skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know exactly what you mean. I'm in my thirties and I definitely don't have the ridiculous level of drive (or stupidity) that I did in my late teens and early twenties. Maybe it's just the lack of free time.
Why more groups with an established fan base don't do this escapes me. Hard to stop sharecropping, I guess.
I am not sure what was the point of your comment. Are you trying to encourage the guys here to be more manly? More sexually active? To get more girls?
There is a VH1 show that should be manditory viewing for all readers of HN, search around here for results. This is like hacking the female mind:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vh1+mystery
I've been using CentOS for my linux server os. I'm a little partial to ThinWire (thinwire.com) for a Java web framwork. Never used Helma, looks interesting.
> They say things like auctions, but I don't see what's wrong with SQL for those.

For local data sets, SQL's great. For remote, centralized data sets you can use something similar.

But once you want to combine data sets spread out over several sites (say, combining IMDB with local movie listings) you need to express that data in a format with globally unique identifiers and distributed extensibility. That's RDF. You can still have a nice query language, see SPARQL (which is much nicer than SQL, IMO).

> And if you used Google to search the web for millions of currently-listed auctions on webpages in XML format, you'd have a difficult time trying to find what you want.

Sure, if you're just doing full-text search like Google does. Of course, the point of having machine-readable data is that you're not limited to full-text search.
Ubuntu also has a more predictable release schedule than most distributions - especially Debian. I have yet to try the server version. How does it compare to Debian? Unfortunately, Ubuntu server doesn't support PowerPC, which the OP says is a requirement.
Have you considered tying in your app by writing an API in Java and your app in a different language? Have you considered using another language running on the JVM?
Quit Business school.
I don't see why this would be much better than simply doing fuzzy match on a trie.
I highly approve on all counts.
That's not an interesting take, that's just one of the two standard thoughts about a currency's value.
This just in: marriage is no party.

There was a similar study with more interesting results that you can actually act on. It found that having a more attractive woman as a partner (even if she is only attractive with makeup) causes men to have higher testosterone from day to day. Just the sight of her will affect your body.

Hmm.
How do you do a fuzzy match? Are there any sites out there that deal with all the text matching algorithms? I need to do this for a project.
Daniel Eran had ripped him a new one, probably on numerous occasions: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q2.07/23659F71-13A...
Not useless, but just a headache to do well. There are some badass applications written in Java ME.

You have to be very organized with your builds if you need to utilize many optional libraries b/c phone support can be splotchy at best. Fortunately many of the important libraries such as MMAPI and PDA are commonplace with new phones.
Ugh - I'd prefer reading what she has to say rather than be forced to watch the whole video.
There's a danger in some of this interview advice: everyone writing about it is writing based on their one interview. So it seems to the Zenters that one should be passionate about one's idea. But the Zenters had a good idea. We'd been waiting for someone to propose a web-based Powerpoint killer. So all we needed to know was that they were smart and psyched to work on it.

Reddit was at the other extreme. We didn't like their initial idea. But we liked Steve and Alexis, so we brainstormed with them about other possibilities, and the result was Reddit. If they'd spent the time before the interview pumping up their "passion" about their idea, it would have just made things harder.

Maybe I'd better write something myself about what happens at interviews....
It's in Plato's Republic, maybe the first chapter. I mean, they don't literally say testosterone, but it's the same idea.
Interview with 26 year-old Wuala CEO Dominik Grolimund
Madonna is changing her business model too:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7047969.stm
Usually I agree - text is so much faster. But in this case, I appreciated the video.

What's the general rule here? Maybe when somebody is talking about themselves or the importance of relationship or other squishy topics it's better to have a medium that transmits emotion better.
I have fond memories of standing up on the floorboard in the back of my parents' car and sticking my face out the window on the highway when I was a little kid.

