skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I hate being disconnected. it gets under my skin until I'm itching to code, game or read a blog, Do something to bring me back to a familiar constant.

But take me away for a week? I come back and end up deleting all my bookmarks, dis enthused about news.yc and cleaning out my inbox of all non personals. And I'm totally happy to go back to my original and probably greatest love, Literature, preferably in some shady, but warm green place.

Over the following weeks I always manage to reconnect myself, a youtube or blog link... There's always something, and I find myself once again forgetting how nice it can be.
Catamaran owner in the Caribbean.
My Dad used to be a farrier. He went to a blacksmith college in Oklahoma, which was the only post-HS schooling he has had. It's a very dangerous job, and most guys who are farriers for any length of time end up with serious wounds. All the lifelong farriers seem to end up with a limp, no matter how careful they are. My Dad stopped before he got hurt and he eventually started his own trucking company. There is now a shortage of trained farriers. My Dad handed out his last business card in 1979, and he still gets people who track him down and beg him to do work for them. They usually pull a mangled copy of his old business card out of their pocket. I'm always amazed by that.

When I was growing up, people would ask me what my Dad did. The conversation usually went like this:

"What's your old man do for a living?"

"He's a farrier." Of course, no one ever knew what that was, so then I would elaborate:

"He shoes horses."

"He SHOOTS horses?!!??! WTF?!!"

That's actually why my first girlfriend broke up with me. She thought I was the offspring of some sort of equine mass-murderer. Killing ponies always goes over big with the ladies ;-) She had a new boyfriend by the time we cleared up the misunderstanding.
It bites, because he dismisses certain people as paranoid crackpots, expressing lack of respect to FS movement in whole, while, as found later, their paranoia was justified.

I wasn't ever calling him an idiot, because he isn't. He is however would be better advised to shut up and wait sometimes, before jumping the gun.

You'd think he knows better after that BitKeeper saga, but duh.
Farming, like my grandfather.
I did it in C, my code was a bit longer. (And it has the advantage that you do not need an initial estimate for the problem to be solved in a very short time.)

#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>

double p(int throws, double pwin, int req_wins)
{
int win, i;
double log_dp = log(pwin) * throws;
double log_loss_win = log((1 - pwin) / pwin);
double ret = 0;
for (win = throws, i = 0; win >= req_wins; win -= 2, ++i) {
ret += exp(log_dp);
log_dp += log_loss_win + log((throws - i) / (i + 1.0));
}
return ret;
}

int main()
{
double pwin = 0.51;
int req_wins = 10;
double conf = 0.99;
int min, max = 1;
while (p(max, pwin, req_wins) < conf)
max *= 2;
min = max / 2;
while (min < max) {
int mid = (min + max) / 2;
if (p(mid, pwin, req_wins) < conf)
min = mid + 1;
else
max = mid;
}
printf("For %d throws, P(win $10 or more) = %f\n"
"For %d throws, P(win $10 or more) = %f\n",
min - 1, p(min - 1, pwin, req_wins),
min, p(min, pwin, req_wins));
}

The output from this program:

For 14413 throws, P(win $10 or more) = 0.989777
For 14414 throws, P(win $10 or more) = 0.990004
I appreciate that. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to reproduce the bugs without loading my code, and even then they are intermittent. They seem to have to do with larger JS files, as I mentioned. As far as filing bug reports, I've been waiting until we have a released product, because presumably then I can include a URL to the public version.

I couldn't care less about the whitelist bug and don't even know what it is. All I want is a reliable console and debugger.

Edit: oh, I just remembered another problem (because it just happened): breakpoints or debugger statements that cause the debugger to break, but jump to the completely wrong source location. This happens all the time and nothing seems to help. (The recommendation to create a new FF profile, which appears to be 80% of the advice given on the Firebug discussion group, doesn't fix this.)
Nokia E75 Black Unlocked 
Nokia E75 Black Unlocked a incorporates QWERTY keyboard, customisable home screen views separate for both business and personal. this 3 megapixel camera phone. E75 come with the gen-next email user interface that allows you to access all folders and HTML.
motorcycle repair / restoration
Sean: So what do you really want to do?

