skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem is that the main dialects of Lisp (CL and Scheme) date from the era when languages were specs. Now they're implementations. It just happens that no one has released a good new Lisp dialect in that sense of language. But no one (as far as I know) has released a good new Fortran in that sense either.

Language designers who have what it takes are quite rare: Matz, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall. It just happens none of them chose to create a Lisp dialect. But the problem is not the brilliant failures who are drawn to Lisp, but that e.g. Matz wasn't (quite).
Carl Bernstein speaks out!
Is a culture coarsened by celebrity news to blame for the decline in high quality, public affairs journalism?
I have most of these characteristics, but I'm also confident in my social skills and well-roundedness. I just use "nerd" as a convenient word to describe those aspects of my personality, and people who know me just add that to their already good impression of me. Read my "Nerd Report Card" at
http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/2007/11/12/a-nerds-dirty-la...
you mean cracker?
Ha, looks like the spiders have made a home here.
Tools for spike traffic: what's out there?
Here's what I'm looking for. It should be a trivial service - something like a .JS or .GIF I can drop on to the pages of my site. When I start getting DIGG or REDDIT traffic, it should send a message to my email/phone/pager within 15 or 20 minutes, telling me that I'm getting nailed, and I should keep an eye on things. It should also tell me the URL I've got incoming from.

It'd be nice if it, or a second service, would cache the pages which are being nailed, and show me how to do a redirect to the cached pages for whatever software environment I'm on (i.e. auto-generate a .htaccess line for mod-rewrite, or the appropriate incantations for other configurations.)

And, just out of curiosity, why don't things like WordPress have an option to automatically generate a redirect to the Coral Cache version of pages when they get nailed?

Spike traffic is a really here-to-stay phenomena, and I don't understand why the only effective tool commonly recommended is "build a ton of overcapacity and let it sit idle the rest of the time."

There's got to be room for new approaches here.
I think by worked he means setting the standards and being the platform and eliminating any competition ... I think his point has been proven over and over through the success of those that opened up and the failure of those that didn't ... and you can see a bigger proof these days with all the talks around all the social networking platforms and Android the open mobile platform and the overall intentions of all these companies ...

If you open up you can get a lot more market share a lot quicker ... you will also eliminate future competition to a large extend ... if your platform is interesting and you can reach users, then by opening up you will allow thousands of developers making applications for your platform day in and day out, and no matter who you are and how good you are and how much capital you have, you could never comepte with that ... lets not forget how Microsoft beat Apple ...

I am not a gamer myself, but for what I know there is competition out there and there is not really any market leaders at this point .. At any given point there might have been leaders in this market but new competition always came in and took a part of the market share, Sony did it with Nintendo and Microsoft to Sony. But I think the gaming industry is a bit trickier since even if you do open up completely its not that easy for everyone to develop a game. I believe they give their SDK to specific companies that they are partners with, since they have the right capabilities (again if someone has more info about the gaming industry they can correct me) ... but imagine you could have a completely open platform for game consoles, then how many games do you think you would have available to yourself!

but if you decide not to open and you are the first in the market you will be able to take advantage of your network effects for a while but it won't last forever.... and for that very reason iTunes will not last forever (they are already losing many deals to Amazon, NBC is pulling their content ...)

but in general it makes more sense for some platforms to be open than others, i.e. they can take more advantage of it. For instance, I would much rather see iPhone opening up than iPod. And in general if you are offering something unique that bundles up your platform with a specific kind of hardware, you will have more power to resist to opening up, such as the case with iPod or the gaming consoles for that matter
Web 2.0 Manages to Sober Up
I've never been any good at programming competitions, so to caress my ego I should join the crowd claiming that the results are meaningless. However, my experience is that people who perform well in programming contests tend also to do extremely well as software engineers. Perhaps I've just seen not big enough sample, but I don't think so.
Do users generally demand transparent and simple algorithms in social software (e.g., social news)?
Big sites are licensing niche content to drive traffic
Do you mean written in Java, or targeted to the JVM?

Apologies if this is a dumb question -- I haven't read this yet.
Yeah, that is a very important distinction.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that question. If you mean "Should it be obvious to me how you're providing me with social news?", then the answer is that it doesn't matter so long as your algorithm gives me something that I want. I would care if you managed to solve an NP-complete social networking problem in polynomial time, but that's because I'm a nerd. Figuring out how you did it would be an enjoyable mental exercise for me, but the thing still has to work or I'd get bored once I figured it out.

Take Netflix as an example. I haven't the foggiest idea how they seem to always know what movies I want to rent (though I have my hunches, since I'm a nerd), but that doesn't matter to me because they always seem to suggest great movies.
A little messy, don't you think? I like it :-)
In order for your observation to have weight, you would really need a number of examples of people who couldn't cut it in a competition doing poorly as software engineers.
I think Marc's head is certainly in the right place, but in all fairness, what you can do on a Mac and a HD cam and writing/shooting LOST and Heroes ain't the same thing whatsoever.
"...but one applicant this last batch had cooked up a trick I'd really like to tell a startup from summer 2007 about."

