skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It doesn't have to be debated at all - if a petition reaches the threshold then the committee just 'consider' it for a debate.

There was a petition to abandon the recent NHS reforms that reached the threshold and wasn't put forward for debate.
We actually have to focus on results first and foremost. By the time we can even apply for accreditation (probably 3 years out) the issue of accreditation for reputation will be moot.

But, you have to look at what the larger impact can be with accreditation and Title IV. Even though we are strongly against student loans, being able to work with state and federal governments for grant and work study funds is the best and most direct way we have at hitting "free education for all" status. It's also the quickest way to move out of the relatively small group of students who don't care about accreditation to reach the much larger group that does. It's only by being a reasonable alternative to this group of students that we can apply real pressure to the current system. As long as we aren't accredited, the existing institutions can simply point to that fact and write us off and most people will listen to them.
Awesome job, I am actually slowly building something like this myself.. Just a simple blogging platform, no fluff, just the essentials.
It's important that you indoctrinate people as young as possible, so that these objective perspectives never get a chance to take root. Churches only have them for a day, but schools have them for five.
The source for the story 'human bird wings is fake'
Tech News, Startup News, Programming News, Just an Awesome Site
> "The main reason is that Google too often misinterprets my search queries, and I got tired of typing quotes around the search terms. I should stress that like any software developer (or any power user, probably), my queries tend to be very specific."

So who do you think should invest the extra effort into performing searches (aka adding quotations.. or "taking them off"): the hackers with specific, but edge-case search requirements, or the 99% of casual users who just want to learn about "how do helycopters fly"

P.S. I tried both the sqlite and the scapegoat tree searches without the quotes and Google seemed to "know" what I meant... but if you encountered that problem perhaps it's an algorithm that unnecessarily "kicks in" depending on some other circumstances of the search. I would definitely classify this as a problem, but one that should again be easily solved with the use of quotation marks
hopefully this guy takes it better than the kony guy.
We are running the IndexTank open-source project. We link to those white papers on indextank.com - we plan to either update those white papers or remove them. thanks for pointing it out
I have a ton of respect for Mr. Curtis, but he's utterly and completely wrong on the issue. It's not a "serious" thing, just like calling someone a mean name isn't necessarily a "serious" thing, but both kind of make you a dick.
Senate passes legislation to legalize crowdfunding
Ranking tries to make money by returning good search results so that people use Google. Ads tries to make money by showing good ads so that people click on them. Ranking only cares about revenue in that they want to make a product worth using.

Look, I've worked in search at Google for over 5 years. I know all of the signals that determine how results are ranked and most of the details about how they are used. I know all of the metrics that are used to evaluate and tune ranking. I know nearly everyone who works in ranking, and I've seen a decent fraction of the launch decisions and the metrics supporting them.

I'm telling you, with no caveats, that we don't make ranking decisions based on statistics related to revenue. If that doesn't convince you, then I don't know what would.
Apparently not, since this was posted in December.
Microsoft brings Git support to its CodePlex hosting service
"If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux, it means I've won." -Linus Torvalds
> YC W12

vs.

> all of our investors (as if)

???
Seesmic founder takes responsibility for layoffs
Well, yes, but that would be rude.
It doesn't quite meet your criteria for start today, but the Open University, a well respected "virtual uni", has been running in the UK for over 40 years.

http://www.open.ac.uk/

Fees are a little higher but only marginally at around $8000 per 120 credits for international students. (A typical degree requires 300-360 credits)

Many degrees can be completed over 7 or more years if it's convenient. But I think there is a minimum time as some coursework is assessed to a schedule.

So there is definitely a market for this type of learning, and competition almost always benefits the customer, so good luck!
Stripe: Introducing Answers
I agree - very hard to start a (long-course) educational institution without first establishing the credibility (in the actual industry, not to the govt.) of the certificate you get at the end of it.

What a system like this really needs is a strong way for future employers of graduates to rate their relative ability (eg. 'according to our benchmarks this person's ability in python lies _x_ far between the average coder on github and [insert famous python user here]').

Perhaps establishing 'credentialing' should come before establishing a school?
Interestingly enough, I have very little personal connection to my code [1]. I'm almost sure there are better ways to code everything I've ever coded in the last 15 years. I know this because when I look at old code that I have written I see better ways to do it, and that's just me!

I think my lack of personal code connection comes from the fact that I view code as a tool to solve a problem. My overall solution I will certainly defend and feel that it reflects who I am, but the code to implement it? Who cares. I love elegant code as much as the next programmer, but at the end of the day for many problems the code is just an implementation detail.

