skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Self-link: http://www.slideshare.net/dawdledotcom/actually-useful-trust...

I give this presentation pretty often and am happy to get into the details with you depending on your needs.

EDIT: Jesus, I didn't realize the notes didn't make it to SlideShare. The point is that it's best to gather all the data you can, then tweak how you do it. The more obscure your public-facing metric, the more flexibility you have to adapt it as time changes.

Here's a great intro guide from Yahoo: http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/parent.php?pattern=repu...
That one rendering engine is fully open source this time around. Makes somewhat of a difference.
I think a well timed & placed swear word adds some zing. As long as you're posts and titles aren't filled with them, you should be fine.
Consumers aren't great with choices, but that isn't Apple's greatest win. Apple's greatest win is that it only sells the high margin stuff. They won't play in the cut-throat market of low-speed processors or those free phones. They go after margins that are much greater than their competitors. They leave in what most people find most important and say, "go somewhere else" to anyone that doesn't like that. Want FM radio in that iPod? Well, almost no one else does so find a different product or get an add-on.

This isn't pro or con Apple. It's just who they are. They go for what's profitable and what most people would like. They don't want to be the biggest, they want to be the best.
R2-D2 robots with frikkin lasers on them in development
The browser is the Operating System
Also, there are a lot of other variables -- what percentage of those injuries occur among people who tend to ride recklessly (probably-homeless people weaving beater bikes against the flow of traffic, really crazy bike messengers, etc.) vs. people who tend to ride with the flow of traffic, effectively communicate their intention to drivers, etc.?

It's like if car crash injury/fatality statistics failed to distinguish between licensed & trained drivers and those who have no / suspended licenses, etc. (It wouldn't hurt if education on how to bike safely in cities were more common in the US, either.)

Also, living somewhere with a lot of cyclists (such as Amsterdam) means that people are more likely to learn how to cycle safely from other cyclists, and that drivers are more likely to understand how to share the road with them. There's a major network effect.
Isn't that what Train Driven Development means?
Yes, it's happened to me with nightly WebKit builds and I figured out exactly how to replicate it.

* Visit homepage
* Click on some story link
* Hit the back button to go back to the homepage
* Try to vote up the link

It consistently happened any time I tried to vote after hitting the back button. The solution was to always refresh the page after hitting the back button. However, a recent nightly upgrade fixed the problem for me. Are you running the latest WebKit?
Some of us prefer to separate the things we say in our leisure time from the things we do at work.

It's trivial to find out who I am, but I know there are more than a few people here who prefer to have a separate "news.yc identity".
Keeping the product line simple isn't the only reason they have succeeded. They have made more good products in the last ten years than they have made bad products. They have failed miserably in quite a few segments like Apple TV.

Yes, making choices for your consumer helps but not if you make crappy products.
Twitter is not public infrastructure
You need a tagline that explains what the site is and differentiates in from competitors. I would also nix the advertising. For a new site with little traffic it won't make you much money and undermines your brand. I think you'll also find most of your revenue comes from affiliate commissions related to the products you feature. Send your traffic away via ads will probably reduce your revenue.

I would also remove all the bookmark buttons under the items. Those sites aren't really reception to the type of content you have for the most part and power users are quite capable of submitting on their own.

That said I really like the layout and think it's a great idea for a site. If you put effort in more editorial blog style content surrounding the products, you could generate quite a following.
Engineers develop world’s smallest fuel cell
I wish there was a way to see WHO did the up and down voting, personally. I bet there would be far less piling on if everyone could see.
I remember that for some time, Apple had an iPod at nearly every $50 increment. That's a diverse product line that understands the consumer.

Good point about consumers hating choices despite saying that they love them. Consumers like it when you have what they want, bu they don't want to go through too many options to find it.
Likewise, I also want both the system and other users to be able to implicitly and explicitly recognize those users that should be trusted, based on the value of the content they have submitted.

I don't know what the subject matter of your site will be, but if this is your goal it will be very important to seed the initial membership of your site with persons who are known, on independent grounds, to have strong subject matter knowledge. I presume there will be back-and-forth among participants so that if one person says "Freedom is slavery," another person can disagree and say, "Actually, freedom is not slavery." But presumably your site will be intended to benefit visitors who really can't tell the difference about much more detailed and debatable issues.

I'll give an example. There is a site about college admission anxieties, College Confidential,

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/

in which many participants make factual claims about how to reverse-engineer the college admission process. One common way for people to attempt to gain credibility on that site is to insinuate that they used to be admission officers at some highly selective college. Because the site is "confidential," that is its users use screen names rather than real names, it is often very difficult to verify such claims. It has not escaped my notice that users with chutzpah and a refusal to acknowledge push-back from other users can often be believed by onlookers even when making quite incredible and unverifiable statements. If you think this would be a problem on your site, you might want to think about how to designate verifiably more accurate and honest users in some way that is visible to all visitors.

