skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
in the browser, javascript's REPL is essentially the address bar. you can type in javascript:alert(2+2) to output 4, or javascript:void(code) just to run an expression and swallow the output. to evaluate expressions more complex than a one liner you can inline a function, javascript:alert((function(){var x = 2; return x+x;})()). that's how bookmarklets work.
Yes indeed. $3.99 can get you a book at a used bookstore. But you might not be able to find the one you want immediately. Used bookstores are for explorers, not buyers.

Besides, $3.99 isn't enough for a popular title or a hardcover. However you can get them through swapping with a flat fee.

--

We'll focus on one thing and make it work. In our case it's book swapping. If our service is good then we'll have users. I don't think there's other way.
Are you paying shipping or is it $3.99 + shipping?
It's $3.99 total, including shipping.
This reminds me much of Fred Brooks's The Mythical Man Month. Good to see that things haven't changed too much over the years...
An Interview with Craig from Craigslist
If you can afford her, Mani Sheriar is very good. She worked on the site described here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=91206
Mooooo..... :)

I usually visualize the data structure that exists, or that I want, and work "backwards" from there. But whichever direction you use, always always remember that the idea is to make the design simpler and more clear.
I fail to see "How to Win Friends and Influence People" listed there - a blody shame, as it IS the book on how humans work. And remember every dollar you ever make comes from humans.
Why do you put the names of languages that are clearly and obviously not acronyms in all-caps?
Our goal is $15,000. I think we'll have to get a load of $10,000 eventually.
I'm working on a directory of Lisp companies (that I started today), and I put you at #2 right after ITA Software.

Caveats:

1) There are only 2 on the list so far - but I'm adding more

2) I haven't published it yet - but I will soon and solicit feedback

3) Nobody reads my blog - but I've just started in earnest and need to beef up publicity in order to get exposure for my startup

I'm planning on Common Lisp and Weblocks for my startup (just because), but I must admit that both Kawa and PLT Scheme intrigue me.
For a more psychadelic version, try this:
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(Rx1+ix2+x3)x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(Ry1+iy2+y3)y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

(in address bar)
One question and an observation.

Q: if this is a "swap", who pays the 4 bucks? Both parties?

O1: I think you are onto something here. But it is probably not this exact idea. If your proposition is "cheap + used + as fast as Amazon"... why not just use Amazon? People with books valued over 4 bucks lose out; better to sell it.

O2: You have been working on this full-time for 6 months, and have 3 months more to go? That is an unhealthy amount of time to do something like this without user feedback.

I am tempted to invest, but I think that's more to do with the low minimum than my excitement. The most innovative and clever thing is the funding method, not the business.
"...defend vigorously any sort of perceived attack against him."

On that note, I will fight you.

edit: I will find you old man!
You expect people to donate to a profit seeking venture? That is insane.

I think you would have better luck asking for investors of >= 1000 and giving them equity.

edit: Nevermind. I just read one of the co-founders is a business-dev guy with a "big idea" and I just vomited in my mouth.

edit edit: Why do you keep telling us you are Taiwanese? Note Paul Graham never tells us he is English.
That's the strategy I use while playing against jsomers, but while playing against chengmi, I always use (seconds+2)%3. (Unfortunately, chengmi's watch is 2 seconds fast (or 1 second slow), so he still ends up winning...)
Grouplite - a web app from the ashes of startup failure.
> Alternatively you could throw the move that would have beaten your opponent's previous move. The logic here is that players subconsciously try to beat their own previous move.

Wouldn't that mean you should throw the move that beats the move that would have beaten the opponents previous move?
GPU's are getting more and more programmable, while CPU's are getting more and more cores and streaming instructions.

