skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Point by point:

Well thought comments are often ignored and not read ( not up/downvoted, just ignored )

You cannot tell if they were read or not. Exhorting users to use their 'mod points' is a challenge (yes its a slashdot reference). The community is larger and only the opinionated seem to vote.

Stardom: No matter what they post some ""famous"" people around here get their post on the front page. By courtesy I won't list who they are but everybody can spot it pretty easily. I'm very disappointed by this attitude personally, and it doesn't speak highly of a place that is supposed to be almost a pure meritocracy.

Except it isn't a meritocracy is it. Its a place for Y-combinator folks to share links they are interested in. Both current and past members of YC have a few more options than available than folks who just happened by here. One of those is that YC launches always make the front page.

Fads/ Jealousy: A lot of people here want to be rich and famous thus it creates tension. It allows me to come back to your point: these people are likely going to dismiss your ideas based on jealousy.

I've heard this a number of times but I'm not sure I buy it. Some people are angry at themselves because they haven't launched and they lash out at those who have in attempt to position their own failure better. Constructive criticism takes time, a jab takes only a few seconds. So you're looking also at a time penalty.

Over-repetition of some stories ad nauseum: dumb benchmarks to see the number of req/s, analysis App.net, Education sucks...

Well given the way the karma system works this would seem to be a reflection of what is important to the community at large vs perhaps some individuals. There are a couple of great add-ons that knock out stories about things you don't care about (I believe Bitcoin was the motivation but could easily be wrong about that).
>The great thing about internet and communities based on pseudonyms is that you get the first reaction that people have. Very few will take a few minutes to give their opinion, weight the different possibilities etc... It's brutal, it's direct. If you have run a service online you certainly know that you receive very angry/ threatening emails from people that use your services and are displeased. If it disturbs you it means that you are not ready for having a personal project on display, it's as simple as that.

Well that's all available on the internet at large. You don't need any kind of catered community to have that experience. What he's bemoaning is the loss of the intermediate, the more thoughtful and useful type of honesty.
When startups don't work out. (Part 3/5)
An interesting aspect of HN, I think slightly different from some other communities I've been in, is how this sense of decline has been there pretty much since the beginning. Here's a discussion thread from HN's first year worrying about the decline: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60767

I suspect part of it is that it's been a very meta/self-aware experiment from the start, whereas many communities sprout up accidentally for various reasons, and only later get more self-conscious about it.
There's probably a whole process for purchasing anything of the sort. First, it has to go through IT, who then has to justify it to their manager, etc., etc. Buying a drive could take months.

And I would imagine that if you're a sysadmin at the DEA, buying a hard drive with your own money from Best Buy and hooking it into their storage system is probably extremely frowned upon.

Furthermore, they may just have decided that it's not worth pursuing. He's not in the country, so chasing him down is difficult and expensive. The manpower could be used on other things. And he is wanted on other charges, too, so it's not like he can just stroll back into the U.S. and drop in for a friendly chat with his local DEA office.
> Education sucks...

This is my main gripe with HN right now -- the anti-intellectualism of the community. I recall an article submitted where the author claimed "Academic papers are shitloads of crap. Want to read something? Read some beautiful source code instead."

Nearly all breakthroughs in computing sprung up from an academic context; why would you be so cavalier in dismissing it? You might actually find out what a Y Combinator is!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_combinator#Y_combin...
Additionally, the kind of people you describe, which is probably a majority by now because they just are, are rendering this site more and more useless by voting up on pure crap.

The system behind Hacker News did not prepare to have itself flooded with a larger audience, which frankly belongs to Mashable, ruining the only thing it was doing so well when it was a small community of creative people.

Either accept Hacker News becoming more popular, essentially aggregating "How I survived a genocide on mars, cured cancer and wrote html6 standards in the process - with only 3 fingers" or re-think the upvote system.
Um, no.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECIGVTWAG
It's because you're a fucking idiot.
That was deliberate, it's called irony. I really don't think using HN to complain about people complaining on HN is a very good move. Sorry, but I can't make anything else of it.
Singularity approaches: TopoR AI can layout PCBs better than humans
Astronaut trains to compete for triathlon... in space
I wonder what would happen if the rest of the world took this approach?

Customer: I was thinking of getting an extension built on my house

Builder: OK

Customer: How long would it take and what would it cost?

Builder; Sorry, but to tell you that would slow down the process of building your extension. It will be quicker if I just get on with it and tell you what you owe me at the end.
There is also another factor: allowing yourself to be lucky.

While I can not attribute my experience to be anything like an artist's, I find that at least for myself, my artistic endeavors are much more successful when I am open to types of creativity different from mine.

