skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Depends on your definition of "win."

DHH already claimed Rails had gone through all of those stages even back in 2007: http://casperfabricius.com/site/2007/09/18/railsconf2007-dhh...
I agree. Standard UPSes convert AC to DC and back, in order to power the server PSUs and these conversions are inefficient. If the battery is in the server (after the PSU), you can miss out these conversions and save a lot of power.
Amazon launches Hadoop data crunching service
> Lots of people are fearless and can make anything happen

Not in my experience.

It's a pretty rare trait.
Because no matter what you pay, the person who actually made it gets almost nothing all the same.

If you pay a lot you reward the person who sells it to you for high balling the price, lying usually and aggressive selling manor.

In addition you make the price high for others who can't afford high prices such as people travelling for 6months+ which have low budgets.
Harvard P2P lawyer: file-swapping is fair use — no, really
This really hit home for us when we started messing with TweetRex. It was my first project in Ruby and things seemed to go well -- the language has nice syntax, good selection of libraries, the prototype was done fairly quickly...

...and then I had to rewrite 80% of it in C++ because of the horrible threading, slow string manipulation and high memory usage.

It was still an interesting experiment, and I intend to continue to use Ruby for stuff where performance doesn't really matter, but I was surprised to learn so vividly that the Ruby bashing that I'd assumed was oversold was in fact pretty much spot on.
> governmental initiatives

As people keep repeating, the thing that makes YC special is not the money - you could get a few K from a lot of people. It's the connections - as a simple example, where else could you meet all the people that Paul has as speakers at their dinners?
It drives me nuts that 10+ years with this crazy web of ours and newspapers/magazines still haven't figured out how to either a) automatically link to websites/URLs mentioned or b) make sure the producer copying and pasting does it themselves

From the article:

http://passlogix.com
http://unicycle.com
http://banjo.com
I'd also submit that low-power electronic components are far more readily available (i.e. cheap) than ones which can handle a lot of juice.
First, ten
Don't Blame the Business Schools
Can you define usability?
Ok, but 99.9% of people just use GCC to compile stuff. They don't care about linking to it, fiddling with intermediate representations, or anything like that. And the licensing is not "complex and burdensome" for people who just want to compile stuff. Indeed, it's far less "complex and burdensome" than, say, Microsoft's compiler, which is also used by a large number of people.
Hulu encrypts its HTML to fend off Boxee…again
Tesla's World Wide Wireless Power Tower
Speed is very important. However: how much time does server spend running your Ruby code? I think I saw somewhere it is about 5% of the request time. There is DB, network latency, all the client side cruft (twitter did not get even assets caching right yet). Article says they are leaving Ruby in place for the front end, so most likely they do understand where bottleneck is, and where it has nothing to do with a language.

I just hope that other won't jump to porting their code without understanding the reasons. It should be pretty embarrassing to spend six month porting the codebase just to find out that reducing time server spends in your app code from 5% to 1% did not impact the overall speed of your site.

It would be interesting to see more details about those queue processing problems they have though.
how much of that stack is proprietary?
More likely is that in negotiation system, employee B gets a pay rise because he is good negotiator and employee A loves his job but is less confident so doesn't even ask for a pay rise, so gets nothing.
Good god yes. Never mind the UK, Europe needs a proper YC clone, and if one gets significant traction anywhere in the EU/EFTA it'll have the same kind of advantage in that space as YC does in the US, i.e. first pick.

A good YC clone would be fantastic but (as the sainted pg says, pbuh) angels are the limiting factor. YC Edinburgh would be fantastic and given time might be sufficient to build a proper startup hub, but if some entity ponies up the cash for the "buy a Silicon Valley" plan, you're crushed. Even aside from that a substantial portion of any Scottish clone's rounds would end up in London.

