skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Option 1 would keep the competition alive, but now you have 2 groups of people trying to do the same thing and being better at different aspects. The community gets confused and communication breaks."

The community gets confused? Give us more credit than that. We're not helpless babes in the woods. We're faced with making implementation decisions every day. Which language? Which database? Which framework? Which http server? Which hosting provider? Which linux distro? And, soon, which Ruby VM to use? And you know what? Somehow... somehow, we get by. We evaluate our choices (being glad that there are choices), and we make decisions. Can anyone out there honestly tell me that they wish there were no choices to make? Granted, too many choices can be a bad thing, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Perhaps the whole merging thing isn't a bad idea in some respects, but p-l-e-a-s-e stop trying to convince people that competition is bad. If you really believe that, then start a lobbying group to get nginx, apache, and lighttpd to merge. And let's not stop there, let's eliminate all duplication of effort -- at the operating system, database, programming language, and application levels. If you're going to make that argument, then take it to its logical conclusion.

The one solid argument made in the article is the point about having a bigger core team -- that's always a good thing -- especially at a time when we're just barely dipping our toes in the water of what is sure to be an ocean of economic upheaval.

One question I have: will Rails 3.0 break existing Rails app and break existing Merb apps? If so, then there's room for a new player to come along. Web-based frameworks are in their infancy and modularity isn't the end-all-and-beat-all. Something new and different will emerge. At it will be a compelling alternative to Rails 4. And that will be a good thing. Until, of course, the Rails team convinces that small group of radicals that choice isn't what people want. And when that happens, you can expect me back here, like a broken record, making the same arguments. :-)
Trawling.
I'm a big believer that innovation wins, but that should go without saying. Good for them, good for us all.
While you're offering something better, you're not offering a new actual feature or function, just a swap of the text. It's like adding an 'S' to someone else's big word in Scrabble. Yes, you get the points, but it's not nearly as satisfying as laying down your own word. It's a move of last resort: "I have nothing better I can do".

I'm not saying he shouldn't do it, but if I'm at a gathering and person A says "I built this new web-app that does cool new thing X" and person B says "I copied site B, only I changed the text to Spanish", it's pretty clear who I'm going to want to chat with.
On HN, when you have an interesting topic about which there is very little to say, you find topics voted to near the top with no comments. On Reddit, a popular topic with no comments gets garnished with one-liners. On HN, contentless one-liners get downvoted. Hence the comment pattern on this article.
Looking ahead – A Career Ladder Cheat Sheet
The Five thresholds in personal growth you will face before reaching the top.
"History suggests that, all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly."

I'm not sure I agree. Surely a lesson from the fall of Communism is that private property matters to the efficient functioning of an economy; and the value of most private property to most people is in their ability to transmit it to their heirs.

Obviously there is a need for balance here. Too much inheritance and society loses all cohesion; too little, and society loses forward motion. (I'm deliberately ignoring any moral question about whether inheritance is unjust; this is purely about the pragmatic question of what creates the most wealth for the most people.)

At a macro level, of course, we want the best person for the job. The best line in The Communist Manifesto, actually, is (this quote may not be precise) "to each according to his needs; from each according to his abilities." The hard part is knowing how to get there!

Thank you for an interesting essay on a fundamental question.
Not that this has much to do with the article, but I don't like "double handful." It's very awkward. How about . . . metric dozen! Because it's close to a dozen and works with metric's 10-ness.
People far, far dumber than us have pulled this off before.
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_en-USUS300US304&...

It looks like these search results feature either bad predictions, or mixed good and bad predictions.
I fixed my profile now, anyway my e-mail is manga@bemmu.com. Hoping someone will join me, and if several people want to join then perhaps we can consider renting some larger place.
Piracy In A New Age of Film Making
When the opportunity arises and the challenges become greater, the task become routines. Fiber glass fast boats with inmersion capabilites in the high seas are a thing of the past; but in the writing of a film script, it can become hairy. Now, I am looking for a nice directory listing of all artist available for cameo appearances so that I can write the next flick.
a billion dollar thriller. I am sure some one can come up with the exceptional artist guild in your are.
There's getting ideas and inspiration from existing works is one thing.

Selling your The Frugal Repast forgeries is another.
Annotations are one of the more ridiculous language syntax styles to emerge. The Java version is particularly ugly. Scala's version is weird too. In general they are mixing a different language syntax in for attributes of methods (or even more ridiculously, classes). I suppose that adding attributes to methods was a missing feature, but I see no reason not to solve it by mixing another syntax into a language. The addition of the <i>throws</i> clause to a method definition is a good example of adding metadata without adding another language into the language.

The article has a nice description of changes to PHP binding in 5.3...
Its a pretty cool idea, I should drop by and check it out some time.

