skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's true in general, but the business of tech can sometimes benefit from local knowledge. A submission about the best lawyers for tech startups in Singapore wouldn't really be appropriate for HN since it wouldn't benefit a large part of the audience.

It also helps to have a site where there's a high chance that the person you're talking to is close enough to meet up for coffee. =)
Did an ice age boost human brain size?
Do you think that if they could travel at 1/10th the speed of light, they'd be able to figure out how to visit us undetected?
Are we supposed to enter "hakernews" once we are redirected to PayPal? If so, it didn't work for me.
Ask HN: Charity Idea
First off, this idea is not new. I heard about it while watching an episode of Top Gear in which the Dragon's Den (UK) folks were featured. I thought it was such a good idea that I should help spread the word. Maybe some folks around here who have the resources to do so can implement something similar, even if it is on a small scale. Or, if you know of similar charities that exist, please post about them. Here's a description of the concept.

A trust fund is setup in which donors make regular contributions. Trust fund managers are tasked with identifying candidates for job positions that would normally be unattractive but that the trust fund believes are important. Should an identified-suitable candidate land one of these job positions, the trust fund would multiply their salary by an appropriate factor in order to make the position attractive to them.

For example, perhaps a poor rural community school is in need of a science teacher. The salary for this position, however, is unattractive to a lot of otherwise qualified candidates. Consequently, the community is at risk of having inadequate scientific education, a risk that might trigger the standard of living in the community to further degrade over time and create a vicious feedback loop. But a suitable science teacher is intrigued by the opportunity. She is currently teaching in a private school in the city making more than double the money. She would love the challenge of teaching the kids in this community. But the financial tradeoff makes it impractical for her. She applies to the trust fund, is identified as being a great fit for the position, applies for the position and lands it. The trust fund then agrees to multiply her salary by 2.5x so that she is making more than she would in her current position.
Nitpick:

Since China isn't a democracy, it doesn't suffer these problems.

Liberty and democracy aren't the same thing. If anything, a more democratic country would be more able to coerce banks in (something resembling) the public interest than a country with a more aggressively limited government.
Woah! My birthday is at the end of august, and for the first time ever I know what I want and it's only July.
In that case, would it be fair to say that Seth knows how to build a brand? :)

I rarely learn something deep or insightful from his posts, except perhaps the power of a consistent message. But you can't deny that, at least when it comes to promoting the brand Seth Godin, he's pretty good.
Sounds fun, no indication of cost to make it though, nor details of the dealers he used to get all the parts on the internet (and not have to talk to!).
sign up, then click "Redeem coupon"
"maybe this wasn't something I had to do, but it was something I wanted to do"

Semantics. I think we're saying the same thing.

You really wanted to do it badly, right? That's what I call had to do. Obviously, you don't have to do anything except breathe & eat, but you get the idea.
Why Yahoo never copied the adwords model is the biggest failure in the history of business.
Why credits instead of just money via credit card or Pay Pal? Seems like you want people to have some left over and then buy in more and keep going, similar to Microsoft Points. I'd rather just pay exactly what I need to for each screencast.
Given that he went missing over seven months ago, I imagine somebody would have read the obituary by now. Or the missing persons report, or whatever.
cheep = cheap ...
Somebody should tell Google.
Which book/article? He's written a lot of novels and stories.
MI5 website reportedly hacked
The man with the megaphone would have a bright future in the Catholic Church. "Put down that box of rubbers, I have something important to say!!"
Apple: Modifying iPhone software could knock out phone masts
How to extend a lithium ion laptop battery life?
How dare you question "Frogs in Love"? Perhaps you should set foot on a romantic adventure and bathe in the enchanting waters of distant lands while you meet and befriend other characters who will guide you on this quest and prepare you for the ultimate romance by challenging you with exciting and fun mini games.
That's a terrible headline.

I find it inspiring that someone in India can "remix" Fedora to account for the fact that they have no software patents in their country and often limited bandwidth which means a more up to date install disc makes sense. It's a good expression of what makes FLOSS special.

I'm not sure how you get from there to the headline though.
An interesting counter to the Fermi paradox:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#killingstar
I don't know what the future of journalism is, but if it is techcrunch then we are all F'd in the A.
Funny, that you posted this.

To that point, rent this movie, I think you'll like the beginning...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
""Maintaining weird legacy bug-compatibility code" is the essence of professional and responsible platform software engineering"

I couldn't disagree more with your point.

Open source is about openness. This is about evolving a platform in a clean and open way. If someone's program is buggy and does weird things it shouldn't do, then the bug should get fixed, not a bug be added to another piece of software in order to make the buggy program (that worked properly only by accident) still work. A feature that is not needed is a bug all in itself.

