skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
[This post may or may not be related to the issue at hand, but I think this is something worth noting in a thread like this.]

Whether or not they directly play into the two particular cases mentioned, I think we need to be aware of ourselves and how we can affect/worsen/underline these decisions. Every week there are "Why I quit HN"/"Lessons I learned from HN" and other posts on how someone felt after being thrown under the bus here, particularly if they didn't submit it themselves (and sometimes consciously so).

Despite Jeff's notion that Aaron would have prevailed indefinitely, HN threads on the matter were much more bleak. It is normal to be skeptical of your own success and possibly inundate yourself with thoughts of failure, and it is another to see the community you are a part of dismiss you and your purpose as well. Unfortunately we see that here a lot, especially considering some of these projects are people's honest attempts at making a better person of themselves or trying to find sources of income in a time where so many are still hurting.

I don't know whether or not Aaron's pain would have been quelled in any way had everyone rallied behind him. In my own experiences, the entire universe could be behind you and it probably still wouldn't make much of a difference/you'd still feel like a lone wolf. Still, there are people like Eugene Sprague in the documentary The Bridge who walked the span of the Golden Gate for over 90 minutes waiting for just one person to smile at him. No one did, so he went through with it.

Just something to be cognizant of.
Yeah, this is a really important point. Part of good mentorship is exposing unknown unknowns. You've got way, way more of those the younger you are.
Obama’s Inauguration Speech
Two problems with this. 1. The experience index may have changed in windows 8. 2. It reports the smallest number from the individual scores as the overall. It doesn't really tell you much that the gaming graphics are the lowest score in the VM.

More useful would be a benchmark, or better, how well the the software you want to actually use runs.
Apple doesn't want you to share your phone.
He could have remapped the keys arbitrarily, and he also could have used unicode input methods to type | with more than one keystroke.
If this is in relation to http://vishnumenon.com/2013/01/21/im-35-months-old-and-i-mad... then I think you miss the point. I agree with the author of that and it is the most common sense post I've read, so far, regarding this issue. The reality is people posting their age doesn't simply mean "I am new at this. I know you guys aren't. I want you to check it out and give me encouragement and guidance." Simultaneously the people throwing out the "age is irrelevant" argument simply miss the point, also. I'm 19 and I've been programming for as long as I can remember starting with my shitty commodore64 hand-me-down. Along the years I have received much criticism and help and am immensely grateful to the people who took the time out to answer every question I had, trivial and otherwise - and believe me, there were plenty of them. However the idea of constructive criticism on HN, and sadly, in the hacker community at large is ironically more political than logical. "Criticism" seems to be code for "I'm smarter than you and I'll be damned if I don't make sure you know it." The hostility towards, not just kids, but people's projects in general borders on the pathological and that's what needs to be addressed. I wholeheartedly agree that kids who are building fun projects do need that nudge and that encouragement to go deeper down the rabbit hole, however we should indeed distinguish between encouragement and patting on the back. The problem is the risk of creating a Hollywoood mentality (Hollywood may be the bastion of acting but really most people are more attracted to the prospects of fame than actual acting). We need to give them encouragement that lets them enjoy the process, not just massaging their egos, and moreover we need to get them to enjoy constructive criticism and see it not as "boo-hoo they didn't like my stuff" but as "hmm I never thought about that." The reality is, the poisonous, know-it-all, thinly veiled political nature of our culture doesn't provide this.
So... we have more automation than ever before, and the solution is to make "everyone else" work longer so that all the benefits can be showered on these few privileged.

I expect that a lot of people who actually, really invented and developed this largess, would be disgusted with their attitude. And with what has happened to American society.

P.S. Yes, my statement is a bit simplistic and ignores the global context. But, confined to American society, I think my rebuttal has validity. And even on a global scale, I don't think I'm being disingenuous. U.S. senior management seems just as inclined to be exploitative abroad as domestically.

