skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've met a lot of people who can talk very intelligently about code and design, and who have read the canon, and can't put a function in a text editor to save their lives. Obviously, I'm not the only person to notice this: it's the reason for the "fizzbuzz" test.
All our rankings are based on followed through donations. We bug people to pay, and cancel large donations after a fair amount of time has passed. We don't allow for really large donations without pre-paid accounts.

The alternative to a pledge first model is asking for a credit card before any pledges are made (or something similar). That's lame for donations.
Hygiene.
randomwalker said it best, but I'll remind you that WP admins and devotees use scripts to mass-edit for all sorts of things; there's typos and misspellings, but there's also all manner of WP:MoS changes, standardized subheds, and recategorization pages.

Racking up an edit count is the #1 thing people do to become admins.
You get a pretty good story along with your lunch this way ;)
One last comment on this and then I'll stop.

The net result on teaching staff is that the ones who teach critical thinking skills eventually tend to get washed out of the system. Teaching critical thinking skills is harder, the skill is harder for students to acquire (they have to work for it!), it takes more time, assessment is less cut and dried, and there's less payback visible on those standardized tests.
The Android is about to kick nobody ass. In case you didn't get the memo, Android on mobile phones kinda flopped. With Android, Google is being slow as hell, and this is killing them.

Maybe Android for Netbooks has a future, but Android for phones will be in use mainly by cheap taiwanese phones.
The cartoon is cute, but you might be right about the authority issue. We'll see how it evolves. We've already gone from mascot to abstract logo to redesigned mascot in under a year. I'm sure that will happen again.

Amazon and PayPal already do micropayments. Why don't you know about them? Because their payment mechanisms are more painful than microcontent is valuable. An 8 step paypal checkout is braindead for $0.25 content. We're working on mandated payment options and a merchant API to use our 1 click micropayment system for selling content.

The social nature can't be overstated as well. Other payment processors really don't pay attention to that. We try to push the data where we can, and in cases like Twitter, actually allow the broadcasting platform to be the signal to make a payment.
When as the last time commentators anticipated the acquisitions that Apple did make?
> Apple and Google are already very cosy. If Apple bought Yahoo that would probably raise a few antitrust issues for Google.

That's not how antitrust works and it doesn't make sense - closer ties to Yahoo by Apple don't increase Google's market power.

Anti-trust issues could come up if Google discouraged Apple from working with Yahoo.
That kind of slicing might not be a good idea. People don't calculate value that well. Clay Shirky has interesting ideas on this:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/fame_vs_fortune.html

I think he has an overly narrow definition of micropayments though. Mandating $0.25 for an article isn't the only way to make a micropayment. RockBand, iTunes, MapleStory, etc. are all excellent examples of micropayment platforms working today.
We have talked about changing the currency of the donations. For example, if a site like Flickr or Tumblr had an Explore section where you could pay for placement, you could "gift" placement there. The currency is more eyes and ears for your content, though it might essentially be a $1 donation.
Sphinx is definitely easier to get going than Solr, but tends to be slower and doesn't scale as easily as Solr(Search on Lucene with Replication).

But these two are the best options, just depends on your needs/trade offs.
How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)
In my opinion, there should be a little live webcasting camera in every bullet and missile. When everybody can view every single bullet hitting every single victim in slow motion, I believe there will be greater distaste for war.

It would be quite a task to load balance the video database though.
For content with zero marginal cost that is easily pirated, the pledge model makes lots of sense. I'm certain we have a higher payment rate than iTunes has for music - IF you count those that pirate music. What was it? 2% of music on ipods is bought via iTunes?

We're going to be making mandating payment easier soon. Then we'll have a super powerful triple edged sword. Or something like that.
I would also challenge that notion and say that limited choice is why there has been a surge in Apple's popularity while Dell/HP struggle to keep their cards in order. I'd also reference the US automotive industry as another point of failure with too much choice. For success stories, look at the gaming industry and what closed-platforms (Xbox, PS3, Wii.) has done for it. While it still costs a lot of money, developers are not losing money on warez, or fighting the pains of QA across 1,000,000's of hardware configurations.

