skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Is the RIAA shutting down blip.fm?
I'm 45 and spend all of my time (currently) consulting with startups. At one, the average age is maybe 28. At another, at probably about 48 (no kidding). At yet another, probably 40.
Sharing with hesitation. Interesting, freaky and maybe misguided economics. I can't figure it out. Both sides of the issue make sense I guess.

My reading and interests are increasing occupied with this.

In any case, these are words from the horse's mouth. I have a measure of respect for the guy.
Equality of opportunity and social equality are the important factors.

I visited Ireland several years ago. I think it was Sligo where someone pointed out a local millionaire's house. It was just another house on the row, and the guy lived a quiet life and still went to the local pub. He didn't fear his neighbors, and his neighbors weren't stressed out by his wealth, including the chap who pointed all this out to me, who happened to be on the Dole!

I also note a marked difference between wait staff in Houston, Texas and Cincinnati, Ohio. Waitresses and waiters seem to be much more servile in Houston, whereas in Cincinnati, I was often simply asked what I wanted. Houston is markedly more affluent as a whole, however.

I too think that the problem lies in an underclass that feels "captive." If you are somehow inferior and underclass because of your race then how in heck are you going to escape? Also, the US has huge disparities in educational opportunities. There's some kind of feedback with those disparities and subcultures that devalue education. (Which seems to be spreading up the socioeconomic ladder!)

Looking at countries that have very good equality of opportunity in terms of relatively equal access to education, there does seem to be a higher level of social cohesiveness. (One example would be Japan, where the education system is highly standardized.)

I agree with your notion of bringing people up. I think that the best way of doing this is by raising the level of education. But I doubt that very much more than lip service and the opportunity to get more money from the government have resulted from most of those initiatives.
or with NoScript on even after I allow your domain
Excuse me but are you joking? Communism was further than Capitalism to an equal society. Communism is a sad excuse for Dictatorship and social engineering of the population. I don't think you are equal or free, when you are allowed only what the state (some people who hold the power) give you.
Click 'scribd', it goes to the article on scribd
that is a link to the same pdf, mirrored on scribd. HN automatically mirrors submitted pdfs.
The Emirates Redemption
"It was a battle between 22 souls on the ground and millions out of it who in times not so yore had lost in the race to be the TITANS of Europe.Both sides had to prove their character , their mettle and give their fans something to rejoice.While Arsenal was brutally eliminated by Manchester United"
The things he listed are very important to him BECAUSE he experienced them in that way. I'm 21, and I could concoct a similar argument based on geeky things I have experienced. Heck, I was basically growing up alongside the Internet. I was in high school during the explosion of social networking. I have watched things like podcasting and blogging get absolutely huge. Plus, I had Wikipedia at my fingertips for high school papers :) ! I got my first cell phone in high school, and my first 3g phone soon after. I can get online and talk on the home phone at the same time. It goes on and on.

As for movies, he may have me beat, but perhaps only because it takes time for films to become "geek classics." I will say that The Matrix blew my mind in middle school, I don't know how many times I watched that one.
This is alike to saying Paul Graham is not primarily an entrepreneur, he made money to feed himself and later sold it to focus on furthering his ideas of a second enlightenment.
Actual grasshoppers?!
Travel Editor's Tour to Highlight the Significant Role of Social Networking in Travel
Ask HN: NoScript worth it?
So I've run NoScript for a long time. On the one hand, I like having control of who gets to send data around. On the other hand, it can be obnoxious reloading pages regularly.

I don't believe websites should have to degrade nicely (though it is nice). In today's world, it NoScript still worth it?

The biggest benefit I see if that I can keep off of some of the tracking/analytics crap. Thoughts?
Yeah, there really needs to be quotes around Magic and Java, because it's talking about MENTIONING those to programmers of Python and PHP respectively.
GPS Accuracy Could Start Dropping in 2010
Ask HN: Who are you on Twitter?
On a side note: Who has actually made a strong lead or otherwise formed a strong connection through Twitter?
81 here.

