skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
its not a technical challenge to build an index of the entire web?

certainly not easy, and not any easier than it was before as the web is much larger

there is also freshness/timeliness which is the most difficult aspect and is becoming more and more important as more data is added to the web faster (one area where googlebot kills yahoo/msn)
I figured school and I weren't a right fit some time in high school, so I
dropped out then. Never even heard of unschooling at the time, I just
considered myself an autodidact. That was now more than two years ago, and I
still haven't started "unschooling" myself.

It was a problem when my parents threw me out soon after my 18th birthday, for
dropping out of school. I had to get a miserable job, coding PHP for about the
same amount of money my friend got stacking boxes in a warehouse. That was
nothing unexpected, it just shows how much programmers are valued in my
country.

The job made me depressed, unable to do anything. Not learn, nothing.

Now I'm working with a friend on a startup company, poised to solve all our
problems, but I wouldn't say that's going so great either.

But I don't regret anything. School wasn't a good way of learning for me, and
I will continue my education on my own, as soon as this company gets of the
ground and I have some time.
i was actually kinda bummed out to work with some CSS today, forcing me to come off my javascript/JSConf high.

pretty plz let there be one next year.
It's based on the Trendalyzer acquisition from a few years ago. It's not like the technology was just thrown together in response to the Wolfram announcement.
it has nothing to do with that, its a supply/demand effect. its because at either end, people will work for a given effective wage. if taxes on low income (or high income) fall, their effective wage goes up so employers can pay less and still keep (or at least get new) employees. and vice-versa for tax rates rising. compare wages in neighboring Nevada and California. Absolute wages for tech employees are much higher in Cali, but because Nevada has lower taxes and cost of living. the effective wages are about the same. (well, that part is based on anecdotal info)
Other than the usual?

-Buy new domain

-Point new domain at server

-Notify users of the change

-Surrender old domain

I've never dealt with this sort of thing before, but I'm not aware of special mechanics for the situation.
A third of the price for gmail versus other mail providers. That's great, until you can't get to google tech support and you can't get to your email and nobody knows quite why. Sorry, in most organizations, I'll handle my mail myself. gmail's great for personal accounts, but I'm not ready to trust a business to it.
Easy and 1st: 301 redirects for as long as you can. Negotiate!

Medium later: A link somewhere on the page saying, for some period of time: "Dear visitor, were you looking for oldfoo? Click here."

Harder and even later: Check the referer to see if they were coming for the old content
Swinefighter: the swine flu game goes viral [Heyzap YC'09]
economics as a science is generally neutral on redistribution as to whether it is 'good' or 'bad'.
Okay, can you provide a bit more detail besides the analogy? For example, reading one of the links referenced in the OP, it says

"It doesn’t simply return documents that (might) contain the answers, like Google does, and it isn’t just a giant database of knowledge, like the Wikipedia. It doesn’t simply parse natural language and then use that to retrieve documents, like Powerset, for example. Instead, Wolfram Alpha actually computes the answers to a wide range of questions — like questions that have factual answers such as “What country is Timbuktu in?” or “How many protons are in a hydrogen atom?” or “What is the average rainfall in Seattle?”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/08/wolfram-alpha-computes-...

But Google does some of those things indirectly at least. For example, in a Google Spreadsheet I can type

=GoogleLookup("hydrogen", "number of protons")

and the cell returns one.

=GoogleLookup("Timbuktu", "country")

returns "Mali"

and

=GoogleLookup("Seattle", "rainfall")

returns "36 inches".

Now I don't know whether there is some syntax to do these from the main search, but it seems to cover some similar ground. I am guessing since everybody is very excited about Wolfram Alpha that there must be more than this, or qualitatively different.

