skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'll say this here: Sorry, I stated the US had an appalling infant mortality rate, and in fact it actually has a very good one. I was thinking of the Per Capita Infant Mortality rate, which IIRC the formula goes Per Capita GDP / 1,000 x IMR. This places the US rate as almost double of the UK's rate (IIRC), due to the fact that the US economy should be capable of providing better health care to infants than the UK. This test is only really good for developed nations as poor countries can end up looking the best, due to the fact that they can have Per Capitas below $1000.
Also, do people with Asperger's Syndrome get to "choose" what they focus on?
>> Atlas Shrugged is a fine novel [..]

No it's not. It's really not.

I don't want to get into a big AS bashing here, but if you're looking for a good Ayn Rand novel on individualism I suggest you try 'The Fountainhead'.
Sure, that's probably true, but if I'm explaining the value of YC to one of those people complaining about how your valuations are a ripoff, Demo Day sounds pretty impressive. Where else do you get to present to every angel investor in Silicon Valley?
UserVoice founder on how to build a killer site by listening to feedback
Awesome, step-by-step interview on when and how to launch a company and solicit effective helpful feedback. If you want your product to be perfect, you're thinking backwards. Nelson says launch crap and refine. Here's how.
Awesome, step-by-step interview on when and how to launch a company and solicit effective helpful feedback. If you want your product to be perfect, you're thinking backwards. Nelson says launch crap and refine. Here's how.
I'd have said the same about Google and Microsoft when Google was Microsoft's age. Google didn't get their business model (ads) until they were a year older than Facebook.

Looking at things now I wouldn't say that Facebook would rival Google, but it's definitely not out of their mind to imagine that they could.
Apologies for being slightly off topic, but since there are a number of Atlas Shrugged readers here, I have a question:

Is it worth reading? Most discussion about the book seems to be about Objectivism in general, understandably. But aside from the philosophy of the book, is it an entertaining or interesting read? (or is that like the quotation asking "Otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?") I generally like to read books that are getting talked about, but I've heard so many mixed reviews of this it's a tough decision.
I just tested the feature and I like it a lot. Any shortcut that I can use to make finding emails a little easier is very welcome.
Why is it >6x cheaper than the same EC2 instance?

Is it because they know that no one will just have it constantly run it as a true server like some do with EC2, so they'll get more fractional hours? Even though that's true to some extent, it doesn't seem like enough. Any insight?

EDIT: Twitter ftw! Apparently, the prices are additive, not replacitive. http://twitter.com/mndoci/statuses/1442516630
Not YC specific, but from what I've heard from friends that have pitched VCs fairly often, earlier is better because that way you're not the n-th pitch they've heard that day.

I know when I've been at startup events where there's a lot of groups pitching I'm much more attentive for the first ones. Pitch #24 has to really be something for me to even remember what they're doing.
Discussion in progress here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=543912
Swimming is excellent because it's as close to zero-impact (e.g. not pounding pavement) as you can get. There was a point in my work career where I hurt and swimming every day after work helped.

If you're wondering or thinking "Swimming is hard" - go to http://totalimmersion.net (they teach you how to swim like fish do - not the standard Red Cross Mississippi Steamboat (paddle-wheel high-energy-required kick way)
Highlights of the G20 deal
I could have missed something, but I don't think the YC terms are known until people get invited for interviews. The angel documents that YC uses are public, but I don't think the YC terms are. So, I don't believe teams at this point that are dealing with exploding termsheets do know the (potential) YC terms.
Where are the Asian hackers?
Don't forget those excellent Macs where the (instant-off) power button looked like the floppy drive eject!

Oh what fun!
I don't believe that this cupcake market example proces that payday loans introduces a negative externality.

An externality only occurs if cupcakes introduced a harm or benefit to third parties that was not factored into the cupcake price. For instance, cupcakes might cause pollution (e.g. discarded cupcake wrappers) which would cause a negative externality because there's no "cupcake tax" to fund pollution cleanup. Conversely, cupcakes might cause an increase in the number of happy people in the world, which would be a positive externality.

To successfully conclude that payday loans introduce a negative externality, we need to point to a specific harm to third parties beyond higher or lower prices. For instance, one might assert that payday loan customers who rely on payday loans are more likely to resort to drug use or crime, which then harms society. However, that isn't the argument presented here.

