skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's great to see (from the peaks in usage of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera on weekends) that people are choosing more progressive browsers over IE for home use. It'd also be neat to see the breakdown of IE versions in this data too.

Microsoft sure do have their work cut out for them!
I'm not downvoting, or commenting on the topic. However, comments like yours here should be downvotes. It's a comment that contributes nothing, simply you whining about being downvoted. If you honestly care about quality, you shut up about pointless numbers that mean nothing.
You have to avoid the temptation to roll around with haters. Because now your comment is the top one people will see. And the vast majority of them (and me) liked your page a lot. But then we come here and our first impression is of you being defensive. Please ignore the 1% whiners and don't acknowledge them publicly.
I saw some tech-tricked-out cars like this at SXSW this year. All I could think was, "distracted driving." I fear the roads are going to become more dangerous as manufacturers integrate more screen technologies into the auto.
Hypocritical implies I'm some how under the impression my comment is contributing to the central discussion. That I might teach you some manners makes the price worth it. I can see however that learning is not something you do.
It seems this argument is based on a misunderstanding of Paul Graham's essay.

> that the biggest opportunities for revolution often sound like the craziest ideas at first. Graham points out the flawed reasoning in investors’ so often shying away from projects trying to pull off these sorts of major revolutions, but Y Combinator itself mostly gravitates toward startups making relatively small, iterative progress on existing idea spaces

Graham is pointing out how frightening these startup ideas are because they are existing markets ripe for some innovation. Eg. search, universities, compilers.
Saving the Internet by Ending ICANN
How to open Sony Cyber-shot videos for playing and editing on Mac?
The thing is half the size of a grain of rice, and isn't such a strong magnet. I don't think it's gonna cause major damage. Wheelchairs or oxygen tanks cause damage. Quarters and dimes are just annoying and need to be fished out.

(This my recollection from my friends who've done research with MRIs. I have no first-hand experience with them except once as a patient.)
You're still in the broken zone. You went from CMU to Stanford. You're still thinking, "What are the big names doing?"

I'm legitimately wondering: how do you find the smartest, most ambitious people who never managed to get a big, prestigious name or title associated with themselves, and fix that?
is this kind of response sexist and demeaning

Yes

Why do women wear low-cut dresses if not to attract male attention (in the majority of cases)?

Because they think it looks good or is comfortable or is fashionable or they didn't have anything clean or their sister bought it for them and they are seeing them for lunch.

Have you heard of the Bechdel Test[1]? It's a simple way of seeing gender bias in a movie: It has to have at least two women in it, Who talk to each other, About something other than a man.

By thinking the way a woman dresses is about men your comment shows the same bias.

Turn it around: why do men buy Ferraris if not attract female attention?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dykes_to_Watch_Out_For#Bechdel_...
Additionally, we only hear about what they've decided to launch with. If they start with a grandiose idea, start it and find it impossible, we only hear about the twitter app they salvaged from the wreckage. If they have a plan to get to world domination, but don't tell you, we only see a new calendar site.
I'd rather test my web app in a browser with modern development tools (Chrome, Safari, IE 9, Firefox with Firebug).
You should also look at http://www.sublimetext.com/
I don't think Amazon is being dishonest, but you can see that, regardless the individual degree of paranoia, there are quite a few small developers who don't try AWS just to be safe.

My point is that it makes business sense for Amazon to lure this old-fashioned crowd, and it could do so by implementing a simple feauture such as spending control.
He might be interested in the Mindstorm components in App Inventor
An new instant note-taking web app.
Which text editor did you use before you switched?
I'm 33, and a lot of this has been occurring to me lately too. I still waffle over "lifestyle business" versus "startup", but as time goes on, I feel more and more attracted to the lifestyle business.

Startups are making a lot of people very wealthy, and many of them aren't people that might become as wealthy were it not for the startup scene. Still, there's something that really stuck with me a while back: pg's favorite sandwich shop was closing, and he had to appeal to others to try to save it, because he didn't have the liquidity to do much himself.

I think sandwich shops are important. And, I realize that the vocal majority on HN considers value measured in dollars, so if I said that I thought that a good local sandwich shop was just as valuable as, say, Zynga, that would probably generate this huge argument that wouldn't generate any value for anyone.

But, if value is measured in terms of what's important to people -- well, Zynga's a lot easier to do without than a good local sandwich shop.

So I think I'd like to put myself into a position to save a sandwich shop once in a while. Or maybe even have one of my own, as a hobby. For that matter, I think there ought to be better programs for things like sandwich shops that helps them stay out of trouble.