[Edit following comment below: I am not saying they are competing, I was asking whether the same underlying technology is powering both, for example with Wolfram being a more complex version of whatever GoogleLookup is doing, or whether the algorithmic approach is fundamentally different. I will admit to not watching the 2 hour webcast and looking for a quick answer]
Assuming that Foo Inc. has not presented any demands as to when you have to cease control over foo.com, what you want to do is to set up a HTTP 301 redirect to your new domain phoo.com and leave it indefinitely. Human traffic will probably adapt to the new domain relatively quick, but search engines can take a while to update all instances of foo -> phoo even though 301 means "permanently moved".
There are widget analytics services such as ClearSpring, Gigya, and Widgetbox.
Steve Jobs deposition offers peek inside Apple
The Pirate Bay Verdict (in English)
Link to PDF is in the article.
Heyzap's going for any-publicity-is-good-publicity? On the negative side:

1. It's a bad game both in terms of graphics and gameplay, though I recognize I can't expect much better so soon

2. It's inaccurate; swine are not the enemy

3. It's arguably in bad taste
It was only a matter of time before this happened! Congrats.
lol effin yea this is awesome
Unbelievable Likexo
Opera adds a splash page to celebrate 15 years of web innovation
Make sure you clear your cookies to catch the splash page
I thought particle/anti-particle pairs were one theory re: black hole emissions: a virtual particle pair cones into existence at the edge of the event horizon. One of the pair goes left and gets swallowed. One goes right and is left outside, becoming a real particle. The black hole loses just a tiny bit of energy and off it goes...

The emitted particles can be matter or antimatter, as the pair production is random. Unless some new physics says that antimatter particles "roll downhill" better to explain the currently-observed universe ratio.
i dont think a lot of regular people realize how hackers control the internet
I read the question as the OP wanting comments from people who were homeschooled, not parents who are homeschooling. I think this is very wise. I am not trying to make any particular point for or against; just that what parents think worked with their kids, and what kids think their parents did that worked is not always the same thing.
Oh yeah, I remember those.

Traffic bottle neck, prone to accident. A horrible idea probably as a result of laziness.
Hmmm... a larger version of the most annoying kind of flash ad on the web. I want those 15 seconds of my life back.
Such a beautiful product. Really shows how a web product can be practical and artistic. Very well done.
That's one of the coolest websites I've seen in a while I remember doing something similar in middle school.

But it goes away after a cookie.
This is a bit off topic but I always thought the easiest way to build a space elevator was from space lowering it down to the planet. Not building it ground up.

That being said I'm all about more amateur involvement and less regulations. Or to say it another way, regulations should not be the limiting factor like it is today.
Saddest phone support request you'll ever hear
It was posted on the dreamhost blog - this brings tears into my eyes
My 3 kids started taking classes at the local community colleges while in high school, especially math. This was CA and they could take the classes for high school credit or college, even UC, credit. They opted for UC credit and it put them ahead of the game. My daughter avoided a 5th year at UCLA. My son dropped out of college and eventually founded a company with a couple of friends.
Scorpion032 - help me expand Twit Ya - drop me a line..
Peer influences will inevitably be problematic and dangerous throughout the course of one's lifetime. If a teenager doesn't learn how to handle these influences in high school, then the dangers will invariably be exacerbated in adulthood.
I'm in grade 12 now, almost done, only a few months left. I was in basically the same boat as you in Grade 10, i completely hated it. Now, i still don't like school, but i am still loving life.
Well my first piece of advice is to slack off in school, if you can. DO all of your homework, but only due the minimum. Just aim to get above 75% in all of your classes. You may not be able to get amazing scholarships with this mark, but you can graduate and get into College.
Now what i would recommend to make your life more enjoyable: Find something to do that you love and do it
I co-founded a web design company (Kerplunc.com) with a friend of mine in the UK, i run a successful web hosting company (KerpluncHosting.com) and run a blog/webcomic with a bunch of my friends (ExplodingWumpus.com).
I'm not sure if your loves are going to be anything similar to that, but that's what i love to do.
If you want someone to talk to about this kinda stuff, or just someone to discuss nerdy shit with, feel free to email me (matt@kerplunc.com) and i can give you my MSN etc.

