skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Assuming a truly random sample of 5000 unique, non-overlapping viewers for each experiment, the standard error for the experiments runs from .3% to .5%.

The true value for any given sample is pretty likely (> 95%) to be within +/-2 standard errors. So in this case, the difference needs to be more than 0.6%~1.0%, depending on the experiments you're comparing. In other words, these look like they're significant differences.

(For reference SE ~ sqrt(p*(1-p)/N) when N is small relative to the population size)
Oh another thing. I will remove the requirement of an email address just to be granted an invite. So that would be one less step for users.
Here are the other 49 tricks, briefly summarized:

http://www.moskalyuk.com/blog/yes-50-scientifically-proven-w...

(This link is via HN, naturally: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=613402)
I'd word it like: "Join the 4,615 people following me on twitter _here_."
Justin.tv Redesigns To Make Broadcasting Easier And Chat More Obvious
>For example if I have shrimp in the freezer and orzo in the pantry, I can google for "shrimp and orzo recipe", end up with a recipe with 8 additional ingredients of which I have only 2; and yet I would know whether I could make it (eg. I don't have fresh basil but I could throw in some dried thyme and it would still be edible, skip the olives, etc etc).

This is amenable to automation. You could tell a computer which ingredients are expensive, which are likely to be unnecessary, and which can be substituted. I wouldn't expect it to work perfectly, and it wouldn't do anything you couldn't do by hand with google, but if it saved you some time it could be useful.

>The other thing I look forward to with ubiquitous RFID is whether we can eliminate the unload cart/scan/repack groceries hoopla.

You could also eliminate the problem of keeping track of how much money the items in your cart cost, and whether you're being charged what the label said, because the price would pop up as you put it in your cart. But a good API might lead to convenient online ordering and ubiquitous delivery, which should appeal to you if you're environmentally conscious enough to reuse bags, because the amount of energy saved by having a delivery driver make a round compared to having hundreds of customers drive back and forth would dwarf the savings you make by not throwing out some plastic bags.
The biggest gains come from knowing your data
What kind of plans don't make assumptions about the probability of future events?
I'd say the critical question really isn't around speed of an interpreter, since if you care about speed you're using something like a JIT compilation model to actual machine code anyway. A more important question, if you want the VM to become more widely useful, is to make the instruction set easy to compile to.

A big advantage of a stack-based architecture (in my experience) is that it's simpler to write a compiler for because you don't have to worry about register allocation. My compiler writing experience is a bit limited (I've done some work targeting the JVM, and some very limited MIPS assembly coding), but I've found that not having to track register state is a very helpful simplification.
Why did you link the word "Twitter?" My impression upon seeing that is that the link would take me to twitter.com, not perform a follow action.

I would wager that the third message would fare better than the fourth (of the examples you gave) if you rephrased:

You should follow me on Twitter

to:

You should follow me on Twitter
One survey is useless for prediction. Surveys are an instant photo of a particular and defined population. You need several surveys(same population, same sampling method) to find a trend. And even if you find a trend in the data, if the situation change(google start to charge by search, bing gives out kittens and rainbows for each search, etc.) your model/trend isn't any good anymore.

Surveys are a tool, they don't confirm anything and they don't give answers. If you base your decisions only on surveys you're a moron.
That is pretty incredible! I'm particularly impressed with the use of JTAG on all the chips to map their connectivity to each other.
I haven't thought of it that way, but you're right, it's probably a good investment. My fear is that acquisition often kills the very thing that makes the company what it is (including its long-term positive prospects), even with the best intentions.
I'm not well-versed in crypto libraries, but is there any reason not to use OpenSSL? That's where I turned when I needed a SHA256 implementation (for a C program), and it worked like a charm. Didn't seem too convoluted to use, either. It has been around long enough that just about every platform has it packaged and ready to use, and dynamically linking against it worked fine everywhere I cared to try.
Pardon me for the blasphemy, but if I wasn't already following your writing and didn't know better, this whole post would strike me as a little "mail order sleezy".

