skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I often do this without even thinking about it -- I'll start a new program by writing a working prototype, but I won't even run it through the parser until I feel that it is minimally complete and have "proven it correct". It lets me focus on writing and thinking instead of editing and the 'trivial' matter of whether it works at all.

Then I spend some time fixing stupid syntax errors and namespace collisions so it parses and works, init version control, and after that I do super-short iterations.
Don’t Bet On The Calculator. Bet On The Thinker. | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
The law of defamation (general term that includes libel and slander) is that truth is a defense. So write what is true. But I didn't think the dots were very well connected in the submitted post to show what Gould actually did that was clearly wrong.
I'm wondering what Japanese got translated as "rich old dandies."

Are there any Japanese speakers here who want to take a guess?
I like the simplicity. Good job. Keep up the good work.
1) I don't doubt that. But if I were to pay for mentoring , I'd rather have access to people that have built profitable companies, or sold companies.

2) I'm not sure the analogy makes sense. Dell doesn't judge a company's business plan before it decides to sell you a server.

One of the important considerations with Portland 10 isn't whether or not I should get 100% of the ownership/profit, it's whether or not their advice helps me grow my business enough that I don't care that they get a cut of the equity.

3) That's fine - I don't agree that the trade-off (upfront capital with relatively unproven advisors vs. giving up equity with more proven investors who have a track record of investing in strong companies)is optimal.
People living next to other people they like to live next to is called freedom. Throughout the history of the United States, immigrants have had some tendency to settle near other immigrants who speak the same language or who have other commonalities. (My maternal grandmother's parents apparently came over from newly reunified Germany as part of a "colony" of a large part of one Bavarian town who moved to Colorado together. She was born in the United States, but her entire formal school was conducted in the German language.) But people in the United States live in one place or another for many reasons of convenience that tend to mix together people of different ethnic backgrounds. It is an unusual American who doesn't have ancestors from more than one country of origin, and each new local cluster of immigrants finds plenty of sons and daughters forming families with people who don't share the same ethnic heritage.

Moreover, the worry about monoethnic communities isn't really responsive to the fine submitted article, in which the proposal was to have immigration from multiple countries (three were named) dotted among all the places where there are houses in default.
Results-only work environment (ROWE) : Caldeas Blog
It's because the term "startup" has come to mean something specifically to do with technology.

If you have a "startup" doing anything else, it's more common to just call it a "small business".
Not a bad little app, really. Nice job.
At least for now, Linux can feel comfortable its users are a whole lot smarter than their average Windows counterparts...

Maybe in Windows its common behavior to download a program that says installs something you want and running it with administrative privileges. Not so in any Linux I know.
This might be true for a class of startups, but not all. For the first 4 months or so of my latest (CAPEX intensive) venture, 'all that mattered' was developing the business case and raising funds.

I agree though; the merits of a technically capable CEO can't be overstated.
But flash memory (even with intelligent controllers) still has physical constraints to optimize for.

For starters: there's the much larger (and variable) block sizes, the erasure constraints around blocks (you have to rewrite a whole block to modify a bit), and the much more atomic power-management possibilities (can do better than just idle 'spin-down').
Checks and balances help, but I don't think they are a cure-all. Mancur Olson's observations about democracy's bias in favor of laws that serve a concentrated interest but have diffuse costs is valid even with more robust checks.
I thought this was the entire appeal of being a leader in the first place. what would be the point of being a leader if you didn't get the extra cookie?
"I've seen kids who vehemently deny that meat comes from animals."

Going off topic...

There is no chance of my kids not knowing where meat comes from.
I often use the words beef/cow or pork/pig etc interchangeably.

e.g. "What's for dinner tonight?"
"Chopped up bits of cow."
Users need to be able to set a handle.
I'd say that those owning slaves did so because it enhanced their quality of life -- therefore it was good for them. So pretty much any society that had slavery the ends were good for those in control, for some measure of good (they may have had a higher standard of living but they lost their humanity etc)
Very cool! I think you could have a free service with an up-sell (more than 2 people, private rooms, etc) that made sense. Depending on how much it costs for you to run the free site, I guess.

Is there a blog or somewhere to follow development?
I second for that. Actually I think the OP's description of two styles is two extreme cases of one spectrum. Plus, the OP doesn't distinguish difference in the size of the problem domain.

Standing out academic papers looks perfect and it seems as if the authors come up with the final version immediately, but in reality, many problems dealt in academic papers are attacked progressively. For bigger problems, you'll find series of papers beginning from special case solutions to more general ones. Wiles gave a proof of only special cases of Taniyama-Shimura since that's enough to prove Fermat's last theorem (so I heard; I can't understand the actual paper).

