skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hm, I must admit the possibility to change a method supposed to do addition to a method that does subtraction does not excite me as much as the blogger.

Although it would be cool if programs could debug themselves that way, but I don't think we will see that all too soon.
As anecdotal evidence goes, this is very good stuff. I mean, I've heard and believed all the same anecdotes, so they must be true!

As actual evidence goes, this is typical innumerate newspaper crap.

* "20% of lawyers experience depression sometime in their careers." As compared to... what? In my anecdotal experience, for physicists this number is closer to 80%. For software engineers... well, let's just say that PG is one of the most happy and successful ones I know of, yet he claims to have been pretty depressed as a Yahoo employee.

* "Law firms have a 20 to 30 percent annual turnover in associates." As compared to... what? What's the equivalent number for software engineers, dental hygenists, grade school teachers? How have all of these numbers changed over time?

* "Nearly 60% of doctors have considered getting out of medicine because of low morale." Yes, that certainly never happens in other fields, like real estate, or Wall Street, or software development. Just ask Zed Shaw.

* "The number of applicants to medical school, meanwhile, has dipped to 42,000 from 46,000 in 1997, although it has recovered from a low of 33,000 in 2003."

This sentence deserves it's own special multi-paragraph gripe. First, as usual, we must ask: compared to what? What percentage of the job applicant pool do these numbers represent? Could these just be fluctuations in the population of recent college grads? Are they correlated with the state of the economy? If someone doesn't go to med school, where do they go? The article deploys anecdotes to suggest that they've all gone into Web 2.0 companies and Wall Street... are there statistics for that?

Despite his best efforts, the author of the article has presented some data with an interesting anomaly... which he then utterly fails to explore! Why did the number of med school applicants dip in 2003? My own hypothesis is that this is the ghost of the dotcom boom... folks who started school during the boom avoided hard stuff like organic chemistry in favor of classes in HTML and check signing and Maserati selection, and that depleted the pre-med population. But it'd be nice to look at the evidence.

Studying the dip in 2003 is particularly important because this article may suffer from the same problem: anyone want to bet that, assuming that the legal and medical professions really have been shrinking in relative terms, the leftover people have been going into real estate, and real-estate-fueled banking, and the cashing of giant real-estate-related checks? Anyone want to guess where all those people are going next, now that the bubble is collapsing? Law school!
http://www.officesnapshots.com/
Why, in an age of free information, would anyone need to log in to view an article?
search for:

offices look like

in http://www.kirubakaran.com/phr0zen/
the grape pickers

Good example. Just coming off the wine tour at Napa are we?
Why? An iPhone at ~0.5 meters from your eyes would take up around the same visual area as a full-size film projected all the way across the auditorium.
Just because a band isn't the Beatles or the Stones doesn't mean that they're not any good. I used to think that modern music was horrendous, but I've recently discovered that it's just FM radio. Once you get past the Britney Spears and Timbaland Top 20, things start looking up.
Am I the only one who is bothered by the new Google-bait title tags on NYTimes articles?

This one was labeled "Economic Conditions-Economic trends-legal profession-lawyers-prestige-doctors - New York Times"
Bug Labs Announces Pricing & Availability
Well, sure, but that cuts both ways. :) It's convenient to have names like $bool and $int for didactic purposes, at least.
I agree. I think externalities are having a much bigger impact than what the article would suggest, and the stats aren't nearly as bad once they are put into comparison. For example, they say the number of med students has dropped a little under 10% since '97.. enrollment in CS/IT programs has dropped roughly 50% since 2000. That being said, I doubt that college students are running from a sure 6 figure income to try their hand at software development; from my experience, college kids run to traditional professions from CS, not the other way around. My guess is that we're seeing the less affluent potential med/law students not being able to dole out the cash necessary for all the years of schooling, combined with the really affluent kids recognizing that ~$150,000/yr in this current economy isn't enough to support their desired lifestyle.
Building a self-service ticketing site
I have to set up a self-service ticketing site which makes it possible to customers to sell tickets directly from their own web page.(something similar to ts.com ). Do you know any tools/e-commerce/ticketing solutions could I use to build this site? Or is it the only solution to write it from scratch?

