skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm an avid scouter (currently an assistant scoutmaster for a troop in Arizona) and I'd been trying to think of some iteration of "Hacker scouts" that would make sense. I think this is a great -launch the simplest thing that works and iterate- way to go about it.

It would be interesting to have levels of badges so level one is getting a commit, level three might be hit X downloads or something like that.

Also, I'm going to go try to propose "Make asteroids in scratch" as badge number two.
second hand info: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=404872

I see someone corrected that post too
> headlines are by definition linkbait

pg would prefer that not to be the case, and actually frequently edits headlines to "blunt" them.
Here's one that shows the quick evacuation of passengers onto the wing then how long it took for boat to reach them. You have to forward some thru vid to see.

http://snackfeed.com/videos/detail/84bdb03e-3621-102c-a525-0...
Olympics?
Really? All the sysadmins I've met worked their asses off all the time. Firefighting with too much on the plate & too little time & resources to make it all happen.

The worst is usually the same people get the calls about the primary app server being down as someone's windows box having too many popups.
"A commodity can only compete on location and price, and location doesn't really get you much on the Internet."

I don't know why the author thinks PHP coding is somehow different from every other kind of programming, and that there aren't huge differences between programmers (we're talking orders of magnitude) as far as speed of output and code quality go.
Simply brilliant. Really shows how tight focus on goals, some planning, and positive attitude can be very productive.
There is no such thing as race
I don't understand this article. I think it wouldn't have gotten as much interest without the meta-hacker news aspect, and I'd much rather see less of that stuff than less about PHP.

The thing thats most wrong with this article is the author understands exactly what the other authors meant. I don't think they were attaching any more meaning to word 'won' than having the most users. Something this author doesn't dispute. Communication was successful, if you need to add extra information about why you think PHP sucks then go ahead. It's not in conflict with those other articles.

I doubt anyone's idea of won is: earns contract programmers more money. Even here though the author contradicts himself in two ways: he says that PHP was more popular because you didn't need headers, and that this meant the "difference between driving a Honda and piloting a yacht". Then he claims that PHP had no language advantages and earns you less money.

There is a lesson in there for language designers - keep making those simple but common tasks easier, every little bit can make huge difference if its multiplied by an economic shift.
http://news.ycombinator.com/topcolors
Ask HN: Best way to create and send snail mail via an API?
I'm working on a web app that is going to need to create and send mail via the USPS to various businesses and government agencies. I really, really want to outsource this part of the process. Anyone have any vendor ideas or suggestions?
How do you post polls?

I'm in like...the top 250...I should be able to.
Well, honestly, there is a lot of revenue out there if you are willing to hustle for it. Some of the most difficult work with open sourcing (and just developing) a platform like android was the media codecs and opencore stuff. It's why companies like packetvideo and the like are so successful. It's a hard nut to work on, so those that can are valued.
I use some of these. However these kinds of lists remind me of the old Philip Greenspun quote (paraphrased) about how programmers take a bunch of stuff, disappear into the server room to integrate them, and 2 years later come out to ask for more money.

I like deep knowledge of a few powerful tools myself.
Giles seems to be operating on the assumption that you can't charge a reasonable amount for PHP work. Does this imply that he views himself as a commodity programmer? That if he were to be doing PHP work he'd be doing it at the same caliber of an outsourced shop in India?

Of course if this Giles character knew anything about economics he would also know that complementary products have complementary demand curves. So, the more PHP applications out there means there's more demand for PHP programmers.
Very nice jobs can be found on elance if you're willing to look a little bit. When I had no reputation, I would bid on the best-value projects (e.g., $500 for an hour's work) with something like:

"Since I have no elance reputation, I am willing to work for free and receive payment after the work is completed and satisfactory."

I never got ripped off, but even if I had, so what? Most elance jobs (the ones I've done) are fixed fee, and the buyer doesn't have to know how many hours (or minutes) I spend. ;-)
Patterrific.com
Exactly. I upvote if I think it's interesting, even if I also think it's wrong.
The Healthiest Foods for Under $1
I think it's plausible that Jim Davis was on vacation that week, and somebody with some talent filled in. Then he came back unfortunately.
My dad retired but is a night-time security guard in a calm midwestern town. He basically reads all night without interruption. Payment for doing what you'd be doing leisurely anyway. :)
They have three things:

Those surfaces as you call them. Thrust reversers (basically fins that push over the end of the jet and redirect the thrust forward), and the brakes on the wheels.

