skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My favorite quote from Paul Graham:

"People who've done great things tend to seem as if they were a race apart. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because, knowing how the story ends, they can't help streamlining the plot till it seems like the subject's life was a matter of destiny, the mere unfolding of some innate genius. In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as genius. But if you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right."

http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html
Stackless Python is neat, but it's not really threading.
My first thought was he could have stopped playing video games hours a day and got a part time job to cover his debts but I'll admit his scheme seems to have worked pretty well. Someday an MMO maker is going to see the opportunity here and allow players to cash in items/gold for real life currency.
I wonder how much, if any, significant difference there is between this poll and data from the server logs?
Rather surprising to see PHP so high here since I rarely see PHP-related submissions on HN. How do people learn it? I've found that the best thing for me was finding StumbleUpon and reading up as much as I could about best practices in PHP and programming in general. Now I force myself to try a different language for my own projects to get away from PHP as a "comfort zone".
The relative reliability of laptops versus desktops
Too bad so few CEOs are good at what they do. In fact, only 1 in 20 are in the top 5%

I don't know anything about Stever Robbins. Is this a joke?
Why do the rich keep working?
Perhaps the smiley wink ;-) at the end of that sentence might have clued some people in to the fact that it was not meant to be taken completely seriously.

I am both heartened and disappointed by this thread, heartened that a few people came up with reasoned arguments as to the usability benefits of a case-insensitive OS. Disappointed at the far larger number of people who hit the downmod button on comments they disagree with without being able to articulate why they disagree.

I think that the latter behaviour is all too representative of Hacker News of late, unfortunately.
I am learning Clojure because I know lots of "traditional" languages and want to stretch my brain in new ways. I am also interested in new ways to write parallel programs, which is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. Clojure scores well on these two criteria. I chose Clojure over Scala and Haskell, because I believe in dynamic typing over static typing. This is probably more an issue of tase than anything and I also have a high opinion of those static languages. I am very impressed with Rich Hickey's design sensibility and his goals for Clojure align well with my own.
I was in calculus and physics classes many years ago with a future physics Nobel laureate, and I was better in both than he was :-). Of course, he kept at it and I dropped out.
I continue to learn Haskell. A possible future side project would be a good fit for trying out functional reactive programming.

If I ever find myself wanting to program at a low level again, I can see myself learning D.
I just looked into this here out of curiosity. I'm in Vancouver, and for a $300k apt downtown (~550sqft), it's rentable for ~$1300/month minus $200 in strata fees.

So, even if I don't pay anything to a bank for mortgage (i.e. I've just got 300k cash sitting around), I'm looking at ((1300-200)*12)/300000 = 4.4%. With a mortgage, or other incidental expenses, it looks pretty unattractive.

Am I missing something, or are the property values/rental market here just not suitable for rental income?

(Genuinely interested, 'cuz hey, I want passive income as much as the next guy)
I cannot believe you would seriously ask such a question, but the answer is "of course not".

I can't speak for the article I linked to - it might have been copied from somewhere, though I hadn't seen it before if so, and I believe that blog to be pretty reliable. But my comment was composed on the spot. I am not sure if being mistaken for professionally written propaganda is a compliment or not - I guess so? I was just trying to add an alternative perspective, and not even a very controversial one.

Just out of interest, what exactly did I say to make you ask such a thing?
Newspeak, Lisp, Python, Smalltalk, Objective-C.
Regardless of the author, how could that not be a joke? I like it--either you chuckle and smile or you're bad at math. Funny either way.
Hack Your Microwave, With Your Mind
Internet Companies and Ad Agencies Go From Old Enemies to New Friends
The best CEOs I know are the type that are in meetings and on the phone all day long, or the type that is coding all day.
If I were writing a popular URL shortener, the most useful thing I could add would be short (2 character) prefix to the random link, indicating the target type (e.g. video is foo.bla/vd12345). This fixes a pet peeve of mine, when I follow an Mobile Safari link to Youtube on an EDGE network, causing an application shift. Also, 95% of videos on the web these days are better rendered in text, and I just want to ignore them.
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Find out how to lose weight really fast using our quick weight loss diet programme.
I'm a bit shocked to see any significant popularity here, as it seems to be a language most hackers avoid. I'd like to know why people are interested in the languages they're learning - not just PHP.
"Godlike genius.. Godlike nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success." --Thomas Edison
English London has been replaced by multi-cultural London. There is no net loss of diversity here. Old cultures die and new ones form (just like languages, species etc). There is nothing to cry over here. I am in favor of a global state which prevents broader evil and within this state there should be no borders. One nation state. People get scared by this notion believing it will lead to 1984 but that is only one of many possible outcomes. Are cultures and languages more important than the universal freedom to go anywhere in the world without fetters?
"...and furthermore, C++ is slow as piss."
They'll be up against BitTorrent Inc in a way - and those are the official people!
Reminds me of the shock-horror headline in New Zealand a number of years back: half of NZ children below average.
I'm learning Scala for the following three reasons (in increasing order of importance.) These just reflect my current needs, not a prescription for other people, and all three revolve around my need to add a practical language to my repertoire to reduce my usage of C++ and Java.

