skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This might be a bit random, but I was thinking it'd be interesting to see something similar to "object oriented news", where every part (sources, writers, editors, photographers) is broken down into "blocks" and rated according to the value they add: http://www.slideshare.net/secret/FPFC5tEoeQIKX5

That way instead of just aggregating the news, news would actually be created and talented contributors would float to the top. They could also share in the profits, since their value add is actually rated.
I can't help but think that while pg may be hinting that he has a solution in mind, it's just a trick to get people to think harder about it and come up with new ideas.

Sometimes, getting people to believe that something is possible is the best way to get them to come up with a solution.
I see a few things holding it back right now and once they are dealt with, online journalism can move on.

1) The big content providers have much of the established talent sewn up in contracts.
2) There is no single go-to place for content, like there is for music (itunes).
3) The current newspapers and magazines still think of themselves as content distributors rather than content providers. If you are a developer or advertiser, sure you can rig up advert auctions and RSS feeds, but the average user, just wants to read an interesting piece and needs a central place to go look for it.

A new paradigm would involve content-makers who are organizations and freelancers. We will always need organizations to front money for expensive journalism, and to provide some journalists who need the security, with a steady paycheck. In the future, if journalists work for someone, it will be a virtual newspaper with no delivery network of their own, and which only exists as a brand.
Synesthesia Encyclopedia
Webmasters could have been giving thoughtful consideration of the length & structure of their URLs all this time, yet they have not been doing so.

They don't do it because it would negatively affect their search ranking.
Also consider Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas", a collection of his Scientific American essays. A broad range of topics, lots of stuff to think about, and something on my shelf that I return to just for the pleasure. Good stuff.
Oh. I guess I never used that feature. I just either bookmark the link in my browser, keep a tab open with that article, or just keep the original link to the story in my RSS reader.
Invent a word to what end? Do you think it would change the daily behavior of actual hackers? I doubt the mainstream media and the average population will ever understand the hacker mindset, even if a different term is used.
There is a comment above about people being so attached to inanimate objects, you comment kinda solidifies that for me. It is a laptop, not your person (or my person, I won't let people touch my screen either).
I was floored to see that this article could have been written yesterday, with only minor revisions. We are still dealing with the same problems, 40 years later.
It's not too late to find the right co-founder before the application deadline, and it's worth working hard to find one:

Your YC application will be strengthened not just by having a co-founder but by the process of seeking one out.
The triumphs and struggles you experience will be significantly richer when you share them with someone else.
No matter how broad your expertise in the technical, business, and marketing aspects of building a startup, there will be areas where a co-founder can supply strengths you don't have.

Keep looking!
So you propose we "be strict now". Could you elaborate on just what you mean by that?

If I could be so bold as to take a guess at what you mean, it seems you're suggesting that the HN community submit only topical links.

I think that suggestion will generally simply be ignored by those people who want to (for whatever reason) submit non-topical links because only a small fraction of HN submitters will even read your suggestion, and most of those that read it aren't going to care (or they wouldn't have submitted off-topic links in the first place).

In order to reach all submitters, we could have some sort of global notice reminding everyone to only submit topical links. Maybe a stern and clearly worded warning on the submission page itself.

But say we do that and people continue to submit and upvote off-topic links. In my opinion, this is precisely what's going to happen. So then what?

I think there is no solution to keeping HN pure short of having the site be moderated by people dedicated to keeping it pure. But clearly that's not the model HN wants to pursue.

As long as HN is self-moderating it will not stay pure, and the more popular it gets, the further away from purity it will drift (witness what happened to Slashdot and Kuro5hin).

So, given that HN is not and probably will not stay pure, how can we improve the situation? I think the solution is clear: tags. Tags will let each reader more easily focus on what they find interesting, no matter how "impure" the site gets. It's an easy solution and one that should scale pretty well.
The fact that this chapter doesn't bother to mention Kuhn, Popper, Feyerabend, etc. tells me this is axe-grinding.

