skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"The quality of ideas is not a factor in whether or not you will be in a position to have a chance to sell those ideas."

This is why you need a sales guy, an idea guy and a hacker.
It would be awesome if we (we being, whatever country tries this first) had the money to basically build some basic system that works, although slowly, then improve on it over time. Of course, we're talking billions of dollars of raw material, not code here so I guess it won't happen until they have a for-sure method of doing this right :(

Still, a very cool concept.
I don't know... I grew up in Oregon, and used to ride my mountain bike around in places like this:

http://local.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.939069,-123.43714...

and as a consequence am quite willing to believe that people can have far ranging, destructive consequences, and am willing to consider the fact that current environmental policy may do a poor job of dealing with certain negative externalities.

Posts like this one, though, are yet more evidence of why these discussions are pointless. "Environmentalism is a religion" hah! Good one! In one snarky sentence, you get to call a broad and diverse movement (which ranges from people who are a bit bonkers to plenty of very reasonable people) a bunch of illogical doodyheads. Gee, if only more people would tell them this, maybe they'd see the light.
Peace Essay Contest
Code Reduction or Spartan Programming
Hmm I see your point. Praps Expand at the top too then?

The only reason I suggested it is because usability wise when you click "expand" the tweet appears and the "contract" jumps from under your mouse (and then of course if you straight away contract it al lthe tweets jump back up and.. well.. it confuses a simpleton like me :P ;))

http://screencast.com/t/gUmiZY1xC
When in trouble, can your phone find you?
I don't want to install pirated software (not only because of the danger of trojans), and I am not a student.
Nokia's N97 'iPhone killer' shoots blanks
Ask HN: How should I go about learning CS?
Hello hackers,

My undergraduate is in History, however, I've been working as a Tester(also some technical writing) for last 4 months in a startup based in Europe. I've to admit that I don't have very strong CS fundamentals i.e. theory. How do you recommend I go about it? As a first step, I've bought Discrete Mathematics book and reading it for last two months. What should I move on to next once I understand little bit of Discrete Maths? Straight to algorithms? How do I approach algorithms? I mean should I understand every proof written in Cormen's book? I'm confused as to how should I approach this.

What other math books should I be reading? Any help will be appreciated. I know there are some very good self-taught hackers in here. Also, some very good and highly educated CS hackers lurk here. So any help is highly appreciated as right now my condition is like a fish without water. (note that, going to school isn't an option right now)
Java is Dead; Long Live Python
Then I say "Also CSS, Javascript, C#, VB, ASP.Net, Classic asp, SQL, Java, C, Objective-C, and Flash."
Another Microsoft bug revealed on huge patch day
How to make a Twitter bot
He's suggesting something subtly different: allow people to become teachers more easily (i.e., within the existing public school system).

I don't think that's ever been tried.
> [the standard library is] so obtuse

Agreed, strongly. Look at extlib ( http://code.google.com/p/ocaml-extlib/ ) and such, though. While OCaml's official standard library has some infuriating gaps, the unofficial standard library makes up for many of them (and the core language is quite good).
It also doesn't work as well if one of your hands is on the mouse (as is common for many graphics editors).
Not all of us. Well, I'm 20, but it still counts.
A twitter feed in gmail : Write a google gadget
To be really convinced I would have liked to see him address issues like the likely major food shortage (technology will probably not solve this)

This will most likely be solved by growing food in Canada and Siberia.
Which university do you attend? At Drexel around 2001, all we got was free copies of MS Office. I feel cheated.
That poor guy. I sympathize; I've also had that experience of "I'd never say THAT!" and then someone shows me the quote.
give me an example of something that i can't filter in a sed/grep/ed/awk/perl script.
Is this real? Or did someone make it up to generate a strawman argument?
Spyware cleaners
What's also interesting is how having the top pick cripples the drafting team due to the ridiculous salaries given to unproven talent. If I had the top pick, I'd trade it every time. 50/50 chance isn't good enough for allocating 8 figure salaries. The NFL needs a rookie scale like basketball.
Even there is a hacker comunity based in these principles:
http://www.suckless.org/common/index.html (KISS with steroids)
I used to be an English teacher so forgive me for two things:

1) I think that my suggested edit, and the other few dozen similar ones I could make, do not improve the article even if they are more in line with the Wikipedian NPOV and NOR policies.

