skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem is that when these stories reach the mainstream media, '4chan did it' leads to the assumption that everyone associated with 4chan had some hand in this attack. If these things reach the mainstream media enough, then it will just be a rally cry to 'take down 4chan' without anyone putting much actual thought behind it (much like the people whose only argument against government healthcare is "but it's socialism... I don't want no socialism in my guberment" while those same people will violently oppose getting rid of welfare payments/social security/medicare -- which are all 'socialist' programs).

Not trying to be some sort of grammar nazi or something about this, but I don't want stories like this getting to the mainstream media just to turn people against places like 4chan based on reporting that is lacking in the specificity to tell people that only part of the 4chan userbase is responsible for these attacks.
Spring MVC is arguable as old as Rails, but I haven't seen anything come close to frameworks in the dynamic language space. There's a reason why there's such a big community behind frameworks like Django & Rails. You won't find a community this large for any of the Java web frameworks.
I have neither a CS degree or a Masters, but I would say if it's only a year, go for it. The world is really competitive for newly minted CS graduates, although probably less so for UPenn, but the masters still puts you at the head of the line. Even in the entrepreneurial world it may still help in fund raising. Grad school is a good place to look for like minded founders.
I don't know much more than the story as it's told, just that Raj was driving past a farm late at night and hit a bull that had somehow escaped. It wasn't a head-on collision, but it was enough to kill the bull and wreck his car.
I have a few ideas I commented on an old post in HN. Here's the first one:

- Payments management system: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=725232
Second idea:

- Customer help crowdsourced by customers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=725217
If you wouldn't laugh at getting hacked like this yourself, then you really need to get a life.
Note that I submitted this in part because it relates to this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777584 earlier HN thread, and it should serve as a cautionary tale more than anything else for those who think about trying to make real money writing.
Yet another:

- Online business cards: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=725195

I have a few more, but I don't want to spam. I guess I should setup a blog for this.
This is a solved problem. Seth actually linked to my explanation of it. http://charliepark.tumblr.com/post/169016492/in-seth-godins-...
I do something like this manually in my personal life.

It works good for memberships or online shopping; you have something like amazon.orders@your.domain, zappos.orders@your.domain, etc.

In real life not so much: people know they're getting a "fake" email address (regardless of whatever scheme you pick) and get put off by this.
It's useful to know an article is four years old before you read a dozen pages of material and mentally file it all as current information.
Philosophically, I largely agree with you. The problem is raised by the fact that karma is largely a measure for "how long have you been on HN?" rather than anything that a sane person would like to base their opinion on. This is most clearly evident in your example with tptacek; could you tell me how you would go about determining his aptitude in the security field by looking at his karma score?
Bootstrapping & coffee
Hm, I don't think so. For example, if someone strongly believe in freedom of speech, I can't see how that would be an easy target for the kind of mockery seen in today's pranks.

The whole idea of (today's) "lulz" is to make people who are defensive about something react in a completely over the top manner. Rational people are rarely defensive and don't tend to overreact, so they are rarely targeted, and it would be a failure if they were. Hence, if you have a belief that tends to make you overreact defensively when teased about it, it is probably flawed. That was my point.
Sure. But I think the point was that the father realized that he had overemphasized a linguistic device at the expense of a general principle. He'd got his 8-year-old into a state of clueless, if not malicious, compliance, which didn't serve the real goal. (In fact, it often backfires, because people will instinctively resist anything that inhibits their freedom.)

By the way, using active instead of passive language really does change one's thinking and foster responsibility. I've found it to yield pretty rich rewards, and the whole subject is fascinating. Similarly, beginning a status meeting with a one-sentence summary, then proceeding to details, can be quite effective. But when people focus on the trick rather than the substance, it doesn't work anymore. And the OP is an example of that. A car accident is not a status meeting.
And in fact I'm ignorant a bit:

http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/_pdf/PostalSavingsSystem.p...