In general, I think the initial seeding of the membership of an online community is very important. That is one thing that HN conspicuously got right.
I do completely understand why an employer would own the employee's work if it is related to the job and was completed using the employer's equipment... but it still worries me, as a developer, and as a consumer.

I figure the public has an interest in promoting as much innovation as possible. This means that we want employers to be able to hire employees to work on innovative projects, but we don't want to discourage employees from working on projects on their own either. So if this relationship gets out of balance, we could end up stifling innovation from one side of the relationship.

Think of it this way... suppose I'm a house flipper. I mainly do this on my own time, but I do search the web for properties, email friends about investment opportunities, and call mortgage brokers while I'm at work. It's not a huge time sink, probably no worse than the random goofing off or reading hacker news that goes on at work.

I doubt a court would allow my employer to "own" my profits from flipping houses.

Now say I have a side programming project. I mainly do this at home on my computer, but occasionally I think about it at work, and I have fixed bugs, sketched out an algorithm, or tested the site at work, and I did write a bit of code on my work supplied computer.

In this case, I suspect the courts (IANAL, of course!) would award ownership to my employer, even if the project is unrelated to my work tasks.

So basically, the law does encourage programmers to start side businesses in areas unrelated to technology... but don't we want programmers to innovate in their field of expertise? Personally, I'd much rather see programmers writing innovative applications than flipping houses.

I don't have an easy answer for it, because like I said earlier, I also do see a clear need to provide IP ownership for investors employers who are paying employees to innovate. But I'd draw this line more narrowly - no big surprise, since I am a programmer "employee" myself, and these rules would favor me.
That's a good point. I was originally thinking more along the lines of a flat user model (e.g. any social news site), in which everyone contributes to the whole, rather than a relationship/network-based model, in which certain users interact with other users, but not necessarily the whole (e.g. Facebook, Myspace).
Feedsqueezer the Upcoming Alternative to FeedBurner
I wasn't quite sure what the site was about when I first landed there. Maybe some explanation about the site and a byline would help. Something like "everything that girls like". I just found that quote on the about page. If it was on the homepage it would help. Though the pink F favicon is a good indicator.
Well, companies can upgrade well before they hit 50 users. You get extra space, no ads and premium support.
This surprised me too, but apparently Apple TV's sales are up 3x over last year:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/21/apple_tv_sales...
Am I the only one who's read the original issue as not the problem with extracurricular activities per say, but the fact that the employee now wants to sell one of those apps?

The employer said:

One of my employees is always working in small applications for his family or just for the fun of it. Now he wants to start selling one of those applications.

... and

I think that anyone can do what he wishes with his own time. But obviously, there are a lot of issues involved.

The way I read it, he's known about the side projects for a while and never had a problem with them. He is having second thoughts only because he's learned that the coder wants to make money off one of those projects...

I think that what's really happening here is the employer having a personal bias of the money-is-dirty variety. Obviously, anyone is welcome to whatever moral attitudes they like, but to force them onto your employees is completely inappropriate.
always a good sign.

My suggestion is to go for it - whats the worst that could happen?
Oh man, I was thinking the same thing. Mine was going to be something along the lines of 'phptopython', where I could half document, half make a site about converting php code to python, or how to do similar things. I wanted it because I found it didn't exist when I was trying to learn Python. I figured if I knew what it was in php, it'd be easier to work on.

Then, like yours, I figured a wiki would be good, and have each page dedicated to a code snippet, whether it is "using trim" or "finding the square root of a number".

Haven't got around to it though
It was interesting when I saw if for the first time. How is this Hacker News (serious question)? I'm trying to understand what's supposed to be on- and off-topic, so I can flag/post accordingly.
> Presently the [9mm^3] cell generates 0.7 volts and a current of 0.1 milliamps for about 30 hours.

So the energy density there is 1.1e10 J/m^3... how does that compare to the best batteries?
- the ability to ignore certain hostnames
- option to follow submissions + comments of certain people on one page ala friendfeed
- gmail label type customization to follow certain people
Cool idea. There's already a similar site for PHP->Rails - http://railsforphp.com/ - would be great to have something that works for multiple languages.

My $0.02: Allow user annotation (ie, comments). Back when PHP was new, user comments on the function pages were very helpful for figuring out how to do stuff, what to avoid, known bugs etc. I often miss it when working with other languages.
well, not much you can do about that...
"plead self-defense" to whom? To the govt that you didn't grease correctly? To the govt in your home country that thinks that bribing other govts is wrong?

