skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Snakebite: the open source development network
What about the jobs VCs destroy? VCs fire 2/3 of founding CEOs.
Classic Hits by Microsoft Songsmith
Muxtape Is Back As A Mixtape Platform For Bands
I really find this hard to believe :/
I really liked the explanation in this piece about how Bebo benefited from targeting old fashioned TV advertising agencies that other social networks completely ignored.
Beware of the dreaded Second System Effect. As in your second system is assured to be a disaster because you think you know enough but never really do. The practice of rewriting everything once assures that you will eternally experience the Second System Effect.

OK to rewrite the really bad stuff that has a high density of bugs. OK to adapt your architecture if it really doesn't fit the problem domain you are discovering and you really can make it simpler. OK to clean up basically ugly code that neither you nor others can easily understand. The important thing is to have a good reason to rewrite besides "I always do it that way."

Always rewrite from scratch on principle? This is the path to madness, failure, project overruns, and downright disasters. That is unless you are very very lucky. Luck helps but good software is not produced by luck.
Scalability by Design - Coding for Systems With Large CPU Counts
Amazon’s Kindle 2 Will Debut Feb. 9
What's the difference between this and searching for "define: word" on google?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define...
This thing is becoming quite powerful... However, I expect the economy will hit their sales hard.
isnt DabbleBoard (http://www.dabbleboard.com) for the same thing (& much more) ?
It also isn't globally scalable -- consider the acres per person that the American lifestyle requires.
Interesting design, but that's all that's there. Does anyone know what this is actually about?
Wich also means that America has a confortable margin to improve. Their own genius lies in pragmatism, I wouldn't bet against them when necessity joins the game.
Ask HN: I have site: somoscompatibles.com it is the same concept as eharmony.com and chemistry.com. It is geared towards Mexico and Spanish but it can be converted easily to English. I haven't been able to devote a lot of time to market it but the site has been working fairly well for over a year and I feel users are very loyal to it. It requires very little maintenance on my side. I feel very confident on the code it represents about a year's work. I will like to approach Marcus, I am not too interested on just selling the site since I do not really need the money but it does seem like a good match.

So my question is how should I approach Marcus and what type of agreement do you think would be beneficial for both of us.
It may be difficult to believe this while in US, but in other countries industries are dominated by engineers...I know of one bank in Chile where all the business guys were being replaced with civil engineers (in Chile, that means a guy with an extensive math + science background).
See also Trent Nelson's announcement on python-commiters. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2009-Janu...

Snakebite will be publicly announced… soon. whoops.
Softwear by Microsoft
the grass is always greener on the other side
Reminds me of Sinatra, a ruby DSL for web-apps http://sinatra.github.com/
Cool that Google hopped in on this one... reminds me of Improv Everywhere.
I'm not sure his test is statistically significant, but I can't blame him for not testing as thoroughly as I'd like, or even knowing to. :P

If his is literally invisible he's got it made. I can't see anyone wanting to have translucent images and shapes on their windows.
They're not destroying jobs, as there's still a CEO position that someone has to fill.
Very clever--it's a nice way to integrate fact-searching across many different websites. The interface is effective and doesn't get in the way. I like the branding you've created for yourself as well. The avatar of the Factobot incorporates the logo and that awesome chimpy-looking bot really well.

I like how you let me add to my personal lexicon without having to register, but will that be saved, and be carried over to any account I create if and when I do?

Few nags:

On the tab bar, if "Home" has a bar on the very left, shouldn't FAQ have one on the very right?

On the "ongoing votings" page, it's not immediately clear what I am supposed to do, and the yellow hint box towards the right says the same thing it does when I search for something--hit a checkbox. There aren't any checkboxes. This could be confusing for some.

Great job overall, I see myself using this.
Did you read the post? I don't think that he was limiting his context to jobs within the VC companies...quite the opposite, in fact.
Have you looked at household debt vs wage since WWII?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-income_ratio

What we are seeing is the unraveling of that process -- since the 30 year fixed mortgage was widely available from the FHA and the VA, the amount of debt we've been willing to shoulder has increased over time.

With increased living expenses (college costs, et cetera) and flat wages, how have americans maintained their standard of living?? Home Equity lines of credit... MORE DEBT! Living on less isn't just for "handwringing worriers who have plenty but feel guilty about it", it is the prudent thing to do.

Then again, prudence isn't hot or hip.
Our deficit is significant but our 13.84 Trillion GDP means deficit spending of 1/2 Trillion a year is less than 5%. His graph placed taxes around 12% of GDP which is just so far from the truth that it's almost meaningless.
They didn't always have a hyphen in their url.
Does your grabber get things from urban dictionary?
Now we need Lua on Orbits. ;-)
Suggestion: include the Cyc database.
It's pronounced scribbed... I've always said it scribed. Odd.
Bill Gates updates the "Gospel of Wealth"
10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009
While OpenDNS is neither Open nor DNS (by default), they aren't fucking anything up in this instance.
A good name would be mod_moon.
Personalization!
Wouldn't it be a lot easier to call up match/cupid/eharmony and discuss referral fees for driving traffic to these sites? I think he'd be better off looking for a partner. Perhaps an exclusive deal?

