skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In case anyone still can't access it:

Intern at a YC Company

by Y Combinator

Would you like to intern at a YC company this summer? We're helping place paid interns at YC-backed companies like Dropbox, Stripe, Optimizely and others.

You'll get:

> A chance to work with one of Silicon Valley's most exciting companies

> An invitation to YC's intern conference

Please fill out our application[1] by March 21, 2014. We'll notify you by March 31 if you've been accepted.

[1] https://ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com/forms/intern-at-a-yc-com...
Resilience over strength
> I want Mark Zuckerburg to admit out loud that the reason he can't find qualified engineers is because he's not willing to pay. No more of this "they don't exist" lie

Except Facebook was instrumental in breaking the hiring cartel, because they were totally willing to pay. AFAIK, that's still true.
Where does coffee come from?
Naman Aggarwal
"all transactions are being translated to other currencies immediately afterwards"

Many merchants that accept Bitcoin are currently converting as you say via services like BitPay, but I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that all transactions are being converted.

As for Bitcoin vs Paypal: one basic difference is that money in a Paypal account is denominated in terms of fiat, and as such can be considered fungible with fiat. Bitcoin is not inherently tied to the value of any another currency, so it clearly has a more independent role (not to mention the numerous [1]other advantages).

[1] https://blockchain.info/wallet/paypal-vs-bitcoin
I'm fairly certain the statement is about Java becoming the next COBOL, not the next Perl.

That said... it is used for so many things I can't even imagine it going away in my life time could be said quite easily about Perl as well.
Show HN: Translate apps like a pro with two-way Github sync
- It's false that bitcoin isn't a means of payment. People DO use it as payment.

- It's false that it's not a medium of savings. It has reservation demand which is the only reason it has a price. It does not matter that it has "no assets in it", whatever that confused statement means. The dollar also no longer has any asset backing. The medium of savings role exists while people perceive there is value in holding a monetary good in the hope it will appreciate in the future. They perceive it will appreciate because it has comparative advantages to other goods which serve a similar purpose. Bitcoin has many comparative advantages to other monetary goods. In particular, it allows the transfer of value to anyone, anywhere in the world, near instantaneously, with low transaction fees, without the need for a trusted intermediary such as a bank. This has literally never been possible before in the entire history of civilization.

- It's true that bitcoin is not currently a unit of account. This mostly has to do with the fact that it's still nascent and needs to increase in liquidity. As it does more and more entrepreneurs who are primarily accepting bitcoin (it will start with the miners) will begin to calculate profit and loss in bitcoin terms

- It's true bitcoin is used for so-called criminal activities. But so too is the dollar. In fact, the dollar isn't just used for buying illegal drugs, the dollar is used to funnel gigantic sums of tax payer wealth to well connected bankers when their businesses fail. Which is the bigger crime, Nouriel?

- Bitcoin isn't susceptible to hacking - individual bitcoin businesses are susceptible to hacking such as the incredibly incompetent MtGox, which deserved to fail. Blaming Bitcoin for the incompetence of a particular business is like saying the dollar is a failure because Lehman Brothers collapsed. To me that is a much worse "hack" than anything that happened with Gox.

- And no, Bitcoin is NOT a ponzi scheme. Bitcoins are a monetary good whose price fluctuates with demand on the market just like any other monetary good, such as gold.
What about someone just starting out in programming at 35? Is it a bad idea?

:)
Mitsubishi ARLEDIA, long-term DVD-R optical media storage are using this longer. I think they started in 2008.
I agree, you are clearly more intelligent then him! While what you say may or may not be wrong. It's his opinion and regardless of what you think about it. It's hard to call him uneducated.
Odd. I certainly recall these points being covered there (or somewhere on the wiki, anyway), but the closest I can find now is a passing remark in https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Shopkeepers_can.27t_serious... ...

In absence of an accurate description on the wiki, here goes:

"- Bitcoin is not a unit of account as no price of goods and services is set in Bitcoin unit nor it ever will."

When Bitcoin first started out, virtually everything sold for it was denominated in BTC. Some places still do this, but due to the volatility of Bitcoin right now (which is really just a result of a small market gaining traction, and is unavoidable for a new non-government-backed currency) it is more practical to denominate in USD - either visibly or behind-the-scenes.

This was not the case when Bitcoin started out, and will almost certainly not be the case in the future - as the transactional market for Bitcoin continues growing, it will eventually stabilize in terms of value, and things will be widely priced directly in BTC again. See also next answer.

"- Bitcoin isn’t means of payment as few transactions in Bitcoin. And given its volatility all who accept it convert it right back into $/€/¥"

No requirement exists that a means of payment must exceed a certain arbitrary transaction volume, so that argument is invalid right off the bat. Whether it's a common means of payment has nothing to do with whether it's a means of payment at all.