All planes must (by FAA regs), be able to land without using the thrust reversers (using the brakes instead), but thrust reversers are what's used in normal cases (since it saves wear on the brakes).
Unfortunately, Davis went back to writing the same old shit after that story arc.
My question would be: why the secrecy? HN worried that transparency about the processes of ratings & their "rewards" (which (plus + $5.00) will buy you a cappuccino) would lead to abuse of the system?
I think openness system would allow for HN viewers to discuss the value of different site-karma processes -- enabling the site designers (and all of us) to benefit more from the community's collective genius and experience (on this issue the way it does on others).
It's an interesting product, but personally (unless I misunderstood what I read) I'd rather have something that dealt with scaling on ec2 dynamically with multiple instances at a time and not just one ec2 instance with base config.

given my experience with slicehost, basic sysadmin isn't hard to learn; not to mention if you're using rails there's the deprec2 gem that can do most of baseline sysadmin tasks (if not all of it for you)

I agree with another post; something like heroku (with extras) is more desirable or a more economical rightscale

bottomline: not cheap enough given the alternatives, and it doesn't really give customers the main benefit of ec2 (compared to existing alternatives)
Ask HN: Site for new businesses to build business
I think one of the differences between a startup and a small business is that a startup focuses on a single project whereas a small business does more client/customer work until it can grow larger.

There are a tremendous number of resources out there for startups, but I'm having a hard time finding ones for small businesses, especially to attract new business.

I'm starting a small business with just money I've saved and finding work can be difficult. There's the Craigslist approach, which generally doesn't turn up much as other businesses don't want to pay much for services, and the getacoder/elance/guru sites just seem to be full of non-serious/spam type posts.

Would it make sense to develop a site where small businesses can register and say, "Hey, I'm available to do high quality work (generally tech/web/software related)" and other businesses in the area who need work done and are serious about paying for it could easily find another company to partner with. To keep the site legitimate and the spammers out, each business would be charged a decent fee (say, $250 a year) in order to post their information.

I was somewhat inspired by Joel's "we made an extra million by putting ads on my blog" post. Is there a website out there already serving this need, and if not, do you think it would make sense to develop one?
This reminds be of the great Garfield minus Garfield (The standard strip, but with Garfield removed):
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

It's actually brilliant - Apparently J. Davis loves + approves of it too - says it bought a whole new perspective to his work.
If anyone is interested in trying something like this themselves, I recommend checking out:

http://pyweek.org

http://ludumdare.com/

PyWeek is a week long game programming competition for Python developers, and Ludum Dare is all about 48 hour mostly from scratch video game development. Both are just for fun, but the competitive setup makes for good motivation to accomplish something in a short amount of time. It's lots of fun.
It is super important that you find something you are passionate about. Don't pick a field because it'll make you good money.

Make life an amazing journey for yourself and give yourself permission to jump into something with both feet and experience it fully, without the worry of "did I pick the right one".
The difficult part of making a site like that is getting customers: Actually programming the site is quickly done.

The reason Joel's jobsite works is because they already have a lot of smart people coming to the site, and can push them on to the job section.

So in answer to your question: Yes, if it isn't out there (and since you've looked and haven't found anything it seems like a good presumption) it's a good idea. But don't kid yourself - marketing the site is at least 2/3 of the effort. And if your original problem is that it's hard to find customers this may not be what you want.
You need to clarify what is being mailed. Is it teddy bears or form letters?

Have you considered finding some "mom power" via Craigslist and hiring them for an hour a day?
I have the same doubts as you.

My current plan is:
1 Find an industry with a ROOT problem that hasn't been solved.
2 Solve the problem.
3 Implement the solution in software form.
4 Sell the Solution, packaged in sw.
5 Profit.

I'm still trying to find step 1
An exception may not necessarily be an exceptional condition - e.g. Cannot parse integer, cannot open file might legitimately occur in code. In my APIs I usually try and make a very strong distinction between Exceptions and "Alternate Paths".

The thing is, many languages and APIs use the same mechanism for both - or at most offer checked and unchecked varieties.

For me, there is a big difference between an exception that the client can and can't remediate - e.g. "file not found" as opposed to "database down".
But it always hot where you've got a T1 ...

But then the sunshine is sweeter along our Front Range.
[ Colorado ]
Two Interactions With Amazon
If he was hacking ExtJS like he mentions in the article, it makes perfect sense. ExtJS forces you to have a good IDE. It has some of the most troubling code styles I've ever seen. (It is deeply nested Javascript.)
Thanks! I wanted this so many times earlier. Never figured how to post a poll.

This should have been exposed from the submit link.
I would expect that the median lifetime earnings of a Rhodes Scholar to be higher than that of an NFL player.

Perhaps there is more to it than just the money dimension though?
Big textbook publishers have a lot of pull in the education industry. They can spread the adoption of resources (including iPhone apps I'm sure) much faster than small, indie players who don't have the connections.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's an uphill battle in some cases.
I met Jyri while volunteering at a tech conference last year. He is one of the most genuine and compassionate people that I have met in my journey to become a successful entrepreneur. I wish him the best of luck, and I know he's doing great things at Google.