If I let my son do that today, we'd probably end up on the 6'oclock news -- someone would probably call 911 on their cellphone!
Another benefit of Gentoo is the wealth of knowledge you'll find at http://gentoo-wiki.com and http://forums.gentoo.org . Additionally, the portage system makes everything rather easy to do, once you get the hang of how it all works. Is a certain version of a library causing a problem in a program? Just mask that specific version and run a single command to re-install to a different version of the library and update all programs that depend on it.

I started with FreeBSD and switched to Linux when I couldn't get proper drivers. I didn't like Ubuntu or Debian, but I've been quite happy with Gentoo, and I'm getting ready to put it on my third computer.
There are also studies that show that married people lose the drive to succeed and become lazier as well. I remember a study by some Japanese scientist that shows that if you're married, the chances that you're going to discover some new theorem (I think he studied mathematicians) are pretty slim.

So yes, definitely a double edged sword. Personally, I think you should put off marriage for as long as you can... unless you find that perfect woman along the way ;).
Likewise, I approve.
The tribe that this study is about has people marry when they are about 30. Polygamy comes older. If I understand correctly they didn't do anything to separate age out from the data.
Needs more code.
Sam Walton went from a dime store to Walmart and Sam's Club while happily married with 4 kids.
Yes, I've considered both. In fact, that's what we have always gotten away with in the past.

Unfortunately, part of this project is tying into a bank's existing infrastructure. And because of the sensitive nature of the 'components' we are tying into, they are requiring that that specific portion of the app be written in Java (in part so that their in-house programmers can go over the code with a fine-tooth comb.)
Flickr Places Announced
Opening Up the Social Graph
YC is great, but I have realized this round that you need an easy mass appeal type idea to get in.

So a club of interested parties called 'Y Not' sounds good to me, I am not too far away to drive to SV (from San Diego, CA).
I went to school with these guys. Surprised to see them turn up on news.yc! Go ETH!
What people (or young people, since the older ones get this faster) tend to forget is: Steve Jobs came to be at a very particular time. The idea of a minicomputer in your home in the 70's was inconceivable. But within those few years afterwards, it became not just a success, it was a defining success of a generation.

And at the same time Wozniac pioneered everything. Wozniac was the genius that made the designs, the computers, the software, and the floppy drives work. Jobs was also never the CEO of Apple until later on in life. Ron Wayne, that teenage kid that helped Woz but I can't remember his name, Mike Markula, the VisiCalc team, and Jef Raskin have more to do with the success of Apple than anything a trip to India and commune living can ever do.

But that's not to say Steve Jobs isn't special. He survived. 30 years later and he's still here. The one that sticks around, writes the history books.
"Time Management" by Randy Pausch (Remember Randy?)
Sometimes even with the cards right and the stars aligned, people just don't plain like you.
I work everyday doing J2ME, and you can do really powerful things with it in phones.

Main problems: You have to re-invent the wheel all the time. J2me, is basically Java 1.2 with lots of things stripped out. No string tokenizer, no iterators, no collections, etc. etc.

This actually makes it frustrating (re-invent the wheel all the time), yet challenging fun at the same time (it is not bloated).

THe main problem of J2ME is it's very crappy implemetation from OEM, where every fricking manufactor decides to implemt it differently, slapping their apis, and making applications not work on most phones without some major effort.

Carriers, deciding to bllock APIs, as basic as socket connections, media players, etc. and you can't use them without their "permission", aka digital signatures. Ah, and if you are not their "preferred" partner (i.e. surrender half of your revenue to the carries), you will not get this certificates. Which stilfes inovation, and drive small developers, or early startups out of business, unless they are in bed with the carrier.

So, after years developing with J2ME, I can say that it has a leased time. It is not easy to develop for, very very fragmented, and it's power stiffled by the carriers.
I'm surprised the deal is only $120m in 10 years. Perhaps her equity stake (mentioned in the article) is significant.
Are Boys An Endangered Species?
I'm halfway through the book, and I have to say I'm loving it. I had pretty low expectations coming in -- I think the blog is great but couldn't see it hanging together as a full book -- but they have been easily surpassed.

