skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Who said she doesn't respect that?

By your logic, nobody should speak their minds.

I think it's naive of you to posit that Instagram, Zynga, etc. are life-changing ideas.

Not that entertainment doesn't have value, but I think she's spot on in expressing some concern that some of our generation's brightest minds are working on "pornified" entertainment.
Because the thing that overthrows Facebook could very well be collaboratively created on GitHub. The conflict between Facebook's business interests and its user's interests is the biggest painpoint and thus most ripe for disruption.
I meant exactly the same as far as an average user is concerned - you never have to use the search box (I remove it), you can just put search terms in the main box and it'll use the configured provider.

I will admit FF is a little worse at confusing search terms for a URL on occasion, but that's a minor annoyance at best.
I read a lot about that "trick" of uploading photos before a caption is applied, but I am not quite sure why this gets all of the attention it does. I've been loading things in the background of my apps for years, and is something I think most programmers would do by default. Could someone explain to me what makes this unique?
Run VMWare vSphere on the bare metal, virtualizing both XP and Linux. Of course, you'd have to re-install everything.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/faq.html
For people who agree that Instagram, for example, is a small idea. I am going to leave you with an excerpt from a Hal Abelson lecture:

"Now, the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments. And that is, when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use. And indeed, on some absolute scale of things, we probably know less about the essence of computer science than the ancient Egyptians really knew about geometry.

Well, what do I mean by the essence of computer science? What do I mean by the essence of geometry? See, it's certainly true that these Egyptians went off and used surveying instruments, but when we look back on them after a couple of thousand years, we say, gee, what they were doing, the important stuff they were doing, was to begin to formalize notions about space and time, to start a way of talking about mathematical truths formally. hat led to the axiomatic method. That led to sort of all of modern mathematics, figuring out a way to talk precisely about so-called declarative knowledge, what is true.

Well, similarly, I think in the future people will look back and say, yes, those primitives in the 20th century were fiddling around with these gadgets called computers, but really what they were doing is starting to learn how to formalize intuitions about process, how to do things, starting to develop a way to talk precisely about how-to knowledge, as opposed to geometry that talks about what is true."

Ideas do not have to be earth shaking breakthroughs to push the human race forward. Things build on each other, effect of which is often missed.

There is wisdom is thinking long term, but not too long. The mental trap smart people fall into of thinking their idea should make an impact that will last longer and deeper only makes them vulnerable of being wrong. When you're just scratching the surface and don't know what's beneath, it's better to keep scratching than to speculate.

Even in short term, "no wireless, less space than a Nomad" changed the music industry. "Just a bigger iPod touch" is changing education.
There is a great scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where someone spills wine at the table and the lady yells "Somebody Do Something!" and Larry says "Why the f*$k don'you do something," I never understood these clever articles explaining why smart people are selfish. Most people writing these articles are more than capable and often (in Kara's case) rich with access to attention of the masses.

There are plenty of people with big ideas, feature them, befriend them, help them get money. If you think something is important build it or help they people building it leverage it. The solution is never to make the people doing things you don't consider big feel small themselves.
Big ideas can get you burned, just ask Bruno or Galileo.

Of course nobody is going to be so prosecuted today, but I think we as a society tend to sequester those with radical views from voicing them. So I do think there are some 'Big Minds' working on 'Big Ideas' (eg. every so often you hear about someone building a car that runs on alternate fuel resources). However, if by chance these ideas do make it to a main stage then more times than not they are summarily ridiculed/discredited. The political arena seems to be the biggest example of this.

Big ideas are hard for people to get their head around. People are more likely to attack that which they don't understand, rather than give a new viewpoint the proper time to be digested and then considered as a valid opinion.

Just because someone says I have a better form of health care, democracy, capitalism, or any other 'Big Idea' that's needed, and they want to introduce it to the world. That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement the change aren't willing to listen (and let's face it, more times than not they aren't).

Of course the resources of those building said 'Big Idea' also needs to be considered. I have a whole host of projects I'd love to build -- some of them bigger than others, but until I have the resources to put into them, and the people around me to back that up, I can't even begin to get started. That's why I'm working on the small ideas now. In fact, since she noted them specifically, I have some educational word games for kids coming in the next few weeks.