Also, in your other examples, there are repeated mentions to a fixed supply ("a limited number of houses", "a limited number of spots in colleges", "a limited amount of food".) Economic theory would suggest that higher prices would result in higher supply. For instance, when the price of cupcakes go up from $2, bakers will respond by producing more cupcakes and the supply of cupcakes will increase. This will lower the price of cupcakes from $10 to (say) $3. Granted, $3 is higher than $2, but that's just the market equilibrium price when payday-loan users are allowed to have inter-temporal credit.
this was the exact thinking behind our decision to become thesixtynine.
Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation
Ah, that makes sense and seems startup friendly.

i.e. they offer first round of 10 companies and give 'em 20 days. 8 accept. They then work there way down an alternate list.

They could even have 2 types of acceptance. i.e. 10 offers and 20 alternates (so the rejected companies could get on with their lives). They could tell the alternates: "You didn't make the top 10, but you were really close. It's possible a slot could open up within 30 days. If it does, we might call you."

If it's TechStars, they purportedly have their deadline set based on academic calendar. You oughta try hopping in front of them to test that assertion. :-)
Afghanistan to pass law legalizing rape within marriage and domestic imprisonment of women
I think the problem somewhat isn't so much with YC being the gold standard, it's that the amount of differentiation of the various accelerators is less than desirable.

They all do pretty much the same cash, at the same time, with the same relatively wide net, for the same percentage.

If on the other hand, one group focused, say, exclusively on mobile or e-commerce or B2B or infrastructure or started at a different time of the year, or offered more cash, or wanted a smaller slice I think suddenly they could make the time frame less relevant.
When we invite groups to interviews, we also give them a link to a page with all the documents, so they can have a lawyer look at them if they want.

I believe our terms are actually more founder-friendly than the series AA terms. We had to make the series AA terms neutral lest investors balk.
Chinese Develop "Kill Weapon" targetting Aircraft Carriers
I will use this a lot, super cool.
I've played with Chartbeat also -- it's clearly a big opportunity.

Real-time chat with users has to be done carefully in my opinion. Done wrong I think it could be very intrusive and off-putting to users. I imagine it being user initiated, like support chats on hosting providers.
I'd dig deeper on this one. When a company says "we will donate $X to schools", they often mean the notional retail value of their products. My high school computer class was drowning in donated AOL floppies, MS Office licenses, and copies of the soundtrack to Gigli.

It's carpet bombing, basically. Maybe the kids benefit, maybe not, but they are being used in a distasteful way.
Battle of Los Angeles - WW II alien invasion hysteria (Feb 1942)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=maps+mountain+view,+california...
Haha, they've all flocked to the valley, you say? :p
If you are going to go with outsourcing...

I would suggest bringing on an enterprise architect with experience in outsourcing to design the system and have a full understanding of what is going on. Preferably, this individual would have a group he has worked with already.

But given the constraints you mention, I'd suggest getting three developers in your area who prefer to telecommute and meet for coffee twice a week.
Good point, but judging from this I think they are talking about cash:

"$1,000,000 from Desire2Learn can make a significant difference for thousands of students through the purchase of laptops, technology, supplies and other much needed educational support."
I'd be interested in learning more how you implemented this.

I reccomended something similar to this for use as the parser for the VB.NET IDE, back around the start of the VS 2008 development cycle. It ended up being kind of expensive , because it required pushing changes all the way down to the text representation. All the IDE schedule time for Orcas went into supporting the LINQ features, so nobody was really interested in hearing about expensive IDE changes (by the way, I'm not disputing the choice, from a product perspective, it was the right one).

I was trying to make the parser faster, and to minimize rebinding of declarations, rather than on improving intermediate states, but I can see how it might be possible to make your stuff work.

My idea was based on several things:

1) Incremental tokenization, using a specialized editor text representation

2) Knowledge of the amount of lexical and syntantic lookahead needed by the VB grammar

3) An index from tokens to parse tree nodes

When an edit happend, the incremental scanner would then move backwards a constant number of tokens (based on some grammar properties) and then scan forward patching up the token stream until the scanner produced a duplicate token in the appropriate offset position.

The parse tree index would then be used to figure out where to restart parsing, again based on some properties of the grammar.

My focus was on producing the same trees as the existing parser, and on minimizing changes to declarations (because of all the rebinding that needs to be done), and so my incremental termination condition was based on entering a method (in the top-down hand written parser) that would generate a node of the same type as the "current position"(offset based on the edit), with the same parent, in the existing parse tree with the same starting token (based on object identity). This all worked because the scanner was incremental, which required the editor to structure it's data in a certain way

I would imagine that you probably used something similar to this, but with different termination conditions.

I would really want to see how similar (or not) what you did was to the scheme I came up with.
These bars are going to be an eyesore. Facebook has one. HootSuite has one. Now Digg.