3. I decided to learn a language I could use on the Java platform using Java APIs, rather than on the _nix C platform using C APIs. Partly this is a matter of wanting to escape C's shortcomings; partly it's because I have my eye on a couple of upcoming projects at my company for which the Java libraries will be extremely helpful.

2. I want to learn a language that will allow me to use functional idioms and help me learn a more functional style, yet allow me to get the job done even when my functional-fu falls short. I don't want to learn a language that expands my mind but then becomes a fond memory. I hope that for many years to come Scala will be the first language I reach for when I need to get something done on the Java platform.

1. I want to master a modern yet practical language with a strong static type system. I don't do much programming that calls for a dynamic language, and I'm pretty satisfied with Python. I write a lot of code in C++; C++ and Java are the only statically typed languages that I have really mastered, and I'm dissatisfied with both of them.

Runners-up:

Clojure: not statically typed. Maybe my next language after Scala -- I really enjoyed using Common Lisp but hated the library situation.

O'Caml: great for the _nix C platform, but not for Java. Also possibly too pure to be a "go-to" language (heh.)
So where does the phone get the URL, another message?
p2 might actually point to the same location as p1, so you can't avoid fetching from memory the second time.

Not necessarily: if p1 and p2 are of different types (and neither is char * or void *), then the compiler is free to assume that they don't point to the same location. This is called "strict aliasing" per the C99 spec; it breaks a lot of old C code.

http://www.cellperformance.com/mike_acton/2006/06/understand...

But in any case, this isn't related to "volatile" as such.
Hah, nice job :)

Keep us updated on the ad revenue numbers :P
Agreed. I backpacked across europe for ~$4k in 1999. Should be a bit more right now, but really a drop in the bucket for you.

Get some guys together (the more varied the personalities, the better), and spend a month relaxing, drinking, and womanizing. Have some fun, try to break a few laws while you're there. Just do it on the last night in each country, so you can get out. (nothing major, but if you're not kicked out of a single bar, you'll be disappointed).
It wouldn't help much: I imagine people are mostly on HN when they aren't working, and so are possibly on a secondary computer that doesn't necessarily run their preferred/default OS.
Understanding Strict Aliasing in C99
A lot of people have to use Windows at work, and i think that's why Windows scores that high in the visitor OS breakdown.
At or below the median, that is.
Same, plus two Windows VMs for IE testing (not nearly used every day, thank god)
I'm not sure if I should be impressed or depressed by this article.
Would you be willing to sell off findoozle.com? If so, please email me at karan.bhangui@gmail.com :)

Thanks
Comment on taxes in 3...2...1...
Lisp, in Pico Lisp flavor.
This guy doesn't seem to get that work could be rewarding.
would you be willing to sell adstreet.net? My email is karan.bhangui@gmail.com if you want to shoot me a message :P
I seem to have the karma.

I'm thinking my first poll should be, "Should James make a poll?"
might be too late for you to see it, but i'm using this:

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/2009/05/04/itunesconnectarchi...

had to tweak it a bit for my own situation, but it wasn't too much work.
Not to be pithy about it, but I think there's some truth to this idea: if you think you'll just work really hard for a bit and then quit to live a life of leisure, you probably won't get rich in the first place. Work itself has to interest you; it can't just be a means to an end.
I have a Mac mini and Linux laptop, and use both for development, but prefer Linux Kubuntu that Just Works.

<snarky comments about quirky Leopard UI elided>

Not sure what your specific issues are, but I've been finding development on Linux to be much more accommodating for me.
"60% of the time, it works every time."
very proper and well written, with detached and unspecific wording. a general sense of disapproval towards americans and japanese. an implication that people have a misunderstanding of the world in terms of governance and foreign perception (which i agree with.)

you could have used that post body as a reply to many things, it's very generic.

you can get mad mad at me if you want; i wasn't trying to piss you off, i wanted to see what would happen if i asked up front.
Isn't this bordering on illegal? It sounds like they want to resell one ISP's bandwidth to another. As I understand it ISPs are already upset about bittorrent because it circumvents their commercial upload services by hijacking consumer bandwidth.

It sounds like a terrible idea.
It sounds like you're a bit burned out on working. You've been doing it for almost a decade already, so no surprise.