Will: I wanna be a shepherd.

Sean: Really.

Will: I wanna move up to Nashua, get a nice little spread, get some sheep and tend to them.
Also consider that it provides a 'service' that people want and/or enjoy.

The internet has changed, it was born as a means to share physics data, quickly it grew to provide services that made our lives easier/better (online banking, wikipedia, search, photo sharing, travel, real-estate, the list goes on and on..) Then, another change happened.

The internet passed the point of making real-world services more efficient, and social activities became prevalent.

Successful apps no longer need to be useful in any way, it's enough that they are fun, or help you vent, or provide a way to reach more people, to express, or in essence to be human. The wonderful thing is that the tools to make these new applications have also matured and become easy enough that a small number of people (as small as 1) can build something that is used by millions.

Remember the days when you needed a team of ops people and c programmers to deal with networking and file systems and all that nonsense. Now you can deploy a web app with very little code and very little skill? This is a wonderful thing.

It doesn't matter if you like Twitter or not, its something that a lot of other people do like and the wonderful thing about the internet is that there is room for everyone. (well, with ip6 there is :)
Even if a person is frustrated or doesn't communicate well, he or she is still telling me about a problem. As a developer, I find this much better than not knowing about the issue at all. How many people receive thousands of E-mails for their thousands of downloads? Feedback is rare.

Usually, frustration is rooted elsewhere. The person has something to do, and is annoyed that it (still) can't be done, probably after trying my project along with a number of others. I try not to take this personally.

So my first response is to be civil. I don't even talk about anything mean they might have said, I focus entirely on the problem. I solve that problem, and say "here you are".

The response to this has always been gratitude, and even amazement that I solved the problem. It seems that once the person reaches the point of yelling at a developer, that person has given up and doesn't really expect anything anymore.

A community is built one person at a time.
Poll: Do you have  ℠ tm or (R) on your logo?
Seems like a lot of YC companies don't use it, do you use it on yours?
™ - unregistered trademark
℠ - unregistered servicemark
® - registered trademark
On a side note, any tips for the hoards of eager younguns dying to get into the biz?
Don't use any
Yes, a downvote can 'sting' -- because even if the person casting it means to say "I disagree", they are sending the exact same signal as is sent when they mean "Your behavior is unacceptable". And, downvotes are a 'scarlet letter' of community disapproval, and cause comments to fade in color and sink in position. It is a status kick-in-the-groin.

And that's OK, for truly unwanted behavior.

But the right kind of disagreement is good, healthy, necessary and should be celebrated.

One option would be to have two axes of single-click vote-reaction. One is classic up-down promote/demote, for whether a comment has quality. The other would be left-right agree/disagree, a mini poll to capture sentiments.

Unless there is an easy outlet -- a click-region -- for sending a 'disagree' signal separate from the 'disapprove' downvote, it is inevitable the two will be conflated, causing angst and periodic threads like this one.

For previous discussion on this 'two-axis' concept, see:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=613112

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521
It is amazing how much better at arithmetic I became when I started caring about the stats calculations in my favorite MMO.

Just saying.
Carpenter, Cabinet Maker, Machinist, Welder, Luthier or other instrument maker.. take your pick, although it doesn't really count since I already do, or have done all of those.
I just spent a week offline. I had a good time on vacation, but no net connection was sheer torture. Reducing usage to the essentials is one thing, but going cold turkey was not to my liking.
Aol and Time Warner - Splitsville
But one of the thems is life itself, so I would argue that yes, it is intrinsically better ;)

No, one of them has this weird, inconsistent, visual-audio-tactile-olfactory user interface, and the other one is generally standards-compliant and can be accessed with lynx.
Newspaper's time has come (and gone) - its not the concept that's going away, its just the media it appears on. There will always be news 'organizations' - they might morph into a much more diverse and distributed form, but that's just progress. Any sufficiently complex system evolves. Think of this as de-urbanization. Rather than central metropolitan news organizations the news is going rural.

