skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I thought Art Benjamin's performance was obvious, but he does it under the guise of a "magician," so I would cut him some slack. After all, everybody knows magicians are entertainers. It's hard to be impressed when you can quickly deconstruct the process though.

I was quite impressed by the Tammet documentary, but your analysis is pretty stunning. I actually took everything from the original video at face value, perhaps because I wanted to be amazed by synesthesia.

I won't call it BS just yet -- there could be the possibility that the shape transformations he "sees" are the result of using algorithms in a subconscious manner, the clues of which only manifest themselves like play-doh imagery. It is rather suspicious that after the high-profile reports, there haven't been other publicized and scrutinized reports further documenting his abilities.

In any case, thanks for supplying a kick of realism back into the picture.
Dude, this is not a US thing. It is more an evolutionary thing. Men hunted, women raised the kids. If the man isn't hunting enough, the woman is going to find a better hunter. This is simply evolutionary anthropology. The pressure is on the male to "hunt", or to make money. This is not a good or a bad thing, it is just Darwinian reality. At the end of the day, I think there is really no such thing as "romance" or whatever, it is more just cooperation to help the genes survive, since we are after all gene carrying robots, nothing more or less, and I am serious, this is not sarcasm. We are here to serve the selfish gene. "Love" and "to death do us part" are quaint, deluded notions from the childhood of our race, much like the God delusion.
I've never thought highly of abstinence pledges. I mean, a pledge requires a person to put rational thought over emotion which is not something teenagers are known to be good at.

How many kids "pledge" not to try drugs? Or "pledge" to always do their chores? Or "pledge" to be home at a certain hour? All these are examples of weaker temptations than sex and teenagers still break them.

That said, I'm weary of these results being this researcher clearly has an agenda (she's written about the topic several times now and keeps a related blog). I've found statisticians who go into a survey wanting to draw a specific conclusion tend to draw that conclusion regardless of whether it's true or not. Especially when their sample size is so small.
In a somewhat related note -- has your training with math tricks given you a "deeper understanding" of numbers per se? Has it facilitated your prowess with abstract and purely symbolic math?
LG KF510 RED UNLOCKED
LG K510 which attracts with its elegant look and the features. The handset has come up with 3.15 of Megapixel camera with video recorder of resolution of 2048*1536 pixel which captures your favorable moments with very exciting look.
Reads like a completely made up story to me.

Nice, inspirational and all, but that was not written by a plumber after reading first ever blogpost in his life.
There isn't a magical threshold of hours one must reach to be a "superstar" or "extremely good". There also isn't much substance in the claim of people bailing even before 5,000 hours. It seems like the crux of this argument is just throwing 'numbers' and 'hours' out there with disregard to other factors that come into play when someone makes a time commitment this large. Things like efficiency, pre-disposition, and teaching others are all factors.

So, even if someone invests 3750 hours they can be just as good. This all seems besides the point though, when you are investing thousands of hours into something your not keeping track of 'hours put in' or 'exactly how good you are', its a passion and you're just into it. If success follows then great, if not then that wouldn't stop someone from continuing on.
1.Work through Stroustrup's Programming: Principle's and Practice Using C++ (always good to review the basics)

2.Write an app and sell it for enough to replace my current income

3.Train for and run the Bay to Breakers

4.Achieve "Archer" level in recurve style archery.
That's overly simplistic. It overlooks two relevant facts.

1) I use your words to judge what you think, or how you might act. I can reasonably expect people who use certain words in grossly inappropriate circumstances (context is important) to be a threat to me or my aims.

2) For people with a living memory of oppression or injustice, words associated with those events are not simply neutral -- they're highly charged. It's not that the words "nigger" or "faggot" are somehow offensive in their glyphs. It's that there are people who are alive who have been humiliated or injured while having to listen to these words.

Now, none of this should be viewed as a defense of people who freak out at the slightest mention of an objectionable word, or people who want to ban any possibly offensive speech.