...we had this but it got phased out in the 60s. Who knew?
Ask HN: Access to the Corpus - What Would You Do?
What if you had programmatic access to the entirety of the dataset of Google, Bing or Yahoo; every page they have crawled (including all meta data), all the searches performed and ads for display. If you had programmatic access to that dataset, what business would you create?

One of my friends posed this question to me on Friday and my brain seized up. Creating another search engine made no sense, but the massive size of the data set and potential possibilities actually made my brain shut down.

What would HN folks do?
That's pretty funny. But 5.3 did also come with lambdas, anonymous functions, closures and namespaces. http://www.recessframework.org/page/map-reduce-anonymous-fun...
I might be off base here, but I suspect the poster you replied to was attempting to be humorous, rather than expressing a philosophical truth about how 4chan users are actually the most evil thing in human history. Provided I'm correct, your response strikes me as a little like walking up to a six year old playing with a Rubik's cube and telling him how it was produced by slave labour in China. You might well be correct, but the context switch is rather jarring.

(edit: typo)
I agree, but at the last part: heliocentrism before it was cool.
This article made me realize the relationship between structural pattern matching and polymorphism. How I would solve the problem in C++ (with constructors and error checking omitted for brevity):

class Tree {
public:
virtual int depth() = 0;
};

class Empty: public Tree {
public:
virtual int depth() { return 0; }
};

class Leaf: public Tree {
int n;
public:
virtual int depth() { return 1; }
};

class Node: public Tree {
Tree* l;
Tree* r;
public:
virtual int depth()
{
return 1 + max(l->depth(), r->depth());
}
};

Since I've never programmed in a language with structural pattern matching, I welcome others to compare my solution to what was presented. Clearly, structural pattern matching requires less code. Also, I've never actually read the Design Patterns book, but I think what I have above is different from the Interpreter and Visitor pattern he described in the article - for one, I don't have any mutation. But, again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
You need to make your functions smaller and more generic...

This is something I keep fighting against myself on, but it makes my code more portable...
Relationships in Early-Stage Investing: Riskier, Harder, More Rewarding
I graduated Penn in 1997 with BA, BSEcon and MBA. I was undergrad class of 1996 in the M&T program (Systems Engineering, and in Wharton I dualed with Finance and Operations & Information Management). I was granted permission to submatric into Wharton to get my MBA. I interned at MSFT summer of 94 and 95, and Morgan Stanley in 96.

With all that as a preamble, staying the one extra year cost me nothing, and has opened many, many doors. That one year, in terms of your earning power, is pretty small in the grand scheme of things. Further, the extra degree has materially boosted my earning power a decade on. However, I stayed to get my MBA because I thought I wanted to be a VC. Turns out I am an entrepreneur at heart.

If you think you want to create startups for a career, staying in school doesn't help you with that goal unless you use that year to basically have a subsidized year of starting a company. You don't learn startups from school. You learn the from doing.

I am more than happy to discuss offline - my contact email is in my profile.
What else can they do? It's the Internet -- it doesn't really mean anything.
Nice catch.

We can agree that identity theft is bad, that identity theft that trashes somebody's reputation is worse. We can also agree to disagree on mocking people. As you pointed out, the entire problem with religion is that it is intolerant. Once you become intolerant yourself in opposition, you lose the basis for your argument.

I'd like to see everybody re-examine their beliefs on a regular basis, no matter what they believe. In fact, it's the ones that don't do this that I worry about.

