skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Bah! Humbug!

Seriously, this crotchety rant is the best you could come up with? You apparently have never played this game and your critique offers nothing whatsoever in the way of substance, either for your dismissal of the game in question, nor for your characterization of Mashable as out of touch. Seriously, there's not a single actual point in there anywhere. You could be 100% correct on both counts, but as it stands, your comment adds nothing to the discussion.
It's tough to feel sorry for the guy
In writing, two forces oppose each other: the desire to be authentic, and the desire to gain readership so that authenticity can be valued.

It's really hard to achieve both goals. One can be really authentic, writing what you care about without regard to your readership, but your work may go unappreciated. Good writing alone doesn't gain followers, unfortunately.

So people try to walk the line (or just cross it) of what tactics can be considered appropriate. Those who don't employ tactics to gain followers and readers often go unnoticed. It's unfortunate, and at times frustrating.

HN at least offers an outlet for tech-related posts where it's acceptable to post your own writing. It lets authors express viewpoints, ideas, and feedback in a neutral, yet effective way. You don't have to spam posts to every social news site to get your writing noticed here. The small target audience makes all the difference.

I don't know what exists for other writing niches. Reddit and Digg don't really cater to good writing as well as HN does.

But I digress, this was about twitter. It's nice to have followers, but when all is said and done, twitter messages are short-lived. They will fade into obscurity soon after they're posted. Blog posts and decent essays, when written well, can often last for many years without losing their value. So I'd suggest to authors: Push twitter less, and focus more on your content. If you're going to advocate anything, advocate that people follow your RSS feed.
Yeah, this is starting to get old, but thats just a sign that he succeeded at doing something interesting enough that it is now a standard.

Btw; you can follow me on...nvm.
All assuming of course that sentient machines want anything to do with us. They may just join the dolphins in swimming around having fun.
Conversations are not markets
"Rogers [Nas's ex-wife] will receive $30,471 in spousal support per month; the couple's son will receive $9,027, according to the court records."

from:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/23/arts/AP-US-People...
The problem is that if a user doesn't currently have the savvy to find and download an alternate browser, that person is still not going to know which browser to pick. The likely choice is whichever is listed first.

The choice has to be presented in the context of something a user is familiar with. For instance, there could be an option to run all 3 or 4 browsers to display the same web page (as specified by the user), so that a user can see firsthand which browser looks "best" from his or her point of view.
“The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.”

Picasso/Banksy
Chest Infection Antibiotics
Stop taking this so seriously! Its a damn twitter account. Who cares what people close articles with. The more people that follow them the happier they are. To each their own.
NPR marks the 20th anniversary of the Morris Worm
How important is MBA for entrepreneurs?
Would have been better if they'd just interviewed rtm.
How about a conjecture based one zero evidence or reasoning at all: If you're on top of an open-source project that has started making millions of dollars, wouldn't it be a good thing to do it hire a whole bunch of your programmer friends to hack on open-source projects that interest them, doing the OS community good?

;)
YES. Thanks!

The fact that it didn't ignore the decimal place in '0.1' (Google) made all the difference. In case you're curious, here's the article:

http://sivers.org/infinity
America exports Budweiser to other countries? I'm so sorry.
Ivan Sutherland's latest crazy idea
Some of the techniques described are sketchy and can hurt your business!
I just submitted the fleet link before I saw this - it is definitely an interesting design.
don't get government sanctioned contracts involved in personal relationships. doubly so if you aren't even religious.

people used to get married out of necessity and social pressure. that necessity is disappearing.
Please. 250 paid employees is nothing, considering the number of projects they are working on, the number of platforms and localizations they target, and the speed of innovation they're putting out. Also, they have to do a lot of their own toolchain and infrastructure, which some of those larger companies have entire teams for.

I visited the main offices in 2008 - it was a pretty spartan affair, nice but not luxurious. I was really impressed with everyone I met. They take this "we're here to improve the web" stuff seriously. I'm not going to say that there's no bloat, that might be expected given the comfortable income they make from the partnership with Google. But every Mozilla employee I know is pretty awesome and working on something that you probably care about.
Yeah, I agree the web would not be a better place. There's just something to be said for having that clear call to action. It's hard to resist.
Life lessons learned from SimCity
Google Voice offers a click to call button. Implementation is free if you are willing to take calls on your cell or already have someone to take the calls.
I'm not sure how I feel about the post implying that every startup needs a salesperson in order to succeed.
I think those comparisons would be meaningless.

For example, looping over a matrix in matlab is both clunky and extremely inefficient. You can just do matrix operations that are extremely tight.

You might use that to say it is better than C.

But it is C. They've just make language constructs that make is easy to do matrix operations. You could do the exact same thing with a library in C.