It's true that choosing not to be offended is easier to control than forcing everyone else not to offend you, but this "they're just words" argument is hollow.

Words are the result of intentional speech or writing actions. On hearing or reading words that we attribute to a conscious speaker or writer, we're naturally interested in their intentions, and possible future actions.
Analyst says Steve Jobs' spirit has been institutionalized
"Miley Cyrus is (afaik) not considered among the best actors in the world - she's just famous for landing a disney role."

I have to call you out on this point. Miley Cyrus isn't famous because she acted for Disney. There are plenty of child actors who did the same and went nowhere. Miley Cyrus is famous because she is the face of the Hannah Montana brand run by the Disney marketing machine. A brand that has net Disney revenues in the tens of millions of dollars.
While undoubtedly interesting, that's actually pretty average when it comes to the actual visualization.
Well, I think I've had maybe 4 thong sales since I started the shop.

Rubystuff.com overall had been averaging about $30/mo for about two years, though lately it's been much less.

I need to toss up some new designs.
I too have had multiple problems since taking my web company full time about three years ago. I've had the tingling, muscle knots and I've also had prostate pain and frequent urination. I'm not sure if the prostate thing is related but my doctors have not found any other underlying cause.

I've recently found a couple of things that help:

1. A book called "Pain Free at Your PC" http://www.amazon.com/Pain-Free-at-Your-PC/dp/0553380524

It has special stretches, some yoga inspired, to counteract the problems developed from sitting for long-periods.

2. A got a think called a "butt-cushion". I was skeptical when my friend suggested it, but felt some relief almost immediately.

Hope these ideas help someone.
Whoa.. I think you've got me confused with the person who wrote the Tammet article?
Odd. I've had one Mac fail on me (dual-USB iBook, the one with the motherboard problem). They replaced the motherboard, but then I sold it anyway a few months later.

Every other Mac I've ever had since then is still running. Another iBook, a MacBook, PowerMac G4, and the Mac Pro I'm typing on.

It's a little annoying, honestly. At least the PC hardware has the decency to die and get out of the way when I stop using it. :-)
Futzing with features: Firefox add-ons in 2008
Learning form jQuery: how to write good software
Cuban's Sports Gambling Hedge Fund, Revisited
You can't deny she is a talented actress, has a great voice, and is generally 'star quality'. A lot of it's just in the breeding and growing up around it all. She's probably done 10,000 hours of watching other people acting + singing while she grew up.

Disclaimer: Sure, I'm a Miley Cirus fan. Admission is first step to recovery + all that.
This is positively the least shocking news I've heard all day.
i think in a way... money was the motivator for the plumber.. if he could afford his bills... he wouldnt have spent that one night thinking and thinkingg...
They may have written code at some point, but it isn't what made them successful. They made their fortunes by doing other things that occasionally drew on their technical skills.

Like what? Raising horses and starting a petting zoo? The people you mentioned (Gates, Bezos, and others) became successful because they were technical, and not just occasionally.
I wrote a couple of short math books on a related topic: http://hilomath.com/

They're different in that they focus on more abstract math - algebra and calculus. In other words, how to solve algebra equations mentally, and how to do calculus operations mentally. Most books I've seen about "mental math" are actually about "mental arithmetic". While I personally see value in it, there is more to math than that.

Actually, I'd love any feedback people may have - both from an educational standpoint, if you have taught algebra and calculus; and from a business standpoint - the two math books are the two products I have now, and I'm thinking about how to better monetize it all, perhaps developing a larger study course kit. Thanks in advance.

(By the way, let me say right away that I'm not claiming to be unusually talented at math, because I'm not... just a typical engineer. Probably most people with an engineering or hard science degree (mine is in physics) will not find much new in the books. I just examined how I and some others solve algebra and calculus problems mentally, and attempted to explain how to replicate it.)