Toronto's HackLab also happens to be several stores down from the local pot cafe. A coincidence I am sure...
Some Online Ads Thrive in a Miserable Economy
I think there is a good market for cloning site.

But I agree with you though, that if it's literally cloning, it's not great... and some people will notice anyway and that would give you a bad image.

Overall though, I don't think there is anything bad about it. That means you start with a proven idea. We all know execution will make the difference anyway.
Awesome thanks. Two coincidences: this fun mud thing is in Python (works via RPC)... and the entry method name is "hammer," heh.
Algerian Carbon Capture Success
There isn't, frankly I find it a very ad hoc messy language myself. I just wanted to point out that lambdas and higher order functions are one the cool things about it, even though they do it wrong and have 3 different ways to create blocks.

Smalltalk does it right, blocks are real objects and have only one syntax for creating them and don't require being passed as the last arg to use the sweet syntax.
Agreed. It is often useful to see which stories are the most-discussed.
I think its fine. Look at even the current social networks in English itself.

Dating Sites ---> Friendster --> hi5 --> Facebook --> Orkut

--> Bebo

--> WAYN

--> LinkedIn

They all started with the same base, a database of people that interact.

Again, the App development platform was started by facebook and now everyone else copied it. So, once you clone it you can always give it your own unique flavor with time.
So, if I fundraise 1 million dollars, keep $999,000 for me, and spend $1,000 to do some good, you are fine with it?

No wonder people are trying to start for-profit charities. Based on my downmods other people feel just like you.

Well I am not OK with it. I don't care that they do "some" good. If their expense ratio is too high I do not donate. Period.
My ancestors 150 years ago and even more recently learned to read before they started school, as is noted in their diaries or recalled by my oldest living relative. And Horace Mann noted BEFORE he started campaigning for compulsory school attendance in Massachusetts that by his estimate most inhabitants of Massachusetts were literate in English. (He wrote articles in the journal he founded, the Common School Journal, which I have looked up, saying that.) The origin of the compulsory-attendance school system as we know it today in the United States was not to ensure literacy but rather to accomplish other social goals promoted by Mann.
D-Wave Arms ‘Smoking Gun’ Proof of Quantum Computer
But only cloning doesn't bring multiple choices. You have to bring innovation to create a difference.
I'm not surprised. Amazon is usually cheaper than most brick and mortar stores. I ended up purchasing a couple books last minute for Christmas, and when I got home, I realized that Borders was charging nearly 50% more than amazon charged. Plus I had to deal with the traffic, crowded store, and bad customer service.
It depends.

In early 1980, all Apple IIe in Taiwan were made by clone manufacturers. There was a market, but Apple's price was too high by living standard then. Most of the clone manufacturers just copied the Apple IIe. But some of the clone manufacturers started to experiment with new features and improvements, and learned the experience of making computers. They later cloned IBM PC, Compaq and continued the process for each generation. Some failed but some survived and became stronger.

Many years later, they are so much better in cost and design of the system and take over the business from large manufacturers in U.S. and lower the price of PC to today's level. Ain't that a good thing to enable us to own cheap computers? While Apple, HP all outsource their manufacture to them.

Meanwhile, some of them start to improve the design and create their own product line, and finally they reach the level with confidence to introduce their own new designs and innovations.

Acer was one of this cloner. ASUS's founder was part of Acer team. And you can see how far they have progressed.

But they all started because they want to make something that people want, even just clone it.
This is the kind of thing that gives me hope that, even with this horrible economy, web-based start ups like the one I'm working on can still succeed.
K-12 curriculum should be weighted more towards programming practice than theory. Understanding the craft of programming, good UI design, and how the web works will be relevant to kids for their whole lives. Turing machines, big O notation, and discrete math are all interesting, but emphasizing them over coding would be like learning number theory without knowing how to add and subtract.
I think that making clones is a great idea. My current project is making a reddit clone on top of Django. I'm planning on setting up social news sites focused on niche markets.

I know that there's already sub-reddits, Digg, etc.. but I'm pretty convinced that your average person in Peoria/Des Moines/Kansas City isn't going to get past the first page of reddit or Digg without running away screaming because of the trolls.

Think about it this way. How many web forums are out there that are devoted to niche markets? How many magazines are there? How many local newspapers are there? How many sitcoms are there? How many movies are there? The web is media.

There's nothing wrong with taking a format or platform, and targeting it at a niche market. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you make a consumer facing web application.

The problem of "What do people want" has already been solved repeatedly. As long as you're not infringing on IP, if you can take an idea and focus it on a specific market, you're one step closer to making money.
Laptop shipments top desktops for first time; Netbooks a factor
I am not trying to be super cynical here, but...