I recommend traveling until you get tired of it. Explore the world. It's cliche but you do learn a lot about yourself and your culture by visiting others. This can cost incredible amounts of money or it can be very cheap. It depends on your standards and where you go.

It sounds like you enjoy the university atmosphere. Take a look at study abroad programs. My wife delayed her graduation by a semester so she could do this. Or just extend your education, take some more classes. Then you can spend some time traveling. Maybe do Peace Corps. Learn a new language.

After that, take stock of your life and think about what you want to do. You have the financial freedom to do what you want for a few years. You may want to get a job just to learn from others. Maybe you'll want to tackle one of the world's big problems. Or you'll be recharged enough to start a new business.

Since graduating, I've worked hard and lived below my means. 3 times I've saved up a lot of money and then blown it all at once. First was my wedding; next was a summer in Europe; and now I am working on a startup.

I haven't regretted any of it. My only regrets are not doing it sooner; and that I pushed myself through college without spending any time abroad.
Hey, I'd be interested in both of these for a little project of mine. Please email me at karan.bhangui@gmail.com if you're interested in selling :)
Bang A Gong – Create a Corporate Culture of Celebration
This makes me want to make a clone. Couldn't be too difficult with Ruby and the net-toc gem.
Kamikaze Marketing (why usage billing kicks freemium's bottom)
Hey, this is great. I think it'd work for my mobile project. Would you be kind enough to email me your asking price or contact info to karan.bhangui@gmail.com
The guy has never made a cent from anything but MLM and this series of books. The "rich dad" is not a real person, though he still markets it as autobiographical. Much of the specific business advice he gives is 1) provably dumb, 2) unethical, 3) sometimes illegal.

He's built a whole cottage industry around one basic premise- you get rich if you have lots of residual income that doesn't require you to put in proportional hours. If you need a series of 7 books (or even the first one) to teach you that (though I admit the board game is fun on its own merits)... perhaps your not entrepreneur material?
Stop replying in this thread and make a poll !
There are some very nice insights in here. (As usual from Terry Tao.) For instance (here I'm simplifying a bit; if you want a more accurate version, go read TT's article): if you've got two random variables X and Y, and X approximately obeys a power-law distribution, and Y is independent of X and has some other not-terribly-demanding properties, then XY also obeys a power-law distribution, to the same degree of accuracy or (often) better. So, things made out of products of random variables (e.g., because they arise from an exponential growth process applied to some starting random thing) tend to have this sort of distribution, which is where things like Benford's law (first digits of positive "random" numbers tend to occur unevenly, with k occuring log(1+1/k) of the time) come from.
Mac was recommended by many of my friends, so I'll say it's good. However I tried linux (mandriva) one time and I'll never get BACK to any linux version (although I like the servers os), wonder how you work with them. Linux is fast, but not comfortable to work with
- Visual C# (Microsoft Dot Net)

- Some CSS, HTML and Jquery

- English :)
Here's a breakdown based on referrals from YC to a short essay I wrote about a month ago comparing Bing Travel and Kayak. There were 2382 uniques from YC over two days to that page:

45.5% Windows
37.6% Mac
15.1% Linux

Comparing that with an e-commerce site I work with which has a less geek-centric audience, during the same two days:

84.94% Windows
12.46% Mac
1.55% Linux
If you become an investment banker at age 23 and work non-stop for 12 years, you may be rich by the time you get to 35. You will probably be overweight and alcoholic by the time you're 35, too. And no amount of money will ever bring your youth back. Let alone your health...

OK, assuming that you do get rich, you probably will never be able to quit. You'll be addicted to the money and status. You probably will have a trophy wife who you rarely see but who spends piles of money on clothes and shoes. Your peers will be buying bigger houses and more expensive cars. You are rich, but in your milieu there are many people infinitely richer than you are. You are jealous. Your money and status become less of a prize and more of an entitlement. You want more because you "deserve" more. You want to keep up with the Joneses. You want to show the lads you're a player.

I know investment bankers who look like junkies due to lack of sleep. Some snort cocaine. They put in 90-100 hours per week. They don't have time for girlfriends, so they spend money on high-level escorts. They say they'll quit by the time they're 35 or so, and move to Costa Rica, or to the South of France. Some say they want to become wine-makers. Others want to open their own gourmet restaurant. Some desperately want to move to private equity or a hedge fund. They will never quit. A fat paycheck is a golden cage.
Depressed.
Just wanted to say it's hard. I'm definitely not the best programmer, truth be told I haven't even programmed full time for a while, but switching from java to clojure took me at least half a year.