Working with other people and allowing their art to change my art, but at the same time holding onto the kernel that my art is about results in more opportunities to "catch that particularly important editor's eye" or to become more "lucky" so to speak.
In the vein of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747

1. It looks like a nice professional design so it does not give off initial bad vibes

2. The first thing that appears after login is a pop up asking me to get other people to join. I thought this was how to thank people at first. I think this is an unecessary pop up - this is a viral idea anyway, you dont need people to pre-join - the "thank" message will do that for you, so drop that first pop up - very confusing

3. I had to hunt around till I found how to thank people. I would put a different UX up front - in fact that pop up was fine - it had about 30 of my friends, just let me click one.

4. the search box is fine but I am moslty going to thank friends first surely.

5. add it to linkedin - will be a great networking add on

6. I want to send a message with the thank, and preview it. I still dontknow what I just sent. THat would worry me

Overall, yeah nice but its not a good home for Facebook. Put it on linkedin, and I see it, on facebook, no. But that might just be me

goodluck
How to Cure PTSSD - Post-Traumatic-Societal-Stress-Syndrome
Wow, it almost seems HN is going the Reddit way. But it's fine to do that on Reddit coz it's meant for the purpose. HN is not.
The "Join Me" book by Danny Wallace was written about his experience creating a cult. He was very vague, just asked people to join and submit a photo. Once they gained a critical mass, they were asked to perform "random acts of kindness". So, the 11kclub not getting a good reception on HN should have been expected. People here are always asked to sign up for some wishywashy buzzword filled website with promises of "changing the world". The reason Danny Wallace's cult signed so many people up is because he had his audience targeted correctly. HN is not a good target audience for "social bookmarking" nor for some "unknown cult".
It's highly recognizable. Eventually, thieves will just ignore this particular device.
Project To Turn Classical Scores Into Copyright-Free Music Completed
I remember that. So many penises. Funny how, given anonymity, the first thing many people do is every social taboo they can think of. We must be very repressed as a race or something.
It's not time, it's the number of people. There is a small range of numbers that make a valid community. Too few and there's no discussion. Too many, and they all compete to be heard like screaming children in a crowded lunchroom. It's a lot like a volleyball team. 1v1 doesn't work, 2v2 is meh, 3v3 up to 8v8 is fun. Any more than that and there are too many people and the communication process is too complex. Also, MMO game servers suffer from the same problems even though there is a hard limit to guild size and server population. There is no minimum, which sucks, and the maximum involves queue times and lag.

Here's a free startup idea for someone: Design an analytic process that determines the perfect userbase range for a successful community. It would have to scale according to niche. This would apply actual numeric goals for marketing campaigns. Instead of "the sky is the limit!" which we know is not true, you could provide an actual target and cut off membership (or start a second instance with an isolated userbase) at the maximum number.

Okay, now someone else do it, because I'm not smart enough.
They're using T and G for a 1, and A and C for a 0; why not double the density and get two bits from each letter?

T = 00
G = 01
A = 10
C = 11

for example.
I do think those are contrasting points.

No matter what subtleties you wrap the difference in, relative importance is what you're communicating to everyone else at the table whether you intend to or not. If that's your priority then so be it, but don't be surprised if people who prioritized being present at dinner aren't fond of your choice.

I'm not trying to change you though. Like I said before, I just wouldn't want to eat dinner with you if you couldn't leave the phone alone.
Lovestry: Online dating as a service (OdaaS)
Trackman Beta Available in Heroku, Maintenance Pages Resolved
Giving devs control over maintenance and error pages
No one likes to maintain those pages, they are a pain for every developer…
If the cocaine kingpin was out of the country, anyway, and the case had been ongoing for over five years, and you could prosecute him based on other crimes... maybe.

I mean, if your evidence storage room is literally so full that you cannot store any other evidence, do you stubbornly go after the one guy who you're not likely to even bring to a trial, or do you give up and go for the easier target?
Now this is much more impressive than the monthly gameboy javascript emulator updates we usually get.
Ask HN: Hacker News Demographics
It would be interesting to see HN demographics and how it has evolved over the years (region, gender, browser, OS). Anyone who has that data and could post here?
He's a pro-democracy activist, and democracy doesn't seem to be very popular with the Putin regime.

Wikipedia says: "After his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparov turned to politics and created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to 'work to preserve electoral democracy in Russia.' He has vowed to 'restore democracy' to Russia by toppling the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, of whom he is an outspoken critic."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov#Politics
Yeah, I did the design myself, glad you like it!

It only uses Facebook basic data as you can saw in the Facebook login window permissions.

I know it hasn't so many real world uses but I needed it for myself, you can read more at http://thank.st/about

Thanks!
This might seem obnoxious but I'm sure Mr. Musk has a number of celebrity acquaintances. Surely their help would put him well on his way to 20,000?
Weform pays to helps others.

