skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Blogging will die as PDAs

Here's when the law of energy can be applied "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be converted from one form to another".

=> for beatiful concepts: beautiful stuff can be created but not be destroyed. They can only be changed in form.

=> concepts like blogging can be created but not be destroyed. They can only change from one form to another. (similarly for PDAs)

PDAs aren't dead yet. Are they? They have just got better and are called mobile phones. Its not that mobile phones have their features.
>The key making sure that is true 20 years from now by continuing to invest wisely in education, research, energy...etc.

And by keeping taxes and regulations light and minimal.

I would like to point out that our government's investments in education and energy haven't gone very well, though its investment in general research probably does more good than harm.
You seem to be arguing from the premise that the team would only consist of entrepreneurs or something; I really can't make your argument out. You argue that the the entrepreneurs wouldn't know about X (big economics) but seem to implicitly concede the original point that the current team won't know about Y (startup economics), so, if having only X and a big hole in Y is bad, why isn't it a good idea to add someone who knows Y to the team full of X people?

I'm having trouble finding a coherent point there. Why is it so bad to close a hole in a team?
This describes either a [Adjective] Programmer, or a Good [Noun], but definitely not a Good Programmer. Maybe an Efficient Programmer or a Good Intern, but definitely not a Good Programmer.
Reconciling the shift in Software Construction Processes
When the US interstate system was built many small towns lost vitality as drivers bypassed towns, stopping generally only at their endpoints. It seems to me like there is an analog here. I don't smoke or drink carbonated beverages, and I think I've only gone into a convenience store 1-2x per year for the last five years for reasons that didn't involve the pay-at-pump machines being down.

In my experience the US place people go to do most of the things listed in that article is Wal-Mart. They're large, well lit, have a lot of services (optical, minor medical now), have the Code Adam child safety stuff, and they're ruthlessly efficient at keeping facilities clean and well maintained, something that can't always be said for Mom & Pop convenience stores. They're also one of the few places that the average American commuter is out of their vehicle, unlike the subway and surface street convenience stores in Tokyo (I've never been to small town Japan, so I can't speak to that, but I would expect that mindshare/branding would elevate them there as well).

This aligns well with my experience in Seattle. Evidently Wal-Mart is not welcome here, as there are very few in the Puget Sound area. This is one of the few places in the USA (AFAIK) that still has freestanding 7-elevens, and they're way more popular than I ever would have guessed coming from Texas where convenience stores are either inconsequential small shops or built into gas stations.
Why Paid P2P Might Be Dead
Well, let's be fair. First, I mischaracterized Ferriss' wording and have corrected my original post: He suggested showing the final price, capturing emails and phone numbers, and asking the customer to click through to a CC-collection screen... but not actually collecting CC numbers. I'm sorry for the error.

Second, Ferriss makes it clear that he understands that many people wouldn't find such a practice to be ethical, even though "it is legal if the billing data isn't captured". (That, by my reading of the FTC rules, seems to be true.)

Finally... I think that any tutorial on direct marketing technique would be shortchanging you if it didn't suggest the possibility of doing dry testing. I get the impression that it's not exactly uncommon. Indeed, the entire personal computer industry was founded by a company that launched their first product -- the Altair 8800 -- by taking money from customers and using that money to fund their manufacturing. That's much farther than Ferriss would have one go, although I think it might still barely be legal if I read the FTC rules correctly. (Which I'm sure I don't. Ask a real lawyer.)
Internet could save Earth says Gore
That's good point. However, the UAW's ability and tendency to blockade the factory entrance could be _worse_ than a regular firm or a cartel in some respects.
Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. My point is that if the team should include tech entrepreneurs it should also include dairy farmers, mom and pop stores and advertising executves - these sectors are all as large as the tech entrepreneur sector. If you plug the tech entrepreneur hole you should also plug the dairy farmer hole - given that this sector is as large as the tech upstart sector of course.

A team of thousands of different people from thousands of different sectors obviously isn't a viable solution. This is why at the top level you have people that understand macro economy, finance and politics. Below this you have the whole armada of different sectors that should be heard in respect to regulation, economy, etc. that relates to their industry.

Basically if you want tech entrepreneurs to be on the economic team advising the president you should also have dairy farmers and advertising executives. And that would be a mess.
If anything I find less crappy websites now than I did several years ago.

But don't you miss scrolling marques, an obnoxious color scheme, cheesy background music, and animated gifs!?
Just a list of frameworks. Yeah, I know jQuery is rad, but I was hoping to see some actual advice on the prototyping process, as opposed to the coding process.
Well congratulations to India. It's about time the Space Industry got more diversified. NASA is a constant source of disappointment, it's current devotion to human space exploration is something I see as highly important as it is actually advancing useful technologies. However, due to lack of funding all its other projects are at risk of getting axed more now than ever.

