skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I sucked in almost all my classes for the time I went to uni. A part of me really started believing that I was simply dumb at all those subjects I was doing bad in. In last six months since I took a leave, I have enjoyed learning stuff on my own that I can recall being taught in classes I hated.

Now it is almost like when I do go back to school someday, I will be better prepared having self-studied what is being taught in class. A whole new reason to leave school: so you can better prepare yourself for it=)

Do what works for you!
Two cups of Vietnamese coffee (cafe sua la) each morning hit the mark! Brewing details at
http://www.ineedcoffee.com/04/vietnamese/

I may like iced Vietnamese coffee (Ca phe sua da) even more on sultry summer days. Just pour the above into ice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca_phe_s&#7919;a_&#273;...

While I've used other coffees, Cafe du Monde has almost a monopoly among Vietnamese restaurants. Cafe du Monde is a blend of coffee and chicory easily identified by it's bright orange container:
http://www.cafedumonde.com/coffee.html
Not sure what you can get in the UK, but I've been really happy with my HTC Tytn (AT&T 8525 if you're in the US). The OS is WM5 (eh), but the features are pretty sweet and it's a pretty solid phone.
Sleeping in your cubicle? Yeah, you rock, dude.
Amazon Sends "Best Customer Service E-mail I've Ever Received"
I've always considering playing music on a site to be in fairly bad taste, design-wise. But, people are doing lots of different things with sites these days. I'm just curious what your site concept and target audience is, if you don't mind sharing?
I find grades are only a cursory indicator of intellectual worth. For sure, those who achieved A's are definitely hard-workers and have most probably looked into certain subjects at more depth and breadth (which they'll hopefully remember lest the whole educational experience seems totally worthless to me).

I achieved A's in university. But then I know a guy who did poorly in comparison. Whereas I found what the markers expected of me he found what he wanted to know and explored what he wanted to explore, often deviating with standard practice to the detriment of his grades.

Although we are both as competent as each other his university edification seemed far more personally worthwhile; I learnt for the markers and industry he learnt to increase his understanding and capability in areas sometimes not formally rewarded (with marks).

I'm sure you can do both: accept the curriculum and learn it for your own benefit. I'm sure this is more or less everyone's ideal. But it seems a lot of people loose focus on their personal edification and concentrate on pleasing their markers.

For an example, I'm sure there are courses on XML. You could spend your time becoming adroit in your Schema definition et al or you could spend your time pondering about the general subject in more depth and even rejecting the conventional wisdom. I'd argue the latter course of action is quite valid; but you won't get any marks for it.
you could say that Erlang isn't good at doing something it wasn't specifically designed for, which isn't a great feature for a language

To be fair, slowness of startup time would be a criticism of the stock Erlang runtime, rather than of the language itself. As projects like Squeak, Rubinius, and the official Java VM have shown, this sort of speed issue can improve independently of the language semantics.
I like blackberries for extremely convenient email...
No. The Dow's large drop today was triggered by the Fed cutting the fed funds target rate by 25 basis points (0.25%). Stock market investors were hoping that the Fed would cut 50 basis points, giving a further kick to the economy. However, cutting interest rates by too much at one time can make money too easy, adding to inflation pressures.

I work on a trading floor at a major investment bank, and no one near me mentioned the Morgan Stanley report. My firm has been forecasting a 33% chance of a recession.
It's a music recomendation app. People will want to be able to play the music through this and be able to change the filter settings without killing the music.

I can easily make it work with frames except for the rather major location bar issue. After some more digging, I've found this guy's general suggestions: http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/keepplaying.html
A recession could potentially benefit startups by making venture capital more attractive than traditional investments. During a recession, you expect the Fed to lower interest rates, making traditional bonds less attractive. Stocks won't be very appealing either, since they tend to slide 20-30% in a recession. The once-enormous market for exotic structured investments (e.g. CDOs, ABS, SIVs, CMOs, whatever) has nearly dried up.