It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart and this means a typical PC more and more looks like two general purpose computers that are talking to each other over the PCI bus. Which is kinda dumb.
I didnt think that choice was orthogonal?
Google set to get DoubleClick approval as Christmas present
hey... if you need a girl that rocks and has done some great startup work - try becky at www.spotworksdesign.com

a super nice chick - fun to work with - and hella responsive. and SF too.
I suggest you read "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs" by Niklaus Wirth. http://tinyurl.com/yw7tgo
OMFG heroes can be imperfect! Alert the media!
yea the video was very well put together, but not once did you address the very important nuts and bolts as to what exactly mean with the $3.99 swap.

do both parties mail their books at the same time? why the $4 fee? what does that money buy? to me, this looks like you could get leapfrogged by a facebook app, which says a lot.

also, is this $10 an investment or a donation? do we get any equity for purchasing?
Kids used to play basketball after school in my neighborhood. Now they're inside logged into Facebook or watching YouTube videos. I guess virtual worlds are the next step.
Praise [God|Jesus|Allah/|Turkey Baster]!
Because it's not legal in just about any way you try and do it.

I'm no lawyer but companies are always trying to do this, and some get smacked down by the FTC.
I'd also recommend you do some contracting work if you can swing it.

I recently left a full-time position and now devote 50% of my time to contracting, making 2x as much per hour.

Net result: I have 50% more free time and make roughly the same amount.

There could be dry spots if the economy / web bubble slips, but for the most part demand seems to be exceeding my capacity so far. ($4k contract for 50 hours of my time this month, for example)
Yep, sessions are nice when your site is in the 1-5k visitors per day range, but don't seem to scale much beyond that. (coming from an RoR background here)
This line of thinking happens in high level rock paper scissors. You need to predict exactly how many levels deep your opponent is going. Professional RPS players will often throw six or seven doubles in a row before someone wins.

See this 200 page guide for more info than you will ever want to read: http://www.scribd.com/doc/924991/The-Official-Rock-Paper-Sci...
Think Flock already converted me.
Here in Magdeburg one land fill was made part of a park for the federal garden exhibition (Bundesgartenschau) in '99.

They covered it of course.
Wow, that is exactly how it works with VCs. This guy nailed it. You just go in, mention the fact that you're building a Facebook App (showing investors that you're far ahead of the curve, because not many people are doing that yet) and then namedrop Google. Voila, check for $30 million.

If you mention the iPhone you also get to skip the due diligence.
I'm not sure whether I should be inspired by this or want to stab myself in the eye, but just in case I think I'm going to go eBay up a rusty fork.
At all the above maniacs ... I think what yearsinrock meant was "Data Structure and Algorithm" selection for a specific problem...
That happens to be exactly what I'm doing. Can I get some introductions?
You could use Io (http://iolanguage.com/about/) with Flux (http://iolanguage.com/about/screenshots/)
That was my first thought based on the thread title, but it doesn't quite fit with the text "data structure or algorithm which one is more important in solving a problem" which follows.
Certainly this is a viable business. Their difference from competitors like http://www.igxe.com is that they negotiate agreements with the owners of the game. I don't know what they need 20 million for, but those $3 a bottle fruit juice drinks do taste very good.

http://www.livegamer.com/
Fantastic video, thank you!
Now lets hope that avoiding IE8 quirks mode will be intuitive enough to make this announcement pure godsend.
Are you basing your recommendation on first-hand experience, second-hand experience, or just general reputation?
A recommendation for/against a particular designer is worthless without some kind of description of your first-hand experience with the designer. You wouldn't do business with them again? Why not? You loved working with them and the result made you tons of money? Please say so, and provide a link to the result.
LOL "Java is like a variant of the game of Tetris in which none of the pieces can fill gaps created by the other pieces, so all you can do is pile them up endlessly."
The shoreline area of Mountain View (where Google is located) is largely old landfill. There are still some flaming methane vents around (or there were a few years ago).
Nuclear fusion does work. This is just about capturing the energy :)
Well, no, not always, always.

Use the data structure that makes the design more efficient. Clarity might be nice, but an O(n) solution is not acceptable when a reasonable O(log n) or O(1) solution exists.
I think this reply perfectly answers my question.
Good introductory text: Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein: Introduction to Algorithms (2nd edition)

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H-Corme...

