skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You may have confused BitKeeper with Monotone? The first two of the three concepts you list are in Monotone, and I don't think they are in BitKeeper.

I don't think I am an expert in source control, but here is my source control resume:

* I spent a year (1996-97) where my primary job responsibility was maintaining a homegrown source control system. That was when I started using source control. So I've been using source control software for 13 years.

* Around 1998, I ported patch to native Win32 (although I never released the port, sigh.)

* I've been individually responsible for administering CVS and Subversion servers at two different companies, and part of a team that administered a CVS server at a third.

* I've used CVS, PVCS, Subversion, Git, darcs, Mercurial, and bzr. I wanted to try out ClearCase, Vesta, OpenCM, and Monotone, but I never got around to it.

* One night, I wrote a client to Socialtext's REST API that provides CVS commands and semantics (including conflict detection and automatic merging) for command-line editing of their Wikis. (Available at http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/sw/stclient/ if you like.)

Okay, so now you know I'm really not an expert; I've never even implemented a full source-control system from scratch once. So take my opinion with a grain of salt. Here it is, though:

Git is indeed a fantastic achievement. It is the first source control system that's really designed to be used as a storage platform for applications. It's about 10× faster than other source control systems. (I haven't used Perforce, but I hear it's pretty efficient too.) It provides cryptographically secure authentication of the entire history (an idea taken from Monotone and OpenCM). And the ecosystem of tools around Git is dramatically stronger than the ecosystem around any other source-control system, which is sort of a replication of the major innovation of Linux: decentralized innovation.
No, just files. And it handled the versioning by copying the whole file, if I recall correctly, at a heinous space cost. (My quota was 500k IIRC.)
I think there's a difference between hip-hop music and rock music, though. It's less important for hip-hop to have the dynamic range because the majority of its emotional expressiveness comes from the words, rhythm, the way they interact and the changes thereof. This is why having a great beats is so important and so good producers attract a lot of attention (e.g. Neptunes, Dre). Volume is not as important a factor. You really only need two levels of dynamics: one for the verses, one for the chorus/hook.

On the other hand, I think changes in volume are more important for expressiveness in rock music, for instance, in an unexpected bridge just when you feel the song is about to end. Now, most bands these days seem to compensate by having simpler dynamics, but I think it would be nice for them to have more options.

Also, wouldn't it be easier to have a good mix now that we can do most of these things on the computer instead of having to manually twiddle knobs and overdub live?
God, I so feel like hacking into it and playing a huge prank joke on Fool's Day.
> You're right, though

Of course I'm right. I've worked with just as many European H1-B's as I have Indian H1-B's with many coming from Northern and Eastern Europe (scandinavia, poland, ukraine, czech, etc.), yet none of these "patriots" seem to ever mention white Europeans when this discussion comes up, do they?

How did Linus Torvalds get into the US again? Or Sergey Brin's family?

This kind of stuff is just so incredibly obvious to any objective observer who actually pays attention.
"But here's a quick summary of my big takeaways:

"1) The student (and his/her parents) is increasingly going to take control of his/her education including choice of schools, teachers, classes, and even curriculum. That's what the web does. It transfers control from institutions to individuals and its going to do that to education too."

I am an example (of such a parent, of such students). This issue of education reform has long been my passion.

http://learninfreedom.org/

The constraints I face as a parent are

a) money, as I pay taxes to a school system that I hardly use (and K-12 schooling is the biggest single line item in a typical state government budget),

b) credentialing, because there are various regulations of K-12 education and various expectations of college admission committees I have to keep an eye on,

c) time management, because I have more than one child to educate at the same time,

and

d) community-building, because as I mix and match programs my children encounter a diverse group of classmates, some of which I have never seen.

But it can be done, and I enjoy it. My oldest son will be applying to colleges in the Northern Hemisphere autumn of this year, and he will have secondary-level or college-level transcripts from six different schools or programs, some brick-and-mortar programs here in town and some distance learning programs based far away.