My comment also ignores increasing lifespan, but I don't think current discussion around increasing retirement age is being honest on that front. Rather, it seems to be another component of advocacy for a regressive distribution of society's expenses. (Also, lifespan increases seem to be slowing -- even regressing, in some cases -- and becoming more divergent (again?) based on affluence and economic opportunity.)

P.P.S. It's all the more hypocritical, when I think about it, in that many of these CEO's companies actively (if circumspectly) discriminate against hiring anyone over 50 -- or even in the upper 40's.

In today's world where "no job is secure", and where corporations seek to control ever-more of the marketplace, how would they propose to reconcile this?
I think iOS 4.x was the best iOS. I'd probably stay there too if apps didn't start requiring iOS5+. About the only thing I like in iOS5 is the weather app.
Isn't that what he said?
What? No one wants to identify the errors in the predicate logic example?
As a person who very much was on the brink of suicide at one point (or rather many points) ... you very much do reason yourself out of it.

I decided that I'm simply too curious about what happens next to ever do it. Has helped ever since and eventually the thoughts faded away ... now suicide is merely a passing curiousity that momentarily pops into mind as a "Y'know, I wonder what it'd be like to just swerve into that truck coming down the opposite lane right now. There isn't actually anything stopping me from doing it ..."

Reason, it's a powerful tool.
I guess most of us here got used to YC's reputation and don't want to see it loosing it.

> If YC doesn't fund some scuzzy but profitable company, someone else will.

This is never a valid argument for explaining your behavior. There's a good chance that someone else will do it anyway, so now there are two bad actors instead of one.
With full-power Intel Core chips rolling off the line today using <7W of power, we're almost at the point where you can have MacBook Pro computing power behind the glass of a tablet and still get 8+ hours of run time. Dock it to a hard keyboard with another battery to turn it into 12-16 hours.
That's today, and it'll get better every year as the processors and batteries improve.

I think Microsoft is actually ahead of the curve here, and the tablets of the near-future will be more like the Surface Pro than the iPad. Your grandma can use hers to check e-mail and run pre-screened apps from an app store, while you can use yours to run Visual Studio or Photoshop. With full computing power in tablets, they could supplant not just Android/iOS but laptops, ultrabooks, netbooks and desktop towers.
dark grey!
Well, its just designing for a target audience. It isn't universal design if that's what you mean.
Apple doesn't care if I casually hand my phone to someone (usually, this is "oh, shit, you have AT&T on your iPhone and thus no coverage? I'm on Verizon on LTE. I'm driving, so maybe you can look up where we're going, use my phone") That's not going to keep someone else from also buying an iPhone.
IBM had to evolve away from hardware into technology services. Intel would be wise to do the same.
Are you talking about the article or HN ;)? (Your link has HN as an example !)
Step-by-Step through a Backbone Application
Max Levchin's DLD13 Keynote
In the consumer world, "Wintel" should be wary of the future.

Except for the one beefy laptop/workstation and my wifes gaming PC, (both which should be good for years), most of the devices we have bought or planning to buy don't require an expensive Intel CPU/chipset. And we don't need any new Windows software outside of the annual Quicken/TurboTax update. For portable use, there's smartphones and I'm thinking a good ARM based Linux laptop should be hitten the market soon enough.
Did Jeff just admit to considering ending his life? Jeff, I'm glad that you made the right decision. Don't give up. I've been in that place when I was younger. However viable it may seen in a moment, giving up IS the wrong decision.

Your podcasts (among others) got me through a lonely phase of my life (migrating to a new country.. having few friends.. and still learning the language). For that I'm grateful. I'm sure that you've had a similar positive effect on far more strangers.

It's funny, but you tend to see these thoughts in the empathic, idealistic types. I'm one of them. But you know what? There's nothing wrong with being idealistic. It's a strength. It's positive. It's energetic. It inspires people. Accept it. Embrace it. Know your weakness, and you can defend against those who'll try and abuse it. And you will win.