Instead of spending valuable resources tweaking the wording of your links, why not just channel that same energy into providing excellent content, and let the rest take its course.

That's why I follow you in the first place.
I agree... there is no middle ground.
It's coincidence. The contest has almost no implication to Netflix as a business.
My conspiracy theory: Options expire on friday. Watch the stock deflate next monday.
> But my friend has other plans, it seems. Basically, he is about to be the sole founder and owner of the company.

He's trying to grab the reward and shift the risk to you.

Strict percentage deals often don't make sense, especially for minority partners. They're taking as much risk, if not more, and they're getting short changed on reward.

He's probably thinking big exit, say $100M, and doesn't see why you should get $25-50M. However, the likely best case result is a $5-10M exit. If you're putting in a couple of years, $1M is absurd. (Note that the typical result is a $0 exit.)

If he's fixated on the big score, he might agree to something like you get 50% of the first $5M and 10% after that. That shifts the risk back to him. If he's the genius that he thinks that he is, that's basically the same as a 10% deal. However, you get a decent payout if there's any decent exit.

However, I suspect that the right move is to walk away, as most of the other people are suggesting.
Is Twitter Handing Over Private Data to the Feds?
Obviously, any pithy observation is by necessity overly simplified :) However, there's a lot more truth to it than otherwise. E.g, your first point, the painful status quo. My previous company addressed the job search market, in which most people are very unhappy with the status quo solutions; and our particular solution, I feel, was about 40-70% better than existing ones (and also a new paradigm), nonetheless, people weren't really readily jumping ship. With search engines (including a vertical one, like ours) evaluating comparative quality is actually pretty hard, which washes away a bit the easy switching cost (I don't mean expert comparisons; I mean average user looking at average queries).
But check out the next couple of days:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-US-daily-20090614-2...

OMG-zorz! Google is back!
I think that would only apply if the map is not freely accessible from the web.
Tweaking the wording of your links is time well spent. Imagine if the same testing methodology was applied to the Sign Up button on a B2B app. You could drastically increase conversions with just a few small modifications!
How many of the Apache installations in the world give Brian Behlendorf "credit"?

And Brian's the highest-profile contributor to Apache. What about Rob McCool, Robert Thau, Roy Fielding, Ralf Engelschall, Rian Hunter, Rainer Jung, Rasmus Lerdorf, Rüdiger Plüm, and in some sense Randy Terbush? And those are just the contributors whose names begin with "R": http://httpd.apache.org/contributors/
It's not about fairness. The question from the point of view of Google is whether their pricing is optimal. Are they missing out on a significant market who would pay less for a cheaper option but not $10k for the Premier service? Only they know that.
interesting, i didn't know about phpList-- perhaps i'll use is somehow in the next release. at the moment i'm using simple PHP to send out the emails.
Open Atrium
Mobile Internet, the Parents and their Children.
Private Rocket Successfully Puts Satellite In Orbit for the First Time
TV on the Internet vs. TV for the Internet
In the case of mongrel or lamson, I don't see the difference. All of the binding clauses of the GPL apply to distribution. It isn't until I distribute it that I have any responsibilities at all.

So if I use mongrel or lamson I'm not distributing that code in binary or source form. Thus, if I want to use the code I can do whatever the hell I want (modify it, use it, print it out and bathe in)... until I distribute it somehow (which a typical web-app never does) it makes zero difference.

I'm VERY confused after reading this rant as to what Zed thinks this actually does.
IP laws are not fair play. Most especially in cases that obvious where the patent filer has no intention of doing anything with the patent/.
Just in case someone is rusty on their chemistry:

NaCl == Sodium Chloride == Salt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)
I've been using it for only 2 years and feel like such a loser when I pair with the true veterans. Watching a true Emacs master is an amazing thing.
Sigh. If people really do wish the Internet to be Television 2.0 -- guess what will happen? The Internet will become Television! Is that really what you had in mind?