People will need somewhere to put their money. Some will turn to hedge funds and private equity. Others will turn to distressed debt funds, seeking to pick up the pieces of the recession. I'm sure plenty of people will turn to venture capital as well.

EDIT: That being said, I don't think it matters all that much whether or not we see a recession. Economic growth certainly isn't going to be great over the next year or so, but does it really matter if the GDP changes by +1% or -1%? All that's needed for a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. I think this is quite likely, but I doubt we will see real pain. Recent economic stats have been holding up despite the pressure from housing. Inflation remains moderate in the high 2% range. The Paulsen subprime rate freeze should help reduce foreclosures and slow house price depreciation. We'll see how it goes.
From The Programmer's Mouth: How The 2000 Election Was Fixed (video)
Need to add the word "habitat" on the end of the title and it would be 100% correct.
7 Reasons Facebook May Be Next Google
I think it's terrible that the Feds keep cutting interest rates. All it's doing is propping up Wall Street at the expense of individual citizens and the value of the US Dollar -- kind of like how China keeps the Yuan devalued at the expense of ordinary citizens. The last time the Feds cut interest rates this much, it caused a housing bubble.
I disagree on the ports part. I like it much better than any other package management system I've tried. For most common apps you can get a pre-built package with 'pkg_add -r'. They really stepped up their game when they embraced portsnap and let cvsup ride off into the sunset.

And if you need something special and/or exotic it isn't really that hard to build from scratch. I can guarantee 90% of the dependencies can be installed as a pre-built package.
Everybody loves Facebook, but nobody's making Facebook the big bucks. And that's what separates the two companies: a billion dollar business model.

Yadda, yadda, Facebook needs time, blah, blah, blah. Heard it. Facebook's not the next Google until they make GoogleBux.
I disagree strongly on the ports collection. I find it more flexible, up-to-date and easy to use than Debian's packages.
Toshiba launching SCiB batteries in March: 5 min charge, 10 year lifespan
I hope the new era of better batteries starts soon.
Intimate details of Mike Arrington's burnt-out startup. Reports, roadmaps, and patents, oh my!
This was a pretty shallow analysis.
AdWords (Google's main source of revenue) didn't come until 2 years after Google was started, so I don't think a company without early revenue is a very good indication of their long term success.
For the game designers and players: this is the best list of well-designed flash games
Have you spotted anything more detailed?
Well, Facebook did start more than 2 years ago, if we really want to compare.

All I'm saying is, don't put the cart before the horse. Write this article once you can compare revenue growth between the companies.
If I read right the charge doesn't last that long, right? Just the amount of cycles it can go through.
It may be all about talent, but that cool half-mil is not all salary.

A large percentage of that money goes to funding for a couple of grad students and postdocs, equipment and supplies (a theoretician still needs fast computers) travel expenses to conferences to present those world-class papers, and so forth. Probably no more than $100-150K of that represents salary for the professor.

Also, is that money start-up funding (a lump sum) or annual support? It's not clear the way it's written, but a top researcher would most likely be expected to secure solid external support from government (National Science Foundation, DARPA, etc), corporate, and other funding sources within a year or so.
Energy source of northern lights found
I was under the impression that it lasts as long as a typical Li-ion battery of the same capacity. The initial market is apparently batteries for electric cars, so they would have to last a reasonable amount of time.
"w00t" crowned word of year by U.S. dictionary
Seems like a bunch of stuff your accountant should fill you in on.
I don't understand all the hubbub around looking for life on Mars. Is there any credible reason whatsoever to assign a non-negligible probability to there having been life on mars? It seems to me like it's a PR trick cooked up by NASA to keep the public interested. Nobody cares about soil composition, but everyone is excited by a mission to find Martian bacteria.
Nice illustration.
I hear you. Although I'm not saying it's the next Google in the sense of revenue. Obviously Google is a powerhouse there ;) I'm talking about in terms of usage right now. I wouldn't be surprised if they hit $1B in revenue by the end of next year though.