So this is where I embrace the small idea by saying, combined, small ideas bring about the sea change. Of course not every small idea will contribute, but in time, due to the demands of the market, things will change.
[video] The Myth of the Genius Programmer
No, I think they will replace the aluminum case and the battery as a single unit.
Define "success". Not everyone equates success to getting rich - at least, not at the expense of putting time and effort on something that matters.
The Teachings of Yoda
I'm sorry, this needs a citation. I'm not trying to be a jerk, it's just that with a subject this controversial you can't simply assert claims like this.
> Note also that Linux powers Facebook, Google and much of the rest of the web, and Linux itself relies on GitHub for collaborative developement.

Now that is not even hyperbole, but just plain incorrect. Linux does have an official git mirror on github. None of the development of Linux is done via GitHub.
The problem is that it drives the speed limit and nobody drives the speed limit
I agree with Kara on this one. Before I continue let me add that I'm guilty of this too to some degree: I work on display ads. Now I personally believe that advertising has done an enormous amount of good for the world by providing services for free that otherwise couldn't be free, which is actually much more important for the developing world (GMail being free matters much more to a user in Africa than it does to a user in the US, generally speaking). But I'm certainly not working on a big idea.

It's interesting to see some of the responses here. They are in some cases quite defensive and/or dismissive of this observation. Some of the defenses raised:

1. Deferred altruism: "I'm making the easy money now but I'll (work on big ideas,give back,etc) later."

I question the sincerity of these statements. For one thing, human nature is funny when it comes to money. How much is enough? Most of us here aren't independently wealthy so we probably think several million dollars will do, tens of millions will be plenty. I bet you'll find many people with that kind of net worth still thinking they're poor and they need to make more. It's probably an easy trap to fall into.

People think money won't change them. For most people it does.

More to the point, the biggest motivator is the need to succeed. One reason startups are successful is it's either succeed or die. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. I truly believe you're much more motivated and productive when your (financial) life depends on it. If you're wealthy, most of the time you're just not going to be as motivated. It's a rare individual that is the exception.

2. Big problems are hard/expensive.

No actually they're not. Some are, sure. Thorium reactors would be an expensive problem.

A lot of other problems in the fields of machine learning, bioinformatics, etc are largely just software problems. Computing power continues to get exponentially cheaper. The Khan Academy is a big idea with very little costs to entry or operational costs.

3. "This is happening in other areas too!"

Who cares? You're not responsible for anyone's behaviour other than your own. Plus of course two wrongs don't make a right.

I get the desire to strike it rich. I really do. There's nothing wrong with that. It seems disingenuous--even dishonest--to suggest there is a deeper altruistic motive. Most of the time there isn't.

I don't see Kara's comments (or mine for that matter) as a criticism of the motives of any particular individual or company, merely a lament that society as a whole places such value on what are really shallow desires and distractions. I'm sure it'd be harder to get funding for something as unsexy as, say, protein folding than it would be for creating a social network for cats and that really is sad.
"makes": Ouya doesn't exist yet.[1]

"will make": XBMC is here now, plus has a track record of delivering.

The "true potential" of Android isn't about gaming. Its true potential will be realized when it can run on the disposable pay as you go handsets used by the other 5 billion people on the planet as their primary and only computing device.

1. "The reality of the OUYA console doesn’t match the hype: why you should be skeptical", Penny Arcade, http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality...
Interesting. Can you produce a bijection between R and P(N)? It might be harder than you think.
These are my politics: Give me Real, Flawed People
I agree - it was the wrong word. One can be successful and never be rich, however, wealth is a property of success, albeit a non-essential one.

That said, I still think most people want money and will take the easiest path to money - if small ideas can get them there then they will gravitate towards implementing those ideas.
I am working on a current events search engine:

http://rssident.com/mash/?t=job&e=telecommute|remote

http://rssident.com/mash/?t=job&e=java

http://rssident.com/mash/?e=venture|VC|funding

http://rssident.com/mash/?t=reuters

http://rssident.com/mash/?t=pole
You have to start small to get traction and to get funded.

Facebook is overthrowing governments. Google is making self driving cars and elevators to the moon. Neither of these companies stated this as their mission or probably even dreamed of these things in year 1 or 2.

A generation from now we'll see what can happen when you give young, brilliant, idealistic founders complete control of their multi-billion dollar companies.

This is just the beginning.
Yes, there are probably some people that cannot figure out how to download chrome, but those people would also not likely notice any difference between chrome and the browser they already have.

