skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hah. I know this one. Ok. first, are you willing to use a wrist strap, to buy an anti-static mat and verify you are grounded?

http://prgmr.com/~lsc/luke_opterons.jpg (my setup)

If you are not, stop right now and take someone else's advice about how to get a good deal out of dell and HP (me, I can't afford dell and hp prices... my business model cant take that kind of markup on the ram. Dell and HP have OK deals on the base server, but you get screwed if you fill it with ram.)

Ok, you have the wrist strap and the dissapative mat? Ok, now first the ram. If you want 32GB ram, remember that 4GB modules cost twice as much per gigabyte as 2gb modules. this means you really want a board with 16 ram slots.

Second, the hardest part of assembling a computer is fitting the motherboard into the case and designing the cooling. Me, I buy SuperMicro SuperServers where that sort of thing is alrealdy done. It probably costs me $200 extra over some homebrew solution, but it saves me time and gives me a better finished product.

Here is the computer I settled on:

http://supermicro.com/Aplus/system/1U/1021/AS-1021TM-T+.cfm

Now, just search around for the lowest prices. if you are buying 20, you can call salesjerks, but my experience has been that they spend a lot of your time (time that I can bill out for close to $100/hr) and almost never give you a better deal on parts (remember, the salesguy wants to get paid, too.)

I got the aformentioned case from newegg for around $1200.

Next, do the same with CPUs. I ended up buying quad-core opteron HE chips at 1.9ghz for $260 or so each on newegg again.

Now, for ram, I very rarely beat the price on shop.kingston.com. They have a nice thing for finding the ram that fits your motherboard, and a good warranty.

the 2 servers in that photo? they take 1u of rackspace, around 350 wats power, and the whole ball of wax, for 2 servers, each with 8 cores and 32GB ram and 2x1TB disks, came in at under $5000.

But again, if you are unwilling to use anti-static equipment, buy the servers from a reputable vendor, and never open them.
the biggest problem with dell

is only 8 ram slots. if you want 32GB ram, this means 4GB modules... you will end up paying more than a grand more per server than you would if you got a box with 16 ram slots.
Use your talent and experience, and bend the rules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy
... Or dunk for the next couple months waiting for the moment that will never pass...
In a perfect world, that's exactly how I'd do it, too. Right now though, I'm still working out the bugs on how to get the mix of sources right and make the presentation interesting. Machine learning is being applied to which sources make the front page and lead the memes, based on clicks from readers. Ideally, the "picking up" of sources would also be automated as well.
There are things you should do right now to deal with the debt. First off, the rack space contract. You can almost certainly get out of it by phoning the company and explaining that the choice isn't between cancelling the contract now or getting paid for another two months, but rather cancelling the contract now or fighting other creditors over the non-existent assets of the company at liquidation. As long as you can talk to a real human being who is authorised to make a decision, then that one is a no brainer for them.

Secondly, I think you'll probably find that declaring the company bankrupt won't free you from liability for most of the debt it owes. You should try your hardest to deal with both the corporate and personal debt through some route other than bankruptcy. It isn't a totally unmanageable sum, but it could quickly get that way since we're talking about credit cards here.

I guess your best bet is to look for a full time job as soon as possible. In the mean time, phone your creditors and explain the situation. If they're nice you'll probably be able to organise some form of payment holiday until you're earning again, with a more reasonable rate of interest. With the current economic climate, my guess is lenders are just happy if their customers intend to pay back what they owe, and they'll bend over backwards to help you.

Anyway, sorry to hear about your situation. Its a tough break becoming victim to the economy through no fault of your own. Hope some of this helps.
Ok, so this isn't the situation that you wanted to be in but, equally well, it hasn't all been for nothing. You have had a huge life experience that most people will never have. The trick here is to capitalise on that experience and to learn from it. You're also young enough that isn't the end of the road for you. Indeed, I'd say most successful entrepreneurs have at least one failed startup behind them so you're in good company.

My advice? Don't waste this time. Work out a plan to repay the personal debt (I would consider this the top priority) probably by finding at least a part-time job. Tackle the personal debt first, in an upfront and mature manner, as it has the biggest long-term consequences.

Business debt? I'm not so sure what to advise but those servers shouldn't be sitting idle. Try renegotiating the server contracts for just one server over 6 months instead of the 4 servers over 2 months. Then get the consumer products out there, visible and some (really cheap) promotion. If the consumer products are up and running, even without a large volume of users, you can show that the company has assets and potential, which may allow the business to raise money or be bought out. I'm not sure about the advertising product as it doesn't seem like the best market right now.

