skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
For those who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the part I found most interesting (though I didn't get through it all either...):

In this article, we will survey the new algorithm design method called holographic algorithms. This method uses perfect matching as a basic coding technique to encode computations, and then the FKT-algorithm to carry out the final computation. A particularly innovative idea is to choose a set of linear basis vectors to express and interpret a desired computation. In effect the algorithm is designed to manipulate sums of perfect matchings in superpositions, while the speed up is achieved by cancellations among such "holographic mixes". These holographic algorithms are quite unlike anything before, except perhaps quantum algorithms. At the heart of the computation is a process of introducing and then canceling exponentially many computational fragments. But unlike quantum algorithms, these holographic algorithms produce classical polynomial time algorithms. So far this method has produced some exotic algorithms for problems which were not known to be in P previously, and minor variations of which are known to be NP-complete or NP-hard.

The most intriguing question is whether this new theory can lead to any collapse of complexity classes. We contend that our belief of NP != P is based on the sense and experience that the usual algorithmic paradigms are insufficient for NP-hard problems (we don't have strong lower bounds for general models of computation). But does our erstwhile experience apply to these new exotic algorithms? If the answer is no, then it is conceivable that the new methodology may lead to a radically revised conception of P vs. NP. Of course it is quite possible that the theory of holographic algorithms does not in the end lead to any collapse of complexity classes. But even in this eventuality, as Valiant suggested in [54], "any proof of P != NP may need to explain, and not only to imply, the unsolvability" of NP-hard problems using this approach.
Did Aaron really have to lie to us? If he has such a good cause, won't the truth suffice?

Also the reason so many people starve to death isn't really lack of money. It's more political repression keeping money away from them, socialism, barriers to free trade, that kind of thing.
This thread may be of interests:

http://www.startupping.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284
That's weird to hear. I ran XP on 433MHz (Celeron) computers in 2001; it was a little slow, but nothing too scary. My parents still have a 533 running XP at this moment, and as far as I can tell it's just as IO-bound as the laptop I'm typing this on.
Ask YC: Version control hosting site for private projects?
Does anyone know of a good project hosting site? Has anyone used cvsdude, svnrepository etc? Do you have any good/bad experiences with any of the sites?

edit : Should have said something about requirements. I need subversion and something with >1gb storage and reasonable bandwidth. Trac is also required.
Trying to guard against the general menace of "bots" is a failed endeavor from the very beginning; it is not the bots themselves that trouble the other players, but rather their behavior. Thus, I would think the best approach would simply be a Bayesian analysis at the server level of all inputs into the game (at a slightly higher level than just "right, up, up, TAB"). Indeed, the end result of the proceeding arms race would be to create bots so human that other players would be untroubled by them.
Two things leap out at me:

"So far this method has produced some exotic algorithms for ... minor variations of [problems] which are known to be NP-complete or NP-hard."

Well, I guess all they have to show is that those "minor" variations don't take the problems out of NP-complete or NP-hard .... that should be pretty easy, right?

"'any proof of P != NP may need to explain, and not only to imply, the unsolvability' of NP-hard problems using this approach."

Uhm - so, when and if someone gets around to the Turing-award winning business of proving P != NP, that proof may need to specifically address this technique? And that makes the technique important?

At first blush, I think there's a snake around here somewhere that's a quart low. The authors might be on to something, but they look bad in this extract. They might have found something ("exotic algorithms for problems which were not known to be in P previously") interesting, but P == NP seems like overselling it, and that casts doubt on the value of the whole enterprise.
This cannot possibly be true about the "founding conditions" of European countries, for example.
The guy behind svnrepository.com is also behind railsplayground.com. The $5/mo plan at railsplayground gives you a web host AND a free svnrepository account (1GB storage, unlimited repositories, unlimited trac instances, https access, use your own domain..). That might be the best value.
Take this with a grain of salt, because I'll admit I didn't read it very thoroughly. My understanding of holographic algorithms is that they make a primitive out of a matching algorithms that could be executed in constant physical time with holographic storage. While thats great, I think it only fair to include the complexity of the matching in the overall algorithms complexity, because although it happens in constant time this only because of massively parallel interactions in the storage.