Dragon's Den
Pro- They decide very quickly.
Con- The expertise is not there, so they will say yes seldom.
Seedcamp
They're later stage than YC. Good and all but you need a let a thousand flowers bloom thing.
Prince's Trust/Government grants
Pro- Lots of money
Con- The anti-angel. Not an entrepreneurial bone in their bodies, must fill out forms and justify why the money went to this company rather than that one.

Can you imagine an agent with more perfectly misaligned incentives? They have no upside if their investment decision goes right, and probably no downside either. People in those kind of jobs very rarely get fired.

Coda: Yeurope appears to be moribund, so the spot is open again. Their website hasn't been updated in ages and has advanced linkrot.
But we've already been over this: It's not Ruby, it's Rails that's slow.
Space Elevator: Physical Principles
Want Success on Digg? Think Choc Chip Cookies
One of the reasons I mention government initiatives is stuff like NESTA's Starter for 6 (disclaimer, I'm on the programme) aims to help you build a network as well as just give you training and possibly some money.

However, the network it provides is nothing compared to YC's, and that's one of the problems.
The waste, at least to me, is that the site is setup in a way that hinders the use of those images. They can only be downloaded one at a time (Dan does a LOT of clicking ;) and there's not even an API.

Part of me wants to contact these guys and say, "Hey, waive our ridiculously underpriced fee for using these and I'll code you up a smart API that figures out which image you want based on section names. And only use one watermark please." There's so much potential, but it's behind all these hurdles.
This is also happening to leagues for fringe or 'extreme' sports, such as paintball.
OK, I can't read.

Don't mind me.
How are they not considered part of the PC industry?
http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/index.html

edit
Whoops, guess I should read the only other comment, before I post next time...
How to stop ie from caching ajax requests
5 reports say IPO slump worsening
Free Foreign Language Lessons (Download to MP3 Player, iPod or Computer)
Those military spending statistics suggest that tax revenue is 12% of GDP, which my libertarian heart only wishes were the case
Every single technology they've built on here is open: 'PC hardware', Xen, Linux, Java, Hadoop, HTML, SOAP, Javascript, Web Services. The unique components are their grid technology and interface and that they have wrapped it all as a reliable, easy to use and all around great product. Thats why Amazon is so incredibly smart: they maximumize use of open source to create unique and valuable offerings that solve fundamental pain. Last week doing hadoop computes was a pain in the ass. This week its not. Value.

This is the most amazing thing going, Amazon is leading the market and continuously innovating, and you don't buy it because of 'switching costs.' Tell me the truth: do you have or are you studying for your MBA?
2 out of 3 rejected the trail. Now, all 3 will likely be subject to increased government regulation. If the past serves as any indication, this regulation will be cumbersome, ill-thought out, and expensive.

Now, I'm not saying I am totally opposed to Government oversight, but this just illustrates a larger problem in our system- a few bad apples cause the entire system to fall apart and forces many good companies to jump through hoops and raise the cost burden on consumers.

Now, in this particular case- shouldn't the FDA be overseeing this?
Obviously, failing to look ahead is a mistake. But it is also a mistake to project too far ahead. Remember Keynes' famous aphorism: "In the long run, we are all dead."

You're thinking in equilibrium terms. Yes, it's easy to imagine that one day this business will reach a low-margin equilibrium. Though that doesn't guarantee it will happen in our lifetimes. (An example of a factor that mitigates against it: Monopolies. Get a monopoly, and you can keep margins artificially high.) And just because something will eventually be commoditized doesn't mean it will never be a high margin business. Margins can be quite high at the beginning. And, if you stay out of the business because you're afraid of what will happen in ten years, you miss out on all that money that's on the table now. Just imagine if Microsoft had been unwilling to release Windows 95 because it was obvious that in ten years we'd all be trying to switch to Unix.

The electronic component industry knows all about this curve. Component manufacturers race to ramp up early production of a new part, because the part sells for higher margins when it is first to market. Within a year or two other manufacturers will clone your part, or invent alternatives, and your margins will drop to tiny levels. But by then you'll hopefully have ramped up something else. The business has worked that way for a long time.