Good advanced text: Jon Kleinberg/Eva Tardos: Algorithm Design

http://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Jon-Kleinberg/dp/0321...
The title of this post is almost unparseable.
$5000 isn't worth the risk of using 500 non-accredited investors. If you really believe in your company my advice is to put some real sweat equity into your business and
a. get a part time job, restaurant servers get good tips
b. take out a credit card
c. liquidate everything you can to afford it
d. or a combination of all three
Techcrunch to endorse US Presidential candidates
http://worldrps.com/

I've personally had pretty good success with the crescendo.
For technical startups the paperwork for funding & setup can be a daunting part of the process. Open Sourcing it would generate significant goodwill, buzz and links.

This process is probably an important part of YC's package; another benefit of going with them for seed funding. Perhaps the decision they have to make is "do we hold this tight for XX startups/year or release it and help XX,XXX startups/year?"

If YC's service is knowledge/guidance/connections, then this would be "making something people want." Now we just have to convince YC that we're their customers. ;)
> Unintentional variable capture is simply a bug.

That's a useful statement if you're discussing programming within a specific language, not so useful to argue the language is fine as it is.

Funny you should mention array overflow; for years (we) C programmers insisted it was 'simply a bug'. Then again, lack of hygiene enables anaphora, but lack of bounds checking has no such redeeming qualities.
1. How do you compare with all the other book swapping sites out there?

2. You financials seem to indicate that by 2010 you'll have revenue of $70k is that correct?

3. Why would I pay to swap a book? It seems to me that in swapping a book I'm already giving something and getting something of 'equal' value; what makes you think people will pay for this service?
Tile makes Tk look a lot better.
His writing needs compaction too.
Prediction: Ron Paul('s botnet) will win with 99.94% of the vote.
I guess the answer was no.
Chief Acolyte henning, please permit me to fetch the sacred tongue-tongs!
// Sorry, couldn't resist...

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Integer {
public:
int value;
Integer(int rhs) {
value = rhs;
}
int operator +(Integer rhs) {
return value + rhs.value;
}
int operator /(Integer rhs) {
return value * rhs.value;
}
};

int main(void) {
Integer one = 1, two = 2;
cout << ((one+one) == (one/two)) << endl;
return 0;
}

// Output:
// 1
Talk to a lawyer first!

IANAL, but IIRC, once you have more than a certain number of investors, you are effectively a public company (and will be forever the bitch of the demon-prince SarbOx!)

Make sure your competent legal representation gives you the go-ahead before doing this...
I'd put the over/under at 70.

Edit: Never underestimate the Ron Paul botnet, he's at 87% right now.
Sure. I should have added the source of my citation. It's a joke answer from Linus.
A Social Order Shaped by Technology and Traffic - New York Times
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=de&geocode=&t...

The strang 'snake' on the west flank is a shute that you can use with skids.
Yes, he should write short and succinct articles like Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky :)

With written or spoken communication (as opposed to visual), you have to say things a lot of times, in a lot of ways, to get people to listen. Which is more memorable - this or a Valleywag post?
Looks good. Doesn't work in Safari 3 on OS X 10.4.11, but it works great in Firefox.
If it's encryption software, browse around the Cryptography class:
http://www.uspto.gov/go/classification/uspc380/sched380.htm

After you find the subclass, click on the red P to get a list of the granted patents. But note that these are only the patents that have been granted, you still have to check out the latest patent applications.

This system can seem a bit confusing, which is why there are so many service providers who specialize in this area. But with a little elbow grease, you can get through it yourself.

The defect with resources such as freepatentsonline is that they do not have the whole database. A good alternative is http://www.patentlens.net/patentlens/simple.cgi

If you are handy with regexpr/sexpr/xml search tools, you may want to take a look at the raw patent data from the FTP archives as well as the Patent Grant Red Book. More info at http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/patdata.html
From the raw data you could roll your own patent search engine.