We're building an AI that adjusts to a user's personality. By accounting for preferences & priorities, we're able to more accurately: optimize a user's time, provide more personalized recommendations, improve communications, & streamline collaboration.

By gamifying the act of helping others (think 'SimLife' or 'SimWork'), Weform allows users to get paid for pursuing their passions. It's this game that allows us to collect the data we need for our AI... while simultaneously testing the quality and responsiveness of our AI.
> Hacker News just hates absolutely everything

I think the accurate statement would be: Absolutely everything will find some people on Hacker News that hate it.
I get errors in Chrome for any widget I try. Some complaints on Twitter from others too.
Your post is similarly charged and you get more confrontational during this thread I think, although I think it may be a cultural thing. In the UK, swearing isn't a big deal, but table manners can be.

Part of basic courtesy (for me) is to pay attention to the person that you're eating with; if you don't want to be here, then don't accept or offer an invitation. There's nothing wrong with that, but if we're out at a restaurant together then it's because I want to be there with you...not because I need to consume a meal. I won't watch television, read a book or do routine paperwork during dinner with someone. I consider messing with texts, checking email or taking a phone call to be similar activities.

For what it's worth, with close friends over a snack, I really don't mind. But with new acquaintances, I do expect a certain level of formality and table manners. There is a large swathe of people who would not watch TV, read a book or do paperwork at a table over dinner but they would mess with a phone.

I'd have absolutely no problems whatsoever with geebee's behaviour as described in this thread; (s)he seems polite, considerate and like someone it'd be nice to share a meal with. Noticing that you've got a potentially important message and leaving the table to check would be fine to me! Fiddling with facebook, taking routine calls or texts would seem inconsiderate. Having the phone on the table, but firmly ignored, isn't all that bad, I guess...but I'd rather leave it in a jacket pocket and not have the potential distraction personally.

If that comes over as controlling, well fair enough. Horses for courses, etc. But if my behaviour comes across as controlling and judging, I must say that yours comes across as self-absorbed and somewhat arrogant. But like I said at the start, that may just be a cultural thing.
Base pairs. They don't occur individually.
[The] Hacker News [audience, often] likes contrarian articles. So paradoxically, HN loves articles that criticize or hate on HN.
Nice, i like the sound effects :D
A girlfriend sent me the link to Lovestry today.

What do you guys think of it?
Or, to take your computer analogy, having a super fast CPU is no good if you can't interface with other parts of the system.

It's very rare in any setting where people can achieve stuff on their own. You may have a brain the size of a planet, but at some stage you will need to work through other people, or get their help to realise an objective. Having social skills and good manners, as well as a big brain, will help with this.
Matthew Weier O'Phinney, Zend Framework project lead, On Microframeworks
"too big to fail"

I wonder if facebook fails, will that be a good thing where a lot of developers get on the market thus allowing startups to hire :P?
Wow. For scale, the Internet Archive had 5.8 petabytes of data in December 2010 [1] - so, about 9 grams' worth. How much did this cost?

[1] http://archive.org/web/petabox.php
An Oauth2 token via http header works very well. Of course, you'll want to send only encrypted requests.
HNers are good people - we just need reminders regularly to do our duty to the community.

So, it seems that you are the cure to your own ailment:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396195

I took ten of my valuable minutes to review the next thing on Ask HN - and hopefully constructively.

I guess it is just a problem of being reminded regularly that this is a community that needs contributing to as well as reading (my default). Perhaps more of us need to actually release something ! (maybe that could be a means to get a karma multiplier)
Utterly useless.
Twitter, take my money
The trend was already well established by the time you got here. If you go back three years, you do see a different site that is far more accepting and far less technical. Early in the HN world, when I read an article, my first thought wasn't "let's see how HN have dismantled this".

For many things (especially raw information), I appreciate that cynicism. For launches and discussions around early products, it annoys me to no end. I think it really shows the character of a person who, when somebody puts themself out there, their first reaction is to tear them down.

Alas, there is probably nothing that can be done. It is the tragedy of the commons, where goodwill is the resource being depleted.
It is incredibly stable? We better don't tell evolution.
Clay Shirky: Unlocking Mankind’s Untapped Potential
If you find somebody sufficiently serious who specifically wants your stuff no off the shelf security system is going to do any good. The primary value for most people is in convincing would-be thieves that your residence isn't worth the trouble. A dog with a nasty bark is one of the most effective ways of convincing them. Any other security-related services (actually attacking intruders, waking you up, etc) are really bonus.
Note to all developers planning on implementing infinite scrolling:

Don't have a footer. Example of this error: LinkedIn. Try to get to their ToS or Help Center from the logged in home page. Good luck.
Well, it certainly should say 'lose'.
A link to the Simple English version of an article will appear, if available, in the "Languages" menu on the left margin of the article.

