skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Which is why it's barely news-worthy, much less 'Hacker'-news-worthy.

And for people who enjoy the news of early-primary-results, and the rhetoric of candidates, the mass media is already inundated with it. Does it add value here? Can't YC-News specialize and focus where it has an advantage?
Thanks for the support. I guess I didn't realize that this was an opinion-free zone. Honestly I think it's ridiculous that I would get down-voted for supporting an article that's now at number one. Clearly people care about the topic, and it's not like I contributed "less" to the discussion than the original comment I replied to, which was up-voted like wildfire. It's not like I'm on here spouting support for Ron Paul or linking to leftist blogs.
How did this get negative points? I can only upvote!
I too disagreed with you, but voted you up (from -8 to -7) because I think it's ridiculous that you can bury someone that much.

If you think about it, the only people that deserve to be buried are true trolls posting viagra ads and those terrible scat porn stories on slashdot... and those people don't care about their karma anyway, so you might as well just delete their accounts.

Why don't we just have some kind of floor on comments. Really -1 is enough to say "this comment is crap" without resulting in a situation where someone is dogpiled.
You need a certain level of karma to downvote.
Modest Mouse...Foo Fighters

Those two I'm familiar with and they don't compete at all.

Compare:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_in_music#Albums_released

Highlights:

Abbey Road - The Beatles
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin
Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones
Live/Dead - Grateful Dead
At San Quentin - Johnny Cash
Ummagumma - Pink Floyd
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground
Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
Yes - Yes (debut)
Even though your comment is childish:

Given how well Oprah has handled her personal business, I for
one would have no problem with her running the most powerful nation on the planet.
You're trying to bash the guy because he tries to help low-income blacks? I still don't see where you're getting the fact that he's "obsessed with race."

Meanwhile, intelligent black people have to think about their race in no small part because some douchebags (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88082) still hold discriminatory viewpoints against people due to their race. It's a shame it's that way, but there's documentary evidence that this sort of discrimination still exists.
"Music will be free for individual use."

There are many forms of music that can't be performed live for both economic and technical reasons. For example, it isn't reasonable to expect that people will pay 200 times as much for concert tickets for a rapper that has a 200 person gospel choir in the background. Similarly, many forms of music aren't able to be reproduced live, like certain types of electronic and industrial sounds. If we say there is no longer any prohibition against unauthorized copying of music then, while it's unlikely we'll start losing entire genres of music wholesale, there are certain artistic choices and stylistic devices that just won't be easily available.
I think "obsession" is a bit hyperbolic.

Have you ever been a minority anywhere? I only lived in Japan for about a year, but I was very aware of how differently I was perceived as the tall white guy. I don't see how you can grow up black in the U.S.A. and not have that be a fundamental part of shaping your experience, especially when you consider the racial history here. Add to that his white mother and time living outside the U.S., that is a lot of influences to assimilate.

I'm not sure what your point about the church is. Yes, it is very pro-black and pro-African, but I don't see anything that is explicitly "anti" anyone else.

Would be interested to see the welcome for a white person walking in on Sunday, though. :) Having said that, I did go to a church once where ours was the only white family among black Haitian immigrants. And that was a pretty cool experience.
... apparently the humble ones too.

grin
The Five Essential Phone-Screen Questions
The Zero-Testing Time Bomb
What to Do if Your Web Server Gets Hacked.
I used to use my own static web generator following a similar approach (template + content). It was some kind of html preprocessor and it was very useful for generating a static site with menus, skin, etc... I think it was a mistake never to publish it somewhere, as it was very nice at least for my own needs.
Nobody cares about what your code looks like? Really?
Allows you to release stuff more often as well. Every 3 months you release an "EP", let people pay what they want for it. As long as the music is good, people will buy. I hope. :)
Yahoo! PDF Ads In the Wild
Who Owns Your Social Data? You Do, Sort of
One reason this video belongs here: President Obama would appoint the nation's first CTO among other initiatives that are highly relevant to the things we care about.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/

I'll venture to say: President Obama would be very good for hackers. It's one reason I'll be trudging through the snow tomorrow in NH to knock on doors.
Umm, "The secret"?
As someone who considers himself a logical positivist, I say anyone who disagrees with me must be an irrational negativist :-)
Why again is there no downvote for items on the front page? Since there aren't enough interesting and applicable articles to fill the front page, something like this gets half way up on just 6 votes displacing an older but more relevent article with more votes.