So comparing languages might run into the issue of comparing available libraries. I don't think new languages want to compete on availability of libraries.
Facebook Makes Baby Steps Towards Its Twitter-Like ‘Follow’ Feature
I agree completely. Even if I'm just playing around, the cost of creating a source repository is so small (especially with distributed repos) that I pretty much do it when I'm just playing with an idea.

If the idea grows big, it's fun to look at where it was when I started. If it fizzles, well at least you have something for the memories...
LittleSis offers gov 2.0 social network platform
An "involuntary" Facebook for powerful people and organizations
I suppose you're right -- those old financial statements from 2007 basically describe large piles of Google money just sitting around in mutual funds.

Paying salaries to hackers is probably the best thing they could spend it on.
Some of these tactics (#8, #9 for e.g.) just show a blatant disregard for communal property, almost to the point of screaming !!SPAM!!

Imagine if every single business owner started slapping their business stickers all over town.
Facebook for normal people, twitter for popular ones :)
J2me Developer
System Integration is leading software development company in india has experienced team of JAVA(moblie application development),Gwt developer, PHP web developers who provides timely and proficient development services ,provide SEO services using to their worldwide clients.
Came here to post the same thing. Seems a bit iffy to me.
Love Aaj Kal Movie| Free Love Aaj Kal
LOVE AAJ KAL is a very intersting,romentic and comedy movie.In this movie was a starring Saif Ali khan,Rishi kapoor,Viki rajani,Rahul khanna,Deepika padukone,Fagun thakrar,Elizabeth tan. Love Aaj Kal also stars Rishi Kapoor in an important role .In this movie Saif Ali khan names “JAI”.The story has Saif in turban romancing Florence in the second part in the film where love is all about innocence. The third part has Saif and Deepika playing non-committal lovers just there for fun, sex & short romance without marriage. http://onlinefreepictures.blogspot.com
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."
-T.S. Eliot
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Wood/Philip_Massing...
He never said it should have used C++ vs Python but that good Python devs at the time were harder to find (vs C++/Java/C# in his example). This is something time can solve, however his point that picking a platform/language that is has a lot of available talent is a good point if you want to get your product to market quickly. Python was not exactly obscure, but at the time it in my experience, was used more for bash/shell replacement scripts rather then desktop app development. It might not have been the major point of failure but it definitely contributed.
Very interesting story.
It's useless information. What are you going to do? Upgrade from a .38 special to a .45 ACP?
All about Bsnl 3g
All of us know that BSNL is the only 3G service provider in India. However, we are yet to receive complete 3G coverage in all parts of India. As of now, we have BSNL 3G in select cities. Using 3G internet connection for our mobiles we will be able to the multimedia content more effectively. We will be able to download video content, movies, songs, games etc at a much faster pace. We will also be able to download streaming video without having to wait for hours.
A documentary filmed covertly during a trip to Korea (similar to the one described in this article): probably the bravest and most stupid journalistic stunt of all time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6ixGYzbLz0&feature=PlayL... It makes for an Oscar quality documentary.
Very thought provoking and somewhat heart breaking. Two key paragraphs and devastating conclusion:

When we talk about learning, we really mean two quite different things, the process of discovery and of mastering what one discovers. All children are naturally driven to create an accurate picture of the world and, with the help of adults to use that picture to make predictions, formulate explanations, imagine alternatives and design plans. Call it "guided discovery."

In guided discovery - figuring out how the world works or unraveling the structure of making tortillas - children learn to solve new problems. But what is expected in school, at least in part, involves a very different process: call it "routinized learning." Something already learned is made to be second nature, so as to perform a skill effortlessly and quickly.

Schools don't teach the way children learn.
At this point I'd take Brave New World over the mass starvation, disease, and war that we face in this world.
There is no real principle you are basing this on. It is your own assumption that "this person will do anything to get followers." All web content that is popular in some part by UX practices that were invented by someone else.

There is no coercion, and many of the most successful websites do this kind of testing constantly.

Furthermore, the author published the blog to share the technique making it even less justified to "find your own hacks."
A place of enlightenment. Where budding hackers (like me) can come and learn more about the internals of the hacker subculture. I feel HN has opened doors for me that I didn't even know existed before. I feel like the whole world is at my fingertips.
I expect English will grow in that direction. Most professional editors eventually follow established usage of the best writers, as evidenced by the best dictionaries and usage guides.
The most surprising sentence:

"Mr Kumar is guarded around the clock by three policemen carrying AK-47 rifles."
The character is different, sure, but the female ta (她) is a relatively recent linguistic invention. I'm not sure about the inanimate ta (它) but I imagine a similar story.

