skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some of our specific problems:

We were too big, so we were paralyzed a bit by the idea that we were going to have to lay people off. Maybe I'm not giving us enough credit because we went from thinking podcasting was everything, to thinking we needed to find something else, ran five different experiments, ran at least two hackathons, and built and launched Twitter in seven months. But it _felt_ paralyzing to think about a radical change of staff.

We had middle management (me and a VP/Product) who arrived thinking our job was to make people productive. If you just wanted to experiment all day, why the hell were we hired? Somebody really needed to say: guys, we're changing modes. I think I probably needed to hear that multiple times.

We had investors who got bought out. As one said, "Ev is going to either be remembered as a genius or as an idiot." He was very gracious about it, paid more than he needed to for Odeo and then I believe let many of the investors back in when Twitter got funded. But at the end of the day CRV was the primary backer of the company that built twitter and Union Square is the primary backer of Twitter.

Once you change direction, when do you say "this is it" and actually sit down and figure out how you're going to make it happen? Because for a lot of people at the company, so many changes in direction made it hard to know for sure that Twitter really was the new direction.
Your question is a common one. Literary critics often joke about how critics in general rate James Joyce's "Ulysses" as a top novel, yet "no one has actually read it." The same goes (to a lesser extent) in cinema for "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Thanks for the link. Yeah, it's even worse than I'd imagined. I think I'll stick to just reading Duckworth's summaries of his ideas for now.
Recession Money Matters 
Blog about the recession. ~ Predictions about the economy and how it will do.
Alternate title: "World's smallest person plays with an iPhone."
I would get over it and focus your attention on making a great product. Having a great domain name is not going to make your business a success.
From the title, I thought Palm had developed an open source version of the Valve game.
Nice article, although this bit seemed a bit of a stretch:

> This highlights how the direct manipulation and natural gestures of Microsoft Surface can blur the real and virtual world.

I can imagine that results may vary for people older than 4 years old.
What I do to avoid this is whenever I read a book I put a little dash in the margin next to anything that's worth remembering, and then after I finish the book I copy down all these sentences into a mindmap. The means that I've read all the insightful/informative parts at least twice, typed them once, and then have them in a format that makes it really easy to refer back to them.
While I fully agree that this result is unjust, I would not blame the lawyers. Remember the lawyers have a professional duty to faithfully represent their client. If their client insists on pressing for the maximum possible damages then the lawyers have a professional duty to take every action within the bounds of ethics and law to get them.

This result was definitely unjust, but the lawyers are the wrong ones to blame.
What's wrong with Interface Builder?
I hope they don't do what Apple used to do -- dump all their KHTML changes as a huge diff and call it "WebKit", but actively participate in the development of the products. See what happened with WebKit once it got a community, it's now one of the best desktop engines, and the best mobile web engine by far.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of the fragmentation of mobile platforms, that makes it difficult to develop for/port apps from iPhone -> BB, etc.?

What's your medium-term view of the market, over the next 1-3 years? iPhone is the buzzword now, what about the potential of BB/Pre/Ovi/Windows Mobile?
The Passion Index
"... About a month ago I had one of the strangest phones call of my life. “Steve my name is Donald xx, and I’m the head of external affairs of the CIA’s venture capital firm and we’d like you to keynote our conference.” CIA? “Do you mean the Culinary Institute of America? And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” So I gave my “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” talk as the keynote to the CIA’s venture capital conference. ..."

It's been suggested one way to re-create Silicon Valley is to follow this recipe ~ http://paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html This post shows another ~ http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%E2%80%99d-h...
A previous challenge to Popper's falsifiability was justificationism (of which induction is a major variety). This did not fail to launch, it was hugely influential since around Aristotle and remains influential today. (Popper says we should prefer theories that can be better tested and possibly falsified. Justificationism says we should prefer theories that are better justified, e.g. by inductive support.)

Could you give more detail about how you see Kuhn challenging falsifiability?
I run three monitors at home and work.

At some point (in the future!) I will have to face the fact that many people accomplished much more with fewer screens, less processing power, more basic software...

Hrm. I don't like that idea much.
interesting stuff!
I think that's why Apple reserved Voice Control for 3GS. There's no legitimate technical reason for it not being on the iPhone 3G.
I misunderstood the title at first to suggest that if you want to make big money, you can't have expensive gadgets...
When I saw the words "interactive" and "homicide" so close together, I really expected to see something different....
One thing that jumps out at me, being from NYC, is the complete lack of anything in Central Park. There's this widespread belief that you can't go in the park after dark, since it's /so dangerous/, but apparently statistically that's not the case.

The one thing it's missing that would be neat to see is color-by-motive, since one of their motive bins is "Gang." It would be interesting to see if they common beliefs about the location of gang activity also holds any water.