I was referring to the person that commented, reading hacker news probably means this person is both aware and capable of downloading it.

It's just a waste of resources.
Amazing that there is no mention of http://Status.net anywhere this topic is discussed.

Evan Prodromou has been trying to crack that nut for many years now...
One thing you have to account for is that by capturing their emails you can also do email marketing to increase the chance they return to app as you develop it out more and add cool new features. The caveat being, your product has to be interesting and your emails infrequent and well designed.
From that story:

"Viewers who want to access the live coverage at NBCOlympics.com will have to verify that they are either cable, satellite or Telco subscribers."
Well first off, you're talking to a European, and while I'm sympathetic to the fear of the encroaching 'nanny state', I just don't share your solution (guns)

If you want to get yourself fucked up then you're most likely quite happy to have the rest of society bear the burden of your subsequent health care, ditto for your diabetes care etc. I'm sure you get what I'm trying to say.

None of us live on an island, our actions impact others and when it does so (as Spock said) the needs of the many outweigh the needs if the few.

This country (America) is already being financially crippled by health care costs so reducing sugar and fat and car accidents seems to make perfect sense, even at the cost of a few's peoples' adrenaline fixes.

I don't disagree with you on Spanish flu (50m people died), or on the corrupt financial system, but that's a fragile house of cards. Economics is a complex system and it's all based on a mutual agreement in the value of little pieces of paper. It's a social contract that is holding together the fabric of capitalism. While that night not be the perfect system, it's so far the least bad that we've found.

"why do you need to be productive" - maybe I came across as being a little self righteous (which is far from the truth), I was just trying to say that one persons fun is very often a ton is work for the rest of society, those that scrape up the parts after a motorcycle accident, those that provide health care and those of us (all of us) that pay for it in our insurance premiums. Why should I, someone who is fit and healthy pay for everyone else's indulgence in fat and sugars that bought about heart disease and diabetes. The answer of course is that same one that is the reason why fixing cars safety is important, because the individual sometimes has to sacrifice something for the success of the rest of society.
Seems like in the article and the comments there are three categories of "master" here: Theoreticians, Mechanics, and Explainers. People who destroy and replace models, people who take models into places we never envisioned, and people who can explain models to others. (These categories work across both fiction, non-fiction, and science)

I wonder as we learn if we don't naturally move from one of these categories to another. I'd wager it's from explainer to theoretician to mechanic. It'd be interesting to see some research in this area.
I hope you will. It does make a big difference in the impression you give to many smart people.
I have an idea( prototype? ) for a search engine that could be disruptive, with a bit of luck. It has nothing to do with bangs and slashtags.

I've hired a freelancing coder to do some "wrapping up" so I could show the prototype but it is over a month now and still I haven't heard from him.

I do not want to engage too much time and resources into this (hiring stationary coders) but this really is the search engine that is closest to disrupting Google and Bing.

I believe that slashtags and bangs and non-spam results are not the way to go, my search engine tries a different route altogether which those two big engines ( Google and Bing ) couldn't probably adopt because they are simply too big.

I can produce results semi-manually and all I need is automation for that method but the coder I've hired, stopped responding over a month ago.

I really see big future in it but I do not want to invest too much effort and money into something so risky.

I wish I could show you what it is all about but it would reveal too much. And without the automated prototype, some good coder could simply copy it in like 2 weeks.

I believe that for $10000 I could present a really basic prototype of something that is disruptive to Google and Bing and if it isn't I think nothing will ever be.
While I agree with much of what you are saying, I disagree strongly with the last sentence. I think if one feels that a certain career path is petty and selfish, one must make that clear. The reason is that, aggregate over large populations and years of time, societal notions of dignity and respect toward certain professions, and disrespect toward others, have a substantial influence on whether people enter those professions and what kinds of choices they make once engaged in them.

Of course this is a mechanism that goes horribly wrong in some societies, but it's our job to make ours as good as we are able.
> That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement the change aren't willing to listen.

The sad part about this is that in many ocasions we are those with the power to implement the changes. Though we can rationalize and find an excuse not to change... after all, why me? why bother with a 'society of idiots' like someone have pointed here already?
> Another thing that resonated deeply with me was how Newton studied a book by a French mathematician (I don’t remember which one): he started reading the book – when he found it too hard, he started over. That’s what he did until he understood the whole thing. So, he didn’t go and read something more basic, or tried to found someone who could explain it. He just stayed with the source until he groked it.

