skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well done. It takes a lot of guts to do something like this.
Humor is often a healthy (if misunderstood) response to something bad happening.

While I'm not defending the remark at all, there's always going to be a crowd that reacts to any joke made in such a context with an automatic irrational "You think $unfortunate_incident is FUNNY!?!"
Coward. Your next submission should have been Maddox's "How to kill yourself like a man."

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=manly_suicid...
I agree to an extent. The problem is that it's not possible to determine whether the "correct" course of action is to publicly apologize or to downplay the initial act. But to make that decision, we can look at how each strategy has worked out for other companies. Remember that hosting company that had major downtime, then made a followup blog post that made jokes ("whoops! we have butterfinters!") etc? The internet came down pretty hard on them. On the flipside, we have Apple, who almost never makes public statements like that, and it works out for them because it allows them to avoid the backlash from a mistake, and it buys them time to objectively decide what to do about it.
We have experimented with it a bit at www.nextproof.com. I wouldn't call it a "success", mainly because we've always had better conversions from (a) ads purchased on industry forums/blogs and (b) organic search referrals (we have decent serp placement and are getting better).

All in all, I just don't know if it's worth it. I will admit, however, that we didn't create a solid landing page. That definitely could have had an effect.

I'm experimenting with Facebook ads this week.
The rabid responses to Tom's post both shocked and surprised me as well. They just seemed a little bit more spirited than I would expect. It was a little schadenfreude-infused, to say the least.
Haha, awesome. I hope you're not downmodded into oblivion for this, because that's hilarious.
There are things in life that matter more than others.

Startups, money, reputation; all that shit is worthless once you need to deal with the pain of someone dying.

Someone taking their own life is one of those things that should cause you to stop and think of his family, friends and wonder what pushed him to this.

I dunno man, maybe you haven't experienced it, but once you do (and everyone does), I hope you forgive yourself for the stupid shit you said today.
Fuck your downvotes.
What exactly do you want from him? The mentality "there are some words that should never be forgiven" is just as useless as "we shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain". Relax.
Yes, for nearly all programming languages, and absolutely for traditionalish Procedural-OO environments.

One of the unique arcane things about AppleScript is that they attempted to have multiple concrete syntaxes for source code -- not just vocabulary but also word-order/grammar. The source code is stored in a AST format with the dictionaries (libraries) pre-linked. They only ever made English and Japanese syntaxes.
My only problem with your initial comment is that it does not add much to the discussion; but neither do the comments that merely express sympathy. The story itself is only of interest because any startup may have to deal with similar situations, and hysterical public attention in general.

The real issue is how your unpopular comment immediately reflected back on your business. There are several calls to boycott ticketstumbler for your expressing an unpopular opinion - from a community that is supposed to be full of smart, rational people. How could the mass media ever have a chance at putting stories in perspective when even HN fosters such a witch hunt?
Not what I said.

All I said was, if you've never had someone close to you end their life or die suddenly, then you don't get what pain you cause by flippant remarks like he made.

So fuck him for feeling bad, cause he should. And you relax dude.
i think you have to play it by ear. you certainly don't want to over-apologize or under-apologize. that hosting company apologized with the wrong apology. a good, sincere apology explaining what happened and why it's not going to happen again can go a long, long way to gaining devoted customers.

somewhere in marketing 101 we read this study that showed that customers of a company that makes a mistake and handles it well are actually more loyal than customers of a company that doesn't make any mistakes.

if that hosting company had made no apologies at all and ended up with a techcrunch article about their downtime, with "no comments" from the company, you bet they would be worse off than had they posted a quick status update and then made a sincere apology with extended analysis after a certain threshold had been met (say, 2 hours of downtime).

look at amazon and ec2 for an example of why silence isn't always the best option.
Don't forget and install this on your jailbroken phone just yet-- apparently it updates the 3g baseband, and the 2g tool won't be ready for a while.

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/
Public transit in Google maps?! Finally!