If your old program won't work with your new OS, then don't upgrade. There is no pressing need to run the latest and greatest OS, at least not in "professional and responsible" environments.
do you think they'd care?
The above poster has a valid point. He thinks that rather than making millions of single-purpose plastic bags and then going through an expensive process to clean up after them, we should instead not produce the plastic bags in the first place. For example, we could just keep canvas bags in our cars.

That the parent has been moderated down so much is troubling.
Setting Up ProFTPd + TLS On Debian Lenny
it's new.

it's not iphone. you can't compare an incumbent frontrun technology with a community playing catch up. if you can't see why android is better and will be more successful than iphone then it's not for you.
This is closer in spirit to someone slipstreaming Service Pack 2 onto the XP install.

It no more fragments the Fedora user base than letting users change desktop backgrounds or install applications.
"In my fervor to escape the slavery of corporate America, I'd made myself a slave to my supposed salvation."
Makes lots of sense.

So does it seem that Xanadu would solve what AP is trying to do?
He's Only in Field Service
Took about 8 seconds in MobileSafari on an iPhone 3gs. (No self-reported time appeared.)
try "hackernews" after clicking the redeem coupon button.
Yup. Meeting up sounds good. I sent you an email.
Evolving the API is a fact of life. It your critical program breaks with the most current bleeding-edge version, then either fix it (or have your vendor do it for you) or don't run the latest release. It's not like someone will die for having an earlier release.

That's also why Linux distros don't use the latest kernels: to allow the userland programs they package into them to run until they get fixed and the latest kernel can be added. While I know my Ubuntu doesn't run yesterday's kernel, I am happy it runs perfectly well with last month's kernel.
Our technology changing so rapidly that we couldn't be average. On a geological or cosmic timescale, civilized humanity as we know it has been around and probably will be around for a blink of an eye. So, no, we're not average, because even if something like us might exist, might have existed, or might someday exist elsewhere, at any given time chances are it's either stuck in a primordial stage, or it's moved on to something else.

Taking the long view, we're not even average for Earth-based life.
I am a full-time Creative Director who likes to tinker with writing web apps, mostly front-end development. I leave most of the heavy lifting to the real hackers.
Me too. Email in profile.
The best way to load external JavaScript
Anil seeks probe into RIL's 'huge scandal'
BTW - regarding monocultures you DEFINITELY have it wrong. They were responsible for a many times multiplication of agricultural output. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
"this young man who may have managed to solve one of the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time"

Solved? He demonstrated a proof of concept. But this was not news.

Was the product of decomposition environmentally safe? Is the process economically feasible? Does it scale?

All three questions need to be yes before we can say he solved the problem.

Having said that, I am not knocking the kid or his school project. We need more experimentalists in the world.
They add chemicals, and you think thats an improvement?
My Experience Installing VMWare Server and Running Windows XP on Ubuntu
The wikipedia article on Overpopulation does seem to mention some controversy over the carrying capacity of the earth, with the U.N. saying it should be in between 1 and 2 billion.

Does anyone have any good research papers that might say something counter to that?
Population density is the number one factor for infrastructure. Witness the US cell phone industry compared to Japan.
It doesn't seem to me that they're predicting all that much.

1) Aliens will be interested in spreading themselves.
This isn't such a stretch, but at any rate we're only interested in ETs that DO spread. Insular societies will be basically impossible to find, and so for the purposes of this discussion may as well not exist.

2) When they do, we'll be able to tell.
A little bit more of a stretch, but not totally crazy. Sure, we can't know what they'd invent, or what principles they'd work on. Maybe they go places in stable wormholes and do absolutely nothing when they arrive. But it makes sense to think that someone went for the low-hanging fruit and built a big-assed fusion drive armada. And we'd see that, I think.
It would have, but as far as I'm concerned Xanadu, as visionary as it was turned out to be an evolutionary dead end.

This is not to be disrespectful to Ted Nelson, it's just that the good bits are going to be recylced even if the grand vision won't be.

Some elements from Xanadu would solve the problems the AP is trying to address but I highly doubt that it would be commercially feasible without some kind of collusion between all the news providers. After all, as long as one of them stays free that one will end up with all the customers in their basket.

It's a free market, and the market deals harshly with those that try to sell lemons while the neighbours find a way to give them away and still make a profit.
Oscar Wilde wrote: "To define is to limit". I really love that quote and I absolutely agree. I think defining yourself as a 'designer' or 'developer' is a terrible thing to do. A lot of people here are experts at multiple skills, and it is not their skills that define them. What then, does? The fruits of their labor. The things that they create is what "defines" who they are, not the skills they mastered and not some specialization label stuck on them to tell others what it is they do. Learning new skills is absolutely the best thing you can do as it will open up more and more opportunities, but don't rush into thinking that these skills are what matters -- the application of them is what does. Gain the skills you need to make something happen, and let your creations define who you are.
"That the parent has been moderated down so much is troubling."