I guess even "real TV" was, in its original form, an educational and informative medium. When it became absurd (it didn't take long, did it -- driven by advertising, mind you) we were fortunate to have the 'net to turn to.

Where should we turn now?
I thought about this. But there's a fine line between being tacky and being efficient. When I read bandwagon phrases like the one you propose, I always cringe. It's just not genuine.
don't forget http://jobs.rubynow.com
Ok.

I posted an article with questions about Twitter earlier today.

So now I have ten or twenty followers.

I mean this in a nice way, but -- so what? What do you do when you get followers? Sell them stuff?

Seems like twitter followers are like blog readers. It's great to have them, but you have to act like they're not there and concentrate on content quality. Or maybe I missed something.
Your Rights Online: Wikipedia Debates Rorschach Censorship
Hackumentary (Part 1 of 4)
Tasks graduates from Gmail Labs
I tried exactly what you describe.

The conversion for "follow me" as the link during my one test was 9.22% compared to the "twitter" link, which was 10.09%.

I'm not sure why it performed (very slightly) worse. It might have to do with the link being in the middle of the sentence (you have to go back and click the link) rather than at the end, where you finish the sentence and click the link.
Hmmm... I'm also viewing it in FF3.5 on linux, and it works for me. You just have to wait a couple of seconds until the page refreshes.
That movie is great. I own it and show it to friends who do not know the epic saga.
So I Quit My Day Job, Dear Boss: You’re Fired
Today, musicians make products (music) that can be easily duplicated at no cost. We acknowledge their value by compensating them through the purchase via proper channels (CDs, iTunes, concerts) and express our appreciation by being fans.

Software creators are not unlike these musicians; you pretty much need to have a record deal in order to get the money and the mainstream fans.

In Zed Shaw's case, he's basically using GPL ensures that other people are not using his work to get the record deals.
>but as a geek and a man, I am unwilling to admit [watching a chick flick].

I downloaded a couple of "Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" seasons for my girl friend.

If I get one of those extortion letters, I will pay without going to court! :-)

(I think it isn't illegal to d/l TV where I live, but they change the laws around.)
What's the Real CPI?
One of only a handful of programs I've seen on the iPhone that hyphenate properly. I wish the typeface specimen list was larger and included other, common typefaces (for example, Bembo, or a wider selection of sans serifs); those are some of my favorite things to peruse. There's quite a few odd little things thrown in that are entertaining--the Mac keyboard layout, for example.

It's not going to replace a specimen catalog, but might be useful for someone with a designer's eye who wants to learn more about the typographic side.
LG will be the Third Nokia AMOLED Screen Supplier
[Ask HN]Good book/tutorial on learning C++
So I just started learning programming and have only taken two classes of Java in school. My next class will be more Java or C++ (not sure which yet since all the Computer Science classes are full so I might not get into either) so I thought I would spend my summer learning something. Anyone know of a good C++ book or tutorial for noobs?
We're just going to have to get you on the Twitter bandwagon, edw519. (grin)

Resistance is futile.
(not a crypto-guru)

If you use a library function to do your SHA-1, you're doing it wrong.

Pad out your test strings to a fixed length of 448 bits (assuming that the words in their dictionary allow this).

Use a custom hashing algorithm that skips the "pre-processing" step by assuming a fixed length string and skips the for loop since it only needs to process one chunk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA_hash_functions#SHA-1_pseudo...
I don't the link's particular destination here matters too much. His main point pertains to the increase of clickthrough rates of (any) link by changing the language of and around its text.
No but I pay for music each month via an emusic.com subscription.
Yeah, sorry about missing the intent of the joke :) I'm cynical enough to think people'll just take pot-shots at scientists playing outside their perceived core expertises just on principle. Not that I'm a scientist turned startupper or anything.

Anyway, it's a pretentious name, but I think it's a bit like "systems biology" (biology done by physicists). If physicists do it, they like inventing a new name.