On the topic of revenue: the link on the bottom of my blog points to an article. On that article, someone from Altura Ventures has commented on Facebook's revenue model. Interesting take on it.
Be careful, there's enough here to keep you busy for days.
Mixi (aka the Facebook of Japan) Says Yes to OpenSocial
I'm in university now, and I hate seeing the people around me more concerned about their marks than how much they are learning. For one thing, it's been shown that people enjoy things more - and do better - when they are motivated by an internal desire instead (say, curiosity or a desire for education) of an external reward (marks).

I am in the fortunate situation that I don't have to prove myself to anyone [1] (although I try to keep my options open for grad school), so I can focus on learning instead of pretending to. That isn't to say that everyone who gets straight A's is pretending; but in my experience someone who's main motivation is to maximize their marks does so at the expense of their education. In theory the two are perfectly correlated, but in practice they aren't.

[1] I don't mean to say that I don't have a psychological need to prove myself to others and others do, but that I don't have an immediate need to keep high marks. Between scholarships, marks, internships, etc. most people I know need to stress over marks for one reason or another.
This hypothetical "fixed amount" of money idea is a bit disingenuous in my opinion, especially since the methods for funding the proposed solutions are very different. The way governments are tackling climate change is primarily through regulation (ie, limiting carbon emissions) - the costs of which will eventually be passed on to the consumer by industry.

The fixed amount of money concept assumes that solving the other problems (eg. AIDS, 3rd world health, etc) are realistic opportunity costs for tackling climate change... but I don't think people would (in aggregate) willingly spend the money saved from climate change regulation on solving these other problems. They'd probably just buy more stuff for themselves.

The equivalent scenario would be if governments taxed people the same amount as the cost of regulation - and that is a tad unrealistic.
The Best Websites to View on Pocket IE
What Pocket IE formatted websites do you use regularly?
I think there has been due diligence in asking the question "Did Mars have a significant period in it's history that it could have been habitable?". The answer to that question is "yes"; data suggest that Mars had a significant wet period. There are no bounds on what we might find if we can scrape a way the first few feet of sediment.
Mars almost certainly doesn't have life anymore, except maybe underground or in caves or something. The thing is that Mars used to be very similar to Earth, and it's even been suggested that life was seeded on Earth from Mars. What they are looking for is signs that Mars had life at some point in the past, because it would prove that life is not something that is unique and special to Earth.

Also, I would be very curious how Martian life differed from life on Earth on a molecular level. I'd be willing to bet they were based on the same principles, but diverged pretty quickly. For example, they may not use the structure of the amino acid to produce protein, which is:

H
NH3-C-COOH
|
functional group

If they did, they probably don't use the same codon code to present them in RNA or have the same functional groups that all Earth based life does.

I'm certain there is life places other than Earth, but the question is what does that life look like? It may not even remotely resemble Earth based life. Finding life on Mars might give us a clue about what types of things to look for to identify life elsewhere.
Transforming businesses: Eight emerging trends to watch out for
Comment from this context?
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004434.h...

Is the point that "The problem with symbols like this that do not form part of a well-defined system is that people will see what they want to see."?

Meaning that oil companies will create a reality that matches their business or that the global warming alarmists act like religious zealots? I believe both are true...
Human evolution is 'speeding up'
Great list - thanks.
I can't knock her hustle but she genuinely annoys me.
There are certainly risks to cutting rates: it hurts our currency and increases inflation risk. I don't think your analysis is correct, though. First of all, the Fed hasn't been continuously cutting rates: the first cut was in September, after several years of continuous increases. Since then, they've only cut the Fed Funds target rate (the rate at which banks can lend to each other overnight) from 5.25% in summer 2006 to 4.25% now... a drop of only 1%.

