skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Two things: again, I don't espouse the strongest form of Sapir Whorf. The interpretation of differences in speed of access to concepts, based on spread-activation, however, is solid. When I learned Sapir Whorf we were given the original interpretation and a brief of how it has been reinterpreted more recently -- but it still goes by the name of Sapir Whorf. I am not making a case for the possibility of expression. I am make a case for the salience of expressions in different languages. It should be easy to show this: take two languages and find two words of identical meaning, and measure the response speed to comprehension of these words. All other things equal, the higher-frequency word will be accessed faster. Hence, if one culture says Apple more than Orange, Apple is more salient in the former culture. You will then expect more efficient access to Apple-related concepts.

Second, what makes you think that natural languages do not differ in expressive power? Certain things are more easily said in one language than another, just as some constructs may be easier to represent in one language or another, although they may be able to create the same results.

I also don't know where you get the "typically the same length" from. Stephen Pinker wrote about the relative length of English in one of his books. I don't remember which he was comparing to, but English is longer. Pinker explained this along the lines of English being more "fault tolerant" due to more "redundancy" (my words).
Tis the season to write SMTP implementations.

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=2008111208464...
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?s=148

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=102
3-year-old solves Rubik's Cube in 114 seconds
They did, of course.
Does anyone have thoughts on the applicability of this article in terms of UI and UX?
Heatmaps from Clicks: An in-depth look at how a website was improved overnight
Python Makes Me Nervous
I decided that I was seeing too many folks who were starting businesses for the wrong reason. I didn't want to join the bandwagon of encouraging folks onto the rocks. Many people are naturally entrepreneurial or will be forced by events to become more entrepreneurs, they need real advice on how to bootstrap.
Ask HN: Where do you buy hosting space from ?
I'm looking for a cheap hosting that would support PHP and MySQL, and unlimited add on multiple domains.
But you don't use capital letters. Is this Jerry Yang? ;)
beer is a religion ;)
I'm curious as to what research you're referencing. I started taking a vitamin D supplement a few weeks ago at the encouragement of my father, and it seems to be making a difference in my sense of well-being, but I'd welcome a few pointers if you have any handy. (Don't mean to impose, though.)
Ha, what a coincidence (or not): I wrote the article, and I'm a UI designer.

I've been trying to figure out a way to use peak shift in UI design for a while. Mainly, I have been wondering if the same principle occurs not only to things someone favors in a pavlovian sense (as has been proven), but also to things someone expects or wants.

If it does work this way, then it might be possible to hack it into an interface and get people to do things subconsciously by exaggerating certain triggers.

So far, I haven't found the perfect way to do this yet.
We are customer development experts for bootstrapping software firms. We work with a number of very talented technical teams who are trying to manage their market risk and minimize product-market mismatch. The article was not intended as a sales pitch but a warning to potential new startup founders that many of the folks encouraging them into the water have a vested interest in seeing new startups no matter what the economic climate (in the same way that car dealers will always find a good reason to buy a new car and realtors to buy a new house).

We facilitate the Bootstrappers Breakfasts (http://www.bootstrappersbreakfast.com/) where you can meet and compare notes with other bootstrapping entrepreneur just for the price of your own breakfast. Those are peer to peer strategy sessions that many attendees find quite valuable.
Thanks, I'll take a look through the forums. Have you used anyone from this forum? The prices seem to be completely random from $0.15 to $10 per post or more.
Twitter isn't going to die. The argument that Twitter is like high school is valid. What's not valid is saying that high school doesn't matter or isn't how the world works.

Twitter is like high school because the real world is like high school. Web 2.0 is DEFINITELY like high school. Even if we wish it weren't so.
Thanks for bringing this up (at the risk of downvotes for reductionist sexism) so that I didn't have to.
Because publicly predicting the deaths of things (Perl, Python, Facebook, MySpace, digg, reddit, Apple) based on one or two people's opinions always works out.
I love this part:

You can't lend money if you don't have it. And beginning in 2001, the Federal Reserve made sure lots of people had it. In January 2001, when President Bush took office, the federal funds rate, the key benchmark for all interest rates in this country, was 6.5 percent. Then, in response to the meltdown in the technology sector, the Fed began cutting the rate. By August 2001, it was at 3.75 percent. And after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Fed opened the spigot. By the summer of 2002, the federal funds rate was 1 percent.

No mention of the reason for the low rates i.e. to spur economic growth. The administration wanted to PROVE that tax cuts cause enough economic growth to grow government revenue. The way to do that if the tax cuts aren't really working is to keep lowering the interest rate. Now that the whole house of cards has fallen down, it is very silly to be saying that less government would be the solution.

