skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I used to go through the course catalog as an undergrad the same way I looked at the Sears Christmas catalog as a kid. Trying to pick the most interesting classes out of so many choices, like trying to pick the toys I wanted at the top of my Christmas list.

Agreed that it's amazing to be able to "attend" so many of these lectures for free now, just need to make the time.
I would drop the "for you website" bit. It sounds a little 1994. What else would they want the domain name for?

I too fell into that trap. One day I woke up and saw "best * on the Internet" in my copy and hated myself all day.
This has been missing on Heroku as well. I haven't needed it myself, yet, but it's been discussed frequently on the mailing list.
The particular class he highlights, "Computer Science III: Programming Paradigms" does look pretty awesome.
I took off my pants and then tried it, but I don't think that proves anything. About the site.
I don't have a compelling need for a framework. If I had the need for such a query, I would probably write a simple query to gather a superset of the candidates, or not, if it looked like most of the records would be in the set. Then I would write a Python program that would rank the candidate according to whatever. It could all be done in SQL, but Python would be quicker in elapsed time to a solution.

If this were a frequent run, I might do it purely in SQL, but not a framework, SQL is sufficiently high level that I dont see much of a gain.
Linuxhater's blog is back
It would tend to be done reflexively-- maybe not by you, but by a lot of users. Not allowing it seemed a way to filter out what would almost certainly be the least thoughtful subset of votes, thereby raising the thoughtfulness of the median vote.
I looked in the indictment for any details about the code he posted. No such luck; on a tangent, this is confusing.

From the article:

"A logic bomb ... would have decimated all 4,000 servers at the company, causing millions of dollars in damage"

From the indictment:

"The defendant ... did knowingly cause and attempt to cause ... damage without authorization to a protected computer, and by such conduct caused and would, if completed, have caused loss to Fannie Mae during any one year period aggregating at least $5,000 in value."

So...

1) Why are they charging him with "attempting to cause at least $5,000 in damage" when the true damage would allegedly have been in the millions?

2) It's hard to believe "[the code] would have decimated all 4,000 servers at the company". Let's consider the worst case scenario, which is that all 4,000 computers run the infected script at 9AM with administrator privileges. Would something like 'rm -rf /' really decimate the server? If they kept backups of each server, could the IT guys simply swap in old backups?

... Now that I've talked it out, it seems likely that really would knock the server farm offline for about a week. It would be difficult to swap in backups of 4,000 servers in a timely fashion. That's a lot of boxen.
A public-key pair in a chip is way overkill for the threat model I was talking about.

Is it the same threat model you were talking about? You didn't answer that question.

And while it's perhaps necessary and desirable that our machines contain tamper-resistant chips with public-key pairs in them, it's neither necessary nor desirable that the private key be secret from the machine's legitimate owner, which is part of the TCG scheme.
Locust swarms 'high' on serotonin
This is cool. I'd love to see more stories like this, a coder talks about what he does, instead the linkbait submissions that are taking over HN recently.
Pseudo-3D Video Conferencing with a Generic Webcam
If I were doing this, I'd look into writing CLR code to integrate with SQL Server 2005/2008. As long as you could define classes and functions in .NET, you could use them as datatypes or functions in SQL Server. For membership, you might want to define them as functions in code, separate from the db.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345136.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-SQL-Server-2005-Programmi...

a 31 year-old is 0.8 Young...why not 0.7 or 0.9?

Well, that depends on the problem domain. If you're dealing with US Presidents, 31 would be 1.0 young. And 50 would probably be 0.9 young. If you're dealing with dogs, 31 would be 0.0 young (I'm not aware of any dogs living more than 29). Sit down with a bunch of domain experts (one at a time) and poll them. You don't sit them together because they'll probably say things like "yeah, that answer."