EDIT: see also http://blog.hilomath.com/
Ask HN: Sources to determine "reasonable compensation?" for web CEO's
I started a web company about 8 years ago, on the side. Three years ago I went full-time and have been fortunate that it is now providing me with a good income.

My CPA and Lawyer have recommended that I incorporate (I've been operating until now as a sole-proprietor), which I am in the process of finalizing.

After incorporating, I must, under IRS rules, pay myself a salary of "reasonable" and comparable compensation. For tax reasons, I want this salary to be as low as possible, but can't go lower than what would be normal and reasonable for a CEO/Software Developer of a profitable but small (under $1 million in revenues) web company.

Does anyone have any source or advice on how to come up with a reasonable number?
Agreed. The fact that all these tools take such pledges slays me.

The sad part is how many of the states' school's systems still teach abstinence as a form of safe sex instead of actually teaching safe sex.
How ReTweets Spread: The Epidemiology of Viral Messaging on Twitter
Carrying Gunpowder through Airport Security — Wild Bee
Oh dear, HAHA, you're right! I was thrown off by "see also my ..." :-P
The sad thing is, people want a magical bite sized formula they can cling to. It makes them buy the book. "Ooooh it's as simple as the number 10,000".

All the self help people use the same tactic. Often making the formula something that is counter intuitive - eg "How to work less and get more done".
I think they do some of those things now, with ads on the floor, blinky-lighted coupon dispensers, end-caps (?) and so on. I suppose it could get uglier, though. ;)

I also think they've become savvier about promoting their generic brands.
This is why I like to keep my tastes pretty tame. I specifically search out 'tangy' sauces rather than simply 'hot' sauces. When I eat whole or sliced peppers, I cut out the membrane on the spicier varieties because I'm more interested in the taste than assaulting my senses.

If you can't tell that a bell pepper has a tiny bit of zesty spice to it, your choice of peppers is too spicy and you are destroying your sense of taste.
-5 for this? Stop downvoting him/her.
The Beautiful Machine (AIG)
Being convinced one way or another about the situation is itself an exhibition of delusion, just as much as any other "God delusion." We are endowed with cognitive facilities that give us ideologies.

It could very well be a US thing (I am not asserting one case or another). It could also be a self fulfilling prophecy. Unlike most other gene carrying robots, prophecies apply to us.
RSS is just one of those things where no media person thinking in a pre-internet world will ever understand; giving your content away, with few ways of monetizing the readers?! Preposterous!
Rate my product - mostrecent.net
http://mostrecent.net/

My idea: to build a community of topical-hand-edited news pages. I want to start in the tech community working to recruit editors/experts to build pages covering programming languages and popular technologies. Think of it as an alternative to blogs, tweets, and social link sites. Here an expert can build out a page with the most useful links and highlight news items that he/she knows are important to the community. Everything is tabulated into one easy to scan page. This is all managed via a drop and drop interface.

The short intro video should give more context about how the site works:

http://mostrecent.net/help/introclip/

I'm just getting out of my "soft launch" phase and the JavaScript page I've built has already started making the rounds and gaining regular readers. It is a good example of what I'm going for:

http://mostrecent.net/javascript/

We are still in beta and more features are coming. My eventual business plan is to place ads on the pages with an aggressive editor rev share program. There are a number of pages at various levels of development on the site, but I know for a fact we still need pages covering ruby, java, flash, perl, lisp, tech startups, apple, c# and much more (in case anyone is interested).

Thanks for your time and attention! I look forward to your feedback.
-Finish popalerts, & popschedule
-Get portfolio site together
-Figure out first year C corp taxes due.
-Develop better communication and public speaking skills.
-Make more connections with outside web consultants.
-Wake up to the sound of an alarm.
-Stop arguing with my girlfirend
-Drink more tea, less coffee
-Make Lists, get organized
-Build large business web concepts (coke, nike, honda,...)
-Paint more
-Drink less
"a walmart-type job does not provide enough income to live on"

Sure it does. My ex-wife did it while supporting my step-daughter. Even had medical benefits for ~$20/month. She had to watch her spending and get a roommate, but she did it with zero .gov assistance (food stamps and the like).