I understand that reddit has trouble with people burying new submissions, but there has to be a solution to that. Open up the down vote only when a submission has enough points to get on the front page, for instance. So they'll still sneak in, but won't stay for long.
I think xkcd is really good, but this comic was still a pretty good parody. A little on the mean side though.
New 3-D Technique From RabbitHoles Makes Posters Pop
Recommended Django Book
Google should have absolutely no say what-so-ever as to who links to who and for what motive.

I knew it was a bad article from the introduction, complaining about how capitalism was bad for the poor guy. Anyway, can we say "crappy reasoning"? I don't remember having Google telling me where to place a link.
Digressing,
I'm not big on politics on this site either, but the mere idea of the absurdity of the last 8 years coming to a close is enough for me to be ok with this post.
Yes I think that Zed shows that the "meritioracy" is something of a lie....

The natural response has come about... And what is the natural response to fight individual expression?

It's the mob. The mafia. They are in control now...
Too bad, but the world is a sewer and they are the rats.
Things go wrong even for the successful. Like Oprah's school for children, where some of the children were sent out to do sexual favors by the 'house mom'.
True, but the above link isn't about ease of quitting ... it's about doing your small part to fsck over Facebook. :P
The Cocktail Party Problem (ICA)
Obama will appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.

I nominate Bruce Schneier.
speak? more like, says two sentences.... thanks for the link though
Really? You're interested in Ron Paul and George W. Bush alarmism?
I think he thought we had better taste.
5 Cool Research Facilities
Obama isn't mouthing platitudes because he thinks America needs a new mindset, he's doing it because by hiding his agenda he leaves us with nothing to disagree with. This is exactly the problem America is facing right now: the idea that ordinary people are too stupid to govern themselves and that we can't be trusted to know what's really going on. "Let the government take care of it, everything will be alright."

Well it's not alright.

These are the politics that got us the Iraq war. These are the politics that got us illegal wiretapping. These are the politics that make it legal for the government to kidnap you in the middle of the night and torture you until you're nothing but a shell of a man.

This isn't truth, it isn't change, it's bullshit demagoguery and it's more of the same.
Training and Reality: Adventures of a Spaceflight Participant (talk by Charles Simonyi)
The wonderful thing about the interpipes is that you can educate yourself if you choose to. Go to any of the campaign websites and they spell out what they stand for. In my opinion, a decent place to start, since we're conversing here, is: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/
Another Take on Getting Videos to Go Viral
I have a facebook account. Created this only to develop facebook plugins for one of my clients. That's all.
How Do I Get Popular on YouTube Without Talent?
Startup don of Israel
He should be able to submit whatever he wants. People who vote this stuff up should lose karma. Call it a "user obviously doesn't grasp the point of the site" penalty.
Is Ning a Porn Facilitator?
Extensis Sent Me a Macworld Safe
Where is the section on civil liberties?
I'm really really sad to see this story here.
This is useful... the video wasn't working on my Linux box.
Yeah, isn't this what they wanted to call their project at the outset?
Now this really is becoming a politics thread...

He has a town hall meeting on Sunday in Exeter,NH. Ask him yourself. Failing that, wait for him to come to your state. All else fails, assume he doesn't care. :)

I understand him that in pushing more transparency in government, accountability becomes more obvious. The real problem with the wiretapping is that no one was accountable because no one knew it was happening. As soon as it became public there was an extensive push to correct things.

Any case, I was simply responding to the claims that a candidate is "hiding their agenda". There are promises being made. The extent to which any politician gains or loses trust is the extent to which they're consistent with their promises - previously and in the future. All these things should absolutely influence your vote. But I think folks lose the right to complain if they don't participate in the process.
Measuring Angle and Distance with your Thumb
As time goes on, cherry-picking the list of amazing albums becomes easier, since you judge not just the music, but those albums' influence on all the acts of the next 30 years.

That said, 1969 surely was a watershed year for rock music, and there are few years that can compare.
These guys executed a very incredible PR hit this week. They're all over the news in lots of different outlets.
PHP best practices - The dos and don'ts
Unfortunately, the slide navigation seems to be missing. Can only navigate slides by including the slide number in the URL eg. http://talks.php.net/show/php-best-practices/19 for slide 19.
I agree with davidw, but he shouldn't be voted up this much. A 3 or a 4 is enough to say "we agree". It's not as if he said something horribly insightful.
What bothers me though is this: According to his website, Obama wants (among other things) more fiscal responsibility and better education. The thing is, we ALL want more fiscal responsibility and better education.

I don't have a problem with most of Obama's opinions, but I realize that that's mostly what they are. Opinions. Not plans.

The section on fiscal responsibility basically says increase taxes on the wealthy and reduce wasteful spending. That's not a plan, it's a talking point. It tells me next to nothing about whether he even wants to balance the budget and pay off the debt, let alone how he is going to accomplish it.