Barnes and Noble filed it under author name "F" for "Fake Steve" in the humor section -- took a little while to find it.
I couldn't understand what this means -- Say we take an arbitary string, test and compare it to query. Call the resultant distance d. Because we know the triangle inequality holds, all our results must have at most distance d+n and at least distance d-n from test.

Can anyone please explain me in more simpler terms.
The author didn't specify how large his project was. If it involves a lot of servers then Gentoo's ability to basically "make your own distro" could prove very useful. You can't get much more flexible than that. Since the OP is coming from a BSD background that is an advantage for Gentoo as well.

On the other hand if the project just involves a small number of servers than Gentoo will likely prove more hassle than it is worth. In that case the conventional wisdom would be Debian. (or RHEL if you want to pay someone for support).
And over the same period of time, millions of other married men didn't do anything.

Anecdotes are nice stories.
Cool Algorithms: Reservoir Sampling
One thing I seem to notice from people doing startups---really, from anyone doing something that isn't codified---is the urge to take a personal experience and distill it into generalized wisdom, even if what they learned isn't useful in general. If you have a scatterplot, you can draw a pretty nice linear approximation through it. I sort of think of this type of advice as the experienced person throwing a line through their one point and then trying to orient that line as best they can. Personal stories make great content for a blog, and it's true, when taken in the context of other people's experiences they can be of great help, but the urge to generalize and present them as a method is something that's usually better off avoided.
I suppose it is possible that Steve Jobs is the Forrest Gump of technology: for thirty years, he has just happened to be standing next to the biggest innovators in consumer technology. I've never met Steve, and Apple doesn't leak many rumors, so it's hard for me to know.

But if Steve's secret is being in the right place at the right time, he sure has a knack for finding that place. First the Apple II. Then the Mac. Then NeXT (which, once rebranded as "Mac OS X", finally became a huge success). Pixar. The iPod. The iPhone.

I think Steve Jobs is more than merely lucky.

And the fact that so many of the engineers who worked for Jobs are famous is evidence of his management skill. I've heard it said that the job of a good manager is to hire the best engineers and then get out of their way. You have to relentlessly clear all obstacles from their path, give them whatever they need to do great work (which includes holding them to high standards) and constantly promote them and their work, both inside and outside the company.

I'm not saying that Steve Jobs is necessarily the perfect manager. I often wonder whether I would enjoy working for him. (Just as, when I watch a movie like Full Metal Jacket, I wonder whether I would survive basic training.) But you can't argue with the results: people who work with Steve Jobs become geek legends. Woz. Raskin. Hertzfeld. Atkinson. Ive.
Toxic iPhone
I think you're underestimating Jobs. Wozniak could not have started Apple without him any more than vice versa.

Jobs makes products happen. He can't build whatever it is himself, but he can choose among all the options unerringly, and get his choices built. He's like a really effective patron of the arts.
Apple I and Apple II was because of Wozniak.

The Mac was Jef Raskin's baby, Steve tried to kill it multiple times because it inteferred with his pet project of Apple III and Lisa. Eventually with both project a proven failure in the market, he jumped ship to Raskin and took over the Mac project.

NeXT was a dismal failure. The product was too expensive for its market, it sold little in its market. They made NeXTStep, true, but due to a bit of Gassee's inability to market it properly, BeOS lost out despite how many internally wanted it instead.

All that said though, no, I don't think it's Steve's luck that's gotten him to where he is. His ability I believe is in leadership, vision, and strategy. Having seen him in action, I think his greatest asset is his ability to effect others. He makes them better, he knows what he wants immediately and has the strategic vision to see it through. His ability to get certain products right has propelled him higher and higher into upper management. Now that he's the CEO his vision only elevates and pushes more product out the door. The chicken and egg problem for others emulate though is: how do you get into a position of power, or, how do you push out people to push out the right product?