I was pretty bummed when my Google maps lost features when I upgraded from my Treo 750.
Though it may seem contradictory the fact that Ebola is so deadly is also why it probably won't ever spread into a major epidemic. Since it only takes a week from the patient is infected until he almost certainly dies the virus doesn't have much time to spread to other victims. This is why past outbreaks of ebola have always been confined to relatively few people in a geographically confined area.

This fact is also what makes AIDS so deadly - you can be infected for many years without knowing it, and spreading the virus to countless other people in that time.
"Not what I said."

"... I hope you forgive yourself for the stupid shit you said today."

He's asking for your forgiveness, and based on what you're saying, it sounds like you won't forgive him, and you feel that he shouldn't forgive himself. I'm saying, that's a bad mindset to have. That same kind of hatred has spawned many wars, for example.

I understand you're emotional about this, and I'm sorry for whatever losses you've experienced. But try to restrain yourself, act rationally, and communicate clearly.
So wait, we're shocked and horrified at downvoting, but suicide, hey happens all the time. Do the upvotes in this thread represent anti-group think group think?
I was wondering abt the same on how his comment(thought inappropriate) should spur a whole lot of hate on product he builds. I would really down vote the person who first said "Note to self, stop using ticketstumbler". Seems more like an animated irrational crowd. Hard to believe on HN.
I have used a number of languages/tools/technologies in the past. Whenever I felt the existing choices don't meet my needs I have simply moved on. I never had to bash my old choices because they are not good anymore. They have served me pretty well so far. The community has helped me find answers. I didn't find it right to laugh at the current community and tell them you are no good because I am not there.

Move on and embrace the new coolness when you are done with your job.
What are you talking about. Apple has had all this time with MobileMe and had to make a few statements and even give a few free months.
Ruby has had huge impact on the way I write software. Whatever programming language or tools I'll use tomorrow, it will be dynamic.

Without Ruby on Rails there would have been no Groovy on Grails web application framework. But rubyist keep pushing limits, creating new kinds of database orm libraries like sequel and new web frameworks like sinatra.

Sinatra makes me write web applications that looks like haiku:

require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'

get '/' do
"This is a web application!"
end

Sequel makes me write SQL queries that don't look like SQL:

dataset = DB[:managers].where(:salary => 5000..10000).order(:name, :department)

And haml makes html tagging look pretty:

%h1 Markup
%p
.my_id Look ma, no end tags!

When you first got a taste for this style of programming, there's no going back. I don't now if I'll be coding Ruby, JRuby, JavaScript, Scala or Groovy tomorrow, but it will be done Ruby style.
Einstein’s Intelligence Quiz: Bogus number and Phony statistic
If you'd like to compare all wiki engines and services available try

http://www.wikimatrix.org/
Yeah, that's valid. It seems like we're talking about two different issues though. And you're completely right about having to play it by ear. This situation is unique because Davis is a founder of a company and his comment could possibly impact that company. It's not a case where the company has made a mistake in its service. In other words, if someone decides to not use Ticketstumbler over this, it's because they hated his comment, not because Ticketstumbler failed them. So in this scenario, there's no reason to draw attention to the initial act with a public apology because it's not likely to happen again. Whereas if Amazon EC2 went down, that would (by definition) have an impact on customers, and it might happen again in the future. So in that case, it would be valuable to reassure the customers that it won't happen again, to provide reasons why it won't, and to communicate the measures being taken to prevent downtime in the future. So the situations seem similar, but they're actually very different.
Parrot has a roadmap
The main part of the Perl6 development effort, famous of it's elusiveness and delays, just got a time line. Now it is only matter of waiting untill 2010 for a production version :)
thats harsh
Life is. Adapt.
It got activated for me. Kind of cool, but it's weird that it's default behaviour.
Correction: There were English, Japanese (in MacRoman form), French, and Italian syntaxes published, and a C-like non-natural-language one was developed.
When I read the article I had the same thought. Of course, I didn't actually say it, but I think that people were a little over-sensitive about this. You shouldn't have to apologize.
I assure you I have seen much suffering and death in my life.
I wasn't shocked at all. My favorite thing about HN is the community and the discussion that goes on here. I don't have comments on my blog for a reason, and it is precisely so that I don't have to deal with anonymous trolls that don't think before they comment. To me, Tom's comment was highly reminiscent of why I can't stand Reddit or Digg or YouTube comments. I expect more from HN discussions. This community has built something special. I enjoy discussing my own blog posts here specifically because trollish comments are punished.

