skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So close, and yet so far.

I like to the tell the story that a poor nerd can go into Fry's (electronics store) and get all the parts to build themselves a pretty decent computer, a rich nerd can go into Fry's and not buy anything. The difference is that the rich nerd could by anything, and that choice freeze them. The poor nerd has a budget and has to work within it, so they have already done the work to maximize their value given their budget. Since the rich nerd has no budget they would have to analyze every possible system they could build out of Fry's parts to have the same confidence in their buying decision as the poor nerd has, and frankly there isn't enough time for that. Stalemate.

In the startup world there is an interesting and dangerous place called the 'self funded' or 'privately funded' startup. Those places have a hard time because there is nobody to call their baby ugly and question their assumptions. If your money isn't asking you questions about your existence then you won't ask yourself those questions.

I interviewed at one such and asked how they expected to make money. "Advertising" they said, their CEO was adamant that they had a unique position with respect to their customers which would allow them to advertise more effectively to them. And I asked "So why would people who are already spending their ad budget with Google advertise with you?" and the answer was "We are bringing new people to the Internet, people who have never advertised on this scale before, we're growing the market." And that was when I thought 'Oh really?' Now you could test that theory, you could survey your users and look at their advertising budgets and you could talk to ad agencies and look to see if they were trying to find new channels. But if you did all of that, it would dispel the illusion that the advertising market was growing, its actually shrinking in terms of total dollars (yes the Internet is disruptive again).

So Markham concludes that 'rich' startups failing because they spend all of their money buying products. The counter being that a 'poor' or 'lean' startup would be forced to husband their cash more carefully and build their own tools. The effect is there, but I believe the conclusion is not. One of the things that the poor startup is being forced to do, is develop a competency in being a company. Its not a state that everyone is familiar with.

Lots of people know how to be employees, but not how to be a company. Initially, those new to startups, aren't thinking so much about how long they have to live (as a company) as how much cool stuff they can do with that fat wad of cash. Perhaps they haven't experienced the pain of trying to raise money while working 12 hr days, or had a product they depend on go bad, mid-development cycle, and scrambled to replace it. There are lots of things like that which can, and do, bite you.

It isn't rich vs poor, its disciplined cash management vs undisciplined cash management. Doesn't matter where you start from if you don't respect the cost of capital you will fail.
This is a weekend project I created to make e-cards out of the fantastic US Patent Office valentine's day cards from Steve Hoefer (with permission of course)

While building it, I also got a chance to play with some of the newest tech that we all read about here on HackerNews - NodeJS, Express, Mongo, iced coffeescript (with await and defer), and heroku custom buildpacks (to support node 0.6.1)

Feedback on the UX, functionality, and overall experience are appreciated.

This project was also another chance to test a larger thesis of mine. When building a startup (as my wife and I are doing with Postkin.com), it's often helpful to create free, fun "viral side-along" projects. Although seemingly a diversion from your core business, fun sideprojects like this can introduce new people to your idea and help build your audience.

We've create viral side-alongs for several of our projects here at Qlabs, and so far they seem to be some of the most effective ways to expose people to our products while adding a bit more awesome to the internet.

I'm happy to answer any tech questions anyone has about the project, as well as talk more about the viral side-along concept if anyone is interested.
Every vertical has it's unique qualities–and photography is no different. Obviously, being a mostly digital and visual industry, there are lots of opportunities for online education and tools.

And, yes, there are tons of tutorials on the web–although I find many of them aimed at hobbyists or Photoshop users.

There are also a ton of in-person workshops in the industry. I know wedding photographers that make more money every year doing workshops than they do actually shooting weddings.

Given all that, I think there's still lots of room for professional-level education in the industry. Having done a lot of photography myself, I can tell you there's skills/techniques I've only been able to learn from some of the paid forums.
This has nothing to do with how much money a person has! This is yet another reason why many CEOs fail -- throwing VC's money at areas they shouldnt!

The original point in its entirely is absurd. Most are destined to fail, period. They come in all shapes and sizes, states of wealth, and food allergies.
In some cases, they do. This is especially apparent if you're still using MacPort with PPC, as most of the packages it pulls down are form the MacPorts servers.
This is the problem that you define yourself by your programming language/environment/OS of choice, versus just being a really good problem solver.

See: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pro...

I would say don't call yourself a [Java|Javascript|C|C++] developer.

If your career were a blog post, languages are more like a tag than a title.

Contrast "I Solve Problems" with "I Only Solve Problems with PHP."
Even if they did, they shouldn't be disclosing them.
My posts have been actively deleted, not just caught in a spam trap.

I'be had discussions with subreddit moderators and reddit admins. The majority of them dislike my political opinions, thus the active censorship.

