skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Personal opinion, based on limited experience.

Essential, unless you want to endure endless complaints about there being no rules, so how can they be banned because they didn't do anything wrong, because nothing's wrong because there are no rules.

Be blunt. Say that people are expected to behave well, and that if you think they aren't behaving well then they'll get one warning, then be thrown off.

Make it clear that you are a benevolent dictator.
I started doing this and next time I looked at the time 2 hours had gone, totally addictive. My best is 90%
I was just going to make up the rules as I go along. I expect my users to exercise normal standards of good behavior or else incur my inevitable wrath :)

Besides, how am I supposed to figure out all the rules at the beginning. I don't know what direction the site is going to take even a month from now?

I understand your point but I'm afraid it requires me to make decisions about things before the paint is dry.
"Photoshop is the only Mac program I've seen that uses "setup" and "uninstall" paradigm, two idiocies from the Windows world."

I guess you hate apt and yum too? Gee, having a list of programs that are installed is really lame.

Right, because the Mac makes so much more sense. The dmg files that you download have to be mounted (lame). Inside the dmg, you _might_ find a folder, a bunch of files, a single file or a setup program. You just never know. Then when you're done figuring that out and you finally get your program "installed" on your Mac, you have to unmount the dmg.

Windows is much simpler: Download setup.exe, double click, Next, Next, Finish.
That's exactly what we had in mind for the site: a way for people with restrictive schedules to meet other technical people in a project context (seeking cofounders is a perfect example of the need). We'll work on integrating geographic info.
I ditched cars for a one wheeled sled and managed to get 93% in 20 seconds
this should be a feature of github
I like the layout, too, but only after I enabled Javascript using NoScript in Firefox. My first impression was a jumble of overlapped markup over half the page. I hope you can work on progressive enhancement for low end browsers, mobile, screen readers, etc.
Outlining Books for Learning
Ah, the power of social networking.
You go to McGill?
> california was crushed in the housing bubble and prop 13 makes revenue collection even more inflexible.

Actually, prop 13 is the only reason most CA cities aren't declaring bankruptcy.

Prop 13 has two relevant provisions - a cap on property tax rates and a cap on the rate of growth of the taxable basis w/o a change of ownership or new construction. (IIRC, most/all bay area cites are at the cap.) When you buy a house, you know the most that you'll pay in taxes going forward.

When housing prices boom, Prop 13 means that tax revenues don't boom. It also means that when housing prices crash, tax revenues don't crash.

Yes, the taxes paid by folks who bought near the peak will drop with housing prices. However, the taxes paid by folks who bought long before the peak are continuing to grow because their taxable basis lags the market.

Prop 13 was passed in reaction to a previous boom - property taxes were going up 10-20% a year because that's what housing prices were doing. CA govts don't cut rates and they don't cut revenues either.

If CA cities/counties had been able to grow their tax revenues in proportion to the property values, do you really think that they'd be willing to let their revenues drop with property values? Of course not - they'd increase the tax rates.
It's a bit slow on firefox 3, but on chrome it's very nice :)
When anonymous attackers went after two Yale law students, they struck back
What's "important"?

But yes, there's a fine line. HN has been struggling with this issue of protecting the community versus promoting free discussion. It's one of the toughest issues in social sites.
'Stretched' text? Do you simply mean extra-wide lines?

Supposedly 8-12 words per line is easiest for eyes to scan.

I've never seen -- but often wished for -- a fluid-width layout that automatically scales its text so that the average line in the main content has 8-12 words on it. (I often do this manually with the browser's text-zoom options.)
I am versed in mathematics, and I am finding these opinions, as they are no doubt intended to be, bloody infuriating. There are truths, no doubt, but I think these are doing far more harm than good.

I'd like to see a computer proof of the emergence of the giant component in a random graph process. I'd like to see a computer proof that the TSP is equivalent to 3-coloring a graph. I'd like to see a computer proof of the Banach-Tarski paradox.

