skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well, I recommended that video link, which is over an hour long.

If you'd like to get into his older material, you can check out the couple of power point decks on the right side of this page: http://bubblegeneration.com/
I consider myself to be a bit of a font snob, and looking at that block of example code strikes me as practically unreadable.

Obviously a lot of time and effort has gone into developing this book, it would be a shame if the project was undermined by ignoring book design and legibility.
Ask HN: Is Silicon Valley really the best place for a startup?
The Valley is one of the most expensive places in the country, California has high taxes. You can get broadband anywhere and there are nice places that are much cheaper.

Is the environment of the bay area really worth it?
Yeah, but don't forget it's also up to the consumer not to steal the producer's creation.

What a useless argument. I will give you a very specific example which happened to me the other day, that will show you that content producers/distributors are (for lack of a better word) fucking it all up for their paying customers.

I live in Australia, so things on iTunes are not always available due to licensing deals. These licensing deals however sometimes have their little quirks.

I went looking at TV episodes a few weeks ago, some shows were available, some were not.

The worst offenders were the shows that had missing seasons. Specifically, there was one show that I remember that had only seasons 1, 3 and 5.

Now I at the time was a PAYING customer, willing to put up my CASH to obtain content LEGALLY - yet was unable too. Why? Bad distribution deals.

Now if I was to jump onto any torrent tracker, I could have downloaded all of those episodes, from all seasons for FREE with a MUCH larger selection of shows than what was legally available.

The fact is, that content producers/distributors are providing a bad experience for end users.

Ever tried accessing hulu from outside the US without using some kind of hack to make you pretend your within the US? You can't - there goes another legal distribution point.

Right now, for the end user, these torrent trackers are not only beating the content producers/distributors on price point (free) but also on ease of accessing that information.

There is something very wrong when the path of least resistance is often unlawful.

If they really want to fix the problem, they really need to look at it from the users perspectives.. which is to make it as simple as possible for someone to pay for that content, with a good end user experience and make that content convenient and readily available.

Anything less is unacceptable, the rules have changed - they should at least make a reasonable attempt at playing the new game.

EDIT - Lastly regarding the film industry (and this is my favourite ironic point that I like to bring up) you have an industry that glorifies theft in their films. Ever watched Gone in 60 Seconds, The Italian Job, Inside Man, The Oceans 11 movies etc... Who are the heroes of these films?
If I had to pick one, I'd pick SPIN Selling as feverishaaron said. It's a lot more how to and broken down into steps. Selling to VITO is also step by step, but SPIN Selling approach makes more sense to me.
I don't think people take advantage of the flag option as much as they should. In my opinion it's something to be used liberally. Then garbage like this (as well formatted as it is) wouldn't get through.
Lots of things interest me so it's hard to pick just one. So I am going to list a few.

* WebKit - decidedly the web brick that should help with introducing new developments faster in order to keep things open and modern;

* IronRuby - might take a while, but eventually it should make programming for the .net world much more pleasurable and help folks with bridging different worlds with the same interface, thing that's quite difficult to plan out;

* Google JavaScript Engine, v8 - it's quite a beast of technology that deserves to take off outside of the browser as well. If Ruby is going to get its ass kicked, I hope it will be by Javascript that's quite dynamic and has closures and so on;

* Canvas on the browser - graphics, widgets and games, all fully printable by the browser, all starting instantaneously;

* Javascript on the browser - programming the dynamic way without having to compile, recompile, deploy, to test things... no, just a small change and a refresh and you get to develop the feature!

* Misc: YUI 3, Bazaar VCS, Ubuntu, computer hardware, broadband, Google Chrome, Ruby implementations, Flash (I just tried to see some videos on Microsoft using Moonlight the Silverlight clone and it made me feel little sympathy for Microsoft and their technologies again)...

* Wishful thinking: Microsoft coming to terms and creating their Windows on top of a Unix-like infrastructure; ;-)
I don't know a lot about macroeconomics and this is a little off topic but isn't the honour system principle what nations work with and how trade deficits etc. emerge?
The Mighty Margin 
Apple's tiny, third-generation, 4GB iPod shuffle, according to iSuppli, has an equally diminutive bill of materials -- the research firm says components cost just US$21.77. With a retail price of $79, that gives the iPod shuffle a nice profit margin. Of course, the difference isn't all in the margin -- iSuppli doesn't factor in the costs of licensing fees, royalties, software, shipping, or other development and channel-related costs.

Blog chatter ranged widely over Apple's so-called profit margins and corporate coffers, as well as price drops and rises for the iPod shuffle, which have done as low as $49 before creeping back up to today's $79 -- all of which brings to mind other low-cost MP3 players.

"The original price point has always been $79. They cut the price after they had been on the market for a long time. Other MP3 players are crap, which is why they are $30," commented hillstones on the AppleInsider.com post on the subject.