The problem I see with this kind of thing is that it looks like it would probably be against someone's self interest to make too much of an investment in (by hanging out there, possibly paying up for it). Because it could be a big time-suck.

It is not possible to have a good or meaningful relationship with everyone, especially if you have a busy life already (non-computer friends, family, work etc.). So we discriminate. Not in the surface-sense, but the more you get to know someone you discriminate on future potential from the relationship.

In the context of hacking on things together or shooting the shit about computer etc: some people are not in the same place at all.

After talking with someone (sometimes, even for a minute or two) you could determine that they a) don't know crap about computers, b) seem to be good company, or c) are way more experienced than you.

B and C are cool, but in this context I'd really worry about meeting a lot of people that don't program for a living, etc. It's all a question of balance, I don't mind "teaching" someone something at all, but I can't move forward if that is going to take up my whole day (unless I am trying to move forward as a teacher which I am not).

I meet "computer people" at coffeeshops all the time (for three years I worked full time as a coffeeshop-inhabitating programmer). I always tended to like the people fine enough socially etc. in our "half-relationships", and even made a friend.

But by far the majority of the computer conversations were not anything interesting to me because I was "beyond" that level. Hmm, "beyond"... I am trying really hard to not make this about any kind of hierarchy -- I fully appreciate that there is a rich world of ideas and concepts out there that I am a beginner in. But if someone's asking you how to do something that is answerable in a "I'm feeling lucky" google query... I tend to not try to go out of my way to be have lasting "computer relationships" with them.

Online mechanisms allow you to have some control over who you spend time talking with and it's much easier to arrive at a good balance.

I'm very interested in opposing opinions (especially from people with busy lives).
I think the author is missing a few big pieces.
1) why do we need 1.5 tons to move 85kg? we often move significantly more than 85kg and need to be able to adjust to the highest not lowest denominator, and the extra weight is in comforts, safety, etc.

2) a dreadful word 'compromise' when used in planning. Compromises should happen in implementation, when things need to be replaced or removed to meet engineering issues or deadlines. Why would you compromise when you are in the envisioning stage.

3) private/public transport - why not keep private transport but improve the efficiencies and footprint and improve public transport. Check out skytran.net. A great vision for public transport.
Not a bad idea! But reddit is pretty bad in dealing with trollers in non programming subreddit.

But I like the newmogul when nickb released it. The feeling is very natural but each focuses on its own subject.
Free Internet Security Software | TechJaws
They can still succeed. I sell things to people for money. This year for December, I sold 50% more things to 50% more people for 50% more money, as compared to last year.

No comment the viability of business models which do not including selling things to people for money. (Except that I'm getting my ads cheaper than last year, which is great news for me but must be bad news for some poor bugger depending on his AdSense checks...)
I think a lot of people agree with that sentiment. But why should he be hated for his business acumen?

If he was dirt poor would he be much, much, much cooler?
ö doesn't need Unicode. It's ISO-Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1). An update is ISO-8859-15. Latin-1 is an 8 bit character set including ASCII, covering the Western European languages. I don't know PHP, but it could be the default or a simple character set option.
What if you bury corn down old oil wells . . . could you get carbon credits for that?
The US spends a huge amount of money every year on the corn subsidy. Originally, the idea was to make sure everyone got fed. Now everyone gets fed too much. Regardless of the value of ethanol, could we balance the scales by burying the corn instead of storing it around our middles? And, in the process, the people could acquire control of the carbon market itself.

I suppose the biggest issue would be the equal amount of oxygen and hydrogen going down the hole. Modern corn crops are all sugars, which are, in general, equal parts carbon and water. Oil is carbon and hydrogen, no oxygen.
alright :) http://hnweekly.watdahel.com/?order=comments
I think it depends what you're after. Building something brand new is more interesting and challenging, but taking a proven design and introducing it to an untapped market has a higher probability of resulting in "something people use", for substantially less effort. So I disagree with the "I have nothing better I can do" sentiment.
Ending 2008, From Bootstrapping Mobiously to Modular Innovation
yet 5 years later the guy who built "this new web-app" is still floundering trying to compete with the behemoths for attention, while the guy who did a +1 in a foreign market is #1 or #2 in his country, rolling around in millions and waiting to be acquired for a ton of money.

Nothing is stopping the guy who did +1 from doing the innovative thing after he makes his millions.
Fair enough. It sounds like a smart business move, but a weak "hacker" move.
I have personal experience with this.

I'm a highschooler (junior now), and I took an intro Java class freshman year, AP Comp Sci soph year, and I'm TAing a Java class right now.

There is very little learning of Java going on in any of those classes. Part of it is that the teacher doesn't make it a very hard class, but also even among the people who try and do all of the assignments the majority just don't get it. They don't get the simplest things.

