skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I turned some out of these predictions into markets (<disclaimer!>) at my start-up http://askmarkets.com (</disclaimer!>), you may want to go put your (play) money where your mouth is, or crowdsource the probability of your forecasts by creating your own markets. Thanx for your attention.
Google tells users to drop IE6
Based on the url a few of you may have seen this.
http://ycombinator.com/munger.html
I found that this talk affected me. I printed it out, I re-read it every once and a while. The thought process is so clear, I got the same feeling reading it as when I learn something basic and useful, that I knew I was missing.

Also, I found this useful:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
There is a pdf as well. A good roundup and reminder of what it takes to think analytically about non-technical topics.
I think you can say it for any self-replicating profession.
Perhaps the sunken city of R'yleh sports these sorts of cubes.
The damage to the dollar doesn't have so much to do with Bush as it does with the massive deficit spending that nearly every politician at the national level has been complicit in during the past 8 years. The new president's term will be no better with respect to the dollar unless something changes in that regard.

Also since the Fed's interest rate is zero for all practical purposes how do you suppose it can do much more to increase the money supply? They have over used their main tool and kept rates too low for two long which created over investment in the housing market and caused this pickle to begin with.
Counter to what most people believe, I see development on Open Source apps and libraries slowing waaaay down in 2009.

- Most people are expecting a downturn uptick in open source development because there will be more unemployed engineers, but unemployed engineers need to pay rent, put food on the table, etc. so developing open source code will be a luxury like subscribing to premium cable channels. Instead, they'll be fully focused on finding work.

- Because being part of a team of people working on open source apps can help engineers get a job, expect people to 'join' projects for resume purposes but not really have the time (or desire) to participate.

- Desperate times call for desperate measures and when engineers are considering taking their substantial code base and making it open source, I believe they are less likely to do it during a bad economy simply because there are fewer ways to profit from that move.

- And, on a tangential note, I expect the biggest winners during 2009 will ultimately be the drug companies -- especially those that produce anti-anxiety pills.

My two cents.
I agree that the item you mention is not a particularly strong argument, but I wanted to mention some examples of how rent control blocks a price signal that might even be useful for the beneficiary of rent control. I think it's uncontroversial that it blocks the price signal to renovate the buildings and to build new affordable housing as discussed above.

But if you agree on the major point that the social engineering geared at getting people to live/work in one place for a long time is on the wrong track, then our differences seem focused on rent control.

I should mention that in my last building in SF there was a guy who had lived there in a rent controlled apartment since the 1970s. After the first year I lived there, a letter arrived in the mail informing me that rent would increase by exactly 1.5%, the maximum increase allowed by law, and that the landlord was pushing for "utility cost pass-through", a rent-control exception that allows slightly bigger increases in cases of utility price jumps. So I was a beneficiary of rent control.

Back to the guy. His apartment had a view of the bay and golden gate bridge from every window, including the bathroom. It could probably be rented for $3500+/month because of the amazing views. He was a wealthy lawyer, arch-enemy of the landlord and heavily involved in the tenants union, and completely not in need of any help paying rent. With rent control he was probably paying under $1000/month for his apartment and had been for years. He will probably live there until the day he dies.

I'd have been far less skeptical of rent control if there had been an immigrant family living in that apartment or someone who worked at the local Walgreens.
How to Identify Top Blogs in Any Niche
"...NEVER accept an invitation (even if I actually end-up attending the event)"

Strange, considering that the events feature is one of the most useful on Facebook, and because he has obviously used it (albeit inefficiently) since he's noticed events this way. Really, Facebook events are great for parties and things when you can't get everyone together at once to plan/discuss/whatever, (or when you're antisocial like me and you don't want to). A lot less phone calls and such to mess with, and a built-in discussion board and RSVP system to boot.
I already got my whoopin' for making this prediction! http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/12/microsoft-buys-37signals...
That sounds like a very specific incident extrapolated to all entrepreneurs :)
With regard to profiling entrepreneurs, the characterizations from Steven Berglas are more spot on:

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2008/11/21/entrepreneur-...

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2008/12/02/turner-gates-...
Um, what's the big deal? Am I missing something? I looks cool I guess, but why would it fry anyones brain?
I understand the financial imperatives, but I can't help but feeling quite sad about this. I've been reading DDJ since the olden days (back when it was "Dr. Dobb's Journal of Calinstethics and Orthodontia: Running Light Without Overbyte") and it's sadly one of the last remaining magazines from that era.
I think that people are debating between 3 choices: (a) 100% chance that there is a boy and girl, (b) 2/3 chance that it is a boy and a girl, or (c) 50% chance that it is a boy and a girl.

It depends very much on the exact wording of the problem.

Like many people in the comments of Jeff's post said that if the person says that "one of my kids is a girl," then common sense makes it sound like ONLY one kid is a girl and the other must be a boy (case a).