I've not done much research into this for quite some time (and way back then, I was interested more in GIS). And a quick survey seems to say "nope, no frameworks."
http://www.lcc.uma.es/~ppgg/FSQL.html
White collar workers can be programmed out of a job.
I disagree. To me, the literal meaning of "fuck" is "to have sex." I see the qualifier literaly as meaning "the next phrase is being used in its original sense, not its figurative sense."

I see it similar to using \ in regular expressions. In the regular expression "\.", the \ acts much as the word literally, and modifies the special character so that I get the literal/actual meaning as opposed to the figurative/special meaning.

As for your example, I think it's meaningless. The phrase "fuck up" is a figure of speech, and has no literal meaning. It just has a meaning.
Agreed. You'd be simply creating a composite value; your statements might look messy, but there's nothing stopping you from doing this with SQL.

Additionally, you're still choosing arbitrary values, and there are still going to be data points 'just outside' your selection - it may be more smooth, but it's just a weighting of the same metrics.
Bringing OpenID and OAuth Together
but there are a fair chunk of jobs that were created due to your involvement. I would feel pretty good and walk pretty tall if I was you.
My constructive feedback...

This is game, when page loads let me start playing the game right away. Not read about the game. I read a little but ultimately left cause there was too much text and no interaction.

You use a lot of buzzwords free and stuff like that, but that just adds to why I left. Too much text ...I just want to load page and play a game and interact right away! Id like to learn the rules by interacting with the game along with some text and a link to help page if need be.

hth
Ask HN: Rate my sister's voice
Wow, this looks great. My mind is spinning now trying to come up with cool applications using twilio =)
As the COO of Angelsoft and the creator of the Open Deals/The Investor Community, I can shed some statistical light on this question.

First let me clarify that since 2004 Angelsoft has been building tools that help Startups and Investors communicate more effectively. That's what we talk about every day. That's what keeps me up at night. Open Deals is one of those tools.

We originally released Open Deals as a way for Angel Groups to post deals that they wanted to do, but didn't have enough cash to do alone (This is a surprisingly common problem for these groups).

As Open Deals gained traction with our groups, we thought we could use it to solve another problem: Unknown entrepreneurs applying to groups and getting rejected because they were unknown. Most guys who are unknown are unknown for a reason, but obviously if you can never get an investment unless you've been successful before, we've got a problem.

We figured we'd encourage these new entrepreneurs to apply to Open Deals, let the investors crowd source them, and if a guy was legit, he'd get voted up and referred into some groups. Since he was referred, we figured the group might pay attention to him.

So has it been successful?

1. First, our marketing around it has sucked (and still does). We're more of software company and marketing hasn't come naturally to us. We're working on a complete site redesign coming out early in March we think will fix this.

2. Since we began we've had 243 companies referred from Open Deals to groups. That's about 25% who applied.

3. Companies that are referred from Open Deals are 225% more likely to get a meeting with a group than a direct submission to that group.

In short, Open Deals is doing okay. You guys are smart enough to figure out if it's worth $250 for you, but I can say, that for most entrepreneurs its more than worth the money. And I'm not talking about those that get meetings. A lot of entrepreneurs get dinged or ignored when they apply. We take some heat for that, but the truth is, these guys paid $250 to find out they're not ready for prime-time. And speaking as an entrepreneur who has spent thousands of dollars and years of his life pursuing ideas that were not ready, I can say that $250 is a bargain.
My sister recently joined a blues band, and I hadn't heard her sing in years. And she really blew me away with this song.

Blinded by brotherly love, or does she sound as good as I think?
Not quite.

It's like saying, saws are dying because more people are using motorised robot cutting machines now.
Really interesting. It SEEMS sensible that the phone number should have an effect in terms of credibility and actual sales calls that end up with a sale.

One theory might be that your audience is comprised of geeks. Less likely to pick up the phone, and less emotionality dependent on voice contact in terms of comfort/credibility. I wonder if A/B testing on Cabelas.com or LLBean.com would yield different results.
In C#..

public string SomeProperty {
get {
SomeOtherProperty.Something = whatever;
return someProperty;
}
}
She may be a great blues singer, but she isn't a hacker.
In a sentence, he loved Rails, joined Muxtape despite it being written in PHP cause he believed in it, felt unproductive and missed Rails, so he took a day to rewrite in Rails.
I'd suggest that you keep a more constructive tone on this board.
Isn't a band a business?