Please also note that as a general habit you should research the academic periodicals in the Crypto arena to see if anyone else has published any information about the topic in question. If so, you will need to include it in 'prior art.'

If you are very serious about the process, check with a local attorney. If the prices quoted seem out of your ability, contact the nearest (and largest) law school in your area. Speak with the IP faculty who can point you in the right direction for local counsel.
How to fix the troubled OLPC XO-1 - eliminate the keyboard?
Oh My God! Apple Killed ThinkSecret! Those Bastards!
Social Gaming on Facebook
Fraxi - a "Ning" For Digg Clones
Intel Takes Stake In Amazon S3 Competitor Nirvanix
Anyone tried Nirvanix?
Most of pg's articles feel like they have less fluff to me. They may be long, but most of the writing feels like it has a point. A bit less so with Steve Yegge, or perhaps it's more hit and miss...
YouTube Having Problems?
Major Topic. No Relults. Got to make you feel like somthing isn't working right. No Results? it just me? Try 'cricket' also.
A wider wireless world
Are they cheaper than S3?
Google's Android Software Bug Infested
$0.18 for storage and up/down bandwidth
IE8 due in 1st half 2008
Related? From https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=289480#c172

"It looks like an object element that's pointing to
a non-existent page (http://www.webstandards.org/404/)
should be falling through, but that page is
now returning a response status of 200 (success) instead
of 404. Was it previously correctly returning a 404
response?"
I wonder how this will affect Opera now they've filed a complaint with the European Commission....
VC Fundraising Manual: The Importance Of Geography
Your executive summary should clearly list the location of your company's legal entity and physical headquarters because both of these factors are critical to many VCs' investment decisions. If the location of either of these is in flux, you should clearly indicate that fact in your executive summary.

VCs are thoughtful about...
Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger and Twitter, epitomises Silicon Valley's right brain
Since I partly learnt programming at college and was taught about CSP and Occam, erlang's lightweight processes and inter-process communication model are very appealing. And it's interesting to see a number of projects get written in it, and since even Facebook is using it... :-)

This particular article references Tim Bray's attempts to use erlang for web log processing. He found erlang to be very slow because of the I/O implementation, and criticized it for its regular expression handling. This seems like a silly test since surely you'd use Perl and friends for something like that.

Personally, I'm interested in building something with erlang just to get my feet wet with the language. And I'd be interested to hear about the experiences of others with erlang in real projects.
Entrepreneur creates offline Ad blocker
Just like the FF extension, a NY artist created a way to block the annoying video ads you see on the street with a product called the Pixelator. See the video...
A Story on Drive
Errors Make Up Part of Expertise
That article's horse crap. Do they not have any better criticism of Erlang other than "it's weird"?
IOW s3 is cheaper, unless you have millions of tiny requests.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261#price
I love this post, but not for the usual reasons. I'm not sure I understand your app or why I'd put in on my page. But I love your style, your story, and the whole idea of something rising from the ashes. I bet I'm not the only one here inspired to look at my own scrap heap and see what I can resurrect and put into one of my modern apps. Thanks for the curveball!
I am starting a business, the business is to solicit donations.

I also like how they are asking for funds to start the site, but don't explain what the money is actually for. How is 5k going to magically get things off the ground? Is the bus-dev guy going to outsource it?
How to be a frugal student entrepreneur
In my case, there seems to be an invisible "limit" as to how much I'll read. For a book, it seems to be about 300 pages. For an on-line essay, x words (I really don't know how many), but about 5 to 10 minutes. When I'm working (always), I don't want to take a break for much longer. I realize that this may not be the best belief system - still haven't read "War and Peace", but that's just the way it is.