So how much do other low-cost MP3 players cost to build, anyway? Has iSuppli bothered to teardown any others?

"With respect to other non-display MP3 players -- we haven't done any," Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst of Teardown Services for iSuppli, told MacNewsWorld.

"We actually haven't done any other media players other than Apple products, since Apple is the main 'big' player in the space (media players). The rest of the industry is composed of countless smaller-player manufacturers, none of which, in our opinion, really were worth analyzing as an individual teardown," he explained.

"Other companies can build them as cheaply, if not cheaper, but the end products are not comparable," he added.
I never understood why students took out the loans for the private schools. Public schools are much more affordable if you aren't on scholarship and have great career prospects.

It's even worse when there are some teachers telling students in high school to completely disregard debt and go to the "best" school they can to get an education that will last forever. Honestly, what's that education worth if you struggle for years (decades?) afterwards trying to pay back for it?
I agree, what is this contributing to the discussion? In a world filled with people and their opinions, we need less fluff and more useful insight.
Ask HN: Things They Don't Teach You In Computer Science 
Like many of you, I have a Computer Science/Engineering degree. Over the years I've become somewhat entrepreneurial and have tried venturing into startups. (I'm still chipping away at it). As I became more and more involved in the startup world, I've come to realize that my education gave me the technical skills I needed but did not adequately prepare me for the real world. What are some of the things you've learned over the years if you could teach or tell your old self that would save you lots of time and agony. I think the HN community here has a wealth of knowledge and experience that could be really helpful to anyone looking to start their own thing.

For me:
1) broadening my horizon in terms of nontechnical skills. I used to just read technical books and dive deep into technology whilst ignoring most other skills such as business, marketing, finance, social etc which is very detrimental.
2) networking and forming new relationships. When you are in school and have a job, your social network tend to be your classmates and your coworkers. I think that if that's all the people you hang out with, you develop this narrow vision of the world and miss a lot of opportunities that may be just around the corner if I had just bothered to venture out of my corner of the world.
'Tis the season when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love.
Ping me, let's talk and set something up.
ISP Speeds Up Customers’ BitTorrent Downloads
Japanese Fighting Robots [video]
i think the author's idea of interviewing them as the macs are taken away could be far more comedic and make better advertisement
Often times I'll read a good article here, which leads me to explore a topic further, which can lead to articles I think worthy of posting.

I'd imagine that is why we see things show up in clusters like this.
Sounds ineresting.

It is time for HN to grow far beyond news aggregation.

Startups database and events would be great additions.
Enter a restaurant without shoes, will not be served!

Join a bank, destroy the economy, profit.

Now sir I ask you, where is the justice?
What if our tech is good enough?
I don't know about getting escorted out but it definitely is presumptuous. More importantly it is fucking weird.
Here's a good one:

http://www.technologyreview.com/

For instance, they had a feature called "10 Emerging Technologies of 2009": http://www.technologyreview.com/specialreports/specialreport...
The Sentence Is a Lonely Place - Creative Writing Lecture by Gary Lutz
That would be helpful, but the problem is not so much that you don't know when an optimisation will happen but that its often a fragile condition. Seemingly trivial changes can wreak havoc on your performance. When using GHC I often end up with code that I just can't change without turning a 1MB process into a swap eating monster.

The best thing about haskell is that encourages really clear, high-level code. Having to tiptoe around hard-to-predict performance bombs is definitely against the spirit of declarative code.
What's up with all the "getting laid" threads on the front page the last couple of days?

Spring is in the air?

One explanation: It is quickly approaching the "First of May"
For those not subscribed to the WSJ, you can read the whole article by clicking through a google search.[1]

As for the article itself, the numbers do seem quite troubling for companies looking for VC money. On the other hand, from the trends I'm seeing in the web community, more and more entrepreneurs are bootstrapping their companies.

I wonder which side the causation lies on.

[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Canaan+Partners+said+he+th...
Yeah, Hawala is pretty much like distributed clearing houses. Most small businesses in India that I know use some form of Hawala (or Angadia).
According to Jane Street's article ( http://www.haskell.org/sitewiki/images/0/03/TMR-Issue7.pdf , page 23 ) the ocaml compiler doesnt really do much optimisation at all. The performance comes down to data representation, gc and native code generation.

This has the nice side effect of making it really easy to reason about the performance of ocaml code, at the cost of wasted optimisation opportunities.
Cocoa with Love: What does it mean when you assign [super init] to self?
Huh. I wonder just how much of it has to do with not making an effort to be attractive rather than simply being logical.
Can anyone recommend a host (preferably free) where I can just mess around and start learning?
I think that we all experience this to one degree or another. Albert Einstein described the phenomenon as this:

"The knowledge that we have can be analogous to a circle. Inside the circle is what we know and what we call knowledge; outside the circle is what we don't know and need to explore. As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. So the more we know, the more we feel that we don't know."
This is potentially specious.