I think the reason that the downmodding was so agressive on this specific comment was that people wanted to express that actions have consequences. You post a thoughtless, off-color comment that does not legitimately address the topic at hand, and you will pay dearly for it.

That being said, I applaud Tom's apology. He made a mistake in making the comment and several of the followups. We are all stupid sometimes, and it takes balls to fess up to that fact. So I forgive his remark and hope that we've all learned something from this.

Let's keep HN a place where real discussions about hacking and startups can take place. Think before you comment. Is your comment contributing to the discussion, or would it be better placed on Reddit?
A fine example set for the MPAA and RIAA of a group willing to embrace and capitalize on the internet medium, rather than suing the hell out of it.
Something tells me that might have exacerbated the issue ;)
Ah yes, fiducial markers are excellent. HIT lab in New Zealand have been doing great stuff with them for years...
I find TiddlyWiki to be rather elegant.

http://www.tiddlywiki.com/
Did they use pills, or were theirs "more interesting than watching paint dry"? Oh, zing!

Hehe, sorry. I think it would be beneficial if we all loosened up a little. Personally, if I was going to do the suicide dance, I'd try to find the most creative way to go. Like the one where you put on a noose made out of thin (but sturdy) wire, attach the other end to a bridge, glue your hands to your face, then jump off the bridge. You'll end up holding your own head, which would really confuse whoever found you. I'd also make the ":P" face before jumping so that it looked like I was blowing a raspberry.
Open Simulator : Open Source 3D Application Server
Something like this?

http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/
ORM examples that feature single table selects are unconvincing: the true test of an ORM is whether it can do joins (outer + inner), aggregation, and subqueries. Otherwise it is little more than syntax sugar, IMHO.
I wonder how long it will be until image-handling vulnerability rates drop below 1 per year.
Google App Engine: SDK 1.1.6 is released
I mean, You're an idiot isn't supposed to be a +5 comment on this site.
Shoot. I tried to downvote it only to find that I can only UPvote. Maybe that's also the problem for others.
Make Money Just By Clicking That's it
Non-stop profits in Forex trading is what everybody's dreaming of. I'm sure you too wouldn't mind earning good money at little effort.
It was not meant to be harsh, simply a statement of fact. I certainly don't share the "Life is [harsh]. Adapt." mentality. I do believe in judging opinions based on how well they are substantiated. If you post an argument that is backed up by some sort of reasoning or proof, I'll be upvoting you whether I agree with you or not :-).
Yeah. One of those was me. Sorry about that. Suicide has touched me a little more deeply than most and I'm sorry to say that I shot first and thought later.
Oh, I don't know. I obviously think it was a bit crass, but it probably seemed like a reasonable enough thing to say. Just didn't go over well.

But at the same time, I look back on some of the stupid things I've said and done, and it bothers me again and again. I'll be working on something completely non-related, and some scene of my stupidity pops into my head, and I feel embarrassed all over again. It's not particularly useful, and I would just as soon forget it altogether.

That's how I took the comment about forgiving himself later: he may come to regret making a callous remark, and have a hard time understanding that it was a simple off-the-cuff remark.

Either way, it's not such a big deal. He apologized, took responsibility, and will probably attempt to post with a bit more foresight in the near future.
Perhaps I should have been more clear: The downvoting of the joke was expected.

