skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Interested in any comments about this article -- I thought about submitting it to a client who is really gung-ho on XP and Agile, but I'm not sure if I'm making any sense or if it would tick them off. Feedback appreciated.
Digg Might Be Acquiring Meneame and CoRank
I think you just found a new idea for a startup... you are guaranteed a Series A round with that kind of thinking!

Seriously, you should contact my agent in Kenya for your $4,000,000 check. For a small fee of $10,000 you can have his phone number.

</tongue_in_cheek>
Perhaps it's a British thing but I wouldn't have paid the thief either. It seems like doing such would perpetuate this activity. It's far more moralistic than pragmatic, but I guess he and I value those more than monetary benefits.

I would only pay him if I was sure I could successfully bring criminal proceedings against him - otherwise I would have done what this man did: refused to perpetuate this criminal activity and wrote about my experiences to warn others and therefore ultimately damage this kind of activity through awareness.
This kind of thing persists for the same reason as spam, because, sometimes, it works. They will only stop when "everyone" stops enabling.
Memories of 20 Years of Perl
Economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions.
How To Deliver The Right Message At The Right Time
RSS feed that sorts by age, not popularity. The current RSS feed is all sorts of chatty, showing me a ton of repeats. Its annoyance factor is about to eclipse its usefulness for me.

If what I'm looking for already exists, I can't find it.
It's amazing the number of people who don't get this. Not every change order has to have a cost, but every change in scope should go through the process. It should be just painful enough that your clients don't request random changes, but easy enough that they use it. Changes in scope in and of themselves aren't bad as long as the other legs of the triangle change as well.
This is not wealth per se...just a fancy way of tricking rich people into giving away their money. How much better will my life get if I get 5000$ of heated water or gasoline, versus 5000$ of "C"hampagne?

I wish the best of luck to these winemakers. But let's keep down our illusions that they will make the world a $9 billion better place to live. Hell, they even intend to make the same wine, except with a capital C on the label. How much of an improvement is that?
Not bad - assuming you're a rails dev.
Quote a part of a web page as an image with an image map.
Indeed, except they picked the wrong nine and missed the correct five.
Archive of the Web's best Open Source software
Thanks for all the interest in MileMeter! To address some of the comments:

1. Pchristensen -- While MileMeter can't solve the uninsured motorist (UM) problem single-handedly, we can put a dent in it. Many uninsured motorists are uninsured due to insurance affordability. Some low-income drivers must choose between purchasing groceries and legal compliance (see papers at http://centspermilenow.org). In my opinion, legal enforcement of UM laws is capricious unless an affordable compliance solution exists. Simply by pricing by the mile, MileMeter insurance should lessen the affordability problem and beneficially impact UM driving.

2. Anamax -- The correlation between vehicle miles traveled and accidents is roughly linear when all else is held equal (age, location, vehicle, etc). For every mile you drive you have roughly the same probability of becoming involved in an accident.

3. Spolsky (Joel?) -- Despite what insurers request as part of the underwriting process, no auto insurance product currently in existence uses your mileage as a principal rating or pricing factor. Trust me on this one :) Part of the problem with existing insurance companies is their lack of rating and pricing transparency: obfuscation favors the insurer, not the consumer. By pricing by the mile MileMeter hopes to address several industry flaws at once, and provide an intuitive product to consumers.

4. MileMeter does not use tracking devices.

5. ZipCar (now merged with FlexCar) is an excellent service. We hope to work with them one day.

-Chris (of MileMeter)
Actually, I have to apologize... I have been using 90% of the internets. I left on my internets switch when I left the house last year. Sorry everyone.
So you agree that from assembly to C to python there is no lowering in difficulty? Whoever uses python today is using, indirectly, both C and assembly, a la scientist: working on the shoulder of past giants. And that's just an example, there are hundreds.

What the article comes to say is that whatever is giving you a job today has a huge chance of becomming a commodity tomorrow. Ready for use at the hands of anyone.