My reading of "No justice, no peace" is not "If there is no justice, then will not allow peace", but rather "Without justice, peace is not possible"

This is the far more sensible reading imo. A free, peaceful societies must rely upon universal, and equal enforcement of law in order to encourage and protect peaceful behavior.

That's not to say that there aren't other ways to attain a "peaceful" society. Totalitarian regimes may have little to fear from their citizens, but only through the extermination of dissent and corruption. But, that's where the "free" part is important.
That reminds me of Stalin. The death of one is a tragedy, the deaths of a million is a statistic.
Download Ubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate
Download Ubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate
Last year, there are three YC startups in Hacker House. I believe that there will be at least one there this year.
Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will
Rails and Django
OLPC XO Laptop Gen 1.5 with VIA C7-M 1GHz Performance Announced
Build something. Then listen really hard to what people say. Don't take it personally - just make it so it works for people. And Iterate!
This "analysis" has the sophistication of graffiti in a bathroom stall.
There is actually a 'Google Tech Talk' on detecting cats (versus other shapes) from images:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w72_VwSj6A

Is it really that easy? I would think flagging for texture would be difficult, as it's
likely indistinguishable from noise (data, shadows, clothing..). Approximating shape/avg.
contour is likely easier than looking for fur patterns.

Any suggestions on books/papers/etc on image recognition?
It's funny that they'd switch from a startup that helps you save time on the web to one that helps you waste time on the web. ;-)
This is a somewhat special case since the guy already had experience with non-Windows UIs (Ubuntu) so trying something new wasn't very new to him. On the other hand, many Windows users are deeply set in what they're used to, and their initial experiences might be very different as they get frustrated with trying to figure things out.
I just attribute it to http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/bunny
How a laid off architect built a business on selling architecture advice for 5 cents
Top 20 Sexiest Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2009 Finalists Models
Newly selected Miss India World Pooja Chopra (C), Miss India Earth Shriya Kishore (R), and Miss India Universe Ekta Chaudhary pose during the Miss India Pageant 2009 in Mumbai April 5, 2009.

Pantaloons Femina Miss India Competition ended with a grand finale. Ekta Choudhary was crowned Pantaloons Femina Miss India Universe 2009. Pooja Chopra was crowned Miss India World and Shriya Kishore is Miss India Earth 2009. The show as hosted by Malaika Arora Khan and star R. Madhavan and included performances from Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut and Genelia D'Souza.

More See Picture gallery of the participants and winner and chief guest...

Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2009 photo gallery, Femina Miss India 2009 winner pictures, Miss India 2009, Miss India 2009 Stills, Femina Miss India 2009 Winners Photos,Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2009 Pics,Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2009 Images.
I think you're missing the point, which is more about misery loving company than about cellphones.
The Bank Crisis is Over
my camera isn't good with backlight or in a dark room. i would think that's a common issue. have you guys considered some kind of thingie that will correct the lighting?
At one point you had to go to open houses with checkbook in hand so you could beg the landlord to take your security deposit if you wanted to have a chance at getting a place. Presumably it's not that bad anymore, even if that prices haven't really flinched.
There are both advantages and drawbacks. As you said, in term of cost it's very expensive.

In my opinion, I don't think it's a good place to START. It's good only for successful startup that want to grow bigger.

I read an article few months ago on NY times, that the best country to make startup is Signapore, it has lower taxes and governement encourages small companies.
All valid criticisms. You're right, if it were an academic article I'd never get away with it, but I decided to take a little more leeway with my blog post. I hoped my readers would be astute enough to take my implication of an obviously false causality as tongue in cheek and just appreciate the very cool correlations. You obviously feel differently - I'll try to be more responsible in my future posts.

On the topic of financial satisfaction != amount of money, that's very true, and opens the door to all kinds of alternative theories about what causes the correlations. Unfortunately, the salary data included with the GSS isn't very good, so if you want to argue that maybe financially dissatisfied young people are having more sex because of a different confounding variable (they tend to be risk-taking maximizers or something like that), there's not much I can say to argue with you.
E-ink. Sunlight-readable displays that consume no power could open up a whole bunch of new markets. The Kindle is just the beginning - could you imagine replacing road signs with E-ink? They could change to reflect traffic conditions, automatically routing traffic around jams without requiring that drivers glance down at their cell phones. If only they were available in color...