[1] I've worked with people who have a deep personal connection to their code, and it can be very challenging to change anything without upsetting them.
Or indeed, anyone who wants to write good code any language. I don't work with C++ but it's a clear and well structured guide to OO development in general.
It's definitely bad UX. Curtis tries to brush away criticism with his claim that the "kudos" number is "an otherwise meaningless number," but this argument is fatally flawed. Plenty of things that human beings use for social signaling are, when removed from context, technically "meaningless", but within context they can hold plenty of meaning. In the case of Curtis's website, the "Kudos" counter is implied to display a count of voluntary approval. By essentially tricking users into incrementing the count, Curtis violates this expectation, which is why everyone feels "cheated" by it. Subsequent visitors to the site who don't realize the counter has been gamed may take it as an indicator of how many people enjoyed the article, when in fact the numbers are inflated by other users against their will. This is not only terrible UX, but bordering on outright deceit.

In a world dominated by social media and ubiquitous "Like" counters, for someone to brush off a Kudos count as "an otherwise meaningless number" is either an incredible display of naivety or straight-up bullshit.
Project Management Software Reviews
For me there are two problems.

1) Google focuses more on commercial sites, especially branded sites, than research or personal sites.

2) Sturgeon's law (90% of everything is garbage) and a much bigger world wide web means that there's a lot more garbage indexed, and returned, by Google searches.

I remember that I'd try a search phrase, and I'd be taken to some Web 1.2 site with black text on a grey background; some university professor or doctor would have written a really interesting article and linked to other sites or research. Now I get some reputable site selling stuff, or a bunch of shitty link farms offering me god-awful "reviews", or awful awful blogs.

I remember when search terms would return less than a gajillion hits; you could tell by the extra 'o' in Goooogle how many hits you'd got. When was the last time GoogleWhacking was possible? A result of "zero hits" is important. It doesn't mean the search failed and that Google should feel free to substitute words and try different stemming and remove the quotes. "Zero hits" information for me.

I strongly agree that I'm an edge case, and that Google is great for most people.
One Word Changed Nets 65% Increase in CTR for Vitals
Note: the FBI lawyer is representing the FBI, not "security".
But there is a difference between not being personally offended and posting multiple comments around these threads to the effect that you find those of us who are offended annoying... And they shouldn't be marginalized as "sexism police" or "screaming"

Likewise, I understand this might offend some people. But there is a difference between being offended and attacking those not offended.

And those not offended or even involved with the video shouldn't be marginalized as "sexist" and or accused of objectifying women.
Show HN: A Way To Hack HN's Karma
I submitted a link, when someone clicks on it I get an up-vote for this article.

I don't want people to misuse this I just want to bring attention to this problem.

This is the link I used that up-votes this: http://news.ycombinator.com/vote?for=3742742&dir=up&whence=%6e%65%77%65%73%74
Well, the courses start at $200, we have a generous refund policy, and you can actually try the system and class out for free right now with a guest account. We don't even require a real email.

Also, we have thought very seriously about the business model of offering classes for free (Udacity model) and charging for certification/one on one. The numbers we see for that model just don't work, even at a large scale. You have to focus in introductory classes with the broadest possible appeal, reduce the difficulty of the course so you don't get 10,000 complaint emails from students who can't keep up, use a MOOC structure that is more about cost control than maximizing learning. Plus, the conversion from free to paid user may or may not be enough to cover the cost of course development. Our model, on the other hand, allows us to pay our professors quite generously for classes that may not have 100,000 students attending and focus more on building our catalog instead of just building the user base.
Keep your sites fast: a web performance tool and resource list
Hacker News Karma Hack
And, of course, you should follow dcurtis on Twitter _here_.
I went to one of those elite programs at an Ivy League school. The advantage you get isn't the education (from my experience and observation). It's being around other enthusiastic (non slacker) high achievers who worked hard to get there and want to be there. And connections and all the things others talk about.

Knowing that you went to the top ranked program not opens many doors (bankers were impressed when I had to borrow money) but also gives you the confidence that extends well beyond education.

In a way it's similar to driving up to high school being the quarterback and driving a fancy new car (was not me but I can only imagine). You feel good about yourself (in your own mind) and that confidence affects others as well.

As far as learning about business and how to run one? I didn't learn that from the business program. I learned that working during high school and college and from having a family business and other companies that I worked for.
Billions. It's obscene. And the worst part is no layman outside of the tech circles knows it's happening.

>It only had 56 issued and 503 filed patents in the US.