The last mission to the moon was in 1972, since then the technology for interplanetary travel hadn't advanced. There's so many complaints that there's no reason for landing humans on the Moon or Mars, and generally yes there's nothing there that a robot can't do. Except all the people stating this neglect the fact that there's billions of dollars worth of potential income tied up in what's necessary to get to Mars.

If humans can safely travel to Mars, then the whole prospect of space stations becomes easily accessible. Not to mention that finding a light weight radiation shield has applications all the way from portable x-ray machines for the third world to being able to efficiently build nuclear powered aircraft. Hell, nuclear ramjets have already been tested and low-weight radiation shielding could help push to a completely reusable launch vessel.
I'd like to point out, his success is good for everyone in the valley. He succeeds, you all succeed, but that goes for any entrepreneur... who cares about anything else otherwise.
Design and UX in an Agile Process
yes. although i didn't see many, there was a greater focus on smaller shops in general, most likely due to the premium on space.
Anyone have more concrete information about the design?

How do they modulate the reactor to deal with varying loads? (Or do they dump the energy?)

How is the heat converted to electricity?
This is untrue on so many levels, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how innovation should take place. Facebook's perceived success thus far has engendered a series of investments in startups that (in Facebook's image) produce next to nothing, and its failure might come as a needed wake-up call to venture capitalists and journalists alike, who have forgotten what it is to start a real technology company.
Paper based prototyping, like LOM (laminated object manufacturing), can produce parts with a similar texture to wood. They're pretty durable once finished, but a major problem is that when you're done you're part is stuck somewhere in a block of wood (a 8.5x11xN block in this case). The machine will hatch the negative areas for easier removal, but there is still quite a bit of post processing, and the final product is generally lacquered to prevent splitting.

I'm sure replicatorblog knows the current state of the art better then me, but, while this technology is cheaper than what was going on 5 to 10 years ago, its no more advanced. All of these cheap "3D Printers" have the same drawbacks people have been dealing with for a decade, they just cost thousands instead of hundreds of thousands, and are less accurate.

I feel like rapid prototyping/3d printing is going to be one of those things that is always x-years away from breaking into mainstream, where x is some constant.
>Interestingly, the bigger and more prominent your board of advisors, the harder it becomes to use them for the former purpose and the easier it becomes to use them for the latter.

I'm guessing this is because prominent people are super-busy. Sounds reasonable.
> If your undergrad is not in business, then the accounting and finance training alone is worth it

I think this is valid, but there is also another option. In my 4th year engineering (my Masters) I took 3/8 of my courses outside the engineering school: Accounting & Finance; Operations Research, Entrepreneurship. I am extremely glad I took Accounting & Finance and Operations Research - I would highly recommend Accounting and Finance to any undergraduate who thinks they may work in management at some point in their career. The Entrepreneurship was very dry, and I can't remember a single thing that I learned there.

The two scenarios I see as valid for doing an MBA:

1. A lifestyle choice (albeit a very expensive one)

2. To get an opening into consulting / banking if you don't already have a background in it (though there are other ways to do this too). Having worked with many MBA hires in consulting I would say the value of the MBA is putting oneself in the pond from which consulting companies fish, and much less so teaching the skills that consultants need.

If I was to go back to academia, it would be for a PhD for sure.
PE Obama on G.M.: The handouts begin.
Its agnosticism is attractive in certain situations. Rails is rather tied to ActiveRecord (Merb uses DataMapper by default, but you can choose others) and Prototype (though Rails has an unofficial jQuery plugin)). Merb was designed ground up to be agnostic on database, view and JavaScript choices.

Merb is "lighter", faster in many situations, and has a different "flavor" generally, that you'll either love or feel indifferent to. It was designed to be thread safe almost from day one so this element is well tested, whereas Rails is only just getting into that area with Rails 2.2.

Disclaimer: I like to support Merb, but I'm still a Rails user generally.
Beautiful houses—has the modular house stigma worn away in the past few years? Because it should.
Al Gore: Web 2.0 Needs a Purpose
The T-Mobile G1 keyboard: A lesson in failed ergonomics
I like the contraian approach here. Too much credence is put in getting advanced degrees, especially in business.

Get a basic undergrad degree and then get a job in a startup. That is the best way to 'learn' business.
Facebook doesn't produce "next to nothing." Its traffic clearly shows they have produced something a lot of people want. Whether or not they succeed in extracting money from that (and I'd bet they will), there's no question that they've made something valuable.
'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'

Make that $2,500. Somewhat less affordable. That's a $2,500 capital investment for electricity that's about a third of the going rate, so it'd pay for itself reasonably quickly (within 5 years, I'd guess).