Of course, there's masses of that kind of thing, and I guess I'm a bit more sensitive to it than most; the research I did when I was still a researcher could have been called quantum chemistry, solid state physics, materials science, or what it was actually called (theoretical mineralogy) and still have been the same damn thing! (Predicting how glass works.)
OpenSSL has a history of major security bugs. I haven't seen any filed against it recently, and it is widely used, but it gives people the heebie-jeebies, sort of like BIND does. If memory serves it also is a little inflexible if you want to do something a little unconventional.

Now, that said, there are certainly sound engineering reasons to continue to use OpenSSL, and in no way should you use any other library that has not seen extensive, extensive security review in its place. NaCl is certainly included there.
Agreed, yet if it wasn't for Google Docs then Office 2010 would be shipped solely as desktop software. Let's be thankful that MS takes the competition seriously.
Anyone able to break 10 using the example they gave?

"I am not a big believer in fortune telling"
I've read the book, as well as Influence. Influence is a far stronger book because it does a better job of describing the theoretical underpinnings of why the 50 tricks work.

Some of the tricks are really narrow and so they aren't all that useful themselves (e.g. to write post it notes and put those on interoffice forms and surveys for a better response), but with the theories you can make better extrapolations.
I guess my point would be why, as a reader, would I want to follow anybody? Sorry for changing the point of view to the seller, but I'm wondering what's in it for the buyer? What's the transaction that's taking place here?

Given that piece of information, applying some of the practices of persuasion mentioned in other posts starts to make sense, but without understanding the transaction, I'm not sure what his point is. Just to get people to click a button? Surely there's more to it than that. (Although I _do_ get the A/B kind of discussion, just wanted to move the discussion towards a "what's in it for me" vein if I could)

EDIT: Instead of all this A/B crap, how about just honestly tell the reader why they want to do this? Is that such a crazy idea?
i think the battle on the future "slim os" will be attached to questions on HCI. and thats where ms has some nice cards. but will they play them correctly? and for sure its not an indicator what balmer says in the first place. he still needs to get rid of windows 3.11 eerrr mobile ;)
It's cool, but not of much use assuming you're trying to crack a properly salted hash.
It would still be interesting to see the results.

I have a similar reaction to "you should follow me on twitter". Before knowing about this test, it possibly made me a little less inclined to like/trust you than otherwise. (I think it did, but I don't know how to measure that.)

I wonder if that's a common reaction: maybe there's an uncanny valley-type effect, where more efficient phrasings become turnoffs? Does the high conversion rate come at a cost of slightly alienating a subset of your readers?
Are there any websites/screencasts that show such "masters" in action?

I really can't see where the fuss is. And I particularly agree with the following comment on the page:

"Wow, you spent ten years learning how to use emacs. In the same period of time you have earned a PhD, learned a few foreign languages, scaled a few mountains, learned several other computer languages like F#, Ruby, Scala, C# 4.0, started your own dot com, and gotten into great physical shape..."

I know I'm being pessimistic here, but it's not without reason. Back when I was a teenager I spend hours, weeks, months tweaking with linux kernels and the OS in general to make it run as smoothly as possible. Back then it was my passion, and I did learn a lot. But at the end of the road I realised that I could have done so much with my time because all that knowledge is now either lost or obsolete due to newer versions of linux software coming out fixing old bugs.

I went down the path of trying to master vi. This was more for the sake of looking "l33t" in the linux community than any job prospects/etc. It was painful and made me appreciate eclipse and other IDEs a lot more.

There seems to be a perception out there that being able to code an entire stand-alone application using vi or emacs is really awesome and cool. This inspires beginners to want to be just as cool and elite. And when they find out it's gonna take years they see it as even more of a challenge (and some sort of ego-boost), without actually thinking of the return on investment.
Microsoft is launching a music streaming service this month
Live chat: 0-day ActiveX vulnerability
I would recommend learning Python then Scala instead.
Having developed Flash plugins and applications in the past, you need at least Flash player 9+ to do anything remotely powerful.
This very issue stopped me dead in my tracks when quoting for a recent project. I was put in touch with an Australian sales manager, from a 3rd party acting on behalf of google (this made me wary)

All communications mentioned 10k starting cost, with a final cost given when I provided detailed project objectives. This was not an option, as the project was confidential.

