skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Year in Review
With 2008 coming to an end it's important to reflect on what we've accomplished and more importantly, where we are going from here.

There was a post a few days ago about Mibbit's success (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=409643) that's a really great example of what a year of hard work can accomplish. One of the comments was that more people should post about their progress and I couldn't agree more.

With that in mind:

- What were you working on a year ago and where are you now? Lessons learned (especially for projects that didn't work out) are especially welcomed.

- Where do you hope you'll be a year from now?
If you know Python or Perl, you'll have Ruby 20 minutes after visiting TRYRUBY.HOBIX.COM; then you just need to keyword-bookmark the Ruby core reference, so you can type "ruby String" in your URL bar and get the String class reference.

Not saying this book is bad or anything, just saying: Ruby really is that close to every other language you've used.
Wow, that was long. Interesting, but excessively verbose.

I'll attempt a summary:

Larger (~1500 bytes gross) IPv6 datagrams are currently not being routed correctly over certain networks. The author has deduced that a combination of multiple factors is to blame:

- IPv6 fragmentation happens at the source, if a packet attempts to cross a link with an MTU that is too small, an ICMPv6 packet informs the sender.

- IPv4 fragmentation typically happens on the way, as necessary. TCP supports an optional IPv6-like source fragmentation mode which isn't widely used as ICMPv4 packets are often filtered by firewalls, etc.

- IPv6 coverage isn't perfect yet, so there are IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels in place in many cases. Tunneling adds size to a packet.

- Some tunnels refuse to do IPv4-based fragmentation for performance reasons. Because of the extra bytes, most packets would have to be fragmented. Instead, they use the TCP/IPv4 source fragmentation mode, but the relevant ICMP packets get lost along the way, so the tunnel can't operate correctly. Packets are eaten.

I hope I've understood & summarised it correctly. If anyone with more patience or understanding of these things could correct me, that'd be great.
Where does it save the data too? What if I'm on multiple computers (ie, work from home and work), do I have to have it installed on each?

It looks nice, but I'll stick with http://slimtimer.com which is web based, so you can track your time from any computer.

Best of luck!
it is proof - and I won't cancel my exam 'cause it's in my 'goals' for the year
PEOPLE care about money because it is important for survival, even more so when you are in a family of, like the guy mentions in his comment, 4.

Also, I'm still curious as to how you inferred from said story that his wife wasn't also working to provide for the family since her husband couldn't hold a steady job. It was a stressful time for everyone involved, and when there are kids to provide for in the picture, even more so.
Who is their PR firm? They should -- seriously -- be near the top of this list.
Ask HN: Slicehost vs. Linode
Which VPS provider do you prefer? Which one would be better for a growing startup? What are your experiences with each of these providers?
It depends what you're making. Some webapps might need 10 servers if you write it in php or ruby on rails, but may only need 1 server if you write it in c/java/something else.

For example, I could probably run Mibbit on around 50 servers if I just used apache/python/php/ror. And as far as I know that's pretty much what Meebo did. They had the money to throw at hardware.
The alternative though is to re-architect and optimize at the early stages.

It's a longer term investment. I've spent a lot of time in my case, but I've saved a lot of scalability headache and cost, later on.
Do not oppose the way of the universe
From Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi" - hit me very profoundly at this point in my life. I'd tried to bend reality to my will often - sometimes it worked, often not. Musashi, a wandering swordsman, went to take up farming to learn discipline, and his crops/farmland kept getting washed away every rain. From page 663 in the hardcover edition:

"Then it dawned on him suddenly. Unconsciously, he had been trying to create a neat, square field like those common in other parts of the Kanto Plain, but this was not what the terrain called for. Here, despite the general flatness, there were slight variations in the lay of the land and the quality of the soil that argued for an irregular shape.

"What a fool I've been," he exclaimed aloud. "I tried to to make the water flow where I thought it ought to be. But it didn't work. How could it? Water's water, dirt's dirt. I can't change their nature. What I've got to do is learn to be a servant to the water and a protector of the land."