BTC are currently commonly exchanged back into other currencies after receipt - and again, the claim is false, it is definitely not "all" - to cope with the aforementioned volatility of a "young currency" BitPay, Coinbase etc. serve as "stabilizers" - they allow for adoption to increase during a volatile period, thereby solving the chicken-egg problem of volatility and adoption; over time volatility will decrease (as it has already been doing) as the adoption grows.

TL;DR direct-exchange services such as Coinbase and BitPay are really just temporary coping mechanisms that are absolutely necessary for Bitcoin to grow through its first adoption period.

"- Bitcoin isn’t a store of value as little wealth is in Bitcoin and no assets in it"

"Young currency" applies, again. And again, whether it is a reliable store of value right now, has nothing to do with whether it's a store of value at all.

If I had to summarize the arguments made, these are the big mistakes that are being made:

- "It's not a reliable/useful $concept, so it's not a $concept at all." (obviously incorrect; unable to separate opinion and definition)

- "Very few people use it, so it's useless" (self-fulfilling prophecy, basically, and classic social adoption issue)

- "People don't denominate things in BTC, so BTC is not a currency" (irrelevant, that is not what the definition of "currency" is)

- "The news said that it got hacked / is only used by criminals, so surely that is true" (appeal to... not even sure what to call it, authority? biased source?)
Only the younger ones...
He says "It is btw a Ponzi game and a conduit for criminal/illegal activities"

Bitcoin's first "killer app" was clearly silk road which was doing ~$40m/yr (1) and the criminal economy for drugs alone is in excess of $320 billion (2).

If you were to model a future where BC's primary use is for criminal/illegal activities I wonder what the value would look like?

Of course providing the allowance that the Overstock's / pubs / merchants continue to provide the smokescreen to allow BC's to be socially / regulatory acceptable.

(1) http://www.dailydot.com/business/silk-road-monthly-sales-bla...

(2) https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/crimes/organized-crime.html
There were two, the second one seems to be meant for managers, I'm guessing it's what the title refers to:

http://www.docdroid.net/86ln/manager-training.pdf.html?start...
I wonder if there's an optimal strategy. Hmm.
>that said roubini is completely wrong about btc, just like krugman, and both need to change their thinking about what constitutes a currency.

Care to explain why, or is this just your self-affirmation mantra?
One could say the same about much of the unscientific hysteria that surrounds those attacking nuclear power. Not all mind you, but damn well enough. If you want to debate the subject, great - but don't make the same error you're accusing others of.
That's what's known as "forming a consultancy".
worse is better.

Also, has anyone done a energy use per transaction comparison to other payment networks? I'd be surprised if bitcoin was really that bad in comparison to Visa or Paypal if you included all the energy costs that go into security enforcement.
How do you value a network able to send 'value' across the globe immediately. What does PayPal and Visa value their networks at? I imagine it is a good chunk of change.

Now, to further complicate things, you have to put a value on that piece of that puzzle that actually changes hands during these transactions. Realistically, the value of it doesn't even matter if I want to go CAD -> BTC -> BTC -> USD. As long as the value between CAD and USD makes sense, the transaction was a success and all parties are happy.

This is what most people, generally the investment folk, don't understand about our new little technology here. Bitcoin isn't just about the value of a Bitcoin and a Bitcoins buying power. Bitcoin is a network. The value of the fuel for that network will very as people need it and as the cost associated with generating that fuel change. This is irrelevant though as the price of Bitcoin is not the measure of its usefulness, or its success.
Mitsubishi ARLEDIA, long-term DVD-R optical media storage has this a few years ago. I think they started in 2008. Archival Disc format is not a great news.
Bitcoin is almost exactly the opposite of a ponzi scheme:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from existing capital or new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent."

There is no controlling operator paying out investors and there is no claim that a bit coin is going to generate any sort of profits in the form of interest or capital appreciation. The short term returns have been unusually inconsistent.

You can say that bitcoin is in a bubble, you can criticize it as a currency, you can criticize its social goals, you can criticize its technical implementation, but to call it a ponzi scheme is blatantly incorrect.

That Roubini, one of the very few mainstream economists to predict the 2008 collapse, is so imprecise with his language gives some indication of the state of todays economics profession.
You're looking at the wrong slideshow:

http://www.docdroid.net/file/view/86ln/manager-training.pdf

http://occupywallst.org/article/point-of-public-information/

The articles aren't organized well, and you have to click around to find the actual info.
>In contrast, Bitcoin is a deflationary currency

This is IMHO the strongest argument against Bitcoin and the reason why a long-term economy could not depend on it. The problem with cryptocurrencies is the impossibility to control the monetary mass.
Wow, thanks for that link.

I have an early 2011 MBP and last year the same thing as OP happened. Ended up bringing it to Apple and did their repair depot option for $300. At least they extend the warranty for 90 days.

