skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Damn, I need to put more effort in my dance lessons.
Biomimicry Pin
according to this wired article http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1018nintendo-nes-... Super Mario Bros., although it had just been released in Japan, was not yet ready for America ( on October 18, 1985)
Incentivizing duplicate finding is tricky:

- rewarding with rep could convert answerers to closers

* answering produces useful stuff, closing is (often) just clerical

- over aggressive closing drives new users away

* blatant laziness shouldn't be rewarded, but subtle variations on a problem shouldn't be punished either

- some level of duplication is a good thing

* http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/dr-strangedupe-or-how-...

* in a nutshell, people ask the same conceptual question in different ways, it's good to have all those ways around to help Googlers

We've also improved finding duplicates in the close dialog since that meta post (it's a hard problem, so it's not a perfect suggesting system), so it's hardly like we've done nothing.

Also, as written that feature request is unworkable. Incentivize closing over asking, madness. Even incentivizing over editing (+2 up to 1k rep) is harmful IMO. I suppose we could just decline that post, but what'll probably happen is it'll be status-completed when we've come up with a better solution (which will be documented in an answer).

http://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/65516/clos...

^ Based on the most recent data dump, somewhere around a 15 - 20% of closed questions (which are about 3-4% of all new questions). That sounds about right, honestly. I'm sure some stuff is slipping through, and we could make it easier to maintain these rates; but it doesn't seem like a pandemic of duplicates.

Oops, forgot the disclaimer: Stack Exchange Inc. employee, etc. etc.
Well everybody has an opinion, and a choice to tread on a path that feels "right". For a moment you might think these ideas are unambitious, but when you dig-deep you'll discover a lot of gems underneath. One wouldn't expect a frightening execution, speak or quality within six months of a startup.

That's probably a picture only big daddies like Apple can show to the world. For example on another thread you can already see DuckDuckGo revealing their ambitious face after a perceivable unambitious journey of two years!

Also another thing that probably we all miss is that the next big thing might not necessarily be anything from the ones ever listed - ambitious or unambitious. None of the big names like Facebook or Google or Apple were frighteningly ambitious ideas to the world until they kicked butts of everyone.

On second part: Suggestions on choosing a worthwhile domain name is really nice, but looking at how much has been squatted out there, there doesn't seem much of a choice or harm with the current trend of choosing twin word names.

There are fewer cheap options at disposal of entrepreneurs and so it is for the rest of the world.
Henry Blodget's vision for the future of mobile is wrong
> The fact that she was a woman and black ultimately didn't make a difference to the, presumably, white men that hired her.

so sticking it out is a credit to her.

it's likely though that the industry missed out on others who were qualified, but too put off to get that far.
Apple Azerbaijan got hacked by Team Nuts
Three days before April first. Google wouldn't drop their annual gag this early would they?
There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which shaped piece would fill the missing space, or guess which of several other pieces was the same thing rotated or reflected.

This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered is that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day. Indeed, there was an obvious financial incentive to do so, which serves to remind us that unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor.

Nowadays, it is effectively illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants, and in the state of California it is illegal to give a black child an IQ test even when administered by a school psychologist as part of a professional assessment. To their proponents, such laws are mere "progress", but stories like Gwen's show how misguided these rules can be. When there is a clear incentive to discover the truth, objective assessments undermine prejudice rather than promoting it. It's a lesson we would do well to remember.
Cloud Computing and HTML5 - Enabling Network Connected Devices
The real point of school is apprenticeship, having someone next to you teach you a subject, answer your questions, challenge you. Unfortunately today's classroom is just an auditorium, a place to listen. Seldom do you meet individuals who want to actually learn something. As M.J. Adler puts it, students just want to learn how to pass the class, and in the process they pass on an education. Online education is great because it does exactly what schools currently do: assess your ability to remember what was said in class.
Good or bad weed-out process? https://github.com/m2mIO/hireme
It's been hard to find adequate skill-sets in the Denver startup environment. Thoughts on the new weed-out process @ https://github.com/m2mIO/hireme?

Note: I made up the API call, it's not finished yet :) Also note: we're still hiring in Denver.
David is his brother, rather than his friend.
Will make a nice panel for Heroes.

RMS is pumping up to belch blue lighting-balls and Matz is puckering up to teleport the hell outta there.
FamilyLeaf's (YC W12) Y Combinator Application
Damn it, I didn't click on the link at the end.

I've deleted my comment out of respect for raganwald's mother.
Even I have lines I won't cross...
Discover, Defend & Deter Content Scraping
The reason why I think that it is difficult to say a frighteningly ambitious startup idea is actually something that is expected to come through YC, is that the funding that YC provides is miniscule, and will cover hardly an annual salary for a single, accomplished person who has a lot of domain knowledge in a field they may want to disrupt.

