skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm sorry if I came across as disparaging. I mean no disrespect to either the Fog Creek employee, Stackoverflow or anyone else. I read both Joel and Jeff's blog and I have the utmost respect for both of them and their work. Thinking it over in my head again, I should have probably thought things over before posting this part:

>>>>it looks like something that can be thrown together in a weekend.<<<

It was mostly a reaction at the huge amount of money they want to charge for a such a software. But after reading the various responses, it has helped me understand the amount of engineering, user-experience studies and hard work that has gone into this fine web app. Regardless though, I still think its overpriced.

Yep, I probably fell into the "shitz easy" trap there and I will probably fail, publicly and humiliatingly in this case =( to implement all of StackOverflow's functionality in one weekend.

EDIT: Actually, as a sign of respect to SO and their folks, I'm not going to clone SO anymore, it has just become a totally no-win proposition for me. Another reason is that the project here:

http://code.google.com/p/cnprog/

Already does a really good job of emulating SO and there's little point in me writing another one.

But, I will spend the weekend cloning another piece of highly vaunted ( and overpriced IMO ) web software which does NOT have an opensource alternative.
Not bad, but I'd prefer to use better wood joinery than metal brackets. That obviously increases the complexity, but looks so much better.
I bid $400 :P Thing is, this is still nowhere near what the OP wants to hear, but we haven't been given any real data yet so it's like sticking a flag in quicksand.
My favorite online todo list is Now Do This. Simple and brilliant.

http://www.nowdothis.com/

-m
This is a nice idea, I wish him well.
Yeah, they raised over $19,000 the first day, panicked and called their lawyer, but they've determined it doesn't violate any SEC laws, so it's back up and moving.
No, it depends on the number of iterations the average person expects the average person to expect the average person to go through.

See: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hauert/research/gamelab/t... for an estimate of how many iterations that is.

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest for way more.
Life on Mars with Pete Worden
I think he was hinting at the fact that Android powered netbooks are on the horizon. But I guess at that point it's still a laptop. Maybe someone will make an Android phone with a MiniDVI port so it can have a usable screen and bluetooth keyboard/mouse.
Well someone needs to hammer the point home.

Also, this may fall on very favourable ears: part of the most recent govrenment, ummm, cabinet improvement was a move to open up the UK government's data. RWW has a nice piece on it: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/open_goverment_berners-...

And who's in charge of this? None other than Tim Berners-Lee.
You're missing the point entirely. The story wasn't STOLEN. It doesn't exist at all.

TC wants a dramatic story. And the only way to make it credible is to hide what they are talking about. Once the site in question was revealed, their article became laughable.
#moonfruit: Twitter Promotion Done Right
Good for Apple? The more people get burned by counterfeits, the less likely future buyers will be to get gray market versions, or even buy the phone anywhere other than a real deal Apple store.
The Guardian (disclaimer: my employer) are one of the only newspapers in the world to provide full content RSS feeds: http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/2008/oct/22/fu...
Protect your email when sharing them on social sites
I dont think people are "quick to dismiss it" its been the defacto tool for 99% of web developers over the last 10 years.

people are just beginning to realise there are other, often better suited,alternatives.
Zed's writing can be analytical and blunt. If you've ever seen him give a presentation he's just as ridiculous and entertaining as _why can be.
I suspect that solid state drives optimized for databases will appear before quantum computing. ioFusion is already targeting media distribution applications. Just as filesystems have been optimized to spinning platters and are adjusting for SSD, databases will have to adjust as well. (I'm not just talking about flash, either. There will be other SSD technologies.)
Code optimized for performance is usually optimized based on environmental constraints. The more you optimize, the more the code will look like a description of instructions to manipulate that environment, rather than a succinct description of your solution. There is an inherent conflict. C++ doesn't solve this problem, it's just one of the possible compromises.

With Python and similar high-level languages, there are a few layers of "environment" that you have to tailor your instructions for. You have to understand how Python manipulates the machine resources and then you have to understand how to manipulate Python to manipulate those resources. The result is code optimized for python on a particular machine, which might not look anything like what you'd expect being familiar with one or the other but not both.
until you put yourself in their shoes. Literally.

"Literally," means "Not figuratively." So, if you say "I was in his shoes -- literally," you mean "I was not necessarily experiencing things from his perspective, but I was wearing his shoes."

You can't quantify the problem because these people have no homes,jobs,medical records, or social security numbers. They have nothing. So again, it's not about having a "bias.