To restate my point: reddit has been actively deleting unpopular political opinion long before they thought about restricting kiddie porn.

That kind of prioritizing is what's been instrumental in the herd of geniuses that now inhabit reddit.
I deleted facebook 3 years ago, so I actually get real live phone calls from people who actually know. =pp
Somebody told me once, if you ask a question - you may appear to be a fool for a minute. If you dont ask the question, you are a fool for the rest of your life. Of course, this saying cant be taken too literally, but I think the idea is: to learn something new, keep your ego aside, ask questions and improve your understanding!
How does YouTube video view count work?
* Because there is more than one competitor. Some may be able to follow, but at least one will opt to buy me instead of follow me.
Venture Capital in Detroit
Python is much better positioned here, since the default is to be sane.

So the typical question is "I'm trying to do something a bit odd, can I?" vs "Help, that unlabeled lever I bumped into just blew my foot off."
I've been working a lot with node lately as well, there are some things I like but some I miss so much from C# ... there is nothing anywhere near as good as VS for node, and god I miss ReSharper and compilation errors.
Watching the (30 second?) trailer I saw a lot of the same stuff repeated which typically doesn't equate to much fun. With the hype of more levels than you could ever play seeing the same thing over and over in a trailer made me cringe. With dynamic level generation it is a bit odd that they would even have difficulty settings and instead adjust the difficulty on the fly like Crash Bandicoot's engine did to make the game more fun for the user.
Apparently there now exists a category of social app that is not expected to make money. Not sure if this really falls in to said category but...
I think there is a bit of cultural relativism going on here. As someone who goes to UCSB, that's simply the culture here. We have a lot of very smart "bro"s and while it might offend you, that's just the way we roll. It's about being chill. partying hard on weekends, getting drunk, having fun, having sex and then working hard during the week (some people are partying all the time, but as the uni has been getting higher and higher caliber students every year this has become rarer.. well except for the SBCC kids.).

While maybe a bit crude, for the average women at UCSB this wouldn't be "unwelcoming".

Maybe he should have targeted the website more to the average American and mentioned Jesus a few times (I'm being facetious to make a point)
Two years ago I began developing a large web application and I had to choose a language and stack. Having built applications on .NET and PHP most recently, I knew I could fall back on either and be safe. I decided to investigate RoR and .NET MVC. For whatever reason, RoR felt strange and I knew it would have a steeper learning curve initially, but probably be more efficient to develop with in the long run. On the other hand, .NET MVC felt a bit more familiar, and had many attractive qualities that "appeared" to mimic RoR. I went with .NET MVC. Now 2 years later I find myself spending my day job in .NET MVC and my side projects are all RoR. I found that .NET MVC was a great bridge from regular .NET to RoR. I am frustrated that I didn't pursue RoR harder 2 years ago, but hind sight is 20/20. I am extremely happy to be working on side projects in RoR because honestly it is more fun. Don't get me wrong, RoR isn't all roses, I'm just finding fewer weeds!
Influx of new developers != increasing utility of the language, especially for seasoned devs.

As the OP notes, It seems as though the whole philosophy of .NET centres on catering to the novice, but even as the novice evolves into the “advanced beginner” they inevitably find they want and need more.
It's been tough, so far. All I can tell you is that (a) restaurant owners have ZERO time to learn or use new tools and (b) they just want to get more people in the door.

What blew me away was hearing that restaurants in my town are getting hit with 2 to 5 people per day trying to sell them on some coupon or daily deal gig. And I don't even live in a big city!

I've gotten decent traction on the website front so far (cilantrosites.com) but I've also run into some language barrier issues (a lot of ethnic restaurants with ESL owners). I've tried coupon subscriptions (think BirchBox meets Groupon) but none of them wanted to give up 2-for-1 coupons. Next I'm trying some Facebook page tools ... seems promising so far (we've got 2 customers at $99/mo and several leads this week).
I did reply to your actual statements.

I never claimed you defended pedos. Where did I do that exactly?

I was stating that feeling betrayed by this change makes no sense at all. I cannot fathom how one can possibly feel betrayed by such a change. That’s all. Can you explain that to me? Huh?
I don't know, I think that everyone has a "go-to" language, and I don't think that's a reflection on ability to solve problems.

After all, if I'm making a web site there really isn't a choice to make between Python, C#, Ruby, etc.- they're all going to do the job with almost identical ability. Doing it in a different language for the hell of it is definitely a fun learning experience, but if I have a client on the other side I'd rather get it done quickly.
Two-seater German-made multicopter flying machine on its way
EU Clears Google Buy Of Motorola Mobility
After fairly bad review about Tumblr's availability [1] this was something they needed to write. They had (and still have) pretty big challenges. It's not easy to scale something like that and this article confirms that.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3468879
I’m worried about private subreddits. Admins, however, can see what’s going on inside them so I don’t see that as much of a problem.
2 types of incubators: YC vs TechStars
Feeding Frenzy: Selectively Materializing Users’ Event Feeds [SIGMOD 2010]
The announcement also notes: "While recommended, the book is not required: relevant sections will be provided electronically..."