There is a school of thought (that I don't disagree with) that says that a free press is a tenet of democracy, so if that's true there will always be free news reporting. It just wont come to us on dead trees.
http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Mail.html

When you receive bug reports, keep in mind that bug reports are crucial for your work. If you don't know about problems, you cannot fix them. So always thank each person who sends a bug report.

...

By all means help individual users when you feel like it, if you feel you have the time available. But be careful to limit the amount of time you spend doing this-- don't let it eat away the time you need to maintain the program! Know how to say no; when you are pressed for time, just "thanks for the bug report -- I will fix it" is enough response.
I've built dry stacked stone walls. Can't beat the feeling of satisfaction knowing they will stand for over a century.
Meet your Meat [video]
I find the little marks really unattractive. And IANAL but I have to assume that a trademark doesn't magically lose its legal protection if used without the (R).
that was really awesome opening that page at work. thanks HN!
Have you tried Git or Hg?

I think the point is that Git and Hg are extremely close in features/power/etc., not that every SCM is equal.

Not trying to troll here; if you really prefer SVN over Git or Hg that's your preference. But if you haven't given them a chance, you'll do yourself a favor by trying one of them out.
I make some of my code available for others to use as they will. I do not consider myself to be an open-source developer. I really don't care how many people use it, but it's nice that some people find it useful. I have the code, it costs me nothing to make it available, and others think it makes their world better, so that's OK then.

I don't have an aggressive "customer" attitude, but I get pretty annoyed when someone who uses the software then demands that I change something. Not request, not suggest, not offer to help, but demand that it be changed.

I'm not looking for more esteem, better rates, "karma" of any sort, I'm just happy to make it available because I think the world can't be worse off, and might be better off. I really, really don't care how many people use it, and what is clear is that keeping it private on my hard drive means that there is no chance it makes the world a better place.

You don't seem to be able to comprehend the idea that people will sometimes just make their work available to others without any desire or need to recognition or compensation. I think the world would be a better place if people did.

So I do.
I'm confused...why does this matter to you?
You missed my intention. My point is that there's got to be a better way. That link shows important progress towards the next step: expressing equations, translating them into LaTeX, and then rendering them into image (e.g. png) form.
Facebook Wants To Know If You’d Mind Sharing All Of Your Information
build custom cycles.
In that case, the comment does add value to the conversation, whether it is correct or not, so I agree with you that in that case downvoting is wrong.
I like these things as a great way to meet fellow hackers, but every time I've done this (I've only done 3), I've seen the same thing happen. People get excited about the app while there, but there seems to be little follow through afterwards. Even if you do manage to finish the app (which is hard but not impossible), the point is to have a successful app.

There is often no marketing or promotion of the app or even just adding new features. For once I'd like to see an app come out of one of these that takes off. But for that to happen there needs to be follow through and constant work that goes in after these things and not just during the meeting.I think it would make a great success story and get more people interested in doing these things.
There are too many replies that correct factual errors or explain/reinforce HN social norms to assume reply == upvote. Though you could downvote and reply.
just wondering if there is some legal requirement to do it or not. i.e. reddit = no trademark, digg = tm
With GNU R:

require(graphics)
netgain <- function(x) { 2*qbinom(.01,x,.51)-x }
plot(1:25000,netgain(1:25000))
plot(10000:15000,netgain(10000:15000))

The first plot is interesting because it shows you are not expected to win anything with 99% certainty until around 13000 tosses.
That's a tough one. I have many interests outside of computers. I think the top two to decide between would be:

1. Alpine skiing instructor, while training to eventually become a mountain guide.

2. Chef. Probably specializing in pastries. I love cooking, but I'd need to go to culinary school before I could do it for a living.
Carpenter. Furniture, cabinetry, etc.
Also: Run a comedy theater.
I just created http://stonertweets.com for a client. This is to build buzz around a community and help promote a movie.
The biggest problem I've seen grow recently are healthy comments quickly downvoted from 1 to 0. I immediately vote them back up but I want to reach through the monitor and throttle the voter for spinning such a sensitive-to-initial-conditions process in a negative direction.

