skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I haven't seen anyone else comment that this whole thing is just a friggin' PR piece from Twiki. And before all you 19-year-olds-fresh-out-of-logic-101 scream "ad hominem!", let me remind you that in the real world you should always consider the source.

I'm not about to defend Java, but what a lot of the Ruby newbies are too young to know is that we had a dynamic language in the enterprise. It was called Visual Basic - you just declared everything "Variant". The result was a bunch of god-awful messes.

Personally, I like flavors of Lisp. But I don't know that I'd prescribe it for the IT department at Wells Fargo.
yeah sounds like a viable plan. If you develop it using an mvc design then it should be fairly easy to make it online as well.
lol, you need to unplug more :p
Resolution is the big differentiator. A Dell 24" LCD does 1920x1200. So does a 15.4" WUXGA laptop. I worship at the resolution shrine.

I've carried both 15" and 17" 1920x1200 laptops everywhere for years, including quite a bit of international travel. Even with a spare battery the weight never bothered me. I swear by 1920x1200 and prefer 15" to 17".

The other major consideration is virtual desktops. They're the resolution multiplier and help to make up for the lack of multiple physical screens. I use Linux with WindowMaker and half a dozen "Workspaces" dedicated to different tasks.
My 15.4" powerbook works fine for me, but I also use an USB apple keyboard, just so much more comfortable.
Clever browser linkspam game -- would work very well as a facebook app
It's the type of linkspam game that is the only way to make a successful facebook app game. They have great art design, but the game could be made much more interactive.
Web design 2.0 - it's all about the resource and its URL
I wish I could outsource this thread...
So nick them yourself, if you care...!
The Programming Strategy
When things are tough, write some more software.
I liked it. I mostly agree too. I do think it was a glaring mistake to ignore the incredible deals you can get now on dedicated servers. Probably 95%+ web apps can do everything they need to do with 1-2 relatively lightweight machines with the 1-4TB monthly outgoing bandwidth that's included free with them.

The totally legitimate and efficient uses of EC2/S3 are few and far between. Mostly things like Justin.tv, where their peak load is so much higher than their average.

The best thing Amazon has done with EC2/S3 is give the architecture astronauts a datacenter-holodeck, where they can safely live out their fantasy scaling scenarios.
I know people who are in various parts of the world and generally disinterested in technology and the internet. I frequently ask them questions to see what they've heard of and what they haven't. It's informal and unscientific, but it definitely helps me get some idea of what the view is like from the outside.
The first ice skates (1800 BC) saved about 10% of energy vs walking
Half of Europe's bird species in dangerous decline due to intensified farming
Inside Apple Stores, a Certain Aura Enchants the Faithful
Requiem for Bell Labs
The mac with the smallest screen that can still be plugged directly into a DVI monitor without an adaptor.
The Year in DeadPool (2007 Edition)
No links to the video, nor a transcript.

But I did find two other links on scaling at YouTube if any one is interested:

http://highscalability.com/youtube-architecture

http://www.scribd.com/doc/244443/Supersising-YouTube-with-Py...
that's reasonable equity, and the salary shouldn't be too much of an issue so long as it's market or near-market. i feel like anyone working for a pre-revenue but funded startup (i.e. one with a finite runway) shouldn't have a problem taking a below-market-rate salary if they're happy with the stock they're getting, because of course if the money runs out too soon a bit of extra money in the savings account isn't much reward for the months / years of startup hours..
I found that quote interesting too, so after reading your post I took a look at your app. I wasn't able to figure out what it does in the 60 seconds I usually allot to these things. I had trouble finding the "About Newsconomy" link (hidden at the bottom), and once I did it didn't make sense to me. I'm not a baseball person so that metaphor didn't draw me in. You might consider adding a more prominent "Start Here" link or some such thing that would provide examples of cool things your app can do. Good luck.
what is a deck?
Hbase - Open source alternative to Google's Big Table
Glogster - Like Geocities (in a bad way), And In Flash
Try LimeAll's Call Greeting to wish your loved ones
Too bad they don't make the 12" Powerbook anymore. Mine died a few months ago after 3+ years of service. Fortunately I don't need a laptop anymore.
Absolutely agree. My work computer has triple 1280x1024 LCDs, and while I am not a professional programmer, I imagine that such a setup would make me immensely more productive. One monitor for documentation, another for your editor, a third for testing... or whatever setup you want.
I would get the smallest laptop you can find with reasonable specs, and just get a 24" Dell (or 30" if you get one with a decent video card) display to hook it up to at your desk.