Still I think when the author says that P != NP proofs will have to address this I think he's right that that is important. It means that this is at the crux of the issue, either way it goes.
... the achievements of Bill Gates ...

Exactly.
looks like an excellent plan. any experience in terms of reliability?
I think the next step is to pick up which fingers are being pressed and moved. You can keychord to make 1024 letters, number, and commands. And by detecting the curl of the fingers, control a mouse pointer (or two).

I thought of a wrist band that senses the myoelectric impulses in your wrist to do this, but it's been patented. I'm sure there are other ways, though.
Love your mouse?
Venezuelans are becoming increasingly disillusioned with its corrupt inefficiency
Rock solid. I've always had access to my svn repository and it's always speedy using it. I've been using them for about 8 months now.

For svnrepository, the control panel doesn't look that great, though =/. But you really won't use it that often, only once in a while to setup new repositories and trac instances (and users).
Thanks for the info. One note of concern : I dont see their terms of service etc ?
It really just takes harassment? They don't have a minimum level of requests for the same name or something similar?
real clever
I think that's how it works. Once a certain number of people join it becomes a published network or something. Not entirely sure though.
Agreed. There's quite a diversity of solutions ranging from brute-force, through "computer science" optimisations, to clever mathematics. And as someone who had mainly programmed in various versions of Basic before it's been eye-opening to see a range of different languages and their strengths and weaknesses. In particular some of the solutions in J (http://www.jsoftware.com/) struck me as quite remarkable.
That is totally bogus and is a huge part of the problem in today's society. Instead of blaming the true culprit (the king), we expect the innocent to sacrifice themselves. Injustice occurs when sacrifice is demanded, not when truly free trade is in place. By buying that widescreen TV, I'm giving all those people who build that TV a job. Doesn't that help to end world hunger?
>Doesn't that help to end world hunger?

No.
works for me (ff2 on fedora)
We're a software company building an on-demand web application to deliver Business Intelligence Extranets. Most traditional products like Business Objects or Cognos are primarily focused on internal audiences at a company. We're doing something that's built for a company's customers and suppliers.
I've read that the biggest problem in many cases is corruption, and not just at the highest levels.
Think pleasant thoughts about a Facebook network for your company. Beacon will then know of your desires and, if it pleases Beacon, you will be granted a network.
Actually, he wrote about Amazon sucking a lot.

Like here:

"Emacs has the Quality Without a Name ... we have the Quality With a Name -- namely, Suckiness. We suck."
(http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/tour-de-babel)

That's a great story in a good essay, by the way.
My dress code most days is a pair of boxers and a t-shirt and I grow about 10 beards a year.

I bet I am not alone :p

P.S I work from home, I don't think I could let the world suffer me walking around in my boxers in public....
Economist: Books of the year 2007 (For those of you traveling over the holidays)
I can imagine they are, but it probably doesn't have much to do with hacker news, either.
The problem is that Firefox on Mac is a second class citizen, and it uses modal dialog boxes.

As for the Esc thing, I can't recall a case where a Mac native application didn't press "Cancel" when I hit escape. I think there might be problems with ported applications though.
That's a real shame and, sadly, that kind of thing is pretty common. The school's commitment to meeting 100% of need is not very well publicized, unfortunately. Even now, I talk to many really promising high school students who are discouraged from applying to MIT for the very same reasons you were.

The need-blind admission has been going on forever and the commitment to meet 100% of financial need has been going on for a long time, though I can only say with certainty that it's been in play since 1998 (when I first started looking seriously at the MIT admissions materials).