If I were the HN Sovereign, I'd consider having moderators casually review all 'first votes' on comments, especially 'first downvotes'. If a certain user is injecting a lot of 'sting' into threads with a hair-trigger down-vote, I'd put their franchise on double-secret-probation.

What is double-secret-probation, you might ask? Well, they'd still see their votes take effect, but no one else would -- at least for initial votes, maybe for others too.

Their negativity would be quarantined.
No, not at all?
Just because commercial software can and will be catered to the users specific needs, doesn't imply the user always wants to make any form of financial contribution to the desired result.

Nine out of ten times, if you want something, Users tend to google it to look for a share/free/OS version, before they fork out the cash, and if they are lucky enough to find one and get it running, It's always the coders fault that they can't quite make it work for their needs.
Its just a number, this is just a board where we discuss what others have written (and then people find time to VOTE on the discussions about what someone else has written!). stop taking this number so seriously people!!
Before I started college, I pretty much had two directions I wanted to go. Either go to college(for CS) or earn a Master Electricians license. I went with the former, however I sometimes wish I had gone the other direction.

Soooooo.... The manual job for me would have been an Electrician. I have friends that chose this route and are doing very well for themselves now. Good pay, make your own hours, potential to start your own business, etc. Manual labor in my opinion is extremely underrated, especially when it comes to trade related work. College is pushed so hard to high schoolers these days, that nobody considers alternative paths. Just like earning a college degree, I think you can lead a good life and possibly become extremely successful applying your skills to learning a trade.
Barista.

Large House Blend $2.00. Bagel and Cream Cheese $1.49. Handing someone a cup of coffee and seeing that smile on their face, Priceless.

There are some jobs you get just for the money. For everything else, there is Barista.
In my mind there is a continuum between two points.

1: Those who write code specifically for the purpose of making it available, possibly originally because they wanted it themselves, but now because it's been made open, people are using it, and they're deriving some sort of (possibly intangible) benefits from it (karma, esteem, recognition, PostCardWare, whatever)

and

2: People who write code, often small scripts or functions, purely because they need them, and, almost as an afterthought, make them publically readable with no thought to getting anything in return, but simply because they think the world would be a better place if more people did that.

In linguistic terms, the concept of "Open Source Developer" has, in my mind "baggage". Your semantics may differ from mine, but to me, there is a distinction to be made.
I'd love to get one of those for a laptop. Does the power, size, weight work out? Imagine running your laptop for 20 years without ever plugging it in!
fix computer hardware :p
After 1 million trials with the above method I get:
avg: 499.00
sigma: 1115.04
[499.00 - 3.35,499.00 + 3.35]
Netbooks might be a factor in the other direction when it comes out. I've been an OSX user for years, but am planning on buying a netbook with Window7 when its available.
How To Explain Your Web 2.0 Job At The Pub
Maybe keep bees
When to Stop Reading a Book
Social Security Numbers Are Not Random
Kung Fu Instructor.
Artist.
Cook.

I'm actually working on all 3 right now, hoping to switch in the future.
Interesting ebook effect:
Having an e-book reader has made Ms. Wendell more ruthless. "I'm holding 100+ books on one device. If one isn't floating my boat, I can move on to something else by pressing one button," she points out.
Ask HN: What's Your 5 Runs?
"Indoctrinated" has strong, inappropriate connotations.