And more and more, I think lifestyle businesses are a better way to reach those goals.
There are too many time zones, I say toss day light savings time and instead, reduce the time zones, there are 4 in the US, there should be 2 at most, East and West, better for commerce, much more benefit than silly day light savings time which saves no energy and irritates everyone.
Update on Java's Fork/Join from Doug Lea
I've had the chance to see this project develop over time as the author has explored different approaches. A lot of what I currently do (using underscore templates primarily, but some others) is already very model-driven, so the possibility of DOM-fragments-as-templates is something I find very compelling. Excited to see this grow....
I also did a search and I can confirm that www.maccosmetics.com is indeed first. Interesting.
soundex or another method to group similarly spelled words to assign a confidence of whether they should be merged.

Then, keep a list of the misspellings to assign future misspelled entries to the proper spelling.
10 Women in Information Security That Everyone Should Know
What do you think about this long and different landing page?
Ask HN: What was it like to be at a Steve Jobs keynote?
First hand answers or links to others' anecdotes are fine. I want an idea of how the experience was shaped for those in the audience. Were there press packets or handouts at the door? What was in them, what type of printing did they have? Was there media on before the presentation started? Music? Video? What did it smell like? What are the hallmarks of a visionary unveiling?
As much as I like Chrome, the increase in Chrome's share also means more people will be using Google by default.. and their search dominance scares me. Consumer web startups can literally die overnight if Google penalizes them(google "TeachStreet"), or if their Adwords account got banned for some unknown reason.
Could you point to the part of the OSM license that says this?
it seems to be a common part of the unity haters' rants lately.
Rapha Caps
This is a great point, but pg actually did touch on it in his essay:

Let me conclude with some tactical advice. If you want to take on a problem as big as the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it. Don't say, for example, that you're going to replace email. If you do that you raise too many expectations. Your employees and investors will constantly be asking "are we there yet?" and you'll have an army of haters waiting to see you fail. Just say you're building todo-list software. That sounds harmless. People can notice you've replaced email when it's a fait accompli.

It was in the 'tactics' section near the bottom of http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html
I think there are some grey areas within copyright pertaining to availability and probably other areas too. When family finances push priorities elsewhere and a decision is creating an opportunity for a "poorer" worker, I am often influenced by those things.

On availability, it is very common in Australia for even "I don't pirate movies"-types to torrent TV shows by episode or season because they are simply not being shown even on paid TV here and don't seem to be on the radar for the future. Meanwhile, things like Hulu/Netflix/etc are geo-blocked.

Had the artist in question made available unnumbered prints for a reasonable price or numbered prints at maybe 500 Euros, it's unlikely I would've even thought to give the Chinese painting village a shot.
Weird. Still resolving for me.

http://pastie.org/pastes/3645637/text
Search... plus your world!
Well people actually won't be able to safely continue to use XP because Microsoft will soon stop supporting it (in 2 years).
"..but pg actually did touch on it.."

That's what I said. I just quoted a different part of the same section :)
Can someone explain to me what this is (or was since it is no longer listed)?
10.5 Lessons I Learned From Startup Weekend Singapore 2012
I'd be inclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt, and take serious the problem she's chosen to flag. She's saying that the attitude of "lighten up" is a problem in and of itself. To say that the "meat of the problem" is something else is really kind of like saying "lighten up."
Unity sucks... just use XUbuntu (which gives you XFCE). XFCE is fantastic.
That feature is currently in beta for our Premium Support customers. Here's a third-party blog post with more information:

http://blog.bitnami.org/2011/12/monitor-your-estimated-aws-c...
I personally think it is a double edge sword, very few people are pursuing truly large ideas because the odds of finding funding to even get started just are not there and some ideas require funding to even get off the ground. As someone who pursued a very large scale idea, I know all too well that investors just don't seem to be interested in efforts that require large amounts of upfront work and infrastructure before they can even launch. I think Amazon was the last effort of that kind, that has been funded. Ideas like Facebook are more palatable because the infrastructure requirements scales with the company. With search you really are not afforded that luxury, to compete you have big data requirements from day one. Ultimately big data requirements is was what doomed my idea and to this day I have not found many investors that have an appetite for a start-up that has big data requirements from day one. In saying that, my experience is subjective and I am not playing ball in the valley, so take my post for what it is a personal observation.
WebGL Globe Visualization of Reddit's Neil deGrasse Tyson AMA by hour and city
Ask HN: What is the average age of admitted YC participants?
I'm currently applying as a college student and was wondering what the typical demographics of YC classes are. I know pg said one of the goals of YC is to fund younger entrepreneurs, but I was always curious how that translates in the real world
would also be cool to have a code highlight.. (ala https://refheap.com/paste )
Can you pastebin your nslookup/dig results? Try directing it at another dns 8.8.8.8

nslookup spottedsun.com 8.8.8.8
"but it still ends up being soul-sucking in numerous others where you have to either delve into needlessly complicated stuff or implement it yourself."

