skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ha ha that's an old bone you dug up there, even so I recognize a few of those personalities in my present-day co-workers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Men_in_a_Boat

:)
Don't forget about the story of the problem solving bird posted this week.
I would recommend a classic that you haven't read that isn't directly about a specific programming language, since it would seem to me that the virtue of reading a book about a specific language when you aren't in front of a computer is dubious. (Note I didn't say it had no virtue, I just find it dubious. YMWV.)

Already mentioned is Code Complete and The Pragmatic Programmer. I'd add The Mythical Man Month, still a classic, but note that's a relatively short book and may not last long enough. (A depressing read in some ways; decades have passed and what's in the book is arguably common wisdom, yet I still encounter the errors outlined in that book every year.)

Godel, Escher, Bach (mentioned by caffeine) is a love it or hate it book; check out a couple of summaries and see what you think.

Personally, I don't recommend the SICP unless you're actually working through the exercises to some extent, and without a computer it's too easy to think you understand it when you don't.

If you have already read all those, well, I'd suggest replying and saying so. :)
Just in case you don't want to flip through the entire slide show:

Bras Shown to Cause Cancer: Beware headlines about underwear—this story continues to make the rounds, but no clinical study has shown bras to be any more cancer-causing than spandex, neckties or G-strings.

Thinking Can Make You Fat: The idea that knowledge work puts us in the mood for an Oreo binge would explain a lot about the obesity epidemic, but it’s going to take better experiments—and journalists who don’t publish vague findings as fact—before we can blame our waistlines on thoughtful days at work.

Sugar as Addictive as Cocaine, Heroin: Stay skeptical about sugar stories. Is there such a thing as sugar dependence? Possibly. Can we say “Sugar on Par with Smack, Crack”? That headline needs more research.

Cheers! Drinking with Friends Good for You: The headline should be “Drinking and Friends Good for You.” Bingeing with your buddies hurts everyone.

Junk Food in Pregnancy Leaves Children Fat for Life: Maternal nutrition has been linked to several maladies, but the link to obesity needs to be taken with a grain of salt (and a carrot stick).

Bacon Gives Kids Cancer: [Answer: No. Which is a big relief!] Be very suspicious of big headlines above brief articles, especially those published in the U.K.; British tabloids have a long track record of misleading headlines.

Fountain of Youth in a Wine Rx?: There seems to be some sort of connection between heart health and red wine, but it’s not clear that resveratrol is why. And considering that plenty of animal tests don’t credit resveratrol, one has to wonder at all the puffery. When it comes to surprising health claims, even the much-vaunted 60 Minutes needs to be viewed with a critical eye.

Is Feeling Blue the New Black?: Watch out for recurring memes in health stories. This rehashes one of the oldest—that depression is not a real disease.

Maggots Prove Effective Treatment for Leg Ulcers: heals no better than the current treatment, causes more pain, and is no cheaper... Watch out for items about cartoonish medicine. Stories of ulcer-healing maggots and cancer-sniffing dogs tend to draw readers — and obscure facts.
America has a large minimum income program -- created by GOP President Ford and championed and expanded by Ronald Reagan-- the Earned Income Tax Credit. Of course, you have to work to receive the credit, and it is geared towards people with dependent children. The program will provide over $46 billion in cash this year...conservatives generally like it because it rewards work and there are no bureaucrats meddling with people's lives. (The program has a lot of fraud though)
This is a good way to seed the discussion. I think good ideas often come out of iterative discussion and tweaking.

So it would be good to provide a platform where people can vote, tweak, enhance, branch out new ideas, etc. similar to http://uservoice.com.
:) Thank you. Good link.
I'm thinking of a fully formatted and printed section. The wire stories must still be integrated into the local papers. The AP would still be needed, perhaps, but it could be filler.

I used to deliver newspapers as a tween. Most days we had sections we had to insert (Food, Science, Arts, Comics). I don't see why a National/International section needs to be any different. Then the brand for the local paper becomes everything local. You flip to the Hartford Courant section and you know it's about your hometown areas. One side benefit is the Times section could have the national advertisements while local advertisers could be almost ensured local coverage.
The problem is that in the Netherlands there now is a law requiring you to show an ID if the cops ask for it.
However, this was allowed with the provision that the cops had a sensible reason for doing so, i.e. you broke the law, or you were doing something suspicious.

I see no reason why it is any of the cops business to know who I am when I'm just walking down the street.

Same situation applies at the border, there is a seperate section for Schengen countries in the Amsterdam airport and you normally get in and out without showing an ID. I see no reason why it suddenly is any business to the customs officer to see who I am.
Start-up Idea: Selling Experience
I currently manage an investment blog called My $10,000 (www.my10000dollars.com). Over the course of my blogging days, I've learned that my interview series are by far the most popular and interesting posts. This led me to an idea - selling experience.