What value is adding a pay site to an over saturated market bringing here? Why would you play against companies that are more resourceful and experienced using their rules? Seems to me that - long term - this is a lose/lose all around for him.

In order for this to be even remotely successful, he needs to beat the pay sites at their own game. Otherwise, his "pay site" will still be disregarded, and he'll still "lose revenue" to the big guys. The odds are stacked against him. The big guys can bear a price war much better than he can, and that's what he's jumping into, essentially.
The world is still awaiting a good use for Flash.

I have one! Recording audio and video :)
There is a facility that says time in transit does not count. If your on a 3 hour flight in first class you can get a lot of work done. Granted a private plane might make you more productive. The real question is does the value of the flexibility of keeping your own cooperate jet worth the cost vs renting when it's useful.

IMO, if you are constantly flying people around the world to do deals then you have already failed. If they are small pay to bring them to you, if they are large work remotely. If they are large and can't work remotely then you should not be working with them as they are clearly incompetent.
Actual info here: http://www.iatp.org/
I've looked at the OpenCyc dataset for a similar purpose. It does not easily yield text that is reader-friendly.
Speaking of perfectionism, look at my karma! (but don't upmod or downmod me, or you'll ruin it)
like the idea of project.
how was definitions obtained?
I would agree with this. I wouldn't call myself a hacker in the traditional sense of the word. I dabble in HTML and CSS but other than that I'm not much of a programmer. I am here, however, because the articles that come up are interesting and the discourse that happens in the comments section is always high minded and interesting.

Coming to visit Hacker News exclusively over a place like Reddit has been a breath of fresh air. I hope things like this article keep coming up alongside posts about hacking more specifically.
Pause, on, off, whatever: human interface design
And I've bought a DVD off of amazon.co.uk that wasn't available in R1 at the time.
Humans are eating too many... Frogs
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Indeeeeeeeeeed.

http://orbit.luaforge.net/
What Monster.com should have said about their security breach
I will like to approach Marcus, I am not too interested on just selling the site since I do not really need the money but it does seem like a good match.

My first suggestion would be - assuming what you say here is true - to be concrete at what you would want out of this, if not money. Fame? A nice CV tagline? What?

Once you have that down, you would tailor the approach strategy to enable that outcome.
Years ago, when laptops where over $1000, an ebook reader for under $299 was a good idea.

Netbooks changed the game...
Ask HN: hn for biz students?
I'm not a biz student, but when I built hnDir for my school, some of the biz students feel sort of left out. Is there a community online that exists for business students, much like hn exists for hackers?
3 Rules of Business Derived from Two Frozen Credit Cards
If you read further into that mailing list thread, you see that the decision was to use 'mod_lua'. The previous user of that name has abdicated the throne, so to speak.
Measures of Success
Forbes.com, Facebook.com, and Hamsterdance.com
I agree, bu there is a point beyond which it no longer makes sense to take the pain of getting an H1B compared to the pain to open up an office, say, in Singapore.

And even relocate some of your US workers over there.
Sports Commentators Dress Up For Superbowl, Part 1
There's a forked version available at: http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash/tree/master
I am faster using TeX's beamer classes than fighting Powerpoint's UI.
Setting wmode to transparent/opaque exposes some Flash Player bugs tho (non-US keyboards print only US characters).
http://www.newmogul.com/
Switching from scripting languages to Objective C and iPhone: useful libraries
I just want it to be GSM-friendly and to sell for less than US$ 100.

For the $100 to $500 range, I can use a full-featured entry-level notebook or a cheaper, lighter netbook. The Kindle has a big problem then.
Buzhug, a pure-Python database engine
PostgreSQL cheat sheet
<If people aim to become lawyers because they don't think they can compete, that's their business.>

That's the problem - it isn't their business. It's the ABA's business. You could be one of the great legal minds in India, but unless you have an ABA accredited degree, it doesn't matter (edit - I think a few states might allow such a person to practice provided he/she passes the bar). And US law schools definitely act as gatekeepers (check out the admissions pages for law schools - you will often find an explicit statement that they greatly limit the percentage of international students). US Engineering grad programs, on the other hand, tend to act as gateways rather than gatekeepers.

Some people want to see an ABA or AMA style organization for software engineers... personally, I'd hate to see this. I like the open nature of software, and I definitely don't think we'd see more innovation if the sort of people responsible for EJB gained control over licensing.

