skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
OK, so I thought this picture was great. But Paul Graham has expressed a desire that we keep the "(pic) virus" off of this site which I think is pretty much a blanket ban... even the Y Combinator tattoo picture came wrapped up in a short article.

Sorry.

By the way, do you know where I can get a copy of The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949? $30 is more than I ever pay for recorded music.
1) I hate to say it but often lower castes have dark skin and african features. You will also find most of the brightest students in a University are brahmins - the highest caste - just ask your friends their caste and correlate with their intelligence. The caste system is racist. You cannot change your caste. Period. You were born with it. It is interesting but sad. Forced hereditary occupations lead to differences in appearance and even IQ across thousands of years. Low castes clean toilets - high castes are priests in temples (translation: the intellectual leaders today).

2) The caste system is very prevalent. It also leads to corruption similarly as Rick Warren found tribalism was the cause of corruption in Africa.

3) How many white-black mixed marriages do you see in America? Not many. Most kids up for adoption are biracial black-white. The prejudices remain over here in the USA - at least in relationships. Read the chapter on preferences in interracial dating in the book Freakonomics.
This page explains many of netflix's limitations well: http://harry.hchen1.com/2006/10/03/391. But more importantly, look at these limitations in light of how the discovery engine is organizing its preference data and how it's collecting preference data.

The critical difference with the discovery engine is the idea of a group of content that users fill themselves with content based on criteria they see as relevant. Yes, a users aggregate preference composition is important, but what is more important is their set of preferences regarding a specific collection of content. This way, a user can be really into classical music, horror movies, and modern furniture, and get relevant recommendations for each interest, connecting with people who are most in the know regarding each interest.
I'm not sure what you're asking here-- Netflix doesn't care about anything but movies, and it probably wouldn't be able to recommend movies any better if it knew your musical tastes, or even how your tastes compare to mine.

The idea is that if you search for "sony SSK70ED," on the "discovery engine," it will show you what other people have paired with those speakers, such as receivers, furniture, and televisions. In a way those things are "similar" to the speakers because they complement them. Of course, the system shows you similar speakers first, but the complementing items are interesting results to have when you're searching for a specific item.
This is because the higher castes are wealthier! Wow.

With what I know about the Indian education system, it is impossible to make it into the best schools without a great deal of personal wealth.
Ok, Knuths(Gods) books are like the Feynman volumes in fame. But I have never fully read any of them while I did read Feynman Vol I completely.I feel knuths volumes didn't impact my life as much as Paul Grahams writings on lisp. I am not asskissing. It's a plain fact.

Sometimes I wonder if God is not being modest and just being plain with this "He once told me that his very talent is detail and he didn't consider himself all that brilliant otherwise. He's made it clear that he considers himself less of an innovator than a cataloguer."

I am a math major and I have seen some nasty stuff in my life. Might it be true that people are in awe because no one really understood the terse pages. Another Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge?

But I am not willing to disregard GOD just yet. If any of you think I am mistaken, could you please leave a comment as to the highlights of Knuths career that one should be aware of. The one thing that I am aware and use frequently is the KMP algorithm.(Which has a K for Knuth in it)
Yeah... if they want to do this on the East coast, why not just come to Cambridge where they have a head start?
"it is impossible to make it into the best schools without a great deal of personal wealth"

you are mistaken. The best Universities are almost free - subsidized by the government. (However in high schools, those that are English speaking Western schools do require wealth). Only brains counts. The IIT Math entrance exam is said to be the toughest in the world (google for past qs papers).
Sometimes you are truly better off starting from scratch
Instructables -- step-by-step instructions for everything
This is interesting. What stops people from just lying about their caste? or is it something that's actually recorded right on their birth certificate?

Also, I wonder what it is that makes black-white marriages taboo, while asian-white marriages are almost becoming the norm in some places.
PG: as an investor, how do you feel about this?
"... I'm putting together a Y combinator funding proposal based on this basic idea and am looking for feedback ..."

demonstrate the idea by showing ... build an app... Show me the demo
hmm, good point.
Knuth's "Algorithm X" (also known by the name of its implementation strategy, "Dancing Links") is also a useful result due to him. And I'm sure Knuth is both brilliant and extremely detail oriented.