I would say that in June of this year I was a hardcore libertarian, and I have been pretty much since I had become politically aware, but after digging through the events and the economics of the crisis, my mind has changed. When it comes to financial markets, they are going to swing. But government's role should be to force publicly traded companies to have transparent books, and the financial industries where anything but transparent in the last few years. A stronger SEC would have helped in that regard.
Seconded. I am waiting for the day that linux has something comparable or gets over its license mania.
Does anyone else have trouble reading Zed's blog because of the high contrast white-on-black text theme? I have to look away after around a minute, and even then I have ghosts burned into my retinas.
Twitter messages have unique URLs (permalinks). It doesn't exactly have replies, though; you can send a message @someone (public, but intended especially for the given person) or send a private direct message, but there's no standard way to indicate which message you're replying to.

This is an intentional step back from email. Twitter is a bad place to have long back-and-forth conversations by design.
Many carriers will let you use their data services on a pay-per-byte basis even if you're not subscribed to a data plan. This is usually ridiculously expensive, so if you're going to actually use a smartphone, an "unlimited" plan is usually wise.
Holy crap, an Objective-C text that doesn’t assume you’re retarded
It seems like nothing is actually getting censored. Wikipedia was flagged as a possible source of child porn, probably because of the Virgin Killer's LP.

I would suspect the proxy the ISPs are routing the site through is to monitor the use and log the IPs of the individuals using it. That's pretty funny for wikipedia given the scale of use and it's search rankings.

I wonder what % of the UK broadband connections have been tracked now.
The big study on vitamin D that got everyone's attention was this one from the summer of 2007:

Vitamin D and Calcium Supplementation Reduces Cancer Risk: Results of a Randomized Trial (http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/85/6/1586)

There is also a lot of information about vitamin D research at the Vitamin D Council website (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/).

That being said, I don't know if taking a vitamin D supplement would have any noticeable effect on your sense of well-being. I think it's probably a good idea to take one even if you don't notice a difference.
Softlayer, ThePlanet, Mediatemple
Common chemicals are feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals
The disorder of their office is matched by the disorder of their website. A billion links, banner ads for unrelated things right in the middle of the website, two search boxes near each other... it's terrible.
Happiness Ripples Through Social Networks
Unfortunately, India and China's cultures may compensate for this imbalance.
I doubt that the G1 will "simply not operate" without a data plan. I suspect this is T-mobile's way of avoiding having to explain (especially to non-techie customers who might not realize that a smartphone without a data plan is probably a bad idea) that many of the phone's features require a data plan, and that skipping the data plan is a good way to spend $4 every time you travel with Google Maps.

I heard the same thing a couple of years ago regarding a blackberry I was purchasing. I got a data plan, and a year or so later a friend needed a replacement GSM phone. The blackberry worked just fine as a phone with her SIM card; of course, you couldn't browse the web or get email on it.
We're in the information security field, and we facilitate monthly CitySec meetups in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Boston; each draws ~40 people, and all are free and totally unbranded. But that has nothing to do with our service offerings.

I guess I'm asking, why do early-stage startups pay you, and what specifically do you provide them? "Managing market risk and minimizing product-market mismatch" is pretty vague. Do you do market research? Do you conduct surveys?

I'm very familiar with marketing consultants in later-stage startups, where, in my experience, they are largely used by the management team as a tool to reinforce consensus or sell the CEO. No viable early-stage startup has those problems.
Summary: Author doesn't like these things about python:

- Duck Typing

- No constructor overloading

- Exceptions in Python aren't explicit ("checked")

Eh. You can't approach Python with a Java mindset and expect to be happy, just as you can't approach Java with a Python mindset likewise.
I knew when I wrote "second-system syndrome" that I was going to get hammered for it, because I agree that it's not a perfect match for what they've done.

Many millions of lines of Python code work in the field right now; a decent subset uses Unicode (for instance, most Win32 Python code has to). I buy that the new Unicode model is better, but I don't buy that it's so much better that a code port is worth it.

The library cleanup is a major win, but they could have done that in Python 2.7.

It's hard to say multiprocessing is a huge win in 3.0, since it's already in 2.x.
Because the argument here is that it's worth breaking code to make it "cleaner", and Joel's argument is about why "clean" code is overrated. I agree that it's not a perfect match for the discussion, but it is relevant.
The Long-Run Benefits of Punishment
SO i took a look at the video you posted, and because it says "screen replay demo" across the screen and you didn't do an voice over and even at full screen, the whole thing is so small, it is impossible to understand what you are offering and why I would use it.

My point about the price was that it is such a small amount that it is probably going to be more trouble for you to charge it than it is worth. If this is just a side project and you don't need/want to make money from it, then give it away. If you want to make a bit, I would charge more if you can justify it.