Oh and don't start doing drugs or partying
I remember reading somewhere that Gates had failed to get a business loan. And that his father offered to guarantor him if he agreed to set up business back home in Seattle.
Our Gibsons will never be safe!
I like that the computer depicted in the animated gifs looks like it's from 15 years ago.
A dispatch from the "programmers liberation front"
Johnathan Edwards may be perched in the academia, but he's a hacker and one of us:

http://subtextual.org/young.jpg

He's making progress on his attempt to reinvent the programming wheel.

Latest news:
http://coherence-lang.org/

& This is absolutely must watch: http://subtextual.org/subtext2.html
With the growth of homeschool, I'd be interested to know if there is any reaction/support coming from the private school industry.

The first thing that pops into my mind is 'Can't there be a hybrid?' A 10 hrs a week school or something like that. I'm not sure what exactly (if anything) would appeal to home schooling parents, but it seems likely that many of the trade-offs or difficulties would be overcome with a little bit of school.

Any thoughts on this?
oh yeah, I just checked out the SocialFeet facebook app.
Knew it! I could tell by some of the submissions and comments.
I'd be interested to know if (your) reasons for home schooling are mostly related to peer or system influences?
Paul is wrong. The year is 2009 and if you're resourceful, you can find what you need on-line. Marketing costs are a tax for poor applications. Hosting costs are a tax for not using the right framework. You can do anything -- wherever you are right now. The first step is to ignore everyone, including Paul Graham.

And the second step is to just do it.
this might interest you:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=584183

YC company looking for a 4th member of their team
I'm neither an employer nor do I live in bay area but I think this is the question employers might ask since you are from Toronto. Are you legally allowed to work in US?
If your site relies on traffic from search engines I would recommend using 302 redirects (temporary redirect) for some time. When the search engines have updated their results to show your new domain switch to 301 redirect.

The reason you don't want to jump right on 301 is that your old results will probably fall off immediately.

At one time using 302's was a suspicious sign in the eyes of the search engines, but that is no longer a problem.
Yep I actually think it's pretty amusing. And I'm not a massive game-player.
If they are big, and you are legit, make them pay for it. You can probably get $15k for it. OTOH if they are small or just plain nice, give it to them, esp. if it is not a big money maker for you.

In the pre-Internet days my company name was a registered trademark and we leaned on another another to change their company name. They did. My unlawerly opinion is that a (tm) isnt worth spit, but(R) has some real meat behind it.
I did Running Start -- Washington college dual enrollment programm -- after 10th grade in high school. So I only got two years of high school in my life.
It's nice being close to other startups that you would / could potentially talk to. Arranging meetings, even spontaneous ones goes a long way. If you live in Silicon Valley, you're basically surrounded by a ton of these companies. If you don't have the time and money to travel much, it makes sense to be closer to these other guys.

Then again if you really don't need anyone else, and phone calls are good enough, I say go wherever you want =)

Me? I'd like to sit on an Island out near Fiji every day while working. Optimally it will have an airport, water, electricity, and internet. =)
How about "The Best Entrepreneurs Don't Fail"
Working remotely... from China. Advice?
I'm going to be working (web development) from China for the next few months. I've done this before so let me explain how I did it and then ask if anyone has any advice on how you would do it.

I frequently need access to SSH, FTP, our version control stuff (Vault... yuck), and then basic chat, email and web access. Working from China means dealing with pretty bad lag at times though that isn't a major issue as I am not dealing with video or gaming or remote desktops or anything heavy like that. I will sometimes run into the Great Firewall but have no trouble doing what the Chinese do (using anonymous proxy servers or setting up Tor) to get around such things. Tor and proxies slow things down pretty bad but they are better than nothing and are only needed occasionally as the sites I am accessing are rarely blocked. In addition to Tor and random anonymous proxies I have also tried using Hamachi. It worked to a certain extent but was eventually blocked (I suspect) by the Great Firewall and frankly, it just gives me visual access to my home desktop... something I would really rather access via SSH anyway as SSH is fast and my Unix-foo is adequate. So, that is what I have done in the past, now...