It's only troubling until you understand why.

No one would reasonably argue against the idea of producing something other than plastic in the first place.

The downmodding was most likely in response to the word "Western". Bash the U.S. (or anyone else, for that matter) and get downmodded. What's so troubling about that?

You can make a logical point on hn without insulting anyone else. The downmodding here is a clue to do just that.
Yes, that's a part of it, but there is definitely something called journalism going on there. It's just that it is coloured and not as objective as it should be. Which is a pity and which is one of the reasons why centralizing all this media power is a very bad thing.
Are these photos from Burning Man?
Like Today, the 1920s Roared With Technology
The $1000 Home Office
RescueTime has turned to the Dark Side: http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=610570
I don't entirely agree with the last paragraph. IMO you should ALWAYS write the best possible code. Any assertion otherwise is equivalent to saying you should be willing to put bad code into production.

The trick isn't in reducing code quality to save time. The trick is simplicity. Too often developers equate quality and complexity; the two are orthogonal.

A simple architecture with high-quality code will take far less effort to maintain than a complex architecture with high-quality code OR a simple architecture with low-quality code.

In my experience, the vast majority of the technical debt I've seen has resulted from building complex solutions to simple problems.

Keeping the solutions as simple as possible to fit the needs of the project is a very good way to keep down technical debt AND facilitate rapid development.
Well, thanks for the advice, I decided on dropping the $60.00 monthly fee for the 1&1 package, and went down to the shared hosting pro which will cost about $5.00 a month. I just have to rewrite a few things (use postal codes instead of a giant geo database) and a few others that will actually help the application out.

If there is anyone out there who would like to put some sweat equity into the site for SEO, and Graphics/UI contact me at mikecurry74 (at) gmail (dot) com. There is so much that I am lacking in the graphical area and UI area that I don't know where to start.
You might have heard of Fusion Garage - now associated with CrunchPad/TechCrunch.
you could shave off $180 by going with linux & OO. UNR (Ubuntu notebook remix) is pretty good on low end hardware.
If you have all plastic of the same kind, it's much better to recycle it.

If you have garbage of all different kinds, this technique is useless.

Everyone with basic scientific literacy already knows you can do this. But it doesn't solve any problem, let alone "the most intractable problem of our time" or whatever.

This whole article is just linkbait written by interns to scam more ad impressions off of dumb people. Wired has truly learned much from the Reddit acquisition.
Hey I can't see your email address. I think you need to move it to the about field in your profile because the email field is hidden from public view. My address is in my profile if you want to email me.
seriously? MS Office and Norton? and why a filling cabinet? and why a wireless router?
If there is enough demand, Indians would definitely catchup on RoR/Python/Django.
I agree, but you made his point much better than he did and without the insult. I think the point is to be more conscious of what we consume. However, plastic is not going away anytime soon so we should instead encourage people (not mandate!) to attempt to consume less of these materials and at the same time keep innovating on finding replacement materials as well as ways to properly dispose.
I am a web designer, who uses front end technoligues, html css, js etc. But I am so fascinated by programming I always check out HN everyday
Well, I questioned whether it's a Western phenomenon. I'm not trying to bash the U.S. I like being a citizen. I was actually trying to make an analogy to diet, health and medicine, where Western lifestyles have traditionally been found to be inferior to Eastern ones, because we, on average, eat crappy food, get diseases, then spend a bunch of money trying to fix the symptoms of those diseases.
Where does he get the math for 'we can all fit in the state of Texas'

That seem a little off to anyone else?

-P
Things I enjoyed: the article

Things I did not enjoy: the shirtless picture
Am I wrong in expecting that there should be something more than carbon dioxide and water? I would be the first to admit I know nothing of the molecular composition of the things involved, but shouldn't there be nitrogen leftover somewhere?
I have done some web design, development and now business. I still regard myself as more a designer than developer.

It's still useful and fun to create mockups to show product team what I mean, and sometimes design something for myself.
Step 3:

Install Keychain (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/keychain/), so you can actually use a passphrase like a smart person and not have to deal with ssh-agent and ssh-add nonsense.
Here's some more suggestions:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713749
But it makes sense to think that someone went for the low-hanging fruit and built a big-assed fusion drive armada. And we'd see that, I think.

Maybe they built a big-ass gamma-drive armada. Which would explain all the gamma ray bursts.
Sorry but this just isn't how the web works. Scraping is identical to crawling is identical to browsing is identical to caching.

Republishing someone else's work without their permission is probably copyright infringement but just downloading and parsing it is not.
> This is fine when it's a story about some human interest topic, but I imagine any serious journalist would never even want to write such articles.

Well, I'd say your imagination is slightly misleading, then. ;-) Of course, we may now debate what you mean by "serious journalists" but let's put that aside.