And thanks for telling your story. There's far too many happy, smiling, this-will-make-me-rich, everything-is-fine, what-could-possibly-go-wrong startup founders telling their stories and it's good to hear the other side of the coin.
yeah, the IPMI kinda sucks... more than DRAC, even (which is worse than HP ILO)

I use SuperMicros but I just redirect console over serial (they can do this even for the BIOS setup, nearly all 'server' boards can) then I hook the serial to another server with a $5 USB to rs232 dongle (or to a terminal server in the case of racks with a lot of servers)

then you want a remote rebooter. You want that even with DRAC, 'cause DRAC isn't particularly reliable.
I visit HN at least twice everyday. I think that's why HN attracts 18k views per day from 12k users.
lol-- isn't your blog banned from digg?
I don't know if this is the best advice, as I have no experience with being in debt. But I think I would just take on consulting jobs until I have a safety net again. That is assuming it is not too much of a problem to find contracts.
Here's mine: http://abstractstuff.livejournal.com/
Google Admits "Data is the Intel Inside"
Wow, box.sk is still alive. Neworder is nearly identical to when I was in high school...
Sixty-Eight Year Old German Pre-War Cyphertext
Is there a chance that you could sell the company? Perhaps the lead management system that you built would make the company attractive. Even if you could engineer a sale that covered only the debt, that would remove the burden of a bankruptcy.
if you leave that on all the time, and plan on keeping it for more than a month, that's a horrible deal.

I can build a super micro server w/ 32G ram and 8 cores for around $2500, and I get to keep it. Heck, I'll rent you one of mine and host it for $512/month.

Of course, if you only need it during the day, or temporarily or something, ec2 is an awesome deal.
siong, i know you visit at least 3x like i do :D
This was the first book I used to learn programming. Not such a good book. IIRC this edition (2nd, current is 5th) uses an old, superseded version of C++. Also, C++ is not such a good language to start with, although this book isn't necessarily pitched at rank beginners.
So my blog is http://kid666.com/ which has a blogroll of a bunch of engineers who work(ed) for Yahoo in Europe.

There is also the Yahoo blog directory which is probably hideously out of date. (http://kid666.com/yahoo-blogs-employee-bloggers-directory/)
try http://www.feedbeater.com. No signup, just enter the url and get an RSS feed showing the actual content that changed, not just some list of links.
It's a depression
hospital visitation rights? Legal right to make decisions for him if he is incapable?
Out of all the comments on HN, this is the one I disagree with the most (respectfully of course). The essence of your comment is that it doesn't matter what you study, as long as you know how to think. The implication is that CS is a major inherently filled with drones, who are not learning how to think. I can't speak for other schools, but at UIUC that's simply not true. I imagine the same goes for other top 5 programs. What you most certainly ran into was a program that doesn't treat Computer Science like a Science. From the tone of your post, it seems like you aren't either. When you say "work in CS", it seems like you mean developing software. I apologize if I am misinterpreting your words. =)
How News is Made
http://blogs.thoughtworks.com - A great blog aggregation of Thoughtworks workers.
How to Detect the Social Sites Your Visitors Use
Not sure if it is an option, but see if you can go back to school. You get try to get some no interest student loans, and work to pay those off while you complete your degree. Given your experience, you should be able to make a fair bit of cash during slow semesters or over the summer. School is a great place to ride out tough economic times.
It can also have a positive effect. If the workers think the new owners will cutting job, they will start looking at alternatives. With a $33k check they don't have to worry about it as much.
Maybe in the clinical psychiatric sense, but I think there's a real definition behind the term that we have not met.

http://economics.about.com/cs/businesscycles/a/depressions_2...
After 2 years building an algorithmically intensive desktop app in Python that ships on 3 platforms, my strongest recommendation is to avoid all of these fancy environments that change the way Python is used or internally works, including Stackless, Twisted, SWIG, Psyco, Pyrex, and so on. In my experience they tend to 1) introducing subtle bugs and 2) make traditional debugging more difficult.

Generally very little of the code needs the burden of any complication beyond "real" Python. Where you specifically need more performance tuning, and you are sure that a different data structure or caching doesn't solve it, and it's not one of the many situations someone else has already made a C module for, I suggest using "real" C, in the standard, well documented, debugged and maintained approach: write a Python module in C using the Python/C API.
Radiolab - Choice
Any initial impressions of RapLeaf? I've come across them a couple of times.
Creating iPhone app without XIB
Having a large organization is helpful because you have the option of buying commercial support. I personally wouldn't go with Arch simply because there isn't a stable branch. Rather, everything is cutting edge. I know you can chose not to update your Arch install, but I'd still rather go with a distribution where stability is a priority. That being said, Arch is surprisingly stable given its rolling release model.