"The resulting weak role of 'handmaidens' who applaud progress as scientific" were Feyerabend's favorite targets.
21.3 gb... pfft, I download that in an hour

EDIT: JK, please don't sue me
Related but tougher:

s/coworker/other people's kids/

s/laptop screen/your house/

s/coworker's finger/food/
Note: since the comment I'm replying to has been modified a few times, my above comment doesn't make much sense.
Yeah, this makes me crazy, especially since it always seems to be the clueless project managers who touch my screen.

Personally, I have long arms, big hands, and terrible close-up vision, so I approach other people's monitors very slowly, with the back of my pinkie, and really do my best not to touch the part of the computer that isn't supposed to be touched. Anything else is just rude; you are sticking your finger into the retina of the person who owns the machine.
This is cool.. but how do I undo this?
I had the same situation. I worked for in a hybrid software engineering/operations role for a large Internet firm, while studying part-time. It was a great and challenging position, not just due to its content (how do you deal with running tens of thousands of nodes in clusters distributed throughout the world?) but the people and the environment (it was one of the few places where you could find people in an operations team hacking OCaml).

Ultimately, I was found by a start-up and left, seeing greater responsibility and compensation. Six month in, I started looking around. The lack of mental stimulation scared and de-motivated me. I switched jobs to a non-web-centric software engineering role. It felt "scary" ("job hopping" as the country headed into the recession?), but it was the right choice.

The risk is thus: if you're bright, it's very easy to become good at most anything. Some fields (systems administration, web development) can be fun (given the right environment, e.g. the operations team I've described) and are always in high demand. None the less, if you become good at something you don't ultimately find challenging and worth-while it can be a risk further down on.

Have you consider going into scientific software development? Both your web development background (the web is the user interface these days) and your scientific education will be of help. You might take a paycut, you may not have the flexible hours, but the job might provide both the content and the environment (i.e. the people) that will keep you sharp.
You can set your prompt to whatever you want by running `export PS1=...`. What the default is depends on which version of unix you're running. Often, you can get your original prompt back by running `source ~/.bashrc`.

Barring that, logging out and back in will definitely fix it, as long as you didn't put it in one of your bash config files.
Nothing like a little light reading before bed ;)

/math guy
No. We're going to go into more detail about specific ideas, and we're building it into the application and app review software.
Cool! I've practically created my own framework in Bash to hack my prompt but I never thought about sharing it.

My prompt shows the git branch, svn revision, and active virtualenv ("workon" and "deactivate" are virtualenv commands in the screenshot below). Also, mine has COLORS! (Colors within the dynamic function are much harder than they sound)

Here's a quick screenshot: http://img.skitch.com/20090817-gtp7bgkmdn14j84ryhepa2edke.pn...

You can extend it pretty easily to show whatever you want by doing little more than adding another function. Throw this into ~/.profile if you want to try it: http://pastebin.com/f79a9af51
Can someone ban TechCrunch? AFAICT, it's nothing but linkjacking.
Sometimes I have no more than a gut feel that something is possible, but in this case I feel like I know more precisely what the right answer is.
Yea I just found out about that feature. I was trying to figure out how to add an article to my saved list and was dumbfounded to find the one I wanted to save already in my list! I thought for briefly (for as long as my intelligence would allow) Ycombinator had read my mind and it turned out it was cause I voted it up. Yep, so intuitive!
You really think that those who post the most on HN would make the best hackers or founders?

An HN thread sounds just as reasonable an idea as any other.
Ask HN - Feed back Appreciated - CribSpace
I just finished the Techstars program as a sole founder, and it's _extremely_ tough to both deal with the demands of an incubator program (mentor meetings, talks, pitch practice and investors) and make progress on the product too.

I don't know enough about your situation to give you meaningful advice, but bear in mind you'll be making a big time commitment as a lone founder in an incubator.
You have all of those skills? Are you sure? Try to identify where you are weakest, and find someone who is stronger than you in that area. You need to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about your own abilities because if you're doing it right you will be pushing your limits even if you're good.
Guys would love some (more the merrier) feedback on the site. Still very basic. Would love strategies on how to actually market it and monetise it. Sorry for the asking on the basics.
Give this one a try, too:

http://www.stanford.edu/~montanar/BOOK/book.html
I dimly remember the days when a megabyte was a large amount. Those were weird times.
That's a fine suggestion, but it requires some out of band metadata.