Interest rates are nowhere near where they were at the beginning of the housing expansion -- the Fed Funds target rate was at 1% in 2003; it's at 4.25% now. Most people are saying that even in a recession scenario, the Fed will only cut to around 3%. Fed Funds aside, other interest rates remain high. LIBOR (the primary rate at which banks lend to each other) is around 1% above Fed Funds, depending on the maturity. Interest rates on corporate bonds are creeping up as lenders demand to be compensated for increased default risks. Swap spreads have widened. Consumer rates on mortgages and student loans are still relatively high, now that the secondary market for consumer debt has shrunk. Only Treasury yields remain low as investors seek the extra protection they provide. So it's not like the Fed has massively cut rates and money is sloshing through the system.

Second, excessively high interest rates can harm individual consumers. At the individual level, it means that you pay a higher rate to get a mortgage, buy a car, pay down your student loan, or whatever. The bigger effect is indirect though: companies can't borrow money to expand their businesses. This means lower employment growth, lower capital expenditures, less R&D, etc. People get laid off, paychecks are cut, consumer spending goes down. By cutting rates, the Fed believes (rightly, in my opinion) that they can at least alleviate these effects, even if it's impossible to prevent them entirely.

Lower interest rates aren't even that beneficial to banks. Banks earn money by lending it out. If they are forced to lend money at lower rates, they simply aren't going to earn as much revenue from interest. Wall Street banks also make money through things like trading, merger advisory, debt & equity issuance, etc. -- stuff that isn't really dependent on the absolute level of rates. A Fed Funds cut is hardly a Wall Street bailout.
We have one sample of life in the universe. Life on Mars would mean two. The difference from a scientific perspective is HUGE.
I believe the C students work for the B students in the business world.

B > C > A.

And the D students run the country (into the ground.) ;-)
Anyone using an Apple XServe?
Morgan Stanley issues full US recession alert
PriceAdvance Beta Launch
We submitted our app in October not expecting anything and got asked to come talk to YC. We put together a tight demo, couldn't sleep the night before, waited until late Saturday night after the interview to hear they'd decided to pass (it's ok, we still heart YC), and pressed on. We've been cranking ever since returning from Cambridge to roll out the PriceAdvance FireFox addon for the holidays.

We've just launched our beta! And we just landed on the front page of LifeHacker.com (woohoo).

Anyway, we'd love to get some more feedback, comments, suggestions. Thanks!

http://www.priceadvance.com/
I think its a big deal. I think in many fields of science we are in danger of over fitting our theories because of our limited perspective. We've never discovered life on another planet, but we think its probably out there and thats enough? I just cannot understand that complacency.
There may indeed be a correlation to gpa perfection and incuriosity.
Recessions are good times to for social "fun" sites too - HotOrNot, Blogger, LiveJournal, PlentyOfFish, Flickr, and Friendster were all started either right before or during the 01-02 recession, and Disney got its start in the middle of the Great Depression. You just gotta keep your cash outlays less than expenses, find a revenue stream other than advertising, and build something attractive enough that at least some people are willing to pay for it.
Do you think that the Bush level of deficit is sustainable? If not, what will happen to the US Dollar and the average US citizen? I can understand why it is reasonable to lower interest rates, but it seems to be ignoring the much bigger problem.
"... The economy seems to be heading to a recession, but how will this affect the internet startup world? ..."

I remember reading somewhere on the Internet that one way to solve problems was to "redefine" them. [0] So try thinking "reasons you should start a startup". I can think of a few straight off.

- the coder pool is going to increase as businesses close or lay off extra staff.

- rents on property are going to be cheaper

- consumers are probably going to tighten the strings and shun payment to services of dubious value

- as opportunities, credit dries up, creators are really going to have to re-evaluate "what users want", now. Not pre-crash or recession.

- now you have to be frugal out of necessity :)

The advantage here is the rules of the game change. And change quickly. Where there is change there is opportunity as yesterdays "new ideas" become mainstream and relegated to the history of technology. Thats one theory. The other is in the hiatus the chance to build new technology and ideas has some breathing room to grow.