You also might want to take a look at Debian, which has a track record of being stable. Honestly though, Debian is a bit stuck in the past, as seen with the delays in the past two releases. They really do care about stability though.
Don't make the mistake of getting mobile updates from him on Twitter, unless you want your phone buzzing all day :-p. Reading his Tweets are worthwhile though.
I would go forward from where you are. Look for additional contract work and look for additional business that can leverage your assets as they are. Tell everyone you know that you are looking for work and are available to start immediately. Go back to all of your old clients and see if there is any basis to consult/contract or support them--that doesn't involve incurring additional expense in advance.

Simplify your life to the point of austerity and pay as you go. Don't "bum" anything from anyone, e.g. find a mutually acceptable quid pro quo for room/board from parents and/or friends. Sell any other assets you don't need for work (e.g. television, videogames, other non-essential and time-wasting items), use the money for food and debt service.

On 30K of credit card debt my calculation is that you owe about $500-600 in minimum payment, use the 6K to continue to make minimum payments. Put your credit cards in your sock drawer and only carry one for bona fide emergencies (e.g. car breakdown). Carry cash and pay cash for everything, it will give you a sense of where you are spending money immediately.

Don't take any contracts that require you to advance any money or risk more than a week's labor until you get your debt paid off. Don't "pay up front and invoice in arrears," get your clients to cover the up front expenses and take a fee for your services and the use of your software platform.
Does http://blag.xkcd.com count as "hacker" haha
bookmarked your site when tarsnap beta came out/was on HN. Skimmed it briefly bit but honestly couldn't figure out how tarsnap worked so I tagged it "toread" and left it at that. ;-P Will go back through your archives now.
Get a job and pay off your credit cards. Debt is miserable.
It's a media frenzy.

We are not even in a recession yet. So far, we've had one quarter of economic decline (3rd quarter 2008).

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease....

A little perspective, please.
It's partially the jobs but it is also how many people hold the stock and would see that evaporate in bankruptcy.
I sent you an email to the n2neuron.com address a moment ago. Are you going to be at Conjunctured much longer?
Only the Rich Can Afford It. Should Taxpayers Back It?
Checking Costs
Yeah, I found it on Amazon, but Netflix doesn't have it for some reason (at least in my area).
If all companies worked like this, trickle down economics would actually work. Till then...
GM. Market cap: 3.2B... How is giving them $50B a good deal here?
Lots of great advice here. I was involved with a company that ran out of money which had a very high burn due to infrastructure. The server company was more than happy to work with us... that's an easy first start to minimize any additional expenses.

I don't have a lot of personal advice to give you to help you out of this situation. However, on the surface I do feel you made some mistakes that you should never make again.

1. Driving expense car while in debt. Wasteful.
2. Living off credit cards when you could have easily shacked up with the 'rents from the start.

I'd probably talk with a REPUTABLE debt advisor to figure out how to get out of this mess. Until then, get a job and/or look to liquidate what you've built.

Keep your head up... I'd probably look to liquidate as a last resort... if it wasn't for the economy, it sounds like you'd be in a lot better shape... so if you can withstand the squeeze for the next 6-12 months with an interim-job, then you may be in a great position to catch the rebound.

ps. I'm in Austin and go up to Conjunctured from time to time. My contact info is in my profile if you'd like to grab coffee sometime soon.
"Admits?" Google have been saying this in public, in as many words, for years. The thing is that no one believes them.
"... I wonder if you could generate this automatically ..."

Combing through here ~ http://top.searchyc.com/domains_by_points reveals

- http://codinghorror.com/

- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

- http://mattmaroon.com/

- http://pmarca.com/blog

- http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/

- http://raganwald.com/

- http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/

- http://catonmat.net/

- http://ejohn.org/blog
The future of Linux filesystems
I have had an idea of a "Lending Tree" type website for leads. Leads would be generated, evaluated, given a score of how good the lead is, then people would bid on the lead. I work for a company that has customers who buy leads internally through partnerships with lead vendors like Cutting Edge Media.

Anyway, I have had this idea for years now and haven't done anything with it. Maybe you could work out an arrangement to sell a position in the company to those that you partner with to sell the leads to there customers.
I disagree. Stay with Computer Science and add a double major in Math. Do your best and apply to transfer to other schools that have stronger CS programs.
They are both variations of carbon because they have the same electronic structure, i.e. the configuration of electrons about C-12 and C-13 is identical (or similarly H-1 and H-2).

I'll make a bad analogy now.

The electronic structure is like a set of hooks attached to the atom. Hydrogen has 1 free hook, carbon 4, and these hooks form chemical bonds. Hydrogen and deuterium have the same set of hooks, as do C-13 and C-14. But deuterium is heavier than hydrogen, and this makes it harder to unhook it when it attaches to another atom, even if the set of hooks is identical.
nice article!!!
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johnyymathew
<a href="http://www.bettingchoice.co.uk/" rel="dofollow">online football betting tips, odds, news</a>
Many businesses have their own photocopiers, fax machines, and PBXs, do their own accounting, maintain their own supplier lists, provide support to their own customers when they have problems, and pay their own employees, even though you can outsource each of these services. Sometimes the problems of outsourcing a business function are greater than the benefits of the enhanced specialization.