Great craftmen and demand for them won't ever disappear; what vanishes -with easier programming tech, with easier image acquisition means, etc- is the crowd of low quality "professionals" that used to charge you a lot for what now is trivial.
Aspiring Social Networks: Stop Designing Out The Fun
What Happens When Someone Steals Your Content and Botches It Bad
RubyConf 2007 videos are posted
Well, then. If you say that it won't impact the global growth rate, then I guess I won't worry!

This type of comment (along with the old "9 out of 5 recessions" saw that's being thrown-around, below) is nothing but blind optimism. This article isn't idly discussing economists' new year's predictions -- it is citing some highly disturbing economic metrics.

This problem has nothing to do with production or technology. We're on the tail-end of a debt-fueled asset bubble. If those borrowed assets continue to deflate, millions of people will eventually go bankrupt, and bankrupt people don't spend money on non-essential goods. Manufacturing supply isn't the problem; gains in production efficiency won't help.

Moreover, if you've been following US consumer trends at even a casual level, you know that a huge percentage of our spending has been financed by foreign debt. This article is suggesting that the funding for this debt-spending is about to go away. Again, "increases in production and technology" don't help you at all, when the problem is that people can't buy things.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. But I do know that it's short-sighted to argue that the economy will be fine, just because "it's always been fine before." That's basically what you're doing.
First and foremost, I think "newLISP" is an horrible name. What will they do when "newLISP" is 10 years old? Or maybe they don't expect it to survive that long?...
Ask YC: What's the problem with eval()?
I have a scenario where I want to do some logic in the browser, but I don't know what that logic is until run time. As I see it, I have 2 choices: 1. Preload the page with some javascript logic to process pseudo-code sent down as data, or 2. Just send javascript down as data and eval() it. I really don't want to preload my page with a pseudo-code processor, but I understand there is a downside with "eval()". I always thought that this is exactly what eval() was for. Anyone have any success/horror stories with using eval() in the browser?
Well said. That's why it's important to work on things you care about; even in downturns, you'll still be motivated to create.
Ketchup Week: Put off all of your other work and finally make your web app
[Diplomatic Hat On] I would personally stick with a Scheme or with one of the better CLs (SBCL, etc.) over newLISP.

NewLISP is interesting for the space it occupies and it can be fun, but it also has some really wonky ideas that I think are mistakes and that will make it more difficult for you to grok other Lisps in the future. It is not a horrible language, but I think a person's time would be much better spent learning another Lisp. I would suggest that you Google comp.lang.lisp for newLISP. That should provide you with plenty of 'criticism' to digest. Several other people have asked the exact same question before on comp.lang.lisp.

Then, go to: http://gigamonkeys.com/lispbox/ once you've moved on ;-)
IFPI wants ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, filter P2P traffic
Er, catsup?

Timely post, because that's what I'm doing today. Or I was doing it, until I started procrastinating here.

I should really go now.
and innovator's solution
I'm pretty sure Amazon would not let you add items to someone else's wishlist. This would mean that anyone could send arbitrary items to anyone else. While I'm sure you have good intentions, other people could use this to send inappropriate items ("Honey, did you order this Foxy Boxing DVD?") or do mail harrassment. You can receive unsolicited gifts using the Wishlist, but at least it's a pre-approved item.

As far as I can tell what you're trying to do, you'll either need to get the person to add the item themself or get their address some other way.
Nice tool!

Imagemaps are underutilized- I had posted one way that I had considered using them, but your idea on how to use them could be a lot more useful.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77853

The performance seems a bit sporadic- Sometimes it'll work well, but othertimes I get a black page without the URL.

Can you elaborate a bit on the way this works on the backend? It looks like it's using a Gecko backend- Are you rendering to the screen and then dumping, or are you using a custom back-end, just as the java-gecko port, and pulling directly from there?
I've never been able to handle the RSS feed. The best things I've found is http://hystry.com/newsyc/follow/
That is precisely what eval() is for. The downsides have to do with dumb/slow/insecure implementations and environments. You really do have to be careful, but only because you are running in a hostile environment.