And Facebook is considered to have a light patent portfolio. 500+ in the works? Really? And they're victims? Craziness.
He has "the eye" for design, though... everything looks effortless and kinda great... unlike when I try to make a page look good (yes I read about Mark Boulton and grids and a visual hierarchy and spacing and baseline and rhythm and UX but it doesn't do miracles...)
It's nothing black hat going on here. W3schools is just using wildcard subdomains and whenever people are accidentally linking to wwww.w3schools the Google bot picks it up.

I love W3schools btw. Got me into coding and I still use it for reference. Hate me all you want but I'm tired of people bashing them for no reason.
I created this page as a supplement to a talk I am doing next week, would very much appreciate any suggestions of missing tools in the giant list of links
Check out Pixelmator or Acorn?
Yeah, I think users should have a limited amount of downvote power to spread around, and that each successive downvote diminishes the power of all their previous downvotes in determining spamminess.

Ghosting really, really sucks for legitimate users. Craigslist does the same thing, and normal people are devastated when they realize they've been judged/victimized by a computer somewhere with no appeal.
I know they dedupe on the file level, but I wonder if they are doing block level deduping... as without a big shared storage infrastructure block level deduping becomes pretty hard to serve at high speed from as the reads potentially become distributed across hundreds of nodes...

To build out web scale systems you generally use commodity gear and accept the overhead of duplication, heavy deduping requires massive IO, and there is no way i can see you can be dealing with that much data have that level of IOPS and be profitable charging what they charge.
Buy fashion sky digital online
Isn't that like saying that your car's movements records of its movements are business records of the manufacturer, or of OnStar, and subject to subpoena?
I would say that stallmans claims do matter, because failure to comply will get you labeled as an Internet villain. The impact that may have on your business will depend on the nature of your business.
Math Anxiety Has Neurological Basis
Leftronic launches on Techcrunch
That's really cool. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to drop $400 for an online course of unknown quality, with uncertainty about accredidation, when coursera is free. How do you plan to attract your initial users?
Remember what?
You would think so, but we actually can't even apply for regional accreditation until the first student graduates from a full degree program.

Yes, the system is rigged against new entrants.
There's a difference, at least to me, about changing standards in language (which, as outsiders to particular communities can seem arbitrary and capricious-- wait a minute, "Queer is OK to say again?" and how is "person of color" materially different from "Colored person") and things like brazen workplace hostility as described in the original blog post.

A lot of being actively offensive is more than just the specific words you use but more about what you say with those words.

Even if you don't use any dangerous words, when the content of your message is sexist and demeaning such as "Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!" that's where the offense is. Telling someone to knock that shit off doesn't make us insufferably bland PC thought police, it makes us civilized human beings.
Where did I "treat her differently"? I'd like to think that if there was any other member of my team that was consistently getting stuck making tea and taking notes, I'd do the same for him. Indeed, I have done that in the past.

It's true that people, observing just this one incident in isolation, might conclude that I was "treating her differently" because she was female. I can't help that. I, too, am stuck in the society we have, the one where people make assumptions like you have just made, and as you point out it's not productive to tell people not to assume such things, no more than if I asked them not to think of an elephant. If anyone asks why I "treated her differently" I'll say what I just said: Team members are team members, none of them should be stuck with the boring stuff all the time unless they really enjoy making tea.

Meanwhile, I used the rather clumsy phrase "as a man" not because I enjoy writing clumsily, nor as some sort of political statement, but just to get the mental picture clear: I'm a guy, who looks like a nerdy guy, and when I make tea I look like a nerdy guy making tea. I suppose I could have left that ambiguous, as I usually do online - hey, on the internet nobody needs to know that you're really a beagle who can cite SICP and make tea - but in a conversation that's essentially about the optics of an in-person social interaction I felt it was kind of important that we all try to envision an actual room, with an actual team, one member of which is a middle-aged guy who is stepping out to make some tea.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here, but I don't see how you can run out of reading material on HN. I use Jeff Miller's newsyc50 feed (which contains all submissions with more than 50 points), and I have a hard time keeping up...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/newsyc50 --> 265 posts per week (according to Google Reader)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/newsyc20 --> 400 posts per week (according to Google Reader)

That said, the question is still interesting. I'd like to find sites similar to HN focusing on other themes.
The optimal ecosystem in my mind would be one where the institutions offering accreditation are completely independent from the ones offering teaching. Aside from the obvious "division of labor is a good thing" argument, it would open up all sorts of possibilities:

- Ability to take courses from multiple "universities". This will provide an incentive for "universities" to compete on a course by course level.

- The burden of trust will mainly shift to the "accreditator" side, making it easier to open up new "universities" without prior reputation. Of course, they will still have to convince prospective students that their courses are good.