...

"The same rules must apply to governing people," he said to himself. In his notebook, he wrote: "Do not attempt to oppose the way of the universe. But first make sure you know the way of the universe."
"So I'm waiting for the article that shows why this is cool, I.E., what concrete problems the Hindley-Milner algorithm would be useful for."

Here's a quick take:

Ruby programmers (and, to a lesser extent, other dynamic OO coders) tend to get very excited about concepts like "duck typing" -- 'if it walks like a duck, it may as well be a duck' -- and tend to use it heavily for polymorphism, future-proof APIs, and other nifty "agile" programming techniques.

However, with HM type inference and either modular programming (ala ML) or typeclasses (ala Haskell), you can gain most of the same terseness and dynamism of your "duck-typed" Ruby code, while still having strong compile-time checks that your "duck-like" objects in fact satisfy all the requirements of "duck-ness".

The biggest trade-off, IMO, is that you now have a little logic programming language embedded in your type system, and can't compile your program until all the type constraints can be resolved.

Also, unlike Java, where such problems are (from the production code I've seen, anyway) usually handled with a runtime cast through the Object ground type, languages with HM type inference usually require there to actually be a valid type-conversion function between the mis-matched types in question.

None of this is unique to Hindley-Milner type inference, of course; HM is just the standard algorithm for languages which implement the simply-typed lambda calculus.
I'm originally from Louisiana. I have yet to encounter a place with better food, I lost 20 lbs. when I moved away. However outside of Louisiana, Cajun food simply mean pour Cayenne pepper on it. There is a whole lot more to Cajun (or Creole, which is different) cooking than heat. Generally the heat level should be enough to feel but not enough to overpower the the other spices. This level varies from person to person depending on how much spicy food they typically eat. I've met a cook from Commander's Palace in New Orleans once and he admitted to spicing differently based on where he thought someone was from.
We (Stormpulse.com) are on EC2 and love it for the same reason. Our traffic is insanely spiky.
There are two extreme data points you're getting here:

(1) The absolute lowest number people think you could get away with.

(2) The ridiculous numbers awarded to vanity CEOs of VC-funded companies.

You probably want to be somewhere in the middle. There's no rule about what a "CEO" makes; you're compensated based on the value you create in the company. If you do the same work as a lead developer, pay yourself like a bare-bones startup would pay a lead developer.

Web companies pay CEOs 200k because they're suckers.
Broadcast TV Retains Marketing Dollars in Hard Times
Walmart now selling 3G iPhones
This has been discussed here a number of times.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=374998

http://searchyc.com/slicehost+linode
It really staggered me. I put the book down and thought for a couple hours after reading that chapter.

How many things have I banged my head against the wall fighting the way things are? I've always felt that people should be more courteous, more into thinking and philosophy, less rash and impulsive. I've tried to combat human nature so often - trying to brute force human nature into something I considered better.

Maybe I had noble ideals, but even on small things. On HN, I downvote those snippy clever sarcastic comments. Because I reckon they may be the beginning of the end. But maybe "the way" is that sites like HN will be born, improve until they hit their zenith, and die slowly until it happens again.

I'd fought "hype hype HYPE BUT IT NOW" marketing to the extent of costing myself some wealth and growing a lot slower in business than I could have.

I'd enjoyed being an idealist. There's some sort of wholeness and peace to be taken from it. But it can certainly be aggravating, and I haven't accomplished anything near what I could. Who serves humanity better - the idealist whose ideals never diffuse, or the man who serves water and protects the land?
What about the distinction between personal (google reader) and commercial usage. I think that was the point the author was trying to make. Individuals aren't going to pay thousands in lincense fees for their personal reading. But there are benfits for AFP to give away (snippets only) for free - they can monetize the traffic, drive brand awareness etc. But I guess they didn't want the traffic.
We had looked into some autocomplete features, but decided to release first rather than get caught up in that. It is something we want to add, though.