Remember, twitter is an SMS mailing list. You want to be able to send that data in a way it can be picked up from simple mechanisms like SMS messages.
Canada did get out of it without a revolution. I get your point, though.
You're being slightly presumptious about me not having 'actually finished or built a damn thing, academically or professionally', regardless of whether or not that claim is true.

I never once stated that I was disappointed with my accomplishments (whatever they may be), only that I wished to retain (or increase) the level of mental acuity that I have manged to gain so far. For you to derive anything from a conclusion that you have arrived at based on your own personal inference is misguided, at best.

Moreover, the ad hominem attack about me thinking I 'was some kind of superstar and now [..] past [his] prime' is uncalled for, and not necessary to prove your point.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the advice, heavy-handed and flawed though it may seem.
You know full well that karma is tracked on HN.
I'm a German citizen but travel with my Maryland-issued driver's license. There is no info about citizenship on it. Therefore I would say that even non-citizens can claim this right. How would you prove you are a citizen? Your U.S. passport would be the only way.
Can I get some advice
I have a fairly successful website that generates about $3k per month in profit, with solid growth in the recent past and easy continued growth in the near future. The only reason why that 3k is not 30k, or 75k per month is because of my laziness.

I have a list of 50+ things that need to be done with the site, changes, additions, writing etc... and I just can't seem to focus on getting them done.

I have people contact me to advertise all the time and I just tell them we are not accepting new advertisers right now, because I am too lazy to deal with yet another contact, and going back and forth with my tech people to get the ads implemented.

I have absolutely no technical skills and I outsource all of the work on the tech side overseas. The trouble is that I hate being a project manager and walking people through my vision.Also, good help is hard to find.

I also have a well-paying full time job and a growing family and I cannot devote myself to the site wholeheartedly until the revenue allows me to quit my job.

Some of my options as I currently see them are:

1. Sell the site. I have been approached several times by very good and well known acquirers about selling to them. I said no because I know there is so much revenue to be unlocked with a little bit of work that I just can't let it go at a much lower valuation.

2. I could just continue along as I have been, making minor improvements very slowly and just leave some money on the table.

3. I could look for a partner to help actualize my vision and unlock the potential.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
That's the point of bullet point #2. The advantage of going for top posters is that you have a lot of data to judge whether you'd like to work with them. While if someone pops up to answer just one question, you have virtually nothing to go on. Is he a really sharp guy who doesn't have time for HN? Or just an opportunist?

That said, I don't think this is a particularly good idea. The best way to find out if you'd make a compatible team is to actually go and work with someone. When I've turned down startups, it's often not because I thought the idea or other team members were bad (often times, they're very good), it's because I don't feel any particular passion for working on that particular problem with those particular people.
Scientific software development is something I've considered, and it's becoming more and more appealing as a possible alternative to me. However, I'm not very familiar with the current players in that industry. Do you know of any companies that specialize in this?
No. I had no idea it was. Even now I'm not sure I believe you.
I'll 2nd Pete, a co-founder is almost essential, but it has to be someone that you work ridiculously well with and can count on.

I've done the solo thing twice. Depending on your goals it can work out great.

But next time, a cofounder is a must.
Short URLs aren't just about twitter. URL shortening is useful in a variety of situations, and tinyurl was widely used for years before twitter came along.
The Django team's organization of sprints has been awesome - we had 40ish people show up in Portland. Very few of them use Django regularly, some never had, but because we had two committers with a nice big list, everybody not only had a good time but was very productive.

Sometimes all people need is a little nudge, helping hand and direction.
Research In Motion has two CEOs, and they seem to have done fine. As long as you divide the responsibilities clearly, I don't see why it would be a problem.
hmmm... I guess that's a good reason. But what other use is there besides SMS?
http://spot.us is close but not quite that.
Github down (yet again) since about 22:00 UTC Sunday
Totally do this; I can't live without it.