On the other hand, if you're writing critical part of nonstop software and trying to fix a bug related to multithreads, you want to iterate every possible timing combinations to make sure things won't be possibly broken. It's much like the process of writing math proof.

And there's a problem domain. Djikstra style works well when applied to the problem whose domain is well understood. That's why it requires much thinking before actually writing solutions; you have to understand the problem clearly enough. For many software, the envionment in which it runs is more vaguely defined; anything that interacts with human has to incorporate this big unknown, unpredictable element which is called human. The software that supports business must adapt to the business process, in which many details are left to decisions of skilled human without any explicit rules. Software for such problems can't have the well defined domain before start writing in Djikstra style.
Looks like the classifieds business is growing in Nigeria. We always knew it would. That's why we created one of the most original classifieds online, Kerawa.com (http://www.kerawa.com).
Photo-Sharing Site Runs Afoul of Facebook - BusinessWeek
It still seems weird to give a small amount of cash as a reward for attracting a much larger amount of cash.
That's what pg have been saying all along.
From what I hear from people who have been interviewed in the media (including some ycombinator alumni), it's much more likely than the swimmer's words were twisted. Though it certainly seems she wasn't incredibly proactive in correcting the reports.
Just imagine what would happen if any central bank (it doesn't even need to be the fed) issues a bulletin with "catastrophe" in it...
With Hulu, Older Audiences Lead the Way
I think that if this is intended to be anything more than a toy project, you should change the name (http://www.yammer.com). Otherwise, nice job.
Star Trek Episodes Remastered in HD
Well, too bad. I spent it all on alcohol and prostitutes.
Ask HN: The Fog of Secrecy
I am the founder of a self-funded startup. We launched a private alpha site roughly three weeks ago, and have about a hundred accounts. We are about to start making appointments with VCs and we have a thorough business plan and presentation ready, but I don't feel like it is the right time to dispel the fog. The fog keeps us safe, but also keeps us in the dark.

I'm not looking for specific advise as much as I am interested in thoughts from more experienced founders about when an idea needs to see the light, and when it is in one's best interest to maintain the secrecy. Clearly we cant market and try to grow in the dark, but we also can't attract execs and developers either.

How do you decide when to blow cover?
Programming techniques, design patterns, that kind of stuff, is learned best from a hybrid approach, i.e. some of this, some of that.

Hacker techniques however... can only be learned by hacking. Being as they represent the intuitive, "dirty" approach, that's the only way to get them into your system.
Use http://web-sniffer.net/ if you are too lazy too install curl: http://web-sniffer.net/?url=vg.no&submit=Submit&http...
The point that some may ignore is that this is intended to apply ONLY to banks which the government props up.

In that light, I think that limiting flat pay is a very good idea. More emphasis should be placed on direct performance incentives to encourage repaying the taxpayers.
Yeah. Same thing goes about stock options. Not just in large companies. A lot of startups are having much lower internal evaluations.

My example: I joined my previous company and got stock options priced at 4.15, and when I left the company they were worth only 2.99.
Company makes more, but it is just achross the board they are valued less right now (similiar sized companies are used as benchmarks).

So, if you join now, you can get your stock options for less. As for me? I am going to exercise only about 100 of them, just as a souvenir.

Moral of the story: If you want to be rich, start your own damn company. Few people (except google, yahoo, youtube), made really good money from being an employee.
As a word, "startup" has it's origins in VC. In the last decades VCs focused primarily on software/IT. Because the industry was growing the most the fastest. Normal stuff. In a decade or so the conversation goes like "What do you do?" "Startup" "Oh, biomedical or..."
I have seen terrible ceos who can code and great ceos who can't. The only common factor amongst the great ones is that they are smart and interested in learning.
Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak - there are some.
So all you need to do is have two extremely valuable .com domains and your a hit. Pretty sure this is something most people already knew.
His argurment is completely bogus -- they're less slim because they share common code? Did he even look at the symbols he's complaining about?

The only filesystem I have built as a module on my machine is the brand-new btrfs, it has 223 unresolved symbols, and guess what? They're all basic, neccessary shit that should obviously be shared: mallocs, libc functions, concurrency primitives, block IO, inode management, VFS api, generic datastructures, zlib, etc.

This is more simplicity, not less, and an example of something that fustrates interlopers about the Linux kernel development culture -- your module does not make it into vanilla unless you're working at the same level as your siblings. If you have a systemic improvement to make, you make it to a lower layer, you don't get to keep your own toys.

This way all the filesystems are improved by the innovations of one -- it took years for the production-ready XFS code released by SGI to make it into Linus's tree because it effectively implemented its own VFS tools. Eventually all its improvements were merged into the VFS layer, the refactored XFS was merged in, and all users got a performance boost.
Slashdot was reporting yesterday that OSes are sliming down.