"You can't have good information, so it's best to just try to make yourself feel good about your opinions, and then treat them as facts. Like, when I used to not own a scale, I decided I'd be happiest thinking I'd lost twenty pounds."

you have to evaluate every homeless situation case by case.

You have not talked about single cases. You have generalized, generalized, generalized. There are two basic ways to generalize: the way I do it (by looking at aggregate numbers that tell you something), or the way you do it (by thinking in terms of stories). Your way is dumb and counterproductive.
I always thought the point of a resume was to get you an interview. Then it's your job to get yourself hired.
Jimbo - Google MyWay
SocialSafe: Back Up Your FaceBook Account (Useful tools review)
This story is really misleading. It's not a "megacolony" -- it's several distinct colonies from around the world that don't connect in any way.

The meat of the article is that researchers collected specimens from around the world, and some of the ants from different colonies didn't try to kill each other on sight.
I think this is something we all need help with. I've done various promos - "We'll give you $x for each friend you refer" as well as "Get a free widget when you refer a friend!" These all had low, low response rates - so low, in fact, that it didn't justify the time spent coding/marketing.

I wish I knew the answer.
The Roots of Resistance 1: Battling Agents
No the labels are the big winners. Apple doesn't make much of anything per song.
The Roots of Resistance 2: Moral Filters
LogMeIn IPO
I think for simplicity's sake, the badge mechanism used by StackOverflow is a nice system. That is, it plays to people's desire to be recognized by attaching flare to their account after achieving certain predetermined goals. Not only does it reward the recipient by providing some good feeling, but it encourages further participation.

-m
Morals, Manners, Ethics, and the Law
Hey, you could theoretically use your iphone to replace a hammer or a paperweight too...

let's see:

- reading news ? probably yes

- reading mail ? probably yes

- writing mail ? yes, unless it is a longer email

- sysadmin tasks ? no, unless you have absolutely no other option (and it will probably take a lot longer than it would on a normal screen & keyboard)

(though it seems to work to a poster below here)

- general browsing ? unless a website is made with mobiles in mind probably not, or a limited subset of sites

- software development ? no (at least, I can't see how you'd do that)

Any other tasks ?
Their point is the colony's are connected by people continously transporting ant's between each giant colony. So even if there is not a fixed land bridge there is continous mixing between the colony's.

What's even more interesting is people probably help to create and maintain the giant colony's in the same geographic area in the same way.

Edit: Not to complain, but what's up with the -2?
are you the simonw involved with the API project?
With a Lava Lamp:

http://www.lavarnd.org/

Or with alpha-decay:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6745217.html
Which JavaScript Unit Testing Frameworks do you use?
No offense, but have you personally raised VC money? I see from your profile that you live in Silicon Valley, where they tell me such things are possible (although I'm still highly skeptical). Here in Atlanta it's definitely just a myth.

For the average Joe here on HN, the chances of raising VC money are about as good as the chances of getting drafted to a baseball team. Maybe you can get angel money, and by angel I mean "Mom & Dad", but even that's a risky bet.

You're much better off just working on your startup and bootstrapping off of revenue & other-work money.
Very nice approach. But it scares me to start this ticker when i look at the meeting schedules in our company ...
Yes, and the MP's expenses project.
Either of those work well 200 years ago? I didn't think so.
Maybe you're one of the rare good guys who doesn't take on interns simply as cheap labor to do crummy work but instead puts the effort and time in to mentor them and enthuse them about the industry. If so, good luck.
Simon Peyton-Jones - Haskell and Erlang: Growing Up Together
Awesome. We're based in Cambridge [UK] so if you ever want to chat news over a beer ...
Video Interview: GoLive Gaming Solutions
That's why/because he is the king of pop...
but.. but... I wanted to do that :(
I have to say: this is how the Guardian won me over as a regular reader.
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I hate videos, but SPJ is usually an entertaining speaker.
I for one still feel the pain in my thumbs from taking lego apart.
How to get listed in google products
Good point.

On Hacker News you can submit your own articles simply because the community really does take the time to judge whether or not the article is any good.

I've received some really helpful feedback and suggestions from Hacker News members, and that is what I like most.
These downvotes for sho seem to be done more along the lines of "let's downvote the heretic who doesn't love github" than actually being related to the arguments made. IMHO.

If I end up with a minus five too, I guess I was right :P
I think the iPhone could definitely replace a laptop for me, since I already use a desktop Mac for the heavy lifting stuff development and editing films.

For me the keyboard is the only missing piece.