As for Marine boot camp and the subsequent combat tours, I can tell you without a doubt FMJ, nor any other movie, even come close.
If your interested in trying it out you can download it from http://webware.wua.la/ the invitation code is "webware"
As for Marine boot camp and the subsequent combat tours, I can tell you without a doubt FMJ, nor any other movie, even come close.

I hear you. This is why I prefer to talk with veterans rather than actually becoming one. :)
Ubuntu is solid. Haven't tried Debian Etch or kubuntu yet. I would recommend Fedora 7 for desktop as well. I have had success with RH and CentOS.

My suggestion: get VMWare Player and play with a bunch of them for fun. Kind of inefficient, but it's cool if you like that sort of thing.
This is great news, "the more girls the better" -Albert Einstein
On the other hand, many lawns were well-maintained and assorted yard projects completed.
Everyone does this. There's nothing wrong it. Generalizing from experience is part of intelligence.

Maybe the reason you seem to notice it more with startups is that there's a lot of variation in startups, so generalizations more often miss.
The Wide Finder Project
Radiohead's MP3 release just a tactic to boost CD sales. So much for dethroning the industy giants.
Let's be clear: I'm not knocking married life, just anecdotes as arguments.
wow that was boring
Thing is, I don't know if we are viewing this by the same angle. For all accounts, we could start by breaking the stereotype that nerds will all end as 40 year-old virgins.

Second, there was a study [1] that showed high correlation between lower testosterone levels and higher IQ, and little correlation between testosterone levels and sex drive.

Third, as someone already said before, the article tells little about age, and that is something way more connected with hormone levels than marital status.

[1] : http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-intelligenc...
Google Launches Facebook App: Google News
Project Pig: ad-hoc analysis of very large data sets
here is the original interview: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/...
just in case you missed it.
I don't know if this is me getting old, but I refuse to live in a world where people are supposed to take dating advice from a guy that uses nail polisher.

* to the one(s) who voted me down: I took a look at the videos, and all I've seen was some dude who calls himself "mistery" and says that using nail polisher is a "conversation starter". Would you care to elaborate on why I should be downmodded?
We use Helma for our (unlaunched) YC startup, and we love it.

It's faster than rails, and IMO nicer to develop with. Having all the Java libraries without having to code in Java is sweet. The ORM is really well-designed and the built-in object cache is super fast. The template system has its quirks, but once you get used to it, is also really sweet.

It's a shame helma wasn't documented or evangelized as well as rails was. I think it's a better framework that just didn't catch on because it wasn't marketed well.
Well when you launch, PLEASE make heaps of noise about Helma - I think it would be great for both you and helma to do this (kind of like rails was for 37S in a way). It really does sound sweet.
When you say User do you mean the cool kids in Silicon Valley or people outside Silicon Valley?
This reminds me of Paul Buchheit's "Advice on advice" at this year's Startup School: "Advice = Limited Life Experiences + Over-generalization."
CentOS is a great option. It's simple, reliable, and theres lots of documentation written for it. By far the most popular option for hosting these days. I recommend it to others. Debian is just fine too, but not my preferred flavor. When I'm building large clusters of machines I use one build "master" machine (Gentoo based) that produces the binaries, libraries, and kernel that the other identical machines run.
Anti-Aliased Line Drawing
Marrying is likely to reduce your chances of making a contribution to science (and of commiting crimes), but I have not seen any studies showing it will reduce your chances of succeeding in business. I would have guessed the opposite. Anyway, most men and most geeks are better off married, IMO, and after age 22 or so better off with low testosterone. Before that age, high testosterone is probably better for geeks because it promotes the formation of the dense tangles of neurons that seem to help in science and technology.
Evolutionarily (assuming that's a word) this phenomenon makes perfect sense. Testosterone and aggression high so that fit male is able to mate with discerning fit female. Couple have babies, but testosterone lowers for satisfied male, encouraging him to stay with mate. This mutation would raise the odds substantially that the offspring of the couple survive given the male presence and protection. Then, when said offspring and mate get older and testosterone goes up, all bets are off and the cycle repeats.