Amazon now states ships in 1 to 3 weeks

and

24 new from $80.00 / 29 used from $51.49

so it won't be hard to get a copy before coursework starts in March.
A bit off topic, but I don't understand why Hiccup is so commonly used in the clojure community.

It seems like a step backward from other templating libraries... to build HTML layouts using the programming language.

Designers always mock up layouts in HTML first then integration is as simple as replacing mock content with variables/partials/etc. It would be a lot of extra work to translate that into Hiccups Clojure code.

Why not just use something like Enlive, where you can keep standard HTML and still keep the logic out of the views?
VLC crashes reasonably often for me. More than anything else (besides Mail.app after Lion came out, which kept crashing while typing emails... ugh. and still does, but rarely). The cause is watching videos at 2x-3x speed and then skipping around in it quickly (usually with the 1 min jump forward command a few times).

Maybe the video files I'm watching suck, but it shouldn't crash when seeking or playing just because the data sucks.

On a related note, sometimes the sound breaks. You hear a popping sound and to fix it you have to do stuff like slow the video down then change the volume. Then it fixes itself then go back how it was.

This seems to be related to particular videos, presumably they suck in some way. But it still shouldn't happen. Or at least it should fix itself automatically without me having to do the equivalent of punching the TV to get it to try again.

I can deal with sounds getting garbled here and there when playing at high speed if it can't keep up for some reason, but it shouldn't stay broken indefinitely until I manually fiddle with the playback speed and volume and maybe pause/unpause. That is VLC's fault. Glitch the broken parts but then stop glitching afterwards please. That's how visual issues work (sometimes some frames are screwed up but it fixes itself at the next keyframe I think).

Maybe higher speed playback is an area that receives little attention and I guess it can't be the cause of most VLC crashes since most people never use it. But still, please don't tell me VLC is stable. And there's no reason bad data should cause crashes or indefinite non-recovery from glitches.

(However, it has gotten more stable over time. It used to crash considerably more, and there was a nasty bug when a video ended in fullscreen mode (crash? i actually forgot) which they have fixed, albeit by wasting about 5 seconds of your time in video ending mode with no way to exit it or use your computer, before it goes back to window mode or accepts commands.)
Funny to say you miss "compilation errors", but as someone who works with ASP.NET MVC during the day and RoR at night, I know what you mean.
Those don't appear mutually exclusive to me.
USCIS summit on founder immigration - Wed 22 in MV
I just started working out of a space called geek offices in cambridge. There is a lot of interest because it just makes way more sense for companies under 10 employees.
I agree that my wording isn't persuasive. It is, on the other hand, clear, which is my priority on this thread. Again, to be clear: I am repelled by any argument that suggests that it is unfortunate that Reddit is cracking down on child pornography.

I couldn't be less interested in discussing Gaiman's take on the subject. What drew me into the thread was a comment about NNTP. NNTP is a sore point with me; the repurposing (more accurately: abuse) of NNTP as an "anonymous binary publishing system" killed Usenet.
Not at all, where do I define myself by my programming language/environment? What I am saying is that language/environment is not a no-effect choice. It has an impact on productivity, efficiency and most importantly the clarity and (for lack of a better term) UX of the code left behind for others.

The problem with your assertion is it assumes that all languages, tools, frameworks and environments are equal to the task.

I am a really good problem solver (at least in my opinion) I just don't want to make the implementation of those solutions harder on myself than it has to be.
Just wanted to let everyone know about this event - it is a summit put together by the USCIS on immigration as part of their EIR program. I heard about it from the Hackers & Founders mailing list (http://www.hackersandfounders.com/events/52125332/?eventId=5...).

I signed up and put the draft agenda into my Dropbox for anyone interested - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435737/EIR%20Summit%20Agenda.pdf

For many of us - not just immigrants but also founders/managers who want top foreign talent - immigration is a hugely important issue and this event is a unique chance to contribute to shaping a better policy. I hope to see you all there.
I probably accounted for 1000 of those searches last month alone. Which is indicative of how damn hard it is to find a domain name for a new company.

Even with a great tool like Lean Domain, its still tough to find anything thats not being squatted on.
You don't need music or movies to live. If they all decide to do it, just stop buying all together.

Correction: you don't need them to survive. They are, however, a part of everyone's lives nowadays. We all grew up listening to music and watching movies. It would require tremendous external pressure (such as war or plague) to change that. Maslow's Pyramid and all that jazz.