The (consumer) Internet came at the absolute perfect time for me.

I had started programming pretty young, dabbled in electronics and other stuff, but had nobody around to share the passion with. So I abandoned computers and went to play the guitar for a couple of years (I sucked).

Then at around 14 the Internet kicked in. I ordered TCP/IP Illustrated Vol. 1 and Practical Unix & Internet Security from Amazon. I started to learn Unix and network programming, made lifelong friends online, and had a magical time learning together and escaping the boredom and banality of high school back in Brazil.

I loved that time. It made a huge difference in my life. As much as I like Star Wars, I'd rather have the Internet in my adolescence.
@Quizbiz
Quickest Online Bachelor Degree
Step by step guide to obtaining an online bachelors degree in the quickest possible time.
Foamy Croc Car Gets 100 MPG. And Floats
I read more about ycombinator and read a few articles...Although I guess it's a balance..I am interested and I also realize I missed an investment cycle. So- this should be an interesting space to hopefully hear about those experiences of the people involved in going to your summer session.
As much as Rails seems to define the Ruby world, I think that we should be careful to distinguish between the two. Despite its syntactical ambiguity, Ruby is no more intrinsically magic than Python.
What do you think is critical mass for making something like this profitable?

And how do you scale something like this that seems to require 1 db call per user per second minimum? Is this something memcached would be good for? (I don't really know much about it yet)

I'm interested b/c I made a little clone that I'd like to turn into . . . something, maybe a facebook app: www.dealbattles.com. It's a Ruby/sinatra app right now that uses JQuery .post and .load to display the counters and update based on bids. You can't really use it right now because buying credits is tied to my paypal sandbox acct.

If anyone's interested in helping, I'm listening.
Hands On: New Cool-er E-Book Reader Turns Up the Heat
jQuery and Ajax based tag clouds
@pystar
Which way do people move?

Which way do smart people move?
thx for clearing that up
Owen, a quick question. Who is Eli? I recall several times Kevin saying that he hired a guy named Eli from elance to do some personal web stuff for him, and then hired him to do Digg.
Iştirak olan bookmark nədir Və onun tarixi
This is silly.

First off, an IRC channel does not speak for a whole community of users, and an IRC channel that covers a topic that a subset of a community is interested in certainly doesn't cover whole community of users. I mean, Python isn't PHP, it has a lot of uses outside of web development and they don't know or care about the feelings of the #django and they probably don't know what this "magic" thing is either.

Even so, nobody in the world should ever say "Wow" to anything anyone ever does on IRC. It's all happend before, it will all happen again, it's filthy, it's nasty, it's IRC.

Or to paraphrase a great character:

IRC. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

At any rate, so far as I can tell the author doesn't know Django very well, which is fine, I don't know it that well either, but rejecting "simple solution #1" that requires writing:

login_required(some_view)

Instead of

login_required('some_view')

Because you want to specify all your views by module path strings instead of actually importing one... that's just silly. What is wrong with importing a view to pass it to a method? Nothing, as a fan of Python for the past ~8 years, nothing is wrong with that, it's simple, it works, do it. If it offends your sensibilities, well, your sensibilities are silly.

Never mind the "simple solution #2" (in the comments by ez, but someone on IRC should have thought of it):

@login_required
def limited_object_list(*args, **kwargs):
return object_list(*args, **kwargs)

Yes, crazy simple, a tiny, itsy-bitsy wrapper that does exactly what you need it to do and lets you keep your urls.py looking how you want it to. That would have been my route (although once you have to write actual view code you might as well write your own view, after all the generic views are just there to solve common use cases and they are called "generic" views instead of "customizable and flexible" views for a reason.. besides, they are easy to reproduce if you need more complex view logic).

So, instead of the existing, simple and working solutions the author wants to add a login_required argument to every generic view, instead of just using the existing, simple and working solutions?