(True for any language.)
Please pursue your private comment idea further than this comment. I think it's a fantastic idea. Would you be able to (or know someone who could) make that change? http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar
The OP is replying to this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4395008
I think you make some valid points, and as somebody who self-taught, I get the pain. That being said, I also agree with the common sentiment here "help yourself a little first".

If you consider yourself a technology company, you need an understanding of your technology and what goes into making it. You may not be a master at each part, but you need _something_. It doesn't mean you are not marketing, but like marketing a technology implementation has several nuances that can't be overlooked. Tension always arises when these aren't well understood. Times this problem by 10 if you want "magic" / algorithms which little concept of how they will work (note: you don't need computing studies to figure this out, generally).

Note that I said 'consider yourself a technology company'. There are many companies based on technology that are not, themselves, technology companies (you can argue either way whether this is the right model, but it works). From my experience, these are the companies hunting less for technical co-founders (and who have less excuse for no traction pre product).
Processing a Trillion Cells per Mouse Click
I can't find a way to message you. How do I do that? There's no email in your profile...
BMW has 10 different models, and their best-seller--the 3 series--has a considerably lower base price than the Model S.
I don't have $50.
I don't use twitter.
I won't even login to Facebook anymore.

Thus I lol'd at this.
How many months ago was it that Wal-Mart got caught up in a similar scandal in Mexico?
What I'm thinking is, it appears that players with a theory of mind may not actually use the optimal evolutionary strategy. Since humans have a theory of mind, my simulation may be a poor predictor of what my users would actually do.
A Champion of the Book Takes to the iPad
"In a good implementation of this feature, the receiver would see the original phone number and the reply-to one. On iPhone, when you see the message, it seems to come from the reply-to number, and you loose track of the origin."
Charge $50 for it. Keep out the riff-raff.
First of all, thank you for the feedback!

2. Although you can simply skip that step I'll keep that in mind!

3. Great idea!

4. The search box puts your friends in the top results so you see the people you know first!

5. Cool, I hadn't thought about it but it'd be useful

6. I've thought that before and I'll implement it for sure

Again, thank you very much for the feedback!

Edit: I've thanked you for the feedback on Thankst :P
Thanks, downloaded and read through it and I picked up a couple new tricks, even as a pretty experienced Vim user.

Some comments:

1) The order feels a little artificial. I like that inserting text isn't mentioned until a couple chapters in, but I think that the focus on saving/writing files at the start is misplaced. If I'm a newbie and I don't know how to change or insert text, I don't have the ability to meaningfully practice saving as I read.

2) There are some weird inconsistencies, like teaching :next (:n) for next file, but Ctrl+^ for previous file. :Next (:N) is easier to remember, works in vi and is shorter to type than the less-compatible :prev that I would otherwise suggest. :! is mentioned several times in different contexts, without a hint that it's the same command in each but with a different prefix or argument.

3) There's a focus on memorization of compound commands rather than understanding how motions and operators work. If you know how the cursor works and that "y" means "yank from cursor", you don't have to remember that "yl" means "yank a single character" because you can compose it from "yank from cursor" and "one character to the right". This composition of movement and operators is one of vi's greatest strengths, and I think that exposing new vi users to it as early as practically possible is a great way to get them to appreciate what they're learning.

All in all, it's a worthy read for someone who doesn't know any vi and needs a quick lesson in the basics, somewhat like the foreign language learning products that focus on teaching you enough conversational vocabulary for a vacation or business trip. If you want to immigrate to vi-land permanently, I'd suggest supplementing this with something like Drew Neil's "Practical Vim"[1] to learn the "bigger picture" stuff as well.

[1]: http://pragprog.com/book/dnvim/practical-vim
Mostly I try to stay unbiased, but like many others I have been guilty of the behavior you describe at times. It think that whenever you post a comment, there should be a bold disclaimer above to remind people to be nice, constructive criticism only, etc.
I'd like some more good Tor jokes, by the way...
Hacker News is far from anti-intellectual; the opinion of a single author does not constitute a community trend.
Monads as Computation
The Social Media Ponzi Bubble Implodes
Of course, Firefox 11 was less than 6 months ago.
I could see myself editing a presentation, but I agree that I'd be more likely to use the iPad app if I had it on the web first. TeuxDeux actually has an interesting pricing model. They have a web app for free, but then the iPhone app is paid. That might be something worth considering.
The FSA (and other regulatory organisations) frequently give a set date when a feature (EG Souped up trade reporting or similar) needs to be in place by.
Depends, on Rio and São Paulo every low class have a credit card today and Visa is really big in these two towns, maybe they are smaller elsewhere in Brazil but I don't believe that's the case.