No doubt many experiments would be shown and then the conclusions drawn without actual proof. There is a place for experiment to create and guide intuition, and a place for computer assistance in complex manipulations, but to pretend that mathematicians are "clinging to pencil and paper" instead of simply learning to use computers is laughable.

If only he weren't so eloquent and persuasive I'd be less angry.

It is also true that many things are currently done badly by people who could do better if they were trained in skills they currently lack. There is an application of sharpening the saw, but his implications of incompetence are unfounded and distasteful.
What Would Micropayments Do for Journalism? A Freakonomics Quorum
12 Principles for Fair Commerce in Software...
Building Scalable Web Applications with Google App Engine [video + slides]
A nicely laid out and clean looking site.
I'd recommend doing a demo of how the site works.
People will spend a bunch of time creating a group, so showing how it works would likely help convince people to use your site over other solutions.
What amazes me is that Adobe Acrobat gets larger and larger in every new version. And it always wants to access the internet.

I don't know about flash - I disable it by default. Disabling it gets rid of both annoying moving advertisements and crap plugins...
Charles Stross, The Atrocity Archives and others in the Laundry series. Not foolishness, but a good sense of humor. For foolishness, try Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures.
Thanks for the mention! And welcome (just saw your profile on the site).
Not at all - I'm saying not to make up rules at all. Watch the behavior, and if you think something is inappropriate, say so. Then if it continues, say so again, and take action.

The TOS should be something like:

It's impossible to say clearly exactly what is and
is not appropriate behavior. Be nice, play nice,
and don't be evil. If I think you're behaving
badly I'll tell you. If you keep doing so you'll
be barred.

I intend to be fair and just.
My decision is final.
Google could siphon off traffic by adding more ads, integrating direct lead generation forms, or funneling visitors toward Google products. For example, take a look at the search results examined in this blog post:

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-stops-showing-search-resul...
Yeah, and after they make it clear to you that they hate your design, you should spend the money then, not wait another year. That's what I'm sayin' I learned here.
Most "user" open source software sucks a hell of a lot. I am currently having a running battle with xcircuit.

This program is supposed to draw circuit diagrams, yet it saves it in PS format! It manages to fuck everything up. The user interface and everything about the program is unbelievably bad.

Most open source software without a large market share is like that. It is unfortunately the OS mentality.

And don't even get me started on the entanglement of all the software packages. If I download a program to install on Windows it install. For linux the program depends on 120 other packages (a type of incestuous package relationship)
While silverlight fights flash and viceversa over 3d support, google has a fast js virtual machine already implemented and delivered. With it you can do 3d directly from js. I dont know why google dont push a bit more with this killer feature. Are they avoiding 'browser war II'?
I like axod. I don't follow his story in any way, but what I like about his product is that it offers actual value, there's no barrage of marketing, there's no incessant self profiling, there are no blog posts where he praises himself by describing how he did things right.

He's the underdog guy that one roots for, the real deal, the one that focuses on his product, and not on his selling.

Axods ability to give this impression in just a few articles about him and his product should be a model for startups who want to stay genuine.
The main problem is this guy is still using a G4 Mac. My iMac G4 isn't even powerful enough to render a YouTube video smoothly for chrissakes.
More like NSFUB (Not Safe For Uptight Bosses).
axod's too shy to post his own good news, but even bigger (in my opinion) news: mibbit will become the default irc:// handler in Firefox. I have to admit that irc:// links are pretty rare, now, mostly due to how unreliably they work. Big usability win for Firefox.

See http://informationisart.com/stas/mibbit-as-an-irc-protocol-h...

Good work mibbit, axod.
This is a tough question because Google does have by far the best search product. The problems arise when they have such a dominant market position that they control virtually all search traffic. At that point, they can do anything they want to publishers because they don't have any recourse. The only option is to beg for Google's favor.