I wonder what did this guy did or failed to do that eclipsed his cleverness.
So how come reddit tries to be transparent in that respect?
I used to attend meetings of a Lisp / FP users' group. Man, what a lineup of the brilliant unaccomplished. There were maybe one or two guys who were using Common Lisp at their jobs (one was at Amazon) and getting amazing stuff done with it. You could spot these guys immediately by their energy and social comfort. But the rest were always working on something cool and never finishing it. They were so far gone nodding in their opium parlor of thought there seemed little hope. I couldn't interest them in any practical project. They were only interested in the next high.

I used to think 'publish or perish' was a bad thing for academia. Now I don't. Everyone needs external social pressure.
First primate cloned via nuclear transfer
> Which is better

That depends an awful lot on how you define 'better'.

The guy who practices mercilessly and with focus on a single task is likely to excel at that task. Will they be a strong athlete, a fountain of conversation, a handsome deal-maker? Perhaps less likely. But if you want to get good at something then you practice that something.

There are only 24 hours in a day. Use them well...
This is huge step forward in human therapeutic cloning. However it's still incredibly inefficient and could lead to the stem cells having a higher probability of becoming cancerous. Nuclear transfer doesn't usually work in mammals because the DNA from the male and female differ, unlike in other animals. For the clone to be successful, the DNA needs to be rapidly "reprogrammed" by the egg (ie the methylation patterns changed) which could lead to genes being misexpressed and causing uncontrolled proliferation.
Conversational Marketing Versus Market Conversations
Suppose we are traveling through a forest and come to a ravine. The drop is thousands of feet; so far away that we can't see who might have fallen to their death while attempting to cross. There are two bridges. One is a jumbled together mass of rotting boards and vines, the other is made of solid stone. We know that 500 people have crossed the rotting wooden bridge successfully, and know of only four who have crossed the stone bridge.

Which bridge do you think we should take?
Just curious, why is that a problem? The whole idea behind Android is that handset manufacturers can be free to vary their underlying linux implementations as long as they can adapt their drivers to the Android libraries. Then the programmer can code to this common interface without worrying about differences between handsets. If you were coding directly to the handsets native functionality then you break the cross platform universality. Then its just a repeat of JavaME all over again where you end up with separate builds for different devices.

From what I've read so far, there technically shouldn't be a reason why Ruby (via JRuby) and Python (via Jython) couldnt eventually be used to code Android apps. The SDK compiles Java code to native java byte code, which is in turn compiled to "Dalvik" byte code to be used by the Android VM. How the java byte code is generated (javac, jruby, jython, etc) should not matter, assuming it is using only the supported libraries.
Puzzle questions are a terrible way to interview. Adding the filter of an unfamiliar game mechanic makes it even worse.
I don't really see anything revolutionary that Android has over J2ME. Is there something I am missing?

Probably most apps are going to be simple android interfaces to existing web services.

But that being said you can be sure I am going to learn the api and submit an app for a shot at 25K.
I meant written in Java. BTW, they have their own VM called Dalvik virtual machine.
yes, but the only drivers of inflation that the average person hears about and talks about frequently is oil.
How good were you at college?
I'm in my third year of college, I have average grades, nothing surprising (although I think I could do better if I applied (yeah sure)). I certainly don't measure my life by how good my grades are though, I'm just curious. How good were your grades guys?
Why you should buy an OLPC XO Laptop
I had an A average -- I could have had an A+ average, but I was too busy {publishing research papers, calculating the quadrillionth bit of Pi, writing the Putnam, playing violin in symphony orchestras} and knew that with the rest of my academic record, nobody would care if I had an A average or an A+ average.

I was right -- in the 7 years since I graduated it has been everything I did in addition to taking classes which has gotten me places, not my grades in the courses themselves. Every year, at every college in the world, there's someone who graduates with the highest GPA. If you want to make yourself stand out more than that -- to make the point that you are not just the best of your year, but the best of the decade -- you need something other than just GPA.
Grockit's founder on raising money from Benchmark
Completely Agree. BTW remember when gas was under $1 in the late nineties?
I got kicked out halfway through my Sophomore year for being on Academic Probation too long, and it's the best thing that ever happened to me. I wish it had happened sooner.

I have some kind of allergy to pointless busy work and institutional bullshit.