I'm in the middle of my first (small) full app though, and I can tell it will be worth it. With java there was a wall in productivity I simply could not brake. I wrote pieces of code sometimes as fast as I could type (similar alterations to existing software), but still I felt I did the same thing over and over again. Now I'm at the first iteration of my framework and I can already tell a lot of the code I write won't be written again.

Just an example: one of the first things I did was to brake the old web convention of separating the app into writing html and processing requests. Most of the links I write now, including forms, have the action code right there. Something like (pseudocode):

html_button("Delete item", {
delete_item(value);
return list_items();});

I'm not saying it's the way to go with a webapp, only how easy it is to experiment with different paradigms.
Half right is half wrong. I didn't think of looking at the subject as you presented it, thank you!
India creating new identity card system for 1.2Bn people
Rich people keep working because they know they make a difference. They believe (almost without exception) that the company won't be able to function without them; that the company depends on them (only very rarely the case).

When people ask "why do the rich keep working", the implied question is "why do the rich keep working when they don't HAVE to?". But that implies that work is punishment, a thing you have to do to enjoy the other things in life. This tends not to be the case for high level executives who travel the world, meet lots of people, command thousands of people, and so on. Knowing that you make a difference trumps almost everything -- because it gives your life meaning.

A side issue is that many people, if I had to guess at least 10% of the world's population, is obsessive by nature. They don't want a balanced life, they want to focus the bulk of their time on one thing, and one thing only. Most people who are this way realize this before they're adults. I'm pretty sure that most rich people are obsessive about their work, and I think they know that if they were to quit they would end up doing something else with equal vigor, but they would contribute less to society. To continue work, given these specific assumptions, is the rational thing to do.
I agree. For those of us who make software, spending a significant part of our day thinking about interesting problems and interacting with like-minded people is its own reward. A few years back I took a year off and spent some time coding for fun at home, but it just wasn't the same. I missed the daily interaction and the random conversations. For people like us, the question of "why keep working" has an obvious answer.
Because that is what they love.

Most of these people's wealth is a byproduct of their work. They were probably not working to get rich in the first place. They were doing it because that is what they knew best and were dedicated to it. It does not have much to do with money.

Some poor artists work just as hard and that affects other people around them too.

Hence the question should be "Why people (rich or broke) who found their passion can't stop working at it?"
I'm currently in Cville over the summer too... it appears that the number of UVa/ Cville people has grown here on HN since I last asked the question. We should have a meetup sometime.
Mac Laptop, (Open)Solaris desktop. A good combination for me.
Probably because life is boring as hell, without work to take up time, you'll get bored in 2-3 years of not working.
I do things differently.

In 1986, I used QNX with primitive window managers -- I still miss a scroll button with a large usable trackball to scroll through code, and the focus followed pointer. I started using Macs about 1987, and the interface felt awkward at first, but I liked it's overlapping windows as opposed to apps that filled the screen, or only ran at a specific resolutions.

I remember Microsoft Excel for DOS which was ported from Macintosh. Since it was DOS, they built an entire Window Manager for Excel. I think that this is why Windows inherited the application windows within windows (Multiple Document Interface) that some applications still have, and some people still love MDI in apps like Opera. I think that because of this Excel port, Windows inherited function names from the original Mac API. I don't like the gymnastics of using my pinky finger to hold down the Control key in Windows, I'd prefer using my thumb on the Command key in Mac OS, but thankfully Microsoft put out a little hack to reverse those keys.

To me, Linux inherits X Windows, features from older Unix window managers, and a bias from Windows because that's what a lot of people have used. But Linux brings lots of choices and possibilities, and lots of configuring if that's what your into.

Since the advent of USB mice, the Mac now has more than one mouse button. I remember seeing a mouse at a CAD/CAM show that probably had about nine buttons on the mouse.

Don't flip the bozo bit.
I'd be up for an HN meetup in the CVille area sometime over the summer too, as long as it happened sometime after the end of the month.
LABjs: Simple abstraction for loading dependencies correctly
I have 10 FreeBSD server boxes, 1 Linux box for compiling web apps for Linux and one Windows box for testing in IE. My laptop runs FreeBSD, too.
That's like the David Cross cameo in Waiting For Guffman, about the area inside a crop-circle always having a 60% chance of precipitation.
As I read this article I felt the truth of it, a very strange and infrequent feeling for me.

I feel like my capacity for introspection has been expanded.
The pinnacle of success, as far as PR is concerned, is getting your marketing material into the NY Times, disguised as journalism.
Ardit33,
your information is not correct. There is nothing like H1 transfer. Every time you switch employer, you have to apply for H1 visa. This also means you can hold as many h1 visas as you can get. But you can work for only one employer at any given point of time.
Didn't we have a news story a few months ago talking about how the iPhone was not being adopted well in Japan?