BTW -- don't cut your debating skills short. I wrote three replies to you before I came up with the last one. All the others had me going over the deep end and taking positions that were far afield of what I wanted. Perhaps today you're just a lousy re-writer.
yep, a key reason I avoid BigCorp as well. But your comparison may be off: I have read recently (I think from HN) that forcing doctors and nurses to scrub before surgery reduces disease. I know, we all like to think the docs will do this with no oversight, but apparently not.
This is my favorite online "journalism" technique ever. When someone you want a scoop from won't comment, just make a bunch of crap up and then when they get angry say "hey feel free to comment".
1. An URL shortening service for online stores. Online stores embed some JS into their store templates. Every page that displays a product now has an option to "share this product" (sort of like the UserVoice/GetSatisfaction "Feedback" tab). Clicking the tab/button gives the visitor a short URL for the product and options to share on Twitter/Facebook. Charge based on number of products. I actually think this could work (1 big customer and you're ramen profitable). If anyone is interested in teaming up on it, let me know.

2. A small .5-2TB hard drive or SSD array with a small cable. At the end of the cable is a memory-card shaped connector. The drive attaches to your digital camera's via the tripod screw. The cable goes into your memory card slot. Device acts like a high-capacity memory card. Perhaps even works as a RAID to prevent corruption.
I find the easiest thing to do is assume we drive some distance, then work out how much gas is used.

If we drive 1300 miles the numbers all work out easily (because it's divisible by 10, 50 100 and 13)

Suburbans get 10 mpg: 130 gallons

Priuses get 50 mpg: 26 gallons.

Suburbans @ 13 mpg: 100 gallons (30 gallons improvement)

New Prius @ 100 mpg: 13 gallons (13 gallons improvement)

So clearly the best thing to do is scrap all the Suburbans and replace each with a newer style Prius.
I was an investor in Lookery.

Some interesting lessons from that story. I'm glad Scott decided to share some of the details. Too many startups simply fade away and don't pass any of their insights with other entrepreneurs. We need more stories from startups that didn't work out.
I'm sorry. I don't get it. Why is this same / similar technique posted for at least the third time on Hacker News? Has it improved in the last two weeks or are the people posting news not reading Hacker News themselves?

I can understand bringing it to attention (again), but somehow it gets annoying too. I don't like to read the same ol' same ol' news, especially if it is on the same website. Not to be a troll or anything, but could the people who post first look if something similar is posted?
Someday I want to make websites to run experiments on subliminal perception.
I wish these people saying "country X is so great" were forced to put their butts where there mouths are. At least this goof isn't as bad as Needham's going on and on about China's greatness back in the 1970s and earlier.
3. I only computed two years of a university degree in computer science.

I suggest you get some more hardware, perhaps you can compute the remaining two a little quicker.
Formulas are a good way to begin practicing something - keep your eyes on the ball; rotate your shoulders; name your variables a certain way; etc.

I believe most people dislike giving status reports so having a formula that keeps them short and to the point seems like a good idea to me.
I sometimes think that my getElementsBySelector script (which inspired Behavior, which in turn inspired jQuery) may end up being the most significant 130 lines of code I'll ever write. http://simonwillison.net/2003/Mar/25/getElementsBySelector/
I personally think you should share ideas with people if you respect their ethics and skills.
I don't see the point of this. It's wrong, if you spend a moment's thought then it's obvious why it's wrong, and it's about as enlightening or entertaining as the usual proof that 0=1.

Can anyone explain what they like about this?
Create new tools similar to how Google, Yahoo and MS already do when leveraging this asset. I know this is somewhat a BS answer, but really what other answer is there? This is like asking the question "What new features should Google, Yahoo or MS build on top of their search?"
Sell it to someone, who'd know what to do with it?
Well ants are hard and you made it a bit easier, thanks for letting us know about your book and for making it available to the community.

I scanned over a few of the chapters and is an excellent treatise. Ever since I read a long forgotten book on Programming and was hooked by the practical examples provided (and started coding!) I would love to see some real examples accompanying the algorithms.

For example this paper by
S. T. Mugford, E. B. Mallon, and N. R. Franks of the Centre for Mathematical Biology and Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, published a paper http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/12/6/655 [pdf] about how colonies of the ant <it>Leptothorax albipennis</it> naturally inhabit flat rock crevices. Scouts can determine, before initiating an emigration, if a nest has sufficient area to house their colony. They postulated that this was achieved using Buffon's needle's method! Would love to see how this would have fitted with metaheuristic algorithms!