What happens when I post a page with a Digg bar on Facebook? Bar pollution, that's what.
Anyone have a link to the patent Blackboard claims they're infringing?
If somebody has access to Science, here is the original article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/324/5923/85

And here is their homepage:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/Research/bio/robotsci/

It seems they have been working on this already since longer ago, they had a paper in Nature in 2004:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/Research/bio/robotsci/publicat...

From what I have seen after skimming through their site, they use multiple methods - logic programming solver in Prolog [1] and also some evolutionary algorithms [2].

If you are interested in details, they put online tons of supporting material for Science article (including Prolog sources) [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_logic_programming

[2] http://www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/Research/bio/robotsci/publicat...

[3] http://www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/Research/bio/robotsci/data/
LoseThosV5.04 released. 64-bit Free Open Source operating system that's not a Unix
#6,988,138 Internet-based education support system and methods

http://www.google.com/patents?id=RX94AAAAEBAJ&dq=6,988,1...

In plain english: http://mfeldstein.com/images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claim...

* I'm a BB competitor, so it's in my area (that is, I hope I don't get sued)
Skype iPhone App Downloaded One Million Times In First Two Days
Yep, google seems to have done its deed.
Okay, let me clarify, because I like The Fountainhead much more. But you make a very good point.

The Fountainhead is the better book. It's better edited, the characters are better, and the plot is much more secure. Atlas Shrugged isn't nearly as good if you don't have Roark and Toohey and Dominique fixed in your mind, because Rand doesn't spend time making her characters realistic in Atlas. She just assumes that you can make the leap from her Fountainhead characters.

That said, Atlas is the more epic novel, and it's a conclusion in a lot of ways to the battle started in The Fountainhead. It's poorly-written, but in terms of pure pulp enjoyment there's nothing to beat it. That's why people get addicted to it: it lays out a fairly complex philosophical idea and attaches pirates, Spanish conquistadors, sci-fi weaponry, mad scientists, and - of course - all-American capitalists into the fray, and lets it culminate in lots of really fulfilling scenes that are terrific fun if you're okay with ignoring poorly-written stuff. It's a quagmire of a book, with several awful chapters leading up to two or three incredible moments - the ribbon-cutting of the train, the court scene with Rearden, the Galt's Gulch chapter - and those are the moments that stick in mind, especially the first handful of times you read the book.

So I say "fine" meaning "not terrible", which I know is a horrible corruption of the idea behind "fine". Atlas is worth a read for people who liked The Fountainhead, and it offers stuff that book doesn't have to offer, even if it's not as good a novel.
Tiny computers + wireless mesh network + Python → Awesome
When he dabbed it at the entrance of an ant colony, they exploded out of the burrow.

Somebody tell exterminators that trick!
How to get nice, smooth, X11 fonts in your terminal and editors
Blackboard is infamous for this. They hold patents for ridiculously vague definitions of web-based education...
They've already paid Blackboard $3.3M (with the idea that they'll get the money back on appeal)?

"On another note, we've reached an agreement with Blackboard, and yesterday wired $3,313.552.40 to it, in full payment of the judgment (and post-judgment interest) awarded by the Court. These funds will be returned to Desire2Learn if and when the judgment is reversed."

http://www.desire2learn.com/patentinfo/
Having had to use Blackboard several times in the past, I have a hard time believing they have any IP that should be protected. As I recall, their functionality is similar to any number of portal-type applications (groups, discussions, document postings, different access levels, etc.) It looks to me as if their patents rest on the fact that they are applying obvious processes/technology to a specific vertical: education.

Of course I'm not an IP lawyer, this is just my layman's opinion.
Yesterday at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose I saw David Ewing of Synapse demo his company's cool Python-controlled mesh networking hardware/software.

The embedded devices contain a Python bytecode interpreter. You blast your code down to them over the wireless mesh network the devices themselves are realizing via a special USB dongle connected to your computer. From your Python code running on a device you can make unicast or multicast XML-RPC calls to the other devices running on the network.

There is a library of C functions you can call from the Python code to accomplish various real-time tasks. I asked if it was possible to write new C functions of your own which can be called from the Python code. Right now that's not possible but they are working on it and at some point in the future it might be possible to do so utilizing sdcc as the C compiler.

I was really impressed with the demos and the simplicity with which various applications can be realized using this technology!

You can get a development kit from Digikey for $150.

(For the record I'm not associated in any way with Synapse Inc.)
let's not forget that russia is also part of asia
The philosophy is mixed up in with it. I think it's an enjoyable book even if you don't agree with the philosophy.

Start with The Fountainhead, though. It's a much less flawed book, and it's less outright offensive.
For a sick laugh, I played around with a few combos:

Hulu via Digg Via Facebook looks great.