The massive upvoting of the snarky "oh, snap" comments that followed, is what was surprising.

You are supposed to upvote intelligent discourse, and downvote the cruft; ie. encourage the "community and the discussion that goes on here", and discourage the "anonymous trolls that don't think before they comment". Or at least that's how I learned it.

The reverse seems to have happened.

See:
"indeed" +12

"memo to self: stop using ticketstumbler.com" +34

"Such a shame, but I won't be using it either." +9

"TicketStumbler founders - Get a life." +4

"You think the people on here are dumb enough to believe that what you posted was an "experiment"? You're an asshole." +21

"Just apologize for the comment, man. You're not going to change anyone's mind with a childish rant like this." +20

"Posting comments irrelevant to your initial insensitivity will not help save face, especially when you throw in an attack towards the entire crowd." +18

or the especially ironic
"I actually had to scroll up to the banner to make sure I was still on Hacker News and not reddit." +12

As far as I can tell, those are on the same plane as the original comment.

It was the upvoting of these (and similar) inane, and snarky one-liners that I was surprised at, not the downvoting of the comment that set it all off. Although the upvoting of the "golly gee-whiz, that's awful bad, hyuk" type comments, and the intertia of the downvoting of the subsequent comments were also surprising.

It appears as if the score of some of the other comments, ie. "You're an idiot" seem to be stabilizing over time. It's no longer +5, at least.
We can do something about downvoting.

Being gratuitously shocked and horrified at some more-or-less random kid's suicide is just obnoxious.

FWIW, tdavis, I wasn't offended by your comment, except to the extent that it makes HN more reddit-like. But in that respect it was no worse than most of the comments in that thread.
Hmm, I certainly think the point that the post you quote is getting at does have some relevance.

However, I personally feel that it is the anonymity of the poster more so than that of the victim which contributes to this "astonishing cruelty" that is sometimes evident online. I agree that it's not personal on the part of the poster. In 99.9% of cases, really how could it be? I believe the "private exercise of retaliation" is performed due to stressors in the posters life that he feels frustrated about and powerless to solve. Be those stressors related to work, family, friends, finances or whatever. They get some degree of relief by taking out their frustrations online where they can do so with this effective anonymity.

I think aside from the previously discussed anonymity, it also has a lot to do with what is acceptable for a given social group. People are capable of truly sadistic and terrible acts when they have been made to feel that those acts are acceptable by their peers. When one is not alone in their cruelty, even ostensibly "reasonable" or "normal" people can become monsters.

But well, when someone pisses me off on the road I am squarely pissed at them, not the car they're in, neither in an abstract way or otherwise. I'm not really sure what that analogy is trying to say. Were I a member of an Amazon tribe who had never seen a car before and didn't know what a car was, and one day a car shoots by, nearly running me down, then yeah, I imagine I'd be super pissed at that car.
Once your karma passes a certain threshold, you will gain the ability to downvote comments.
I attended an entrepreneur's forum in San Diego a year or two and Javier Rojas was present. It was interesting to listen to a VC talk at such length about the virtues of bootstrapping and it's probably one of the reasons I've opted for it in my business.

An interesting point that he made was that he primarily invests in companies only after they've achieved a level of financial stability (not necessarily profitability) and revenues above $5 million.

Some great stuff in this article.
TicketStumbler.com Founder Puts Foot in His Mouth
Gemstone women and mens rings in silver and gold, great jewelry
Gemstone jewelry in silver and gold. Gemstone pendants, earrings and womens and mens rings.
Are you kidding? You don't even have to input your email to sign up. It's easier to be anonymous here than anywhere else, it's just that more people choose not to be.
As bigbang said, the third world. But more importantly, it allows people, also in the western world, to convert free time into some money.

You might have a unchallenging 9-5 job, and easily have 5-6 hours to pass in the evenings. If you turk rather than watch bad TV and get a few extra dollars an hour, over a week, it's maybe $100/week extra to put away for something nice. Also, you can cancel the big cable package if you stop watching TV.