The good news is that a lot of other "elite" schools are doing this now too. If anyone here knows a smart kid with an expensive dream school, definitely advise them to apply now and worry about the money later.
Too bad he didn't say much about Rhino on Rails. If Steve is too busy perhaps someone else from Google who is working on it can write about it?
Ask YC.DC: MashMeet and Drankkit tonight in DC . . . anyone going?
Using PHP Generic Objects To Organize Your Code
Japanese Researchers make robot that can withstand kicks and pushes
The above URL is for the article, but this links to a fascinating video:
http://media.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/dn13004V1.mo...

I guess it won't be long until we'll be chatting to Lt. Commander Data!
Sorry about that, I'm a little new here and realized after I posted it that it probably wasn't exactly on topic.
Forget the Linux Desktop, it's the Linux Laptop that matters
[the story is removed, it will be back here on Monday, Dec. 10, 2007]

The article appears to have evolved away from the website too. I think this is the same one:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/90998.php
"Paypal API is a total piece of crap" -- Michael Arrington
No. If you read the article, he's complaining about names that are merely catchy-- which is exactly what Dr. Seuss words are: interesting sounding, but "meaningless" and "silly."

His claim that names matter for a startup is implicit in choosing to write a whole article about how the names startups currently choose aren't good enough.
Using Satellite Photography to Monitor Abuse in Crisis Zones
Thanks to OpenID and OAuth, the Open Social Web is Beginning to Emerge
Internationalised URLs
Forbes' 20 Under 25: The Top-Earning Young Superstars - How Many Do You Think Have Startups?
How Many Do You Think Have Startups?

None, obviously, because they didn't include capital gains, which is the way startup founders get paid.

"Forbes' 20 Under 25 list of the Top-Earning Young Superstars examined earnings from June 2006 to June 2007. We included salaries, winnings, endorsement deals and royalties."
Did anyone else look at these guys' app they link to (http://litmusapp.com/)? Talk about muck and brass! Definitely worth a look for anyone worried about cross-platform presentation.
Any reason you're using Subversion instead of a distributed system like mercurial or git?
Google Charts meets Pac-Man
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p&chs=400x250&...
Clearly none, how many startup founders are called "superstars" by the pres.
Edgeio To Shut Down - In The DeadPool
Jono
December 7th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Wasn't it ironic that you, Michael, are so well versed in understanding how Web 2.0 startups succeed, but for whatever reason decide that pouring money into a project with no revenue (dot com bust era style) was the way to go?

Shouldn't you know better?

Michael Arrington
December 7th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Jono - that is indeed ironic.
There are many issues with the Paypal API, I don't want to list them all here as embarrassing as they are, for fear of boring the hell out my readers...

What? Are you kidding? Bore me! Bore me! :)

Seriously, when you have the time and the energy (i.e. when you find yourself sufficiently enraged) you should flame away. Some of us might have to work with that API someday, and forewarned is forearmed.

Inspirational example: I've just been reading "On Having Layout" [1], a 5700-word description of a set of arcane Internet Explorer page-layout bugs. On the one hand, I'm forced to admit that this is a stunningly boring document which is guaranteed to reduce you to tears, one way or another. On the other hand, it's an absolute godsend.

[1] http://www.satzansatz.de/cssd/onhavinglayout.html
Primarily because I am used to subversion (the repo is already in subversion on my home machine). Secondly I am not sure whether I will find hosts for mercurial or git?
I love that half the blog comments are suggestions on how to count words/characters in emacs.
Congrats Matt. We received a huge amount of press when Fantasy Congress was first created. You probably already know this, but my advice from the media cycle world is that you should not get distracted. Just keep on focusing on your great product and you'll do great!

PG's comments on press help here: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Rails and Django comparison whitepaper
My understanding of holographic algorithms is that they make a primitive out of a matching algorithms that could be executed in constant physical time with holographic storage.