Suffice to say, I walked away from the project as I could not provide a cost to the client without allowing detailed project info to be passed on to a 3rd party. Also it seemed they were going to assess the project to see how much they could get away with charging me.

They put me in touch with : http://dmsbt.com/
After 20 Years, Maryland Man’s Mac IIci Finally Dies
Fair point. The energy cost of delivery could or could not be lower than consumer pickup - I think it would depend on the area. In low density areas it may be that consumer pickup during normal commute patterns does have a lower energy cost. But I would order online if I could to save time, even if I had to pick up my order myself.

BTW in my area plastic bags are frowned upon not so much due to energy production cost but more due to disposal problems (the only local landfill is almost full). In fact the local council occasionally toys with banning their use completely. So even people who are not the traditional environmental types are starting to use them.
"see how your trades would of preformed in the real world"

should be

"see how your trades would have performed in the real world"
really like it. still don't like the chat signin process though. it'd be great if the login form was integrated right in the chat, so you could log in the same way you type messages.
It is probably best to think of C++ as an expert language; even if you learn parts of it well enough, you can easily be burned by what you don't know. There is really no such thing as a tutorial for C++ when a statement as simple as "a += b" could have dozens of different meanings in a program.

You are better off honing your skills in some powerful scripting languages such as Python or Perl, or even by starting with C itself, and perfecting that before tackling C++.
Y SIN EMBARGO magazine » transparente, sabine portela: yse #20
iPhone apps do not interact with the Google Maps API directly, they go through Apple, who presumably has a deal hammered out with Google.

In any case, if Apple didn't have such a deal with Google I doubt they'd have added the GMaps widget to the UI toolkit this time around.
[obligatory comment on flagging instead of complaining]
An "educated guess" is an educated guess. As opposed to a guess based on ignorance.

However, this isn't even the point. The purpose of creating the plan is not to have a plan. The purpose of creating the plan is to go through the exercise of planning. When he invaded Europe, he had a plan. I'm pretty sure that things did not go according to it. I'm also pretty sure no one would argue that it was still a good idea to have one.

Planning doesn't just make you "feel good", it better prepares you for the possible situations that come up and allows you to react better to them.

There is nothing inherent in planning that precludes you from "gathering feedback from the real world" or from adapting to circumstances.

"Adapt instead of predict" - this is where our viewpoints diverge. You see planing as a an exercise of prediction. I see it as preparation.

This is why you equate planning with guessing and I see it as getting ready for what will happen next.

(Heck, maybe he's talking specifically about those "business plans" that VCs supposedly are always asking for but supposedly never read.)
How the Tech Boom Terminated California's Economy 
The real estate crash is really just the second leg of the dot.com crash--the failure of housing to absorb the tremendous cash surplus generated by the irrational exuberance of Internet investors.
I suspect (with no evidence whatsoever) that the increase from linking "here" was because people felt clicking the link would complete the action rather than just take them to twitter.

I wonder what the effect would have been had you used:
You should follow me on twitter.
Apollo on steroids
Pg and team can use online web-app tool such as "Decide Already" - it makes easy for organizations and groups to come to a decision about anything.

http://www.decidealready.com/
How so? Since this is a brute force cracker my (admittedly limited) understanding is that the salt wouldn't do much for you.

sha1(secret + salt) = hash

Assuming you don't know the salt you're left with (secret + salt). In the likely case (since you've already gotten the hashed value somehow) that you do know the salt it is trivial to determine the secret.

Would any of the resident YC crypto folks care to weigh in on this?
Windows Azure Will Be a Pay-As-You-Go Cloud Service