0) eval() is slow. Why? Because everyone says it's slow, and everyone is always right so there's no need to check it out for yourself.

1) Read up on JSON: http://www.json.org They go over a lot of the issues involved.
Thanks for the advice.

Actually I'm already studying Common Lisp (from the Practical common Lisp book), and, well, I really liked its concepts. And surely, it can be used for practical purposes. It's a different and old language, I believe it's worthy to be studied.
Heh, actually it already reached that point, more than 10 years old I think.

From http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2007/04/19/interview-with-lutz-...

"Lutz: newLISP started on SunBSD in the early 90's, then moved to Windows 3.0/1 as a 16-bit application, then to Windows 95/98 as a 32-bit program. During all that time newLISP was more like a hobby for me. Around 1999/2000 I made it Open-Source under the GPL license on Linux."
http://kwout.com/quote/cfs2ukni

It does seem to take the picture very quickly, and I can't seem to find a way to alter the delay.
For instance- http://kwout.com/quote/8bmv7gyj

Additional requests of the same page seem quick, so I suspect it's doing some internal caching.

http://kwout.com/quote/ujifehrw

Java does not seem to work-
http://kwout.com/quote/sr4x5az8

Passing it a PDF remains in the loading sceen for a long time, then gives a timeout error.

It appears to have Flash working, but not shockwave

http://kwout.com/quote/72rwdc36

I was able to confirm the caching- I hit this page several times, but have the same version.

http://kwout.com/quote/a4v7gyjb

I like it ;)
Any kind of "methodology" is aimed at improving the predictability of results expected from a group of average coders. Thus it's no surprise that "large client" appears in the first paragraph of his blog post.

In reality, software engineering is more like an art, and each project calls for a somewhat unique approach, unique style. There is a lot to be said about general sense of style and beauty when it comes to programming. Imagine Leonardo "going Agile" on Mona Lisa in order to speed up the process.

Of course there are always armies of copycat CRUD projects that have nothing unique about them. It only proves my point of average quality of "agile programmers" because good engineers aren't interested in CRUD work. Ruby-on-Rails is an awesome example of this: one good programmer did all necessary thinking for you.

It is perfectly possible to deliver a "typical Rails" site without even caring for learning Ruby. A good methodology done right allows code monkeys with surprisingly low skill level to be productive (which is, of course, not a bad thing). Rails is agile-carved-in-stone approach that forces you to stay on track and punishes from levitating from it, I guess this is where word "rails" comes from.

This drives many MBAs nuts: none of those dog-training managerial books filled with pompous common sense seem to work when applied to software: good programmers simply don't respond to "positive reinforcement" and average programmers produce average results no matter what. All those "methodologies" allow managers to get average results reliably regardless of quality of talent at their disposal.
Startup Idea: Fight Evil
It doesn't work well when the target website uses Flash - Google Finance for instance. However I found it interesting and voted +1.
"So you agree that from assembly to C to python there is no lowering in difficulty?"

I can't quite parse that. But it's meaningless to claim that Python is "less difficult" than C. Sure, it's a lot easier to write a dynamic web page in Python than in C, just as it's easier to write a letter with a pen than with a needle. But what if you're building a real-time operating system? A high-performance Java compiler? A video card device driver?

To the extent that you can compare the difficulty of two languages as opposed to two tasks, I tend to agree with Spolsky: in general, it's more difficult to learn Python than to learn C or assembly:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...

"The law of leaky abstractions means that whenever somebody comes up with a wizzy new code-generation tool that is supposed to make us all ever-so-efficient, you hear a lot of people saying "learn how to do it manually first, then use the wizzy tool to save time." Code generation tools which pretend to abstract out something, like all abstractions, leak, and the only way to deal with the leaks competently is to learn about how the abstractions work and what they are abstracting. So the abstractions save us time working, but they don't save us time learning.