The NY Times has always been hugely impressive in their use of data and web technologies, and this is no exception.
Not to be a dick or anything, but we know precisely what the moai on Easter Island were for. They were religious figures of the Easter Islanders. They grew increasing large and numerous as the tribes of Easter Island began warring with one another, in an attempt to display the "greatness" of each tribes respective leaders. It is in part due to the obsession with symbolic greatness and the construction of the moai that led to the eventual downfall of the Easter Island culture, as can be seen by the eventual grass-roots moai destruction activity during the proper collapse of the island's society in the 1700s and 1800s. The few Easter Islanders that survived the end of their civilization described this back when they were first contacted.

Easter Island isn't some big mystery, unless you don't read history books.

</pedantry>
> It doesn't matter if production prices fall 50 or 80 percent: if revenues are zero, then the musician is still screwed. So you agree that musicians are getting screwed by music labels.

Err, no. I don't see how you make that deduction. I would agree that there have been many cases where musicians haven't gotten the best possible bargain, and there are indeed some particularly egregious cases. Still, there is plenty of law (e.g. undue influence) and precedent in place to protect musicians at least from egregiously unfair contracts.
There were actually two different reports: one about general entrepreneurial activity index (3D graph) [1] and another one more specific about tech companies (39 years median age of founder, $1MM revenue) [2].

While your critique is probably on spot for [1], I'm not so sure about [2].

Authors defined "technology" company as working in: semiconductors, computers, communications, biosciences, defense/aerospace, environmental, software, innovation/manufacturing related services (check Appendix for more detailed classification).

Age of founder was counted at the time of the incorporation of the company.

Of course, there is a survivorship bias, but doesn't this just mean that companies founded by older founders had higher chances to grow to $1MM in sales/20 employees/branches with 50 employees?

[1] http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/kiea_042709.pdf

[2] http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedfiles/Education_Tech_Ent_061...
Blog
>I have no idea so someone educate me plz (whether IE8 is really good)

comment
>Don’t forget, only 8% of people in street testing can tell you what a browser is.

This will work just fine for them.

That explains a lot.
The only solution to this is going to be something like what Heartland is going to have to do - encrypt everything from the card swipe all the way to the banks on the other end.

In case you have forgotten, Heartland processes about 100,000,000 credit card transactions per month and for a period of time last year, some trojans were operating that were harvesting the magnetic tracks of swiped cards. The trojans hid on the hard drive, and until auditors started looking at the temp files on the drives (and matching what created the temp filess) the stuff hidden in unallocated drive areas weren't found.

http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/heartlands-n...

http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/heartland-sn...
Probably nothing if you are used to it, Dreamweaver, or Eclipse.

I just like to type code.
Good thing that hell is real! I won't judge the lawyers, though.
Ask HN:  Are successful entrepreneurs more sociable than unsuccessful ones?
I mean that they were always more sociable, not that they became more sociable after succeeding.
You mean the fact that we fund public schools with local property taxes, right?
I like it. Very Tweetdeck-esque.
Ask HN: Does cryptic string in URL affects SEO?
We would like an unique identifier in our URLs for all of our user-generated contents, but I was wondering if it would hinder SEO in anyway. We are using both an UUID and a SEO friendly slug. A sample URL is as such:

http://domain.com/categories/92lePQKI3kfcz-5eBHGvkQ/pc/this-is-a-seo-friendly-slug-for-the-content

I have been Googling for a while now but haven't been able to find the answer, hopefully you guys could direct me to the right resources. Thanks!
> Yes, we might see species changes. And, the claim was "irreversible temperature changes".

Ahh, I think I expressed myself badly. I didn't mean that temperatures could return, period (although on second reading, my text does convey that). I meant that things couldn't be reversed as in a movie being played backwards, returning things to their original state.

I think we're actually in agreement, but talking past each other due to my poor initial phrasing.
The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype (Richard Dawkins)
Ask HN: How are you handling functional testing in the browser?
What tools and practices are you using to test your in-browser user interface and application flow for dynamically rendered content?

I've been rewriting a Rails web app using test-first methodology and am thrilled with the unit, functional, and integration testing features of rails. I've been working out from the models to the controllers and then to the views. This works great as long as the content is static, but once I hit the browser, I'm at a loss. Because I'm using jQuery, I'd be happy to find a solution that just automated use-case tests for Firefox (for example), and mop up issues in an ad-hoc manner for other browsers (no-cache issues on IE and the like.)
You're straying into consulting land ;-)

In short:

Win Mo: Stable, no big wins or losses

Brew: uh, yea no comment (I think the developers conference was canceled)

Java ME/BB: Blackberry needs to innovate towards the pre/android or it's going to stagnate and die. Java ME needs to die. Haven't had time to look at Java FX yet.