I'd also like you to consider the "future effect" of the current boom. A backlash is coming for those working in "safe, secure jobs" where market demand wane. I found this in the Australian press [1] and read as follows:

"... Michael Warrilow, Managing director of IT advisory company Hydrasight, believes today's tight labour market may be creating resentment among employers who have made pool-playing, T-Shirt wearing and all-day-Facebooking a part of the work 2.0 experience ..." [2]

and then continues ...

"... Generation Y will be appeased for as long as we continue with low unenployment... Once employers have more choice, there will be a backlash against their behaviour. " [3]

I can think of no better time to start a startup and it gives you a new reason to say to your folks, "At least it's not selling real-estate".

[0] Ideas for Startups: Wealth, 12 paras down ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html

[1] A more conservative market to the US. But I have no doubt that VC's are also sharpening their knives.

[2], [3] Simon Sharwood ~ http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/fast-forward-to-08/...
They're good for alcohol sales too; hopefully it'll trickle down into the more obscure drugs.
Edgeio Bids Start At $250,000
Congrats! That's awesome, although I did get a download error (-228) on the xpi when I tried to install it just now.

Obviously, there's substantial overlap between you and Bountii, although that may have nothing to do with why you were not funded. I do tend to wonder how quickly these sort of strategic interference issues are increasing for YC, though. It's a lot easier to turn someone down than to risk an insult (or worse) to an previous company.
Hmmm I thought I saw a Greasemonkey script do just that.

An IE version will help you guys attract a wider user-base. Good luck!
What market are you in?

6 months seems to be cutting it pretty close - as a general rule, everything takes 2-3 times longer than you expect it will. Remember, there's a good chance your first launch will fail. We launched 2 sites in the 9 months where I kept my day job, and both went kerplop. That could be because of a half-hearted effort (the app I'm working on was also the main plan, I just couldn't concentrate enough to build it while I still had the day job), but in general easy sites don't make money, and sites that make money aren't easy.
Definitely something we'd wondered about (re: bountii =) ). Even more entertaining was that one of the guys from Bountii was at YC prior to our interview answering questions for pre-interviewees =)

What OS / FireFox version are you getting an error on?
Let us make him in our own image
Mule ESB Adds Amazon SQS
Having SQS as a connector is very cool.

http://businessintegrationtechnology.com/blog/?p=96
Heh. Awkward!

Here's my version string from the About box:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

Running on Tiger. No proxy server.

I can wget/curl it just fine, and it works just fine on my Intel/Leopard MacBook, so no emergency.
The deficit is certainly a problem, and it is not sustainable. However, interest rates don't really have much of an effect on the deficit. Sure, the government has to borrow money at a rate determined by the market -- why would anyone invest in a government bond paying, say, 2% when you could get a AAA corporate paying a much higher rate? But Congress has unfortunately shown a willingness to borrow money regardless of the interest costs. Keep in mind that short-term government interest rates were in double digits for most of the Reagan 80s, when the deficit was massively expanding.
Me too, I'll be there
I don't like (neither drink) coffee either. It's a problem specifically in business meetings: "do you want some coffee?", "no, please bring me some water instead" (?). That's a bad start.
We will definitely be making an IE version in the near future
There is alot of good data on the Copenhagen Consensus and climate change on wikipedia of all places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus

The conference was run by Bjorn Lomborg who is an avid climate change skeptic and hence there may be some bias. Read Scientific American's critique of his work and you can judge for yourself: http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/davis/375/reading/sciam.pdf

It was also only attended by economists, and the effects of the discount rate and formula they applied (only considering a the next 300 years) might were said by one of the attendees that "climate change was set up to fail".
"The Hacker's Diet", by John Walker (Autocad creator)
Art of Money Getting, by P. T. Barnum (actual book, 1880)
Facebook seems to be racking up lawsuits at a pace set to break Microsoft's record.
Thanks! Great info, and reaffirms my suspicions. I've been leaning towards BSD as a server.

Anyone have any thoughts on Linux v BSD security?