If the question is worded precisely like question #2 in this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_Girl#Second_question
(where you have a population of families and you randomly pick a family which has a girl), then you use the Bayesian approach to conclude that there is a 66% chance that the other kid is a boy (case b).

Finally, I think that for case c, if you are just walking around and you're not specifically looking for a family with a girl, and you strike up a conversation and you hear that the person randomly decides to talk about his daughter, then I think the odds are 50% that this person's other kid is a boy. This is because you did not require that you choose a family with a specific gender (like in the wikipedia #2 scenario). First you picked a person to talk to, and then this person just happened to mention he had a daughter. Basically, we did not require that the person has a girl (case b), we only learned that he has a girl (case c).
I can finally quit supporting IE6 sometime soon. I am so happy!
the competitive advantage of the apple hardware lies in the design, not the actual manufacturing of it.
Parents have the power to end hereditary religion
This can be used as a warm-up question for another fun problem (which a friend of mine was asked during a phone screen for a position at DE Shaw): What if instead of telling you that they have two children at least one of them a girl, someone told you that they have two children at least one of them named, say, Linda? The assumption is that there are no boys named Linda, that the likelihood for a girl to be named Linda is not affected by having an older brother or sister, etc. It's not a trick question, nor a sociological problem requiring any knowledge about names, it's a purely mathematical puzzle. And, as you may have guessed, the solution is not the same as in the previous case (with two children at least one of them girl).
About 20 years? I remember these from way back. They are less mystifying when you see them up close, but still fun to mess with.
Judo. I was so happy when I was doing it previously and I'm disappointed I ever stopped (graduated from college). But, the best dojo in town is right near my house, so there we go.

After that, I want to focus on polish. I too often focus on the end result but I'm bad at getting to the done-done stage - specifically, UI/UX.
Predictions for 2009 In the World of Tech
The Do-It-Yourself Athletic Scholarship
Also, How much money do you think I should set aside for this trip?
What Will Change Everything -- Multiple Opinions, Some Doomsday
I'd like to learn more about economics. I'm happy to hear suggestions about what I should read.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=415683

Someone who likes to read a lot elsewhere in cyberspace just recommended to me the Becker-Posner blog.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
Public speaking. I'm signing up to some Toastmasters meetings and learning to do that well.
As long as there are people paying for the services a given profession provides, it will continue to exist. Now, it might be the case in e.g. academia that the profs will have to do the tedious work that grad students used to do, or come up with other ways of compensation, but the point still stands.
No Italy?! Why those countries? Not that they're bad, just that they're also fairly expensive (although if the pound keeps crashing, maybe England will finally be cheap) in a continent that, at least at the moment, is already expensive for Americans. Cheaper countries: Portugal, Spain, Greece, lots of places in "Eastern Europe". Italy's not cheap, but it is, of course, the most amazingly beautiful country anywhere even if it's not really run very well:-) I can't offer to put up people, necessarily, but I'm always willing to take some time to show people around Padova, my home away from home in Italy, where hopefully we will be returning soon.

Hostels aren't bad, actually, and you don't have too many other options for 'cheap'. Just try and figure out which ones are good, and which ones to avoid.
Basics of CSS 3
Congestion is an externality that gas taxes don't correct. GPS-taxes charge less for driving at different _hours_ creating incentives to drive at off-peak times.
Not hurting children, including not making them do things they don't want to do. (If it's good, convince them of that first.) This applies to school attendance, yes.
"Statistics: Hate the way it was taught in college."

I don't know how statistics was taught to you in college, but I find

http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF

a very inspiring article about how statistics ought to be taught, and it includes recommendations of better textbooks, some of which are quite readable for self-study.

Here's another good critique of how college statistics courses are usually taught:

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10...
For the admins - Dup -

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=98438
I predict that there will not be a great depression.

I do predict larger government involvement in health care. Electronic medical records is political gold (Bush, McCain and Obama all agree), and lobbyists will be involved. Invest in the medical records software vendor with the best political connections.

Some biostatistics software startups might hit it big too, depending on regulatory conditions (legal question: how do you datamine medical records without violating privacy?).
Seinfeld Calendar for Tracking Open Source Contributions
Can somebody explain the outrage? Is there any incentive to being a power user on digg (beyond getting your name on the front page?). Is there any monetary incentive? SEO opportunities perhaps?
No, no, it's the other way around :)

Physics is "natural philosophy", one branch of philosophy. There is also philosophy of knowledge, existence, morals, political philosophy, etc.
I absolutely agree about the effect this will have on open source development. You're missing one big factor, though: Financial contributions. I know people like to pretend that money isn't important, but running open source projects gets expensive very fast when you try to bring people together for conferences / developer summits; and for large projects which are attacking complex problems (e.g., adding SMP support to an OS kernel) bringing people together in the same room is absolutely vital.