In the case of this new Amazon service... I have never heard of Hadoop before. By releasing a turnkey service with big fanfare, Amazon will grow the market to include people like me. Because we have no clue what we're doing at first, they can charge us high margins for a standardized, widespread service with a relative wealth of documentation and buzz and (perhaps) some tech support. Eventually the market will stop growing, the customers will be educated and start hunting for bargains... and Amazon will move on to something else.
Automated Auditors to Chase Down Cheats
I don't feel bad for these guys. Sure you can argue that playing video games well is a skill and if people are willing to pay for it, fine. It is essentially another form of entertainment, after all, similar to acting or sports. Still it feels cheap to me, as it doesn't even require the physical might that at least athletics demands. With so many people working so hard to make a living, it seems unfair for someone to do so playing video games.

Maybe this shitty economy will help weed out the lazy and force people to be useful again.
I'm sure it's possible to work out a per-copy price for Linux, but that number probably came from the cost of Windows XP Starter Edition, and the reporter got it muddled up.

http://www.google.com/search?q=windows%20%243
Ask HN: Please review my app: rubyxp.com a ruby regular expression tester
Forget, for a moment, about whether this is the end of the PC industry or not (I would bet on not...). What I find intriguing about this article is the mention of AT&T giving away cheap netbooks to wireless subscribers. What I find even more intriguing is that, even with 4 desktops and 2 laptops on my desk (don't ask), I'm really tempted by that offer.

Maybe not the next generation of standards (LTE and 802.11n), but the generation after that will, I believe, mark the end of the distinction between local wireless and long-range wireless. That devices like iPhones and Netbooks should appear as an consequence (or even in anticipation) is not so surprising, then.
BTW: They say they do have time paradoxes.

I agree with you that great idea does not necessarily mean great gameplay.
> read an article about a 28 year old Jew

The most salient adjective that you can think of is "Jew" ?

WT* ?

I'm not someone who sees racism and anti-Semitism under every rock and leaf... but, seriously, WT* ?

I, for one, enjoy Hacker News more when commenters use phrases like "28 year old entrepreneur" and "40 year old physicist" and enjoy it less when the phrases are "28 year old Jew" and "40 year old Black".
Well, if we're going to play that game, wouldn't it be more like "thanks Alan Kay and Dynabook"?
Very true. But the UK does have founders, startups and money. Not nearly as much as the US, and no cluster approaching the valley, but the network is a surmountable problem. One could probably get government sponsorship for a regular meetup/conference with speaker honoraria, etc. This would go some way to fixing this problem. Not all the way, but it'd be a start. jlees is looking at this from a Scottish perspective, so maybe getting Scottish Enterprise to sponsor monthly Techcrunch UK shindigs in Edinburgh would be an idea. Again, Scotland suffers the substantial disadvantage of not being London, or within the Golden Triangle. If I were attempting this I'd probably go to one of the Science Enterprise Centres at various UK universities, and attempt to get them to host a monthly meetup, get them to do it in co-operation with the Business School. Again, London would be best.
What bill has a 50 late charge?
Most payday loan people customers dont have a banking account let alone a mortgage or something else.

They are excessively high loans.
Do they help change the overall economic disposition of the customer? No, customers are usually repeat business either weekly or biweekly.
With perfect information, which it lacks.
Easy AI with Python
Thanks for the correction. I clearly did not know that. In my defense, I did add "can't tell you how legitimate [Intrade] is."

What's surprising though is that there are already investment instruments for transferring risks associated with outcomes. These are essentially predictions too, but you can only go "short" on life, so to speak.

Catastrophe Bonds, the recently infamous Credit Default Swaps are all instruments that pay off based on an outcome. In other words, they aren't really linked to the price of any commodity directly.

So, what gives? What's the difference?
Sheesh, from the comments you'd think The Register is known for level-headed journalism.