This is convenient because you can easily take it to meetings, vacations, etc. and have all your data, but most of the time you'll be hooked up to a big display and won't need to use the laptop as the primary screen.
Death and Taxes: Where your money goes
Thanks for the replies - Yea salary is reasonable for the area. If you've got any other advice on things to consider while choosing a startup, please let me know (either here on drop me a line at wwq222@gmail.com). Thanks!
iPhone 1.1.3?
I'm fine using a 12" Powerbook, but they don't make that anymore. My next laptop will probably be a 13" Macbook.

When it's hooked up to a 20" screen, I've got plenty of space. When I'm just using my laptop alone, I just use a multiple desktops app (like Leopard's spaces).
I agree. I find it difficult to see what the next step is. How does owning an item help me (or it)? My thought is a created item would be of low value but I can set any price and that is the value. Do I buy an item to promote it? or just to have edit control over the description and title?

The items seem to be sorted simply by the order they were created irregardless of the value in lambdas. It seems like an interesting idea that is still missing a few core features.
Macbook isn't much bigger, and it is great. There is a new smaller macbook apparently coming out soon.
Numbers numbers numbers, film industry edition
A PowerPoint presentation.
How to Put your lazy customers to work  
The biggest shift in the treatment of customers lies in letting them into your operation, with degrees of involvement ranging from soliciting feedback, to partnering with users in development design. Here's how to put them to work for you...
The weird thing is, that looks like a Windows cursor, but most of the Windows screenshot software I have used (including the built-in "Prt Scr" feature) gives you an image without the cursor.
Hey, thanks very much. I see that I need to make it much clearer what it is. Also, here's a list of items that give more info: http://newsconomy.com/tag/newsconomy
Ahhh, I tried that, but apparently it doesn't work if you do it on the first line. So here it is, not on the first line.

def return_three_values
"1,2,3".split(',')
end
a, b, c = return_three_values
He's neglecting the fact that it's irrelevant, as DVD sales matter more nowadays.
That equity stake is appropriate.
New "biochips" to replace animal testing
New: Best Comments (via "Lists" Link at Bottom)
Just when I got my 1.1.2 jailbroken...
what is reddit?
Between Atlanta and LA?  Let's meet.
http://reddit.com/
You are right, you can set the price of any item you own and that is its value, especially if someone else buys it for that price. When you buy an item you get the ability edit the description, the title, the tags, and the price. You can change the price on any item you own. Also, when you buy an item, it puts it at the top of lists.
I just wrote another blog posts that explains some uses of newsconomy. Hopefully it makes it clearer what it is about: http://nickmudge.info/?post=81
I just went there.

The first thing I thought was "These just look like stories but what's up with these lambdas and what's the deal with the Buy link?". Sadly after a minute or so I got no answer and my interest waned.
You definitely need an "About" or a "What is this?" page.

One simple thing you should do is eliminate the "dead end" transitions (e.g. I press Submit and I get to a "you must login first" dead end page). If I can't submit, make the link inactive or at least take me straight to the login page.

Another thing you could do is add some descriptive tooltips so if I mouse over a link like "Buy" I'll see something more informative than "Address: https://newsconomy.com/buy/208".
Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike
If your app does a lot of internal I/O to S3, it may be cheaper to run it on EC2.
Eh, my brother and sister both have Macbooks... they're a good bit wider, and they feel flimsier due to the plastic construction. A Macbook Nano has been rumored for some time... I'll believe it when I see it. I'd like to see one 12" or smaller, with a solid-state drive, and with no optical drive.
Anti-intellectualism in American Culture
Does it exist? Should it exist? How does it compare to the situation in other countries?
That's just returning an array, though, which Java could also do. What Java can't do is to assign variables to array values as in your example.
There's more freedom of language choice now than there was in the past, especially for web applications. But I do agreee with you - there is certainly pressure from network effects, which does make it harder to just "break up" with a language as a purely personal choice. Not impossible, just harder.