What if we created a platform that allows people with various experiences to "sell" their experiences? If you were an aspiring mountain hiker who wanted to conquer Mount Everest, would you be willing to pay some fee to talk to someone who's had an experience climbing the mountain?

Or if you were an investor who's lost most of his/her retirement fund in the financial crisis, would you want to talk to someone who went through the same disaster but recovered from it?

Haven't thought through all the details on execution, but I'd thought I would share the thought and seek your input.

Why am I sharing this with the public? Well I have other endeavors I'm pursuing and won't be able to focus on it even if this idea was viable, so why not share it with others who could potentially take this and run with it, right? :)
Of course, the LA Times moved to a complete redesign this week, so that could have been more timely.

FWIW, the LA Times has some sharp Ruby hackers in their web department -- in fact, they just hosted the LA Ruby Users Group meeting at their building this Thursday.
Cary Fukunaga: 'I can work anywhere in the world'
I wrote about this briefly a few weeks back. Got no karma love, but I don't think I was far from what YC is looking for.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=714977
Twitter first posted about this on their blog a week ago. Why is it taking so long to fix?

Their temporary solution is to clear your cookies:
http://status.twitter.com/post/164354669/trouble-updating-in...
Programming wisdom
Chicken, meet egg.

This has the problem of being near worthless until you have both a large pool of experts and a large pool of paying customers who want that expertise. It's got pretty much all of the problems of the question/answer sites (which StackOverflow seems to have proved convincingly can work, though it's pretty rare that it does), and few of the benefits to you the developer (the benefits you lose include all of the viral elements, all of the SEO, and anything else that comes from having a huge bunch of useful user-generated content that is publicly accessible).

That's not to say it can't work...I just don't have any good advice to offer on avoiding being a dead zone that attracts no search traffic, has little incentive for people to signup until a bunch of others have already done so, etc.
I didn't even realize it was a bug. I can't believe it is so old!
Are newspapers hurting so bad that they are starting to make paid placements? I mean, these quotes are a little over the top:

From the subtitle: "Sin Nombre director Cary Fukunaga is glad that he is able to work anywhere he happens to be, thanks to his Macbook Pro laptop."

"What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life? It's probably my laptop – a Macbook Pro. It's the second laptop I've ever owned – the first was also a Mac."

"Mac or PC, and why? Mac. I think the only reason people use PCs is because they have to. Mac is the most streamlined computer there is."

I use and enjoy Macs myself, but the bulk of this article reads like an Apple ad.
If someone would do this to me, it would make me feel very awkward. I know, it is awkward that someone has touched your screen, but that is no reason to make them feel bad about it too.

I think it is so much more polite to just ask people not to do it again. Just asking them will get the point across and will not make them feel awkward.
absolutely nobody can use his customised environment, which also suits him because it means he doesn't have to answer questions about it.

Ha ha ha quote for truth with me! Every time someone starts using my computer, I check to see how good my set up is doing based on the number of WTFs per minute.
This is a great idea. I've often wished that pg's original ideas article was updated more regularly but your suggestion would be a nice alternative to giving pg more work to do, especially given how poorly we pay him.
check out http://www.pegasusnews.com/

Their founder really gets it and they're doing well. (Acquired already too, with the founding team still committed to success).
'Windows graphics drivers that suck can also make you lose data. '

No, actually, they usually can't. As the article states, drivers that crash don't stop the presentation server from working. Did you read the article?
Aside from crawlers, aggregators, CMSs, etc., I don't see how a small team of programmers without any kind of editorial insight can really do anything innovative for journalism. The real problem lies in the content, not the distribution channels or monetization models. Technical solutions that ignore what readers want won't succeed.

Look at Drudge Report for case in point: Drudge Report is one of the most successful news websites out there, and it is completely powered by editorial vision. Also, The Washington Post, WSJ (online), and The Economist are doing well because readers value the content. They aren't doing anything drastically different in terms of business models or distribution methods.

All the newspapers with poor content are going under for a good reason IMO. Let it happen, no one needs to save them. A handful of programmers from YC aren't going to shape the future of journalism, journalists will.
Lots of great stuff one level above.

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/index.html
There is a X proxy thingy that allows you to do session resuming just using the X protocol, but as you note it's an afterthought and not baked into the regular software an interface.
I think this is an interesting topic, but at the same time feel it will be hard to profit from. It seems as though this idea will be more of a conulting hub, where you generate these topics of experiences and share it with your audience. Take for example, Steve Vincent, who commented on Bernie Madoff's lifestyle in prision. Small niche, yet can be very profitable.
Forgive me for asking, but how could that book help me down the road? Scheme seems so obscure to me. I was at the bookstore and checked it out, and was mildly intimidated by it, although the illustrations were cute.