You don't have to be a hacker to be an entrepreneur.
Agreed. It would be abused in 95% of the scenarios. For the 5% of legitimate uses, you'll have to believe that someone other than you will do the modding.
Citrix for iPhone nearing completion
This is Hacker News, not Entrepreneur News. :-)
Link for non-flash users: http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=MSFT&t=2y&q=l...
Quick pg, register hackerer.com!
A Programmer's Apology
checklists are great when combined with independent thought. however they can be a problem when they're relied on instead of independent thought (brainless checking).
I think a cheaper way to figure out how ready you are for primetime is to submit your site to Hacker News. It doesn't cost a penny.

I appreciate and agree with most of your comments, but saying that $250 is a cheap price to learn the ropes seems wrong and somewhat predatory to me. I think you should spend time polishing your value prop if you have to fall back on this sort of rhetoric.

I think I'll follow pg's advice.
what site?
Even "novice developers" are able to:

1. download macports
2. double click an installer and click next a few times
3. type 'sudo port install git-core'
They should strip out their custom builds and have macports pre-installed.
Ross Mathematics Program at Ohio State
That would solve the problem of conflicting distributions exactly not-at-all.
No, no, no! You are completing tasks the productive way. You are using tools you have trained with, and you solve each problem as quickly as possible. Don't listen to the purists. The "best tools for the job" are the ones with which you are most effective. The article's description of "the way problems should be solved" is a doomed path whose end is usually quiet failure. You will be assaulted by perfectionism and inexperience, which is a deadly combination. I know this from personal experience with my own failures.

Avoid my mistakes by sticking with tools you have trained with. I'm not saying "don't learn", I'm saying learn wisely. The road to mastery is long, requiring time and dedication. If you have not mastered a tool, don't base your strategic plans around it, otherwise you will be defeated by all the details that only experience will reveal.
"The grass is always greener on the other side"
Sorry not to be more specific, but someone did almost exactly what you're sketching. I'll get back to you once I've found the paper, or if I've not found it again.

At first pass this might be it, but it looks different from what I remember:

http://www.lcc.uma.es/~ppgg/FSQL.html

What I saw basically translated "fuzzy" queries into equivalent SQL queries.

Actually just spin through these:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&client=s...

There's lots.
There's a reason programmers (myself included) often take the easy way out. Namely, it's easier.

This is probably a bad reason when you're building the next great app, but is a perfectly acceptable reason when you just want to get something running as quickly as possible. In many cases, the cost of learning a new tool will outweigh the (usually minor) benefits it brings.
The key isn't kept secret from the machine's legitimate owner, Kragen. For instance, TPM keys need to be migratable.

Do you spend a lot of time working with TPM/TCG technology? I don't want to sound patronizing; maybe it's me that's missing something.
Helps information liquidity during debates.

Also, the your comment which is the parent to the aforementioned doesn't seem to be contributing much.
Because that's the name of the crime. Attempting to cause damage under $5000 is probably a lesser charge.

"Millions" is indeed at least $5000, no?
Heh, the last one has a well-done photoshop effect, even including the reflection on the sunglasses!
Because your customers will hate you.

By the time you have a dozen customers, at least one will have said, publicly, something along the lines of, "I had no trouble talking to them when I wanted to buy, but as soon as I needed help, they were nowhere to be found."

There are industries and products where it's possible to get away with telephone sales, but not support. But, it's not the business I'm in, and it's probably not the business most of the folks here are in. I don't know what makes it workable, exactly, and certainly larger companies get away with it all the time...and when you and I have hundreds of thousands of customers, we can discuss the possibilities.