I had a Palm Zire and a fold-up Targus keyboard and that satisfied my mobile needs for quite awhile (until some idiot stole it out of my car, probably thinking it was an iPod...).
we like to think so ... because it was only a few years ago when we were looking for a valuable internship. :)
You speak as if writing SQL was some unpleasant or arduous task, whereas in reality it's just a DSL for data. In most cases an ORM is just another layer of complexity.
You sound unimpressed. But do you really feel you could take humans from all around the world and put them together without them trying to kill one another?
Excellent ANYTHING is not a majority.
I agree with you. There's a lot of hype around these nosql databases, because a lot of people simply don't understand sql databases or how to make them performant or they haven't run into the problems RDBMSs solve yet.

I would like to add one quick correction or maybe clarification to, [Indexes] merely order the data in a certain way that makes it easy to pluck out certain rows since you don't have to look at every value.

Indexes don't always order the data, only clustered indexes order the data and there can only be one clustered index on a table. You can have lots of unclustered indexes that are merely pointers to data within the larger table.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_(database)#Clustered
Wow, my experience was exactly the opposite of most of the folks here.

After one search, and said "ouch, my eyes!" and swore never to go back. It was like feeding feeding the first two pages of Google results to a cat, and then having the cat vomit all over your monitor. Random information spew isn't a feature I'm looking for, thanks.
Not blurry for me. Are you running on Windows with ClearType(TM) activated?
I'd actually prefer a choice between summarized and full content. I've got The Guardian's feed on my phone, but it's awkward browsing it because of the lengthy articles. I'd prefer a summarized feed for mobile devices.
It's an awesome URL to snag. Also a great time to open to the public with a lot of new gadgets just hitting mainstream.

Also there is much to be said for the simple layout. Good looking and functional.
If that's the case, then who is buying this music? Isn't everyone's libraries already saturated with the songs they enjoy?
I just wanted to say your comment about brazenly-illogical-yet-effective (i.e. "assholish") business mannerisms rings true to my own experience and some of the characters I have encountered (and, unfortunately, worked for as well). There are many different ways to make a buck.
Willard Wigan: The Micro Sculptor
You'd be amazed to see how much time some people spend on free software projects.
The article includes a great video of the mechanism in action, but the tutorial part could be a little more descriptive.

Too bad the author didn't write a step by step illustrated tutorial of how to build the safe.

It's still a fascinating piece of work though.
Thanks! It didn't quite strike me that this would be a recurring topic on HN.
you should have used your teeth!
well, i believe they're using the term "megacolony" in reference to the fact that ants from different colonies are usually aggressive to ants from other colonies. but in this case, several giant colonies from different continents aren't aggressive towards one another and are genetically linked, so they're referring to the group of familial and non-aggressive colonies as a megacolony.
rocks to have a tribe.
I use Remember the Milk, and over the last 10 months it has become ingrained into my workflow. I actually cite RTM's $25 a year freemium model as a good example of a startup not using ads to fund themselves. I gladly pay $25 a year for it because it helps me organize so well.

Slate put it in 2nd because they didn't seem to need all the features. For me the iPhone interface is all I need to pick it as #1.
Hmmm.... I wonder if they'll let him do what he really wants to do with it? The UK govt has made a number of high-profile - dare I say, "celebrity" - appointments at the moment (see also Alan Sugar, Martha Lane Fox). So do they want the best person for the job, or is it just a matter of the publicity and the prestige? As a citizen, I think TBL is an excellent choice for the job. Will the govt be able to stomach his changes? I sincerely hope we don't see him resigning from his post in 6 months, citing "unassailable differences of viewpoint with his employer".
Faster-than-light Radio Waves could revolutionize computer industries
The iphone can replace a laptop if it resolves/provides the following features:

- docking station to connect to larger screen/kb/hd

- enables flash

- integrates with more email providers

- provides 4G

- comes with tactile keyboard

- longer battery life

- works with multiple mobile carriers

All of the above seems feasible by the 3rd of 4th generation of iphone.
It's so much easier to write a programmer to do it
Developer Qualification - Google Code
Internet Explorer Eats Cookies with Underscores in the Hostname
You mean besides Ask HN and Polls... :-p :-)

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=amichail
Cassandra uses log-structured merge storage, so reads really _are_ slower than writes. (But still much faster than MySQL!)

You can (usually) make reads faster by throwing things like memcached at the problem. Writes are harder. So I think this is the right tradeoff for a modern system.

/Cassandra dev
At age 2 or 3, absolutely!