Apple is a consumers line of technology... and thanks to open-platforms in the 90s/00s, hardware is now practically a commodity. 90% of the smart phone buyers don't give a shit about choice... they just want the best.

Additionally, <puts on monkey suit> Developers! Developers! Developers! What I love about Apple is that a small team can launch a product (worldwide, 75 countries, 7 currencies) and not be burden by QA/hardware configurations. Not to mention, how many millions of customers already have their credit cards on file? Millions of devices. Millions of consumers.

As soon as the Android is available on 20 different configurations, indie developers will struggle and teams of 5-15 will be required to ship a product accessible by the entire Android market.
I should also point out that this campaign has done really well recently, raising thousands, and has a 92% payment rate:
http://pistachioconsulting.com/how-we-doing/
clearly he said hypocritical == irrational
Conversely, I generally don't read books on software design. I buy books on business, math, graduate level CS, occasionally programming languages (but then usually just to get something I can go through once and quickly) - but not software engineering. It just seems so ... well, put bluntly, the concepts covered in most of those books are pretty boring and part of the conventional wisdom of engineering culture.

The crowd that reads all of the software engineering books seems to be evenly split between good engineers and wankers.

I want to see a portfolio with real code behind it. I want to read your code. If I can't do that, you've probably not convinced me you're a good programmer, no matter how much you can talk the talk.
"I think it's important that he knows reasonable people consider that article anti-semitic."

I don't think anyone who is reading this places you in the category of reasonable people. For some reason you think it's okay to throw out accusations without justification. That is unreasonable.

The article is hacker news because it shows an example of waging a PR campaign via YouTube.
"Contributes to OpenBSD file system in spare time"

i'm curious about a windows shop using openbsd as an example for startup cto recruiting
Students "pass" their own class's chapter tests, partly due to teachers just passing them for the reasons previously explained, but also partly because they've been prepped and groomed specifically to pass the test.

So the chapter tests aren't standardized.

As I said, "standardized tests" and "race to the bottom" are incompatible.

Perhaps the current standardized tests are a poor measure of performance. On this matter, I can't comment without seeing the tests. From what you describe, they sound easy to game. If that is the case, then fix the tests.

I can't see any reason why standardized tests would be worse than non-standardized ones. Due to economies of scale (more data, you can hire a statistician to help, and test designers have time to work on i) and a decent selection process (don't put the worst teachers in charge of designing the test), I see compelling reasons why standardized tests would be better than the average individualized test.

Additionally, teachers do not have the ability to "race to the bottom". Perhaps the floor set by the tests is too low, but eliminating the floor entirely won't fix that.
Dear Joyent
Very interesting. A couple comments:

- Is there any credit enhancement? Mortgage bonds didn't take off in the US until Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac agreed to guarantee timely payment of principal and interest on MBS they issued. Private label MBS got around this via overcollateralization or senior/sub structures. But these structures provided insufficient credit enhancement, and have been shunned by investors -- private label MBS are extremely illiquid these days and trade around 40 or 50 cents on the dollar, while Fannie and Freddie MBS remain among the most liquid securities in the world and trade near par.

- Are there any facilities to combine the Danish bonds into a single instrument? In the US, a typical MBS is backed by anywhere from half a dozen to tens of thousands of mortgages. This makes them easy to trade for the large investors involved in the market. In the domestic MBS market, trades less than ~5mm are often punished for liquidity reasons -- you'll get a better price trading a ~50mm block. Liquidity would be tough if you can only trade pieces corresponding to a single mortgage.

- The US already has MBS that are as creditworthy as the government's own debt. Ginnie Mae MBS are explicitly backed by the full faith and credit of the government.