Mandela didn't quit. Ghandi didn't quit. MLK didn't quit. More close to reality: Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij haven't given up. Manning hasn't given up.

If Aaron's case has taught us anything, it's that we need to stand behind these people. If we believe that what they're doing is "right", then we need to support them. Publicly. Privately. They need to know that they're not standing alone. To quote Liverpool FC's theme song: "You'll Never Walk Alone" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youll_Never_Walk_Alone.
But you give a teenage beginner different feedback than a seasoned professional.
Great rebuttal. Filled with reason. A+. Great job keeping up
Intel keeps increasing the specs on ultrabooks (like mandatory touch) to keep prices high and sales low.
There are Federal prisons in Georgia.
Tangentially, I want proper support for background processes. Ask me if I'm Ok with letting the ABC app to continue running in the background and for how long. There's a lot of useful things that cannot be done on iOS because of existing backgrounding restrictions, which seem like a knee-jerk reaction to whatever performance problems they have with the OS.
From my perspective Apple makes almost all their iPhone money from the software. The phones are lovely hardware, but look at the original iPhone and 3GS. They were plastic soap bars. It didn't matter because the software was phenominal. I think their problems with iOS are crucial. If they let the quality of their software slip for too long they'll be in serious trouble. I still think they've got maybe 2 years lead over the competition in their overall OS, services and applications portfolio, but that's less of a lead than they had 2 years ago.
To be fair, I don't think the prostitution analogy holds too well here. At least a prostitute is providing a service that there is legitimate demand for from the end user. You could also argue that one could "clean it up" by making it safer and better regulated.

A more apt analogy might be drug dealers subsidising medication by cutting it with heroin.
> PG knows and actively supports it.

I don't think this statement is really fair. If you read the previous post about this, he was clearly surprised and troubled, and he again seems troubled here. He also mentioned in a comment in this thread [1] that he didn't seem to know about InstallMonetizer, and that the team is working on a different product.

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093047
This is a great comment. If I could nitpick a little bit:

You wrote "the metaphor I use is that suicide is the end-game of a crippling disease that attacks the brains ability to manage stress."

As far as I can tell, this isn't a metaphor. I think is a pretty good description of what happens.

For those of you lucky enough to have gotten through your life so far without wanting to end it, it's probably hard to understand what suicidal ideation is like. Jesse Bering, a very well spoken evolutionary psychologist, wrote an article about what it feels like to want to kill yourself. This is far and away the best description of being suicidal I have ever read. As someone who's been on and off with suicidal ideation for the last decade, the words Atwood uses don't really resonate with me. This article really, really does.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/10/2...

Lastly, to anyone who deals with this: if at all possible, don't let the death urge win. Your depression lies to you. Don't trust it to have your best interests in mind.
Google Now sounds interesting but when it comes to digital content apps (kindle, audible, etc), I don't see how shopping in your browser is even an inconvenience. If I bring up Siri and say "Google Game Of Thrones Kindle" I can have the book bought and on my screen with a few taps.
AppScale (Open Source Google App Engine) 1.6.6 Released
It would be easy to underestimate the importance of "sphere of influence" doctrine to (post) Communist states
I wish there was an OS for a tablet with this UI. I would be in heaven.
Ask HN: Why are we so much concerned about productivity?
It bothers me sometimes finding people concerned about programmer's behaviour, brain activity, mood, flow, interruptions, memory, etc...

While I do appreciate the window it opens to understanding ourselves - yet - I'm starting to think it's intrusive (and sometimes condescending).

Why would programmers, compared to other professions, be susceptible to such 'analysis'? Wouldn't it be of an equal value to analyse the behaviour of, say, politicians? How about musicians, lawyers, artists, accountants?
PC sales dropping? Dell talking about going private? HP losing money? Tough. Let them try harder to win business. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Eliminate the Windows tax. From now on, vendors should offer bare systems that can run Windows and/or some flavor of Linux, Chrome OS and maybe even Android. Give me a radio button for each, so that I can watch the price change as I toggle. Enough with the "comes with Windows 8, but we won't tell you how much that costs."