All this would be much easier for more parents if

1) state funding for K-12 were a reimbursement to the learner rather than a subsidy for a government-operated oligopoly school,

and

2) any schools that still exist as distinct institutions would automatically transfer credit from all accredited providers.

It will be an adventure to see what my son's college admission results are next year. I'm actually rather inclined to have his younger brother be more of a pure "unschooler" and not take so many accredited courses by distance learning.
Read the previous post where he was introduced to Lisp by way of MACRO-11, and you'll see what he means by "capability".
Related Cips > Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul...

Is PG the next Ron Paul?! PG 2012 (oh, I get it now...)

------

On a related note, I like the section on decisiveness.

I read that when Warren Buffet considers investing in a company, he prefers them to have a number ready immediately on the spot. Indecisive business owners are to be avoided.
(NB: This was from 2006.)
A good collection of game development articles
I agree that black text against dark green is difficult to read. This Firefox Stylish hack changes the top bar to a medium green, which works nicely for me:

td[bgcolor="#2b5500"] { background-color: #6c6 !important }
They should just change their browser agent to Firefox or something.
Gnome ran a survey to see what contributors are using and what they like. The most thorough crunching of that data is here (scroll down a bit):

http://blogs.gnome.org/newren/2009/01/03/gnome-dvcs-survey-r...

Another analysis of the same data is here, with even more striking visuals:

http://wingolog.org/archives/2009/01/06/git-and-bzr

It looks like git does indeed have the win.
It shouldn't be too difficult for such players to analyze the range of a track in advance and compress it appropriately in real time, perhaps to a user-specified degree.
Emacs power user screencast
No way. It's not just a matter of people liking to listen to both Kanye West and Sufjan Stevens. I do like people listening to different types of music, but I don't think this is something that you can just attribute to "trendinesses" of pop music.

Reducing dynamic range is a problem. Try and listen one of the albums notorious for overcompression, like Red Hot Chili Pepper's Californication. You get "tired" listening to the music at such a high level of compression and volume, and the dynamics prevent the songs from having the impact that they could have. For example, on that album, the track "Parallel Universe" has essentially no change in volume between the verse and chorus and so the whole song sounds hollow and empty through a good pair of headphones or speakers, yet it sounds great live (even on tape). The songs sound fine if listened through cheap iPod earbuds or the radio, but if the album sounds exactly the same on the radio and in a home CD player, I think there's something wrong there.

The problem is that if it takes overcompression and loudness to get people to notice your music, music will continue to become louder and more compressed. If only those songs get peoples' attention and get radio play, pretty soon every song you hear will essentially have the same volume. That's not only terribly limiting to the artist, but a disservice to the fans who listen to the music.

Now, most music producers are aware of this and take pains to make a good mix, but raising awareness about this certainly would help stop this process in much of commercial music, especially as recorded music gets more popular.
So it seems to me that alpha is going to try to create mathematical models from unstructured data found on the web and match them with similar models generated from natural language queries entered by the users. I'm sure probabilistic NLP methods are used extensively and I can see maybe how Mathematica can compute these quickly. But what the bleep is the role of NKS? From what little I know, I can speculate that he might have modeled statistical inference using CAs and so can constrain the probability space of matches?? Jebus I need to know more or forget what I know already, anything in between is frustrating.
I posted some related thoughts on my blog: http://urlzen.com/7hk
Got an example where a commercial product usurped another commercial product's open source project?
The market rate for western European dev is higher than the rate for Asian dev.
10 Fortune 500 Companies That Started With Next to Nothing
Today, public companies and financial institutions disclose their activities in endless documents stuffed with figures and stats. Instead, they should be forced to file using universal tags that make the data easy to explore.

Semantic web to the rescue.
This makes a good point, but it also misses an important issue: whether any particular limits will tend to boost the right kind of creativity.