What sorts of advice do you folks have for how to work as effectively as possible from within China? I will not have access to a private company's network so that is out of the question. My access comes from the wireless I have set up in my apartment in China (Hangzhou... sweet city) or from access at Starbucks (yeah, I know... perhaps I will carry a small bottle of Massengill in my bag).
So, have any of you worked from inside China? If so, where? Any practical tips you have are most appreciated as I will have a reasonably heavy workload (mostly PHP, MySQL) this summer and will want to be as efficient as possible. Thanks!
Hilarious. Perhaps make it embeddable for when folks write you up?
ESR agrees with RMS about "Software As Service"
I saw a different page and started to wonder if they were doing AB testing :).
I also wonder how many business are ready to have all of their email communications indexed by Google. Granted, with any third party provider, it's going to happen, but I would at least prefer to keep my eggs in more than one basket.
Yep. Ironically its not embeddable. We only started this last night. Will do soon.
TextMate Basics Tutorial
I agree with this. I guess you will also see a slur of bad taste iPhone apps about the swine flu. Some people would do anything to make a buck/get attention.
Designing cities for satellite imagery
Homeschooled all the way (til I started college classes at 15), in Ashland, VA (near Richmond). Worked for me, and my brothers, but my mom was really involved and committed to it. That's an essential component. :)

My mom now writes home-school curriculum and other helpful books, and speaks at conventions and such (maybe the one you're going to). If you have any VA-specific or general Q's, I'm sure she'd be happy to answer any questions. Her site's at http://everyday-education.com/.
So I can use one of two different "standard" technologies, plus a proprietary technology, to avoid using a single proprietary technology.

I'm not sure where's the advantage.
I just finished my app...

Swine Flu, for those who care to waste time infecting others instead of fighting this glorious disease.

http://apps.facebook.com/swinefluapp
Free Checklists And Sample Fundraising Plans
Edwards hasn't seemed to have solved the core issue with so-called graphical (Edwards is calling it "non-textual") programming languages: they're clumsy to the point of being unusable.

The table visualization might seem useful for some, and it would perhaps make a nice feature/plugin for an IDE. But, frankly, I would rather muddle around with boolean algebra than clicking around his GUI.
I guess you will also see a slur of bad taste iPhone apps about the swine flu

I'm almost done with mine. Not sure if Apple will approve it.
My comment on Wolfram|Alpha limitations:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=584045

Simple example of Google Limitation (I'm sure there are better):

=GoogleLookup("Ruler of France","1821")

=GoogleLookup("1821","Ruler of France")

both return null. What is the entity?

However, if I want to find out when the next AC/DC Concert is, Wolfram|Alpha probably won't be much help.

They are really not competing...Clear?
That's part of their business model. They also put virtual billboards on prime "real estates".
Glimmer: a jQuery Interactive Design Tool
So, he does raise a great point about being obsessed with metrics. This is key to building and running any stable business. Love your numbers.

I think good product people are combination of:

1. obsessed with metrics

2. knowing what to measure

3. using these two things and their knowledge of their market to know what to make

I don't think just trusting your numbers and obsessive A/B testing is enough. It definitely helps though.
I started unschooling in high school. I went to some college, but returned to self-education after a semester. I've never looked back. Not Back To School Camp (nbtsc.org) is a great summer resource for unschoolers--a mix of workshops led by advisors and campers, as well as a social opportunity. NBTSC takes place yearly in Vermont and Oregon. You may also want to read The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn, which is an excellent reference on self-education (for the young self-educator).