But regardless of how you feel about it, the dynamic is pretty indisputable: if the US uses the force of government and law to keep foreign lawyers out and bring foreign engineers in, then you should expect to see US citizens favor law degrees and foreign nationals (who would like to come to the US) to favor engineering degrees.

The part that frustrates me is when our wise leaders get on the soapbox and start preaching about how we need to encourage more Americans to get graduate degrees in science and engineering. If we've decided to staff our science and engineering workforce with guest workers, fine, but please stop acting like it's a big mystery when Americans respond to the market imbalance it creates.
The most sucessful VC companies are the most innovative. They produce a product or service more competitively than the alternative at a cheaper cost.

Companies which consume these products or services save money. As a result they can offer their products/services more competitively, which results in hiring (or at the very least fewer layoffs).

The bottom line is that innovation acts as a stimulus in times of recession. During times of expansion (when the economy is at full employment) it simply results in increased standards of living. I agree with barbie17 that the unemployment rate is more or less constant in the long term.
Ruby Swarms: Visualizing Rails & Git
The reason professional ballplayers make more, is that they compete in a winner-take-all environment. Thanks to televison, baseball playing is now "scalable." The world only needs ~500 pro baseball players to satisfy its baseball entertainment needs.

When we can make doctors scale like that, there will be a few doctors making billions each. Teachers can scale by writing books, and they sometimes make millions.
The funny thing is: If Nokia and Apple hadn't lobbied so hard against Theora (and for their own DRM-laden alternatives), it would now be part of the W3C spec, and Mozilla would be criticized for not having implemented it yet.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is.htm...
Orders of magnitude? Are you arguing that the only thing standing between the best 2nd grade teacher in Harlem and millions is an efficient means of measuring talent?

Major League Baseball is certainly not a market economy like any other - it is a federally-protected monopoly, or American Institution if you like.
He suggests at the end that we need a lot more entrepreneurship. This is similar to what PG has been saying for a long time. PG says we need startups so hackers can reach their potential. Fred says the economy needs entrepreneurship. We've talked a lot about PG's ideas, but is Fred right?
I have a laptop and a kindle and much prefer the kindle for reading. The display is more paper like and can be read in bright day light. Also, battery life is superior. I only need to charge it maybe once a week.

My main problem with the kindle is that it can't read pdfs natively.
17/21. Guess I'm a B- human :/
Snakebite.org - the open source dev network
Using jQuery and key events for great user feedback
Elegantly designed, but they still don't appear to have any business plan in mind. Are bands/record labels expected to pay to promote their own music?
Do you regularly read full-length novels on your laptop?
Has anyone ever examined how TED became so damn watchable? You could learn more by watching their free online videos than by watching the presentations of a dozen other conferences.
Kindle 2.0 Coming February 9?
Now on crunchgear (ala techmeme):
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/27/amazon-press-conference-next-monday-i-can-haz-kindle-too/
http://studentbusinesses.com
I think it's changed the way it collects taxes, but as far as I know, government spending is still up, even adjusted for inflation. So it's hard for me to see that conservatives are so successful that they have continued to lose, just not as fast as they used to.
(Canadian?) TV show "Regenesis". Biology stuff, apparently a bit of real science mixed in from time to time. The first couple of seasons or so are in syndication, so watch for it at really bad times in the US, like 1AM Monday on minor TV stations.
I should clarify that a valid explanation would account for the fact that gift cards other than Amazon's consistently net below face value.
Every time I'm watching "Hackers" with someone, I can't help but point out which of those books I own. Inaccurate as hell, but still a fun hacker mindset movie.
Unleash your creativity, generate better ideas
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2005/2005-12-14-01.asp

"emissions from power plants in 10 states - Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia - represent almost 60 percent of U.S. mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants"

And what do we find in IL, IN, KY, MI, OH, and PA?

Though, to be fair, coal isn't responsible for the majority of mercury emissions, see:

http://www.tva.gov/environment/air/ontheair/merc_emis.htm

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/reportover.htm
Indeed! US was a beacon of freedom before the Bush administration, together with France. Making an analogy to free software, US is BSD and France is GPL. For example France forces its citizens to be free, like a recent case denying citizenship to a very submissive Muslim-traditionalist woman as she was admittedly waiving her rights for her husband's.

Also US has a gigantic human capital with well educated population. It is a bit hard, but IMHO the change has to start with media. Perhaps applying existing laws against the advertisement cartel. But this is the French-style of freedom. I don't know.
Upped because I am facing this exact perdicament. I like the idea of having a "take anywhere" device that actually performs well as a book substitute. But, I am also tempted by the netbooks because they can perform this same function (albeit, poorly) and do so much more for the same price.