Actually, from what I understand, that's not the point at all! What is "holographic storage" btw?
Arrington> In general I'll say this - it is unwise for a company to spend a lot of money building out infrastructure before a product proves itself.

This is why EC2/S3 are so great. People can go crazy working on building out super scalable infrastructure ahead of time and the damage is minimized. It's just a waste of time instead of time and money. Since you're wasting so much less money you have more time.
Welcome to theoretical computer science.
A rising tide lifts all yachts
Haha - Hannah Montana made as much as Lindsay Lohan!

You know your career is shot when an actor from Disney that lipsyncs to little kids and calls it a concert is on track to surpass your income.
I am using webfaction with excellent results. You can easily setup a SVN repo and a trac instance. I believe their basic plan starts for $7.50/mo. And if you want, you can install other apps.
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-be-right-90-...
Ooyala Wins Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge
Zuckerberg is on track to be worth more than all of them combined at least a few times over.
Spam's End? Maybe, if Time Allows
Nice catch . . . didn't notice their methodology. You'd think Forbes could do a little better than that.
Startups: Sell your product then get VC to build it
From a Scoble interview: Sell the product before it gets built. One woman has signed buyers up to contracts to purchase a product, and only then gone for VC funding to create the product.
Startup tool gets you out of your car lease for Xmas
Swap a Lease is a cool Web 2.0 tool that puts you in touch with people who are interested in taking over your lease with, did you get that, no penalties. This is definitely the easiest and cheapest way to get free from that old lease and start the new year in a new ride.
Sacrificed everything to save those 10 because:

a) You would hope they would do the same, and if everyone does this, the end result is the best possible outcome

or

b) You are an unselfish person

Also, are you willing to donate all the money you have above what you need to survive to help others?
lol
you asked for it, give me an hour, I will update it.
Gone too.
Just as Microsoft took the crown from IBM in 1981, the open source community has taken it from Microsoft in 2007.
When I worked at MIT my officemate kept a "debugging tie" in the office. The idea was to fool the heisenbugs that disappear when a programmer is watching. With the tie on they would think he was a high-level administrator.
Sign up at Assembla.com. It's free up to 500MB. Assembla also gives you Trac and a whole bunch of project management features.

I'm using Assembla for a .NET project with Tortoise as the client GUI.
Will your blog die? - Life after the 2.0 bubble
I wouldn't exactly call that steganography... you could accomplish the same thing by "hiding" data in any URL...

Interesting idea though.
Rails 2.0 Released
Twill:  Automated site testing tool
Decent attempt at comparing them, but there are some spots they clearly don't know enough about the frameworks to provide a valid rating.

Basically they are saying both are good, which is true.
Selenium:  Automated web app testing toolkit
Information is definitely not free, my friend. In the long run, yes, the value of information is zero. Yesterday's trade secrets are tomorrow's old news. But in the short run it can be extremely valuable.

Think about Seagate's QA numbers, or their profit margins, or Amazon's official opinion on FIFO warehousing, etc. All "secret" and all fairly worthless if they were leaked. But as they stand that data are vital to their businesses.
The easiest way to illustrate that is to note that our 'founding' conditions probably involved an extended mammoth hunt. At what point is a country 'founded' in Chomsky's model? Is he talking about when a dynasty begins, or when it achieves independence, or when it's first settled, or what? If your American example is from Chomsky, it's hilariously un-Chomskian "Since America began -- by which I mean, when Europeans got there..."
Dude, where's Eric Raymond?!
Did you make more than Hannah Montana?
Q: How many theoretical computer scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
I suspect it's more about easing people into MS products in the first place.

Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions eventually, of people being exposed to their first computer and what does it have in it at the moment?
most hosts now have svn support, I use dreamhost.com
Larry Page is getting married
Not sure if this is worthy among the great issues discussed at news.YC, but it made me smile :)
Well for use at a high-volume website you would need something else. There's a limit of 50000 charts per day before it stops working and/or you are banned.
If subversion is already working ok then I guess there's no pressing reason to switch, but if you want to try something new, git (http://git.or.cz/course/svn.html) seems pretty cool so far (been using it for about a week). You can put the repository anywhere you want (e.g. your home directory) so you should be able to run it on any host. The fastest/easiest/recommended way is to just run it locally.
We (RescueTime) do use FusionCharts.... Nice system and a good value. Though each of the SWF files is 40-70k in size, which doesn't thrill me. I've yet to find a charting solution that does. :-(
Since Facebook's valuation is now a nice round $15 billion, Zuckerberg's 20% stake is worth $3 billion.

Of course, it's not like he will be converting that to cold hard cash anytime soon, but everyone on that list would have to be worth at least $120m to equal that. I'm sure the Olsen Twins are, but the Harry Potter stars definitely aren't.

Then again, this was about income, not net worth or capital gains. Pretty sure Warren Buffet wouldn't make this list (since he doesn't pay himself much) even if he was young enough.
A: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~tjr22/whiteboard-2007-07-18.jpg
Its already 2.01 !!!
> Since Facebook's valuation is now a nice round $15 billion

After Beacon fiasco, do you still think that? That $15B is based on a relatively small MS investment (which is basically a pre-payment for their advertising deal) and FB is still not making any real money. For them to have a $15B valuation, they should have at least $1B in revenues (to justify 15x valuation) as a private company. Based on their financing strategy, they don't make anywhere close to that.
A 2.0 release seems like a big deal; is there a rails practitioner around who could describe the magnitude of these changes to those of us who don't use rails?
I like that picture of Dijkstra, but the one on lemonodor is better:

http://lemonodor.com/archives/2007/10/youre_doing_it_wrong.h...

Zach Beane is awesome.

PS: And where is Linus? I guess he doesn't dress stereotypically enough.
I'm a macbook user when I'm on a laptop, but if I were planning to work all day on a laptop, I would also recommend a Thinkpad, hands down. They are amazing machines, and rock solid as well.
Well, the VERY FIRST point he lists in his criteria is that he's not concerned about cost as much as he is a quality machine.
Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain
To tell you the truth..isn't it unfair? some kidz are already expose to an musical background so they turn out to be awesome and great when they become older..like some musical legends..they started at 10 then being taught by guitar teachers..so, they became guitar legends..how about us? people who are passionate learning the guitar. who are in love with music and play it like an art...we practice almost 7 hours a day. we are good because we are PERSEVERE...we are not guitar genius or born to play guitar...we are just passionate to play it...So, a passionate guitarist can beat a guitar genius..so play with passion and love for music!! "MUSIC IS FROM THE HEART, DON"T JUST PLAY IT.....LOVE IT!!" (:
> The biggest push will probably come from the top, as insightful leaders see the need for independent thinking and creativity -- the opposite of rote memorization.

Many leaders have talked about that, but how many have actually done so? (Is it even possible to "push" for that or is the required action fundamentally different?) Why will China be any different? ("Because they must" isn't enough - lots of orgs have died rather than make changes required for their survival.)
Facebook is still cheap at 15B. Here's the catch: that doesn't mean someone should buy it at 15B. The acquirer will likely end up disrupting the path facebook's on right now.

Just imagine if yahoo bought google back in the day - I doubt google would be what it is today.
I've been developing off of the preview releases for a few weeks, and there's nothing earth shattering. Generally, it just makes things nicer.

I don't do a lot of AJAXy stuff, and I don't talk very frequently to clients that aren't standard browswers. If I did, I think I would have a lot more to gain from this release.
This phrase has about as much caloric content as a tic-tac:

"on-demand web application to deliver Business Intelligence Extranets"

What's the problem that you guys are solving? How are you solving it? (And don't just tell me, put it on your website)
The thing about it is that I rather build a $5M startup than having someone else sign my check. Plus I would hate to entertain people for a living.