Music is so cheap. All of the original demands 10 years ago have been met. Guess what? piracy is worse than ever. It reminds me why you never negotiate with terrorists.

I'm not sure what demands were made 10 years ago, but I can tell you that I, as a customer, am far from satisfied. I want to be able to

1) buy digital music (MP3, OGG, I don't care) in an online store

2) access that store via HTTP(S) using my browser, not some proprietary bloatware

3) find a variety of songs in the store, have lots of stuff to choose

4) download that music to any device I have, as many times as I want

5) be able to play that music without being connected to the Internet

6) do all of the above regardless of the fact that I don't live in US, UK or Germany, to name a few favorite countries

When those conditions are met, you'll have people like me -- people who want to try buying the content instead of pirating -- try to switch to these new services. The piracy will start declining, albeit very, very slowly.

People have had a freaking decade to get used to getting stuff for free, because the industry refused to adapt. Worse, the industry is still resisting the change and refusing to evolve. These things have their own momentum and inertia. It would be extreme optimism to expect a change to happen overnight, once good alternatives are available. As things stand, it's beyond extreme optimism to expect that change -- it's completely ridiculous.
I almost regret my incendiary comment above. I made it first thing upon waking up... However, I was referring to the actual Twitter API, which seems to have frequent issues. If the Twitter engineering culture is based on a bunch of "because I like it this way" solutions rather than "because this is the right way to do it," it may explain some of what I perceive to be their shortcomings.

One should be self-expressive, but I don't think syntax is an opportunity to be so. Regardless of whether it works a certain way, there's very likely an objectively right way for it to be done.
Loosen up copyright law, says Dutch government
I guess I don't understand why I'd download any of those apps and use them. They aren't going to be around in 6 months because either they've pivoted to the next big thing or the founders have been absorbed into a talent acquisition. Heck, the current incarnation is a pivot in itself!
Works for me on Debian. Battery life is somewhat shorter, but not to the point that it bothers me.

That said, it took a few kernel iterations before every last bit of hardware was fully supported.
I can't believe the narrow-minded approach a lot of comments here suggest. Most of the people seem to subscribe to the argument, which in simplified form says, (1) the subreddits were full of child pornography (2) the people who frequent these were "pedos" and therefore (3) it's a good thing that these got axed.

The terms CP and pedophilia are being thrown around without much thinking, the same way the general public thinks all who are on torrent sites are pirates and "hackers are baad and steal your CC numbers". This sort of blunt scare mongering demagogy is commonly used to create support from the masses, I am amazed that the HN crowd is also susceptible to it.

Here are the facts as I believe them, please point out the ones you think are wrong:

1) Some of these subreddits may have contained CP, the illegal ones were being actively removed by admins.

2) Calling pictures of 16-year-olds in bikinis CP is not very useful and dilutes the term.

3) What is legal and morally right usually does not overlap 100%. Law may say one thing about CP and people may feel another thing. This is OK. Also different cultures, of course, have different attitudes.

4) In light of (3), to me there's "definitely bad CP" and "tolerable CP". The moral distinction is not clear cut and the law does not differentiate these. The situation is similar to the 55 mph speed limit, people break it everyday (avg speed on I-90 is more like 75mph) but if you do 85 the police will get you. So there's a tolerable zone and to me (2) falls in that category.

5) One has to be very careful with these outcries because they have the effect of ratcheting the law machine ever more tightly. Remember, no politician will put relaxation of sex offense laws on their ticket.

But, please THINK A LITTLE AND RESEARCH before you pick up the pitchfork, e.g. read this (http://www.economist.com/node/14164614).

ADDENDUM: For (2), also consider the widespread use of young girls in advertising and movies, e.g. the Vanity Fair topless photoshoot of Miley Cyrus who was 15 at the time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miley_Cyrus#Controversies). This is just one that came to mind instantly, many more examples can easily be given.
Innovative Materials To Look Out For In 2012
With the same logic it's bad to show a dentist in television doing anything else than playing with peoples teeth. At least he/she should take of the lab-coat before playing guitar or buying coffee. And it must be bad thing to show a cleaning lady rescuing a kitten if it happens in her uniform.

I understand opposing war, but are you going little over the board?
FOSDEM 2012 videos
Keep what pays the bills. No matter what your personal grievances are an entrepreneur (especially one thats bootstrapping) can't afford to turn away what the market wants =/
of the 500+ million page views a day, 70% of that is for the Dashboard

"dashboard" is their admin area?

So in theory 700 of their 1000 servers are for people to make a new post?

If I remember correctly, wp.com has a similar problem.
>> You’d probably have to have been living under a rock to have missed all the previous blog posts from others leaving .NET for greener pastures

Well some people have the opposite experience and also have written posts as to why they are moving to .NET.