Don't worry, I got my proton pack right here for that Slimer.
(Moral) Truth in Fiction?
I've read from others and experienced personally that being more open about your startup is more useful. By being out there, you have the opportunity to be first, make current/potential competition re-evaluate their business, and building a loyalty and user-base takes time so get started fast. Merely, being out there, you might have opportunities come after you instead of what you're doing now (i.e. seeking them).
Multi-Gmail Goodness on OS X
This ignores basic supply and demand, though. If no one can buy them, why would they make them? And if Company A is pricing them way too high or unfairly, what's to stop Company B from offering the same thing at a lower price point?
"But I didn't think the dots were very well connected in the submitted post to show what Gould actually did that was clearly wrong."

Eliezer, the author, reads this site. Could you elaborate?
Huge! Things like clade selection and spandrels may not be ultimately correct, but they're fascinating to think about.
It depends on what you're using a KB for.

I've had superb experiences with using TWiki. Both for storing project documentation and managing structured data using its forms and reporting features. Has real easy wysiwyg editor and a familiar wiki interface.

http://twiki.org/

Oh yeah, and it's free and open source.
Australian Startup Index - Feb 09 - released
It's socialism to control the pay of your employees? After all, the US government has "invested" more money in these banks than anyone else. What are they if not the owners?
Didn't hear the podcast but from what I gathered from the blog post it seems like they are talking about outsourcing in general. Most outsourced project aren't the most existing job you want to end up in.

As for not seeing any shrikwrapped software from India, the VC's in India are very different from here. You won't find a VC who would interested in funding something like Twitter in India that just doesn't happen. As for mediocre programmers that they have had to deal with I would say that is the case in most countries. India, US or China it is hard to find really good programmers.
Sounds like a good trajectory.

Although there is a difference between exposing API to developers vs. giving users a feature, my "I want to own my data" worries will be greatly assuaged if a good API exists.
Problem is someone usually has to pay the bills while you sit there and think.

In certain cases you have this luxury. Most businesses however, do not.
One scenario Marshall fails to consider is that more and more families (for any size family) will become self-sustaining... if you had a robotic garden, a 3D printer that could print anything including meat, and enough solar cells on your roof to consume zero net energy, what would you need money for (except taxes)?
Cant write it at all?
Or just can't write it well? (I assume this as most developers should be able to understand select A from B where X=True

Any links / extra info you want to share? I'd be very interested in seeing my own shortcomings here.
Democracy has always been non-rational

Seeing the US House of Representatives in action recently seems to support this statement. What alternatives do you propose?
I know one of the people involved in this, and the lack of financial realism ($100 to quit your job! Woo hoo! Pay us for advice! Sounds good!) is par for the course.

My experience with the Portland "startup" scene was that there were a lot of MBA-toting shysters with little-to-no ability to develop a product on their own, cashing in on the "it's cheaper to live here than in San Francisco" tech crowd by offering below-market compensation.

I hate to be so disparaging, and I'm sure there are good startups up there. However after working for a small company there, interviewing elsewhere after it was obvious it wasn't going to work out, and talking to lots of other people in similar situations... I ended up moving back to San Francisco and not looking back.
I've often wondered when we were going to see automated kisoks for ordering food. Apparently, very soon.

Now if only we could improve these a bit. For example, give everyone a RFID "membership card". When you approach the machine, it greets you and displays your favorite foods at that place, or configures the kisok to how you like it.

It seems like if I scan my membership card at one of the current automated checkouts, it should recognize the fact that I've shut the voice prompts off every time, and do it automatically.
this doesn't sound like a brilliant idea to me

we have been losing jobs for the last several months, unemployment is higher than it has been in recent history, how will adding 2 million job seekers to the pot help things?
I don't have any specific suggestions, but I am interested in what others might have to say.

In the U.S., for those who are young and healthy, and with an income and/or savings that can cover routine and significant initial expenses, I've heard it recommended to go with a major medical plan having a high deductible (multiple thousands of dollars). You pay for all the routine stuff yourself, and for the initial hit for anything bigger. If you encounter a catastrophic situation, you are covered (beware of pre-existing conditions when you sign up). The risk of that is relatively low. Rates are commensurately lower. This corresponds more with how medical insurance was for many some decades ago, before coverage was in practice extended to routine expenses.

It's the expense of a catastrophe you need to worry about. If you end up tapped out, families and, if necessary, friends can usually find a way to cover a few thousand dollars until you hit your out of pocket limit.

Most likely, there are people who care about you. Carrying health insurance isn't just about you, it's also about them. You prevent putting them in a bind where they must exhaust their own finances to take care of you. (Of course, these days the way insurance companies reprice and drop policies limits the longer term efficacy of self-insurance while unwell, but it's still a valid argument.)