Pre, I think, will go like Android did(except it looks a lot better) there's HUGE hacker appeal but it will probably take 2 years or so to take off.
What? No. The lawyers have a ethical and moral duty as lawyers and human beings to do the right thing. I'm not a lawyer, so I'll make an analogy relevant to my profession. If some guy hires me to make a picture site and then insists on a section for sex pics of children I have an ethical duty to back out of the contract.
I agree, but with a few caveats. Promoting your writing means much more than just telling your friends about it. Often it means putting on a show within the blog post itself. If you write your posts in such a way that makes them look like you worked really hard on them then you'll get a lot more hits than if you just write down really brilliant ideas matter-of-factly. Showmanship applies to more than just juggling and professional wrestling, people are much more apt to like your writing if you make it look like you're thinking at the edge of your intellectual abilities. There are a bunch of other interesting things like this too. I think you are generally correct in your understanding though.
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A look a ways to make money. This site put together a list of 101 ways you can make more money.
Facebook started with a profile and the profiles of others. People put thought into those profiles. Now we are moving to mindless spur of the moment noise of which .01% is something significant. I want to see a design that doesn't just pretend to foster relationships but actualy shows you who you are connecting with, how you are connecting with. Topic based filters, easy contact lists with push to call buttons with skype support, features like that...
Age and Great Invention
Could Life Be 12 Billion Years Old?
Except that Len and Sandi did get divorced...
I use http://seleniumhq.org/.

The docs are a bit rough, but I'm reasonably happy with the framework. The core functionality is implemented in JavaScript, and I use it on my continuous integration server to test web UIs on Firefox, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome, and MSIE 6.

I keep hoping to be able to involve non-technical persons in UI test specification, so the Selenese HTML syntax appealed to me. Unfortunately, the Selenium community seems to regard that syntax as a gimmick; the tool support is much better for the various selenium APIs [http://seleniumhq.org/about/platforms.html#programming-langu...]. Also, you get reasonable means of abstraction and combination in a language such as python or ruby.
What a blatent, self interested diatribe. What's his complaint exactly? That the platform is too easy to develop for? That middle men like him aren't getting a cut of the action? That we don't have to deal with the dinosaur carriers directly anymore? Sounds like a good thing to me.
If you want an advice, read Seymour Papert's articles and books (http://www.papert.org/works.html, also take a look at http://learning.media.mit.edu/content/publications/EA.Piaget...)

Papert's style is very accessible, and he was, at least in my view (and in Piaget's view) the guy who grok his ideas the most.
Etobicoke Storage and Insurance
Sometimes you can do this through a third party provider offered by the Etobicoke storage company. If you own a home in Etobicoke, you should check with your insurance company to see if stored items are covered on your policy.
Georgetown Storage versus Selling Items
here are plenty of Georgetown storage units that can meet all of their storage needs. There are some times when it is better just to save the expense of renting a storage space in Georgetown and sell the items that you no longer need.
I ended up replicating your setup after reading your blog post. I am still impressed with the performance of the 'extra' monitor even when using it over ssh.

I emailed the developer of ScreenRecycler with praise after I bought it and he sadly replied that not enough people buy the product and that he wishes he could spend more dev time on it.
The need for 10 terminals means you are probably not using emacs to its fullest. ;)
Very much a self interest article.

As for EA's pricing, there's no rule that says you need to make a profit off every product you put out. It wouldn't surprise me if a big games company made free iPhone versions of there games to drive interest in the console/ PC versions.
I am intensely curious about your point. Is it that you think reading is a not-terribly-productive use of effort, or do you take issue with the specific books? If it's the latter, which books do you recommend?
Part of the fail here is comparing the iPhone 3GS to BREW devices is like comparing a Mac Pro to an Apple ][. As hardware gets better, the same piece of software becomes less and less valuable.

True, you're always going to have people playing Scrabble. But in this brave new world of accelerometer location-aware streaming video social network 3D compass games, Scrabble simply can't command the $25 it used to.

Developers are just scratching the surface of what can be done with the hardware in a latest-gen smartphone. 2D bitblitting and 16K WAV SFX aren't going to pull in millions anymore. Sorry to crash your monopoly.
I have to agree with most of the facts. For nothing but the fact that "I too am starting to suffering from those."
Be happy with my $5.99 because you could have much less with this attitude.

Your $5.99 isn't enough to support developing anything but a cheap, top-50 hit of an application. Thanks to remarkably steep price competition and remarkably poor discoverability, the app store very much lacks anything resembling a long tail.

We sold a small app for $1.99, just to compete with similar apps in the space. If we'd sold our app for $5.99, we would have made a tidy profit on solid initial sales and moved on to make another application. However, at the $5.99 range we're competing with much more polished and comprehensive applications. This left us barely covering our development costs at the $1.99 price, with our sales rapidly declining after the first month.
There's this widespread belief that you can't go in the park after dark, since it's /so dangerous/, but apparently statistically that's not the case.