What every journalist wants, usually, is that his stories are read! Even you want to inform people you need them to read your story, first. One method is to write compelling headlines and teasers, for example. Sometimes, that's sufficient.

Another one, as you say, is to start with the "human side". But how you proceed, then, is often up to you: You may get deep into the topic, explore the problem behind the human story, write about pro's and con's, introducing the actors or stake holders, describe their opinions, and so on. Usually, you end by getting back to the human example you introduced in the beginning.

The simple truth is that every story has a human side. Nearly everything affects someone. If it doesn't, it's simply not interesting to anybody. It's not news.

Sure, there's also the common pieces, going after the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. That's the AP stuff. In contrast to want you believe, however, they are easier to write! It's just six questions you got to answer. Follow the Inverted Pyramid format and you're done.

Finding the human side, however, and making it believable and interesting is real work and takes quite a lot of time and experience.

Of course, you can't write every piece like that. Going into all the details of a story all the time would be boring and futile. So, both sorts have their place. But if you have something that's abstract, unexpected or hard to comprehend, starting with the human side is often the best way to go.
Well I'm still here...
Hang on, there's somebody at the door and I can hear helicopters......
<NO CARRIER>
3. 8 gig iPhone - $99 (with a two year contract with AT&T)

Hey, if you're going to go with deferred payments, why not buy a Mac Pro with a financing deal that requires zero money upfront? Hell, you could buy any office for under $1000 with that kind of loose thinking.
Checking
first /<i>comment</i>/ to geeks...........
Is there a whoosh going on here or am I "playing baseball, standing out in left field?" I guess I'm a fielder!

My perspective on the entire rant/essay/insight/whatever is that it is summarized by its last line. If you want to take credit for your organization when times are good, you cannot hide behind your powerlessness when times are bad.

When I worked for K- G---- way back in the day, we built a hit product. I milked that success for years. Imagine if I had stayed on board and things had gone poorly after a few years. Could I later say, "I only work at KG, I don't make decisions, the problems were elsewhere?"

My take on Seth's point is that I can't wear KG's success like a mantle while weaseling out of association with its failures with talk of "I only worked there, other people make the bad decisions."

It's ok to just punch a clock and do a job. But if you're going to try to associate yourself with your organization during good times, you have to live with the lumps during bad times.

JM2C, you may have read something else in this.
Here is an outside the bamboo box idea - PRC (China) adopts the dollar for its external currency while keeping the yuan. This allows them to appear to support the dollar while retaining control over the flow of (yuan) currency in and, crucially, out of the country. They might be able to sell T-bills in this environment.

Won't happen of course as it would be perceived as a loss of sovereign power but remains an interesting speculation.
Global warming is a myth - not the fact that it exists but rather that it's caused by humans, and people die because of it.

State birth control... what, are you in favour of it?

Edit: why is this here?

Because lots of dictator wannabes like the idea that there's only enough space in the world for them, and that there is this really big problem of population that only someone as calculating as them can grasp. I'm sorry but this really pisses me off. We have lots of energy and lots of space, go and play with a ball and have fun.

Edit: yes a typo, thanks.
More Like "How to spend a lot of money not solving a non-problem."
Rather than actual critique, here is a user story. It takes place... inside my brain!

diiq's story:

----------

Will there be 250 credits worth of content soon? 5-10 credits a video (maybe), 2-3 videos per month (maybe), that's... nearly two years, if the videos are cheap?

Trying buying credits. Why can I only by credits in these numbers -- why not any number? Some of the screencasts cost 8 credits. I don't want to pay 10 dollars for what you say is only worth 8.

Ohhh! I'm supposed to go somewhere else to redeem the coupon... hunting for the right button.

Found it. Aaand the coupon doesn't work. Hmmm.

So I guess I'll download a preview. Maybe it'll be worth $10 to see more. I'm pretty good with PHP, and I've done TDD, so I'll grab the iPhone development masterclass --- I don't know anything about iPhone development. Maybe I'll learn something. Downloading... wondering why this isn't embedded...

Watching a splash screen and music...

Hmm. Something about a method that gets the number of lines. Whoops! Preview is over.

I should get back to debugging.

---------

It's not a story with very happy ending, I'm afraid.
3jam Launches Virtual Numbers, Takes Google Voice Head-On
This is an interesting idea. Maybe it would solve pg's scaling concerns (not hardware & software but content & character) of HN to make regional sites covering NYC, Austin, Bay Area, London, etc. in addition to the top level 'global' one.

Make it a craigslist of startup/tech discussion and maybe even have the best local content percolate to a top-level/global page.

I think if you stayed on a local page you immediately get back to a vibe of the early days of HN simply because of the reduction in readers/commenters and realignment of interests (ie: the startup scene in Singapore).