Not looking forward to this happening again, though. Especially since last time it came back with a couple of scratches on the bottom case that weren't there when it was sent out. I guess we'll see.
Not on first page? lol.
SF becomes first major city to ban sale of plastic water bottles
Quite similar to Tripple Town also.
Ah, is this one of those things were copyrights don't matter since you aren't a musician, director, writer, etc? And software should be paid for? Or if you open source your work then there is no problem me incorporating that into my closed source project, since copyright doesn't matter?
Works for me. On, err, IE6.
I don't see how a deflationary currency is a problem.

As far as I can tell, the only ones who benefit from the "money has to be in constant circulation" adage, is those who gain a profit off every transaction made. Money is meant to be a representative token to make trading easier; I fail to see how it makes any sense to "encourage spending" in itself.
consider it creative commons...in other words do with it as you please...The original SVGs were created for linux desktop and I believe they were GPL, I only added Javascript to make it browser friendly.
I read Derpderpderp's comment to be referring to the existence of plans, not the specifics. The existence of the Normandy invasion plan was hardly a secret. It was unavoidable that the Germans would be able to tell a major offensive was being prepared. And one very clear candidate was for the Allies to take the more direct route and hop across the channel. The exact specifics (where paratroopers were being deployed and when, which beeches were to be hit etc) are important secrets and my reading of his comment is that they should remain secrets. But the actual existence of the plan was obvious and should not be secret.

The militarily valuable secret is that the Normandy plan was that that was the one the Allies were counting on. There were other plans, for example the plans for the invasion of Sicily surreptitiously delivered into German hands by Operation Mincemeat. Or plan to attack from Norway using Edinburgh as a staging post as part of Operation Fortitude was another candidate. But the existence of the plan is the

You do lose some military information. If the enemy knows you have the capability to track someones movements based on his phone number, they are likely to take mitigating measures. But without revealing this capability, its impossible to have a democratic debate on the appropriate safeguards necessary.
>>My MBP had a swollen battery, wouldn't dare putting that thing in an oven

The title of the article is misleading the only thing the author actually put in the oven was the mainboard.
We will be improving this quite a bit this year. We've made some small steps, like not bouncing on scroll and letting you left-align titles, but we have more work to do. Thanks!
Slick stuff. Clock 8, 15 seem to be applying incorrect transformations to the hands (although I have seen some very odd clocks out there).
Since bitcoin is very new it is genuinely hard to tell if it will be eventually seen as brilliant innovation that was destined to be successful or get compared to the Dutch tulip bubble etc.

You raise valid concerns but there are counter arguments to them all so I don't think such a glib dismissal is warranted. From pg's essay[0]

The first time Peter Thiel spoke at YC he drew a Venn diagram that illustrates the situation perfectly. He drew two intersecting circles, one labelled "seems like a bad idea" and the other "is a good idea." The intersection is the sweet spot for startups.

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html
Yes, we plan to email you links to blockchain explorers in the future, so that you can track how your profile is being registered on the blockchain!
From my experience as an event organiser, there are some ppl who just won't come if you do that.

We run a popular Meetup that does introductions. You can say lots or you can just say "I'm james and I'm here For The free drink." And even with that easy out, there are still occasionly ppl who don't want to say a single word and wont.

You can try and set the tone that everyone can contribute. The moderator can say things like "does anyone who hasn't spoken yet Want to add anything?". Rounds and moderators calling on ppl is good to.

I wouldn't like to try actually forcing tho.
"is that your personal experience"

Correct
One problem that I think is salient about Bitcoin is that it's just not that useful.

It's supposed to be a currency, but no one's actually using it for currency. They're just gambling on it, hoping to take advantage of other people's mistakes to make their own money. It's a zero-sum game, and it's destructive. People are just playing around with the electronic version of Monopoly money.

The driving force behind currencies is a large organization or group of organizations that work to keep it reliable. The dollar is kept stable because the federal government is large, established, and pays in dollars. With more and more people using the dollar, it becomes even more stable, to the point that other countries can use it for transactions.

Bitcoin doesn't have that. People don't have any assets tied in with Bitcoin the way that they do with dollars or Euros or yen. And why would they, when it's so volatile that a bank account of Bitcoins will change its value by 50% in a day?

Proponents of Bitcoin say that its benefits are that it's decentralized, unregulated, and doesn't have to rely on a government to ensure that it's stable. I actually think that these are bad traits for a currency to have.
OK, actually, I was: I'd love to see a free version of Synopsys design compiler. I agree, tho, NDAs for FPGA vendors and foundries is a huge problem.
Also getting blank screen, on iPhone 5s
So if it's compiled for ARM now, any chance I could get it working on my Chromebook?
> As a guy who cut his teeth on Python, I'd say that I didn't really "understand" hardcore OOP until I picked up Java. You just don't see that every-noun-is-now-a-class style often in Python.