In the modern era, this phenomenon can be bypassed by commuting via bike everyday in San Francisco up beyond category climbs, at least in my experience so far :)
It's easiser to understand by using 2D geometry. Pick one point on a paper and call it query, the input, and draw a circle of radius n around that point. Your goal is to find the points in the dataset which are inside the circle. Let's call those points answers.

Pick an arbitrary point (in the dataset) and call it test. The distance between test and query is d. Now, you can see the distance between test and the furthest and closest points in answers are d+n and d-n, respectively (assuming d > n).

Since the dataset is organized by distance, we can quickly narrow the range of search.
From the title, I thought this was going to be an announcement of automated digital cameras in tourist spots that uploaded their pictures to Flickr.

I may have an overactive imagination.
In my experience, Ubuntu server has been very similar to my Debian server work (I love apt package management). I'm currently using Dapper on the server since it's going to be maintained for a very long time.

Ubuntu has a more predictable release schedule, but I wouldn't recommend pushing the limit on upgrading your server. Unless you've got a lot of spare time you'll want to use a fairly mainstream distro. When a nasty problem comes up (and it will, trust me), you want access to lots of forums that show solutions to related issues.

Some general advice (not really directed towards the parent):
Just because you know how to run something like Gentoo doesn't mean you necessarily should in a production setting. Once you have a successful company you can worry about the benefits of compiling your filesystem from scratch. Pick an OS you're familiar with and run with it -- anything else is most likely premature optimization.
No. Avoiding baseless generalizations and making rational decisions is a mark of an important intellect. Anything contrariwise is exactly that.
Here's another piece of advice (self-serving, I'll be the first to admit) -- work at a YC startup. you can meet all the YC people, including Paul. There are a lot of YC parties and events that you'll be able to go to. Make a good impression and get good recommendations from people already in YC, and you'll be in a great position to get into YC a little while later.

Now the shameless plug -- Scribd is looking for more people. Here's our jobs page:

http://www.scribd.com/static/jobs

Check it out.
People are surprised?
"The real question of today's Gilded Age, highlighted by the comparison to its predecessor, is not why the rich became rich, or whether they behave well with their billions. It's why the rest of us seem to feel we can do so little about it."
What specifically was wrong with it? I saw maybe two or three awkward sentences, but only because I was looking for them. He used the word "keiretsu" without explanation, which I find kind of pretentious, but then again, I did know what it meant, so it worked.

Or was it changed between when you saw it and when I saw it?
IBM Seeking 'Patent-Protection-Racket' Patent
NeXT was a dismal failure.

Depends on what you consider success. No NeXT, no WorldWideWeb by Tim Berners-Lee. I consider changing the world forever to be a success condition.

due to a bit of Gassee's inability to market it properly, BeOS lost out despite how many internally wanted it instead.

Be != NeXT
Wuala: Willful ignorance, or fraud?
This is more or less a response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=70757 -- I started writing it there, but ended up deciding that it made more sense as a separate blog piece.
the last paragraph of this article is advice i've been given many times. steve jobs history of success is so similar to so many other successful people.
I've been looking for this video ever since his 'last lecture'. Watching that lecture was a powerful experience. I'd heard many people talk about how great this lecture is, and even found the ppt files.

Thanks!
Why Tech Blogging is Broken
For Wal-Mart, too, IT is a commodity
Pedantically you're correct, but on what archictecture/compiler is (sizeof int) != (sizeof size_t), and in what circumstances have you seen this become a vulnerability? (I'm not trying to be argumentative here; I'm legitimately curious.)
It's also very unlikely that one person can do enough startups in reasonably similar circumstances to get a decent sample size.

You seem to be attentive in gathering data from YC participants, but there's some bias built in to that, as those that don't fit the mold don't even get accepted. Nothing wrong with that, just that it influences your observations.