As someone in the medical space who is 37, married with 2 kids - My salary is more than the funding of YC - and I would not be able to take ~150K and divide it among multiple founders -- let alone have that funding cover, you know, actual startup expenses.

I feel I am in this catch-22 limbo area -- too old and too ambitious of an idea to fit the YC mold.

Personally, I see YC as being fairly myopic in the type of people they fund, and it is frustrating because I think YC is incredible!

Sure, there are tons of opportunities for nifty apps that serve a silo of a need (even if that silo is infinitely deep) -- but the idea I have to revolutionize the hospital space can't feasibly be built on 150K - unless I take that funding whilst retaining my full time job to pay for me and have that 150K go directly to the product.
> If website backgrounds really bother you

While I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, your wording deflects blame from the site's retarded text contrast to the GP (robomartin).

(no snark intended)
Fuel strike: Police close petrol stations as tempers flare
Police have closed petrol stations in some parts of the UK after drivers rushed to the pumps to fill up over fears of an imminent strike by tanker drivers.
Hiring Indian Developers Proves To Be A Smart Choice
With a water of companies from across the globe turn towards India for getting their IT job completed. India proves an accomplished ground with all the technical & logistical benefits it caters for offshore development. Hiring developers from India is a trend came in existence through quality & honest work completed by the developers of this place.
Facebook ad CTR and intelligence are inversely correlated
Tips for building social casino games
Gmail Weird Login Page 
Am I the only one seeing "nee" at the top of the gmail login page? Did someone at google forget to remove a debug line?
Everything is debatable! :)

Whether it is or isn't appropriate is the topic of a separate discussion altogether. That would have to touch upon personal and community etiquette, professionalism, audience, and so forth.

I'm purely focused on the link-bait aspect. Using swear words in a title is in a way like gaming the attention economy by subconsciously tricking peoples' minds into thinking that a piece of content "grabs" them on some level, even before seeing that content.

What I would be interested to know is if there is data that shows that people up-vote those articles -- before reading them -- disproportionately more often than articles with no swear words in the title.
However, she had to go above and beyond to prove she was that capable and talented - she and her family had to fight to get her placed in a non-trade school and she had to take additional tests to show that her scores were legitimate. If she had been a white male, she would have been placed in the appropriate secondary school immediately and she would have been hired on the spot without further issue.

It's a story about someone who, despite proving themselves to be capable and talented as their peers, would have been passed over if they hadn't fought to be recognized. Ultimately her race/gender didn't make a difference, but it certainly made getting where she wanted an ordeal.
Using the same name makes it sound like it's a product of Curtis'. At least Obtvse had the sense to use a different name.
http://www.webfaction.com/ or http://virpus.com/ are a good solutions!
2 Studies Point to Pesticide as a Culprit in Bees' Decline
White House Investing Big in Big Data
I don't consider it a serious accusation at all, or even a significant
criticism. It's merely just a statement of the obvious, namely, the
currently used tech/standards. A more fair question would be, "Which of
the USV funded ventures refuse to use commonly abused technologies like
cookies or javascript?"

The underlying problems of privacy and security cannot be blamed on Fred
Wilson or any specific company his group has funded, or any specific
company whatsoever. The underlying problems are rooted in the widespread
adoption of tech/standards that can easily be abused. In other words,
all of us are to blame.

The other important part is looking at what we would give up by trying
to abandon the easily abused tech/standards. We would give up far more
than just the usability and compatibility as seen from the user
perspective; the companies on the provider perspective would have to
give up existing investments, profit centers, and competitive advantages
by refusing to support easily abused tech/standards.

If some undefined "critical mass" of users started only using tech that
prevented privacy and security vulnerabilities, the companies providing
services would be forced to adapt. From the other side, companies would
not willingly give up their investments, profit centers, and competitive
advantages just to be nice to users. In fact, most companies would try
to thwart the adoption of software (browsers) designed to prevent abuses
by requiring users to use something else. This is already the case with
many sites since the sites are unusable without easily abused features
enabled.

Pointing a finger a Zynga, or Facebook, or some other company is
entirely unfair; they are just trying to compete and profit in the
current situation. Even everyone's favorite non-profit Internet
darling, wikipedia, can break if you fail to send it an acceptable
USER_AGENT string (specifically wikipedia search).

I've had the displeasure of explaining to my mom why the FLASH videos on
her favorite recipe site don't work on her iPad. Of course, this is due
to Apple simply deciding to not support FLASH on their iOS devices. Some
video sites have adjusted to the change, for example YouTube, but others
refuse to adapt and require people to use something else to access their
sites. It has been interesting to see how this user-based change pushes
other companies to adapt, and to some degree, it seems to be working.

