skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm a bit surprised that he didn't mention that PHP has very good documentation - virtually every function has a plain-english description (translated to multiple languages) followed by several usage examples and snippets that solve common real-world issues.
This goes out to show that we always take more than we need. I never lived in 120 sq feet apartment but I am sure I could manage.I hope in a near future we will live in smaller places designed to fit our needs. But I must admit that I would not mind being surrounded by acres of grass.
Tips for successful freelancing
social life at that age is ebb & flow, man. just find your similarities and try not to exacerbate the differences. youre in a hyper-sensitive stage of development and anyone you can find to lean on for growth is going to be an invaluable resource. hell is (mostly) not other people, hell is over-analyzation.

college, hopefully, will blow your mind. it may not be everything you want it to be, and may not even be right for you, but it will take a great personal undertaking on your part to not meet some excellent people.
Using Stumpedia bookmarklets to index the web
Without getting off topic about what a good programmer is etc - One thing to point out that is relevant is the fact that there are a lot more beginner programmers than non-beginner programmers out there - all the content being generated around forums for performing specific tasks (code snippets and QA) created an insane feedback loop for the PHP community - I think that this is where PHP really beats out everyone else - There is much more google searchable support than any other language out there. Fast ROI of your time/instant gratification which fuels beginners to learn more/ask more questions generating more content and answering more questions.
I never used Reddit so I can't speak to its demographic.

When I first used Digg heavily (back in the good ole' days of 2005) I noticed a trend forming where every story Kevin Rose submitted hit the front page. So I wrote up a short blog post with my findings and my concern for the future utility of the site if this trend continued. (This was before the front page was littered with dick and fart jokes).

So I took my little blog post and did what any geek would do: I submitted it to Digg!

What followed was a rash of insults and attempts to hack my blog (one successful attempt). It was then that I realized (in general) the types of people frequenting the site, and knew the honeymoon wouldn't last long.

When I came to HN I saw something right away that concerned me. There was this guy named 'nickb' whose submissions dominated the front page. "Oh noes, here we go again" I thought, "He must have started the site or something."

I still don't know who nickb is but I realized after time that his submissions tend to rock hard tasty abs, and thats why he gets upmodded so often. Sure, pg's articles hit #1 every time, but thats because they're interesting, not because of his celebrity.

This little anecdote explains one reason I like HN over Digg (and probably Reddit). I think it explains it better than the pic on Flickr, but I may be biased. =]
Maybe you should try working on some open source projects and or your own projects while working in a shared space with other programmers, allowing you to bounce ideas off them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coworking
"And finally, whatever you do, do NOT attempt to surround yourself with people who consider themselves "interesting." That's the absolute WORST."

Sounds like the "Stuff White People Like" kind of white people.
I don't mind reading things I disagree with. But it's a waste of time reading opinions that a trivial amount of thought reveals are obviously simplistic if not downright wrong.

Just because I avoid this particular blog doesn't mean I don't get thought-provoking discussion elsewhere. We all filter what we read. Repeated posts that are mostly trollish traffic generators, prodding me into time wasting discussions of no value (http://xkcd.com/386/), have convinced me to filter this one.
In the late 90s, when I began making webpages, there was a mysterious folder in my shared hosting FTP account called "cgi-bin." What is "Bin." I was on Windows. What is "CGI." A friend told me it had something to do with Perl. I didn't know anything about Perl, and everything I found on the web about it was difficult to understand.

After some experimenting with FrontPage extensions, I began to experiment more. I found a site called Matt's script archive that had Perl CGIs that I could actually understand. It was slow, slow going. I was coming from QBasic. I scoured the Web, mixing and matching bits of example code I'd found to make things like random quotation generators. Then a friend showed me something called PHP.