I guess it comes down to where your priorities lie.
How is babby nammed?
man losing 600 million in a year is pretty bad. Wonder if this means that all social networks have lost a ton of value too
Get this shirt: http://www.jephdraw.com/random/libraryscience.png
Ask HN: Considering an affiliate program. How to decide/implement?
We're considering an affiliate program for one of our web apps. Something along the lines of what Freshbooks and 37signals does.

My only concern is this: we have a really good reputation online and serve a niche market. If we have an affiliate program, I fear people would be more skeptical of the referral ("you're just referring them because you get a cut").

Is this a valid fear?

Any thoughts on affiliate programs or how to best implement them?
This isn't surprising as their desktop lineup is rather extreme; Your choice on the desktop is either a toy computer (that can't drive dual displays), an overpriced/overpowered super computer, or a monitor-computer chimera (that isn't upgradeable). I'm not sure if this is done on purpose, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just eventually stopped making desktops.
Inability to achieve any lasting perfection is not fought, but embraced via lack of symmetry, respect for blemishes, and unsanitized simplicity. Imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness is incorporated directly into the design

No matter how you experience it, perfectionism always traces back to a lack of internal self-acceptance. For us who build and produce, it can be a vicious cycle of obsessing over the details, succeeding, and then reaping external validation from others for that success.

However, I would question this approach that says "these external things I make will always be imperfect" instead of simply saying "I internally accept myself, in entirety, for who I am."

The first case only solves issues of perfectionism, while the second - self-acceptance - goes much farther than just addressing perfectionist tendencies.
I work from home and found that going out and do some sport (jogging) for an hour that makes me sweat helps a _lot_ fighting loneliness, depression, etc. and makes me more productive.
sweet - ding you have mail.
HN-clone?
I would like a 100$ e-book reader with an electronic paper display and pdf support, with no extra features, please.
Solar Power Explosion in Spain: 3.1 Gigawatts Installed in 2008
Short patent lifetimes. Long enough for you to get out and establish yourself in the market, but short enough that it wouldn't kill a competitor to wait a bit. It would also dramatically reduce the cost of licensing a patent since the waiting time for it to expire would drop so much.

Perhaps a good amount of time would be one or two years?
Yes but with a business focus. I think nickb created it.
defmacro doesn't post very often, but I always enjoy when he does.
Even though the announcement (see my other post) and the page pretty concisely describe what Snakebite's about, I'll try to wrap it up:

It's a platform for open source developers granting access to exotic build environments. A communist server farm of buildbots, so to say. It aims for more cross-platform compatibility.
I'd like to understand what's being described in this article, but unfortunately I lack the necessary educational background. Does anyone have any links to other resources that will allow me to better understand what is being discussed in this post?
"things like this article" are exactly why reddit is no longer the way it once was. You will destroy HN with your wish.
Previous submission of this to HN:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=446395
I agree with forcing people to use the wiki. At my school, the email system was getting overwhelmed with mass emails from students selling stuff, looking for rides, trying to find items. There was already a site created by a student to sell things, look for rides, and post lost items, but nobody used it. Now they have just cut off access to mass email for nearly everyone, and the adoption of the site has gone up somewhat. So I would suggest that you first start with managers, trying to get them to only accept some things from the wiki, and consider cutting off some mass email access if it is being used for things that you want to move to the wiki. You will upset some people, but you will get them using the wiki.
perhaps he's a perfectionist about his writing?
Who has to shoulder the burden of proof on prior art?
What Free Online Services Would You Pay For? How Much?
How to Learn From Unfulfilled Goals
I don't see any good comments or criticism about iplotz. I realize that Balsamiq is a sweet-heart for many HN readers, but come on, that shouldn't stop us from welcoming a competitor. I liked the Iplotz app. They have a very polished look and I really like their full-screen mode which lets me work without distractions. Their sharing feature is definitely a good one when working with multiple people, (definitely beats emailing files back and forth). I especially liked the controls on the left rather than the top. The properties box for the UI control was very intrusive, I don't want a solid box blocking my wireframe. I like the task manager that is built into the app, which is useful when sharing tasks with your team members, especially when collaborating with someone remotely.
Not infrequently.

There's a lot of "personal taste" involved in this domain. Some people can't seem to stomach reading for a long time on anything short of a Kindle, whereas I used to read Project Gutenberg books on my 160x160px monochrome Palm Pilot with reasonable comfort.

I understand the personal taste in general but have always been surprised by programmer's problems with electronic displays. Reading a novel is way easier than reading code. If you can handle reading code, surely you can deal with a novel... but again, personal taste.
That's fine, but you'll probably have to wait until the folks who are willing to pay $360 are done buying.

Given that Amazon allowed their hit product to go out of stock over Christmas, methinks the supply of eInk isn't quite enough to meet the demand at $360, let alone $100.
When did you make this realisation?
Submit more articles like this one and less Web 2.0 gossip please.