If it's anything beyond the sheer amount of time, it's that 1) people who don't teach themselves will probably be at a disadvantage given how much new material regularly needs to be learned, and 2) there is likely a window during which time picking up new skills is easier. Learning programming is probably analogous to learning a musical instrument, a new language, etc., in that people seem to pick things up more quickly if they start while fairly young. While learning a new API or something once you've been programming for a while is largely a matter of time, but there are Big Ideas that need to be learned upfront. I didn't mean to imply that it's impossible to learn them, just that it's harder.
Bike messenger.
But thats my point. Why?

Twitters entire concept is just a head spin, As a casual bystander to the twit phase, I gather that 90% of the posts are either ego trips, basic daily occurrences, spam or marketing.

Why can't you meet your friends for coffee instead of twittering them about it from Starbucks.

P.S: Sent from my iphone.
I was hoping I was about to read a comparison similar to http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/ (which is concise and intelligent, even with its inherent bias).
I didn't list anything, so yes.
Does this video belong on this forum? It's remarkably one sided but when watching, I wonder about the entrepreneurial opportunities available to farmers who can produce large quantities of meat humanely.
Honestly I hoped this nuked a couple of my followers. I block new ones which seem spammy, but a few were borderline who I gave the benefit of the doubt.
How does this HFT practice provide additional liquidity? The only time they purchase shares is right before someone else is going to. It is the ultimate man in the middle, taking a little bit of every single transaction in an exchange. It raises the cost of doing business for everyone (except the HFT trader), and is a net inefficiency in the system, like energy lost to heat in a poor electrical conductor.
"An important lesson that one can draw from time away (whether it be aaron's month or my 2 weeks) is that you can't let tech/web overwhelm your life. People have a wide range of interests (whether you've discovered that or not) and devoting so much time to 1 thing seems like the easy way out."

I really disagree with that, if applied to all people.

I've always been completely obsessive about whatever it was I was interested in. Whether it was planes at age 6-7, ships at 8-9, cars somewhere in there, WW2 naval history at 9-10, computers at 10, Star Trek at 11, Gemstone 3 at 12-13, Magic: The Gathering at 14, MUDs & computers at 14-16, guitar from 16-18, physics at 18, Java at 19, Harry Potter fanfiction from 20-22, programming language design from 23-25, my startup from 25-27, and now Google's internals at 28.

When I was little, my parents would worry about my one-track mind and rather obsessive interests. They had the same concern you do: people have a wide range of interests, and they were worried that I'd shut myself into being a narrow person.

But by the time I graduated college, they realized that even though I had a totally one-track mind, that track changed every couple years, and so I'd had a dozen or so different interests. All pursued with a lot more passion than the person who just picks 2-3 hobbies and sticks with them for life.

I think the real evil is continuous partial attention. Whatever you're doing - whether it's socializing, relationships, reading, hacking, research, etc. - give it your full attention. I try to check news.YC/Reddit/various social networks once a day, before I go into work. Then once I'm there, I concentrate on what I'm doing. Similarly, I try to read a book or hack a program when I get home, something that'll draw all my attention. I don't always succeed, but when I do it feels much more fulfilling than wasting 2-3 hours online refreshing news.YC.
See also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690636
where there is some discussion.
View source has a posse
I'm repeating myself, but I find it funny that this is happening just a bunch of days after Google claimed that appstores are not the future and that the future is browser apps.

I'm not saying that Apple has been fair or that I wouldn't like more openness from them.
Being a poor student who scrapes a living through Rentacoder, Its difficult to explain further without getting lost when someone raises an eyebrow at freelance web design.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to disagree with you about their products being buggy and ill-designed. Compare Microsoft Office to Open Office. My experience with Microsoft Office is that it is fast, well designed, and I've never experienced a bug while using it. Period. From the little time I've spent using Open Office, it was far slower, and had an inferior user interface. My linux friends even admit that Microsoft Office is far better than Open Office.
vw/porsche mechanic. It's what I grew up doing and I would actually love to do it again. If I had more hours in the day I would code and build engines.
Do you mind if I ask how much $$ you make for that and how many projects you can handle at a time?