Your point about needing to wait for the E-mail with the key is well taken. I'll see if we can think up an alternative to make it less onerous to just try it out.
I don't know about the "extremely" difficult part but certainly it is more difficult and you need to be realistic in your expectations. I learned piano when I was a kid, rather I was forced to by my parents, never really enjoyed it and was mainly parroting than really learning. Now I am trying to learn electric guitar and I am much more interested in learning about music theory, reading music, and how to practice effectively, etc than I ever was as a kid. The first piece my instructor gave me was "Ode to Joy" and I thought I would never learn to play it, but I got through it and then another piece and at some point something "clicked" and my ability to play shot up dramatically - not anywhere near what even a mediocre guitarist can play but much beyond where I was even a short time ago, so I can directly relate to the experience of this article. You may not be aware of the progress you're are actually making because it doesn't always happen in a nice smooth curve. Keep plugging away, you'll get there .
This is what spending money on marketing people with connections gets you.

But not saying this how it should be done, I would probably invest that money in getting a better product and thus users - a better strategy in the long haul.
You can't start an S-Corp and distro out all your compensation instead of paying payroll taxes on it. You can pay yourself $1 a year if you want to, but that needs to be all you pay yourself, or you're evading taxes.

(I'm in the same boat as this poster, but I think the S-Corp salary vs. distro thing is a big scam).
Don't incorporate too early. I did that a year and a half ago, but things came up and I wasn't able to actually start the business. After the setup fees, annual state franchise fees, registered agent fees, and dissolution fees, I'm down $700 with nothing to show for it aside from this little nugget of knowledge.
"Some webapps might need 10 servers if you write it in php or ruby on rails, but may only need 1 server if you write it in c/java/something else"

@axod, this statement is completely out to lunch. I don't even know where to start.
You missed a zero there, right? $102,000. $50k sounds sane, presuming you don't distro yourself $100k on top of it.
In what way(s) do you think YC isn't open to older entrepreneurs?

If anything, I suspect older entrepreneurs aren't as open to YC than the other way around. In my own case, if I wanted $20K in expenses for a startup, I'd login to e*trade and transfer it, or I'd write a check for it. Doesn't seem worth giving up 6% for the cash, though if I were intent on striking out on my own, I'd almost certainly talk to YC, to see if a "3% for $1 and advice/contacts" deal could be worked out.
if this is a 'gesture based' patent, I'm wondering how it differs from what Palm did with their OS. I wouldn't think that making something 'finger-based' vs pen-based is a non-obvious extension.

Thoughts?
who is paul gram?
A job provides income that pays for the house and the food on the table and clothes for the kids and more. Doesn't matter who tells who to get a job. It's a necessity.

Losing weight is what is truly materialistic, as unless the person that needs to lose weight is morbidly obese and their health is directly at risk if they do not do so, it's something that does not directly affect their ability to get and pay for day-to-day necessities. It's nice if it happens, but it wouldn't directly threaten their ability to shelter their kids, for example.

The two are just not comparable.

If the guy told his wife who did the same thing as this plumber did ($300 in savings at start and no customers for weeks) that he'd leave her if she didn't get even an undesirable job soon, it wouldn't be unreasonable, and would be a more apt comparison to bring up instead of this losing weight nonsense. However, it would be crass for anyone in the relationship to threaten to leave, but you know it happens in a lot of them. :(
Becoming a renewable energy engineer
These lists are always meaningless, whether from Business Week or TechCrunch.
That looks like a pretty impressive office. It sounds like a successful recruiting tool; I would definitely like working in that environment.