I also loved the discussion on random generators (needs a little bit of expansion)!
RapidMind provided sort of a DSL in C++ (with a combination of C++ macros, operator overloading etc) for writing some types of highly parallel computations running on arrays.
RapidMind included a JIT compiler which converted the code into optimized multicore x86 code or to GPU code (initially they compiled to shader programs but not sure whether they finally compiled to something like CUDA code). The allure of RapidMind was that you write code once and it can run on CPU or GPU. By acquiring RapidMind, Intel is now controlling one of the APIs people may have used to program GPUs from Nvidia or AMD.

(Though I must also add that I didnt really like RapidMind API very much. It was not very flexible.)

edit : RapidMind was also portable to Cell processor.
The basic problem is that it takes forever to draw any character using a laptop trackpad. If I could trace with finger on trackpad, or draw with my finger on a mobile device, I would consider evaluating the app further. But the massive slowness and discomfort of the input method is what throws me. It's like trying to write your signature with a mouse.
I know it changes one's thinking. It's one of the biggest issues I had working on the traditional side of banking. Whenever someone did something wrong, we would end up getting an email written entirely in passive language because no one wanted to point fingers. Passive language is a tool used either to not accept responsibility or to avoid pointing fingers at the true culprit. Both are terrible things, especially in the office where everyone knows who is to blame anyways.
I would keep the meta data and reverse engineer the algo!
My initial thought was that maybe you could create an information business along the lines of ComScore. That seemed a bit pedestrian.

Overnight, I began to wonder if you could build a tool much like Farecaster, where you could help ad buyers understand the movement of pricing for keywords, and make predictions about when they will move up and down.
Good luck with that. :) Solving the user acquisition problem may prove somewhat challenging, no?
I mostly agree. There are a few corner cases where this does not apply. I'm working on a new app right now which I feel there is no value in openly exposing it prior to launch. Even after launch, I'm only going to market directly to my end user and not seek wide-scale exposure. I have discussed the niche I'm going after with a few trusted advisors and that is all I need to verify I'm thinking straight. Exposing it early may not introduce a copy cat, but in my case may cause other problems. I know, I'm being a bit mysterious, but there it is ;).
Initially I got a laugh of out of some of the edits, because they were so ridiculous they almost couldn't be believed.

It stopped being funny once I saw the faked suicide note in one of the posted screenshots. Not like I'm surprised by anonymous internet pranksters crossing the line, of course.
I like In Utero more than I like Bleach.

I stopped being OK with TechCrunch when they went after Blaine Cook personally for Twitter's reliability issues.

I can point out lots of random incidents that have caused me to write off TechCrunch (Last.fm being the most prominent). But those are just symptoms. The disease is replacing the profession of journalism with clowns like Arrington. The pathology that results is "publications" with:

* No sourcing policies

* No retraction policies

* No conflict of interest controls

* No separation between editorial and reporting

You're better off with a Murdoch paper than with TechCrunch. At least the WSJ does great reporting outside the editorial pages. Here you're disputing whether there's a non-knee-jerk reason to dislike TechCrunch, over a story in which Arrington uses anonymous sources to assert that Apple is acting quasi-unlawfully, in part over behavior that Arrington simply doesn't like. You couldn't get this published in a column in a mainstream paper.
Cool analysis. Post some photos when you make it!
Interview with Paul Buchheit on the FriendFeed acquisition
As gloob figured out, it was primarily a joke, though I find your vehement disgust with my use of a Star Wars quote to be a bit disturbing. Besides, sci-fi nerds generally read a lot so the library bit doesn't even make sense... and who wouldn't want to own a light saber (though I can't say it's something I actively daydream about)?