This is a bad thing, because it allows Google to leech the value out of search traffic that is created by publishers. Jakob Nielsen wrote an article explaining this:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html

The web gets hurt when Google sucks so much value out of search traffic that publishers don't have the economic incentive to keep adding value to the web.
I agree, I think this is kind of ridiculous. I installed many of their CS4 products (non-trial) a few weeks ago. I did not notice anything out of the ordinary or feel that it was an overwhelming process.
I understand, it was a cynical comment about marketing. :)
Cool.

You have Clusterify as a 'completed' project at:

http://clusterify.com/projects/completed/

But not as an idea at:

http://clusterify.com/projects/proposed/

So when a project is completed, it gets pulled off the proposed page? Or you just didn't populate the proposed page w/ the Clusterify project?

Maybe projects should never 'complete', i.e. be removed from the 'proposed' page. Reason: it might be fun to be able to look at multiple implementations of the same idea.... different little groups' 1/2 hr takes on a given notion.

Eventually, maybe it turns out that the most interesting ideas are the ones that the most people bother to make an implementation of, and this could be a sorting criterion when browsing for ideas.
One of the things that's rarely mentioned in these training attempts: Start by rewarding consistently, then become inconsistent, only rewarding, say, one time in 3. Or 4.

Why?

If you consistently reward every instance of good behavior, then when you stop, the good behavior will tail off remarkably quickly. You are caught in the trap of having to reward every good instance.

On the other hand, suppose the trainee has got used to being rewarded at random for good behavior. Then you stop entirely.

The first time the trainee says "Yes? Oh, no. Oh well, maybe next time." The next time the trainee says "Yes? Oh, no. Oh well, maybe next time."

And on it goes. Randomly reinforced good behavior persists for a very long time after the rewards stop. Very occasional rewards makes it even longer.
I find the legalism of the defense tedious. Automating the process of being an accessory to a crime should not be a defense for it. "I didn't help people break the law, the automated program that I created did" just doesn't fly with me.

This ought to be a conversation about intellectual property. If you believe in it, there is little justification for the legality of TPB. If you don't, then TPB is fine.

The defense's arguments seem juvenile.
refresh - it did that for me too
You find legalism tedious in a legal defense? Seems to me that's the one place it's appropriate.
Selling itself is a misnomer. Nothing "sells itself." Selling just means a combination of things you need to do communicate well to other people about what your service/product does, why it does it better than anything else, and how you're helping people solve a problem or gain some kind of entertainment or value. So selling could be in the form of a very well defined sales funnel (a la 37signals), writing/publishing content as a loss leader (a la 37signals), releasing open source content (a la 37signals), and ultimately building up a base of users/customers because you were able to get good at communicating with them. Or, even as Jason Fried has said (and I do agree) selling is almost like teaching others something. If you can teach well, you've got a shot at selling (and communicating well).

But yes, being able to "press the flesh" and meet face-to-face, do deals with large customers, sell custom contracts or whatever is also selling. It might be that kind of selling that the geeks often struggle with.
Nice trick. Thank you for sharing.
once = mistake

multiple times = very bad strategy. I recall AOL releasing a lot of customer data and not getting too much flak because of how they handled it, I think facebook is walking on thin ice for a while when it comes to how they deal with their users information.
One thing is for sure: Thepiratebay is much much better at marketing than the recording industry.
Neat idea. Get a favicon!
I would be more inclined to support the guys if I didn't believe they were making boatloads of money with the site.
Agreed. See also these pearls from Greenspun [1]:

Computers are the tools of the devil. ...

Everything I've learned about computers at MIT I've boiled down into three principles:

Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find the right wizard, he can make it work.

Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't.

PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't.

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=RpCERTXtzJIC&pg=PA202&#...
Android G2 Hands On: Close to Perfection
But they're not trying to justify themselves on ideological grounds, they're making a legal defense. A successful legal defense will not necessarily be the same as a mature and reasonable argument that you or I would find convincing.
No. I went to Polytechnique until last year (graduated in May 2008).
Iphone javascript interpreter
Hehe thanks guys, it was quite fun to do, not so much seeing myself say "erm" quite so much (This is after I edited out several 'erm's).