2) The words "sadly" and "mediocrity" are cues that would have suggested #1 already.
Or rather someone who can hack, someone who can sell, and someone with ideas (there can be overlap between them).
A friend of mine is CTO at clockspot.net

I have no idea whether they're good or not, but they're profitable and he's a nice guy. Worth a try!
Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college...

Anyone else hear a tone alike one admitting to past drug use?
What do you want to ultimately achieve? Do you want to become a hacker or do you want to know about computer science for intellectual gratification? While these options certainly aren't mutually exclusive, they can however be very distinct.

If you want to be a productive programmer there is no substitution for programming experience. In the same way knowing a lot of music theory won't make you a great concert pianist without years of practice.

Computer science theory will allow you to attempt some problems beyond the reach of intuition. However a great deal has been achieved by people just having a go.

I don't think there is any one answer. There is no definitive example of a computer scientist or hacker. I'd recommend just getting stuck in. Try many different things. Find out what interests you and then read the relevant books. You'll go farthest if you're doing something you enjoy not by adhering to some consensus from a disparate bunch of usually jaded hackers :)
IMHO, you don't need to know much theory to do testing. Programming is not a science, it's more of an art. Artisans don't need PhD's in Discrete Math to get their job done. Instead, they need passion, perseverance and tenacity. It's good that you want to learn about theory, but reading books is not enough... you have to code too.
Thank you! I've implemented it and now it's at the top. You're right it's a lot nicer.
ah. bene!

Looks good :)
I'm willing to bet it's a stawman argument. I've read a few letters in the past with a similar tone and I do believe some of them are real. There is a level of ignorance where even in my IT shop at work they think I'm pirating MySQL and want me to port anything that runs on a lamp stack to Microsoft Windows.
There's a lot of start-ups per capita in Israel. The big sharks buy them so fast, Israelis are constantly busy opening the new ones. What a whirlpool.
I'm glad Python 3.0 has come out, but that's no reason to revive the language war. Every language has it's own strengths, weaknesses, toolkits, frameworks, and developers. Let people use what they want.
Misleading title, the battery does not hold a charge for 3 years. It has a lifespan of 3 years assuming 1000 charges.
Learn Scheme -> Read/watch SICP. Work your way up to algorithms. Build stuff.
CS is a gigantic field and if you start midnlessly wandering around, you're surely to be overwhelmed with how much stuff exists. I have a MS in CS and I still feel like a majority of topics are way over my head. I find that I have to spend a bulk of my time for some period on very specific things to feel like I got a grasp on them.

I think you have to first figure out what you're goals from this are. Do you want to write a web app? Do you want to write an operating system? Some people approach the problem from the latter goal and are very quickly dismayed by its depth. If you want to write something more simple, you can start at tutorials of just languages, and then work up from there. HN is usually a good barometer of interesting CS topics.

In terms of just pure CS fundamentals, I think looking at the freshman curriculum of a reputable school should be a good start. The danger with diving into CS from the theoretical side though, is being dismayed at the little perceived relevance of CS theory to actually writing code. A good plan to prevent losing interest is learn with micro-projects that can be completed in a short amount of time. Having small rewards regularly can help you stay on track.
In NYC? Looking for good user group meetings to go to? Here is a convenient calendar.
Do they then ask you for help with their drug problems?
Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008
Unfortunately, this returns 0 for most feeds right now, and is apparently a known bug: http://groups.google.com/group/feedburner-for-developers/bro...