However, in defense of my statement, 4chan is the only place I've ever seen photos of a nude, decapitated woman posed in sexually suggestive positions, and it would probably take you 5 minutes of browsing /b/ to find drawings of girls under the age of 10 having sex.

(edit: typo)
I note that it's from 1996, when the bubble was getting hot; are you suggesting that the web has not panned out for writers and that they are equally screwed online as off?
And only one typo in the title, which, if you curve it with other TechCrunch writers is still A+.
I doubt that getting a one year jump on work will be more valuable than spending the year and doing the masters.

Look at it this way: What are the odds of your first startup being a big hit? If you think its incredibly high, then I'd say you are "high". Instead think about all the collateral and experience you will need to get through multiple startups before you hit a big one. The one year more in school should pay higher dividends than the one year jump in the work place.
Better health care.
The new /why account is a placeholder. The because repo is a thing that says some things about _why, stuff like theories on why he might have done it. Not a hack. (although I'm still not sure about the 'lol' thing...)
Until they forward you a mail.
Now we find out that HN is really full of the immature that think it's hilarious to break into peoples stuff and vandalise it, just to see if you can make them cry.

I genuinely thought people here would have more compassion and sense of decency than 4chan.
How To: Kick Your Torrent Addiction With Usenet
Indeed they don't, and this was featured on YC:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=760477
Currently the system is being gamed by developers posting updates without any real updates to take advantage of this. It annoys the hell out of me when I get updates every week for apps which dont have anything new adding on to them because developers are trying to make as much money as possible without thinking about the users at all. The review date should only be allowed to change twice an year or something so that only major updates get the advantage of being highlighted.
Making them generic is key to code reuse, smaller is sometimes only to improve readability.

As soon as you see a pattern appear in your code, something idiomatic that you've done a couple of time with small variations it's high time to abstract out a library function.

Do that a couple of times and you'll see the size of your functions diminish as if by magic.
+1 for me making me chuckle hahaha
"Here's what the back of the jacket said: Gretchen Peabody, fortyish and only just a bit frowsy, has decided to abandon the comforts of Manhattan for a new home in Tula Springs, Louisiana, having been swept off her feet by Frank Dambar, a fetching widower she has happened upon in a New Orleans souvenir shop. ... While Gretchen is baffled by the small town's provincialism, it pales next to the weird household her new hsuband has assembled, which includes a handyman/mystic and his arthritic niece, and a stolidly Tueutonic housekeeper determined to keep the first Mrs. Dambar's memory alive...."

When you bring the camera in that close, discarding heroic romance and other popular tropes, you find yourself competing with some insanely good writers. That may be his problem; Wilcox's work is lost in the noise floor not because of an unfortunate choice of genre (or lack thereof), but just because he's not that great. Can you imagine the blurb above on the back of a book with Alice Munro's name on the front? The truth is, most writers need some kind of genre schtick to identify themselves to the market and sell books. No shame in admitting that.

Writing is like any other field of endeavor: the more replaceable you are, the less money you make.
I think there's some good new communication tools around at the moment but it's an area I think that's difficult to monetize. (Facebook and Twitter IMO will have to look at something in addition to advertising.)

I would say there's plenty of opportunities for online marketplaces.

Internet growth in Asia right now, and potentially Africa in the future, will open up tonnes and the need to exchange goods and services.

Developing economies will want the same consumer goods as we do, and offcourse the enterprise will need the tools in order to provide these.
Download all of the porn on the internet. I'm only half joking.
What part is made up?
I hope you reconsider and stay!
Monitor a site and send an email in 5 lines of code
Some people tried to do it with autoit, and found it wasn't so easy. Here's how to do it easily in Rebol:

forever [
if error? try [
read url
] [
;pre-requisite: you must setup your email see here
send email "Site is down."
]
wait 0:10
]
thanks. corrected it.
As painful this might be for the victims, I enjoy when online social networks "explode" into people's faces like this.
Mental Fatigue and Getting to the Next Level of Performance