PHP, to me at the time, wasn't just a language - it was an ecosystem of developers, example code, and practices that was flourishing. There was consolidated documentation. There were global functions for any string operation I could conceive. But most importantly to me at the time, there was an active community who was interested in more than showing off their most arcane, clever, and obfuscated programs. Very early on, the PHP community could be characterized as "welcoming."

I would argue that PHP "won" not because of any innate technical superiority over any of the other languages available for web programming in the mid to late 90s. It won because it had the right kind of community for a new breed of developer - the "web programmer." It didn't have the stigma of snootiness that came with trying to figure out Perl. PHP was not for geniuses or academics; PHP was for people who wanted to make dynamic websites and not have to catch attitude from some asshole in IRC about not knowing what tail recursion is.

I don't use PHP anymore. I don't like PHP any more. I got into Java, JavaScript, C, even Prolog; and now, I'm into whatever will save me time, and scale. Language agnostic. I'm into parallelization and web services; why would I use PHP for anything more than toy projects? Yes - PHP is "easy." But at my current (thankfully temporary) job, I'm in charge of adding features and debugging a massive functionally-written PHP codebase. It is horrifying.

I think PHP is a great language for anyone to learn how to program with. I think there's a lot of shitty PHP code out there and it's easy to make a living by billing yourself as a PHP developer. It introduced me to "C-like" syntax of brackets and semicolons. It's an easy way to learn how to do neat things with SQL. Beyond that, it really just sucks, and no matter how much more crap they add on to it, I think it always will.

So what is the lesson here? PHP won because it had an excellent community. The Ruby/Rails uprising of the past few years reminds me a lot of the early PHP days. PHP made it easy for independent, inexperienced programmers to create dynamic web applications. Which was great. But having grown up and seen the world, I've rarely seen or worked with small teams of professionals, fluent in several languages, who have decided that PHP is the best way to implement a website. But hey - whatever floats your boat.
There's no much hope in engineering at all if you don't give what its users are looking for.

While I am on it, not one of the article's points is about the language design or syntax. Maybe the fourth, about OOP, but it says something else: It's not really about OOP, but making what users want to do (grab form data, insert into db) incredible easy. The author makes the mistake to confuse OOP with bloatness, which is wrong in theory but right in practice. A lot of people that make web apps in Java make it utterly complex.

My point is that Python, Perl, Java, or any other language can do points 1, 2, 3 and 4. But they didn't (not blaming anyone here, just saying that it wasn't done), so you can have a nice engineered language, but they need to provide these four things to be more sucessful on the web. One thing doesn't exclude the other... but someone needs to do it :)
We must be using different macs or using them in a different fashion, because I feel I have more flexibility under OS X than I do under Windows.

Anyway, this discussion is pointless, has been repeated countless times before and will not end in agreement.

Is it sufficient to say that a good reason I use my Macbook with os x is because it makes me happy?
how about generating mixtapes of recommended music w/ download links to itunes, emusic, etc? last.fm lets you play your recommendations, but you could use their api to get streamable tracks, mix in other music apis for recommendation QA or range, and maybe annotate entries w/ data from onellama (radio station api).
Kinesis Contoured keyboard gunk
A short post on the kinesis keyboard inspired by a filthy half-hour spent cleaning all manner of gunk and grime out of one.
as a former client used to say to me, "if i wanted a django developer, i could hit a few websites or forums and maybe find one. if i wanted a php developer, i could walk out into the middle of the street and start shouting, and find several very quickly."
Is whining sabotaging your progress?
As a small company with limited resources, ideas and execution are what will move your organization forward, not whining.
> Just remember, your app will not be the final app that makes use of the data. Your app comes and goes, along with many other apps written by many others. But the data lives "forever."