- For companies: ability to compare prospective employees credentials in a more objective way. There will presumably only be a few "accreditation" companies unlike the current large amount of universities in the world.

The only downside I can think of is that the accreditation institutions might not be testing what the universities want to teach or what the students want to learn. Also, universities/student might optimize for passing the exams rather than learning. Is that much different from the status quo though?

It might be too early, but it might give some ideas for a startup.
Just-in-time learning is the future. No ifs, ands, or buts. Any argument you might have to the contrary is not only wrong, but dangerously wrong ... The current system of teaching students everything they might need to know, just in case it ever comes up, is an artificial construct that resulted from limited access to books and a limited amount of time available for study. Just in time, on the other hand, is how we actually learn by default.

This is an interesting point. I happen to disagree, and I hoped that the author would go on to say exactly why it's wrong, especially dangerously so. It seems like the author rejects curriculum-based courses of study that provide a broad, solid foundation in favor of just-in-time courses of study, in which one learns whatever is necessary at the moment, right before applying it.

My main objections are that

* There are things you don't feel like learning that you would do well to learn. I had a lot of freedom to choose courses during school, which was great, but I am about to graduate with a lot of holes in my knowledge.

* No matter how smart you are, you would benefit from the guidance of a teacher --- guidance through a full curriculum that gives you a solid foundation and imparts onto you important patterns of thought.
I think this has to do with using nuclear waste from currently running reactors to generate electricity. (If thorium is part of that waste and you already knew that sorry)
That's not how I read it. Jobs never had the BSD or Linux kernels in mind, he just wanted Linus to somehow "get all the open source people to like Apple" and stop maintaining a separate ecosystem.
A company asking for this potentially opens themselves up to a huge amount of legal liability since a typical Facebook profile can contain an enormous amount of data that they are not allowed to ask during the interview process.
FBI not wasting resources pursuing non-suspects would save tax money too.
What is the link?
How To Get Paid More
Self-contained, Internet-less Wikipedia machine.
For future record: An article about a by-invitation closed-source blogging platform created by a self-proclaimed superhero is the top article on Hacker News on March 22, 2012 at 17:16 PST.
Google: serving Ads based on realtime weather data from Phone sensors.
"The new thing here is that soon it will be legal..."

The article fails to make any mention of what precisely is currently illegal. I'm still not clear on that. What crime would I be committing today that will soon not be a crime?
App Developer Alliance Launches
I'm a developer and in my younger years, I actually entertained a few "ideas guys".

The problem? While you spend 8+ months working on their great new idea, "ideas guy" has all the time in the world to:

1) keep bother you and wondering why the project isn't done
2) move onto another "great" idea
3) if you do finish and that person has moved on, they will lay claim to your idea (even if it's not legal, it's not fun going to court).

Plus, once your app is finished, what will the ideas guy do? Most people aren't cut out to run a business. You need to choose your partner well.

So, I now only partner with another developer, someone who can bring money, or someone who can bring a user base once the app is actually launched (IE: they have an existing business in the same field).
I thought that was a bit ironic and funny as well. However, with that said, I did up vote it as I believe it's a great point of view and well written.
Ask HN: dev.txt, a robots.txt/humans.txt for tech stack - what do you think?
When we see a website/platform we like, we devs always wonder: what is it built on? Often we check out the source looking for traces, etc. Sometimes we pollute the UI with all that 'powered by' braggadoccio (guilty as charged). Maybe we should adapt a loose standard file similar to robots.txt and humans.txt, let's call it dev.txt where we'd list the tech stack for the curious. Example: http://zalew.net/dev.txt

What do you think?
I got a "cant make that vote" error
Many successful devs also preach TDD. TDD is great when your client has a high quality spec, or you are being paid for meeting team spec. TDD is less great when your project goal is "build something neat" with a very loose spec and wide tolerances.
With a title like that I was expecting this to be about multi-armed bandits.
> In fact the vast majority of bugs are the result of not testing changes at all

I never said every programmer tests 100% of their code all of the time. Even when you're just checking the output of a "hello world", you're effectively testing your code. It might be the only test ever made, but it is a test.

> In fact the vast majority of bugs are the result of not testing changes at all

Now you're making a bold claim that, AFAIK, isn't backed up by research.

Just to be clear, I like tests, and I like automated tests even more. I just don't think they necessarily merit 50% of my own time because they're not some panacea that will magically auto correct badly designed software. Test are written to find bugs, not to eliminate them altogether; you can't guarantee your code is bug free because of tests.
You have to be signed in for it to work.
I suppose, but doesn't this give potential hackers one more piece of information?
Basically it's currently illegal for someone who's not a millionaire (an "accredited investor") to invest in startups.