2. Offer multiple years warranty. A car typically is 3 years or 36,000 miles. So why can't a PC be guaranteed for 3 years or 10,000 operational hours? I've seen so many components fail after 91 days, and then we're into a painful customer assistance process with some guy in Bangalore reading scripts in some dialect that sounds like English.

3. By the way, offer real customer service, not some guy in Bangalore reading scripts in some dialect that sounds like English.

4. Work harder to shield the user from malware: build more security into the hardware, e.g. trusted certificates and low level trusted, signed checking of application binaries.

5. Touch screens.

6. Get more creative with the form factor. Mac Mini is a good example of an elegant, efficient unit that doesn't look and sound like an air conditioner sitting under your desk, yet is packed with useful ports and computing power.

7. Tout your products as the mother ship for mobile devices. Provide tablet connectivity and drivers out of the box, and include bluetooth rather than making me order a $10 dongle online just to have this basic feature.

Just some ideas; anyone got anything else?
I absolutely love the terminal in OSX and I'd guess that the majority of mac-using developers probably do too.
That essay called mentioning age "manipulative," which is easily the most jackasstic thing I've seen on the subject. Whatever valid point might have been there was lost in the cold dismissiveness of the author's attitude.
Your entire post feels very ill-informed.

> Let's remember that several western countries do not want a united Korea either.

Name one.

> North Korea has the biggest standing army of the world.

No, it doesn't. The US, China and (India, IIRC) all have larger standing armies.

> Other asians are still very wary of ethnic Koreans, in Japan for example it is known that while there are several non-japanese citizens, ethinic Koreans rarely get citizenship.

This is a poor and complex example. Several quite Japan-specific cultural issues are at play here. It's also not as welcoming to non-Korean foreigners as you seem to imply.

> The united Koreas... maybe they will start another crazy war and attempt to conquer Japan or China.

This is ridiculous.

> ...every time one Korea is losing advantage in the stalemate, that Korea gets some sort of clandestine or official help, in a way to force the stalemate to continue, and the biggest army of the world divided in half and turned into itself.

Aside from the factual inaccuracies ("biggest army of the world"), this feels like a half cooked conspiracy theory. Do you have any evidence whatsoever?
Yep, if there are less VCs and incubators willing to fund these companies then these companies will find it harder to get favourable terms, therefor there is less incentive to start these sorts of business.
Breathtaking Photos of Modern Architecture
> To be fair, I don't think the prostitution analogy holds too well here.

I agree. That's why I often tell people that I have higher regard for prostitution than for telemarketing - the former at least provide value in response to a genuine need (whether we feel it's beneficial for society or not). Telemarketers however, just like install bundlers, actively try to exploit people.
I'm the exact opposite. The anxiety I get from needing to stick to a regiment/ itinerary destroys me. One of my favorite parts of travelling (to cities like LA/ NY where Hotel Tonight is relevant) is hopping off a plane, heading straight to a meeting, and figuring out where to sleep on the fly.

There's definitely other kinds of people out there!
Interesting. I'll take a look at that.
I don't think he felt it was insurmountable as much as it completely suffocated and drown him as he cut his ties to everybody, trying to save everybody else but himself. In a sense, he killed himself long before he took his own life.
The concept and branding seems pretty derivative of svbtle. How are you different from them?
I thought I was the only one who suddenly felt like I needed glasses. Very blurry/out of focus looking
I think we're likely to have a long transitional period that still requires a large global supply chain ... but yes, it would be neat to see maker robots locally at say, Walmart or hardware stores.
Comment was not edited. It looks like you viscerally reacted to a comment suggesting PG isn't a deity.
Well... I would like to disagree on your opinion about cleaning up prostitution. Over here in the Netherlands it seems to work just fine. If person A pays person B for doing intimate stuff that doesn't really harm anyone.
I can't speak to your own experience. But I can advance another explanation for what those words may connote. Sometimes our body does something, and our brain tries to "make sense of it" by inventing a casual relationship where none existed.