Even the detailed PDFs available in some sections are rather tenuous. I just read through the one on education. It talks a lot about making improvements in certain areas and increasing funding in certain programs, but it doesn't really go into what those improvements would be or what that funding would buy. It seems to be strongly influenced by the KIP program for educating low-income minorities, but other than that I'm having trouble picking out any specific pedagogy.
Right and left arrows on my keyboard worked for me :]
We come here for hacker news. If we want political news, we go to reddit.

I come here for intelligent analysis of news which I take notice of. Although I'm very curious about software, I still take notice of political current events in the US... as, I think, do most intelligent people.

Although it's questionable that some universities have departments dedicated to it (http://rhetoric.berkeley.edu/), I think political rhetoric like this speech is very interesting for hackers, especially so from mass psychology and CogSci perspectives.
having to go through loads of stuff I'm not interested in

Anyone interested in making an open version of reddit? One where people can write their own "favorites" algorithm, and/or one where user's votes are available via API?
...it didn't contain a single concrete idea, just hollow bromides and feel-good bullshit.

It's called rhetoric, and judging by who is getting elected, it must mean that's what someone has to do to win elections. Would it change if everyone in the country had a higher education? I doubt it. Actually, it's pretty hard to say what would have to change...
Apple is Killing Linux on the Desktop
oops.. thanks! :)
Now that's cool. This seems like one of those things they should teach recon soldiers.
Dude this is a good problem to have, I guess.

What market has the biggest need and is most addressable?

Personally I don't like last FM idea and I can't see mobile bringing in money in the Short Term.
Personally, I like Edward's rhetoric better:

http://www.johnedwards.com/media/video/iowa-caucuses-thank-y...

Nothing like "corporate greed", "corporate democrats", and "an epic fight for the future of the middle class". His dad worked at a mill, you know... ;)

Yum.
This isn't truth, it isn't change, it's bullshit demagoguery and it's more of the same.

It's a shame, yes, but apparently that's what wins elections. What needs to change for that not to be the case? Is better education (better funding people's access to higher education?) the solution? Although it may have some impact if people are generally more knowledgeable, I don't think it'll be a solution.

I think it's a broad enough to be safe to say that what is required is a change in our culture - but what kind of change, and how can it come about?
What it takes to make a student
"The disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren't primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey.

...

Can the culture of child-rearing be changed in poor neighborhoods, and if so, is that a project that government or community organizations have the ability, or the right, to take on?"

Does the government have the right to dramatically increase both the length of the school day and school year exclusively for low-income minorities, effectively minimizing the role these parents play in the education of their children?
Carpal, agreed. I don't like to see politics on YC, but you'd have to agree that this community generally feels the same and does a good job "policing".
From the article:

"The disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren't primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. [...]

Can the culture of child-rearing be changed in poor neighborhoods, and if so, is that a project that government or community organizations have the ability, or the right, to take on?"

Does the government have the right to dramatically increase both the length of the school day and school year exclusively for low-income minorities, effectively minimizing the role these parents play in the education of their children?

This isn't some abstract ethical debate. These ideas are appearing in the education plans of some of the presidential candidates.
Not too surprising, since Linux is still very intimidating to the average computer user.

Even for hackers, OS X has the advantage of being able to run most Linux/Unix applications in addition to all the excellent OS X apps.
Hmmm maybe a story bury feature would be better a la digg
-personally I don't care if a story gets down voted for everyone else; I just don't want to see it on my page
Politics is so polarizing and so destructive for a community

That really depends on the community. I hate sounding un-democratic, but I sense there is a very clear division between people consumed by nationalism or screaming over rhetoric, and the people who want to understand the political process with the same motivation as understanding any complex system.

I have a sense news.YC has much more of the latter.
Autotesting Javascript in Rails
Did he remind anyone else of Martin Luther King?
rglullis No we cannot say 'crappy reasoning, you clearly cannot see the wood for the trees.

jimbokun Go troll on Techcrunch where you could be of some use.
It was: http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html
Plus, everyone instantly goes to the 1-star reviews at amazon.
Noontime Web Video Revitalizes Lunch at the Desk
Call it Rule 33 (the one that precedes http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rule+34) of the Internet:

The primary driver of adoption for all new internet technologies is porn. (c.f. email, BBSs, chat, usenet, http, bittorrent, social networks, etc)

or, more likely, Rule 34a:

Given a reasonably useful internet technology, someone will find a way to use it for porn.
On one hand, sucks to be pushed out like that. On the other hand, Sequoia really helped grow that company to something huge. And leaving the company with mega millions has to soften the blow some.
Zed Shaw - The Dark Side of the Semantic Web
The goal for Utu is to fight the griefers of the Internet with hate.