If you think about all the investments in FLASH that need to be
abandoned in order to support the iPad users, it's a staggering number,
but in the long run, it might be for the best. Similar might also be
true for other easily abused tech/standards, and it seems a whole lot
better than letting clueless people create new laws about it.
Lessons Learned: SXSW and Parallels to Microcosm of a Startup
Flexible batteries and wiring exist. If the "hard" electronics like the CPU and memory were placed along one edge of such a device you could still flex, bend or roll the display portion.

It's also possible that electrically activated memory-metals could be used to "snap" such a device into a stiff rectangle when in use, but we have a way to go on those technologies yet.
I actually wrote a script called wemux (https://github.com/zolrath/wemux) specifically to enhance tmux remote pair programming. Adds user/server listing, a concept of host/client, attach/detach messages and more.
Am I the only one seeing "nee" at the top of the gmail login page? Did someone at google forget to remove a debug line?
RIM calls 'foul'
Lovely response. Thank you for taking time to type it.

The original point was that the very existence of SO reputation entices the wrong kind of priorities and behavior on the site. Hence the "newbie" problem.

What I would've done is this:

(a) hide reputation counters from the public view

(b) for questions - let people upvote them or report them, no downvoting

(c) for answers/comments - replace up/down arrows with four choices - "perfect", "right", "incomplete" and "wrong" - and then show how many users clicked on each. Let anyone vote, including anonymous users.

(d) let the original submitter pick the "right" answer (just as it is now)

That's it. Badges-shmadges. These are vanity trinkets. If people are less inclined to help, when others are not seeing their social rank paraphernalia, that's doesn't speak much of them, does it?
why not use the free version of heroku?
That's a nice problem to have! Can I ask what the name is (phonetic)?
This beachhead thinking is key. The trouble is that it is harder to represent in the “we’re X for Y” way, which is usually the thing that sticks with the audience (which is also the reason why it works so well).
- Could you make a baby?

No, there's more to us than just DNA. For example methylation, the addition of methyl chemical groups to some bases, which isn't tracked in "normal" DNA sequencing controls which genes get expressed by which cells. Plus there's a reasonable chance of errors in the sequencing due to the need to copy the DNA repeatedly to identify.

- Data size

Most bioinformatics data formats are plain ASCII. So even the reference data would be 3Gb per person. But 1,000 genomes contains sequencing reads where each DNA bases is sample multiple times (20-40 is typical "read depth") so that errors in identifying bases can be minimised. Each base of each of these samples has a quality score associate (which is about a 6 bit value). Plus identifiers for all billion odd reads per person.
Seeing mottos, manifestos or anything else in list form on wall in your company is a sign that it's time to try to find a new job.
Ze Frank's Kickstarter post-mortem
I don’t mind your comment. If it fosters productive discussion, it’s a win.
Captivating as ever, Mr Braithwaite. We all need heroes, and it's especially satisfying when such a hero is also a parent.
What is the best-case endgame for dropbox? I like it, but I don't understand why everyone's so excited about its potential.
Even the "monitor program" - ie. the Spectrum 16KB ROM image is probably ok:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/permits/amstrad-roms.txt

1) What exactly do you have to do to use Sinclair ROMs in an emulator, such as acknowledgements etc?"

"Amstrad are happy for emulator writers to include images of our copyrighted code as long as the (c)opyright messages are not altered and we appreciate it if the program/manual includes a note to the effect that "Amstrad have kindly given their permission for the redistribution of their copyrighted material but retain that copyright"."
I think that the documentation for backbone and underscore is excellent. And the single page, annotated source code is probably even more helpful.

The thing that I wish the project had was some official opinionated best practices guidelines. How to structure a growing app, build/minify workflow, pitfalls, etc. (Note: this wish may be due to my utter noobishness and I'm mostly monitoring the mailing list and reading all the questions to learn)

Other than that, I wish AMD was going to be supported in core, but tbranyen's requirejs use (shim) plugin is going pretty well.
The (Semi)Skeuomorphism - Last night's release of Paper
Ask HN Alumni: HN job posts success rate compared to other job site postings?
I am wondering if your job posts on HN result in more hirings than job postings on other sites. Also, curious to know which job sites generally bring in the most resume submissions?
The first issue of Nintendo Power was in 1988 and on the cover was Super Mario 2.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/08/download-the-first-issue-o...
I remember playing the original. What a great game. It really was the first game where natural body movement and acrobatics became important.