There was a big slowdown in the open source world in the years after the first dot com bubble burst; I have no doubt that there will be another slowdown in the 2009-2010 timeframe.
Guess you are anti-ISP too?
It's an interesting collection of videos. The guy is a master showman -- he can make even the most mundane hardware feature -- even the product packaging -- seem utterly cool, innovative and desirable. And even though his appearance changed (compare 1998 with 2004), his enthusiasm never flagged. I hope he still makes an appearance at the Apple WWDC this year.
Thanks. I think 352 days is an excusable time for the repost.
Sure, but if it was as simple as ordering parts from vendors couldn't anyone reconstruct either product on the hardware side?
take one week off work every 3 months. I've taken a total of 13 days off in the last 3 years working 40 hours/week as a consultant and 15/week on my own stuff. I'm burnt out and my productivity has gone straight down the crapper
Here are the blogs I'd start with:
For behavioral and general economics, my two favorites are Tyler Cowen and The Big Picture

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/

For Development/Macroeconomics two great ones (besides Becker/Posner) are Greg Mankiw & Danny Rodrik

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/

http://rodrik.typepad.com/

Mankiw is a bit more traditional than Rodrik, so they tend to have some great back & forth, and when the discussion jumps above college-level they tend to link/explain things.
</econ nerd>
someone told you that they have two children at least one of them named, say, Linda

You would need a special case to determine if you were talking to Johnny Cash's father...
Anyone with any knowledge of our monetary systems will readily acknowledge that it works like a big ponzi scheme.

This is really the only way to manage a monetary system so it allows for economic growth.

We could say. "Let's go back to the Gold or Silver standard" but they have their own problems. United States was on a gold standard in the 1980s and I don't think we want to go there.

Anyone who has studied the history of Andrew Jackson should recall that the ongoing conflict between himself and Henry Clay during his three terms as president was about "Money Supply".
I'm not sure what you mean. Is the question still the same? Then why wouldn't the result be 2/3rds in either case?
One interesting point is that some individual countries on the euro can't optimize their currency strategy now. The example I've heard a few times that makes sense is Italy. When they needed to in the past, they could sink the value of their currency to stimulate Italian exports. Now, not so much - and euro stronger than other global countries reduces demand for Italian goods. It'll be interesting to see how the euro works out when a couple local economies in Europe are in bad shape and would love to have a stronger or weaker currency than the rest of the Union.
In case anybody's interested in making one:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Crazy-Star-Cube-!/

Looks to be an hour long project tops, requiring just starched paper and sellotape.
Fed having a reputation of avoiding inflation? Are you kidding? Do you know why Bernanke's nickname is Helicopter Ben?
It has been shown that children under the age of about 9 / 10 have extremely poor risk assessment and decision making skills [1]. We are animals and logic is learned over many years. Logical appeals on a young child would work as well as on a dog.

Parents are meant to make decisions for their children and children are meant to do things they don't want to do if it's ultimately advantageous. That people think otherwise scares the bejesus out of me, but perhaps explains why kids are so pampered and spoiled nowadays.

Citations:
http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Social-sciences/Are-young-chil...
http://ideas.repec.org/a/jdm/journl/v2y2007ip225-233.html
My plans:

- dedicate an hour a day to nothing but reading
- ditto for exercise
- finish the MIT opencourseware course on intro neuroscience (scored the textbook on eBay for $14)
- start a software project and bring it to being released
- build an arduinome if finances permit
- learn to dance
- finally complete my pilot's license and get a glider certification (again, finances permitting)
- go climbing outdoors as much as possible, time and weather permitting.
- figure out what I want to do professionally for the next few years (current job obligation ending summer)
One can also do some fairly objective studies of subjective experience. See for example, Robert Ornstein's book On the Experiencce of Time http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Time-Robert-E-Ornstein/dp/0...
I'm sorry, what's so special about this?

It's a series of half-rectangular prisms (basically non-equilateral 3-sided pyramids) sticking out of a surface, folding onto one another. 2 of these sheets == 2 star thingies. Unfold + press together == rectangular cubes.

Big deal? I think not... Slow news day I guess, what with it being New Years Day and all.
New Web Technologies of 2008
I want to learn Ruby too! Especially with Rails. I just want to get rid of PHP. Maybe it's not going to happen this year completely, but at least i will try. I find it's a fantastic framework. I worked with CakePHP and CodeIgniter before, but any PHP framework is just far behind the ruby syntax.
Is Internet Addiction Really An Addiction?
Well yeah, sort of.

If you think about it what is stock, you pay $10 for a share that someone else paid $5 for, pretty much just because of rumours the company may do better in the next month or year, it's like buying air.