Yeah, that makes sense.
The only thing for youth is the tolerance for risk can be higher than 40 yrs old for most engineers. But as long as engineers keep up skills. Their experience are very valuable. It was the same when I worked in PubSub then. CTO Bob Wyman hired a bunch of 40 something engineers and they really can do cool engineering than 20 something.

-- edit --

Engineers in PubSub then are at least 30 yrs old in 2005. The youngest engineer is very talented but he started to write programs in forth when he was 10 on Apple II. Of course the draw back is the salary is higher and old engineers may have too much distractions from their children.

I think most of time, the myth for young engineers is to encourage students to join the rank. And the engineers in first world face big competition from countries with lower salary. But I always feel funny because for people working in software, US is the original birth place and the most experience engineers are here. But people probably would rather to pay an expensive old doctor to heal them than an old engineer to build something that works because they don't feel the value for what they pay in perceivable fashion.

-- edit --

And thanks for Owen to dispel myth from PR.
My friend and mentor did his startup (truveo.com) when he was 40, with a wife and two kids to support. His company was acquired by AOL for about $50 million. So yes, the myth that you have to be in your 20s to succeed in this game is exactly that.
I'm curious as to the percentage of Americans that drank alcohol illegally during the prohibition years.

What percentage level is required for legalization to be a politically sound move?
But hard work very often results in nothing. I'm sure many on this site can attest to that.

That considered, you're more likely to get lucky if you work hard.
I think there's a distinction between EB-4 Investor Green Card visa and E-2 treaty investor visa. For EB-4, it takes minimum $1 million and pledge to create 10 jobs or $500k in high unemployed region and 10 jobs. For E-2 visa it usually requires $50k to $100k. Of course $200k is a better amount for immigration authority to consider substantial and there is no quota for visa.
So, invest in Singapore. Problem solved.
I think he's saying that the Ruby community avoids extensive configuration files as a backlash against Java using them.
Do you not have any ethical qualms about taking advantage of the mentally retarded like this?

I can't holler at the Swoopo folks about it, since I don't know them. But, you're right here, so I feel compelled to be judgmental. I don't do that very often. Generally speaking, I think just about anything goes (porn, gambling, soft drugs like pot, etc., as long as you're only selling to adults). But taking advantage of the least intelligent and the most desperate to save money is just nasty.
I liked the discussion on "Profitable Until Deemed Illegal":

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=395970
Cynical me says "It's only a scam - who'd bother to engineer it properly to scale and still produce 'accurate' data? Just 'guess' (ie: rand();) vaguely believable numbers and display them."

big
It's a whole lot better than no one noticing.
fastcgi++: http://www.nongnu.org/fastcgipp/
Well there is obviously a market for it.
the concept is profitable almost immediately.
5-10 in a federal penitentiary?
I built a site like this for a client a couple years ago. They were hoping to use it to raise money for charity. They paid me for the work but never operated the site.
I'll be the first to admit that it's one step above gambling (you do actually have control over if you 'win' or not, if you're willing to spend until you do - this is why it's legal and not a raffle).

But you just said you're OK with gambling, so I don't get the outrage. Swoopo pushes it as "entertainment shopping", which I think is fair.

And if you want to really get cynical, separting the idiotic from their money is a public service insofar as they can't spend it on things with negative externalities, like US Weekly</joke>.
You don't have to be "retarded" to fall for something like this. The poster clearly is quite intelligent. He also thinks he knows how to beat the system. Behold the system in all its perfidious majesty: if there are two people in the world smart enough to beat it, it will take everyone for all they are worth.