It is a snarky, piss-taking, grease-trap that mixes news with commentary with little to no discretion or fear of violating "journalistic integrity." Once you understand that, it becomes a great source of news and entertainment.
I think you need much more flexibility than this. I've worked for several companies with this kind of scheme and had to fight and juggle with the system and the scales to be able to reward my staff appropriately. It is very easy to end up with a middle-of-the-road performer, who has a broad skill set and much experience and is therefore very highly valued by a formula. It is extremely frustrating to have to pay them more than someone with less experience and fewer skills on paper, but who is perhaps making a tenfold greater contribution to the company.

Rigidity in the formula itself is not the only problem. I've encountered rigidity in how to apply the formula. I was responsible for a team of engineers in such an organization a few years back. They were a fantastic bunch altogether, but we had a real star who transferred in. She'd been barely raised above the starting graduate scale, despite making a pretty significant contribution to the company as a whole. When I discovered this, I set about re-assessing her ranking based on the company's formula and basically worked out that her salary needed to double - it had to jump about 3 pay bands. My request was turned down - it was apparently too big a jump! I was left wondering if I should ask her to stop doing some of the things she was doing - like mentoring new employees, since the company wasn't prepared to pay her for it. I didn't stay there, and neither did the star engineer.

I think in a smaller, less bureaucratic organization perhaps these schemes have a better chance of working, as long as the formula leaves you enough flexibility.
The thing is, is a monthly meetup the right solution? I go to a lot of events up here; we have a monthly tech-focused meetup and open coffee club, the University of Edinburgh runs a lot of courses and events, and their entrepreneurship club invites a lot of cool speakers over from the valley and elsewhere.

This sort of ongoing network/atmosphere is great on one level but on another it doesn't really provide the pressure cooker 'kickstart' that something like YC does. I think we have all the ingredients for a YC, but they're too disparate right now, perhaps.
The right way to do it is to set your price high enough and to introduce a discount. Playing the discount % up/down you can finally arrive at the best price.
And the better way that has come along since then is ... what, exactly?
I second that. Having their own ad network has worked out great for cafemom.com a ssn for mothers.
It's a video of the official video but passable (until Google releases the official video shortly):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs3Et540-_s
Conficker.C appears on schedule, but only as a whisper
Other programming areas that require math:

Pattern recognition, control systems, encryption, image and video compression (discrete cosine transforms in JPEG, discrete wavelet transforms in JPEG2000) any type of simulation (e.g. SPICE for electronic component simulation, RF simulation for electromagnetism, finite element models for mechanical systems) ...

Any type of planning system requires math (e.g. convex optimisation, network routing, etc...) - these types of things have huge applications in areas such as industrial engineering and network routing.

Basically all the interesting parts of programming require math.
Definitely will! Thanks
There seems to be a lot of extraneous HTML and CSS in the feed. Good to know about pipes though.
they're heavy into data analysis

That's what I've enjoyed about Amazon for years. I like going back to Amazon to see the books it recommends for me based on patterns it finds in my purchases and the purchases of other customers with overlaps with my purchases. And of course that increases revenue for Amazon, so that is smart all around.
The video of the talk: http://pycon.blip.tv/file/1947373/
These "poor people" can't get regular bank accounts, so they have no way to cash paychecks. They have no access to traditional credit. The payday loan industry is competitive, so if it could be done cheaper, someone will do it. If it can't be done cheaper, those entrants will fail (too much risk). If poor people with no or bad credit history find another way to get credit, the payday loan industry will dry up. It's business. Live with it.
My first thought was that http://www.cloudera.com/ was in big trouble but I actually think that this is the best thing that could have happened for them.
This is the internet, you can write F.
I don't quite know what you mean by hacker - do you just mean you haven't worked on stuff on the side? As for intimidating - I don't know if I've ever met a hacker in real life that really seemed intimidating. A lot of people develop a sort of persona online, either because they think they're cool or because they're so flooded with work that they simply don't have time to talk to every single person they meet. So the more that you do, the more mail you get from people, and the harder it is to respond to them, and the more it seems like you're exclusive and therefore intimidating.