I personally find "Introduction to Algorithms" by CLRS to be way, way more useful and readable than TAOCP.
sounds like it can be taken care of by mahalo. machine learning < human sorting. i'm also not seeing a business model.

or... i might have said that because i want to discourage you from using this great idea and save it for myself... hmm...
Yes, but you can't get into the universities without a good education before that. I work with many people from India from all age ranges, from 22 to their 50s who are all MDs or PhDs, and they all tell me that before a child is even born they have to begin bribing school officials to get them into one of the better schools. This continues every time the child/student goes to a different school until the university level. Without going to a good primary and secondary school, there is no chance of getting into a good university. Even at the university level there is a lot of bribing that takes place.

When you have a society where bribing is the norm (nothing is possible without a bribe basically, and even then its not guaranteed), the people with wealth are obviously going to be the ones to benefit most and stay on top. No matter how intelligent, if you don't have the money for the bribes, you can't get anywhere.
That was my thought too so I have a demo under development. Unfortunately, it won't be ready by Oct.11, and of course, it's all about the right team anyway which is what I'm really interested in. The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea so we can build a team and, as you said, "demonstrate the idea by showing...build an app".
OpenOffice calc gets it right too.
"... The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea ..."

Now I see. Even a mocked up static demo is better than nothing. The Oct 11 date is plenty of time. Now I get what "your going to have to work real hard" comment means especially when you come up against fixed dates.
Mahalo is trying to reinvent search by letting people chose the results, and that's not going to work. Using Google, I can manipulate the "machine" to give me precise results.

This idea is about finding new things based on things you already know. It's not possible to manipulate the Google "machine" to discover things that are similar to what you know you like.
the people you met were simply making excuses and misleading you. (there is always scope for corruption in school admissions everywhere).

It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.
Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like.

http://quarkfactor.com/topiat_example.png
Thanks gman. What browser were you viewing.
When I first let the text out to a few people the first question was always, "So is this an actual print magazine?" That is why print is capitalized.
SICP: The Closure in the Grass
Yep, it is opt in for publishers and we pay them every time someone grabs an article and puts it in the magazine.
The Mythical Business Layer - Worse Than Failure
many Asian/Indian men find white women more attractive - that is why models in these countries tend to look caucasian. It works the other way, too. My wife said that she observed in Africa, that white women only married Africans if they were highly educated, handsome and wealthy.

"what it is that makes black-white marriages taboo"

Black Americans are a lower caste - Unfortunately. How many wealthy intellectual white-black marriages do you see? Few. But now Hispanics are the new ------ in America today. (a certain word that I wont use)
utter crap. Go back at the drawing board. Make something more tangible, enough with the pies on the sky.

These are concrete ideas:

Facebook, just like your silly school book, but online, and you can add friends

Google - search engine

Yelp - reviews of restaurants and businesses

las.fm - music recommandations from your friends

pandora - discover music according to your tastes

reddit/digg/news.yc -- recommending news and stories

Yours is not a tangible idea. Narrow it down to one sentence the main idea, and just one paragrapsh on how it will work, and then you have something more tangible.
This is what we are building the site for. Who decides the best posts? To start off, we are giving you the power to do that.

Once this becomes an option (receiving blog posts in print) it changes the way you surf. A 3 page article that looks cool, shelv it and go back to work. Guy Kawasaki interview that you want to read late, shelv it and go back to work. PG essay that you know you want to read again - shelv it.

The Internet become about finding great articles, and only reading the short ones.
What is it about his style that you dislike? For example, is it the colloquialisms, the pace at which the story moves, or is it something more structural?
TeX is Knuth's invention. It changed mathematical type-setting forever.
No particular reason -- I just read it several days ago, enjoyed it, and was hoping others might have suggestions as to further reading. Thanks for the link to Stross, I'll check it out.
Dude, just want to say you have a great sense of design.

Are you applying for YC this round?
21 Reasons Programming is Better than Dating (for guys)
Reasons to not feel badly about giving up your social life for code.
Thanks. And yes.

Send me an AIM IM: quarkfactor
I think you've been modded down as noting the differences between races is seen to be discriminating against them in the US.

There could be a number of factors that determine the difference between university entrance scores for different racial groups. While those places are free, lower caste groups may be too worried about feeding themselves, or trying to protect themselves in rough environments, to worry about studying. They could also be, in general, less genetically gifted.

Though unpopular, it is no more racist to state the second options than it is to analyse the difference between African and European performance in athletic sports. People once though that a more athletic society was responsible for the generally better performance of Africans. these days most sports physiologists will acknowledge that African people have a genetically higher percentage of 'fast twitch' muscles.

Just because something is unpalatable does not mean it shouldn't be discussed.
I don't think you described those sites very well.