Approach this advice with caution. Yes, it might work great if you're working with a great book that has good coverage of all the fundamentals of the topic and presents it in a logical order. Many books don't do this. Starting over when you get stuck can just throw you into an endless loop if the required information just isn't in the book you picked to learn from. Know when to branch out to other sources of information instead of looping back. Don't be afraid to make a quick interlude to Wikipedia if you need to.

(Personally, I prefer to just backtrack to the information I missed instead of starting over from scratch. Starting over seems to waste a lot of time, but if you missed one concept, there's a chance you missed more.)
What about the fact that patent portfolio companies (often who act to troll like) increase the value of patents you develop there by incentivizing startups to innovate and develop patents that allow them to subsidize the development of their company?
Eventually people want a bit more than a list of links. Check out Diablo3's theme: http://www.reddit.com/r/diablo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iQCLlu1dko for a higher resolution in which you can read the code.
I disagree. In both cases, people are taking the easy way out, because hard things are well, hard.
Ask HN: Who has tips for building a great crowdfunding campaign?
Thanks, let us know if you have any feedback once you've taken it for a spin.
I'm curious. Email me (my contact info is in my profile), I'll sign an NDA and everything.
Your last statement doesn't line up well with the fact that protein folding has more funding than cat social networks do.

Sure, it's academic/institutional funding, but whatever.
To paraphrase Leonard Nimoy from the Simpsons [1]:

The following article is true and by "true" I mean "false". It's all lies but they're entertaining lies and in the end isn't that the real truth? The answer is "no".

We geeks seem to often be susceptible to hype and hyperbole. Someone is really in love with Github and thinks it's the greatest thing ever and it's going to change the world. It's easy to get caught up in your own excitement. I get it. That's fine.

But I have to admit to having some Github fatigue. We've gone through a spate in the last year of "Github is the new resume", "Github will change engineer recruiting" and now "Github is the most important social network ever".

In many cases I don't believe the author is being deliberately "linkbaity" but that's ultimately what it is.

Part of the problem too is that you get a certain about of "bubble thinking" in tech circles. You see this when VCs get excited about Quora thinking it's going to be the Next Big Thing [tm] because "everyone" is using it (meaning "lots of other people in the Valley"). That's what I mean by "bubble".

I play boardgames a lot and it's much like "groupthink" there (an isolated group of players will evolve a play style and view on strategy very different from other such groups).

In all of the above cases the cure is just to get out of the bubble and expose yourself to different influences and views because the end of the road for this kind of thinking is simply stagnation and becoming out of touch.

Github is great. Their engineers are great. Source control is important. Some will be able to use it to demonstrate their work ([2] really resonates with me). All of this is true but let's not go overboard.

[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701263/quotes?qt=qt0332688

[2]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4244420
I've spent my last five years working first at an electronic medical records place and then a startup working on a relatively untapped market of aggregating and reporting on enterprise infrastructure related risk management data across disparate data sources. I wouldn't argue that either is a game changer that I should feel very noble about being a part of, but I must confess it is somewhat discouraging to see all the money being thrown at relatively simple problems that make life 'more fun'. Things like instagram, foursquare. etc.

It's especially frustrating on the recruiting side to get highly skilled developers interested in working in the 'boring' world of enterprise software with no obvious path to a quick liquidity event.

I'd like to think working on big data problems related to aggregating and reporting on things like vulnerability and security incident management across fortune 100 global networks would attract some of the best and brightest, but instead I'm stuck with just hoping a candidate could fumble their way through fizz buzz without too much difficulty.
Along the same lines as the dress issue is this piece from On The Media http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/mar/09/professor-versus-wikip.... It goes into depth about the editorial problem at Wikipedia.
Speaking of which, there are 'open' indexes of the web that anyone can download and use to build their own search product. But I can't remember the name of them. Can anyone help? Googling it results in dismal failure.

I think there is still huge room for innovation in search. Google has taken a different track, and they're focusing on Machine Intelligence. (in my opinion) search is just a nice side effect, but I really don't think it's their focus any longer.
Not sure if this is supposed to be a paid Twitter, or if it is a paid platform for developers who need a real time feed infrastructure. If it is the latter, who owns the data? If it is the paying developer, be assured that they will sometimes offset that cost with ads.