You may also want to read College Without High School by Blake Boles, when available. See http://www.blakeboles.com/cwhs.htm

Feel free to email me at my username at gmail if you want to talk to a hacker who has unschooled and who works with hundreds of unschoolers every year.
I disagree. With the caveat that you should not let your data escape, there are very good services out there: 37signals, salesforce, web analytics, where it isnt worth trying to host it yourself. My friends, this is where we are going to make our money. Thank RMS for GPL, gcc, and other fine tools, but let's ignore his rants.
Not at all! My ideas are entirely open for discourse. I don't think for an instant that what I wrote was immaculate and untouchable.

The reason I'm pissed off about this whole thing is that it's a bad essay. It's not worthy of pulling up and discussing. And this is a crowd that's never going to agree with the things I've said, and yet because it's Hacker News I find the need to argue anyway, knowing it's going nowhere, and so it's a huge time sink over a piece that doesn't deserve this attention.

The people politely responded? I wouldn't have gotten involved at all if that was the case. The reason I got an account was because I was being called things like a "sad, angry little man," and maybe I'm thin-skinned but stuff like that really pisses me off.

I know this is a defensive thing to say, but my Twitter post was half in jest. If I was pissed off at Hacker News, I wouldn't be here. Does that make me as bad as the people I was blaming? Probably. This isn't a personality quirk that I'm entirely at peace with; it's certainly still a part of me. I don't think I'm perfect and I'd never pretend to me. The fact that I write so much about these things is because they're parts of me I still don't like. I think I've been saying that from the start.

So if you want to fly off-the-handle at me for getting annoyed because a community I really like had a huge uproad over a piece of mine I really didn't care for, feel free. I probably deserve it; I act immature at times; I say things without thinking. You're older than I am and more well-known than I am and so by all means you're probably in the right. I'd just hope you would find better things to do with your time than squabble over a 3 AM ramble by a college freshman.

Now I noprocrast this account away, because I'm finished.
> The simple notion of asking more people to grab a casual coffee didn’t seem to crack my thick skull until I reached my early 30s.

I think what actually happens is us men get older and more attractive in their late 20s and early 30s. We have to deal with so much shit (including rejection and disappointment from employers, women, business deals, customers) that we just become made of stone and either get used to failure or become more confident/realistic about what our actual chances of success are in any given scenario.

Same can be said of people who start companies when they are young vs. when they are older.
And how do you plan on paying for the drinks and dinners on those dates?
I wonder how many people actually use Google Lookup instead of just opening a new tab and searching Google
No China experience, but I rely on VPN to access remote servers. AFAIK that will allow you to access the web without problems.
Ask HN: Legal Blurbs (terms/privacy policy) - backed by formal entity?
I am going to be launching a site for the Indian market in the next few weeks. I live in the US.

I have a couple of questions regarding the legal aspects such as Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimer. Given the domain the site will be in, it's very important that I am covered against any liability and have that indemnity.

Does the legal "stuff" need to be supported/backed by a legal entity (document/attorney/company)? I can create comprehensive legal blurbs by looking at other sites in the same area and even get it verified by a lawyer. However, do they need to have any underlying support in the form of a company/LLC? Or does simply having it on the site disassociate me from potential risks?

Also, how does it work given that the site's users will be in India while it's run from the US? Has anyone had this experience before?
My parents faced the same decision, decided against it, and I'm glad. My ride through public school was a bit bumpy but overall I did OK, and made several life-long friends in the process. I was exposed to homeschoolers in college and while they were hard working and serious students, they just didn't seem to have the same academic chops as their public/private schooled peers. This was not because they were dumb, or received poor instruction from their parents; they simply struggled adapting to some of the requirements of institutional learning. Namely, they had poor time management skills and didn't function well in groups compared to their peers. These students had no exposure to public schooling outside of kindergarten.

With that said, the most critical phase of your child's education will be early childhood, namely grades K-5. A solid foundation during this period will pay significant dividends throughout their academic career. I'd consider weighing your options in terms of specialized private education if you're determined to give them the best start possible.

However, if your objective is religious and you desire to shield your children from the "secularism" in public schools, then by all means home school them.
"Graham clearly wants to drink some big-cap milkshakes."

His own words, I'm sure.