Getting a night shift somewhere would probably pay more, but include bosses, annoying co-workers/customers, standing up, sweating, smelling like french fries etc. rather sitting in a nice chair, working at your own pace, with the TV on in the background, and being able to go call on your kids if you need to.

In fact, min. wage minus sitter might be less than what you can get from turking.
Wow, this looks really great. I'm excited to see how far this goes. Just out of curiousity, is your blog supposed to be invite only (it is at the moment)?
(1) Your comment was callous, yes.

(2) Your comment also had a grain of media meta-criticism truth. Falling asleep to die is about the least webcam-friendly method of suicide imaginable. This poor guy is sure to be outdone by a more telegenic webcam suicide, sooner or later. Such is the often-grim nature of 'progress'.

(3) Your comment also had a grain of humor. Choosing to die in front of a camera is inherently melodramatic, while falling asleep to die is inherently anticlimactic. There's an ironic contrast. But as a dying man once noted, "dying is easy, comedy is hard". And comedy about dying may be hardest of all.

(4) People do make callous jokes about death, among friends. They do this especially about strangers and public figures. That's the honest truth. Death is scary; jokes can help people cope.

(5) Other people observe -- and try to enforce in others -- a somber attitude. Death is scary; a sense of solidarity in sympathy can help people cope.

So, is News.YC a gathering of friends, where we speak frankly even if it may offend? Or a PR event for promoting our projects, where due sensitivity to all potential listeners must be observed? I suppose it's somewhere in between.

I downvote one-liner grunts of agreement or disapproval as adding nothing to the conversation. I downvote cheap formulaic jokes. I downvote insults, ad hominem arguments, and snark directed at either News.YC participants or public figures.

But your original comment was none of these things. It made light of a tragedy, yes, but it was not content-free or gratuitously nasty. It would not normally merit an upvote from me, but seeing the mob piling-on of downvotes, I gave it an upvote. Honesty is far more valuable than sentimentality, especially socially-enforced sentimentality.

Some of the critical responses to your comment were truly despicable: name-calling and threats to boycott your business. That sort of browbeating -- directed against a living, present person -- is a greater threat to civil discourse than insensitivity in the face of tragedy. Those disrespectful comments, many still highly rated, deserve downvotes.
Yeah the analogy is a bit flawed, I think of it more as, "Are you really mad at the person driving the car for that event or are you projecting your other frustrations and hatred onto that person because they are a safe target."

The anonymity of the poster certainly has a lot to do with it too. I just liked the comment because it gave me a different perspective on the issue.
1) Was that there before the suit was initiated? It's possible everything the Authors' Guild (of which I'm a member) sent me is misleading, but they certainly indicated it was not possible for most authors to have their works removed. Regardless, there's the question of whether authors should have to opt out. Clearly you can't just start giving away Beatles records or songs or even clips of songs until Paul McCartney asks you nicely to stop. Why should it be any different for writing?

2) I don't know, but clearly uploading clips of The Daily Show is illegal, and Google most certainly can't get away with that. Hell, they might not even get away with hosting a service to which other people upload clips of The Daily Show. Books would seem to be more like that, since they are copyrighted works that aren't publicly available for free on the web already, and instead must be actively uploaded.

3) You're right, they wouldn't and that's why they didn't. They settled the first suit that came along and paid $125 million plus ongoing royalties because they realized they were going to lose.
They are paying people to add support for niche languages to their tools. IronRuby sells Visual Studio, JRuby promotes Java. MS and Sun are interested in their tools, not in Ruby.
With Amazon S3, you can set the Content-Encoding header to enable gzip. Here's a tutorial:
http://devblog.famundo.com/articles/2007/03/02/serving-compr...

I'm not sure yet whether you can do that with CloudFront.
script src-ing the JSON document is pretty clever.

It could be totally stopped by using a nonce in a header. You should already have implemented a nonce system for form submissions anyway.