What other companies put that much attention towards work environment? I know that a lot of popular startups tend to favor communal environments, but seeing actual offices is pretty rare. All of the places I've worked at tend to fall somewhere between decent to hellish cube nightmare.
BYD Delays Sale of Electric Cars in North-America to 2011
1. Get my on-the-side business up and running and decide whether or not it is worth investing more time in.
2. Add 20k+ to my savings.
3. Improve my BASH knowledge.
4. Travel more.
5. Waste less time (TV and web)
I think he's deserving of his own admiration for what he's accomplished.
Local Continuous Integration with Integrity
Tell HN: Thailand coworking update
A while ago I posted about an idea to travel to Thailand and cowork from there. In case coworking isn't a familiar concept, basically we want to hang around for about 2 months and work on our own projects, while having like-minded people around to talk to. The response was great, it got many upvotes and I also received many e-mails. You can continue to contact me at manga@bemmu.com. Playing the role of a volunteer travel agent I am piecing together a trip that would suit most people. We'll be in a tropical environment, so there will be great chances to relax / party when we get tired of coding for the day.

The original post:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=410170

-- when --

Majority of the people preferred gathering from early May and ending in late June, which is great because it is also conveniently off-season. That means that prices of lodging are half compared to peak season and there aren't as many other tourists. I am planning to join and help organize this one. Currently there might be 3-4 people able to come at this time. Of course you can just come and hang around for just a while or whatever suits you, this is all very informal.

Another group also emerged, which I do not plan to join. A group of people from Germany and a single developer coincidentally also from Germany wanted to go already this January. Super coincidentally both contacts came from a "Frank". I can forward your mail to them if you want to join that group.

-- where --

Koh Phangan island. Nice beaches, and lots of parties like Full Moon Party, Black Moon Party and so on. I have been there exactly once, making me an unmatched expert on the place. For lodging we found a list of all the bungalows that come with wi-fi, and are currently looking at these three places, probably the middle one.

http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/kohphangan/sarikantang/ ($25USD / 900THB per night)

http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/kohphangan/cocogarden/ ($14USD / 500THB)

http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/kohphangan/chillresort/ ($29USD / 1000THB)

If you know of a better place, or want to cast your vote on which one of these you prefer then please mention that when contacting me. It would be great to find a place with reliable wifi, tables or good hammocks in shade to work from. Maybe a bigger shared house would be better than bungalows like these, but I haven't been yet able to find an affordable one.

-- that's it --

Please continue to send me e-mail and post your comments here. I will try to post updates to those who contacted me and occassionally here on HN to get more attention to this.
Except for the emphasis on lambdas and closures which might be a conceptual hurdle for somebody coming from a language where they aren't used very often.
seriously nice diggs, cant imagine how much that place costs but they've got the cash and have a great outlook on getting ROI via recruiting and client WOW, certainly offers a differnt perspective to just getting bought. Why not built a super cool company that you love to work at instead?
Although without any information on the real "pink fix", this MetaFilter thread on chili peppers is quite awesome:

http://www.metafilter.com/58885/Pink-fix

Teaser: capsaicin works by hacking our heat and pain receptors. It's a signal, telling us there is danger when there is actually nothing wrong going on.

Its presence in chili peppers may evolved for discrimination among animals that would digest seeds (mammals) vs. ones that would just spread seeds (birds).
I think that's my point, traffic is great, but when does revenue matter? Youtube still has insane traffic but even Google can't make them close to profitable.
Platform virtualization - top 25 providers (software, hardware, combined)
I hope this is a good list of these providers.
"There are a lot of productivity studies that support this... Showing that ANYTHING that takes people out of the "zone" (when they are in it) makes it likelier that they'll shift to something else than if the distraction didn't occur. This includes IM, phone calls, knocks at the door, email dings, whatever."

We (HCS) are aware of the cost of disruption, but in actual practice we haven't found that to be true for us when using JotBot. It's easy enough to ignore if we want to, but still reminding us to note what we're doing, and if you're still doing what you were doing before, noting is trivial (since it recalls your last entry). Maybe it's habituation, but we wouldn't use it ourselves if we didn't find it an overall win. It is in no way "derailing" us when we work.