I ended up purchasing Practical Programming. Thank you all for your recommendations, some I have saved into my reading list.

PDF Sample: http://media.pragprog.com/titles/gwpy/toc.pdf

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Programming-Introduction-Pra...
We're much too shy for that. And I doubt the marketing dept reads this site.
You definitely can't separate out your own biases easily, but that's not to say there are no sex differences. Here's an interesting article on the gender toy preferences of monkeys:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196183/Why-boys-pic...

I try to accept these differences and go with them as a parent, not ignore them or spend my time blaming society. I don't think they are incompatible with the hopes and dreams I have for my daughter. I don't think a preference for dolls means my daughter has to be a waitress instead of an engineer.
the article is a bit stale. This page is up to date: http://epic.org/privacy/airtravel/
"it is incapable of investigating, understanding or dealing with human purposes, eternal values, spiritual realities or the challenges of the meaning of life"

This is only true if you believe the brain will remain forever inscrutable. If we come to a complete understanding of how the brain works, we will be able to answer all these questions (at least as far as they relate to humans) far more completely than any amount of introspection ever will.

Actually, now that I look at it, this guy's entire argument can be boiled down to "consciousness is not a physical phenomenon and is therefore outside of science". He could have said so using a lot fewer words, but then it would be too easy to disagree with him.
My bad. Leave out that bit of information. Restating what I meant in point 2 is that there is a large applicant pool, and ideas are just one factor. Doesn't YC choose based mostly on the applicants themselves? The idea is hardly relevant. One of the factors in funding "smart" founders I think is that they know when to abandon an idea and select another one.
This is hacker news dude! We hate authoritarians throwing their weight around.
Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
Hi all,

I have been a RSS subscriber for a long. I love HN but I have to admit that I get a little frustrated by the increasing percentage of noise. Especially by off-topic links.

I spend now too much time sorting useless stuff (for my needs) for reading a few really good links.

Do you also think there is too much noise?

If many agree, maybe it will be a signal that it is now time to add some categories/filters. :)

Thanks.
It's fitting, not ironic.
Man, these neighborhood things are all over the place:

http://southorange.patch.com/
Ask HN: Should we as community create all-star groups for RFS?
Should we as community create all-star groups for RFS? Thus helping improve the chances for individual members.
There is more noise by quantity because there are more links than ever, but the average quality hasn't gone down. It only seems like it sometimes, because the site has good and bad days.

Also, if you just want programming links, read http://hackerhackernews.com/. The topic here is much broader than only technical things.
Your wife exaggerates.
I suggest Beautiful Architecture from O'Reilly.

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517984/

http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Architecture-Leading-Thinker...

It's similar to Beautiful Code (also mentioned here) with various chapters on different, independent topics: e.g. Facebook's data-centric architecture, Xen hypervisor, etc.
FOJ (Future of Journalism):

FOJ analyzes how people consume media to determine what news to distribute to the masses.

FOJ is essentially a browser plugin that not only analyzes what you are reading (meta data) but also how you are reading (eye-tracking, which is the secret sauce, and time-tracking ), and what you say about it (comments/tweets...). By combining the same information from a few hundred "content consumers"
FOJ can determine a value for any particular news/topic.

FOJ allows content producers to know what topics interests people at any given time and give them a solid foundation (content wise) to write quick posts.

On the consumer side, FOJ works like the Stock market where the investors are the power content consumers and the money is the time invested reading and their comments.
I think there's definitely a lot of noise. Having categories (or tags) would be a good aid to sorting through it all.
I am sorry that this comment was pulled down. I posted in earnest because the subject is interesting to me. I would like to ask why to suggest that a personal id number controlled by the person and not by the corporate owners of the id database is a bad comment? In fact, this article just posted to HN a few hours ago http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/06/05/the-computer-data-... suggests that in the US, the social security number become a unique identifier in "data banks" starting in the 60s. So, to me it appears that it is legitimate to discuss if the social security number, email or a new personal id number owned by the person ought to be chosen as the new id standard for the modern post-internet human individual. Please correct, if I don't understand the issue here. Thanks.
By the way, polls are officially supported - it will add options to the header of your post that people can select of - independent of any comments or replies to thread, or links to your own karma. Details are here: http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html (See March 1st, "Polls") - I do not know if the 200-karma threshold is still in effect
How would that work? Who would make decisions about building the groups?
Would 'good' people just be placed together - that doesn't make a good team.