Thanks!
How Techmeme Homepage Changes Over Time - Video
How to get Season Five Premiere of The Wire Free on iTunes
The cortex is very flexible. It has uniform structure: the same type of hardware that processes vision, processes also abstract thinking and memory and sense of touch.

I have worked on a prosthesis system like the ones mentioned in the article. It substitutes vision with audition. My version works on a mobile phone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3171226.stm
Why not just buy equipment locally? Or ship the stuff through Hong Kong?

In my very limited experience, almost all of the VC I've witnessed in China has involved imitative trend-chasing by small players hoping to cash out by getting foreign investment. Or government corruption (multi-million dollar investments in multi-thousand dollar projects).

Wholly-foreign entities in China have the freedom to perform well. The problem otherwise isn't the lack of entrepreneurs or even necessarily innovation:

http://www.danwei.org/media_regulation/supply_to_end_for_pri...
Andreessen Responds On Ning Porn: It's About Being Pro-Freedom
The language barrier is suddenly problematic. However, not having an export option is more of an issue, I think. Aren't even CSV / Excel exports provided?
income is not proportional to work. If it was, the grape pickers would be shopping at Neiman Marcus.

If it was, there would be no Neiman Marcus, or much of anything else.
Review of 7 ergonomic keyboards
I spend a lot of time on a computer, and I had problems with neck, arm, wrist, and shoulder strain patterns from typing too much... so I went out and bought a lot of different kinds of keyboards and have reviewed them exhaustively. I hope this helps you in your search for an ergonomic work setup.
Obama's Iowa Speech: The Difference Between a Tactician and a Leader
Google Android Challenge Terms - submitter beware
Google released it's terms and conditions for the Android Developer Challenge. For those of you submitting entries for this competition here's the fine print...
The great fall of China
Turns out that the recently updated World Bank's "Purchasing Power Parity" survey shows that the current size of the Chinese economy is 40% less than previous estimates.
Shameless money for old rope here, but Steve Yegge's and Rands' articles on tech recruitment, and especially on CVs and screening interviews, fall roughly into that category.

(http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/03/interviewing_rub...
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/09/ten-tips-for-slightl...
http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/five-essential-phone-scre...
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/25/a_glimpse_a...
etc.)
Microsoft Sync
Microsoft's in vehicle telematics system - Sync. Ford is offering it in all their vehicles.
Why I still love Java
Java is an awesome language. I'd forgotten how wonderful it is, until I started coding in other languages and environments. Java does not face the innovators dilemma, it's stronger than it's ever been before!
The Rise of Medical Tourism
As health care gets more expensive in developed nations, there's a growing trend of people visiting developing nations to get medical treatment. This "medical tourism" is a very interesting artifact of globalization at work.
To Closure or not to Closure?
Does Java really need expanded Closure support. A humorous take on the issue.
Umm. Are there actually people who watch movies on their iPhone?
"Additionally, if you're building client/server type apps, you might have to hand over your services if you win the $25K prize."

Does anyone know if this is true? I do not see any indication that Google have rights to anything else but the submitted Android code.
anyone want to help make one??
Who is surprised?
Linux is not a desktop OS. Linux apps suck to hell.

I use Linux since ever as a development platform. It works fine. Email and websurfing is ok too (thanks mozilla). But as soon as you have to write something or create and edit an image, linux software is pure crap. Compare gimp to Photoshop, open office to M$ Office or Pages? Surely you are joking, Mr. (put your name here ;o).