Don't switch majors because of other people. Switch if you don't like what you're doing. Do you really like programming, exploring code or at the very least making that code work? If so, there's bound to be a place for you. As for "becoming" a hacker: again, try not to look at other people. The path to people having ideas and making projects is always a bit askew and twisted. If you ever want a side project, go ahead and start one. Get your hands dirty. The more you do, the wiser you get. But don't feel like it's a necessity.

Also remember that lots of college students are just learning to code. The self-taught kids have a few years' advantage in a lot of situations. That doesn't necessarily make them better (though a lot more of them have an aptitude for the subject matter). It's certainly possible to get into programming late in your career and still turn it into something meaningful.
I use MacTelnet instead of Terminal.app, and it does full screen with either text zoom or resize.
Whatever philosophical complaints you have about the check cashing business, CashNetUSA was a well run, professional business with great technology.

I interviewed at CashNetUSA last year. It was the second most-appealing job I've ever been offered (I interviewed for my current job, the most appealing, at the same time so I didn't end up working there). They had a great tech team, extremely smart and experienced guys. They employed 400 people (mostly call-center reps) and paid well (not sure how they're doing post-bust). They sponsored and hosted meetings for the Chicago Lisp User Group when we were active.

Site in RoR, they programmed their own call center using Asterisk, self-managed Linux infrastructure, quants generating real-time risk assessments for customers to determine individualized rates, etc.
On a very slight tangent: Do you think that the truthfulness of advertising should be regulated?

And then back on topic: Is there a significant moral difference between outright lies in advertising, and specifically marketing to a certain percentage of the market who you expect to miss-understand a technically truthful advert?
Carpenter jilts saw for hammer

[EDIT: dear downmodders, the intention here is that languages are tools, and you pick the one which fits your current needs best. What's good for Twitter isn't necessarily best for another app, and Scala <=> Ruby is meaningless]
ReTelTech - I'm looking for respectable angels in Chicago. Could you introduce me to your friends he funded? Thanks

peter [at] pchristensen [dot] com
Define not making a difference. Certain college-started companies have become enormous.
LG Decoy VX8610 Verizon 
You'll do a double–take when you see Verizon Wireless' New Decoy by LG, one of the first music phones with a built–in, detachable Bluetooth wireless headset! This sleek little slider shows off its stuff with a mirror–like finish and 5–way “joystick” like Directional Key on the front, and a discreet, built–in headset on the back.
Excitement is a terrific metric.

It's possible to get people involved with a product if they're not excited about it. There's still growth involved. But the difference between that and a project people actively fall in love with is extraordinary.
The nice thing though is that if you have some upfront developer/consultant cost for Linux that cost gets amortized over every netbook you crank out. I have no idea how the economics of this really works, but it would seem at least that the per-machine Linux price would keep falling toward zero.
Fleaflicker is evolving using the same idea.

The other advantage to this approach is mental. If I knew how much effort it took to get to this point I would have never started.
With the one battery per server, you eliminate one moving part. Well not moving, but you leave out the step of going from dc power to ac power. With their setup, you take 220 vac (note the label on the power supply) to the server and to dc. Any conversion step costs heat.
Looks like some sort of undergrad-level exploration of some aspects of the physics of building a space elevator in a loose, bizarre style (a mix of layman's terms and "omg here's some equations")... I'm not entirely sure how this is interesting...
U.S. could face second recession next year
I understand that to mean "increase regulation of payday loan companies" rather than "outlaw payday loan companies", on the grounds that unregulated outlaws are still a worse option.

However, regulating these companies to death puts you right back at the start again...
To evidence that photographers often take more than one photo in a photo shoot?
I'm a huge RTM fan. Can you please share some of what you learned from RTM when it comes to hacking? I'm guessing that would make a great essay.
Reversing Tooth Decay with Good Diet
I think that rampant F-bombs, like anti-semitism, lower the tone of discourse.