This is a false equivalence IMO. With rails i spend far less time on incidental complexity than I do with anything else I've tried.
I'm not so sure. If half of the value of the app you are developing is that it will still work 5 years after your consulting gig with no intervention, then it's hard to fault someone for choosing IE.
How They Track You
I had the same feeling.

I actually switched over to a wheel mouse because I tried using this on an Apple touchpad and it was not a happy animation.

I'm pretty forgiving about the smoothness though. Scroll pages like this are still uncommon and it seems nontrivial to refine the scrolling to the point where it feels smooth and natural.

I would not have the same expectation for an FPS or side scrolling game put out by a studio.
I tend to agree with you overall (although I think Metro has some serious shortcomings right now, but this would take several paragraphs to expound on and is not my goal with this comment), but I do disagree with one statement you make:

"There are no gradients or design elements that would look dated 5 years from now."

Using just pictures and fonts does not make your design timeproof— for example, the classical IBM ad definitely looks antiquated nowadays:

http://www.designers-books.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3F...

There is no such thing as a design which can always preserve its polish, because design always inscribes itself within a greater cultural trend which is inexorably a product of its era.
I dispute that $50m number :)
Beta signup for collaborative social network for students.
One of the numerous inconsistencies of this movie. If you're floating, the expansion of time would not change the fact that would still be floating. This did not make sense at all.
For sure; and that's why most web UIs rely heavily on open source frameworks. I don't think this disproves my point at all; I think it strengthens it.
On the contrary, I think YC and PG have put their money where their mouth is.

Search: Greplin

Email: eTacts (sort of), Taskforce (emails => todo list), Xobni

Movies / Music: Earbits

Publishing: Hyperink

These are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more. Does the author want an entire class to be new search engines?
I defer to your superior knowledge of the situation. (I'm not sure if the $50mm was low or high; as reported in the press, it included 2/3 in stock, which is probably worth 10x what it was back then at least, so congrats!)
You could try using Reddit Enhancement Suite and enable the browse feature, then browse comments by submitter.
Thanks for the reference, didn't realize that, though I think that's what the article was implying.
What's up with the disgusting flagging going on with Microsoft related stories?

http://imgur.com/IlAn2.jpg

The hater fanboys here have even gotten Winsupersite banned from HN. This is really pathetic abuse of the flag feature for personal agendas.
Thanks, I really appreciate the info. Sorry for my slow response, I hope you see this.

Building a pure capability-based operating system has minimal payoff.

Given the massive security problems we see today, if capabilities are the right solution (are they?), it seems like the payoff could be massive. It seems like "mass adoption" would be hard to achieve (except in the really long term), but it seems like it would be possible to find early adopters who "really really" need good security (e.g. certain military applications, maybe?).

At a higher level, in my opinion (as an amateur capability-based systems theorist) the benefits of distributed capability-based systems have already been realised as the shape of the evolving web, albeit on much cruder foundations than those designed as part of the literature.

This is extremely interesting. Reminds me of the idea behind the "separation kernel" which is supposed to mimic in software the security that can be achieved by connecting systems only over extremely well-defined channels (e.g., the systems are physically disconnected except for an ethernet port that is very well controlled). I can find a refence on security kernels if you're interested and not aware of them already.

Anyway, it does seem to me that there are lots of applications (e.g., embedded applications) where distributing everything over the Internet isn't really going to work (not that you're suggesting that). I'd really like to see people tackle security for this kind of system in an entirely new way. Maybe capabilities is part of that.
Open source: contributing makes you happy
Why point out you brought it from home?
The Rise and Sale of OMGPOP to Zynga Games
I'm curious if "failure to launch" happens more often with ambitious startups vs. less ambitious startups, and if so, by what ratio.
http://lesswrong.org
It's a great article and it asks the right questions, but it puts aside what I consider the biggest problem : impact.

A lifestyle business means to me a life with a very low impact. It can certainly be a good life, but can't we do better for mankind? If the best and the brightest just care about getting a comfy lifestyle, what sort of examples does it sets?
"Let me conclude with some tactical advice. If you want to take on a problem as big as the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it."