BTW, the time interval is configurable. While ANY interruption might be unacceptable to some people, getting a prompt every 2 hours to enter info, while still a potential disruption, might still be better than having no notes at all on how the day was spent.

We know this isn't going to be for everyone, just as RescueTime isn't for everyone. We have found, though, that it works for us, and initial feedback suggests it works for some others, too.
You don't really need to think about closures to write idiomatic Ruby code, even though closures are being relied on heavily behind the scenes.

I think tryruby does a good job walking you through blocks, and if you have blocks you have lambdas. So I'm not saying "if you know Python you know Ruby"; just "if you know Python you're a 20 minute web demo away from knowing Ruby". ;)
We're in the process of adding integration to other tools. Basically, anything with an API is a target. People have asked us about posting to Basecamp, RescueTime, and assorted online invoicing apps.

We're getting those ready.
> Also, unlike Java, where such problems are [...] usually handled with a runtime cast through the Object ground type, languages with HM type inference usually require there to actually be a valid type-conversion function between the mis-matched types in question.

And they usually also have pattern-matching, which makes this relatively straightforward (when there is in fact a valid conversion).

It's worth taking a look at the OO system in OCaml, by the way. It works very similarly to duck-typing, but it also infers the required methods at compile time: "this function requires its first argument to be any object that takes this message with these argument type(s) and returns that type." This decouples polymorphism from inheritance/subclassing. That way, you can use OO without getting too bogged down in yucky "Circle/Ellipse" problems ( http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CircleAndEllipseProblem ).

Ironically, the OO system in OCaml doesn't seem to get used all that much, though - with the other abilities the language already gives you, you don't really need to use OO except for problems for which it is actually a good fit, and in practice that's fewer than many people would claim.
"If you give away research time for free, or you chase a dead end and decide not to bill it, do you set a precedent that those things will be free in the future?"

I don't think so. You set a precedent that you will be fair to the customer. If you don't chisel them out of every minute, they'll trust you when you do bill them.
"Only one thing I will not use this application because of its disruptive functionality. "

Naturally, I would hope you would try the app in earnest before dismissing it, but I understand that this approach just doesn't sit well with everyone. Either way, I appreciate your comment. FWIW though, I'm not a big fan of disruption, and have been surprised at how well JotBot has worked for me.

We'll certainly keep looking into how to make it less disruptive while still having it do what it's meant to do: get accurate information on how you've spent your time.
As a slight tangent: for other purposes, one of the significant differences (not mentioned in other comments) is elastic block store (EBS) and free access to S3.

There's nothing akin to EBS at slicehost. The closest I've seen out there is the 300MB/s NAS at appnexus.com (which also runs Xen VMs).

It's hard to find anything like S3 (nirvanix is one, but they've had "issues" reported in the past). And sure you can access S3 from outside, but then you're paying the exact bandwidth charges you have at EC2 anyhow. Depends what you app does, S3 is not just for getting files to end users obviously.

If high traffic to the internet is your biggest problem, this $199 deal seems attractive: 4GB RAM, 250GB drive, 10 terabytes bandwidth a month -- http://www.10tb.com

Getting around whatever convenience VMs provide to take advantage of something like that seems worth it in some cases.

"it all depends"...
The author is assuming that what employers look for in a degree is a specific skill. It is not. It is a general ability to deal with hard, ill-defined work, and the persistence to keep at it despite the length of it (4 years seems awfully long when you're 18). It's about the ability to socialise with widely different groups of people and get along with them.

University isn't about job training, no matter how some people might want it to be. It's not about what you learn, it's about learning to learn.
True, there is a annual budget for digital arts and culture from the administration of Vienna and the Metalab gained some funding. Of course this helped/helps to GTD faster (e.g. renovation work) but our hackerspace was founded without this perspective and is designed with the idea of base financing by membership fees - and I can assure you that this is how we still handle it. The Net Culture Lab you mention in contrast to our community-drived space is financed by the biggest Austrian telco, a quite different approach but we believe in plurality and welcome alike initiatives.