It probably is possible to differentiate somehow on your website; making available far more expensive versions that include telephone support. I kinda suspect that will engender animosity in the non-premium customers who feel like they're getting second class treatment, but at least they'll all know where they stand. But, beware that no matter what you do, you will get phone calls for support, if you offer a number for sales. And your suggested solution will piss some customers off.

Anyway, I think everyone is just dramatically underestimating the cost of answering a phone.
You know, the really nasty attackers aren't going to waste time overwriting data with zeroes.
Rate My New Music Site
I didn't know that there was a need. The USD and CAD are doing fairly well, and I don't think we would want the socioeconomic and political risks of Mexico incorporated into a currency.
OAuth is coming soon.

They could use a twitter account anonymously.
The sign of Times
Other site I found useful is Nameboy. You give it terms and it tries to find combinations of them that are available. It's pretty slow though, so I think they are not using a local database but are instead doing something expensive to check each combination.

I have my own one too which checks expired domain name listings for promising looking stuff that will become available soon. I can crosslink if you like, but only get 1000+ uniques per month. Not making any money after the expiring domain registrant affiliate programs were closed.
Anybody else feel a little strange with all the references to "Rubik cube" instead of "Rubik's cube"?

I spent Christmas break about two years ago learning to solve a Rubik's cube. It took me about a week of practicing no more than an hour or two a day and I had it down. I've forgotten the last few steps now but I can still solve about 2/3 of the cube pretty easily. This strikes me as one of those moments where I realize that this my Rubik's cube strategy was totally a programmer solution.

1. "Neat puzzle, there's gotta be an algorithm I can apply to solve this."

2. Learn algorithm and gain 10 sexy points while solving it in front of your friends.

versus

1. Google for software to solve it for me.

or better yet:

1. Take off all the stickers

2. reapply to fit desired pattern or color-coordination
Greed—and fear
Hello All,

So earlier today I launched a new music search/library browsing application that I've been working on for a few months. I'd really like to hear any constructive criticism my fellow hackers might have.

The concept is pretty straightforward. Try searching for your favorite artist. If I recognize it you'll see a full discography. Click on an album and you'll see a number of tracks, most clickable for instant playback.

Some of you might remember my post last year when I launched the first iteration of this site. Back then the idea was akin to a last.fm audio scrobbler/listening history tracker. I implemented music search a few months after that and it soon became the most popular aspect of the site. I decided then that music search and streaming should be my only concern. Just goes to show how quickly your vision can evolve...

Again, I'd appreciate any and all feedback.
I actually did the same back during my freshmen year of college (although it took me a few weeks - that last layer was tricky).

But I don't think you gain sexy points for it ;-) Geek Cred != Sexy, unfortunately.
I think keeping "for your website" makes it clearer for normal people.
Slinkset releases categories
Commercials Increase Enjoyment Of TV Shows?
For many people, the only way this would be sustainable would be to offer digests. Being emailed "everytime [sic] someone responds to a thread I am a part of, or a post I made" would be a complete nightmare.
I don't find it that surprising... usually you'd hire people you can trust in the first place. And the guy might want to pick up his stray files before leaving. It sounds harsh to me to cut off everything before even talking to the guy.
Great example of recency bias in investing/trading.

Take the same chart and move the slide bar to the left and see how equity performance changes. So you perception of performance will change depending on the timeframe/dataset you're viewing.
Ask HN: Term Sheets
Anyone have advice on negotiating terms and/or have access to theFunded?
Will Symantec’s CEO repeat his success with our economy?
Jeez that freaking floating picture sucks.
Definitely points for 'cuteness'. I like sites like this that have personality..
In their FAQ:
"Actually, it's more like a framework or library, but "engine" sells much better. So we lie."
The integration really just happens in your script, it's very basic. When I receive a RecordingUrl parameter from Twilio, I just save the file (I'm using PHP, so file_get_contents() to get the file, and file_put_contents() to save it) then I give Voicecloud the link to the file using their API call. I use file_get_contents() for that as well, which returns an XML response, but since it's so simple and I'm only looking for a transaction # to reference, I just do a regex for it instead of parsing the XML. You need to save that # to your db so you can reference it again in the Voicecloud response script.