I remember somewhere that AirBnB said they wanted to become the best marketplace for trading used goods. That's pretty ambitious, but they're attacking it sideways by letting people rent out rooms first.
Boohoo. If I come into work with a big pink sombrero on my head people would probably give me some unfavorable remarks. My reasons for wearing it are irrelevant. It wouldn't excuse violence or career repercussions, but it would be childish to expect that you can present yourself in any way you like without others reacting to it. That is a key purpose of presentation.
> "I feel like Ycombinator in particular takes too much ownership stake from such a low investment (10% of your company for $6k/founder of investment? That seems insane)"

I wonder if this is actually an issue. I don't see any founders complaining about YC's equity (perhaps due to self-selection). Have founders ever needed more money than what YC and Start Fund but not enough to justify raising a round?
Do you get a sensation from switching power supplies vs transformers? Or is the frequency in a switching power supply too high to sense? (I've been studying power supplies a lot lately, so I'm curious.)

Tangentially on the topic of MRI safety, there's a fascinating story of a police officer who got too close to an MRI. The magnet yanked the gun out of his hand and the gun went off despite the thumb safety being engaged. (Nobody was hurt and the MRI received only superficial damage.) Apparently the strong magnetic field pulled the firing pin block out of the way, allowing the gun to go off. Details: http://www.ajronline.org/content/178/5/1092.full
> Guys give each other small disparaging jabs all the time

You do that enough times to someone who isn't your friend and that's bullying.
ah, that's very interesting.

actually, my personal experience corroborates with that data. I'm a bit of an outlier, having switched to CS in my second year and never having written a line of code before then (my (male) classmates and coworkers are always shocked to learn of this, because they had all started programming at a much younger age).
It's a red herring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ginQNMiRu2w
Or perhaps simply expressing anger is something he doesn't like to do near his family. It could be a rage issue, but more likely it would have interferred in smaller ways with his ability to be properly supportive. Perhaps he would have suggested a confrontational route (get lawyers involved e.g.) that would have made his wife uncomfortable. Perhaps done something like suggest ways to "fix" the problem, rather than just be there as a supportive spouse. Many people would be uncomfortable with those reactions in themselves, and therefore would not want to expose their family to it.

Amusingly, your statement "the brainwashing gets us all" was most appropriately applied to your own presumption that he would fit some male role when being uncomfortable with proximity and anger.
Has it occurred to you that to increase their profitability, they must use "magic" (which I call math) that actually has a benefit to you?
And just how are compilers a business space in which innovation should take place? Most major compilers activity has long-since been displaced into open-source and academia.
This.

I work on a small team - just over 20 people - with only four women.

Every single one is a hilarious, self-possessed, confident individual. All the men, myself included, treat them with respect... meaning, we tease the shit out of them.

To do otherwise would exclude them from the team. Have you ever seen a cohesive group that didn't joke around? A tiny fraction of the jabs traded by men are HR-approved... if we filtered that for the women who work with us, we would be treating them as if they're too weak or too sensitive to be a part of the group.

So instead, we treat them no differently than any other team member. If one of the other coders were to arrive unusually dressed up, I would absolutely comment on it, regardless of whether it's a suit or a dress, but one of the ladies would probably beat me to it. Frankly, the women push the HR line harder than any of us guys, and we love them for it.

If you find that people are constantly telling you to "lighten up," whether you're male or female, you shouldn't assume that the world is conspiring to put you down. You're probably just no fun to work with.
Interview with OMGPOP CEO, Zynga CMO, Investors regarding acquisition
The "pointless numbers" hide the comments and make it hard for people to read them. They encourage more group think, which is apparently rampant in these parts.
Preliminary results from Oakland high school using Khan Academy
Firm Offers $5,000 To Nuke Patent Aimed At Hulu, Yahoo
Would you enjoy working with this author, regardless of gender?

I work on a small team - just over 20 people - with only four women.

Every single one is a hilarious, self-possessed, confident individual. All the men, myself included, treat them with respect... meaning, we tease the shit out of them.

To do otherwise would exclude them from the team. Have you ever seen a cohesive group that didn't joke around? A tiny fraction of the jabs traded by men are HR-approved... if we filtered that for the women who work with us, we would be treating them as if they're too weak or too sensitive to be a part of the group.

So instead, we treat them no differently than any other team member. If one of the other coders were to arrive unusually dressed up, I would absolutely comment on it, regardless of whether it's a suit or a dress, but one of the ladies would probably beat me to it. Frankly, the women push the HR line harder than any of us guys, and we love them for it.

If you find that people are consistently telling you to "lighten up," whether you're male or female, you shouldn't assume that the world is conspiring to put you down. You're probably just no fun to work with.
Why Spock is not Rational
Careful there son. You're in danger of becoming the voice of reason in this thread.
Mmm, I guess this doesn't have to make sense to you, but there are people who enjoy being fashionable. I don't understand them either, but it seems to be a form of self-expression, not an invitation to flirt.
Part of the reason for the essay is surely to encourage more ambitious YC applications. Likely no one is more tired of flavor of the day mashups than YC partners who have to wade through them.