To give one of the more obvious examples, many a dreary company places all kinds of limits on its employees. So people get creative, finding ways to circumvent rules without getting caught, or ways to live a not-so-dreary life in confining circumstances, or ways to get back at the company, or ways to run a job search under the radar of supervisors.

These are very different from finding creative ways to please customers, or ways to make the company successful. And, while this does not refute the principle in this article, it does put a damper on some possible applications.

In any case, upmod for making me think.
I agree this is a good topic and it shouldnt just have to be centered around probability.

The scalability idea points to the fact that starting a company while your working for someone else is not a bad idea. If you can make 100K-200K doing a 9-5 job then you should keep it and keep trying to start businesses until you succeed.

Live cheaply and execute as many ideas as you can. Ie your job is your VC.
Now this is obviously not easy but if you can build the emotional and hard-working capacity for this I think its possible.
First, it's Grigori (Григорий) or "Grisha" for short. Secondly, there's quite a few mathematicians that have that look. I remember a funny story one of my professors told me about Campus Security not allowing him into a building because they thought he was a homeless person trying to get some food, before another professor called out his name and explained that he was, in fact, an eminent professor in the Math department.

That said, I sometime feel this way when I run into a professor on the BART or something. "Doesn't anybody realize they're in the presence of a genius?"
One should never apologize for alliteration. It is a joy to stumble upon.
Obama Administration Seeks Economic Advice From Young Entrepreneurs
It's not tabloid junk if it's a famous mathematician?
Back in the old days, you'd leave your will in a cubbyhole of your roll-top desk. I have no idea where I'd leave something to be found on my death. Leaving it on the corner of my desk seems weird and morbid and insecure. Leave it anywhere else, and who would ever find it amidst all my crap? (People who've seen my desk know I'm an extreme case.)

A lot of interesting secrets die with people. Given an easy way to do it, people might well reveal interesting stuff they can't admit to while they're still alive. It could actually make the world a more interesting place.
Is anybody using this? Experiences?
Its pretty straightforward. Establish a safe deposit box at your bank. Tell people you care about or who need access about it. If you are married, make your sig other a co-signer. Include any letters/videos/instructions/wills/lottery tickets/secret footage/conspiracy materials.

If something happens, they retrieve the documents, no need to search. I've always sort of thought about wills and similar legal documents the same way I think about data backups -- it needs to be secure, offsite, but accessible in an emergency.
This has a pretty good layman's explanation as well as how banks are being affected by the current economic turmoil.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=375
And the top placed AdSense ad is giving a go of it, too, I see. :)

http://www.civiltree.com
Your post contains several errors and points that I feel need clarifying.

The person in question was Andrew Tridgell, the "reverse engineering" consisted of typing "help" and then observing that the "clone" command would cause BitKeeper to send the entire contents of the repository (see http://lwn.net/Articles/132938/), permitting the extraction of a complete kernel history; and BitMover did not merely threaten to revoke the free license; they actually did.

Finally, Git's data model and internal structure has basically nothing in common with BitKeeper's.
Django with Mysql and Apache on EC2
Hey, I'm the author of this library. To be honest I have never tried to use ExCanvas or any other Canvas replacements scripts for IE with this library because I supposed it would run really slow. Thanks for the tip, I'm going to try it out.

I worked on this several months ago and never really had a second look because of lack of time. New job and all. I always wanted to come back to this though and polish some stuff like sound support (would have to be flash i guess), mouse support, some optimizations (did some tests creating space invaders and found some very real possible improvements, by for example using the experimental canvas.drawString available in some of the nightlies of (proper) browsers), and some other minor quirks.