"And all this means that paradoxically, even as we have higher and higher level programming tools with better and better abstractions, becoming a proficient programmer is getting harder and harder."

Python may collect your garbage for you, but you're still going to have to learn what garbage collection is, and what its performance implications are. I think Rails is great, but I really wonder whether I'd have understood and appreciated Rails if I had never seen vanilla CGI, or designed a data model in raw SQL.
Thanks tx. I guess there is a cost-reward factor at work. I know RoR and the various automated DAL guys are really happy with working inside a narrow, but fully fleshed-out paradigm.
Thanks for the response guys!

I followed carpal's suggestion and all modifications to my deployment are done in my own deploy.rb script. I guess I have no choice but to deal w/ the numerous password requests.

My only question now is what 'user:group' should I assign to my app? My app is a website that I want publicly accessible so my first inclination is to set the app directory as 'root:root'. However, if I do this, then the deployment script must be run under the root user. Is this a good idea? I was under the impression that deployment should be handled by a separate user other than root.

For example,
I want my app to be deployed to the following directory:

/var/www/app

Then, I would set the document_root in my appache setting to:

/var/www/app/current/

It is my understanding that if I want to be completely secure, than that whole directory should be set to the 'root:root' user:group ownership property.

Jd, I look forward to your write up!

Thanks!
Can we please, for the love of face, have a way to vote articles irrelevant?
Here's the problem:

Truth will always win out, but it won't always win out quickly. At some point, you need to cover your short positions and your put options will expire, and if truth hasn't won out yet, you can land yourself in a world of financial hurt.

Note that this is just the more problem w/ shorting and put options and why these instruments are typically only used by people w/ access to large amounts of capital - they can afford to wait it out.
You have to have a strategy for reading it. Mine:

1) Editorials

2,3) US news, European news

4) Business

5) Obit

6) Science&Tech

7) Finance

8) Americas news

9) Asia news.

...) Special inserts, other various bits and pieces.

Last) Britain news.

Or something like that!
don't be eval()!

http://24ways.org/2005/dont-be-eval
Regarding put options on SCO - it's not as simple as this. If you get the timing wrong you'll get hit with margin call. Certainly, SCO's stock did go up at periods during the IBM case. Selling short has what Satyajit Das would call "the bad kind of leverage" (the kind where you're exposed to potentially infinite losses).

> Watch out for options expiry though.

Also worth considering - I'm not sure what happens if you pick a failure so well that they de-list before your delivery date.

> Microsoft, anyone?

I read someone give a good example somewhere where Microsoft showed how dangerous it was to play short. In the 80s you might have looked at them and how poor their technology was and bet against them - 'Unix will come to the desktop and wipe them out!'. Then.. 'OS/2 will kick their ass!'. Then.. 'Digital Research now has a better DOS!' Suddenly you're having to sell your house to meet margin call, and fifteen years later their stock is still work a fortune.

> Consult your accountants and financial experts before
> proceeding with this idea.

And only ones who don't have anything to gain from your decision one way or another.

For me the key questions is "Am I a trader?" Since I'm not, I recognise that I'm better off playing it safe with the market and putting my energy into fields where I have a hope of understand the play properly and being competitive.

If you're even vaguely interested in derivative investments I strongly recommend reading _Traders, Guns and Money_ (by Das). It's a good sequence of pirate stories. He also picked sub-prime well before it happened.
1989 predictions that won't come true in 2008, either
Empirica Capital does (or did) something similar. Their strategy is based on the belief that securities are overvalued because investors underestimate the effects of rare catastrophes. So Empirica slowly bleeds away their investment capital by buying way-out-of-the-money put options and then waits for a catastrophe.
It works fine in Opera, but it still makes the whole window scroll on the newest nightly build of Firefox 3 like before the patch was applied.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2007122605 Minefield/3.0b3pre
From "Money, Money, Money" by Philip Greenspun (http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/money):

It is 1986. You buy yourself an IBM PC. You are using MS/DOS and say "This sucks. It isn't even as good as operating systems from 1960." You're a computer expert so you know that the technology is pathetic. You do some business research and find that out that the company making this MS/DOS product didn't even have the in-house expertise to build it itself. They bought it from another company!" You call your broker and find out that this "Microsoft" company is publicly traded and selling for a very lofty price/earnings ratio. You smell blood and say "I want to short 100 shares of Microsoft."