FYI The video was put together with screenflow and iMovie.

If you use some of the Google APIs I'd definitely recommend putting something together and submitting it, especially ideas of what APIs they should do, improvements they could make. They really listen to the users.
s/Perfection/iPhone/
Average age for first cell phone? Eight
Yes, right now when a project gets completed, it is moved off the proposed projects list. We had a lot of discussion about having multiple implementations of a particular idea, and ultimately thought it might be too confusing. From the feedback here, it seems we may revisit that.
Your tagline is "To assemble ad hoc teams for short coding projects".

You could come up with a semi-unique name like "codelets" ("hacklets", "hackies", "projectiles", ) for these "short coding projects". This would be a unique term specific to and identifying your site, similar to "tweets" identifying messages posted on Twitter.
Kindle Design  - Still Sucks
I think part of the issue isn't that Google is doing evil so much as once you get a certain market-share, it causes problems. People generally don't care because the problems that are happening aren't problems for end-users; they're problems for advertisers.

If Google becomes the only game in town for search, their ad rates will rise simply because advertisers won't have another outlet for search advertising. Likewise, ad rates at Yahoo are suffering today since the mindset is always to advertise on Google and the greater competition in Google's ad auctions make their pricing a lot higher. Personally, I find it a good reason not to run ads on Google (since it's cheaper for the same thing), but if Google's dominance keeps going up, it's going to cause problems.

So, even if Google does nothing, by getting to a certain size (compared to the overall size of the market), it causes problems. Of course, I'd much rather Google in that position than Microsoft <<shudder>>.

I don't begrudge Google either - they've acted as good corporate citizens offering a wonderful service. However, even if you're good and doing nothing wrong doesn't mean that problems don't arise.
Facebook has had a lot more than one privacy controversy. Remember Beacon? They retreated then too after a similar protest.
Trust me, deadling with the real discs is just as frustrating. I don't know where they went wrong along the way, but it's a hopeless mess now.
The accessibility and volume of business data have been accelerating for over 100 years. Downturns have not gotten shorter. I see no basis for your hypothesis.
I have the same concern too. I tried googling for some generic TOS template but nothing good so far. I've decided to let that part go for now because I figured it's more important to get the site working and functional first.

I guess when the site does make some money, I can always find a legal copy writer to write one for me.
Over time, the Adobe softwares got significantly slower and the features amount did not followed. We have pretty much the same old features than photoshop 6, but much much slower. I was running Photoshop 5 on a Celeron 300mhz when i began learning it. I will not upgrade from cs3 to cs4 anytime soon.
Good questions sell. Listening sells. Networking is helping other people: carry more than your own card and connect folks who will benefit from talking to each other.
Google target of antritrust lawsuit
I like the simplicity of your site as it stands, just throwing an idea out there.

The first thing one does when one sees a good idea is to think about how it could be elaborated on -- that's probably the nature of a lot of the feedback you're getting here -- but if you had all those features in your initial mockup, it would be so encrusted that no one would be able to see the good idea any more.
'There's definitely somewhat of a "Pennsylvania diaspora"'

Around here we call it "Steeler Nation." :)

As for "good place to live," I was just talking to someone about the number of cultural institutions that Pittsburgh has. Being the home of robber barons like Carnegie, Mellon, and Frick, there were a lot of institutions and endowments left behind to assuage their consciences for treating so many steel workers so brutally to build their fortunes. Having kids, I'm especially aware of the excellent Carnegie libraries, Children's Museum, Science Center, and Phipps Conservatory. Not to mention the fore-mentioned universities, and all of the hospitals (UPMC is the region's single largest employer). One of the ironies for the city is that having non-profits as the largest employers means that a large portion of the city's economic activity is off-limits for local taxes.
Nice idea. I decided I'd rather see it laid out in columns like 'ls' does, and with the attribute names unchanged. Here's the result: http://github.com/darius/columnize/blob/69d2b1c084ab3fc7c72d...
This is one of my pet peeves, and I know I'm showing my age because of it. I can't even articulate why it gets me so annoyed to see 9 year olds with iphones. It's a cross somewhere between micro management, lack of necessity and being downright spoiled.