If someone ever invents a worthwhile holographic display, that would be huge as well. The limiting factors on most portable electronic devices are the display and keyboard: if you could have a full-sized, immersive 3D display and an accelerometer-based pointer, you could do so much more with your phone.
1. Girls are just as horny as you are.
2. Those business guys are even dumber than you think they are. (doubly so for the current crop of dotcom guys)
3. What's new is not necessarily better. Do not ignore the lessons (and successes) of the past.
Common blindness to be cured with stem cells
If the shit hits the fan, would this contract even work properly? Contracts are only good when the shit hits the fan. They're insurance policies. (And might induce people to do thing b/c of fear)
Robotics - There's a ton of work happening on robotics (e.g Anybots) and robots with greater and greater degree of autonomy are being deployed. Robots in warfare is a topic of particular interest to me. think warfare is going to get an order of magnitude more horrendous (hard as it may be to imagine that)
Hookk - Citizen reactions to the news
A Hookk is a Citizen
Reaction to the news.
Bite sized and tasty.

Got something to say?
Low carbers: critical thinkers and a bulwark against illiteracy
Stem-cell grown teeth.

Imagine your future dentist visit: a really big dude punches you in the teeth the moment you walk into the dentist office, then you spit out your old teeth and they plant you a new set. In 6 month you have perfect teeth - good for next 10 years of abuse.

I can hardly wait.
Yet now we find ourselves in an impossible position. In almost every sphere, the technology we have is so good that any improvements can only be incremental.

I don't believe this for a second. I'm sure people said the same thing about smartphones before the iPhone. Yes, some categories of technology are mature, but innovation is also about the creation of entirely new categories that we can't currently foresee.
It's good to know not all banking institutions were destroyed :P

In seriousness, I wonder how much the credit crisis affected Hawala.
E-Readers. Improved resolution, better usability, a sleek design, and an SDK could make it the iPod for text. Combine this with an iTunes-like model for newspaper articles, PDFs, feeds, and books of independent authors and you may even have a business model.
Super Capacitors: instantly chargeable batteries would be really handy in about a million things, electric cars being most notable

Augmented Reality: If we get it right, it will obsolete/improve a whole bunch of stuff (laptops, books, phones, movie theaters come to mind)

Cloud computing: I don't mean avoiding the pain of buying servers, I mean the final ultimate realization of dumb terminal and central processing hub (combined with augmented reality and you've got an always-on computational extension of self with zero bulky hardware)

growing things with algae: Oil, steak, ears (likely in that order)

3D printers: I just want to have an infinite cheap supply of standard rectangular Lego blocks.

Further out:

Fusion, hopefully cold: water in, power out (and I suppose whatever elements we're short on at the moment) my physics gets a little shaky here but I think fusion up to Fe is energy positive so an unlimited supply of iron could turn into some interesting things.

Hole diggers: Bullet train from New York to Paris that falls to its destination (and of course climbs to decelerate the second half of the trip)
One thing I wish I could have more experience or training with is office politics, at the very least to defend myself with. There are a ton of dirty tricks that unscrupulous co-workers can and have tried, to pull on me and I wish I had more of an idea of what goes on.
A lot of the points this presentation lists (make it a game! reward with points and levels! make users curious by hinting at hidden information!) are techniques that have been used extensively by the most successful Facebook applications. I look at Facebook apps as a bit of a primordial soup of Darwinian evolution, because of the short development cycles and easy access to a potential audience... and the fact that the presentation sums up many of the techniques I noticed succeeding on Facebook is what makes me take it seriously.

Highly recommended for anyone working on consumer apps. Even if you know a lot of the concepts already, it brings them together nicely.
Yes but it's clearly a promotion to their story software and web apps company
I'm arabic and I can read this word!

In Tunisia, they offer this service in the Mailling System. You deposit money to the nearest office and a fee of 1.5 DT (around $1) and you mention the person to get it (with a code).

The other person also should go to the nearest office and can get the money using his identity card and the code.

It made things easier, as here people can't easily get Credit Cards.
I'll second a few that have been mentioned already:

* http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/ (Brian Carroll's blog)
* http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Get-Real-Not-Play/dp/1883219507

you can read more from Mahan Khalsa at:
http://www.ninetyfive5.com/default.aspx

I found both of these very helpful in building my understanding of the sales process and for the tools they provide you with. The biggest shift in thinking they provided for me was that selling is about asking questions, finding a connection between what you're offering and what your customer is looking for and then asking for the business. They also showed me that selling is about focusing your activities on the right things to meet your goals, not just spending time "busy" selling.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Busine...

The Definitive Book of Body Language
http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Book-Body-Language/dp/05538...

+1 to How to Win Friends & Influence People
I think some MS guys made this to help trasit people from IE6 to IE8 (better than they do choose FF or Chrome)!!
Your argument begs the question. "I haven't legal access to something, therefore it is okay for me to steal it because otherwise I couldn't have it."

Loot on.

"There is something very wrong when the path of least resistance is often unlawful."

Oh man, this is just perfect. Welcome to our future, ladies and gentlemen.