The Voicecloud response handler is equally simple: they call your script and pass it a transactionuid (the value saved in the last script) and a transcribed_text parameter. From there you can do whatever you want, like send it in an email or save it to your database.

The Voicecloud API isn't really completely setup right now though, so you have to work with their support team to get an API key and to give them your response handler URL. They have to input that stuff. One other thing is I initially ran into issues with Twilio's mp3 encoding not working with Voicecloud, but Voicecloud solved that for me and probably for anyone else too.

Hope that helps!
Doesn't validate: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk...

Oh, the irony.
Uh.. I know it's been 10 days :p

Let's say you have a map, and you change a value in it. Being a functional programming language, and the map being an immutable structure, you end up with two maps: the old and the new. Now, the cool part is every data-structure in clojure is designed _not_ to do this by copying the whole thing. You'll have two maps who share everything except the changed value. Same with collections, sets, trees etc. The work under the hood must be impressive...

Another nice thing (for me at least, coming from imperative programming) is there is a better difference between a variable and a value. A variable is a placeholder, and a value is ... well, a value. In clojure you treat them separately. A better explanation: http://clojure.org/state
Read Paul Graham's essay on it =)
Mytoons implodes amidst serious drama
I like the affiliate link idea, because that is something concrete and practical that they could have an 80% implementation for in a day if they wanted to.
Thousands of people have access to thefunded.com. It's the best resource out there to answer your question, together with my other favorite: venturehacks.com

Access to thefunded is restriced to CEOs usually. If you don't qualify, it's going to be tough to answer all your questions here :-)
It's called the "euphemism treadmill".
Certainly. It just seemed strange.
This is why when an investment bank fires a trader, the security guard is there to pick him up after the meeting with his boss ends.

They mail you the stuff from your desk in boxes.
http://i25.tinypic.com/22yzwh.jpg
I understand this is likely a PR under the guise of a blog post - but it seems unfair to overlook iTunesU and MIT's already mentioned OpenCourseware.

The benefits of viewing lectures within the iTunes/iPhone/Boxee environment shouldn't need to be recounted here - but it's important point to reinterate for less techy folk who may be looking for something similar and already have an itunes store account.

http://www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning/
In the Trenches Bitches - How to Build an Audience
If you have the requisite large-company/educational institute Microsoft licensing, you get to download Microsoft programs from their Technet website - right back to DOS and Windows 3.

Win4Lin licensing might be more of a problem, though.
I actually chose this particular time frame since it when I as last changing jobs and trying to decide between a BigCo and a startup. I didn't choose a BigCo, but even if I had it probably wouldn't have been amazon.
http://venturehacks.com/articles/term-sheet-hacks

Also just apply for access to The Funded. You're a CEO, right? :D If there's some specific info you want right now send me an email and I can send it to you.
Quick! Edit away your fixed text and stop messing up the page layout!

There's still time! You can do it!
It can't be "genius" because I had the same idea independantly a few weeks ago (an iPhone photo-Rubik's-cube-solver).

(I was thinking of it taking two photos, each pointing at opposite corners of a cube and encompassing three sides).
www.trailbehind.com

We have a buggy, but much more powerful and fast, update on cabin dot trailbehind dot com (spelled out like this so Google won't index it).

New features include:

* rankings of sites by popularity/popularity-based search

* static caches of maps

* better arrangement of icons on the maps

* updated reporting interface

* expanded data set

We're in bug fix mode right now, and we'll be pushing the update Monday or so.
Similar issues but probably worse in NZ.
http://creativefreedom.org.nz/

"news that National say they plan to go ahead with the Guilt Upon Accusation law Section 92A that results in punishment before a trial and before any evidence has been held up to court scrutiny"

edit: I submitted here too http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=457472
AT&T, Comcast expected to help RIAA fight piracy