And as for Jaiku. I think this is the perfect example of why Google is f-ing awesome. They're giving away code that basically details how to build an incredibly elaborate project for free. This knowledge can help thousands of programmers get started programming and that's really just ultimately better for all of us.

Kudos Jyri and Google. Kudos.
Reminds me of a much dark, and wittier, comic (imo): http://pbfcomics.com.
Company wants to buy software but with two-way disclaimer
So, this raises a few questions for me:

1. Your dismissal of eLance, getacoder, guru, etc. seems questionable, at best. "non-serious/spam" type posts, I imagine, must be a problem for any site of this sort. I'm not sure I see how you could prevent it better than they do. And, I'll mention that I've used rent-a-coder, eLance, and 99designs for work in the past, as a buyer. All of them worked, by some definition of "work". But, what you're describing is...different. It sounds like I can't list my projects, I can't get bids, and I have to do my projects the old fashioned way--find someone via an ad, contact them, beg them to get back to me with a quote for services, etc. I'm not saying there aren't times when I prefer the old-fashioned way (when I need programming done well, for example, it's simply not possible via the outsourcing sites I've tried), but the reason these sites do well is because it's possible to get quotes from a half dozen providers in a day, and have the project underway in two.

2. What do you believe will draw buyers to your site, as opposed to the many, many work for hire sites out there? Without the buyers, you won't find any providers willing to pay you a dime, much less $250/year. Why wouldn't they use craigslist, if they want to find a specific talent? It's either free or $75 to place a want ad on craigs (depending on the market), and you can know that thousands of people will see you ad. Without lots of eyeballs, Joel's post is nonsensical. He happened to have a large readership that fit exactly the profile of employers looking for tech employees.

3. $250/year for effectively an online listing service? Are you out of your damned mind? Again, you'd better have a hugely popular website if you want to pull this off.

So, maybe I'm just not grasping the value add you are offering here for buyers or sellers of services. I'm not saying it's a bad idea...just that I can't think of when I would use such a service (and it sounds kinda like I'm your target demographic: business owner, hires technical talent regularly, and in the past I have been technical talent looking to get hired).
Why only the iPhone is mentioned? What about Rim, Android and even MS? Nokia actually added a category in their latest challenge for e-learning system they should be included too...

I was involved in such an attempt to break that market and it wasn't easy. Its like the social mobile applications. everyone are saying that its a billion dollar market but no one got a clue how to generate good cash out of it.
right, i'll go ahead and remove digg and reddit from my /etc/hosts blackhole then
HN has had plenty of political posts in the past without complaint regarding issues such as privacy and net-neutrality.
Earplugs are great for some sounds... but a subwoofer rumble (esp. in old multistory buildings) is almost felt more than heard. Then, the fact the earplugs are blocking all other frequencies can make the rumble even more noticeable.
It does require a separate download of about 3 MB.

Here's one of the Unity demos: http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/tropical-paradise

Here's a game I made (it's a bit slow due to last-minute physics overkill):
http://www.tojam.ca/games_2008/office_smash.asp
This should have been exposed from the submit link.

I believe this is a not so subtle way to discourage gratuitous use of polls. I, for one, think that having it be an invisible feature is a great win for human decency--the knowledge that it is there prevents people from "vote up if" posts, but having it hidden doesn't remind people constantly that they can run polls to their heart's content. Since polls are almost universally free of useful content, but people still love to create them, this is, perhaps, the best that can be done.
In general, tools are important. No good craftsman should put up with a bad tool. I've seen the amount of money that companies are willing to pay for tools for hardware designers and chip designers, and seen them still turn around and quibble about a few hundred bucks for a proper editor or IDE for the software developers who're going to make that piece of hardware or chip work. Pretty unbelievable.
So does Amazon...
Salary is not the only criterion - what if I mostly care about getting things done, not about becoming employed? (Not that I would choose PHP anyway, but still).

I am also not convinced that PHP just got lucky with the timing and that therefore there are no language design lessons to be learned. Perhaps if you get a noob into programming, they would still have an easier time with PHP than with more modern MVC based frameworks, because it is more straightforward. You still just write SQL directly in the code - it is messy, but easier to grasp than having to work through all sorts of layers of abstraction.

Maybe there IS a language lesson there - although I sure hope PHP is not the final answer...
Not sure why, but really quite liked browsing this.

Sort of reminds me of a Wallpaper collection that I saw at the V&A Design Museum in London - sounds pretty boring, but turned out to be fascinating.
In leftnode's defense, getacoder/rentacoder are filthy with ridiculous requests to "clone wildly popular X for tiny sum of money" with a dozen bids from outsourced shops.
There's an easier way: http://colorpicker.com/
You are right.

Also, this website needs more lifestyle, social and political topics.