Note that "self-defense" typically is to prevent grave bodily harm or death and is usually reserved for immediate threats. Not being able to build houses for some poor wretch who will probably live at least a few weeks without the house doesn't qualify.
No, I'd say it's still pretty obvious. Without knowing what percentage of accidents are from car strikes, the latter may not matter. From what I've read, in most city conditions, you're far more likely to get hit by someone opening their door, or bump into something when avoiding people or slow moving cars. In both cases a helmet is pretty helpful.

Maybe someone should design a helmet that looks like it's not a helmet somehow. Maybe it's disguised as a beehive hairdo.
Seagate starts releasing new firmware updates
Including the 35,000 people from circuit city is a pretty far stretch.
Weather also counts. I don't think Amsterdam ever gets quite as warm as San Francisco, where I wouldn't want to be caught riding a bike on a warm day in a suit.

When I was in Seattle, though, plenty of people biked to work. Yeah, we didn't have bikes all over the streets, but it was a refreshingly good start.
Scientists solve `The Italian Job' cliffhanger
“Physicalized” servers may offer virtualization alternative
Right. That's why I'm opposed to helmet laws. Any noggin' not intelligent enough to protect itself is better off exposed.
There's a viral video in the making.
Hmm... Okay... So your logic for not wearing a helmet is as such:

- It helps in low-speed falls and accidents.
- It may or may not help in high-speed accidents, but doesn't hurt.

Remind me again why I wouldn't wear one? I've seen/heard of plenty of cyclists who get into trouble, and few have been hit by a car going full-speed. Most bike accidents that I've seen are relatively low-speed.
It's not really code related, but it's maybe interesting for those who spend 3/4 of the day in front of a PC as an idea to do some exercise. It's my transport method to go back home from work and it keeps me from getting rusy now that I don't have time for the gym.

Mens sana in corpore sano :)
> I've lived in New Zealand most of my life, but I'm a U.S. citizen, so I don't think work permits will be an issue.

The US doesn't have work permits for its citizens.

Do other countries have work permits for their citizens? On what grounds are they denied? If they're not denied, what's the intent? What's the effect?
Flight Gear is a pretty nice simulator that's released under the GPL:

http://www.flightgear.org/
I have a similar problem which a website I'm building. Right now I'm having the users keep the data in their accounts until they submit it to be public. They are awarded points for good data which unfortunately needs to be human reviewed.
This page has a ton of stats: http://www.bhsi.org/stats.htm
> I'm sick of time machine and cancer cures being patented.

Why do you care? (The patent office is profitable.)
Palm reponds to Apple iPhone patent warnings
How is removing dirt, that is capable of sustaining life in its present form, and using resources to package it, using fuels to potentially ship it, and displacing it to probably a landfill (people will probably throw them out once the novelty wears off) green by any stretch of the imagination? Also using corn (which can be either food or fuel) and tying it up with a gag gift isn't very green.
No, the logic is that it helps in low-speed falls and accidents, but it makes drivers more likely to hit you and doesn't really help much if do. So maybe it's better to wear a helmet--I'm have to look at the data more. But it doesn't seem obvious what the answer is. Here's a statistic:

700 bicyclists died on US roads in 2007. Over 90 percent died in crashes with motor vehicles.

http://www.bhsi.org/stats.htm
How big of an effort is human review in your app? I was considering this option well, but it obviously doesn't scale.
Yeah, but it got to the point where I no longer can tell what his goals are for Arc. For a while I thought he was working on the 'hundred year language' dream, but if that is still the goal I'll argue that at the moment Clojure is more of a step in the right direction than Arc.
That tea pot is so bomb, me want =)
Ahh, ok, it takes N * log N to do the selection, but it's only O(l) for the length of the set partition each time. I was thinking it's the same n each cycle vs the same n at each depth. Err, nm it's hard to put into words.

PS: It still doubles the time but that's not important in O notation.
Craigslist is a crapshoot. As are most other online gig-engines (elance, odesk, etc). Granted, I have very little experience with them, but just browsing them reveals poor leads, poor pay, and you're generally competing with guys in eastern Europe and India who are going to eat your lunch with low rates.

The alternative is setting up locally. All decent-sized cities have networking opportunities, things like "Business Networking International" where it's highly structured towards referrals (and while useful, sort of MLM-ish), or things like Open Coffee or Geek Breakfast. Also there are usually user groups in your preferred industry or programming language (PHP, Python, etc). Get out there. One of the biggest mistakes I see newbie freelancers/contractors make is that they expect jobs to come to them. If you troll the internet for leads you're also competing against a bunch of other yahoos who are sitting in their pajamas. Your leads will be fewer, and of a lower quality. Get out there, shake some hands, show your face, and hopefully when people think, "Hey, I need a [X]" they will think of you. If you get out there, you never know what will generate business. I had one fifteen minute conversation with a guy and he has been directly responsible at least a quarter of my business for 2008 via referrals.