- It's a bit unrealistic to think that distressed homeowners could cheaply get out of their mortgage by purchasing the corresponding MBS for 40 cents on the dollar. The homeowners whose mortgages are in the most troubled bonds are subprime and alt-A borrowers who often are too credit impaired to refinance into an 80% LTV, 30-year fixed 5% prime mortgage. There's no way these guys could afford to buy back their mortgages. It's an interesting idea though.
He didn't say that criticism of Israel is anti-semitism. He just said 'No Politics. No anti-semitism.' I agree with him that HN should have no politics and no anti semitism or any racism for that matter. Don't you?
It has a very interesting way to avoid a future mortgage crisis. The issuer of a mortgage must create a derivative bond for that mortgage and must guarantee the payments on that bond. The issuer cant duck responsibility for the quality of the mortgage by bundling it in a derivative package. If the value of a bond falls, the homeowner can buy it back.

It would probably take some kind of packaging mechanism to work in a market the size of the US, but it is certainly an interesting idea.
Jason Scott: "A terrible thing happened recently. You might have missed it."
Does Spotify let you do anything with songs besides listen to them? Put them into mixes, perhaps? Integrate with the web?
Not as hypocritical as following this submission up with whining about "no politics".

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=417001
Probably early readers of the newest posts should be more quick to flag blog spam. A short blog entry is almost never the best source on any subject.
What caught my attention is that the original issuer of the bond is responsible for the payments on the bond. I think that would be an incentive to avoid junk mortgages because they will come back to haunt the original bank. OTOH the repeated bank crises over the past 30 years indicate that their view is too short sighted to care.
This isn't about politics or any kind of /(pro|anti)(israel|semitism)/. It's about technology, PR, and how the new media is disruptive to governments and society.

It absolutely belongs on HN.
Software development predictions for 2009
yeah, the secondary explosions in the video look exectly like an innocent track of Happy Birthday helium balloons
Cooliris is the only firefox extension that decided to INSTALL itself onto my start menu when I updated it and still hasn't regained its original support for Facebook.

I've uninstalled it.
Apple seems to have its own timeline and agenda. If I were a betting man, I'd wager Apple would rather take an open source project, fold it into a hardware offering and drive the software's direction. Each piece gets them closer to shifting focus.

I don't see how purchasing Yahoo! fits into this pattern. They are a large search company with a number of web apps. This is in diametric opposition Apple's strategy. Why would they all of a sudden make a splash in the search game by purchasing an expensive company?

If they were to do search, it seems to me they would purchase a digital ink company, a yellow pages company, make yellow digital ink and call it a revolution. And we would love them for it.
There is also movitz - a Common Lisp running on the metal - http://common-lisp.net/project/movitz/
As discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414225

Lets hope it takes off - pun intended.
Yeah, as are most of the features mentioned in the article.
One of the commentors at Kotte's mentions that you could sell boiled water as "de-sprited water", good for all menner of medical procedures.

Unfortunately, another commentor recognized that firewood would be difficult to access, and cow poo doesn't fire hot enough.
show him quicksilver
rgr,

You assert 'no politics' and also imply that anti-semitism is a type of racism. Some people think anti-semitism is different; that's a political issue. Therefore, according to pg, you are a hypocrite. And also irrational, if ivankirigin's interpretation is correct.

Welcome to the club :)
Why? There position might be silly, but what's wrong with the idea of the RIAA companies dying? I hope it happens.
I don't like it when I read a billboard article that showcases an executive who is proud of the pussycat dolls, and some rappers he's backing, and an article about Kate Perry. I guess "I kissed a girl" is catchy, might fit well in a party. But damn it, why doesn't Zooey Deschanel get any airtime? She's much cuter and I like her music better.
Well, "she's not mainstream enough". Perhaps, but I hope, and don't believe, that the population is as homogeneous the industry seems to think.
If the business model of the major labels fails then perhaps the new boss will be a more decentralized organization, where music is passed around based on social networks by people instead of pushed into the network by large companies who choose what is and isn't allowed to be popular, and perhaps artists can make more, since less money is going to keep the business structure up and distribution is cheap.
This seems like a great service, I'm glad someone implemented such a great idea. But, I still hope some of the major labels die.
...I wish it was available in the US.
Usually I consider TL;DR to be the sign of a dull-minded loser, but...

well, I can't say TL;DR. If it were more interesting, I would have read it to the end. TB;DR.
Digital Photo Frame $199 Virus Free | TechJaws
I was hoping this was all thru their web site and not a client install.