As for me - I'd disagree that I'm forced to use java, but I am definitely under pressure (financial and otherwise) to do so. For instance, I use an API for a mathematical engine (ILOG) that is available in java, C#, or C - and everyone around me at work uses Java. Technically, I could write an extension for ruby in C (maybe there's already one out there?) But I have a feeling this wouldn't fly with my company. I could also quit and find a new job - there are plenty of good projects in Ruby out there. So to some extent I am "forced" to use Java, but if I'm totally honest with myself, I have to admit that there's more than a small element of personal compromise (as opposed to pure coersion) in the language I use at work.

I read an interview with David Heinemeier-Hansson where the interviewer repeatedly asked him about "why not use X for reason Y" (X= Java, .NET, etc, Y=performance, availability of programmers, scalability, etc)... and his response was something like "previously I was direct, now let me be blunt: I don't care about you."

That's what I'm getting at with the "well, oprah" analogy. At some point, you just have to decide what you're going to with. Keeping an open mind is extremely important, but it's equally important to remember that you don't need to convince anyone other than yourself. If you find yourself justifying things too often to other people, maybe you need to restructure your life a bit (not meant as a criticism: I know I do).
The dynamic you describe is "winner takes all". Expertise
attracts expertise, and face-to-face encounters are essential.
In finance it's been like that since 1300.
Fernand Braudel, in his lovely little book "La Dynamique du Capitalisme" argues that this is also the reason there has always been at any time exactly one financial centre in the world where all the big deals are done.

He lists:

Venice 1380 -- 1500
Antwerp 1500 -- 1555
Genoa 1555 -- 1621
Amsterdam 1621 -- 1780
London 1780 -- 1929
New York 1929 -- present

(For the future see http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200507/fallows).

Maarten van Emden.
So, yes, the lack of assignment is part of the problem. But, of course, the duck-typing is half the fun of something like that. I can return anything (of any type) I want in a tuple of any size just by comma delimiting. Java arrays aren't that flexible, and worse, if you use one that holds more than one type (say Integers and Floats), you have to cast them to Object before you drop them in, and you get to cast on the way back out. Lots of type-related overhead to simulate something that should be easy.
Solve customer needs not business ones
Agreed, the inflexible arrays are quite annoying, maybe THE most annoying aspect of Java.
I have read the beginnings of Haskell tutorials now, and it seems to be very similar to Erlang? I am not sure I like the static typing, though (ie inflexible arrays). So maybe not enough reason to prefer Haskell over Erlang?
Music is a service, not a product
Look at Facebook or Myspace, how many people do you see complaining that those companies are worth billions of dollars? They just keep on using it.

The killer idea for music (and I feel for e-books as well) will be this: give the music away for free with (or without) DRM technology.

The money maker -- on the product, which doesn't make much money for artists anyways, will be selling advertising, but the real money maker for artists is touring anyways.

By giving away their music for free the artist will achieve three things:

1. Increasing their fan base by making the music much more accessible

2. Possibly make money by selling ads -- If LinkinPark, who is now independent, were to run ads on their website and then give away their music for free, you don't think that would generate ads -- imagine if Radiohead's web page would have had ads how much money they could have made when they released their music for "pay what it's worth."

3. Get your service out thereX again, music is NOT a product, it is a service. Look at the figures for Music Tours and see how they are rising, people will pay for this service because they want to hear music live, but if they already paid hundreds for their music player (you used to get a music player for cheap when it was CD's and Tapes) , why they should pay again for the music.

People are still not understanding the internet-- you have to give a reason for people to pay: people use Itunes not because they want to pay for music, but because it is so easy to put it on their Ipod.