At least with commodities it seems like there is something material behind that contract; grain, oil, sugar. It's not like one day people will suddenly decide, or could be capable of deciding, to cut out sugar.
I predict Apple stock goes up a lot.
What browser do you use? Scrolling with the wheel works fine in Scribd, at least in Firefox.

Not to be pedantic, but the Adobe Flash Runtime is tiny compared to Acrobat or Word, and effectively has a 0 startup cost.
And yet, the "red" that appears in my consciousness differs, when I look at an object with my left eye, from that produced by my right eye.
Exactly the response I meant by "hiding behind the DMCA". To call Scribd an ISP is a stretch. They pretty much invite anyone to upload anything, and it is not clear they take any step to take out copyrighted content (entire books can be found there) until someone sends a DMCA notice. An ISP is a transmission service, while Scribd is a stateful, long lasting, very search-engine optimized storage service. An ISP doesn't by design intent (SEO!) carry traffic to copyright infringing content. Some day a distinction like that could come back and bite them in the ass, but their hope must be to "exit" before that happens.
You didn't read to the end of the article. See:

In 2009 I'm not planning to learn a new language either, although I am planning to put up my first production app in Seaside.
Motorola C975 Unlocked 
This trendy phone featuring a 'candy bar' shape, comes with 3G functionalities and can be used for video calling and video content downloads. Fitted with a quality VGA camera, the phone is capable of taking pictures with 0.3 Megapixel resolution
well, what do you expect? for years, ms did the same for FF from their msdn and some other product pages, didn't they? For years, incompetent developers did the same too, ignoring FF. There is a new competitor in town, and actually, they are probably right with their claims (that IE6 is weak), anyone disagree with that?
don't forget about amateur athletics -- just look at brandon jennings going to europe. how can society criticize h.s. stars and their families for thinking about making some money (i.e. "recouping") when the coaches and everyone else around them (broadcasters, writers, etc.) are making millions?
Crowdsourced '09 Predictions on Video
Hah. I like the description of the entrepreneur, but as for "how to date them." it basically asks the dater to be a perfect person and do everything perfectly right for this amazing entrepreneur. I have a feeling this person will be a little tough to find.
Have to admit I've thought it before... Never said it though.
I predict that most predictions will be incorrect.
Erk, exactly (swap CodeIgnitor for ZF) the same position I'm in.
If children have no judgment, shouldn't it be real easy to convince them of whatever you want? They won't know any better than to listen.
It gets murky when the positions are subsidized by the government or otherwise.
I decided to learn about deciding to learn about something.
"We too thought our retirement funds and houses were growing miraculously, though ours was an illusion fueled by debt rather than fraud"

This is clearly true regarding housing prices and the returns and market prices of financial companies, but it ignores the effects of productivity increases when applied to other types of companies. Increasing productivity should allow equity capital to produce higher returns and it is difficult to separate this effect from the effect of a leveraged balance sheet when pricing equities. The market will certainly overshoot on the downside at some point but it's difficult to determine where that occurs because consumption must be lower in the short and long term due to deleveraging by businesses and consumers.
Or maybe they were aware of it in the good old times too, and they think it was crap then too?

I have no patience for working on lame assignments, and my marks suffer, but I still have no patience for people who are in school hoping to coast through. If you don't challenge yourself, you're wasting everyone's time.
If you have a mac search for "tuna pitch", it's a decent free guitar tuner
Ah oh, tone is hard to detect over the internet sometimes.
Thanks for the suggestions. I see Big Picture just moved to a new URL.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/
The PPE core is a completely new design (it isn't even similar to the G5, let alone derived from it). The WSJ article is correct; the PPE was originally part of Cell and it was later improved (with additional instructions) and used in the Xbox 360 processor. Even though they both share the PPE, the two chips have radically different architectures because of the SPEs (or lack thereof).

I found it interesting to watch these design processes from inside IBM; I'll have to check out the book.
JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language Has Become Most Popular
I just spent a little over a month in Europe and half of the time was spent in Italy. It was awesome.

For the OP:

Some cities were of course more expensive than others. If you stay at cheap hostels, take the metros and walk instead of taxis, and eat out at cheap "bars" or take out it's affordable.

A lot of the sights you want to see are free also, like Piazzas and fountains. So just grab a slice of pizza or gelato and enjoy the views.
After your 'convincing' argument, what do you do when they simply reply "no"?
I think it is state by state, but quite possibly varies from company to company. I found this list (which is similar to ones I've seen before), which is for Ohio: http://www.healthcarereform.ohio.gov/HCRDoc/RepresentativeLi.... Some of the ones on the list are pretty shocking and many of them are hereditary.
The Happiness Effect
The journal article referenced:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/dec04_2/a2338
How to turn a one-man startup into a real company.
Aw come on... I was just following Rule#3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)