Linux is a hacker os made by hackers for hackers. Sometimes my impression is, kernel hackers don't have the slightest idea, what average computer users want and need. Thats why linux is marginal and will be.
Creating better metrics
[edit insert here - Page lost the earlier part of this comment] - This article has nothing new, just one developer liking Java because of JavaDocs.

"I learned PHP last night..." - Wow, learning PHP in one night, enough to build an opinion that dismisses it for Java [Not that the two solve the same problem]

In any case, I don't think most others talking about the API or the toolkit, and as far as I know, no one is dismissing the power of Java's platform (JVM included). Most posts talk about the language itself, and in most cases that is being remedied by languages like Scala, Groovy or even JRuby on the JVM. You get the best of both worlds.
Web2py - yet another Python web-framework
Walt Mossberg reviews a Dell... and likes it.
What strikes me is how naive the NYT must still be about the web. It's as if they don't realize title tags actually show up at the top of the browser window.
It takes a very special kind of skill to attempt to criticize PHP and fail.

It's hard to say which line is the best. "Lack of refactoring support" is surely ROTFL-worthy, but I think "PHP and Ruby and all that" is my favorite. Yeah, PHP and Ruby are totally the same thing. I get them mixed up all the time.

"So not to take anyone's word for it, I learned PHP last night..."

One whole night! This guy is an experienced PHP developer!
From the terms, it seems clear to me that if you win (and accept the grant money), you would have to give google whatever they want, and let them do whatever they want with it.

It seems inconceivable to me, that a company like google, would grant the prize money for a client/server app and not want to have the server piece as well.
I find that very concerning. How can they expect everyone to turn over ALL of their web service code? Any app meaningful will be making calls to outside web services. I'd refuse the prize money if they demanded all of the server side code as well.
Well, thats a commonplace.

If you ask any random linux admin a question, the reply will be "You use that crappy version from last week? Install the latest version, THAT is the one that does it right."

Thats true for any version at any time.
I just got "The Haskell Road to Maths and Logic", and I am enjoying it so far. It is heavy on the math and theory, so if you are looking for just a practical book it may not be the right one.
That is exactly my point. It is extremely alarming and really something people should consider before submitting to this contest. As soon as you submit, whether your win or not, you may very well have just given them their next idea for nothing in return.
nice - now we have more options besides starfish: http://rufy.com/starfish/doc/
You're from the past aren't you.
As were half of the people I met in grad school. That's how I know. ;-)
I have some of my own from when i was in the SF area over the summer... http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/07/21/california-hq-pics/
"costly"

It doesn't require a multi-billion dollar infrastructure behind the curtains in order to be usable.
IT talent shortage, or management failure?
Ask YC: What podcasts do you subscribe to?
Educational, entrepreneur-oriented, hacking / geekery?
Management failure.
Not sure if you're looking for a co-founder, but Christian Perry (runs Geek Sessions, etc) was trying to startup something similar a while back...
If you actually do take a shot, I'd suggest using much smaller vibrators (or maybe even very very weak electrodes directly on your skin). As long as you can be consciously aware of the buzzing or electric shocks, no matter how tiny, you will go ahead and develop the "direction sense". Using bigger vibrators will only waste electricity.
Yes, I suspect that you are right. But it's depressing for a 40 year like myself who 'wasted his time' in academia.

Somehow academia/research was nice earlier and I had some luck getting tolerable positions, etc. But it's been tough keeping the wolves at bay lately. The average academic department is a real viper's pit. And crossing chasm from research to a product that people are willing to buy is not easy. Perhaps not even possible in my case...

It's OK. I never really aspired to be a big-time industrialist. I was always more interested in having an impact in a hard area. Lately I have come to the conclusion that the best thing for me to do would be to get back to publishing... If you try to role out a product as an academic, your publication rate fall off and the vipers come out and bite you (Usually in the form of giving you lots of bad teaching assignments and a variety of psychological warfare techniques).