Facebook: Digitize your real relationships

Google: Find websites based on keywords

Yelp: Find restaurants, share experiences about restaurants

Last.fm: Discover new music based on popularity

Pandora: Discover new music based on constituent pieces

reddig/Digg: Discover news based on popularity

This idea: Discover new things based on constituent pieces, popularity, and relationships.

Seems like a natural progression to me, even if it seems complicated in the description.
Personal unit tests
bargain? he got it for a steal. Even sumner redstone (notoriously suspicious of the web "hmm what is that nuisiance stealing from my billions??") said it was worth 1.5B -- conversations with Michael Eisner.
Knowing when to build and when to buy is a biggie.

Especially in web development, you can get these huge honking Javascript libraries that do maybe 1 thing you need. Just build it already.

On the other hand, once you start writing a _system_ to do something, like tag clouds or rounded corners or something like that, use some common sense and at least take a look at what's out there. Sometimes you can pick up some lightweight stuff that can save you a bunch of time.

What's the saying? Good authors borrow from others. Great authors steal.
Is Facebook Doing Enough about Pervs?
Video Professor upset by criticism, sues 100 anonymous critics
This isn't a huge company acquiring, but we sold our first start up and are working on our second these stories might help.

Part 1: Why sell a profitable site:
http://blog.pretheory.com/arch/2007/08/why_sell_a_profitable...

Part 2: Closing the deal Lessons selling a website:
http://blog.pretheory.com/arch/2007/08/closing_the_deal_sell...

Hope it helps, are you currently in negotiations? Verbal Agreement? Handshakes?
NO need for startup when I can use my powers for greater evil ;)
"African people have a genetically higher percentage of 'fast twitch' muscles"

wow. did not know that.
LINA - run Linux binaries on any OS (like WINE but for Linux apps)
What do you do that you can charge $100-125/hr??
But it's pretty much impossible. I went to a very good public school in a wealthy suburb and the valedictorian didn't get into Duke, let alone Harvard/Yale/Princeton/MIT/Stanford.
Demonoid Down, For Now
"... Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like ..."

Better. Now make some more that demonstrate your key points and that will also help you start building. Wish you'd put this up first as it starts to put flesh to words (idea description).
How to Sell an Idea
In china and in japan, I don't think it's related to the wealth of white foreigners but more to the fact that peasant who work all day in the field will be more tanned...

Hence, not being tanned was the same as being fat. It showed that one had wealth and didn't need to work hard to get it.

Another possible explanation (at least in japan) is a question of geography. The center of power in japan has usually been around Tokyo or Kyoto and people there tend to be more lightly skinned as people from the south.
we still have isohunt, at least.

Now if they ever shut down my oink, I don't know what I'll do...
That is the spiffiest design I have seen on the net in a while. It's almost too much but not quite.
19" Monitor: Dell's SE198WFP or LG's L194WT
anybody have experienced comparing the two?
i am thinking what to get.

LG has 2000:1 contrast ratio, Dell monitor quality seems to last longer.
It's sad to say, but I have to agree. That the homepage market looks quite crowded.

After seeing the eZ Website Creator, I was quite impressed and that seems a lot better than the Homepage theory.
What was the problem with that?

You mentioned that you wanted to eventually become acquired by a Search-engine startup, I really don't see that happening with the Homepage method.

All the best .. Mark/Alex

would love an invite : redrory ( at) gmail (dot) com :)
Race for Facebook app: Stanford students create Graffiti application for online social network
Why would they make excuses and mislead me in a way that makes their country look bad? We were simply talking one day comparing the educational systems of India and the United States, and they said they favored the system here and thought it worked much better, despite receiving degrees from prestigious Indian universities such as AIIMS.

Your small town analogy doesn't work. A better analogy is if you went to a poor inner city public school, then you can't get into Harvard. This is basically true, since you don't receive a good enough education to get the scores to get in. Also, if your family is poor, especially in India, you have to work to support your family and self rather than focus on your school work, which leads to lower grades and test scores.
Another Fun House Language Called Context-Free
Not just a feature--it's my favorite feature! I charge clients $850 per day and make sure each contract lasts 77.1 days. Then I have them compute the total in Excel themselves(so they can be sure the amount is correct) and write me a check for $100,000. It's a feature!!
Funny you noticed that. There is one, but it's unpublished.
I give copies to individual YC startups when the time comes.
I agree with this. I went to a private school because my family could afford it, and as valedictorian I got into every school I applied to and received full scholarships to most. The valedictorian of the public school didn't get any scholarships, not even to the local community college. Anyone who could afford to send their kids to private school did.