I will add Feedburner when they fix this (I hope soon).
I wrote a bot that generates @replies a little while back. The motive was to "send" a message that refers users to our service when a specific type of URL is mentioned by a user. We have a policy which we adhere to VERY strictly regarding messaging users one time only. You'd be surprised at the amount of positive feedback we received.
I actually know a guy that is a treasure hunter. He (and several other guys) had a big find in the Caribbean a while back and now he does it full time all over the world.
The article would be fine without the anecdotal evidence of battery fires. I doubt it's a common occurrence given how many batteries are out in the wild.
I just wanted to thank everyone for all the great advice. It seems that everyone's experience varies in some way -- both positive and negative. I'm going to test drive a friends MacBook for a few days to give it a true test (keyboard mappings, etc.). I also plan to give Linux a try as well.
If someone has great ideas for a big company that are valuable, then that same someone should be able to come up with ideas for a small company or a startup that are an order of magnitude even more valuable. Start helping those small companies and startups and build a portfolio to take to the big companies.
I know, I know, "take your top 10 lists back to digg and reddit!" I couldn't help myself, end of year lists are fun...
The google timeline of "java dead" is kinda funny:

http://www.google.com/views?q=java+dead+view%3Atimeline&...

Looks like it has been dead since 1997, and was most dead in 2003, but not by a whole lot.
C++ seems to have survived it's own death, as has C, why, even VB6 has come back for another drink after you're sure you saw it dead in the snow.

Languages don't die till everyone using them is dead. And you better burn the books too, because some hobbyist will come along and resurrect the language if you wait long enough.

So, however stiff it may look, ASM will continue to MOV, we'll continue to see C around, and goto is not going anywhere.
First Light-Driven Nanomachine
Just out of curiosity, when are they going to take Gmail out of beta? I mean seriously, it's been 4 years for crying out loud...

And while they're at it, do something with Grand Central already cause it's freakin' great... but yet another stalled service Google hastily acquired and has done nothing with. I don't even have invites to give to countless other friends seeking access.
Gvke - House Season 5 Episode 11 (s05e11) Joy to the World Complete Video
"I swear if I hear the words "iPhone killer" one more time"

I swear if I hear another "close to iphone but no cigar" smartphone review ...
I read an article on slashdot about eight years ago (antitrust trial era after the first major ruling against) that Microsoft was dead. This reminds me of that. I'd like to believe but this guy make a poor case.

Java is everywhere, and the VM is high performance. Its library range is the best, except for C in some settings. The operating system wars are long over and the language ones are becoming irrelevant - it's about VMs now and JVM is a strong contender. One of the links off here: http://www.malhar.net/sriram/kilim/ show it nuking erlang under high loads for similar concurency patterns.

I wish it were dead. I've moved myself out of the core development team at work in order to avoid dealing with the frustrating lethargy of developing with it. What development I now do is tooling which I do entirely in python, using django, web2py and base libraries when I need web stuff. Python allows me to prorgam with all the power of the unix platform even though my C is weak and unpracticed.

But Java still has outright strengths. When support issues come up for the main product our java source code is very readable, the team thrives in spite of being distributed, the product is stable, those customers who need library compatibility with us can get it with Java. Some of the python libraries are in the lead across the board, but others are weak. Nothing in the python world comes close to cayanne for combining simplicity and power for object relational modeling (most of the offerings are less powerful and more difficult to install, sqlalchemy is extremely inaccessible).

I'm expecting the classy rollout of Python 3 to kill off the other mainstream scripting languages. But it still has large flaws. Twisted is magnificent, but if you need to do threading python stinks even more than standard java. Also, the 'self' problem and syntactic separations that prevent you from creating functions inline point to a weaknses in the settlement. I think iolanguage is the next step in the right direction. There are some areas I don't think even that could challenge Java though - java wins when you have teams working on a project.
Hey, it was college. Everybody experiments. I used to swing both ways... dual booting that is.
I'm gonna use that!

"I help $these_kind_of_people kick more ass!"
A line of code a day keeps the recession away
Flag it if you don't like it, this is exactly the sort of stuff we're all (minus 25) looking to filter out here.
Global Stock Market Report (US Stock Market, Asian Stock Market, Oil, Gold, Platinum)
Confirmed by Martin Buhr (AWS Head for EU) http://twitter.com/TallMartin/status/1048935032
Useful statistics for web designers
Every language has it's own strengths, weaknesses, toolkits, frameworks, and developers. Let people use what they want.