Anyway, I don't understand the point of the question... :)
Your browser history isn't safe! (Unless you delete it)
Check out the source if you want it.
Dont mean to rag, but I've seen this in person (Berkeley Play conference) and at first I thought it was a baby seat head-rest. Personally, I'd rather spend another $110 to get an iPod touch.
Radiohead: comScore Doesn't Have a Clue
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1573841/20071108/radiohead....
I was pretty bad at college and high school. But I did get the highest grade in the class in one class, it was where there was direct competition between everyone else for the grades. So I thought, in law school every class is a competition for grades. So I went. My grades were really good!

Do the grades matter? Not really, but it is always nice to go out on top. So what I am saying is that I recommend, for you, to do the last year or the last semester really well and get all A's. Then for the rest of your life you can say that you finished school on top.
Maybe it's just because I went through Y Combinator, but I've heard those all before.
If you have won a medal in the math or computer Olympiads in high school, then that would probably be more important than anything you do later as an undergrad in terms of grades.
Example [1] was just an individual nutter. It gets used over and over to show that Lisp newsgroups are mean. One sign they're not is that people have to keep re-using that one example instead of finding the new ones that should in theory be very common. From what I've seen, people on Lisp newsgroups are much like on any other.
I consistently got As in the most interesting classes: compilers, databases, abstract algebra, independent study, senior project. My overall GPA was only about a 3.4, though. And my GPA totally tanked in the final semester when I started persuing Y Combinator.
Nothing, actually. They were good. But there were a lot of groups that were good, and we're trying not to grow so fast that things get out of control.
From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm
I'm not saying people who do well in programming contests aren't smart, just that there are also smart people who don't do well in programming contests, e.g. because they don't spend time practicing the weird sort of programming you need to be able to do.
Isn't intelligence known more for ground breaking work than becoming an expert in a particular field?

Also, I think a big reason we don't see more results from intelligent people is due to our cult of intelligence that worships the raw power more than people making good use of it.
Nah, I did that gig. Got into the AIME five times and one year got a 144 on the AMC. The moment you get admitted to college, nobody gives a damn about anything you did in high school. (I defer to cperciva on this matter, since he'd likely smoke my ass on the best day I ever had. EDIT: good, I guess I don't have to defer.)
After you finish an undergraduate degree, nobody wants to hear about how you were an exceptional high school student.

And honestly, if you won a medal in the IMO and don't have anything to show for your undergraduate years aside from a high GPA, there's something wrong with you.
A medal in these competitions is different though. It's proof that your IQ is very high, especially with the math olympiad.
Yes! I'm one step closer to having my very own Christina Ricci.
Um, if you need to prove that you have a high IQ, wouldn't it be a bit more straightforward to just take an IQ test?
When looking at someone's resume, I would trust exceptional performance in the math olympiad over any IQ test.
I'm not doing well in college at the moment. The assignments are just too boring (Perl database-connected survey, ncurses/conio wrapper library in C & C++, business analysis crap with UML diagrams and Rational Rose (yuck)).

I looked at the curriculum (http://warp.senecac.on.ca/bsd/courses.aspx) for my program today and it looks like the majority of courses are business oriented. One major project + an internship do not sound very appealing.

I'm not sure what else to do though :(
A in music, all over the place in Csci. Grades depended largely on how much attention I gave to the class, and how much miscellaneous administrative bull I had to deal with
While doing my masters at CMU in robotics, the ideal grades, as proclaimed by the professors, were straight B-.

It meant you were actually doing your important your, your research, while still passing.

Research is what will get you into grad school. A big project is what could spinoff into a company, or at least teach you how to build big/real systems.
Basecamp website down?
I for one paid 40 bucks for the digital release.
The hack of the year
Major rackspace datacenter is down (and sadly, so is xobni.com)
45 minutes so far
I had to stay in town but tried to go to the best university around. Studied three subjects, computer sci, math and economics, so I can learn as much as I can in terms of sciences and business ... it took me 5 years to finish it with the jobs I had ... for the first two years my grades varied I had good ones and bad ones (mostly Bs) ... but for the next three years I mostly got As specially on courses that mattered the most to me.

I also did an internship at a biotech company in Germany, worked with SAP for my university, got hired by one of my professors and helped him to write a book on astronomy, did a project with another professor on Six Sigma, and another project with a different professor on databases, worked at a gaming company (mostly R&D) and did a few other projects on the side.

Thats mostly what I did during school ... but then graduated and decided to start my own company, which I did, and learned maybe more than ever ... and am now working on another project ....

so I am also not too clear about your question ... but what you want to do after college is also important, meaning if you want to do masters then you must try to get good grades, if you want to get a job then it depends on what kind of a job ...

but as a general rule I would say try to do your best ... if you don't do too well at the beginning try to pick it up and do better later on, people will notice that, they like to see you improve, specially during your senior years ... the better you do the more options you leave open for yourself.