Years ago, I heard that (again, in the U.S.) the IEEE had some group plans that weren't terrible. But that was second hand information, from someone well into middle age (and so in a different part of the market), and times change.

Finally, a number of people I know with their own small businesses obtain their coverage through their spouses or significant others, who work a job that provides a group plan. I'm not saying Plenty of Fish nor eHarmony is a plan of approach, but if you are in a long-term relationship with someone having coverage, even if not married, it is worth exploring what that plan may offer. My last employer covered long-term partners (although I'm not sure how that was qualified; I believe sharing a household may have been a factor).

EDIT: One more thing: I think that COBRA may now cover students for some number of months after they leave school, as a continuation of their coverage e.g. under a parent's group coverage from work. I could be wrong; perhaps someone else can speak to this.

If you are just leaving school, this would be looking into; it would give you a year or 18 months or whatever, as long as you can pay the monthly premiums. However, you must elect COBRA coverage within a relatively short period of the time at which you qualify, or you lose the option -- at least that's how it is when electing COBRA after leaving an employer.
The way these deals usually work is that anywhere from 2 to 15% is kept in escrow until 12-18 months after the sale.

I was involved in the sale of a company last year, and was told specifically by our lawyer not to count on seeing all of the escrowed funds. In his experience, acquirers almost always find a way not to pay some or all of this money.

It's possible he was being overly cautious (under-promise, over-deliver), but I'm heeding his warning to be on the safe side. What sucks is from a tax standpoint I'm paying estimated taxes this year on money I may or may not see come December.
Meditation! I hear some Indian Yogi don't eat for months.

But seriously, they're getting very little for this "tuition." Unless they have Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla or Marc Andreessen mentoring them, I wouldn't pay a dime.
Lynne Cox is the true miracle swimmer. One of the only persons (if not the only one) to ever swim in the Arctic.

http://www.lynnecox.org/Lecture.htm
The Future of Job Application Forms
See this incredibly effective satire of Jeff's daily inanities: http://blog.wekeroad.com/blog/nothing-to-say/
Not every industry scales as well as the web.
I agree, a .tel domain will likely be useful for corporates, but for the individual there is little incentive, except for the fact that .tel doesn't need hosting. The details are stored on the DNS entry, which could be quite useful.

Time will tell.
> Of course it's clear to someone who "knows Erlang quite well". But the Ruby code is clear to someone who "doesn't know Ruby at all", that's the difference I was pointing out.

In the Ruby example, you name your identifiers "project", "all_users", "select", and "recent_joiners". Even without looking the code, it's pretty obvious what you are doing here -- selecting the users who have recently joined a project. The code doesn't matter, all the clarity comes from the identifiers.

In the Erlang example, you use the identifiers M, T, smonth, Dt, and Acc. It is a bit harder to reason about, because there is no context and your variable names don't mean anything. (Although I can guess that M is a month and Dt is a date.)

Any conclusions you draw from this about Ruby and Erlang are wrong -- the conclusions are about identifier naming. I could just as easily write Ruby that looks like:

rj = p.users.find { |u| u.join_t(p) > now - 2592000 }

Not as easy to read, is it?
Patent Crowdbusting: Q&A with Cheryl Milone of Article One Partners
Yes, I admit I missed that last sentence.

However, I think your contention that they didn't want the service is wrong, since they are still running it. Swing on over to http://www.weblogs.com and see for yourself.

You may think it was a dumb decision on their part. (I do. Weblogs.com did its thing back when the weblog world numbered in the hundreds or few thousands, but even pre-Twitter it was pretty obviously increasingly worthless at the time it was sold. Even if the tech side scaled, the social side did not.) But clearly they did want it, and still do want it enough to continue running it. (Though I wouldn't be surprised it gets shut down any day now...)
Mardi Gras In Mobile, Ala. :)
Mardi Gras Here In Mobile, Ala. 4 year old son is in a pre-school parade tomorrow; 5 year old daughter rides in 2 parades later. We will visit the beach before this week of celebration :)
Cloudant (YC S08) Looking For Lead Front End Developer
Startuply Posting: http://www.startuply.com/Jobs/Lead_Front_End_Developer_792_2...

Cloudant is building a highly scalable distributed database service. We're looking for an uber-talented lead front end developer to join us at our Somerville offices. We are a Summer '08 YC company and have recently closed a series A round with a local (Boston) VC.

We envision this person to be a jack all trades with respect to web infrastructure. We need someone to design and build the whole user-facing portion of the Cloudant web service. (We're not web hackers, and we'd rather not pretend to be.)

To apply, send an email to jobs@cloudant.com with your resume, cover letter, and anything else that would pique our interest. Try to give examples of previous work in the space; it's hard to hire someone without seeing what they've built. Put something about Hacker News in the subject line; we'll give preferential treatment to HN users.