Here here - that quote is so close to what Tom Kyte always says I reckon you are either Tom himself or an Oracle DB programmer :-)
Honest dumb question: If I had a Z$100 trillion note today and held it for 10 years after which time Zimbabwe made a modest comeback (hopefully) what would determine the value of that note then? Perhaps it'd be worth $10000? Or does the new government of the recovering nation just scrap all of the old currency and tell any note holders to cash in the old notes by such a date or they'll be worth nothing? What happens to hyper-inflated currencies in recovery mode?
Padmasree Warrior is so obviously suited for this job. After all, she was one of those incompetent, political executives who ruined Motorola, then exited with golden parachutes into the arms of new companies (which, of course, extended a warm and hearty "golden hello" to them). People like her are part of what is utterly wrong with our economy - there's an entire group of people running large portions of government and industry in America whose only talent is in manipulating people and assets; they don't actually create ANYTHING.

And of course, we have the business press more than happy to engage in a round of brown nosing, as they are always in need of "sources familiar with the matter" and "unidentified executives" for their gossipy insider stories (how do you think all of those articles come to fruition? Looking through garbage?).

As thbe CTO of America is likely to continue the grand tradition of Corporate America wherein people make lofty public statements, issue press releases, and then hope someone else will take care of that oh-so-difficult task of actually getting something done, I wholeheartedly support Padmasree Warrior for this job.

If you Google for my name + Motorola, you will see where I am coming from on this matter.
Umm, yeah, then you buy a third-party application that talks to your database just fine but doesn't know a thing about your "one application". Oh noes!
the first million is the hardest to make. The reason Lund can bounce back is because he made his own fortune unlike all those other trust fund babies who started and grew their parents' existing fortunes
Do you have any true friends who are just plain old normal, and not exceptional in any way? If you don't then you are lacking something fundamental - it's you who is flawed, not them.
Noteflight: start-up that lets you compose music within your browser
I sense a leap here. Are you saying that you have to be a genius to make your startup succeed? If so, you are wrong.
It's all in the deeper layers of your brain.

Look at all the "popular" people you know - individuals with lots of friends, a pretty busy social life, etc. What makes them like that? Easy: when they interact with people, the things that light up in their brains are all sorts of pleasure centers and reward sites and parts of the brain that generate positive emotions, and stuff like that. I don't know the proper names for those things, but you get the gist, I'm sure.

Even when just thinking about social interactions, before they even get up and go out and do it, the simple thought of interacting with people generates the same reaction in their brains. So they are motivated to start doing it, rather than sitting passive.

How about those with few (or no) real friends? When interacting with people, there's no such reaction in their brains. No reward sites, no positive emotions, nothing. Or, even worse, negative emotions are generated. And yes, that may happen even as that person feels "alone" - those are different processes, not mutually incompatible.

The solution? This is one of those rare instances when self-help books and New Age literature and stuff like that actually works. "Change starts with yourself", "positive thinking", heck even "love thy neighbor". All those stereotypes, in such a situation they do apply pretty well.
All those years of trying to "be here now" seem to have back fired then?
Speaking of slick product presentations, try watching this one by a former YC company http://blog.iminlikewithyou.com/post/53933144/my-presentatio...
Federated Media is about to lose Techcrunch as a partner
i feel like it makes easy things easy (for "inexperienced computer users") and the hard things ("hacking") possible!
correction : it seems intuitive to pick the healthiest animal you can bring down with the least amount of energy. It costs predators energy to chase down game; when energy = 0 they don't just back up their rifles, go home and order take out - they die.
Top 5 Most Clever Android Apps For Your T-Mobile G1
I know of some folks in NYC who do this for a living - they use trained dogs to scare flocks of geese away from parks, courtyards, etc. Mostly for "aesthetic" reasons (read: geese poop a lot). I'm not sure how long the geese stay away after, though. In any event, it's full time work and they get to play with dogs all day. Not bad, eh?
I'm not sure what's with the people in here. Here comes a few guys, and invites you to try on a really smooth service for free (just tried it on my Mac, browsing the pictures with Cover-Flow; really slick) and all I hear is people complaining.

Come on, what more can you ask for?

Really great job guys, I think I'll be using Zumo a lot.
Three Silos That Enterprise 2.0 Must Break
I did, multiple times, and they refused, even when I told them I would leave because of that...
I've always felt that MMORPG companies really missed out on a market opportunity by not having auction sites tied to their game for the trade of goods. A 3% cut of $2 billion is a lot better than spending time trying to fight it.
If you are going to use it interactively, I strongly suggest you insist in using IPython. Try to read the nice manual first in order to get yourself familiar. It offers autocompletion via the tab key, you can easily execute shell commands, change directories etc.
jimbokun's point was that C and Unix succeeded as a pair, which I agree with. C allowed Unix to be a portable OS, and the proliferation of Unix meant that everyone who did systems work learned C.
A Look at Leading Indicators - Most Times They're Late
The most important thing is your recommendations. If you have three professors who went to a top-tier school, and who will give you a good recommendation, then you should get in.

So, how to get a good recommendation. Just ask your professors, would you give me a recommendation, and would you expect me to get in. If they are actually going to give you a good recommendation, they will tell you that they definitely expect you to get in. If they are sort of noncommittal, you are probably going to get a mediocre recommendation. Ask them what you would need to do to be a great candidate. Then do that.

Publication helps of course, especially in convincing your professors to give you a good rec. If you don't have any publications or ideas on how to get some, you might try a REU.
You don't play games?
I understand that iatrogenic deaths aren't in the table. And I do think the 800,000 figure the site I linked to may be too high. But almost certainly medical errors are the number three cause of death.

Think about it this way. If your chance of getting MRSA during surgery drops from 4% to 0% if your doctor uses a simple 6-item checklist, imagine all the other ways that doctors are hurting people. Plus, heart attacks are usually the cause of death when your doctor prescribes either the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage, or prescribes the right medicine but gives it to the wrong person.
So does dunking a $60mm jet in the Hudson River. :)
When a colleague sent me this it immediately occurred to me why I like HN. The irony didn't occur to me.

Deleted this thread.
looking forward to it.
what would determine the value of that note then?

The amount of specie in circulation, divided by the assets that back that specie.

Perhaps it'd be worth $10000?

That would represent massive deflation. Normally, governments print enough specie to at least keep up with the asset growth that backs it. If not, they might require massive taxation (recovery of existing specie) to cover their costs.
All Prius (Priuii?) have them. I can't decide if it is because it is a hatchback (common there) or if it is because they are marketing towards the wealthy.
Carver Mead’s Natural Inspiration
even more of a reason to use a unix-based os. apache, php, perl, tcp/ip, and in fact most internet technologies grew up on unix, and it's easiest to work with them there.
Hrmmm! I wonder if the same would hold up comparing, say, 170 IQ individuals to 135. I am basing my opinions on personal experience with people who are probably near or above 135.

The other possibility is that I am completely wrong...
No, it's cause you can run Cubase, sit inside a shell, and compile from source on the same machine. Well at least that's why I use it.
I really like it. It's basic but it'll do the job for a quick composing gig. This app comes right on time for me because I have to write a song for a film and my current soundcard doesn't support MIDI. I wanted nothing fancy, just a way to have a global idea.

To be able to share the project is awesome. And the revision too. It's like GoogleDocs for composing music.
Central Florida
A PDF copy of the interview that was on Tech Review:
http://www.lloydwatts.com/carver_MIT_2004.pdf

A longer 1996 interview with Mead can be found at Caltech's oral archives:
http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/133/
I've had a voice program like that on windows 3.1, so its not really that new. But this is pretty impressive, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI5Gg2-mhmU
No need to worry about that with cloud computing though. For example, development for the Google App Engine works just fine under Windows.
Nice interface and you can try before registering. This would be great for making custom cartoon clips for children if only the voices matched the characters.
Get an account? You know the drill...

[Insert standard HN remark for sites that require users to sign up before they can try the app.]

Regardless, pretty cool to have something like this on the web.
I want to know why slingbox is taking forever to launch an iphone app. They've been supporting other phones for over two years now. I suppose this is what happens when a company gets acquired.
Why PHP really won
I feel like just another Holden, which probably makes the entire situation worse.

Holden?
I've wiki'd it to no avail. Can someone enlighten me?
[Not in Silicon Valley]

Because I was tired of Windows, and when it came right down to it everything I choose to use as a developer is platform-agnostic and generally easier to install on Darwin.

And it's pretty.
Is it realistic to assume that a 3rd party application that can be customized to work with my database model can't be customized to work with a model exposed in some other way (web service, J2E, .Net or whatever)?
Please rephrase. It sounds like an interesting anecdote if it were understandable.
Clever bike lane hack
This could at last be an easy way to play Spaceward Ho! over the internet (the PC version). It "networks" via the file system, but didn't work with the WebDAV drives...
10 Steps To Untwangling Twitter To Make It Useful
Is this available as an option when you upload a video or is it only available to videos that Youtube has decided are downloadable?
I clicked the link hoping to see "emergent behavior" from a NN. Instead, the thing is called "Emergent." cries
This is pretty useful, especially combined with the "Version control for designers" article: http://hoth.entp.com/output/git_for_designers.html
Holden?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Caulfield
If you want to be able to pull accounts that are doing illegal things, why don't you just say "we can pull your account if you're doing illegal things"? You would even get the ISO pirates who keep their bandwidth usage in line with the herd that way. Is this some kind of common-carrier thing?
exactly: and BTW whats the difference between dropbox and zumo?
Is there conclusive evidence that in general, it is better to eat the whole plant rather than just a controlled dose of the active chemical?

As for the illegality of various drugs (coca tea, pot), I agree our legal system is fucked up. Not sure how naturopathy helps here, unless naturopaths routinely break the law.

"Of course the dosages are a lot more variable than if you just got a pill, but that's why you go back to your naturopathic doctor every week or so..."

How does that help? More frequent control does not reduce the noise in the inputs. The naturopathic shaman doesn't know what he gave you. He has no way to know if he should give you two plants vs one, or if the plant he gave you just has an abnormally low dose of the chemical.

"The whole idea is that the medicine is based around what makes you feel better, not what works for the average person as compared to a placebo."

And that's why it is unscientific. All you know is how you felt before, and how you feel now. You can't know the cause of your change in feeling, except in a randomized trial.
Recess Framework Gets Serious Backing
I prefered her evil twin, Azile.

I can't find a web version, here's the really old school app (Mac OS classic) http://www.tex-edit.com/index.html#Azile
Europe in shock antitrust attack on Microsoft
I read about half of it in the computer. I will buy it to read the whole book.

But when I talk about GEB to my friends, I have a hard time trying to tell what it's about. "Err, well, a lot of things...". Then I send a link to the Wikipedia entry :)
Seconding this. Use x264 (or an application that uses it, like ffmpeg) and make yourself an mp4 video that plays in Flash. Having low quality for a product demonstration video simply isn't tolerable--and yet it's amazing how much people tolerate awful quality internet video despite the fact that one doesn't actually need a lot of bandwidth to achieve reasonable quality. JW Player is of course a great tool, and takes literally 30 seconds to set up.

My standard toolchain is ( x264 -> rawvideo + faac or NeroAACEnc -> aac audio ) -> mp4box -> mp4 file. For those who are commandline-phobic, there are many GUIs to streamline the process; for example, MeGUI can produce Flash-compatible H.264 video files with x264.

Make sure you're using the latest versions of the encoders as well, especially if you're trying to get away with a much more fancy video than the one in the parent--it's better quality and compression for free.

Also remember that Flash supports H.264 all the way up to High Profile, so there's no reason not to use all the features.

(aside: above video uses a ~2007 version of the encoder, according to my detection tool)
Why I hate software patents: IBM patents trim()
More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development