It's just a fact that people with more wealth have better socioeconomic opportunity than people with less wealth, not that they're more intelligent. This means better schools and better education.
That's called an expected value calculation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

I'm only pointing it out because I also want to note that it's a great way to determine if the contestants on Deal or No Deal are being boneheads.... ;-)
Your comment that forced hereditary occupations lead to differences in IQ. I fail to see the selecting force that would drive a lower IQ. If there are generations of manual labor as an occupation, that would be a selection force in favor of being stronger and bigger, but would not select AGAINST intelligence.

Other than that, there are clear differences in race genetically. Caste, in the Indian sense, is much harder to argue and would have to say the differences are minimal since it is more recent on an evolutionary timescale. Exceptions are when there was forced selection, such as with the slave trade which lead to the descendants of slaves being larger and stronger than those still in Africa. If there is a physical difference in appearance, then there is a high probability of other genetic differences. A perfect example is the distribution of immunity to HIV. It's really only in Europe, specifically Northern and Eastern Europe. Different geographic areas have had different selecting forces over thousands of years, so the populations are different.
Office 3.1415926535...
I don't know what he does, but if he's in the tech industry, it's probably consulting.
Arithmetic is Hard--To Get Right: Wolfram Research on Excel bug
i'm also not seeing a business model.

Could say the same about Mahalo?
In Adobe Reader, Go to File -> Properties and click on the "Fonts" tab. It should be one of those. Looks like a bunch of CMsomethingsomethings.

The best programming font I've found is Andale Mono, which is part of the "Core Fonts for the Web" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web which is available for free. It's a conservative font in that it takes up less visual realestate than Courier, but I think because of that it's lighter and easier on the eyes.
Come on, throw me a bone :)
He's convinced me. I'm going to use Mathematica for all my spreadsheets now.
Clive's state of mind is perhaps the most tortured existence I can imagine.
Thats kind of like buying a Bugatti Veyron to go pick up groceries.

But if you can afford it, more power to you. Mathematica is like $2k IIRC.
Like Amazon's DRM-free Music Downloads?  Thank Apple.
It's also available for free on your favorite bittorrent tracker or eMule. I'd use a Bugatti Veyron to get my groceries if I could acquire one for free without causing any economic loss to anyone. Hell, I'd use a new one every single day.
Former chief economist of FCC: "Walled gardens promote innovation"
I like the notion of "never worry about someone stealing your 'original' idea. If it is truly 'original' you will have to ram it down their throat."

Sharing a vision can be hard and daunting work. Sometimes I've had people knock down my ideas, when in fact the knockbacks come from positions of arrogance. Good ideas and the people who express them can be threatening to insecure managers.
Firefox 2.0.0.6

If you need any help with CSS just ask =)
MIT Prank: John P. Harvard goes Halo
Laughable arguments. What's his next gig? Board of some giant telco?!
My thoughts exactly. And this opinionated statement comes right as the telcos mount a legal battle against the FCC over the open access rules.

Who's pockets do you think he is in right now?
Of course. I only mentioned IRC because there are some similarities that seem to indicate your idea could work.

>only get recommended that content which has empirically shown is wanted by people that think like them

Seems like an OK idea, but I think the site might suffer if this is taken too far and the groups just become echo chambers, walled off from each other entirely. I just think a site could be more popular if it focused on finding common links in disparate groups instead of isolating them based on common differences. Think of it like radio: in my music directory, my biggest artists are The Crystal Method (41 songs), NIN (112 songs), and Sarah McLachlan (85 songs). No single radio station, AM, FM, or XM, that I am aware of covers a range like that. Wouldn't it be cool to find a place that let you keep close to your core group, but at the same time gave you tips on what other groups thought was cool, just in case you agreed?
I see more and more sneering references to reddit here lately. I wonder if this will turn into a cliche some day.
Hey Alex, If I'm understanding you correctly, the answer is that we aren't printing web pages - blogs. We are taking the text, reformatting and putting the content into a magazine layout. We're not simply clicking print and binding.
and it was the only really interesting takeaway from the book
Damn it. They stole the idea right out of my skull and implemented it.
You Can Learn a Great Deal from a 17-Year-Old
Todays Takeover Rumor Bought to You By Google And Sirius
Expect Failure From Hulu: NBCU Chief
Blue Eyes - A Logic Puzzle (spoiler in the comments)
Normally I don't cross-post, but this was too interesting. Solution is here: http://xkcd.com/solution.html
Not so sure about deodorant. Maybe it was once, but damn, I hope people don't use that as an excuse not to use it (and claim that their smell is natural or that they can't smell it).