The smartest man I have ever known, who will one day cure cancer, once described to me in all earnestness how the double-your-bet-after-you-lose strategy was flawless. (Relatedly: He also was a fan of penny stocks.)
Why do you think this is very different from gambling?
smanek, putting aside moral considerations I think you are discounting the actual cost of leaving people like Mr. Bruum to fend for themselves and ultimately end up being incarcerated. Suppose you live in California where incarceration costs upwards of $3,500 a month. Cutting him off would end up costing you twice as much.
Rome wasn't "equal". The British Empire wasn't "equal". America stills rules most of the world. It isn't "equal". If China someday rules the world, you better believe it won't involve an excess of "equality". The research talks about chronic stress and obesity. Guess what? That's just not a significant matter in the grand historical sense.

Can we please drop the Oprah-Winfrey view of the world? Please?
Your compliance officer said that?
These guys http://www.boardvantage.com/ have hundreds of customers using their hosted solution just for that, holding unreported numbers for reporting.
The payout is worse than government-run lotteries (which I also consider unethical, and preying on the least capable of making informed decisions). This kind of payout in Vegas would lead to serious legal issues for the casino.
I never said my feeling about this was outrage. But, I do consider it unethical, and it's something I would not take part in.

I'm OK with honest gambling...payouts of 85% to 95%, as found in Las Vegas. I'm not OK with lotteries (which are legal, and in fact operated by the government, but I consider them unethical for the same reason...they prey on those least able to understand the odds and the costs, and those who most desperately need money). At least in the case of lotteries it contributes to some sort of common good (states usually say it is for schools; "think of the children!"). Swoopo is contributing to nothing but filling the pockets of the founders.
"Today, My US Investor Visa Application Was Denied"

You forgot to write "FML"
Nevertheless. One issue is that the US probably has a much higher segment of the population that's at least a standard deviation below average in IQ than European nations do. I'd love to see Finland work with our IQ distribution. Low IQ demographics cause a lot of problems.
The exact same argument can be made for software, and anything else you can do on the computer. A few people are happy to create things for free, but those same people would generally prefer to be able to make a living doing what they love.

I'm not expecting this to be new to anyone here, as most of these arguments have been on the internet for years now.
Here's a relevant graph:

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii139/tolsdogg_photo/life...

The introduction of capitalism had a small but negative impact on life expectancy.

If you were to compare life expectancy in communist countries to life expectancy in capitalist countries, I imagine the capitalists would win, though.
I honestly hope you never end up in a situation where you need some kind of government help that others object to subsidizing.
@rscott

I'm not sure that it's really good at "strong" connections, but it is good for a quick word to someone.
I'm very sorry. US immigration policy is highly arbitrary and irrational. I hope you succeed wherever you start, and still have the chance and desire to relocate to the US sometime in the future.
Which of the countries you cite is doing good?
Maybe they donate to charities. I would, I promise!

Also, what actually made me start building it was that I would have a twist where losers would be given the chance to still buy the product at a discount (ensuring a profit margin by taking into account revenue from bids and % of people who usually would take the 'consolation' offer).
I didn't want to mention it by name, but I was actually talking about perl.

What originally attracted me to python was that I wanted a non-magical perl.

That may not be such a big factor anymore, but it shaped the language and culture.

"In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess. There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."
Looks like the system is guaranteed to make money on at least some items... for example:

http://www.swoopo.com/auction.html?cm_re=Homepage-_-Grid-_-1...

See the "15" image next to the countdown? Mouseover that, and it tells you that the 10 second countdown for this item will not trigger until the bid has gotten up to $64.70. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that the house will win this one (if not all of them).
You are lucky not to be in Reddit, you would have been downmoded to smithereens.
ADOBE: founded 1982 by John Warnock (born 1940) and Charles Geschke (born 1939) - that's about 42 and 43 years old. I believe they both had young families too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems

However... they were working at Xerox's PARC.
Education and less Oprah and Britney is the key.
Something that needs to update so frequently shouldn't poll for its data. It would be a better idea to create a Comet server. That simplifies synchronization since you don't have to query the DB every time someone does a request. Instead, you query it every time someone changes a field.
Fair enough and more than enough justification for me to implement it.