And it's not that my school gets a lot of people who just are "stupid" or unmotivated. It's a charter school that you have to apply to and take a test to get in. Its focus is math, science, and tech, and it's like 42nd (something close at least) public HS in the nation according to US News and World Report.

But a lot of them just don't understand programming. They have functions explained to them, and they're shown some examples like areaOfSquare(int side) and areaOfRectangle(int length, int width), and half of them ask me for help on the first one areaOfTriangle(int base, int height). And most of the rest ask the people that I helped for help.

Or I fix a curly brace issue (I hate Java, for the record (ok, hate's too strong)) for the same person almost every day, but she can't figure out that maybe she should try adding a curly brace to the end of the file before calling me over.

This incompetence is even more true now that Java is offered to all freshmen. For my freshman year, unless one did a very long, annoying, inane set of assignments to show that you know how to use MS Office, freshmen had to take a class teaching them how to use Office freshman year, and only after that could they take Java. So the people in Java were people who actually wanted to take it, not just people trying to fulfill their graduation requirements.

Back then, about half of the people in Java actually tried (the rest were basically the seniors who had stopped caring), and around half of the nonseniors who took Java would go on to take AP CS.

The ratios have tilted a lot more towards incompetence now.

Programming is something that not everyone understands, and teaching those that just don't understand programming is a monumental task.

All schools should offer at least one programming class, but making it a "Core Component Of Science And Math Education" is a mistake. A lot of people would just do badly and not learn anything.
D-Wave has a history of making tall claims. Scott Aaronson (MIT EECS prof who works on quantum computing/complexity theory) has written about them a few times. http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=306 He mentions, however, that "The people at D-Wave are not conscious frauds; they genuinely believe in what they’re doing."
Interviews Tips Techniques
Truck sales are rising, Hybrid sales are falling
I like to call the strategy "fast following" rather than "cloning." It made Bill Gates a billionaire.
Amazon had physical assets it needed to acquire, at best Facebook needs a data center, however a 'clone' is unlikely to have one worth the money.
Does this mean his site will change to something less contrary than white on black?
That's a certainly a very polarized guess at the future. It could very easily go the other way, and has for many folks.
Thinking that choice isn't what people want implies that people, intelligent people, like being told what to do. This isn't my position, nor my experience, and I can't think of anyone else who chooses "being told what to do" over making a choice, given the option.
Exactly. Buying a facebook clone would be for the user base.
When I had a chance to meet the guy, these were the things that struck me, in order:

He looks really old, way older than he does in photos. Must be all the stress.

He's very, very good at thinking on his feet.

He's actually quite pleasant to interact with and has milder views than you might think. People who know him have told me that the aggressive, brash behavior was merely a persona that he deliberately cultivated as part of his management style.

(Incidentally, I've also interacted with RMS; he immediately came across as as a jerk. I can't help feeling that this has something to do with his project not reaching the heights that many feel it should have.)
Ali G: How not to pitch a venture capitalist
This is mostly due to facts outside of Amazon behavior:
- Increase in Internet penetration.
- Consumers being more open to entering their credit card number online.
- Increase in number of price comparison startups.
Be careful when reusing water bottles. A recent study found that re-using a disposable plastic water bottle a few times raises bacteria and fungus contamination beyond the threshold for acceptable drinking water.
Hive Five Winner for Best Online Job Search Site: Indeed
I wonder if programming might not be an easier introduction to symbol manipulation than algebra. They could get the feel for variables and algorithms in a more concrete way. The transition to algebra would not be so mind bending for a lot of the kids.
What if Linux Distros were Women?
I work at a web based startup as well and it was our best month ever. Don't believe the media hype and outrage for the sake of outrage; they're just trying to sell something not enough people want. There's still many opportunities and ways to make money.
Well, the hacklab in Toronto is located in Kensington Market, so I am not surprised about it being close to a pot cafe :-) I'm more interested in the Moonbean Coffee Company though, which is around the corner. Delicious coffee and pastries made with love :-)

I hang out at the toronto hacklab quite often. As a member I sometimes sit there during the week when I get bored of the home office. It is nice to have some company when you mostly work solo. I'm mostly doing software and it is nice to chat to folks about that in real life.

On tuesdays there is open night and everybody is welcome. For me that is more a social thing. It is just great to hang out with people who have similar interests. Or even completely different interests!

We are trying to do more stuff together but it is hard. There is a Python night for people learning Python and I am thinking of starting an iPhone night to get some people together there to work on iPhone stuff. Probably not a shared iPhone project. But even just having a bunch of iPhone coders in the same room will be lots of fun. Order some pizza, do demos and presentations, etc. Fun!

S.
we should all be working on the things that we personally use and care about.

That way just about every application will end up supporting email (paraphrasing Jamie Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment).