skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I want to chime in because your two posts combined are still valued less than pg's rebuttal, but I think you are more right. Early cars were simply modified carriages with motors attached by hobbyists. Hobbyists--already busy enough building and improving their engines--wouldn't stop to learn how to carve wood.

Two interesting ideas come to me about this.

From what I've read, Henry Ford studied assembly lines at the Springfield Armory (which was first to create machines to make individual parts for guns, as well as first to allow non-skilled labor to assemble pieces together without involving a craftsman at all.) What's ironic is that two brothers who created and sold the first gasoline car (motorized carriage) were also in Springfield.

Henry Ford made many innovations to the product and the pipeline. New competitors innovated on the design front to get more customers, while Henry didn't. Since Henry did not change his automobile, and people wanted to buy cars in the 1920's with a more modern look (as defined by not looking like the same car Ford had put out since 1908), other designs took hold.

Successive design changes are made to stand out from the current crowd, that's all.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blDuryea.htm

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:yqqlYiJW0w4J:www.engr.s...
Thanks for all the feedback...I just wanted to see what people thought.

At work I'm attempting to scale a mix of procedural php(60%) and object oriented php(40%) for a temporary 'system'. While I build a new one from scratch; I have complete freedom as to what the new system is written in and I was feeling that Ruby on Rails would be a good starting point because of its 'rapid development'.

The 'busy' season for my company is less than 2 months away and there are alot things that need to be done:
-Restructure DB
-Handle Web Service Consumption(WSDL with SOAP binding) on multiple occasions
-Deploy our own web service for Sales through 'affiliates'
-Have be able to be extended in the future by programmers other than myself

I am kind of stuck because with PHP it's ridiculously easy to consume webservices via nusoap(os library/class), but then I lose the ORM, but I have the freedom of customizing my DB interaction.

Then if I choose the ORM(rails) I have to deal with a slightly complicated webservice communication procedure. Plus there is a high probability that I will have to customize the db interaction so much that it may defeat the purpose in the first place.

So I'm leaning towards writing my own PHP+MySQL code from scratch, but I'm all alone so writing it wouldn't be something that seems accomplish-able in 3 months. Ruby on rails seems fast enough, but that web service thing seems like a real PAIN. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Anyway, Thanks for everyones feedback!
I checked it it's up again. Tried using it but I can't seem to find the value in it....
I think it's cool. The web is in a great place right now, and it seems to be moving forward.
I had never realized the point of those penny stock spams until I read that article, so +1.
#--hackrtrackr:XYVFiqVkLHp6x2W0kiB53ebIs91srL#
Actually? I sort of think that facebook's impressiveness is in its ability to scale the features so nicely.

I don't think there are any features on facebook that couldn't be made by your average ycombinator news reader (they might be slow as all hell, but I bet most of us could create working demos of most features).
I think you have not been doing this very long...
..."Some, of course, plan to stay in finance their entire careers, and they, too, are very focused on earning fat bonuses fast."

duh.
> i'm a schizophrenic

...your interface to reality is unreliable?
vi - preferably elvis, because I'm a contrarian (and it comes as standard with Slackware)
Try the Rockstar Juiced series. They're 50-70% fruit juice and don't taste like bubble gum. My only concern is that they contain sucralose, a substance I generally avoid.
The biggest problem is that this professor apparently didn't discuss how he thought the 200k was a bad deal beforehand with the founders. Or, if he had discussed it beforehand, the founders had decided it was still a deal they would like to proceed with.

Instead, he went ahead and torpedoed the deal without the founders consent. It certainly makes for good television, but I'd be pissed if I were one of the founders.
According to Jim Cramer (Mad Money guy), he has little interest in degrees - a track record or successful investing is the main thing. This viewpoint works well for software too.
Most energy drinks contain high doses of B vitamins. B vitamin deficiency causes fatigue, weakness, and depression. I'm not sure if mild B vitamin deficiency is common or if very high doses do the opposite, but I've noticed a bigger mental boost from some energy drinks than from a similar amount of caffeine without the vitamins.
Cool service - Add comments inside any web page
Turns out that the problem isn't concurrency per se, but shared mutable memory that an attacking process can sneak in and rewrite before the kernel reads it - and any schoolchild knows that if someone can sneak in and scribble all over something, they will. As if all the other problems with mutable state weren't quite bad enough... :)

I wonder how the history of computer architecture would have been altered had someone discovered a memory technology where writing into empty cells was very easy, but altering them extremely difficult, back in 1953? Such a memory technology would have been perfectly utilised by functional programming techniques, but would have made traditional mutable state extremely expensive (not impossible, as monads demonstrate, but not primitive). What would be different today...?
Seinfeld's SoupMan roils investors
Offers that are too good to be true
I think that sounds like somebody in the early 90s discovering Hypercard and saying "developing for the Mac is easier than I thought". The problem is what you can do without actually learning to program is pretty limited.

Hypercard was a RAD tool from Apple that was generally too limited to do anything interesting without adding external functions written in C. It was used (along with a lot of external functions) to create the first version of Myst.
I'm actually taking a class from Schaeffer at the moment. He is perhaps a bit odd, but so far he seems to be a decent professor.
Do you think that PG invented Lisp, or the software startup, or angel investing? Do you think that Linus Torvalds invented Unix?

Yes, Rails is the instantiation of a bunch of XP and Agile concepts. But here's the thing: concepts don't serve Web pages. Code serves Web pages. And even Martin Fowler doesn't take the time to write all his own code from scratch.

I don't respect DHH because his ideas are original. I respect him because he can convince thousands of programmers around the world to work together. That is not an easy trick - there's a reason why it has been compared to herding cats.
From your link: "The architect hero Howard Roark of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead is generally thought to be based on Wright, although both Rand and Wright denied this." Generally thought to be based on / possibly inspired by, not exactly 'explicitly refuted' - there's a bit of Wright in Roark, though it may have been misleading to not explicitly state that Roark's character was not wholly inspired by Wright.

You sound like a BOFH - what is your basis for making such superficial, critical statements about highly creative people?
Can I ask why they would have had to do that?
maybe it's the high school version of his essay News from the Front (it doesn't matter where you went to high school also?)? :P
Introduction to SMS Application Trigger Messages
I was so disenfranchised from the "ra ra, go team" crap in high school that I don't even have any yearbooks.
I was on the committee for Usenix WOOT, and this was one of my favorite submissions. But it has very little to do with concurrency or multicore CPUs.

Watson's paper points out that where there are indirections inside the kernel (for instance, filenames to vnodes), you have to be careful about TOCTTOU bugs. If you chase the same indirection twice, there is no guarantee you will arrive in the same place. This is a famous, hoary source of problems in userland.

Watson's results were that things like Systrace (which firewall processes off from the rest of the system) have lots of TOCTTOU issues because they try to enforce policy on things like filenames. Because of the way they're architected, as a "layer" over/under the actual system call handlers, the security check and the actual system call do two seperate lookups. Race condition.

This result doesn't depend on multicore; it happens on uniprocessor systems as well. TOCTTOU filesystem races in userland accounted for a good percentage of the 8lgm-era SunOS advisories.
Why Math is deeper than Sociology [quote]
"Mathematical statements are unambiguous, and so permit long chains of argument. Unfortunately, statements about society, as about evolution, have a degree of ambiguity. It follows that theories in these fields, if they are to be operative in the sense of leading to clear predictions, must be simple. Of course, it may be that no operative theories are possible in the social sciences."

- Maynard Smith and Szathmary, The Major Transitions in Evolution
Fascinating little encounter. It continues to seem to me that ego, and all the slings and arrows that're attached, is the number one crusher of creativity.
the useful material in sociology is, evidently, phrases and ideas created by sociologists that are now widely accepted and commonly used.

i have no reservations, however, declaring that by and large undergraduate sociology education is bullshit.
I'm basically the same, although I have viper and vimpulse modes switched on in emacs. (Years after switching from vim I still thought non-modal editing was an aberration, so I gave up trying to brainwash myself.)

And (very) occasionally I use ed to make small changes. That's mainly just to demonstrate my 1337ness to the one person who cares (me).
Petsonally, I can't imagine being without "zz" to center my view. I don't know if Vi has an equivalent. "zb" and "zt" are nice, too.
A Window of Opportunity for Macs, Soon to Close
While I don't disagree, neither do I see the point of statements like this, other than to feed our pre-existing Nerd superiority complex. Although I guess by poking fun at sociology and other "normal kid" majors, we are getting back for not being popular in High School, or something...
It is probably the taste of Taurine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine).

Taurine was originally extracted from bull's balls and hence when you drink a RedBull, you are giving a bull a ... lets say, doing a bull a favor :-)

(Taurine is not extracted from bull semen nowadays, of course ( probably coz this is not scalable :-p ) and it is claimed that the whole Tauine-Bull thing is a myth... but myths are fun to propagate)

http://www.google.com/search?q=taurine+semen
One could argue though that theories in the social sciences are of greater importance than most mathematical statements, even though they are less predictive.
I have not read any Ayn Rand but I will immediately. I can not help but think of our current situation with our President and how the public views him. As I grow and experience more, being a business owner, etc... It seems that no matter how much one human knows or thinks they know- there is almost always another human who knows something else and that something else just might be what the first person needs to know.
cramer wants more people churning the stocks he talks about.
I'm not sure that I agree with the article. Perhaps Apple would have higher market share if the Macs were sold in more retail locations but I think this might drive customer satisfaction down. IMO Apple wants to control the distribution channel in order to create the right customer experience. I was amazed for example at how easy it was to purchase an iPhone and sign up for the service compared to the usual hassle of buying and activating a phone.

What I'd like to see (if anyone has any links, please do share) is the percent market share between licensed copies of Windows and licensed copies of OS X.
stone & chizzle
As far as Blockbuster's no late fee policy, it definitely worked. I stopped renting from competitors. Even if you keep a title for more than 7 days past the due date and you get charged for it, you still have 30 days to return it for a full refund minus the $1.95 (i believe) restocking fee. This is far better than keeping something for a couple of days past the due date in most other places.

But I agree with the rest, while I would like to see awesome offers with no fine print chances are I might not believe them. The "it's too good to be true" policy has worked out too many times for me in the past to start ignoring it all of a sudden.
Sociology's gonna get a lot more interesting -- and more math-like -- in the coming next few years, now that we can quantify mass behavior and social interactions.
I don't understand your comment. What has changed?
Tea. Irish Breakfast when I can find it, Earl Grey when I can't. No milk, no sugar.
vim. if you're hacking rails in vim, make sure to check out the rails.vim plugin (http://rails.vim.tpope.net/). it rocks. also, for general-purpose web dev, use the matchit plugin (http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=39) to balance your xml/html tags.
While current rapid development toolkits for the web shield one from having to know much about the details, as soon as an applications needs to go beyond a handful of users the details can no longer be ignored. The good news is that most applications don't have a large audience and this allows folks to put together prototypes and demos and once an idea gains popularity they can always go back and hire someone else to take it to the next level.
How to become a hacker (or atleast act like one)
I've already got one of those, and I'm nowhere near rich...
I second that. These kinds of arguments often go pretty quickly from "social sciences are hard to study properly" to "social sciences aren't worth studying." That's usually the main problem at companies that suffer from a tyranny of the engineers (these companies typically have lots of smart people and terrible UIs).
Possibly he also rides subway to catch the mood of the passengers, which makes him a politician with a clue.
System overload - Choosing JSON over XML: XML SUCKS!
I don't read this as fuel for the hard-science superiority complex. It seems more like a defense for the methodology sociology uses.
In the chess club picture seated on the far right is Peter Monta. Smart guy, entered CMU at age 16 I believe. We had class together for two years at CMU in the Math Studies honors program.
What kids like to do online -- a Slate investigation
Hari Seldon has finally completed his life's work?
Geek Culture (some pretty cool pics)
I think this guy discovered the Most Important Hacker Lesson: Everything invented by man is easily understandable by man.

Seriously. Isn't that what makes hacking fun? The moment where you realize that you could build everything around you?

To the OP: Yours is a healthy, and important hacking attitude! If you really get into hacking, then you should work your way down the stacks of abstraction. For example, hack the source to your web server.
Ignore the above. I have a better concept for your context. Thanks.
The Hacker Test Version 1.0
Techcrunch 40 Coverage Update and a Tip
Goodbye cruel online world - (Facebook (social network) Suicide)
I need a new laptop, I really don't want a Vista, but it is hard for me to justify spending $2500 on a MacBook Pro.
Apple needs to do something about their pricing if they want a bigger market share.
Ventations.com, or, Please use the site I made this weekend
I and a friend (it was his idea) put together this site over the weekend, on a lark. It's admittedly purposeless, but we're hoping that people don't find it completely useless.
I and a friend (it was his idea) put together this site over the weekend, on a lark. It's admittedly purposeless, but we're hoping that people don't find it completely useless.
BTW, the research done by the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab may be of interest:

http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers.html

http://smg.media.mit.edu/projects.html

http://smg.media.mit.edu/classes.html
This statement, while true, doesn't make sociology unworthy of study or investigation. One of my favorite political science professors in school claimed on the first day of class that poly sci is a science. But they have few data points, and can't perform experiments, so they actually have a harder job.
I've seen worse for sure. At least its not trying to be something bigger than it really is.
Have fun with it.
YC + facebook apps?
Anyone applying to YC with Facebook app ideas? Has this been discussed already and I missed it?
those pictures are embarrassing. at least he doesn't have a yankees hat on.
Growth in productivity is just about the only number you need to track on a national scale. On the long term, it is by far the best indicator of increasing wealth.

So I pay little attention to numbers like consumer confidence.
Rather striking that such a sentiment would find approval here. I'm not sure how you might actually defend such a statement. I would defy you to produce any fruits of sociology that are comparable to those of mathematics (remembering that everything in science and engineering hedges upon math).
<..while I would like to see awesome offers with no fine print chances are I might not believe them.>

Obviously, that's my point. And where I believe opportunity lies.

Why you'd never want to foolishly leave critical caveats and limitations outside of your offers, we need to be cognizant that each element of fine print moves us closer to offering nothing more than a trick or gimmick.

Food for thought.
I would be really surprised if YC funded dedicated Facebook apps, though a Facebook app is a good example of "something you built."
I've found there's no net benefit to caffeine. A little bit can make me a bit more alert and optimistic, but then I pay for it with interest on the caffeine hangover / comedown. Besides, more than a little bit of it makes me much too restless and chatty to program anyway.

Junk food is a lose for me too. Anything that causes a blood sugar spike hurts productivity. I like peanut butter on bananas, red leaf lettuce, cheese, ... and of course burritos. Water to drink.
And AJS JavaScript library ;)
Aaron Swartz: Sweating the Small Stuff
Question: What are the best books on algorithms?
I'm collecting a small library on computer science, now I need some books on algorithmics. What books would you recommend me?
Why not an iBook? Do you really need the extra's on an Macbook?
Web 2.0 is one huge sociology experiment. Its scientists are entrepreneurs trying out new ideas and tweaking others with the goal of maximizing traffic.

As for more traditional sociology research, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociological_theory
Funny thing is, I'm not sure if the windows market is where mac's are really making a dent. (yet)

From what I can tell, it seems more that users who would be ready to make the jump from windows to linux are opting for macs instead.

A rails conference I was at last year was 99% mac. I'd assume most of the web languages are the same. This is especially true in the laptop segment, which seems to be growing as well.

If I were apple, I'd stay the course. Looking at market shares when a vast majority of people aren't even replacing their xp boxes is kinda useless. Give it a year and those boxes will be a year older. Most of them won't be moving to vista.
Widgetize it.
I use Ctrl-U and Ctrl-D to reposition the screen with respect to the cursor, and it works out great.

I can see how what you describe 'zz' doing would be nice though.
The way I learned it is the natural alertness cycle is sinusoidal, and by taking stimulants strategically timed one can square it off. That way one can increase total hours of close to peak alertness, as well as make sleep deeper and heavier.
This is important because people change there focus on purchases from luxury extras to necessities. Developing productivity applications that can help someone in a particular industry make more money, I believe is where people will be willing to spend even when credit is contracting (which is happening now).
Coke Zero, Diet Coke with and without caffeine, milk, oatmeal and cinnamon. If I exercise, I also get cravings for meat, veggies, fruit and pasta, which helps confirm the healthiness of exercise. I wish I could get caffeine free Coke Zero, to reduce my caffeine intake.
Virtualization: good idea for startups?
In a presentation he gave (slides at http://brainspl.at/xen_and_the_art_of_rails_deployment.pdf), Ezra Zygmuntowicz, the founder of Engine Yard, suggested that folks hosting web apps should base their infrastructure on Xen virtualization from the ground up, with a separate VM for each service. In other words, you start with one physical server, on which you have a web server VM, a database server VM, an email server VM, etc. Backing up your server configuration is now as easy as copying over one (albeit large) file, you can more easily isolate performance issues within your application's dependencies, and when you need to start worrying about scaling, it's a cinch to move a resource-hungry VM over to a new machine, boot up a new web server instance, etc.

I'm just curious whether anybody's tried hosting their app in a virtualized environment like this, as well as what people's thoughts are about this in general. Is it a good idea? Is Xen stable enough and is the performance good enough for this to work? Is it premature optimization for a startup not having scalability issues yet to be doing something like this, or do the other benefits help make it more justifiable? Would this really be all that much more work to set up compared to running all the services on a single box anyway?
It surprises me that the co-founders of reddit did not have a vesting arrangement in place in case one of them decided to drop out halfway for whatever reason well beyond their control. It's good that things worked out well for them.

Did Aaron bring anything to the merger other than his future effort -- like some code that was ready to drop into reddit?
Web 2.0 is one huge sociology experiment

It is...perhaps...a thing that falls under the rubric of "socialogical phenomena", but that doesn't really regard the science as such. It's just it's self-declared field of study. The science itself could have never existed and people would have still made webpages of various types.

Again, I don't think I need to point out that mathematics are a necessary condition (10,000 times over) for "web 2.0" to even exist.
make the message font bigger.

not a bad idea.
Again, I don't think I need to point out that mathematics are a necessary condition (10,000 times over) for "web 2.0" to even exist.

I think it's more helpful to consider whether mathematics is at the core of most web 2.0 services or whether it is somewhat removed (e.g., part of an encryption library used by the service, part of building a computer, etc.).
How did you manage to post the reddit redirect link? I wonder if reddit still logs it as a click through when they are not the referrer.
I would. When there's a fine line between winning and losing, an edge received dishonestly (what the defense is going to do) can make all the difference.

Maybe that's why there are so many Microsoft bashers. Not because they're so big. Not because the software leaves much to be desired. Because they cheated so often when almost everyone else played by the rules. (Don't believe me? Send me your source code - if we like it, maybe we'll do a joint venture.)
"There are strict taboos against money that isn't earned with sweat from the brow"

A relative of mine grew up with many orientals and she too holds this attitude. It seems very strange to me but now at least I know where it came from.