This essay looks to be about 5 times as long as I could easily handle during the work day. You lost me at "continued".
Social software companies ween companies off e-mail
I think that if Apple wants to keep its products secret then they should be allowed to do whatever they can to do this. I must admit to wondering if they have 'used' this system in the past to pre-test market reaction to potential products as well as to provide them within another avenue of publicity. The problem is that false rumors surface and I think this can damage Apple. Just my own thoughts of course, but I don't think that this is a bad thing
Founders Fund Hopes To Reduce Entrepreneur-VC Tension
The four Internet tycoons behind the Founders Fund on Tuesday touted the creation of a new $220 million investment fund as well as a stock plan designed to reduce tension between entrepreneurs and VCs.
external hard disk treemap - data visualization & visual design - information aesthetics
The Icing on the Cake: Involving Visitors as Workers
We work very closely with startups. I would suggest that you find someone who can work with you and who can understand the business-side of what you're doing. A lot of designers can create great looking sites, but that aren't functional in terms of what you ultimately want out of them. There's also the potential to trade with design companies/people if you are a coder as often they need these skills for their own websites.
I kind of like the idea behind http://www.agilemodeling.com , but it's a little difficult to wade through and still a little too high on the "religion factor" for me.
Origin of the IMG tag
For those of us who program in Erlang calling it 'weird' is a compliment :-) I think it's like complaining about parenthesis to a Lisper ...

Both Lisp and Erlang make you think is a different way that once you get into that mode of thinking you really do become more efficient.
I've heard Java people defend boilerplate code countless times. Just take getters and setters. People will tell you "the IDE generates them anyway". What you can't do within the bounds of the language is to loop over all accessors and replace them with something else that might call the original versions. A technique that's used frequently in Rails for instance.

To do that in Java you need code generators (probably built into IDEs), frameworks that supplant the entire object creation mechanism to hook in proxies, or byte code manipulation. All of these techniques are orders of magnitude more complex and error prone than dynamic metaprogramming or lisp macros. And despite all the complexity some things just can't be done. There is no way to call a Java method (using regular method call syntax) that the compiler doesn't see. So even if you know the method will be there because some other code will have created it by the time it is invoked, you still need to put a useless method stub somewhere in the source code.
The Story of 2007
Thank you, that's some great info.
Collectively designed/evolved fractals
The system works kinda like SETI at home - people run the program as their screensaver and vote on the fractals they like. A GA uses the recommendations to evolve new fractals. Users can also design their own fractals and submit them to the gene pool.
having never played with it I am tempted, I think a webserver might be a could project for it.
I didn't really feel they were criticizing it but merely pointing out that its not a main stream programming language.
Startups & channel conflict
The problem with a web server is that I'm not sure there's much interesting inter-process communication which I think is where erlang would really shine. Sure you can spawn a lightweight process for each incoming connection, but after that?
what a short but inspiring paragraph. I just can't get enough of stories like this. This is a kid creating opportunities for himself out of pretty much nothing. These are the kind of things that make a difference between people and what they can achieve. Beautiful.
I generally do the same thing, although I vary x depending on the context. Certain writers (Graham, Spolsky, Yegge, Raganwald) can write as long as they want and I'll read it. Their signal to noise is so much higher (both in content and entertaining writing) that I find it better than reading the rest of the stuff on the internet.

But yeah, 300-350 is about my limit for books too. I've passed up books I wanted to read when I found out they were over 500 pages. I just put them back in the todo list for later.
Silicon Valley Shaped by Technology and Traffic
Getting Real - Powerful Tools for Non Hacker (et all) Web Entrepreneurs
I totally agree, but really, I don't see what's so horribly strange about Erlang. Don't get me wrong: it's my favourite language and I'm in the process of founding a startup with Erlang as the core language. I just don't understand the aversion... people seem to treat it like an impenetrable terra incognita.
Has it really been 14 years? Boy, time flies.
true, but what about a comet one? that way its doing a little more than serving up data.
s/ween/wean/
Coding Horror: The Great Browser JavaScript Showdown
Sex, math, and scientific achievement
But GPU has nothing to do with those rendering techniques that you mentioned in Pixar case. You don't use OpenGL pipeline on a GPU card to render a Pixar movie, you did all tricks in non realtime offline rendering to make them beautiful.