I think undergrad mostly fills you up with the basics, so you can go and specialize on whatever you like after. But the most important thing you can take away from school is getting disciplined, and learning how to look for information and learn more when you need to. Getting good grades also means you have actually learned something from college. The worst is to go to college and get bad grades and the excuse being "my courses are boring," or something along those lines. Your marks might not be that important to everyone, but what you did with your life within those years would matter a lot to anyone that might be interested in you.

I don't mind when I hear people drop out and end up doing something, even if they don't make it big. At least they realized they don't want to waste their time with school and they have other ways of doing it.

Bottom line, having good grades will never hurt you no matter what you want to do. But if you don't have good grades then you must have other stuff to make up for it, or to replace it and sometimes you need to give a valid reason of why you don't have the grades.

Just remember that nothing is the final answer, and there is not one way that you can do it. Get creative and come up with other ways that can prove yourself.
I got a lot worse at college after I learned a D- was a passing grade in Pitt's School of Engineering.
Though it works that way for the rest of your life too - if you sucked at your last job, nobody wants to hear about how you were exceptional in college. And conversely, if you last worked on an exceptional project, nobody cares if you dropped out of high school.
I thought some people would do that to support the band, good for you

I paid 5$. I figured there are 9 songs, if you get them off iTunes it'll be 9$. But thats when you are going to pay the high prices of the labels right!

And knowing that this time most of their major costs = 0 such as marketing and distribution, and on top of that they are not paying the high margins to their label, the 5$ would be more than reasonable to pay them.

PS: my favorites are Nude, and House of Cards
I sucked. My overall average was a 3.0, but that was made up of a lot of As, a lot of Cs, 2 Fs, and relatively few Bs. My terrible physics grades were counterbalanced by excellent CS grades (I only got less than an A on one CS course).
Come on, give us a link or something.
Ooops some discouraging words for the to-be founders!!!
Many of the Android libraries are written in C, so if they had a stable API/ABI then portable native apps could be written. It would be merely expensive.
Currently in my 2nd year with a B average. Content. I'd rather spend time working on projects than studying that much more.
seem to be.
Fund my web startup
ok, honestly unless you are already a millionare, (or on the path to be one), I'd say you done a major disservice to yourself and I'd say you were not wise enough.

College for me was lots of work (and b.s.) but lots of fun also. Work hard, get good grades, party, have fun, screw girls... repeat.
Eventually gets tiring, but remember, you will be working for the rest of your life, why start the pain earlier?

There are plenty of very successful, (and very rich) people that skiped, or quit college, but you don't hear much about the hundreds of thousands that quit college, and had much harder time on your life.
I agree. Thou a 3.0 and higher GPA demonstrates commitment to work.
You have to be either really stupid or lazy (or smoking too much pot) to get a lower GPA than that.

I'd say, the perfect GPA is something around 3.5+ If you are 4.0 (or almost), there is a good chance you either didn't have enough fun, or didn't do other things in the side while at school. Not a very balanced person. even geniouses get A- or Bs once and a while.

A person that gets only A = annal retentive personality.
Yeah, but you don't have to write Hero's or Lost to get an audience of a couple million any more.

I saw this guys short animation in 2000 and it blew me away at the time. He got 1 million views in 6 months on iFilm.com

Now he's finishing a full 85 minute feature. 1 animator + 3 to 4 years = animated feature film. The trailer looks pretty impressive for a one man project.

http://www.killerbeanforever.com/videos.html

I'm sure he'll do just fine if he can do a little merchandising. If he can sell 50,000 t-shirts via Cafe Press, he's just made $250,000. If he can sell 20,000 DVD's at a $4 per DVD profit, he's made $800,000.

He doesn't have to make a $100 million at the box office or $6 million per episode in advertising/licensing because his costs are orders of magnitude lower than Hollywood's. He's probably put in $100,000 - 200,000 of his own in living expenses, and if he's smart, he'll make his money back in a heartbeat.
That was true 25 years ago when college was a ticket to a successful life. But it's not true for Generation Y, when college for many people is a meaningless waste of $100,000 that qualifies them to do absolutely nothing. We have to make our own lives, with or without college.

I'm dropping out after this semester and never looking back.
I went to all lectures, all tutorials and did everything as expected. Big deal.
Also comes with a complimentary year of T-Mobile Hotspot access: http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/free-wi-fi.php.
"A more realistic statement would be RIP Palm/Access. I dont know how they can expect to build their own Linux platform to compete with Andriod..."

Hehehe...Funny how Google announcing something is taken as a sign that a company that has been building this kind of software for years is effectively dead. I'm not saying Palm isn't moribund, but consumers have a funny way of not doing what the biggest players in the field expect them to do...Google may find that getting adoption is harder than they think. I think Palm probably has nearly as good a chance as Google of being the winner, and I suspect the odds are rather poor for both.