Your broker is holding many shares of Microsoft in "street name" for other customers. So he can very easily find 100 shares of Microsoft to lend you. He lends you these 100 shares, and you sell them immediately. Suppose that the price/share is $10. You get $1000 that you can put into the bank. However, you owe your broker 100 shares of Microsoft Corporation. No problem, you figure. In another year, this company will be near bankruptcy and selling for $0.25/share. You'll buy 100 shares to cover the short for $25, thus making a profit of $975 less commissions.

Well, in another year, Microsoft is not selling for $0.25/share. In fact, it has gone up to $30/share. You still owe the broker 100 shares, but those 100 shares would cost $3000 to buy. You have a paper loss of $2000 right now. Your broker calls and wants you to put up some assets where he can get at them, either cash or stocks. He doesn't trust you to come up with the cash to cover your Microsoft short unless the cash is physically under his control. You consider cutting your losses by closing your position. Remember that it is 1987, though, and Microsoft hasn't gotten any better at writing software. In fact, they are flailing around trying to copy the Apple Macintosh interface, itself a copy of a Xerox system from the mid-1970s. What a bunch of losers. You put up the extra cash.

By 1996, Microsoft has split a bunch of times and you now owe your broker 1000 shares at $150/share. That's $150,000 to cover the short. You sell your house and say "You know, that potential return of $1000 was not worth ten years of agonized scanning of the stock pages, margin calls, and an ultimate loss of $150,000."
It looks like bloggertrail is fighting Google, here, by trying to massage the content so that it doesn't immediately turn up on searches for strings in the original. At least, I can't think of any other reason it would look like that.
Cool.

PCL is a great book. And, yes, CL is incredibly practical for many purposes. PCL/CL are much more worthy of your time than newLISP.
Per this idea, shorts on the insurance companies dealing with the WTC were trading at 30x their usual volume in the days leading up to 9-11. So the WTC was destroyed, insurance companies took a bath and whoever shorted their stock became quite rich. Most of these funds have since been traced back to Al Qaeda associates.

I call this "outsider trading." His example of Greenpeace shorting Exxon before suing them is quite similar to the example I just gave. I have no idea if this sort of behavior is regulated by the SEC the way insider trading is. I think it's generally un-ethical though.
yep, that's what I'm doing this week too-hehe.

The problems is, I'm trying to ketchup on everything, not just the app. I need 3-4 weeks!
No gensym is an annoying decision to work around. Yeah you can hack it in, but...

If you want to use a lisp then choose the one with the most vitality, aka SBCL.
Sort of like browsershots, but taken to the next level. Took a while for the image to show up but once that happened it was quite cool. This seems particularly useful where you want to be able to quote images/diagrams from a page, tables, etc. In terms of text, it is not particularly useful unless the text provides a specific context for the images being "quoted". On the whole, very cool.

Otherwise, is the logo meant to look like a bbcode, ie: that capturing a screen shot is as easy as using bbcode? Or am I digging too deep into this?
It works for me on Firefox (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11) but it doesn't work on Safari. (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/523.10.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.4 Safari/523.10)
storage for user-generated media?
I'm curious: How are startups here managing their storage needs, especially when it comes to storing multiple MG and even GB of photos, videos, and other media per user?

Amazon S3 seems to be the "in" solution right now, but when you do the math, it gets pretty expensive as you start nearing multiple TB of storage. Managing your own NAS at a colocated facility seems like it would be cheaper, but then you have all the additional admin overhead of colocating.

Has anyone found a good VPS or dedicated server provider that offers lots of storage and bandwidth at reasonable rates? Or is colocation pretty much the way to go? Other options?