The openid issue was my error, sorry about that. I just tried logging in with openid and it takes me right to giving you my paypal details to charge.
Nope, not gonna happen. I don't think you'll get any users like that without documentation, demos, trials, etc.
Saying I can cancel at any time up to two weeks and not get charged just doesn't cut it.

No more for you!
"Twitter is high-school"

Author needs to open their minds just a little more and they'll realize.

"Practically all social networking sites/things is high-school."
The Ramachandran referred to in the article is a brilliant neurologist/neuroscientist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayanur_Ramachandran). You should watch his TED talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2LwnaUA-k), it's pretty amazing.
In Firefox: View -> Page Style -> No Style.
> It's hard to say multiprocessing is a huge win in 3.0, since it's already in 2.x.

Yeah, I was just joking about that bit.

I don't see why it would be any different for the 2.7 library have been reorganized than it is for the 3.0 library reorganization; it would have broken just as much code. And while you're breaking code, you should break the code that needs to be broken, right?

And it's not just unicode, it's unicode/new style classes/iterators throughout (which I think is an underrated change). None of these could have happened without breakage, and I think it's better to clear the decks once every 15 years than it is to just grow by accretion forever.

Those lines of python in the field that work are not going to stop working; python 2.x is not going to go away or go unmaintained, as you point out yourself. Writing new code will shortly become more difficult in the 2.x series, as libraries start switching to 3, but the old code will be maintainable for a long while.

In order for the language to keep growing in a clean, pythonic fashion, it needed to be cleaned up a bit, and I think they did a great job of it.
http://startupskunkworks.blogspot.com/

I'd be happy to discuss anything.
Except sometimes when you go to the doctor for that sore throat he notices you have throat cancer.

The Wal-Mart tech tells you it's negative for strep and sends you home with some Tylenol Flu medicine.
I agree. There should be something indicating what this thing is, if nothing else a tag line that hints at what it is. I'm still not entirely sure what this is supposed to do.
How we found the missing memristor
Why has it taken so long for this to come to public attention? I hadn't heard anything about it until about 2 months ago when my friend bought a BPA free Nalgene, and then recently with that CBC documentary Alex3917 posted (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375127).

On another note, I like that I'm able to find out about this stuff from HN. I consider it a triumph of social media.
male to female disparities means i am allowed to have my harem...
Are employees encouraged to display "flair" or is that honestly spontaneous?
Sounds very Rich Dad, Poor Dad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Dad,_Poor_Dad, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kiyosaki) et al.

Also, once you have substantial passive income, or have people believing you have substantial passive income, don't forget to write the motivational book, follow-up video/DVD, and talks etc., and milk that passive cash cow.

Infact, mass market brand awareness and brand appeal should be the ultimate aim - if achieved, seems to be an excellent form of substantial passive income these days? Seems to work for celebs, popstars, sports stars, authors, and super-brands alike?
Ask HN: Best online brokerage?
I'm looking to do some stock market speculating for a quick gain with little risk. I'll only be investing about $800 and I will be selling pretty quickly thereafter, so fees for both buying and selling should be minimal, so should withdrawal fees. Mint.com integration would be a bonus.

As a token of my appreciation I'll do whatever referral thing your brokerage does (if that's allowed by HN) if I choose your site.
Incredible.

I think it would be great if you introduced bad guys as a light-stream thing that made really ugly dissonant sounds, so you would have to block those.
Truly beautiful game - definitely sucked me in for 30 minutes
You can give materials away without having a "free plan". This may seem like a stupid distinction, but if it's free it isn't a plan. Don't muddle the waters. You want to spend your text promoting the paid services, not explaining what people get for free.

My own advice would be to have only one paid plan. Some sites have multiple plans at multiple prices and try to segment their user market. It will save you a lot of time hassle in development if you just have one premium plan to start. When you are a success you can look at user segmentation.

Also - be aware that if there is a community element to your service multiple plans can cause discord.
I heard about this over 10 years ago. Nothing will be done. Anyway, I'm surprised by the misuse of the word "evolution" in this article. If evolution is involved in any way here, it is in the gradually increasing resistence of animals to these chemicals.
I am responding with more detail at your request, offered as a clarification, not as a solicitation.

They pay us because they want early customers, both for revenue and for references, and their efforts to date have either not worked or only worked selling to friends. We have been doing this for more than 5 years: we started in early 2003. We are hired by founders/owners.

We work with startup teams that are primarily composed of engineers. We follow Steve Blank's customer development paradigm which merges sales, marketing, and business development into a scientific model based on forming and testing hypotheses about your product, your customers, etc.. Part of the customer development paradigm is that the founders must sell, we help them as virtual team members with tools, methodology, and advice. Our focus is business to business software.