Yes, drawing such a distinction in written Chinese is based on imitation of European languages and has been standard in school instruction for not more than a century.
It varies from child to child. If someone's child is in some rich boarding school, I personally think they should be allowed to continue on at that school unless it is financially infeasible for both parents to live apart and still afford it.

If the 'bare minimum' of raising a child is $300/month, then I don't think they the child should necessarily be forced out of their school and into the public school system or something just _because_ that's the bare minimum. I think that these factor should be taken into account.

disclaimer: I am _not_ a rich person, nor do I have any children.

{edit} That said, if the monthly child-support is determined to be really high based on the child going to an expensive school, the child-support payment should be reduced if the custodial parent decides to pull the child out of that school for a cheaper one {/edit}
What kind of "actual point" would you have preferred to see?

Of course I haven't played this game. I don't need to to say that this puff piece is misguided, just like I don't need to play Mafia Wars on Facebook to be able to emphatically tell you that that's not going to be the next Twitter, either - although that would, if anything, be more likely.

Look, I don't mean to be negative, but I think this kind of app only appeals to a certain type of person and does not have the mass appeal to spread beyond that niche. Mashable is in that niche, so they don't see that not all that many outside it find much value in devoting real time and effort to becoming the virtual "mayor" of a coffee shop.
appreciate the commentary, however i was really only using the individual market cap example as a way to calculate an estimated value for the overall asset class... in all likelihood, the financial instrument in question would likely be for an aggregate group, not for one individual. (see my updated clarification)

that said, i'm sure there are ways to limit moral hazard in the individual case, and most certainly there would be a regulatory if anything like that ever came about that would not allow anything approaching slavery -- or at least no moreso than credit card debt and/or personal bankruptcy.

(seriously: it's an imaginary financial engineering exercise, not a moral liberty question. you folks can now get your panties unbunched & proceed with the discussion ;)

ahem.
I hadn't seen the original article, and maybe I just block out all the 'follow me on twitter here' links, because that is barely recognizable to me as being everywhere.

At the same time it is an interesting practice in call to actions. Though i really wish we could see a comparison of a button vs. text. Are people more likely to recognize a button as clickable vs. just text? and how would that compare? Does text on the button have similar effects? etc.etc.
Israel and Palestine: Co-operation in the ether
Assuming that the teasers are of an approriate length and meet the standards for fair use, I see no problem with that.

I like to include full feeds because it greatly improves the experience of people consuming my content.
I thought the need for sales (and therefore, a salesperson) was the most important element of the post. If you don't have revenue, you go out of business. Period.

The salesperson might be the CEO, the VP of Marketing, or even an outgoing CTO - but each and every day, someone needs to be chasing down a source of revenue, talking to customers, and figuring out how, one day, the company is actually going to make revenue - and feed that information back into whoever your "product manager" is.

If you wait for year two or three, after you've built a great technology, it may be too late to discover that your customer doesn't want to buy what you've been building.
When I was a kid, I thought it was hilarious that the standard fire-fighting technique in simcity was...destroying all the buildings surrounding the fire.

As it turns out, this is actually how they did it before modern fire equipment.
I haven't had anti-virus software on any of my personal PCs since MS-DOS 6.22.

Number of virus/spyware infections: 0.

Performance gain when compiling/building: Immense.
This kind of thing is just horrible in my opinion. If you are a known sex offender, you've been convicted and also served your time. You've payed your debt. How the heck does it help you to get back to a normal life if people in your neighborhood are able to alienate you for something that you've already served your sentence for?
Netflix Prize Update: New Team in First Place (deadline tomorrow)
Agreed, just in a rush to comment before. I'd go one further and say using an Array that way is just plain worrisome in JavaScript. It just breaks the conceptual usage "sort of" of Array vs Object (for/while vs for each...in). That's why a lot of frameworks add an "each" iterator for Array/Hashes (Hashes being a "controlled" Object added by most frameworks).
The Web Is Pouncing on Hollywood’s Ratings
"I believe in helping people in any way possible. If you see a homeless person somewhere on your daily commute to work, or various other places, you could pay the homeless person to hold a sign that reads “YourCompany.com paid me to hold this sign”. Regardless if it brings a TON of business your way or not, at least you’ll feel good about yourself, and you’ll touch that persons life forever."

Yeah, great stuff...
Benefits of Organic Yoga Clothing - Part 2
Yes and no (as you said). Just expanding: Arrays are an instance of Object with a few specialized methods. Therefore, you can (but should not) assign keys with values to the array and it will apply correctly. However, then you lose a great deal of the advantage of it being an Array.
OT, but you know you've arrived when someone else is supposed to be "the next you"
Case Law is in-transparent and tough to navigate through vs. Civil Law Code (Roman Law) from Continental Europe, where law has to be derived from higher written-down principles. It's mostly the Anglo-Saxon societies that have Case Law.