They are paying for the ease-of-use, not really music as a product
On Practicality and Tool-Making - Why I'm not implementing my own programming language
sounds safe
there are thigns you know you know, things you know you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know. The latest is the scary one.
Fascinating! Just what I had been hoping for ever since the Bigtable paper came out... It remains to be seen if the system will perform as advertised in real deployments.
Subvert And Profit Unapologetically Targets YouTube
Mark Davis - Get Venture
Mark Davis - a member of the DFJ Gotham - has written a very extensive series of posts on his blog titled Get Venture. Mark describes his goal as to "create the entrepreneur's manual for raising venture capital." He's covered a lot of ground that is a good read for any entrepreneur looking to raise venture capital.
VC Fundraising Manual: Manage VC Expectations About Operating Performance
It's not uncommon for entrepreneur to talk-up a big customer sale or partnership deal that is in process when trying to get a VC interested. However, presenting a potential milestone to a VC as validation of the viability of your company can come back to hurt you if the deal falls through. These blessings can turn into curses.

As a result...
Yeah, I wasn't sure what lambdas were, and wasn't sure what 'buy' was on first glance. However, after reading that you can "do stuff" to news that you "buy", and putting it together with the name "newsconomy", it comes together in my mind.

You're basically using capitalistic model to better rate the "value" of a news item--hence an economy/market based on trading(buying/selling) news, instead of using a basic democratic process modeled after political organizations (which is what digg/reddit/yc is modeled after).

I think it makes sense for those that understand basic supply/demand and capitalism ideas, such as "decentralized market determines price", "invisible hand", etc. But for those that don't, they'll have a hard time with understanding why they're buying web links with no inherent value with virtual 'dollars'

I assume lambdas are unit of exchange--price. You might want to call it something that people can infer are money...like "rupies", "newsdollar", etc.
Yeah, the news.yc population is pretty hit-or-miss when it comes to sanity.
Old Smalltalk Pics From PARC Place
Coding Horror: An Inalienable Right to Privacy
I live in Atlanta but out of town until the 3rd. =/
10 Reasons the Age of Finite State Machines is Over
Become a Knowledge Management Ninja with Google Reader
Einstein's derivation of E=mc^2
I find myself having the same problem with my own work. I feel like it's not at a point where I feel good about promoting it. I too would rather talk about a product I can stand behind. In addition, I fear that if I introduce it to users too early, they'll take one look at it and won't come back until many months later. There's only so many times new users will look at something in the beginning.

However, on the flip side, the fear is also that I'm building it away from what users would want without feedback. "Release Early and Release Often", right?

So I'm torn between promoting it to get feedback but "wasting" some early adopters, versus keep working on it based on what I think should go in there, and saving it until it's at a point where early adopters would have a better chance of sticking around.

What's the right balance?
I totally know what you're saying. Maybe promote it a little bit, get some feedback, make it better, promote it a little bit more, get some more feedback, make it better. Promote it more based on your confidence of the site being better. That's what I'm doing. I've loved some of the feedback I've gotten, and it has been really helpful.
A/B testing prevents scurvy!
i know the title is a fallacy, couldn't resist
The point of the article is that there is a 4th category that is even worse, things that you know, but are wrong or have been made irrelevant or obsolete.

Think of the experiment with the 5 monkeys, the problem is we as experts in a field are afflicted with scores of preconditionings.

http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/Articles/a-m/monkeys.htm
I can't wait to have an excuse/time to play with this and hadoop.
Naah, we're all sane.
Do you keep promoting it to the same crowd? Or do you have a couple different places where you promote it and do a round-robin?
The Ron Paul astroturfers in action (they have no sense of humor)
"the knowledge worker who can act like an agile ninja by consuming vast quantities of information, synthesizing it and getting it in the hands of the right people at the right time is invaluable"

How so?
I write blog posts sometimes. When I write something that I think might be interesting to Hacker News or programming.reddit.com I submit it there. I also submit stuff sometimes a few other places like mixx.com and digg.com. I tell friends when I add features to newsconomy. When the site is better I'll write more about it and submit blog posts to more sites, and I'll send email to bloggers and other people on the Internet I don't directly know but who I think the site might be interesting to.
Check question #1: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/03/nine_questions_.html
Optimus Tactus keyboard from Artemy Lebedev
Gmail To Offer Friend Updates?
I have Ron Paul brand fatigue. I'm voting Mr. Splashy Pants in '08.
Ron Paul's Facebook page with the Top 10 LOLCAT images of 2007:

http://brkville.myminicity.com/ind
I've done things like that often enough (putting parens around file contents or each line of an ascii file) that I wonder if it would be worth writing a macro that inserted the parens for you on the fly as you read the file before handing it off to the code you want to execute.