BTW I really appreciate taking the time to share your point of view.
Perl was a little too much. I like ruby a little better than python because I still need some magic in my life.
Great writeup. I'm curious, is there a way to find out how much Ellington costs other then contacting them directly? Can't seem to find anything about actually purchasing the source/system on their site.
It's not the "grand historical sense" the article is talking about. And it's not what I care about in the country where I live. Give me Norway 2009 over The British Empire anytime.
I support you man! Keep up the fight!
I'll be getting to deal with Japanese immigration soon enough...
Johnson County Residential Cleaning
Cinderellas Home care offers residential house cleaning services by eco-friendly cleaning products to keep your homes clean and safe. We vacuum, dust, disinfect, clean the bathrooms, mop the floors, etc
Well, there _is_ that. (Actually it surprises me a little that the business plan doesn't already suffer that issue).

On the other hand, I suspect my "federal" (.au) is different from your "federal" (assuming .us), and if _I_ were operating this scam the servers "federal" would be different again (and I'd ensure that my victi^h^h^h^hcustomers "federal" never intersected with my own...)

big
@VoidMonk

More:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134808

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480171

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145204
I spent six months trying to find an acquiring bank in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, U.A.E., Yemen etc. but I couldn't find one. I came very close with one but it didn't pan out. If you know any Arab bank willing to be an acquiring bank we can set up in their country.
I am guessing you are white and from a "tier 1" country? Your experience might have been very different coming from, say, Indonesia. They can go into much greater detail and require higher standards of evidence if they think there could be an economic motive to your move.

I can't speak to the US experience but it's basically the same deal in Australia - a good friend of mine got her spouse visa literally overnight from the Tokyo embassy, but I've heard stories about it taking 18 months to receive the same thing if the applicant is from a developing country.

The situation truly sucks, and I wish they could do a better, faster and more dignity-preserving job, but there is a lot of fraud and motivations of the applicant can often be questionable. A thai-chinese friend once told me that one of her friends needed to marry an Australian for visa reasons, and would pay $25k or more. That opened my eyes a bit. She could just make that much more working here. Guess the occupation.

There's no excuse, but they do have a lot to deal with.
Diverging views on Big Data density, and some gimmes
I was really happy to hear you say that when we met at your TravelPod presentation; I wish there was more focus on older hackers – sure gives me something to look forward to.

-Edward from Shopify (around the corner from you guys)
Is it just me, or does this idiom sound very similar to one of the critiqued "incorrect" programming idioms in the recently analyzed breathalyzer code?
Spousal visas are treated very very differently from business visas in Japan, and I would think most countries. You are married to a citizen of the country, and it would be inhuman to deny you the right to live in the country of your spouse. Inhuman, but sadly all too common in some countries' immigration rules. I'm thinking of the UK citizen friend of mine working in silicon valley, married to a Japanese woman, who was separated from his child and wife for the better part of a year just because US immigration was fucking around with them.
About Those iPhone App Store Revenue Numbers
Given that most startups discussed here are Internet-related, enabling people to do things over the web, the fact that most VCs and entrepeneurs seem to think that you have to physically be in insanely expensive Silicon Valley is pure conformism ("You should be on a plane to Silicon Valley NOW!"). Of course, since they're the ones with money and networking, they turn this arbitrary dogma into a law of investing. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the long-run, this is an acpect that entrepeneurs outside the U.S. can turn against them and outcompete them. Of course it's insanely hard, it's like trying to outcompete romans 2000 years ago.
You don't need to get that fancy. Just paint silhouettes of the instruments onto the counter. Same effect, simpler operation, bonus clutter reduction.
You don't think your callous attempt at a humorous put-down of someone's business concept could make them personally feel bad? I love that because you're railing on someone's idea, it's all fun and games, but if someone calls you on it, you play the victim card. Stop defending yourself for your immature and dismissive comment and just apologize.
You can look at his startup in his profile - well, I'm presuming it's the same one, it does say "Founder and CEO".