My intuition is that legal costs are higher in Anglo-Saxon countries, which is the direct result of the Case Law system.

China and Japan adapted Civil Law (Roman Law) as their system, which they then customized internally. They compared different legal systems and concluded Civil Law to be efficient.
I disagree. Both dodgeball and foursquare are quite relevant when you're 8 or so.

But otherwise I'm with you 100%.
When assigning a String with a numeric value I think JavaScript treats it as a numeric for an Array and a String for regular Objects. This doesn't really change the difference, just that an Array should hold numerical index values (vs an Object key, but they CAN hold regular keys since they are an Object). A bit confusing I guess...
> And yes, they even use Windows in North Korea. Though one doubts Microsoft ever sees their cut!

> Oddly enough the students were using the English version of Windows 98 rather than the Korean one.

Heh, interesting. I was trying to figure out how North Korea would have gotten their hands on a copy of Windows. My guess is someone ran across the border to China and picked up a pirated copy..
You could do that exactly. The problem is that the soap surface computer doesn't always perform the task to find the best steiner tree etc...
"What We Don't Talk About"
s/Some/Most/
Edit: should be other 87% of the US population.
I have now finished reading it.

The first few chapters are heavy going, they deal with details of Morgan's various activities that seem unimportant in relationship to the big picture, now.

I thought it interesting that he observed that the Patent system, in conjunction with large corporations, probably acted to retard the "useful Arts and Sciences" not advance them; this was written in 1913. Hayek observed the same in "The Road to Serfdom" written in the 1940s.

Other things that caught my eye:

Why do municipalities so uniformly offer bonds through the large investment bank middlemen ? While a new town with no credit might need that, large and established cities such as New York, Chicago, and etc, or even large and established corporations, should be able to deal directly with the public.

Why do the mergers and acquistions of large corporations so often require the raising of emmense amounts of money, merely to effect the transfer of ownership ? Billions are borrowed in bonds or sale of new stock so HP can buy Compaq or something; those billions are not destined to build computer factories, chip facilities, or pay engineers; somehow they are necessary just to swap who is in the corner office. Is the economy really benfited by this ? Would be detrimental if the purchasers had to trade something they actually had, or if the sellers had to agree to accept payment on a plan ?

For a good writter interested in the financial issues of our times, a great project would be to take "Other People's Money" as an outline, and simply re-write it chapter for chapter, replacing all the old examples with current ones.
I think the headline here is somewhat misleading, based on the other responses thus far. It's not intending to teach web development using Seaside as the tool; rather, it's a tutorial on how to develop Seaside web apps.

And while the fact that it's presented in PDFs is a little bit annoying, I'm about halfway through the tutorials and they're rather well written and expose a lot of features in Seaside and Smalltalk as a whole. As far as "zero to being able to make something interesting" guides go, this is one of the better ones I've encountered.
I don't know if the joke from my native language gets through, but it is not unlike the French Jean archetype-series:

"This guy came to me and asked me to explain it. I explained him once, and he didn't understand. Then I explained him again for a second time, and he still didn't get it. By the third time I was explaining it to him, even I managed to understand it, but he was still clueless."

It is why experienced teachers are good...
Yeah, I know. I would much prefer the call to action be more clear in the link:

You should <a href="...">follow me on Twitter</a>.
Huh? They don't have that many projects, they only officially support 3 platforms, most of the localizations are done by volunteers, and there isn't a whole lot of innovation going on.

The only real project is Firefox. There's some support projects like addons.mozilla.org, but it's fairly badly run and slow moving. Most Mozilla Labs projects are dead, Jetpack seems to be only one with legs. Weave is taking forever and nowhere near production ready, and Ubiquity is a power user feature than 95% of Firefox users won't use.

Most of the new stuff they're talking about is catching up to Chrome, catching up in the mobile space, or already speced out HTML5 features. Hardly any substantial innovation.

They've got a lot of fat really. The actual browser engineers on the ground do want to improve the web, but they've got a lot of ancillary folks who don't really do much, and a bunch of cultural baggage which prevents them from being an effective open source project. It's still insanely hard to get any feedback on feature suggestions, they still mostly do their own thing and largely ignore the external developer community.
People that 'friend' random people or people they wouldn't really call friends on social networking sites don't get my sympathy when they feel it's 'too much' or some sort of information overload.... they brought it on themselves.

It's like writing off candy as being 'sickening' because you ate nothing but candy as food for a week. It has nothing to do with candy in general or the candy industry. It has to do with _your_ lack of planning and/or foresight.
Then how do humans do it if we're Turing machines?