Sounds like an excellent choice for you Zed.

Ragel does sound interesting. Not as general as Libero ( http://legacy.imatix.com/html/libero/index.htm ) but better for parsing.
This is from the essays section of his site.

Here's a fun tidbit from his essay on Rails (undated but obviously from right when Rails came out): "I'd also like to mention that the #rubyonrails IRC channel on irc.freenode.net is really good for information. The folks there are very nice, unlike similar channels which want to pound pulpits with their fat heads."

I know, I know -- a foolish consistency, hobgoblins, etc
Should low-income minority parents lose the right to raise their own children autonomously?

No.
Awesome how I can't see the site in IE because the author doesn't like the browser.

Great way to get people to read your blog. Not to mention the horrid UI even when I fire up the fox...
As with the Obama speech video, this really doesn't belong on news.yc. The whole attraction of this site it that it IS targetted.. Initially to startups, and then expanding to "Hacker News".. Please don't try to further broaden it.

As an aside- This is why Slashdot still maintains editors, even in this age of user generated content. Control of message.
Macs have always had more "killer" desktop applications (i.e. applications so compelling they drive the purchase of the underlying computer hardware) than random Linux boxes.
Death Blow to HD DVD? Warner backs Blu-ray
This is because the number of gays is growing significantly :)
"Robert is breaking the terms of service, but it's also unclear if he owns those e-mail addresses," Owyang told eWEEK Jan. 3. "People said, 'Yes, you can be my friend,' but they never said, 'Robert, you can take my e-mail address and use it elsewhere.'

Perhaps all items of data someone submits should come with some "ownership" checkboxes:

( ) private - this is my data, not to be redistributed under any conditions until I reclassify it

( ) privilaged - may only be shared with people who I allow after they explicitly ask

( ) sensitive - may only be shared with people I've designated as friends, but they don't need to ask

( ) public - may be shared with anyone
How to ruin a Rails project
For whatever reason, people (including me) find abstraction far more noble than details... which is why this kind of rhetoric is so widely employed.

How Obama turns out remains to be seen, but it's undeniable that he can sure play an audience. I thought that the "this is the moment..." part was particularly rousing, like a nod to Shakespeare's St Crispin's day speech in Henry V.
Apparently a working UI isn't considered best practice...

Probably much easier to write secure, fast, elegant code when it doesn't need to do anything or interact with users...
Interesting stuff from the slides:

Use commas with 'echo' instead of dot concatenation
Where possible use ++$i instead of $i++
Use the class of ctype functions to check strings

Lots of slides here: http://talks.php.net/
Marshal McHluhen said that the medium is the message. This I think applys well here. Albums are a medium for music distribution, in otherwords albums are albums, and the other forms of distribution are different. I think that as we see the shift from destination, or event listening. ie popping the record on the turntable and consuming a whole album, to a networked fill in the cracks type listening we will see a new form of music consumption. Their will always be people who love the album, but I think the new world order is on demand anywhere in the world. That means short punchy songs, and everyonce in awhile something longer. The web can save the long format audio though, if you can think of a internet site as emmersive you might be able to do a long format animation and sound combined thing that you can watch on the web.
There is no evidence presented that backs up the claim that Linux is being displaced by Apple usage; even stated is that in the time monitored Linux web users doubled (albeit to a still minute fraction of the total users). The assumption that having no Apple on the marketplace would leave a niche easily filled by Linux is also unlikely.

Apple is making good inroads in adoption, after a few costly moves reducing its market share, is gaining and hopefully continues to gain, traction and position itself as the consumer alternative to the nightmare of Windows. Linux is many different things, but the gain of community supported, easy to install, open source software will likely continue making inroads into the proprietary world. It remains to be seen if Linux can bridge enough proprietary apps to address the needs of Joe user.

In many of these systems, an important factor is the software ecosystem surrounding the OS itself: Windows has had this major boost and resistance to competition based on its 1-2 orders of magnitude greater availability of software than any of its competitors, but OS X is attracting a number of niche apps with major strong appeal to some user factions, and Linux is finally getting easy to use methods to access the plethora of good apps that make an OS stick.
Sure, the music industry sucks, but this particular incident has been debunked:

http://www.tenreasonswhy.com/weblog/archives/2007/12/unbelie...

They're going after him for ripping his CDs and sharing them on Kazaa - not just for ripping them.
Did you read the actual article?
P.S. My second sentence is a recursive joke. I didn't mean it.

I was about to say that, myself. I'm glad you didn't actually fall into that hypocritical trap. Nice joke, though :-)