I haven't heard the term lately -- but for quite a while, Prince of Persia was more of a genre description than anything else. Any game where you could have some freedom to move around the environment, climb up, and drop yourself smoothly down was "like Prince of Persia".
Obama Administration Places $200 Million Bet On Big Data
"Biological Sequence Analysis: Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids" by Durbin, Eddy, Krogh, and Mitchison is a classic, very readable intro to sequence analysis algorithms (dynamic programming, HMMs) that would be interesting for someone coming from a math/cs background.
I think the title is inspired by the children book "Go the f* to sleep".
This is a question you can answer yourself by simply clicking on their github link. Their four public repositories are in C, Lisp, C++, and Java.
If you aren't taking into account the length of the word, then it looks like the optimal choice of 5 consonants and 1 vowel. Look at his section titled "First refinement" the most common letters were (in order) "ESIARNTOL" Eliminate all but the first vowel and you get ESRNTL, the same as WoF.
White House partners with GroupMe, Gilt and Tumblr to create internships
Ideas change. Apple didn't start with iPhone or iPad. They started with the Apple I, which was just a circuit board. Microsoft didn't start with Windows 7. They started with BASIC for the Altair. Paypal didn't start with online payments. They started as money transfer between PDAs.

As for the criticism about "X for Y", the problem is not with them, but with the rest of us. Most people (smart or not) have a hard time grasping completely original ideas, and they don't have the time to dive deep into it. "X for Y" is simply a low bandwidth way of transferring a core idea. It's the MVP of communicating your vision. If you have to take more than a sentence to convey your idea/startup, you're going to have a hard hard uphill battle. But chances are, you don't have a clear understanding of what problem you're solving.
> If food gets too expensive more people will try to make money with food. People will have a bigger incentive to produce, store and consume food in other ways then before.

That'll work as long as it's only a price problem. But If the lack of resources is sufficiently dire, we will lack food, period. And our current lack of foresight tells me that the probability of such an outcome is far from negligible.

> If you're sure about your solution do a startup.

Doesn't work. There are already plenty of ethical peasants which try their best to grow good food with few enough resources. They succeed, though they are often hindered by silly regulations and the sheer weight of their more "conventional" colleagues. The problem is, unlike software, food doesn't scale. Everyone must adopt better ways, and that takes advocacy. In programming, the equivalent would be trying to significantly reduce the usage of, say, mutable state (self plug: http://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/assignment).

> There are to many variables to accuratly predict ahead so much.

Fair enough. A more reasonable prediction would run like this: "we may one day have depleted so much resources that a good deal of us will die of starvation, or of secondary effects like war".
I had a good friend who studied school psychology, and she let me see some of the IQ tests in use.

I think you'd be surprised just how biased some of them are, and how reliant on cultural knowledge.
Let's Build Something Amazing
Facebook rolls out new ad interface forcing CPM on Page and App buys
Exactly. Only a minority of companies that use those pitches used the same phrasing in their initial creation process. The goal is to solve a problem someone has, the "X for Y" is a shorthand for "don't take my word for it that people have this kind of problem, look at this very similar situation".
We were demo'ing the recently created Commodore 64 port of PoP at MGC. It was funny to hear people say, "I used to play this on my Commodore" (No, you didn't.)

Funny how they finish the C64 port and now the source turns up. Glad he mentions that in his post.
Strong Password Hashing for ASP.NET
It certainly will keep the recruiters away.
Beautiful API for video hosting
The “we’re X for Y” is awesome because it is a simple, powerful positioning. That's also why it can be misunderstood so easily.

The same model is used in pitching screenplays and movies. Alien, famously, was pitched as "Jaws in space". It works because it sticks, but doesn't define the field (the plot etc) too much. Similarly, startups using the “we’re X for Y” are giving themselves a quick mental positioning in the mind of the listener, but without carving an exact niche. It is easier to work up or broaden from defining the idea ('the beachhead') that way.

The way to misunderstand it is think that they mean to do exactly that. "What, they're taking a giant shark onto a spaceship?"
Interesting. I think getting few hundred bucks per month from a single passive income project is pretty good. I have quite a few of these and only a small portion of them exceed the hundred bucks mark.

I see just one basic problem with your project: you are horizontal, not vertical. Seeing that you are able to do that well in horizontal market, I think if you focus on a vertical you may do much better.

Oh yes, and ads are pretty good revenue stream. I have a site that makes more from ads on a couple of care-free pages than from selling paid software that I put a lot of efforts on (to support customers, to release new versions, to market, etc). Ad/affiliate income can be the easiest and the most passive you can imagine (although it doesn't bring the same personal satisfaction as earning from something good that you have built and marketed yourself).
The Jobs snobs
From what I recall, only one founder is required to attend YC. So you could theoretically find a younger founder who could attend, while you kept at your full-time job.
link2009: I suspect your account may have been killed (i.e. everything you post is visible only to you). You should check since your most recent post is dead. (However that can also happen if you post a duplicate, so I can't say for sure.)

It's risky for a new member to post something controversial - you have to build up a karma cushion first. (I personally don't approve of downvoting a controversial comment, but I'm fighting a loosing battle on the subject.)
You're right. I guess I am used to making things work for IE8...