Vote this up if you want to rename it Designer News.
What makes HN valuable (to me at least) is a higher-grade pool of tech-savvy commenters - folks who'll bring new perspectives to a problem/issue being discussed.
...and not filling up the pages with "comments" like
>>Awesome post!
YouTube is morphing into a popular search engine and a new entry point into the Web.
The Etymotic's just don't have the range that Shures do. With the Shures, it's a little jarring to hear that sort of bass without simultaneously feeling it in your gut, the way you would from a speaker. It's that great.
In the spirit of accountability and openness, please add a "history" link next to headlines or posts which have been edited. Version control is a good idea for source code, so why not for discourse?
That is a great idea. I'd try to get the negatives from some source other than Turk though, so they couldn't be found by someone searching for info about the positives.
If true: very interesting...

Vote for my new version control suggestion :-)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439050
PogoPlug - create your own cloud space
I come here mostly for the discussion. It's honestly quite rare that the actual link is that interesting to me.

I've been finding exactly the same thing, actually. Usually when I upvote it's because the discussion is interesting, rather than the article.

I don't really have a problem with that though; reddit et al can provide links in topics of immediate interest, but the community still differentiates HN IMO.
Nope. There's lots of places for designer news. I visit them for that.
If you raise "designer issues" that have broad appeal to the somewhat geekier HN audience, they'll get addressed here - and probably with more explanation of arcane underlying issues... which is what I appreciate here.
Or maybe make viewing it optional?
I really appreciate the cleanness of the pages under the current system.
Is he? If he had to do that 100 times, how many times would he succeed? What would be the average across all pilots for that type? What would be the variance?

I'm happy he succeeded, this time, but I can't resist nitpicking the flaw in your argument. Can you tell I'm reading Fooled by Randomness?
This is really good to know - one tends to brush over the little accomplishments in life.

With regard to the 7 day RPG article, I want to add that participating in the 48h game programming competition was an extreme amount of fun. I thought that it didn't exist anymore, but just found that there was another one in December: http://www.ludumdare.com/
I wouldn't even know where to start with the grenade, so actually the grenade would impress me more. The RPG would still be more worthwhile.
Where did you hear that?

Amazon Web Services does not ban BitTorrent or IRC. They actually support BT as an official delivery method from S3.

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonS3/2006-03-01/index....
Um. It's easier to go slow when you have no thrust.
That tenor, the idea of it, the very thought, comes with little, almost no practice whatsoever. You, the reader, are astute in making this observation, however English Lit. is more than a tenor, it is a soprano of the highest order!

(English lit. encourages students to write essays that include unnecessary words or phrases. Bullshitting is a fine art apparently)
Dude's post was standard-issue comical purist bitching if you ask me. Sure, there's some value to be had by specialization, but taken to the logical conclusion dude's premise reduces to "step 1, learn fortran. step 3, make one million dollars.". Simply put, any language-specific grousing is either an expression of monkey-see-monkey-do false zealotry, or just plain wanking. The real question with any tool is, does it get the job done and from where I'm sitting PHP appears to be getting the job done for a lot of people.
More accurate title: "Race is a psychological phenomenon"
And of course that means that silly, knee-jerk reactions to it prevail in human culture ...as well as silly concepts such as "one-drop" (as in: of blood) - wherein Obama gets called African-American rather than Afri-Euro American.
20 karma – downvote comments.

200 karma – make polls (http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll).

250 karma – customize the top bar background color.

??? karma – flag posts and comments (on their individual page).
I upvote if I think the discussion is or might get interesting, even if the link isn't. And this isn't meant as a criticism, but boolean judgments in general don't seem to carry much data; when I read a submission, and I don't think I'm alone, I update a (lazily loaded) mental hash table with any new information on a particular key (or, less often, I add a new one). For efficiency I periodically cache this in hardware by reconfiguring neurons.
Or feed it to livestock. IIRC the vast majority of antibiotics go into livestock, not humans or household products.
Flagging is much lower; somewhere in the 100s.
Global Game Jam - Jan. 30 (48h game programming)
There are certainly records of individuals who won at the Olympic Games, but as far as I know no descriptions of what happened. I believe the most famous athlete in the ancient world was the wrestler Milo. There are a lot of stories about him, at least some of which are contemporary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_of_Croton
Spot on! Except for the hint of hacker news disdain.
Joshua Schachter might be a useful example. He built Delicious while working on Wall Street. One of his most useful tricks was to build something every day, however small. I suspect that keeps your brain working in much the same way that running every day keeps your metabolism high.
what specifically was fascinating about it?
Just thought today in bed that with software development, one can never completely lose. Even when unemployed, you can still build stuff, and eventually perhaps even sell it. On the other hand, I am not sure how to pass time as an unemployed stock broker, for example? One could write a book about investing, but after a while, that could become boring.

So I think for starters it might be a good idea to pick the profession where the skills you acquire enable you to create stuff...
Can CNN, the Go-to Site, Get You to Stay?