If anyone has any questions or just wants to discuss something with me about the internals or possibilities, you can contact me at tommy@extjs.com
You think that, for running a networked server, none of Solaris, OS/400, z/OS, Microsoft Windows, OpenVMS, Ultrix, AIX, MCP, NeXTStep, MacOS X, Netscape Enterprise Server, HP/UX, IRIX, NaviServer, BSD/OS, etc., were ever legitimate or valuable? I'm sure that comes as a surprise to the people who spent thousands of man-years writing that software. Or did they stop being legitimate and valuable when Linux and Apache got better than they were?
Build/Make/Do it once, sell it many times. However, fixed costs (non continuous function) increase as customers increse in numbers. Consumer products have variable costs ($/unit) and a non continuous function for fixed costs too. At full capacity you have to build more physical capacity (investment + fixed costs) in order to supply more customers.

So trying to find out what this Mark is talking about, you can think the value added as a function that is trying to scape toward the infinite (in the y-axis). Web based services has no variable cost (or this is tiny) so value added is pulling down only by fixed cost, which at some point jump to other value (we have to increase capacity to continue serving current and new customers!). It seems that web-based services value added function can reach farther points. This makes sense on a paper but real business is harder.
You shouldn't be using it for anything.
It was pretty clear that for every actual angel in the Valley there were another 10 who could be good angels, but hadn't tried it because it seemed like a schlep. I know because I was one myself. And yet angels are the limiting reagent in the Valley. So it seemed like a case where with a comparatively small amount of effort we could have a big effect on the world.

Sort of like YC itself, actually. The idea behind YC is that there are 10x more people who could found startups than do, so by applying a little help at the hardest point, you can significantly increase the number of startups that get started. Things like the series AA paperwork and Angelconf are that for angels.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=501428
What happens if you and the person you leave the codes with die together?
I'm uncomfortable with trying to convince myself that this would be (in hindsight) a good thing to do with my company.
Some Indie Facebook Developers Pulling In Over $700,000 A Month
wait to get to the end, but the talk actually gives some points where XNU is slow
Metallica's Lars "I Hate the Internet" Ulrich Pirates His Own Album
Websites playing timing roulette
Building A Startup From Scratch With No Money
GCC has used garbage collection internally for C for the last 8 years.
The experience was originally written up here:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2006/08/26/the-visual-impact-stock-...

But its so long ago that both the before and after photos were overwritten in the the intervening years. I had icons, though, in roughly the same positions as they are currently. You can see the old version here -- not the best photo but it suffices:

http://www.topdownloads.net/section_images/software/11552149...

They were from Sun's Java visual identity set, which was attractively priced when I started working on a Java project with a $60 budget. You can see them here:

http://java.sun.com/developer/techDocs/hi/repository/

The ones I was using were the open, save, print, and new document buttons. If you notice, they do not look like the sort of thing you would expect an elementary schoolteacher to have in her classroom. I knew the sort of look I wanted: big, bright, bold -- like a Fischer Price toy. Then one day, while browsing the Internet, I saw an icon set that gave exactly that for about the price of one copy of my software. So I snagged it, on the theory that if it resulted in one marginal sale it was worth it.

I've used those buttons continuously since August 2006, so you can see them on the front page of my website (http://www.bingocardcreator.com). Note that they're big, bold, and colorful. That increased my visitor to download conversion rate and download to purchase conversion rate, instantly. Take a gander at the difference between the 08/06 and 09/06 bars here:

http://www.bingocardcreator.com/stats/sales-by-month

As you can see, it was worth rather substantially more than 1 marginal sale.