It seems like something that could happen, but making it a community (as in HN) effort seems like it has too many issues.
Financial Times Feels Vindicated by Strategy of Charging Readers
Umm yes. Most of them. FWIW, Mibbit/Comet server etc is about 30k lines of java, and the number of 'getter/setters' is probably < 10.
If you haven't seen it yet, you may find the I am A Subreddit interesting: http://www.reddit.com/r/iama

A lot of them are not really what you're talking about, but some are. "I am a Tax Researcher: Ask me anything" and the like.
Using your IDE to type code for you is the problem. Not Java. Place the blame where it should be. If a programmer is foolish enough to use an IDE to generate code, and doesn't mind if it's near identical rubbish, then it's not the languages fault anymore.
"Sorry, you need 20 karma to create a poll." :) I have... 1.. :) I created a new "linked" account.
http://www.windycitizen.com/
Not all motivated people have a list, and the ones who are inexperienced may have a list, but can't prioritize it.
On the other hand you can't rewrite something every few years just because it will be better. You can always rewrite badly implemented sections if you designed it well in the first place. What I'm trying to say is: Don't do a lighttpd.
I stand by what I said. Just because I'm a hacker I don't have to have a misplaced sense of my own self-importance in front of someone like a vice president.
I was going to comment last night on the post on how to sleep better in the Summer, but I didn't in hopes that sort of thing would stop itself. But all-in-all that sort of stuff doesn't belong on Hacker News, after all the site is Hacker News.
There is a lot of noise but I prefer the classic view - http://news.ycombinator.com/classic over the existing homepage. It'd be nice to have a few features like never show me techcrunch articles again but all in all I still prefer Hacker News over everything else.
With thé upcoming generalisation of touch screens it will be difficult people not to touch the screen. On the other hand a pal upgrading from the iPhone 3G to 3GS told me that his preferred feature was the oleophobic screen. So touching other screen may not be an étiquette problem anymore but a normal way of interaction.
People would apply for an RFS showcasing why they are qualified for that particular idea, their previous experience, working habits (to ensure team members get along) etc.

The community could then put it to all poll.

The other option is to simply have a database showcasing every interested applicant along with contact info. Then it would be up to them to find a team that works well together.
I have one suggestion that would possibly help: separate out "saved" versus "up-voted". For me, I rarely want to save something but I would love to go to the new page and up-vote more interesting stories to get rid of the noise. But maybe that's just me--I'm also the type who never submits anything unless I want to see the discussion on it. I'm guessing there's a lot of karma-whores and hence all the TechCrunch articles (I kid, I kid). Anyone have an idea for putting the incentives in the right place for submitting with that in mind? Fractional karma for submission up-votes?
I found it interesting that writers in the 60s saw that computers and software (database or data banks) were like the early 20th century railroads and telephone companies. I somehow thought that modern similar views such as by Eben Moglen (steel = software) http://www.geof.net/blog/2006/12/10/eben-moglen were new. Interesting nevertheless.
Ask HN: A new word for hacker?
Seems to me as though the media has succeeded in propagating the work hacker to mean a cracker. Should we really continue the up-hill battle of correcting people on what hacker means? Why not invent a new word and free ourselves from this problem.

What could that word be?
Really is anything in that paragraph right? It's a basic fact that science is the study of reality by any effective means; it just so happens that reality is physical. We've prodded the brain enough to be reasonably sure your psychology (purpose, meaning, morals, values etc) is in physical atoms & not in a soul. He really should try to understand this before writing about science.

I think his problem is that we can't simulate his brain on a computer well enough to know what will light up his "purpose of life" neurons.
We clearly have very different ideas of what "polite" means. Your little exchange makes you come off sounding like a prized asshole.

And, seriously, what kind of unevolved cretin can't communicate without pointing anyway?

This is ridiculous. Pointing serves a very useful purpose in communication, and is often far more efficient than verbal cues. Have you really never pointed at anything while trying to communicate something to someone? If not, you should really try it. You'll be amazed at how easy and effective it is :)
One practical consequence of electricity and magnetism being the same force is that a current flowing near a compass will cause it to deflect.

The history of electricity and magnetism reads as a sequence of empirical observations, with explanations eventually following.
X clients can handle disconnect and reconnect rather easily. It's up to the toolkits, usually, to enable this kind of functionality.

Now that you say, it would be wonderful to have something that does for X clients what screen does for text terminals.
It's about the sweet-spot. A professional photographer uses Photoshop in a manner that doesn't work well as a web app. However, a party goer takes snaps and posts them to their web space of choice. Same core concept, different level of use and thus different environment. The platform choice is based upon the target audience. There's plenty of room for both approaches.

Similar dichotomy exists in most spaces, casual word processing works well over the web, but I'd rather write a thesis with a desktop hosted word processor. Ditto for IDE's, CAD, NLE, spreadsheets, etc.