The founders must sell because it's not clear when you are first starting out if prospects are not buying because the product has missing or misfeatures, is priced incorrectly, is being described incorrectly, or the startup is talking to the wrong prospects for the product that they have. Only the founders have the perspective to address all of these issues.
No, I haven't, though it's certainly a case of you get what you pay for, from people that don't speak English really well in developing countries, to people in the USA with degrees with English.
Update to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387074

Disappointed that he didn't include more details of what the problem/fix was.
See update: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=388251
Aaron Hillegass's "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" is an extremely well written book that is great for learning Objective C through Cocoa and also does not assume you're retarded.
So I created this Twitter image aggregator. What do you think?
this is the the obligatory slicehost post
Opera 10 alpha aces Acid3 browser test, boosts browsing performance by 30%
zecco, although you need to deposit more than $800 to get the free trades. don't have to actually make use of the full deposit amount, though
Your attitude about their office space is like your comment...lame. It's great what they have going on there.
IT Factory's Stein Bagger arrested in California after a worldwide search
This company, and the industry it serves, targets a specific clientele maintains a specific image. I don't think their decoration is out of line there, despite the fact that it would drive me bananas.

I agree that the nursery school decor is unwelcome without some overriding design goal, however.
Ask HN: Is there a better way to find out if there are competitors than Googling for it?
Hi,

Usually after you came out with an idea, how do you find out if there're already companies executing the same idea? Is there a better way than just Googling for it?
linode, frro.net
Actually, you can't even make a call without a data plan, since you can't register the G1 with Google's servers, and thereby cannot escape the initial setup wizard.

I know this because I paid full price for a G1 w/o contract, and had to wait 48 hours for my data service to be activated after I bought the phone. (T-Mobile's contract-less service is slightly less crappy than most carriers', but still has some horrible problems, like not being able to change service terms mid-month under any circumstances.)
Not a very well researched article, mostly a rant.

First the article complains about not being able to figure out how to use a method from its signature. This ignores Python's style, which is to actually document things (and documenting is easy using docstrings). It isn't the language's fault if someone writes a function and doesn't tell you how to use it. Yes, a function accepting "kwargs" with no docstring is unnecessarily difficult. But anyone respecting Python's style would have a docstring that describes all possible keywords. I fail to see how a documented Python function could be hard to use.

And it's clear from the article that the author doesn't know how to find documentation. There's an example for open() which cites the 2-line help documentation and complains about everything it doesn't say. There are in fact several paragraphs on open() in the actual documentation (e.g. "http://www.python.org/doc/2.5.2/lib/built-in-funcs.html"), including information on exceptions raised, something the author thought was missing. Again, an ignorant programmer is not a fault of the language.
would you hold it against me if it were? :p
Photographs of old computers
A few interesting books that relate:

Multimind, by Robert Ornstein

The User Illusion, by Tor Nørretranders

The Commanding Self, by Idries Shah
New Canon 5D and 1980s Japanophobia
Well when the Tylenol doesn't help after a day or so you can go to a real doctor as the next step.

If the sore throat does go away (not related to the cancer), then hopefully your real doctor will catch said cancer during your yearly physical.

I'm not saying these places should replace real doctors for everything, I'm saying for the 98% of the time it's a common ailment like strep or the flu, they can save everyone a lot of time and money.
The Miracle Berry
I wonder which group watches more TV and which one plays more videogames?
Interesting how the author completely dodged around twitters lack of revenue problem. As of right now, twitter is having no trouble keeping afloat and will possibly have a revenue model in a couple years. When twitter makes money it won't "die" for quite some time, if twitter fails to make money, it will carry along like it always has, propelled by its first mover status and the hype it's created throughout all the years. I say this while setting the "its like high school" and "everyone just collects followers" arguments aside. Those seem to be hyperbole reasons to justify an argument that has no tangible bearing on twitters actual situation and status as a company and as a service.
Quick note: Android's been ported to the OpenMoko phone. As a phone it's got a long way to go, but it's fully free from vendor interpretation.
Recession Could Wipe Out The iPod
Why not just use geo-location to pull up a map based on where the user is right now?
and yet they're a billion dollar business. :) so much for usability and graphic design...
You can list 3-5 general terms (keywords) that best describe your concept, and search for those keywords in Google to find anything close to your idea.
That's not the impression I got from watching the Olympics.
What Happens To Code From Failed Projects?
Gallery of obsolete computers
What about Scottrade, trades are cheap and minimums are low...

http://www.scottrade.com/
Why Zappos Works
Wasn't it Kawasaki that said getting rich is boring?
I think the core idea of #7 is to give a vast amount of freedom to each person in their work so they can let their brain run wild on the problem without restriction. Even if that's not what PG meant, it certainly is what I mean.

I think the other great benefit is that each person can afford to become an expert in their areas, rather than each person becoming merely competent at everything. I think 3 people who are each experts at 3 different things is more powerful than 3 people who are merely competent at the same 9 things.