The only children that I can see with a legitimate need for cell phones are those with medical conditions, the rest should just go out and play without being on a digital leash.
XMonad: the tiling window manager
I would like to see a human proof of the Four Color Theorem ;-)

Computers are better than humans at many tasks. Zeilberger has a lot of valid points, IMHO. However, he could be less opinionated and more tactful. Creating flame wars just for kicks is definitely not the best / wisest way of presenting one's point of view.
> If you don't have a full education and many years of engineering/science experience under your belt, I was pointed towards the Smithsonian Model Kits, which, according to Karrine, are "very cool and surprisingly affordable." A quick perusal on my part showed this is indeed the case.

> Driving around the neighborhood in an old-school van sans windows with "candy and science" painted on the side probably isn't a good idea; but the local library, on the other hand, is. Karrine used the latter method. A couple of fliers with catchy wording on the local library's community board helped her find interested students. For the projects that they worked on, she says that six students seems to be the ideal amount, since this allows for three pair groups, each working on building the week's cool project.

Easily actionable bits.
how does mibbit make money?
The Body as Billboard: Your Ad Here
Hmmm.. he missed "always put a number at the beginning of post titles when trying to get links from news sites".
stretched means extra-wide. I agree. I prefer reading NOT to be like watching a tennis match. The link I posted above seems to be such a fluid layout, but I haven't looked closely.
Pirates vs. University Presses
Oh, that's going to piss off the Apple fanboys (and girls)!

While I can understand the appeal of the iPhone, I just can't see it as anything more than a toy that happens to also be a phone, and it seems like Apple was more interested in making it an internet device than an actual phone. My last Blackberry (a Pearl), on the other hand, was a great phone, and it also let me send text messages really quickly. Sure, the browser was slow, but it did what I needed, and I already have an iPod so I don't need another mp3 player.
I recall axod saying he made revenue from the contextual text ads above irc rooms. They change depending on what the room is about/talking about so they are actually pretty relevant.
Why Twitter Could Be a Billion-Dollar Business
Congrats axod!
Recovery.gov as its own Stimulus
Quality control != censorship
At least the Unix wizard can pretend he is going to make it work. All he needs to do is pipe this into that and write just one more filter. Then he can ....

By that time both he are you are lost in a blur of keystrokes and flashing characters on the display. As you leave the computer room, you can hear him muttering: "Oh, damn. I am in the wrong shell. I have to do it this other way...tap...tap...tap...."

The truth is, it doesn't really work there either. You are simply tired of waiting and are willing to accept almost anything to stop the annoying tapping noise and the endless muttering.

Hey, it keeps us off the streets so it isn't all bad.
What were you planning to do with the site? A list of profiles? (ie. dir as in ppl directory?)
Advertising!

We keep telling him advertising doesn't work, but apparently he's breaking even already, so the evidence seems to be against us.
No, no, don't you see, that's a bad wizard. You just have to go on a quest for a good wizard. Then everything will be fine.
I love the term "projectiles"! :) And the branding idea is good in general. We already have "clusters" which we could use to denote teams, though.
Oren Etzioni on Startups, Venture Capital, and the Future of Web Search
Modifying iPhone in unapproved ways violates DMCA
I think when choosing b/t fixed width and fluid depends on your content. But don't get caught up with this, you'll always have arguments for either sides. It doesn't matter which layout you choose (as long as it's readible). What really matters is that you have good content.
I am in the advertising biz, and I have a really hard time believing this.
Television's Future is Timely, Cheap Content.
They're not ripping you off, why do you care? Does poverty make you more virtuous?