All this said, if they're safe, easily positioned and cheaper than the regular power grid in base costs, surely the power companies would be interested in rolling these out to lower their own costs? You'd certainly reduce "cost of transport" issues that exist with the current system.

Like the $1/watt solar panels, I doubt we'll be seeing these real soon, no matter the promise, but I hope places like Antarctica, remote island communities, etc, get them first.
To save you a read, the gist is that the leaders of ego driven companies do not have an interest in making sure the company succeeds when they leave. In fact, it is the opposite, since a spectacular failure shows they were indeed geniuses in being able to hold it all together. Likewise for giving others the important decisions they need to learn to be leaders.

But this problem is much larger than just the business world. In my other readings and observations, I've noticed a similar trend. According to Rashid's "Taliban," the Taliban succeeded despite themselves. Their culture is so caught up in ego that they are pretty much incapacitated without a strong leader to hold it all together, consequently they are constantly splitting and fighting with each other. We also saw this in the leadership vacuum left by deposing Saddam, and is partially why it has taken so much work to get an Iraqi army going.

In general, I see this in most non western cultures, at least that I know of, so I suspect it is a common aspect of human nature: principle based leadership outperforms ego based leadership. This is reinforced by another book I read, "Why the Rest Hate the West." The enlightenment marked a very important shift in social structure: from societies based on relationships to principle based societies, such as law, strict national boundaries, a common language and currencies - the American constitution being the epitome of this approach.

However, I qualified this as being more general to western culture, since the Greeks, and then the Romans, took a similar view of law and culture. For example, see Sophocles' "Orestes" or Virgil's "Aenaed." I guess the Enlightenment more marks a truly rigorous and global application of this idea. If you want a more contemporary example, just look at what kind of culture perpetuates the ghettos vs the culture that perpetuates the more successful segments of America. At any rate, I'm pretty convinced that cultures based on principle vs personality are much more successful.

So, all that is to give credence to the idea that ego driven companies are an evolutionary dead end, and give myself a link that I can refer to for future discussions.
I didn't know it was ever really mainstream. I must've missed that one while torrenting for free.
His words and body language are no different than lots of young hackers' would be in the same situation.

If you are as successful as he is at such a young age, everyone will be predisposed to hate you unless you seem extremely self-deprecating. He doesn't bother to, either because he's a nerd and doesn't know he should, or because he doesn't want to stoop to being a politician. Ergo people hate him.

Whenever you despise someone you envy, question your motives.
Interesting to note how much light matters in a well designed house - it seems that the position of windows are one of the major architectural feats to make these houses great.
On a related tangent, one interesting statistic I've seen is that the Air Force has the most intelligent enlisted, but the Navy has the most intelligent officers. In line with Glass' idea, this makes sense b/c the Air Force is the one military branch where the officers are the ones put in harms way. So, the enlisted both don't have to risk their lives, and they don't have to worry about red tape. Thus, the smartest people in the Air Force are probably in the enlisted, which is why it is said the chief master sergeants (some of the smartest enlisted) run the show.
Well, I went down that road too (didn't finish it because the life of a post-doc didn't seem very appealing). In career terms MBA >> PhD, in my opinion.

On your description of courses, well OR was what I did my ABD in, so I'm biased. I personally loved my Entrepreneurship course. I think its professor - dependent. Our professor was a bit of an entrepreneur (and entertainer) himself.
Hmm, in that case, the machine should generate solidified wood pulp from any paper waste. Then your source of material is much larger and cheaper - i.e. cast off cardboard boxes from the local supermarket, irregular shapes and sizes don't need to be glued together.
I ask "Why?" a lot when I am using software written by other people. This is largely due to my hackerish nature and experience with OSS.

I get worried when the answers to that "Why?" do not make a lot of sense, especially when it is some thing like a framework that I invest a lot of trust into. Rails failed to have a good answer a number of times when I dug into it. Most of the time it was a "that's the way it is" type of scenario.

Merb never does this to you. Merb always answers the "Why?" with things like "Because you chose it to be that way" or "Because there is an HTTP spec to back that up." It all makes sense.

Other reasons that are related to the above that will keep me coming back: it's very fast and very flexible.
I thought his talk at Startup School was among the best that year, along with Mitch Kapor's.
translation: I text too much.
How To: Instantly iPhone-ize Your Website
I'm sure heavier taxes on corporations will magic more jobs into existence Mr. President. Relief packages don't mean much if you're not gainfully employed.
Al Gore could save Earth says Internet. (well, depending on what forums you visit)
Larry Wall, probably a decade ago: "The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris."
+1, the in depth treatment of finance is overkill for someone starting a small business. Most MBA curriculums are intended for the large corporation crowd. Taking a couple accounting/economics classes in the course of your BS is time better spent.
Much like puppies, according to Mr. Gore, Web 2.0 has to have a purpose. The purpose he urges us to consider is to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our relationship with this planet.