(Wow, thats a blast from the past, reminiscing about when the difference between $300 and $500 was a huge improvement to me...)
Silicon Valley unemployment rate jumps to 'frightening' 9.4 percent
i'm curious as well.

personally, i am of the opinion that RAII-style object lifetime management as implemented in C++ is already far superior to garbage collection. but maybe somebody can convince me otherwise.
boehm garbage collector is news???
Learn prolog now
With any technology you get the good and the bad. The Internet just happens to allow a greater quantity of both to appear.
i'd hardly call this power-using emacs
Stop Tweaking, Create Your Own Wordpress Theme
I'm not hardcore enough to use emacs, I'm wimpy and love my TextMate gui. Cool little screencast though to show off some of the aspects of emacs.
It sounds like she just wasn't told (or didn't bother to look up) why Google terminated his account. She couldn't even say for sure if he violated the TOS!
Terrible video player. It's one of those generic Flash players which one sees pretty much everywhere, but it's incapable of skipping in the video properly for me, the times are often wrong, the fullscreen is buggy.. Just a horrible experience.
Metal Bits Self-Assemble Into Lifelike Snakes
The biggest part of building a bootstrapped startup is doing a lot of the work yourself. So if you're a web startup this means learning how to code.

Without money all you have is time. If you want to save money in life you need to figure out how to do things on your own. One example is changing your oil, if you know how to change your own oil you can save a few bucks over going to a mechanic.
BackTweets Searches What Twitter Can't: Short URLs
If you look at all examples in this thread all the software they refer to is GUI based non-technical applications.

I think this highlights where Open Source competes the most, applications which the engineers build for themselves. Apache, for example, makes building a paid for web server pretty uneconomic (IIS is bundled).

When engineers doing Open Source are scratching their itch they tend to make world beating products, when they aren't scratching their own itch the momentum tails off because there isn't another driver (such as a wage, or a product manager).
6 Companies Google Should Buy Right Now
I'm not either, yet -- but I'm tryin'. (Hey, Emacs still sits on my dock, and that's a start...)
Sorry, why would I use a mouse? It's emacs.
I really wish that pg checks this entry out, because I am tired of the spam on this website - although it's relatively low.

check this out!
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506273

I feel that there is no spam protection here!
An alternative approach to garbage collection in C++ (precise as opposed to conservative): http://smieciuch.sourceforge.net/
Online math texts
Don't agree with any except twitter and possibly FriendFeed
"it's still a bit weird and passive-aggresive"

I think this is because he became emotional due to the attachment of Capistrano to his personal identity. It was his "baby", after all. So it wasn't just a professional moving on but a personal "good bye".
Tools for the Web Design Impaired
The oil example is a bad one. Yes you save a few bucks by doing the oil change yourself, but thats only true if you find the sale for $.99/quart oil. Otherwise the $14.99 oil change at a dealer is cheaper.

Then you have the time commitment, it takes you the time to drive to the store, shop and drive back and the time to do the oil change. Overall you'll probably spend an extra hour overall. Which is better spent working.

And don't forget, if you plan to be proper, you'll need to drive that old oil back to the store instead of dumping it down the storm drain.

So basically changing the oil yourself is not worth it. The only thing it gains you, is the ability to thump your chest and look down at all the "pussies" who can't change their own oil.
Don't let someone post the default text, "Your comment goes here."
Yes, and it's partitioned out the Wazzooo.
Would love such a site!
I've been through the exact same stages (I guess I'm at #7 now). I couldn't emphasize enough the importance of hiring part-time help if you can and then moving them to full time if things go well.

You're going to make mistakes running your first business. Once you start hiring, the stakes get much higher. It's just not about you anymore. Someone's else livelihood is on the line. Take your time. Use abundance of caution with your first hires.
Top Startup Financing Takeaways from Investors Michelle Goldberg and Andy Sack
The coming of the megacomputer
Open Source Machine Learning software
A list motivated by a workshop held at the NIPS 08.

Videos of the workshop - http://videolectures.net/mloss08_whistler/
I guess the point is that very early on, having $0, you're better off trading time for knowledge.
I'll bet $100 this story is complete bullshit. It's in techcrunch's interest to publish "get rich quick" stories when in actuality the real story is "starve." I should know.
I want a feature that would allow me to ping a user, so I would get his attention [ to me or to a post].

You can make a karma threshold, to prevent/reduce abuse.
Also you can let users have the option to enable/disable this feature.
It doesn't scale, either