For several years now, the vast majority of companies that have an internet connection have had some of their internet-connected computers inside their own companies, and others somewhere else, like a colocation center. Even though AWS is pretty awesome, I don't expect that to change anytime soon; the balance will shift back and forth according to things like available technology, legal liability, experienced quality of service, and so on.
iStockPhoto is amazing for large, professional icons. You can buy sets of icons (usually around 12 icons/set) for about $1 per icon. It's better than the alternative of having to shell out $100+ for a large icon set, when you really only need a couple out of the batch.
It isn't. Nobody (sane and informed) thinks that this is an economic move or any sort of sensible investment. Thats not what the debate is about. Personally, I would rather these 3 companies went bankrupt than continue to be a drain on the taxpayers.
This is nothing new but is still very cool; it has potential applications beyond detecting social sites; detect visitors that have visited competitors, for example.

I think I'll implement it on http://esciencenews.com for the social share section (which has digg, reddit, stumble, etc) because the amount of submissions I see from those buttons is super low and I guess meaningless for 99% of users.
and I'd add

- http://www.kk.org/

- http://scriptingnews.com
wikimedia often has useful stuff if you're prepared to dig for it:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Icons
It's about time people working for companies making real, actual things were rewarded for the wealth they create in the same style as mere symbol-manipulators.

"Mere" symbol manipulation can be very powerful, as Lisp macros illustrate.
I understand the gist of what you are saying but I'm getting a little lost in the details.

So there is this number, concept, or metric, called "climate". What is it? Debatable. Let's say it's average overall global temperature -- just for simplicity's sake. It's okay now, and it's always changing and that's okay too. We just need it to change at a slower rate than it is now.

How can we measure the change in an unknown/non-standard metric? Sure -- anecdotally, we can observe things like less sea ice in the Arctic, or the decrease in ice coverage around Antarctica, but correlation and causality are completely different things. We just kind of "connect the dots" to join up global climate change and observations.
So there's a number out there, in the void, and it's bad enough now, but at the current rate it is changing it's going to be awful soon unless we act now.

Ignoring the details (which are murky, at least to me), we're still left with a version of the argument which says that "who are we to determine (or heck, measure for that matter) how fast the climate should change?" People in Canada and Russia have a lot of new farmland that could be put to use, the sooner the better.

I'm still not sure global warming beats the coming ice age. I am sure that the global climate is not something that we have anywhere near understanding or mastery over. But its an interesting discussion anyway.
What's your Mondrian number?
The movie "Meet the Robinsons" makes a point to children that we make the most progress when we are free to fail. Thanks for making the same point for grownups.
The wisdom of public prediction markets
I'm guilty by association? As I said, I thought it was entertaining from the perspective of someone who's worked for a large organization. Everyone does stupid things.

Also note that I posted an article within the same hour that was clearly more thought provoking: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=380023 .
Mine is at: http://restraint.org
How's this for perspecitve? The stock are down over 50% from their heights - the largest drop since great depression (which ended at 89% down) [1]. And we're only going through financial crisis for now - employment/consumption contraction cycle did not start yet.

[1] http://dshort.com/charts/bear-markets.html?four-bears
A metric for measuring the growing entropy on social news sites.
Had this idea right now; in lieu of a formal blog to post this, I'm posting this here. Would love some feedback (or anyone interested in implementing).
Rescuing Cultures of India, From A to Z
I don't believe craigslist has RSS for apartment listing searches, FYI.
Had this idea just now. pg's reason for hackernews, from what I understood, was the decreasing quality of conversation on reddit. It may be interesting to see if this can be measured and qualified, and what applications this may have.

The approach should also work on blogs (measure comment quality, etc) and news sites (cnn.com vs economist.com).

Would love any feedback and anyone interested in implementing.
Update: I'm now at 174 rss feeds to track. I've seen some really ugly blogs along the way.

Also, here's a post that purports to list the top 100 dev blogs: http://www.noop.nl/2008/09/top-100-blogs-for-development-man...

Keep 'em coming.
For a little bit of background, here's a brief biography of the author, from Wikipedia:

"Helen Thomas (born August 4, 1920) is an American news service reporter, a Hearst Newspapers columnist, and member of the White House Press Corps. She served for fifty-seven years as a correspondent and, later, White House bureau chief for United Press International (UPI). Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She has written four books; her latest is Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Thomas)

Not that I necessarily agree with her, but I would hardly peg Helen Thomas as the "media frenzy" type.