While the unskilled jobs may not pay much, they pay more than nothing and will keep you fed and dry till you find something better.
Wait, what? There are ads?

I'm sure Adblock has saved my rear many times without me even knowing it.
Prototyping in Flash For The iPhone
I'm from Russia too. In my experience this "till death us do part" attitude changes to "get a lot of money or get out" pretty fast. Right after marriage. Women are women everywhere.
The Book Of Ruby
Ha! I went to the American University of Cairo for a semester. It's crazy to think of Hackers in Zamalek, but where there's a will (and an internet connection), there's a way.

Zamalek only has a Nile view if you are in a tower or, well, on the Nile. And the Nile is pretty "Monet"- great from afar, but up close, crude, smelly and bug-infested.

One of my favorite newsbites from time in country was when shortly after H5N1 (Bird Flu) was discovered up river (geographically South) a poultry merchant was ordered to kill his flock. How did he choose to do this? Oh, by drowning them in the country's major water supply.
It's silly to try to moderate or influence sexual behaviour of animals, and it's unethical to try to restrain natural animal behaviour. If you see a primate of prime mating age priming to mate, get out of the way and let them do their thing.

The only time we should step in is when other things we invent cause this behaviour, in which case it becomes unnatural. For example, alcohol or drugs.
Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible
I'll add a link to tips that you gave earlier on the same topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=119006

It was very useful.
So, basically this is the same point that 1984 made (make everyone's quality of life suck to protect the inner party's welfare, even if they're not better off than an above average person pre-Ingsoc) applied to at an individual level?
Indeed, but on the other hand it's also old and not hacker news!
Freemium business model case study: AdultFriendFinder ARPU, churn, and conversion rates
Go for the new years kiss!
Gunpowder Is Okay to Bring on an Airplane
my brother and both parents said "well of course everyone is driven by money... you mean you thought they were driven by something else?"

What the fuck? They really think everyone's goal in life is to buy as much crap as they can?
Research has shown that abstinence doesn't really work so well. There was a study that showed that abstinence only sex-ed lead to no change in the median initial age for sex.

In fact, abstinence education has led to a rise in anal sex among straight teens (it's not real sex, and is perfectly safe).
It's amusing to see this guy's story circulate from the indie gaming forums (where it showed up a few weeks ago) onto Hacker News.

Everyone already agrees that he's doing the wrong thing if he wants to be successful, and that he's got a degree of dedication that would allow him to sell his title independently for other platforms (computer, Xbox Arcade, etc.) or join an existing company. Everyone is also bothered by his extremely huge ego, which rivals that of Lord British (Richard Garriott) himself.

He's trying to aspire to some sort of weird ideal of being one of the last single-person developers who publishes a mainstream console title, something which doesn't really exist anymore. It's noble, but foolhardy.

He's just hard to write off, because he's not just some loser who is being unrealistic. He is an insanely devoted, multi-talented person who is being unrealistic.
First of all, I would recommend you spend a bit of time on design. The site is blinding.
Maybe tone down your link colors a bit, or don't make them so huge.

I can't say I really understand the problem you are trying to solve. Why would I use mostrecent rather than delicious or squidoo or something else similar.
It seems there is a ton of manual tasks required, I manually create links, manually drag them around, etc.

Your intro clip shows functionality (which is why it is under help), but you really need to explain why I would create these links. Why am I an editor, why I am doing this.

Tungle had a great demo (not sure if it is still around), and there was a group that is doing online merging of office and google docs, they also had a great demo video.

Look around and see what you can come up with.