I no longer install apps onto my system as chat/voice available via gmail, lastfm/pandora(others) for music, hulu/joost for tv and play games various sites. This is just my personal preference and I hope this spotify offers a web based solution. Id download a FF plug-in.
Two chicks (Marle and Lucca) at the same time.
40 days later: The git interface sucks far less now than it did when I tried it the first time (before switching from monotone to mercurial), and digging into the new hg "bookmarks" feature made it clear why hg will probably never fully support git-style branches. FWIW.
In Defence Of The Dragon

The Dragon is a metaphor for hope and justice in a world where there is no hope and never will.

It is easy to disregard the Dragon if suffering is not a part of your daily life.
Why would firewood be difficult to find? I could be wrong, but I don't think the European deforestation had set in yet, at that time. Is the wood in most European forests not of sufficient quality?
Dispersed versus collocated: which one wins?
Seems to me the correct place to do micropayments, is ISPs. They already have a billing relationship with the customer.

It would be as easy as installing an iPhone app, but for the web. Come on ISPs, sort it out.
Balsamiq - A look back at 2008
If you want to stalk me, please also enjoy my blog. You can even find some political posts there!

http://curi.us/
The recent article on customer behavior is quite relevant. Can't quite remember which it was on here, but it was saying how "magic" free is.
Micropayments are just a massive hurdle for users. Most will fall at that hurdle if presented with it.
SAMSUNG F700 BLACK SMARTPHONE UNLOCKED (TOUCH SCREEN)
Samsung F700 Black announced a new addition to its Ultra portfolio with the introduction of Ultra Smart F700 mobile phone. first class entertainment with a top-of-the-line 5 mega-pixel camera with auto focus and Bluetooth. With 7.2 Mbps HSDPA.
Well, there are two parts to this. First of all, here (Phoenix) the market is very full of the "I program because it pays the bills" sort, and when we do a posting we review hundreds of candidates (either who directly contact us or are sent to us). Of those hundreds, I'll talk to probably 30 to 50. Of that 30 to 50, maybe 5 or 6 will come in for a face to face. The conversation around software is a great start and it saves me a TON of time when screening candidates by phone. Once there here we can talk code samples or details.

The second part is that it is inevitable that someone will eventually talk a good talk but be unable to actually walk the walk. That's when it's nice that we're in a right to work state. There's no point keeping someone on if they can't do the job you've hired them to do.

Of course, all that being said, this only works because we are a small shop, and the person doing the hiring is the same person who will work with "the new guy" from day one. This makes it loads easier than having to deal with hiring for someone else's department or even company.
You'd have a backup strategy in place for your source control system, right? Even if it's just tarring it and scp'ing it somewhere in a cron job.
There might be reasons for doing it other than making money. For instance, (1) making life more pleasant for yourself and (2) saving a whole lot of lives.

Perish the thought that anyone might think either of those more important than making money, of course...
I've got no problem with the C code, but the assembly is a little beyond me. Anyone know of a good x86 asm primer?
Agreed.

The same exact issue you cite is a major reason why I - as a usability professional - am always warning people against believing what Jakob Nielsen & others preach as a result of their usability studies.

I love the Overcoming Bias blog, so I was a little taken aback at how quickly they took this study at face value, & how nobody in the comments questioned the lack of connection between the main topic & the details, etc etc. That's not the kind of rigorous thinking I've come to expect from the blog dedicatd to dissecting biases!