Hulu via Outbrain via Digg via Facebook looks even better.

Observervation: The Facebook frame does not allow other sites to frame it! The same goes for the Stumbleupon frame as far as I can tell.

Death to framers.

I should get some shirts that say that printed up.
I downvoted electromagnetic because he distorted what Rand's actually saying. I upvoted him everywhere else in the thread, where he argues about the book, but I thought that it was worth downvoting inaccuracy.
GE Research: Advanced Security - Object Tracking
Indeed, I now have a new rule: MacPorts provides everything I need except for Ruby and Python, which are always compiled from source into a separate location where they can pollute all they want.
0:56 - 1:09 Notre Dame vs Navy Football Game
This sounds like well orchestrated PR to me.

For better or worse, intellectual property laws exist, and Desire2learn.com seems to have infringed on Blackboard.

If Blackboard wins, Desire2learn suffers a big hit in their profits.

So Desire2learn says "Hey, here's an idea ... we won't change anything at all about what we're doing, but instead of paying you a big pile of cash, we propose to pay someone else a SMALLER pile of cash".

They're both profit-motivated companies (and I've got ZERO problem with that), and I dislike Desire2learn trying to pretend that they "care about the children", when it's clear that they're motivated primarily by the dollars and cents of the situation.

It's dishonest.
Wow, that is a completely bogus patent. It is just a description of their software, translated into a patent. There's not one aspect of it that's non-obvious.

Students should organize a boycott of them. That would put pressure on them to stop this nonsense.
Do you know of anything that Gatto specifically gets wrong, or do you just that that Underground History would leave one with a less useful understanding of our educational system than, say, Equality and Achievement?

I notice that he is at odds with Kohn on whole language, and I would tend to agree with Kohn, but other than that Gatto seems factually accurate.
Why not do both? Show the images, and display a message based on the results.
ala twitter, sf geek crowd
Of course PR is a part of this. They don't hide that. ("As for public opinion, yes, we plead guilty. We do value public opinion, especially in the educational community.") [1]

Have you read the patent claims? markbao posted them above in this thread. It's hard to side with Blackboard after reading what they are trying to protect.

[1] http://www.desire2learn.com/patentinfo/
The schools make the buying decision, and the software is (in my understanding) usually compulsory for the course, so a boycott would put their academic success at risk. The best students can do is put pressure on their schools to switch.
Virus battery could power cars
And sue people like crazy to protect them...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.#Blackboard_lega...

It takes more space on their wikipedia entry than their actual products.
Students should organize a boycott of them. That would put pressure on them to stop this nonsense.

I agree, but I think students probably care as much about this as consumers did about Amazon's 1 click patent..
Exporting Business - How Export Agents and Distributors Work
what a killer SEO move. a ton of links all pointing to digg.com. they already get a ton of search traffic, but it will only go up from here
I used to work at a technology incubator here in central Japan. Statistically speaking, you've used something from our startups -- it was just buried deep in a car, navigational system, cell phone, video game, or movie.

I was regretfully not as successful as I would have hoped getting the startups to think in terms a bit broader than producing components consumed by Japanese mega-corps. Oh well -- working on it, one day at a time.

The guy next to me at the day job is actually planning a B2C startup, after being inspired by a lot of the US Web 2.0 darlings, particularly the B2SMB ones, and the absurdly easy replace-your-salary-math when you're a 20 or 30-something Japanese engineer. I honestly believe that that realization could rock this country. (Imagine how attractive startups would be if a highly-motivated, well-educated hacker could expect a $2,200 a month salary straight out of college and, if he was willing to work a decade of 60~70 hour weeks, might break $4,000 by the time he was 30.)

Someday I hope to have the chance to test out a pet theory of mine: an American web application with Japanese visual design would be a galloping success. (There are small town pizza joints here whose flyer art rivals much of what I've seen on Smashing Magazine. Oh crikey the B2C possibilities...)
Of course you mean everyone you know who actually liked the book. I didn't much like it, I like style, and there wasn't much of that. And, of course, I read "The Grapes of Wrath" right before - two polemics from opposite points of the political spectrum, but Steinbeck can actually compose a sentence.
Contention brings integrity to the design process.

It's not the positive or critical things that are said in meetings that will harm a company. It's the things that aren't said that will eat away the core of a company.

When things that should be said aren't; there are typically a few reasons. 1.) the person isn't capable of leading 2.) the person is passive aggressive and will use there dissenting opinion in a private and undermine way. 3.) they already said the same thing many times and have had no luck in getting their opinion across.