What happens when they're older is anyone's guess.
I fully expect an iphone version 8 which docks into a dumb terminal, and runs the same apps as when mobile, with the same data. So you have mobile-text editor, dock, and you get OSX (OS11?) with a full screen that we're used to for desktop text entry. Undock and your data is all still there as well, with an interface optimized for mobile reading & edits.
TV news archive discovered after 30 years
Motorola AURA – A Luxurious Beauty
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An exciting stats website? Believe it
Babies Photos, Baby Pics, Babies Wallpapers
Exactly.

I'm amazed by the effort that they went to, sneaking into the building to work on the code. I'm also tickled by the fact that other employees helped them, and knew about their situation despite the fact that the big shots in charge didn't.
It's because the original comment only complained about Github, without adding to the discussion of the link.

The other Github bashing didn't even make sense. Github offering personal websites doesn't expose them to any more risk of bandwidth issues. Someone can already make a public repository full of 50MB files that can be downloaded by anyone. Having a lightweight interface that lets you display HTML files in your repository doesn't change that.
Vim plugin for Firefox
A young woman is preparing her first thanksgiving dinner. As she gets everything ready for thanksgiving day, she very sternly reminds herself to let the turkey finish thawing in the sink overnight. She puts it in and places the dishrack over the top of the bird. Her husband walks into the kitchen and sees this. "Why are you doing that?" he asks.

"My mom always did that to help the turkey thaw" she told him.

The next day Mom calls to see how everything is going. "Fine, Ma. I have everything ready to go in the oven. I even remembered to put the rack over the turkey last night."

This seemed to confuse her mother a bit. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Oh, I remember you always put the dish rack over the turkey when it was thawing in the sink," she said.

There was a pause on the end of the line. "Yes, but honey, we had cats!"

This isn't a perfect metaphor, but turkey == rasterizer and cats == hardware. Circumstances change, and that moves around where optimal is in the solution space. (his was far less obvious than "not using a dish rack" but the idea is the same)
Why Stores Are Cutting Back on Plus-Size Clothes
No, actually. As many people who own, say, Thriller, I bet there are even more who like songs off the album but don't own it. Then he dies, they realize they'd like to hear those songs again, realize they don't actually own it, and download the one or two they remember.
As far as I know, HBase is the software that they should point out in the key-value discussion, not Hadoop.
I'm sorry, but this graph says nothing. Load average is meaningless; for example, one process using 100% CPU at all times would show a load of 1.0, and one process that repeatedly spawns threads but uses little cpu can push the load average very high.

What's the difference in maximum number of pages served per second using ab? Or average CPU usage? Or average disk throughput?

I'm not saying I disagree with your conclusion, but this doesn't prove it.
Personally, I don't care whether or not I see, here, things that are already hot on other networks as I only use this one.

The way you said, would require much more effort compared to posting links to the interesting news you received on your feeds.

Most of the links I see here are completely new to me.
Does anyone know of a good, free, screen video capture program for Mac OS X?
I want to capture some video of the windows on my screen, but I can't seem to find a free screen video capture program for Mac OS X. All the free ones that I've found either don't work correctly or are very limited in functionality.

If you know of a free video capture program, or if you use one yourself, please tell me about it.

Thank you.
I had not seen this before. What a beautiful marvelous story.
I think a more productive approach is to "not" look for links to post to hacker news.

I think stories are beginning to "churn" where good stories arent sticking around very long because there are so many mediocre stories being submitted.

I post stuff that I or my friends have written, or from new stuff from communities I participate in.

while I understand submitting is a form of contribution, its only a positive contribution with high enough quality, if people sit around looking for stuff to post I cant see the quality rising.
No, they have 47k "events". If facebook counted every profile edit as a member, they'd have more members than atoms in the solar system.
They try to make deals that favor them without regard to the interests of the other person

I don't see how exactly this makes one a "shithead" though. Don't you always try to get the best deal for yourself first and then if the other person doesn't budge you compromise a bit? I pretty much always start out with any deal ridiculously in my favor because you don't lose anything if the other person rejects it...

My rule is typically "make an offer that is just before the point of being offensive and then compromise from there if the deal is needed." That way you can usually reach a "midpoint" that is still mostly on your favorable side of the deal.

I'm not a multi-millionaire, but I'll call ya in 10 years and let you know if I am ;)
I don't get up there often, but the Guardian is right next to Kings Cross - drop me a line at simon.willison@guardian dot couk if you're in the area.
I'd say that's a wise default assumption. Researchers are very often frustrated at what reports write about their work.