I recently visited a webapp thru HN whose developer wrote it in Sleep. http://sleep.dashnine.org/ :)
"We treat your password with the utmost care and security and the second after you entered it it gets encrypted"

This is cool, but the login page isn't https (which will confuse the noobs) and I don't think a paragraph on security is needed. Maybe just some sort of 'lock' graphic and 1 sentence explaining your privacy measures with a link to an expanded description for the paranoid/curious.
Wow this is a really useful tool. Especially for the power-users. A lot of development that I am having my team do is based on and for those power-users. I think that's the best way to start getting a lot of use. Since basically, we are all becoming power users, and setting ourselves up with that goal initially, will hopefully cover the chances of success. Overall, this is great! Nice job!
True, but there is such thing as inappropriate jokes...
Sounds like you're a salesman. :)
That was essentially the reason I found this interesting. Considering (as another comment correctly states) Gmail has been in Beta for 4 years. Google almost singlehandedly started the "perpetual beta" mantra, and suddenly, Chrome, which happens to be a complex piece of software, is out of beta.

Makes me think... Why?
This is something that will make twitter useful for me. Thank you!

An RSS feed of these links would be extra useful.
I did not know about this feature. This will come in handy.
This must be made up, because the person admits to trying out Linux then goes on a ridiculously over the top pro Microsoft slant (without argumentation). Somebody so clueless wouldn't even know (if) they tried out Linux in college...
I thought people knew it. People have been killing since the day it was popular.

This is just like procrastination. You say that it's dead and don't want to use it, "but then what the heck just one last project"
I'm impressed that you chose to approach learning from a theoretical point of view. It will serve you well; you will understand algorithmic approaches which stump a lot of people who lack a theoretical background. (Please, no "I never got a CS degree, but I know what I'm doing" replies --- the HN audience is more competent than the average in the working world. I'm sick and tired of working with people with trade-school degrees in programming or "computer engineering" who do not understand binary search.)

To start, you should read SICP (http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/) and watch the lectures (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussma...). You should probably do this before diving deeper into discrete math, algorithms, or theory of computation. SICP is almost completely unique in that it touches on all these topics, and puts them in the context of actual programming. It also happens to include solving fun problems along the way.

After that, you'll be well-prepared to have a ball in all aspects of CS. You can get more into pure hacking by learning languages (after Scheme, I recommend C, Python, Common Lisp, Haskell, and Prolog before jumping into more unexplored directions like Scala and Clojure), and following up by studying compilers and operating systems. You can get into a more job-oriented path by learning Java and C#. You can get into more algorithms by reading Cormen et al. and, of course, Knuth. You can get into pure theory by reading Sipser (wonderful, wonderful book).
And you wonder why
There's one called Venture Voice. They interview start-up founders.
I read the Forbes article and while it was interesting, I thought that pointing out 1 large success out of thousands of layoffs was a bit misleading and a weak argument for 'feeling good' about leaving Yahoo!

It's great and all that this 1 guy has had success, but that means nothing to the thousands without jobs.
If it isn't a choice, then there's not much point talking about it, is there?

Another example is Rand's argument that there is absolute truth: saying there is no absolute truth is a self contradiction, so it is an untenable position. That avoids the whole problem of trying to point out a specific absolute truth, while still showing its the better position.
Just use a blogging service. Usually free or cheap, and allows uploading of text, pictures or video. Very simple to organize your ideas and very little time involved in setting it up.
Annakin: You mean using this 'Java' and 'C or C++' he could actually . . . command . . . IBM Cell Processors. Bring multi core programming to life?

Chancellor Palpatine: 'Java' and 'C or C++', Annakin, are pathways to many abilities SOME would consider to be . . . UNNATURAL.

Annakin: Is it possible to learn these skills?

Chancellor Palpatine: NOT from a Jedi.

or, if you choose . . .

Annakin: You . . . KNOW 'Java' and 'C'?