Obviously referrals from existing happy clients are paramount. Whenever I complete a project, I always mention that the best sort of compliment is a referral. If they're happy with you, they won't mind giving your name if they know that you can do the job.

I don't blog much. I do use twitter, but found it to only be marginally useful in generating business. It is somewhat good at staying in touch with past clients. LinkedIn is mostly a rolodex, good for little else than getting spam from recruiters.
Javascript that auto-fills captchas
Well, I bet you're right that the former type of accident is more common, but the latter is almost certainly more dangerous when it happens. I do agree that helmets that don't look like helmets would be ideal.
"long delay before hitting the arrow (like where I had opened a new tab and gotten to it later)"

Seems to fit with explanation from maryrosecook above, I'm often logged out.
> There should also be a requirement of legibility, so that people unskilled in patent law can replicate the invention.

There is. Since you feel that the results are inadequate, you need to explain what a good requirement consists of. You don't get to talk about the benefits of having a good requirement or the output of a good requirement - it's all about implementation.
No, I doubt this could ever be a real business. Even if it catches on, you'd have to sell millions of these dirt packets to ever make any money. There was a thread on HN about a condom key chain business that failed for this reason. Even though they sold thousands of them, it doesn't add up to much when you only make a few pennies per unit.
Thanks, very useful links. Would you be able to provide the notes that go along with your presentation?
Mashable will truly cover anything.
It could easily have been either, but I think they knew they had a weak archive strategy, they just didn't do anything about it because it wasn't a priority to save those emails.
IPhone and Blackberry battle heats up
Is EA Sims-ifying Spore? Is that such a good idea?
> Use it or lose it

Hmm. Suppose that I invent a better CPU branch predictor.

I can't afford to design/build a CPU, and even if I could, I can't afford the legal costs to get Intel to license the x86 instruction set patents.

How can I profit from my invention?

Note that Intel won't agree to "I've got this great idea to tell you about but I won't show it to you unless you agree to pay me lots of money if you like it."
What should I be able to do to profit from my invention?
how many different windows Vista licences are (were) there?
Yes; but, this is different. Your not competing with Google on something they think could make a ton of money. Its not something that Google is missing out on features. The problem is stability. Google has its own data centres and has many experts on this.
It all seems a bit vague. For instance, why would something be listed on here? What are the standards? If there are different standards for different categories then put these in a summary at the top of the page.

For instance, with fashion, are you trying to be on the cutting edge or price sensitive? Are you seasonal?

If you want your audience to relate to the site then they need to know what your standards are. You can't just go for 'all women'. Figure out your exact demographics and tailor your selections for them. If it's 20's and 30's professionals then have 'fashionable working wear' and 'friday night on the town' stuff. (and you don't need a 'myspace' icon since they are all on facebook)

The descriptions are moderately witty, but it would be good if there were a 'person' behind it, even their initials. Then later on when you are getting submissions from your user base they can sort + find authors with whom they have similar taste's.

And when I clicked on the 'obama cupcakes' there is an odd picture under 'related posts'... apparently it's for a music festival, though just showing the image under 'related posts' with no caption underneath is, well, just kinda odd. Mixing events that are location based can be tricky and alienating because most of your audience won't live in austin and probably won't travel to a music festival, though again it depends on the demographic you are trying to reach (college road trip?).

The 'buy it' and 'originator' links are mostly the same. I thought 'originator' would link me to the person who is recommending this.. again, then I would have more of a 'warm and fuzzy' if I knew the interests of the person behind it appearing here. And because they are on the search pages, I didn't actually click on a box until a bit later when was wondering where the 'related posts' section was that a previous person had commented on.
"but giving users unrestricted ability to input content would quickly fill the site with noise"

Would it? Have you tested it? How do you know?

"I need to have a good way to identify not only spammers and users who might try to game the system, but users who may inadvertently put in noise/bad data."

Do you really need it? What's the worst that happens if you leave it out? What's the best? What's the likelihood of each? What data do you base that calculation on?

"Likewise, I also want both the system and other users to be able to implicitly and explicitly recognize those users that should be trusted, based on the value of the content they have submitted."

Sounds complicated. Why do you "need" to solve this problem? Do you even know it's a problem yet?

I'd put the simplest product in front of users and see what happens. Maybe you won't have to build your mega-meta-trust-network after all. That seems like a win.
"how the fuck is trim in Python? It’s called strip by the way."

too much sex in holland (fat in usa)
"It adds clutter. Rating I like, but stars? Too generic. It's not adding anything"

How do you know? Are you in the target market? Do you have any data to back that up?

I'd try anything and everything, measure it, and see what works. Who knows? One woman's clutter is another woman's awesome feature.