Could that widespread belief perhaps have led to folks deciding not to go to the park after dark, though?

Or am I completely off-base? I'm not from NY (been there twice, and love it), so I have no idea. Do people go to the park after dark pretty regularly?
How Not to Get Screwed by VCs
Why a Psychologist Might Be at Your Next Interview
My parents live in the same town as we do. I can't imagine what it would be like not having them nearby.

Yeah, there are some drawbacks. They are far more permissive than we are, and my 7-year-old takes full advantage of that. But they give support and love and interaction that we sometimes don't have time for.
The problem is that a real large multi-touch device is not yet on the market (the Surface doesn't count due to the pricing). The iPhone may be multitouch, but being able to fit more than two fingers onto the screen and still be able to see anything is a challenge.
Thanks, I'll check these out.
Actually, it's not that remarkable to have a PhD by 24 in the UK. Our university system's much more intensive than the American one; three years to your bachelors', three years of flat-out research for the PhD. (We don't do quals.)

I was slower; I was 26, which was pretty typical. Four year undergrad because I did a Masters, four year PhD because I overran a bit and started my postdoc before I'd finished writing up.
Don't let any visitors from Mars look at this.
I argue correlation/causation all the time -- but this is really a semantics argument on both our parts. The statement was "There's nothing in this graph that suggests market share is being taken away." I suppose the emphasis could be placed either on taken or away.

No graph can show action ('taken') so as to demonstrate causation. That's why so many arguments are susceptible to "correlation/causation" trouble. As you suggest, there are any number of causes for the data given. To seek proof of causation from a single graph is a flawed venture.

But if we look at whether market share was reduced ('away'), an observation may be made from a single graph. Not to say 'why' or 'how much', but the observation is still valid. If you sell 90 cars last year, and 110 cars this year -- and I sell 5 comparable cars last year and 50 comparable cars this year, I have "taken market share" from you in a generally accepted sense. Within the market space of two, I have more share of our market this year than the previous, even if your sales did not decrease. It doesn't matter how I did it (cause). It may not be true next year (correlation). It may not be universally true -- if there were 500 of this kind of car sold last year, and only 400 cars this year, your share of the total market increased.

My conclusion before, and again: "the mix has steadily changed. If that's not market share loss, what is it?"
I understand your sentiment, but you're wrong. We need lawyers who will work even for despicable clients. The reason for this rule is that everyone is entitled to legal representation they can trust.

The clients really are at fault here.
I second the recommendation of Papert. The first few chapters of Mindstorms are extremely accessible and probably more relevant to any HN reader than anything direct from Piaget.
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GransonBain is a family law attorney located in the Dallas, TX area. Firm has years of experience.
I'm not sure how you understand Anonymous, but I don't see what's to fear from a security firm's POV. The average Anon is probably in grey-to-white hat territory. Anything large-scale and organized is usually done to target something they see as "evil", like Scientology, or the Iranian regime, or Sarah Palin (joking; but seriously, that guy thought he was acting in the interest of the country), or it's just freaking hilarious.
Easiest way to avoid getting fucked by VCs, don't use them. Bootstrap and work your ass off.
Yes. Even if you can't directly recall......not the blow-by-blow account.

Thank you! I believe this is applicable to everything that is related to the dominating senses -see/hear. So i try my hardest to narrow my information overload. I have accepted the fact, that i can't know everything - politics..knowing why situation in iran came to be,why this vocal outburst doesn't happen in other places...to feeling like the dumbest guy after looking into google research papers.
Taleb: History Written by the Losers
Ah, blow me (and I say that in the friendliest way possible :). I'm of the personal (key word) opinion that Vonnegut NEEDS to be on anybody's learning list. The point, however, is that people who love to learn need nothing more than a heightened sense of curiosity, not some bullshit reading list that attempts to validate how smart they are.
I was just trying to give honest feedback. This feature isn't so important to me that I would pay for it, but I would try it if it was free, and if I didn't have to run a program outside the browser. I respect Shaun's work and wish him well even if he does not want to provide products for users like me, which is a totally understandable decision.
Ride Sally Ride 26 Years Ago Today | TechJaws: Internet Security and SEO
IDE rev'd for improved multi-core debugging
How much does a university payroll system cost? $30 million, apparently.
Read all three, multiple times. I still found 4HWW interesting, but to each his own.
"This video is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions."

(UK)
Direct free link to the paper from the author's site:

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/Ag...
"...having an iPhone means never having to be bored..."

Well, get a good one, learn a few "modern" tricks, and you can say the same thing about...the yo-yo!

cf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS-jl0RlGLU , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyNY55oM0c , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUuAIuw4LRY

nb: watch out on some of the music w/those vids