty, but plain logic dictates that they would try to make investments based on the information they have available at the time.

I think what the original commenter was trying to say is that in times of economical uncertainty, a lot of people looking to invest will probably invest in places that have potential for larger than average returns.

So making those kinds of comments don't particularly add to the conversation I wouldn't have thought.
0. Can't figure out what your added value is.

1. Buttons which do nothing ("expand to show further panels...").

2. The question marks after "Change Location, etc" are really sized badly.

3. You are displaying escaped HTML in the right most scroll ('<b>Obama</b> says that...').

4. You inlined all the scripts AND stylings.

5. Design is very busy and doesn't look professional. In particular the 'WebLivz' box in the top left doesn't match theme and clips over existing text.

6. 'Please get involved' text isn't centered.

In summary, the site feels thrown together and adhoc. There are little problems, and bigger ones. I don't think this has enough polish or focus to be released for public consumption.

You need to a) simplify the design, and b) explain your added value to users, because it isn't clear how this is going to replace my RSS feeds.

Sorry to be critical of your work, but it really needs more polish before you start asking for public feedback.
"There is no point taking a risk if there is no reward."

The reward is equal treatment for our gay brothers and sisters. The reward is doing the right thing, even if it means profits go down, not that I think they will. Are we so blinded by success and money here that we can't see a "reward" in helping a fellow human being?
Financial Market's collapsing? - Check

Built a machine large enough to destroy the world? - Check

Yahoo still #1 site in the world according to Alexa? - Check

Created a negative business void? - Check

Cyndi Lauper staging a comeback? - Check

These are truly the end times my friend... be afraid, be very afraid.
Any technology that surpasses 33.3333% penetration
will never tripple again
(in any number of months).
Real Costs of the Bailouts
I think it might end up worse than that before this is done sir.

In 95 years I predict Yahoo! will stage a comeback and become the supreme Internet superpower (after several more buyout attempts from Microsoft), being led by Jerry Yang's head in a jar (think futurama)

I also predict Google will change their name to Google!!!1!lol! in an attempt to stay relevant.

At least one thing will remain consistent, the general stupidity in comments on YouTube. Perhaps that's what the world should base their financial economy on instead of the gold standard. It would seem a safer bet if you ask me.
When you talk about "the Chinese" you're talking about somewhere between 3-4x the population of the US. Now, the US has the advantage that historically, smart people from all over the world (including China) have emigrated to there. The Chinese also have the disadvantage that a lot of intellectuals were murdered there during the "Great Leap Forward". Even so, their culture presently values education and engineering, so I'd argue that the difference is merely now there's sufficient penetration of Internet technologies for more Chinese to enter the competitions in the first place.
Nice. Be cool if just above the Google map you could enter a place name rather than clicking through the map. So i type "Glasgow" and it brings stuff near to there.

Great work though! Still looking through it.
As many buttons as there are channels on TV
> Considering everyone else, the US for the most part is pretty stable.

You kinda forgot about Japan & Australia, if all those things happen I would bet that either of the two would become a standard.

Being an Australian I would like to say us, but it would no doubt be the Yen.
What about Markov text generators?
> This will be a new concept to many people.

Here's a little anecdote about your point as it is unbelievably true.

I have a cousin, she's not too bright. Her first credit card was maxed out at about $10,000 so she applied for a second credit card to help pay off the first. It didn't quite dawn on her that she might have to stop the luxury spending.
Everybody Calm Down. A Government Hand In the Economy Is as Old as the Republic.
what is everyones problem with the redesign anyways?
Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans,

Please, isn't Google made up of 99% Democrats? I'm all for gay marriage, but that is a misrepresentation. One Republican does not make great diversity.
Well, he seems to be most notable for explaining AI concepts in understandable language. Following the links, I found a glossy website [http://www.singinst.org/], but not too many scientific results.

IMHO AI is not going to happen by blogging or talking about it.
This is obviously old, but a start at some data: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-02-...
>>"I'm not saying I agree with this piece, but would you admit that it might get difficult to hire someone with noodles & options if there hadn't been any exits in your vicinity for a while"

If we chose to hire someone full-time we'd pay them an above market salary. Luckily, we probably won't need to do this for a while (at least a year).

>>"Is that an equilibrium? Without investment, exit or revenue increase in the mid-term future, are you still going to survive?"

It's only temporary as not only are we already profitable, but our sales & traffic are growing every day and we've been launched less than two months. We could last two years without revenue anyways (even though it doesn't apply).

The launching of concerts, improved crawler speed, SEOism (once Google updates their PRs) and some other non-public things we're working on should improve revenue & traffic significantly as well.

We're almost certainly not taking investment, and we're certainly not exiting anytime soon. We're going to issue dividends without balance sheet risk - like real companies do.