Emperor-Imminent Palpatine: If we wish to understand the FULL nature of the coding universe, we must embrace a . . . a LARGER view of hacking Annakin. Not just the DOGMATIC assertions of the Jedi.

Annakin: <Draws his lightsaber> YOU"RE the hacker everyone's been looking for. You represent 'Java'!

Emperor-Imminent Palpatine: Are you going to kill me?

Annakin: I would certainly like to!

Emperor-Imminent Palpatine: Yeeesssss . . . I can FEEL your anger. It gives you FOCUS!
Teachers: a lot more than you think. My wife has had threats to go to the schoolboard for retarded stuff (crazy cheerleading parents). And we know a couple that needed short-term legal counsel.

For TA's, I could imagine problems with patents, pharma, and medical.

I guess you could rig up the equivalent of malpractice insurance for certain fields to get around the union problem, but the current solution is the best available.
An RSS feed is a brilliant idea! I'll be adding that soon.
Common Feature Tests
"If you're unable to be in that position, my best advice is that you blog the ideas. At least you'll get them out of your system and get bragging rights if anything ever happens."

I agree that blogging the idea would be good, but not for bragging rights. It establishes a date and proof that it was in fact your idea.

Some ideas can only be executed by large corporations, accessing the right people within those corps (and not getting ripped off) is a problem we should all work on.
This doesn't change the argument, but the median rating of 1100 is misleading since most of under 1100 are children who participate in various Chess in Schools programs and who never go onto play rated chess as adults. Among active playing adults the median must be closer to 1400 if not more.

However this Kasparov vs. The World game does show the case where the "tragedy of commons" comes into play. 50,000 players playing without "guidance" from the top would quickly lose to Kasparov.

One last point, 400 point rating difference is actually considered quite significant, top player then is supposed to get a 99:1 score in 100 games. When there is 200 point difference, advantage slips to 75:25.
The island of Java is getting mixed into the timeline results but cool feature.
A Spanish tv channel did something similar (viewers voting on a few options against Kasparov) and on that occasion 'Spain' won. Edit: I remembered it wrong; I looked it up and it was 1991 with a win for Kasparov and a tie (I guess the tie felt like a victory for the viewers).
Is that a little spammy considering the users haven't asked to be send a message?

(Oh, here's my News.YC Twitter bot if anyone's interested: http://twitter.com/newsycombinator)
Ask HN: Anyone using Amazon DevPay?
I was wondering if anyone is using Amazon DevPay. What have your experiences been?
Everybody has their own top 10.

Where's Dropbox et all? They are simple but they are good and cool.

P.S: I would actually include Google in that list every year at Top-1. I use it atleast 200 times a day.
Whoa, weird! How did I end up on Climatologist News? Does anyone know where Hacker News went?
I read this article and the resulting conclusion I drew was that the baby-boomers used their union power to ensure their retirement security at the expense of the current and future generations.

Oh and GM/Chrysler/Ford put the nail in their own coffin by crapping out inferior vehicles for decades and have now only recently caught up (too late)
Job Interview Questions That Mean You’re Not Getting Hired…And One That Means You Are
But I thought OS X was perfect?

/had too, flame away
And here is one for Philly: http://phillynewmediahub.com/

And (not included yet) is the hackathon group I started last year: startups.philadelphia.groupomatic.com/
Did I miss something? There are 2 parts, one which is pro microsoft and then a defense post which is pro Linux...right?
It could also be because Adobe controls how Flash behaves in the browser. If it suddenly changes some security feature in its Flash player and release it, browsers automatically download the player (users don't really care which version of Flash player they have and usually upgrade to a latest release) and suddenly your content stops working. Fixing it won't be an easy task. You need Flash software to compile the movie and your scripts. Not so with JavaScript and any other open languages. This was one of the reasons why I moved out of Flash/ActionScript world.
Fair, but a talented young person in finance will, at least, have the opportunity to make lots of money in the future. This means that a 23-year-old trader ought to be especially a catch: buy cheap, sell dear.