But it's hard to convince oneself that most of what academics write has any effect. I suppose I could focus more on databases, but natural language interfaces seem to be where there are still fundamental problems. But our publications in that area are usually so dense that only fellow academics bother to read them...

It's not easy to change the world I suppose :-).
Car that runs on compressed air
Nothing to do with hacking, but it shows how passion over a 10-year period can drive some people forward
Intel pulls out of OLPC
I have some team room links here: http://www.possibility.com/Cpp/SoftDevOfficeLayout.html
It's also a great example of public speaking. If it had been any other candidate most people would have found the speech boring.
Looks like they need some English-language help or a run through English spell-check.
Thin - a better Ruby webserver than Mongrel?
You use IE right?
Thank you, I was also looking for this link earlier
When demos go bad
Success and Motivation: Don't lie to yourself
I liked The Haskell School of Expression. It was a good first Haskell book. Read it, but also learn by doing, of course.
Did you read the article? That's what the author was saying, and I think he hit the nail on the head.
http://freelanceswitch.com/podcasts
Great podcast about freelancing.
Enjoy.
Good. At least enlightened youth such as yourself can look at our negative example and say "That will not be me."
Harvard Business Review Ideacast. http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/hbr/hbr_ideacast.jhtml
Surefire way to become a better entrepreneur.
http://venturevoice.com

There's lots of good stuff on http://itconversations.com, too.
Here's a past thread on this topic http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37818
Looks like some features include being able to byte-compile for closed source distribution and easy packaging (.app, .exe, or .py). That's pretty interesting for people who want to make and distribute python web apps.
Yes, "killer" in this context has an entirely different meaning.
"Off the hook" and "off the wall" from 2600.org
I'm disappointed that we haven't heard much from the 5,000 people on Scoble's list. I'm sure at least one of them considers the stuff he downloaded to be "theirs".

Along those lines I think any XML for this should have plenty of attributes to track exactly who entered the data along with its redistribution terms. It should at the very least have the flags described here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=95078
It's a two way street. Some employees keep their heads down and don't speak up about what's broken with the system or suggest better alternatives. They give up and say "Why isn't management doing something different?" when they should be notifying management that there is a problem. If management ignores it then it's completely a management problem.
I'm sure Khoi Vinh threw a fit and lost to the SEO consultants...
Since I don't have a commute or other dead time, sitting around listening to someone talk is maddeningly slow and or distracting compared to being able to glance over a written article.
Sounds like a useful Google Gadget: http://www.google.com/ig/directory

Here are some Ticket specific ones: http://www.google.com/ig/directory?q=Ticket
I'd like to think people might be interested in Hecl as well, since I've been working to see that it runs on Android nicely.
If you're a nerd/geek/dork (like me) you'll love Radiolab. Simply the best radio show ever.
Perhaps the best thing would be to submit things already patented by someone else?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/05/0138259 comes to mind.
www.radiolab.org (just pure awesome)

www.audible.com (audiobooks for long drives and flights)
Third, adult topics and content are a relatively small percentage of the total activity on Ning. We have various ways of quantifying this, and all of them show this to be the case.

How about publishing the "raw" data along with the methodology and letting the rest of us see that there aren't any flaws?
Dots are now solid green. Thanks for the suggestion!
Three Clever Xobni Features (1/3): "Are you Happy?"
I agree about the anecdotal evidence. I didn't think, though that it was as much about people not going in to medicine to be a web 2.0 developer. It sounded to me like it was about the loss of prestige that Medicine and Law professions have gone through. they aren't the "sexy" occupations any more. They're becoming like accountancy--"A good solid job". The "sexy" jobs in NY are portfolio managers, VC's and Hedge fund types.