This sounds really weird to me considering that almost every noun is a class in Python, but that's not the case in Java (primitives are not classes and there's no easy to use meta-class construction).
Sounds like Facebook et al should be investing some of this money into university CS/CE/CIS programs along with internal training programs if they are truly concerned about the lack of qualified personnel. A billion dollars goes a long way.
I'm not sure a language with such a large body of very specific features (in this case, "only-child" selector) should be considered the least powerful.

This is just an example of using a domain-specific language verses using general purpose language.
Vote for DRACO  (anti-viral) Nominated for Katevera People's Choice Award.
It's a fine gesture, although I would say the timing is interesting. They've already made a decision to go with someone. I guess it's better than waiting until they invest even more in that competitor's integration.

But I would much rather find out when people sign up to COMPLEMENTS of your service, and offer them your service as an addition instead of being combative :)

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
As a PhD who tried to get a job outside my field of expertise I'm glad you mentioned your reluctance to hire them, as it was certainly a vibe I got. For any people hiring potential PhDs out there, I'd like to clarify (and generalize) our pros and cons. We probably don't really expect to be paid much more, unless the job is one that we are uniquely suited too. We more than make up for our lack of experience by being extremely self-motivated and self-starting. Odds are good that we have above average speaking and communication experience. Our biggest drawback is that we may take a while to become "team players". This includes a capacity for being overly critical and tendency to overthink things.
I think in the midwest you have a lot of banks and insurance companies and alot of programmers still using cobol. I know at my company we should finally get all the way off the mainframe in about 8 years not because it's better or cheaper but because no one will be left that knows hot to use it. I code in gosu which is specific to a product in the P&C insurance industry I see the company staying with that product for another 10+ years.
This is a great idea which I thought YC should have been doing for some time now. It also translates well to hires because of culture, experience, and passion for the team/product.
Brian Acton's rejection by Facebook is used as a pro argument for the idea that tech companies are just pretending to not find qualified candidates, when there are plenty. I am not sure which way it is but the argument used is flawed. Brian Acton never stated that he went to Facebook to be a programmer. Not even a senior one. At that moment he already had managerial experience, having lead large dev teams at Yahoo. It way more likely that his Facebook interview was centered around a managerial role and the fit, for one reason or another was not there.
Not taking any sides, I want to say that Brian Acton's example is just a nice/easy/convenient media story. Not at all indicative of anything related to availability or lack of STEM people.
I still write everything I can in perl. A lot of what I do is text manipulation on Slackware boxes. I work for a small company and the only other programmer is part owner. After 20+ years doing consulting, sysadmin, and programming work, the whole idea that what I'm doing isn't the "in" thing, is pretty amusing. I'll be 46 this year and I have gray streaks in my beard.
I know that these buttons work too. But this is not a convenient way of using Emacs.
I think this is easy to overestimate, at least if you are looking at cryptocurrencies.

I expect there will only ever be a few networks that have 'high' levels of participation and the rest will all be susceptible to computational attacks (high value networks will attract investment in mining capability and that investment will make it difficult to get people to risk value on smaller networks that use the same proof of work).
Can we talk about the other elephant in the room: that Facebook can afford the inflation-adjusted equivalent of the Manhattan project budget with a product that it does not charge its users to use?
The fallacy here is that a monetary good requires some separate use. As a money per se, bitcoin is very useful. As I wrote in this thread, it allows the transfer of value to anyone, anywhere in the world without an intermediary. This has never been possible before, and it certainly impossible with the dollar. There are several markets for which this innovation has profound implications
“Ponzicoin” seems to have made off with $7,000 in Bitcoins
I don't either. I'm not even an EE. I figure someone deeply embedded in the current set of tools would be best positions to see where to go next.
"to cut through trendy BS to build solid performant stuff."

This is really the gem for those who don't want to take the MGMT route. But the tough thing is advancing in your pay-scale, etc., and really showing that your skills are really that much better than the young people who cost less.
Right now there are around 2100 people on the site and an average visit duration of around 4 minutes :)
Where did you get 'who mistakenly thinks' from?

He is super duper important. But that doesn't validate his hasty shallow opinion on bitcoin in any way.

Worlds best zoologist said about first ever example of martian organism "It lame bacause it's not a frog." after thinking about it for an hour.
He isn't the first & definitely not the last to say that. Some things are best left for time to decide. When it comes to generation defining concepts, many of the "expert" comments are as accurate as a coin toss.
Pick up any major economic event in history & look at what percentage got it right. What does that say?
I didn't have a pre-existing Bitcoin address; I signed up for a OneName account mainly to claim the handle that I prefer to use online. I now have a Bitcoin address, but is it just pretend? Or what? Perplexed.
lol, you could interpret it that way...a work of art :)
Might be nice to include the %r{} style in the "Excessive backslash syndrome" section.