For example, if we are cranky, we sometimes mistakenly explain our mood by saying that people around us are rude, or that drivers in traffic are selfishly blocking us. It is sometimes difficult to think that we're cranky "just because."

Some people have a biochemical explanation for their depression and their biochemistry changes over time. It could be that their brains fix themselves, and as they get better, their reason improves. But if you ask them, "what happened?" They say it was their reason.

In my own case, I have often claimed that I can improve my mood with endorphins through exercise and adrenaline sports like rock climbing. But others around me say that I have cause and effect backwards, that when I'm depressed I avoid exercise and when I get better, I start exercising again!
Ask HN: Why doesn't email have a function so senders can pull back unread emails
I remember back in the day, AOL MAIL had (they still might) a feature that let the sender pull back a delivered and unread email if the recipient was also on AOL mail.<p>Why has this feature not evolved into a core part of email across all mail providers (gmail, yahoo, live.com, aol.com etc.) today?
Thank you for "coming out" and sharing your experiences.
There are shitty things in the world. Some of those shitty things are profitable. Many many profitable things are not shitty. It is entirely up to the individual whether they want to be a part of the shitty things, particularly when the individual has the privilege of being in demand. If you're a software developer who decides to work on scammy tools to make money, that's fine, but don't expect me to not factor that information into how I decide what kind of person you are.

Further, YC is supposed to be innovation, and disrupting entrenched markets. Profitable innovation and profitable disruption, yes, but as I said, there's more than one way to make money, and the way YC claims to want to make money is in those ways. Bundling crapware with Windows installers is not a disruptive or innovative way of making money. It would be classified as a shitty, scummy way of making money that has been happening for years. Many of us here that admire YC admire them because we think that innovation and disruption ultimately are beneficial. So when YC, instead of funding innovation and disruption, funds scumminess and shittiness that's been happening for years, we are disappointed in them.
aaron's last posts on stackoverflow about the download scripts are just chilling.
Except that Microsoft is failing on their OS marketing and can't rely on corporate adaptation of Windows 8. The RT version of Surface is a sales fail. Much of their new software push is cloud based, which wouldn't necessary require a full version of Windows. Heck, they even lease Linux VMs on Azure, just confusing the whole message. Why run Windows when every thing except for corporate servers can be done on Android or Linux?
The point is that you use a single function for any type. So in Python you'd have to do int() or float() or customType()... In Haskell, all of these would be just `read'. The type system can figure out which instance to use for you, without having to specify it. Moreover, it's also trivial to write a function that works on any readable type, something hard (although not entirely impossible) to do in Python.

This makes it much easier to use: whenever you want to get any type from a string, you just read it. This is just like being able to print values of any type, except for parsing.

This can also be used with constants rather than functions. So maxBound is the maximum value for any bounded type. In Python, the closest you can get to that is something like float.maxBound. (Except, apparently, it's actually sys.float_info.max.)

As I mentioned, this also lets you define new numeric types that can still use the same literals. For my most recent project, I needed 18-bit words. I could do this and still write expressions like `x + 1` using the Word18 type. Moreover, it would be very easy to make my code generic over the exact type of number used--this would make it possible to use numbers of different sizes or even something more exotic like random variables. (It happens to be tricky because some of the semantics I was working with rely on having exactly 18 bits, but that's an issue with the domain and not with Haskell.)

In another language, I would either have to use the normal int type and make sure to always keep track of the overflow myself or I would have to wrap every literal in a function that turned into an 18-bit word.

So the special quality is being able to dispatch on the return type of an expression rather than on the types of the arguments. I think this is very special indeed and extremely useful. I hope this clarifies everything.