This might be a great idea (it is a great domain name), but you haven't spelled out clearly enough what I would use it for/why it needs to exist.
The iPod wouldn't have been much of a success either if it had only been able to play iTunes downloads. The Apple TV would have done fine if it had shipped with either a DVD player or the ability to play downloaded divx/xvid videos. The lesson is: support existing standards, then add your own.
The marketing ploy, according to some, is that he's getting people to talk about him and his game without any effort of his own, except for expression of his overblown ego.
Excellent list.

I created an almost identical list of precise goals and it is already helping me.
If rents come down in New York quickly, this city will have no problem becoming the #3 or #4 startup hub. Banks and hedge funds are pushing out a lot of talented hackers who chased the money, did boring subordinate stuff for three years during the Wall Street boom, and now want to get themselves into something interesting.

Of course, we're talking about reason and efficiency with regard to New York residential issues, so the aforementioned "if" is a big one. If landlords are short-sighted and greedy enough to keep rents high while accepting a vacancy rate, the talent will flush out of here before New York has the opportunity to establish itself as a tech hub... and then it's only a matter of time before we're back in the '70s.
12 questions (and attempts at answers) about next week's non-Stevenote
“People think hacker means a criminal,” said Devon Jones, a 33-year-old member of the collective who was slumped on a ratty couch drinking a beer. “Well, we want our word back.”

Me too!
Atwood gets a lot of mileage from summarizing Steve Yegge's and Joel Spolsky's blog posts.

And having sad that I feel a bit silly commenting here.
But there are a few things worth repeating.

As a commenter on Joel's blog mentioned, Sturgeon's law applies: 90% of everything is crap.

And everything includes programming jobs AND the jobs in any other industry you might be considering.

If your crappy programming job has you down, change jobs before you change industries.

Start your own company or even try working for someone else, use your crappy source of steady income to look for a better job.

Another thing worth mentioning is that if you truly deeply love programming then perhaps commercial programming of any kind is worse then not programming.

If you truly look at code as art, then digging ditches by day and writing beautiful open source code by night, might be preferable to churning out crap code for pay.

Lastly ageism doesn't apply if you work for yourself and it also does not apply with legacy code.

Quite the opposite in fact, anyone who has a lot of legacy code (And boy are there A LOT of legacy computer systems out there!) is active looking for older programmers.

But then you wouldn't be working in the sexy exciting web 2.0 circus.
When setting up a media/gaming center after spending a long time without even a TV, I was surprised by how little progress there had been. The AppleTV is useless.

My current setup is an xbox 360 + mac mini, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. The mini is hooked up to a Drobo (which I regret purchasing) which holds my media. I serve media off the mini to the xbox using Rivet. I also have automated ripping setup on the mini so that I can pop in a DVD and an applescript takes care of the rest, which makes digitizing my library feasible.

The xbox 360 allows me to watch DVDs, stream movies/TV off the mini, watch Netflix instant viewing, and uh, play games.

The only thing I don't have the ability to do yet is to play Hulu on my TV. I'll have to investigate Boxee for that...
Toys, and almost anything manufactured by Nintendo. Things designed for abuse, in other words.
Hard Disks and Optical drives only fail on Macintoshes?
Maybe I'm a bit slow, but why is this special?
This seems like a good follow-up to the thread elicited by pg's article "After Credentials."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=399863
I think it's better to "fish" for your fellow techies (rather than potential executives) for a couple of reasons:

1. You're likely to learn more (at least about your craft) in casual users' group meetings than you are in a business lunch

2. Good programmers and meetup organizers have a tendency to become the next business cycle's project managers and CIOs, so having a network made up of them is a great way to improve your chances at snagging your next great job

Also, in my experience at least, good managers are usually much more pro-active about getting to know their reports than the reverse. Regardless, it's not a very effective means of expanding your professional network, since your boss already knows you from your work together, and is unlikely to recommend you more or less enthusiastically because you sat down for a club sandwich together.