Let me rephrase that for you, Al:

The purpose of Web 2.0 should be the promotion of Al Gore's own personal agenda.

Also, what kind of stupid analogy is that? Puppies don't need purposes. Puppies are puppies.
From the FAQ (http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/about_FAQ.html) at Hyperion:

Unlike conventional designs, the proposed reactor is self-regulating through the inherent properties of uranium hydride, which serves as a combination fuel and moderator. The temperature-driven mobility of the hydrogen contained in the hydride controls the nuclear activity. If the core temperature increases over the set point, the hydrogen is driven out of the core, the moderation drops, and the power production decreases. If the temperature drops, the hydrogen returns and the process is reversed. Thus the design is inherently fail-safe and will require minimal human oversight. The compact nature and inherent safety open the possibility for low-cost mass production and operation of the reactors.

I'm sure a Google search or Wikipedia search would net you more.
C.A.R. Hoare's Turing Award Speech
Exclusive publication for top 50,000 Harvard alumni
Hey, XM and Sirius, are you two services or one?
Ask YC: Anyone looking for a loft in SF? YC members encouraged.
I have a loft in SF, but unfortunately my roommates left me high and dry. I need to find 2 roommates pronto. Any M/F YC members looking?
Er, yes, well of course, that was my point.
I was hoping he'd say hire 3 amazing programmers. In general any company that works online right now would benefit more from the order of magnitude increases in productivity that great programmers bring. The jobs he describes are all managerial (the stats guy less so), and as such require communication - which means that at best, they're going to bring incremental improvements. Obviously those get magnified by the staff that reports to them. Which means that you're actually hiring 3 amazing people and multiple more "staff" to magnify their effect.

In my opinion, you're better off hiring 3 amazing programmers.
flagged as dupe
I think from the primary polls a good 10% of the country would like to see Ron Paul as an adviser. He has consistently showed that he has a firm grasp of conservative economics and an intellectually honest president would want both sides represented.
What drives America's economy? Investment or innovation? Where has the most influential innovation come from?

Macroeconomics is a step removed from the people who really make it work. So, to get the best macroeconomics we need to make sure we get things right at the micro level. I don't see this happening with people who've spent their lives at the macro level.

EDIT

After reading the article, I also see you've set up a strawman. Cuban is not arguing you stick a lone group of tech entrepreneurs in Obama's advisory board. He says Obama needs to directly talk with them to see what they need, explicitly including non tech people in this by his mention of Joe the Plumber. Instead, Obama has insulated himself from these people with his advisory board. I agree with Cuban that this is a bad sign.
A guy I used to work with found that his code was much better when he explained it to me as he was writing it. [Note: this seemed to work whether I was there or not.]
From the original article: "our President needs to get first hand information on the impact his proposed policies will have on real Joe the Plumbers. People who are 1 person companies living job to job, hoping they get paid on time. We need to know what the impact of his policies will be on the individually owned Chrysler Dealership in Iowa. The bodego in Manhattan. The mobile phone software startup out of Carnegie Mellon. The event planner in Dallas. The barbershop in LA. The restaurant in Boston."

No fair adding the word "tech" to the original article, then criticizing it for the word "tech". :)

A "small business representative" is exactly what the article calls for. And the article isn't calling for this person to know about their industry, but to know about small business; the pressures of mandated paperwork on a one-person operation, tax pressures, basically all those things that come up when you're too small to have or afford an HR department and dedicated finance staff. The US Federal government, being the single largest entity on the planet AFAIK, has a bad habit of forgetting that paperwork isn't free; the cognitive costs alone when it isn't your job to fill out the paperwork correctly (with steep fines for errors in some cases) can be significant, even before we discount time. (For example, consider your taxes; even moderately complicated individual taxes won't take that much of your calendar year, but the cognitive costs can be daunting. And that's what an individual is expected to pay...)
New Analytics Features (segmentation, motion charts)
The author is using these terms as descriptions, not definitions.

He means dumb in the sense of not trying to seem smart and asking simple questions. So, the programmer will look dumb to others. The same applies to his use of the word lazy. He doesn't actually mean the programmer doesn't do anything, the programmer just maximizes his coding on the labor saving programs. Thus, the programmer also looks lazy for not running around like a headless chicken trying to put out all the latest fires.
Introducing Small Basic - Microsoft releases yet another programming language
I find the keyboard pretty nice. I agree that maybe the boot at the bottom with the nav buttons is a bit clunky, but I still find the keypad on the G1 dramatically more comfortable and fast to type on than the iPhone touch keyboard.
Fork you very much: Gist brings revision tracking to pastes
The really sick part of the telco's case is that the city first asked the telco to build a fiber network. The telco refused. Only then did the city decide to build its own network. Plus the telco has zero law on its side.