* "Nearly 60% of doctors have considered getting out of medicine because of low morale. Yes, that certainly never happens in other fields, like real estate, or Wall Street, or software development. Just ask Zed Shaw." Yeah, but real estate agents take a 2-6 week class at their community college. Doctors go to school for an average of 12 years and end up with an average of $200k in student loans. It's a little harder to switch careers when you've dropped that much on your education.
Why you'll finally use LinkedIn
Lots of people (who generally aren't the startup type) plan their careers so that their titles and resumes take them where they want to be. I know a pc technician who took a short-term salary drop to get the words "software" and "developer" closer together on his resume.
I'm also a 30-something. It would have been clearer to say that I met a lot of cynical 20-somethings in grad school, who are now cynical 30-somethings.

More than one friend is a veteran of the first boom, with little to show for it.
You can take a look at http://www.ticketsolve.com which is a solution targeted at exactly the opportunity you described.

In the interest of full disclosure - I am one of the founders.
HACKERS, welcome! Here are detailed circuit diagrams of our products -- modify them as you wish.
They forgot to mention the rampant age discrimination. Why would any intelligent person go into a career where you basically become unemployable at 40?
I agree. I do not get why he has chosen to emphasise the ticketing system instead. It seems like a pretty trivial thing to implement in most frameworks.
ISO 3103: an international standard for brewing tea
Great one from my alma mater: http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html . Just take a look at the guests over the years.
yeah venturevoice rocks

some of the webmaster radio shows are good - Net Income, SEO Rockstars
I second that, Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders is outstanding.
This American Life, NPR Shuffle, The Economist, The Ethicist, the Welch Way...

The Bugle from the Guardian is hysterical.
I like to listen while I eat, do errands, do laundry...
Here's our office in BCN:

http://www.lamp.es/es/archivos/buscar?q=whads
IQ increases with age.
Contrary to popular belief that the brain is at its peak between 18 and 26, new study shows that verbal ability increases for at least two decades past 20, and arithmetic ability remains constant.
Terrible interface, terrible AI.
"things that are good for "prestigiousness" are rarely good for much else"

Oh, come on. Now you're just being silly.

Even the article tells you that you're wrong. Legal and medical jobs may be boring and/or tedious, but they pay about as well as you can ever expect to be paid in this country, without being insanely lucky.

Basically, you're succumbing to survivor's bias: you see the stories of the lucky entrepreneurs, so you're relatively unaware of the (vast majority of) people who never make it big (and who end up working in corporate jobs for the rest of their lives). Meanwhile, the people who labor for decades to achieve career success as doctors or lawyers strike you as unglamorous wage slaves, next to the Paul Bucheits and Jamie Zawinskis of the world.

But as I said before, there's no free lunch; nobody is going to let you succeed without a lot of work, or a lot of luck. So you either trust your fate to randomness (high variance; a lot of luck), or you methodically start climbing your way up the greased pole (low variance; a little luck).

Overall, the expected value of career success is higher for the doctors and lawyers, and the variance is lower. That's why people pursue the degree -- not out of some blind faith in title and prestige.
IMO the real story is not that Ning has porn but that several blogs decided to write scaremongering posts about it.
> In a typical complaint, Dr. Yul Ejnes [...] said he was recently forced by Medicare to fill out requisition forms for a wheelchair-bound patient who needed to replace balding tires. "I'm a doctor," he said, "not Mr. Goodwrench."

Dammit, Jim!
That's really the only sensible policy on their part. Far too many sites/investors are leaving tons of money on the table due to their moral qualms.
As a recent over-40, I haven't hit anything yet, and I wonder how long it'll be and how hard. Care to share your experience? It doesn't need to be an essay, just, a couple examples.

I can only say, at this late stage I wish I'd gone into some physical engineering instead, chemical or electrical, something with hard /science/. I doubt I'll get to make such a transition, or well, would find it hard to finance and might find it not worthwhile at this late stage. I suppose robotics might be an avenue to explore, that'll get big before too long.

But back to the topic, I'll take any experience you have on what to expect.
Or at least, it seems interesting on the face of it. Obfuscation != encryption.
Blu Ray Won the Day?