FWIW, I wrote this blog post - but I sure as hell didn't expect to find it here on HN. It was simply the result of a moment of pique.
Web developer is top 1%! w00t!
What is the Demon-Haunted World about? I've always loved this essay, but I don't know anything else about Carl Sagan.
I wasn't suggesting that evolution thinks, I was suggesting that we've evolved to produce more males so that there's an optimum 50/50 balance of the number of males and females at around early adulthood. Considering some of the other things that evolution has achieved that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to suggest.

Your explanation of whether certain couples can only produce males or females was pretty interesting though, thanks.
I don't agree with your unstated assumption that "interesting details" must necessarily be off-topic.

Of course, I still have a little collection of quotes from my old Photographic Design professor, including, among others, "That's why it pays to know your guano" and "There are as many types of breast as there are types of women." Useless bugger.

But as a writer and a speaker, I am always trying to take the basic facts and make them more interesting, more palatable, & more immediate by spicing them up -- with diagrams, pictures, good metaphors, whatever. Done right, these are both on-topic and helpful.
It is an entirely other assertion that The Invisible Dragon alleviates suffering, beyond existing.

Let's imagine those who say there is a dragon living in their garage contend that the dragon is a required salve for the harms of living in a hostile world. Though I can not prove (though still approaching with an open mind) the physical existence of a dragon in anyone's garage, I can not argue against the proclaimed effect on those who find their suffering abated. That is, the effect is real if you say it is; the dragon is not.
You mean to say that the companies we want to love don't act altruistically (with billions of dollars) for the greater good of the entire internets!? Oh no, gabrielroth, please say it ain't so.

I agree with you completely. If only people would be better at splitting these types of ideas into their respective categories of "hopeless fantasy" and "business decision that might make sense."
Thanks for your feedback. I should have used a direct link, but Scribd made it easy to see stats and allow comments, so I caved..

The letters next to activities on the timeline match up with the places on the map. To avoid clutter I made the assumption that no letter = Canada. However, your comment makes it clear that perhaps this all should be more explicit, or done differently. Will have to work on it.

Re: shades of grey -- what for?
More detailed description of the model here: http://www.realkreditraadet.dk/Mortgage_financing/The_Danish...
What's the difference between installing software and installing a firefox plugin?
I think that's fair, really. The University is like your angel investor. It helps you fine-tune the idea by giving you labs. It helps you get the patent. And they get a cut so they can support similar people in the future.
needs favicon
Funny, I've been daydreaming a lot recently about scenarios such as this. At first I thought it might be a sign of mental illness, but everyone had so much fun thinking up answers I'm pretty sure it's everyone else that is crazy :)
Edit-count gaming has to be a major component of this. Status on Wikipedia (whether you're given sysop/admin privileges, which include blocking users who annoy you, etc.) is roughly proportional to one's edit count, so people who are trying to raise their 
avatars
 user accounts to 
level 60
 higher social status and privileges tend to generate large numbers of low-content edits.
Looks interesting. Unfortunately, I can only view the thumbnail of the timeline (I get a server error when I click it).

The example he gives is 3 pages long. Maybe that's ordinary for a technical resume? I really wanted to keep mine a one-pager, and that meant displaying the timeline, map, and a variation on the traditional form, all on the same page.

Still, looks like an interesting project.
True enough. You could only really use something like this if you knew that a human being was going to see it.
Need a new hosting solution though, youtube is not playing fair:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7n4re/graphic_vide...
(Nearly) all spending by the gov't comes right back to (someone's) pockets so in the aggregate it's only a loss of the frictional losses to run the bureaucracy not the entire revenue base.

Granted there are valid concerns about how the money is spent but you can't just take the dollar amount of revenue from the tax and say that's too high a price. It's much more complicated, sadly.

Also, what cost? What numbers?
Rules of the garage
The Macroeconomics of Information and Attention: How People Make Decisions