I know that was vague, but I just get the feeling I'm often doing something semi-manually in Emacs that my code should be doing for me.
Clojure Running on OLPC. LISP for Teenies!
Handy.

'Recent' is used in a pretty loose way, though. Looks like anything in the last month is counted.
Sounds like matt's just a bludger wanting free board while going across country. I don't think you'd have to worry too much about safety where it comes to yc news readers. However, I think trying to freeload off them like matt's trying to do is pretty loathsome.
Well, it's working...

http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
When are YC Summer 2008 Applications open?
From when will we be able to apply for YC Summer 08?
Cool...I was looking at the www.spread.org archives a couple days back and saw a post from the ThruDB guys about their release, using the messaging service for replication.
I think PG and 'em should go full force and add Spring and Fall rounds.
So a 'blag' is like a tumblelog?
Ask News.YC: What are your top news sources?
news.yc, techcrunch, nyt, gigaom.....techmeme
A++++!!! SHOWED UP AT CORRECT TIME! WOULD MURDER AGAIN!!
I think they should replace their blood with caffeine. That's just me.

Honestly, I have to imagine two sessions a year are already pretty rough.
It isn't safe to have a deck
RIAA sues man for ripping his own CDs
Startup forums - discuss everything and anything about startups
news.yc, the wsj, techcrunch (increasingly less so, though)
I remember when Mark Pilgrim was "stalking" Dave "appropriately named" Winer. I haven't read him much since then, but this seems like a lot of his stuff: best if taken with a grain of salt.

He has a point, most software sucks & most people underestimate the difficulty of implementing good software, especially unglamorous software like text editors & word processors. And most of the people who underestimate the difficulty of implementing good software are incapable of seeing how bad their own software really is. Examples that spring to mind: PHP, newLisp, MySQL.

I'm sympathetic to any argument against the flood of "text editors" that are really just skins on top of the Cocoa or .NET text editing frameworks. And I'm incredulous when I see someone write a whole application because they don't know that a feature exists or they don't realize their editor of choice is extensible. The other day I saw a blog entry about a guy who wrote a text editor because he wanted to use his whole 24" screen with as little "chrome" as possibleaEUR"I thought it was a joke.

I disagree with Pilgrim that all of this is a problem. Yeah, most people shouldn't write a text-editoraEUR"even for their own edificationaEUR"because it's enormously hard and the results are going to suck. Efforts are better put into evolving an existing not-quite-optimal program (e.g., AquaEmacs) (where this is possible). But every so often something really revolutionary or great results from somebody doing what they "shouldn't have"... and it's fun.
wsj is nice. PBS is good as well, but i treat morea s a source of information and not breaking news. agree on techcrunch.
popurls, yc
The sleep of reason produces intellectuals. It is worthwhile making the distinction between a healthy suspicion of the intelligentsia and a hostility to thought.
MySpace's Tom Get Hacked?
programming.reddit, yc, anarchaia.org, google news
Real-world news:

wikiepedia's "Current Events" page, google news

Nerd-world news:

programming.reddit, science.reddit, news.yc (though lately I've resorted to upvoting stories that are actually "Hacker News"...)

Slashdot has gotten surprisingly good again in recent years (most of the dregs have gone to other sites), and the snarky tags (that users inevitably add) instantly indicate when an editor messes up or gives a crappy summary.
At first I thought you were asking pg to add a page to http://news.ycombinator.com/lists that listed the sources/domains of submissions sorted by most-submitted. That would be interesting.
Or, "Science improves web usability!"
If only YC had some sort of news site to announce these things...