Also, display your current branch in mercurial repos: http://stevelosh.com/blog/entry/2009/3/17/mercurial-bash-pro...
Facebook 3.0 For iPhone Submitted To the appstore.
Also:

http://westseattleblog.com (pulling in over $10,000/month off caveman simple display ads)
http://uptownupdate.com (best neighborhood blog in Chicago, all writers are anonymous, they cover a rough, controversial neighborhood and overlook nothing)
http://lakeeffectnews.com (laid off Chicago journo started her own site, bringing along the laid off ad sales person from her last gig)

I could rattle dozens more of these.
Humanity has generated too much information for me to absorb. I'll never be able to learn it all. There, I finally admitted it.
Ask HN: Legality of sharing personal data?
I know this is a particularly sketchy sounding title, and every response will be prefixed with "IANAL", but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with sites that share personal data.

Here's a similar idea, but not exactly what I'm looking to do (not the same target group at least):

Recruiters on average look at a lot of resumes, technically with no permission to share (though also no ban on it). Were there to be a website where users (HR folk) get "credits" for each resume they upload and/or categorize, and can use these credits to download other resumes, would this be legal? Now what if the data isn't resumes, but just names and phone numbers the recruiters pick up at networking events? Now what if the HR reps could purchase credits for money?

It sounds like something that's informally done now. It also sounds sketchy, but there's a line between "helpful to everyone" and "spammy" which I would never cross.

Obviously I would consult a lawyer if I wanted to go through with such an idea, but I wanted a quick sanity check to see if I'm way off base here.
Well, as long as there aren't any "Harry Potter" torrents in there, I think you will be fine.
Well... I am only a master @ the tech stuff but i am competent at the others.
It's better to use a plumbing command for this sort of thing; git-completion.bash (http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=contrib/comple...) has a thorough example. (The actual command called is 'git symbolic-ref HEAD'.)
Well... the thing is that I am almost done with my product. I have landed about 15 contracts so by the time I go up to SF I will have clients using the software. Part of my concern is that I am so far along I am not sure if the title "co-founder" would fit anyone.
Just up the ante. Scream like a madman, do a rain dance. Silly scales.
True. I'm silly most of the time.
See: rain dance.
heh... I was hoping for a dump of their database. This is just a crawl containing basic info about each torrents.
I'm in the middle of purchasing a site from someone in your exact same position. He felt that the site could make double what it's currently making with some TLC. So we agreed to a profit-sharing agreement where he gets a cut of the money I make off the site. I get a lower risk for loss if the site under-performs, and he has the potential to make a lot more money. It's something worth considering.
Wouldn't that be JKR? ;)
This is already done on some sites using rel="canonical" and rev="canonical". please don't create a competing standard. A site as large as Flickr already uses this standard. Check the page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickmatte/3828709208/

It contains both:
- <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickmatte/3828709208/ />
- <link rev="canonical" type="text/html" href="http://flic.kr/p/6Qk8RJ >

Each one has a specific purpose. You can read more at:
- http://simonwillison.net/2009/Apr/11/revcanonical/
- http://www.flickr.com/services/api/misc.urls.html#short
How did you know about this? I seemed to have missed the boat on this one.
When there are slow news days, the front page tends to fill with dribble. Sometimes that gets people to submit better stuff, so it balances itself out.
Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2002)
Thanks for the link. I have a couple of kinds of synesthesia myself (I wrote about my experience here: http://michaelgr.com/2007/09/14/my-experience-with-synesthes... )
It's pretty easy to stay motivated for two days. Staying motivated for a few years is a lot harder. How many of the people from that sprint became core contributors afterwards? That would seem to be the important data point.
"Lune originally got the idea to skip the diaper stage with her own daughter after visiting Tibet, where young children sported crotchless pants and simply squatted and peed outside"

They weren't babies then, but toddlers, babies can't squat, they can't stand up.

I've come across this before it's called "elimination communication" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication ).

The story at the end is interesting - our first could tell us from about 8 months if he wanted to use the toilet by using sign language. He couldn't at that stage sit on the thing without being held up.

It doesn't appear to be useful from birth, so not "diaper free" unless you want sticky black neonatal feces on your stuff. Crapping babies in an open bottomed papoose in a field are one thing, even in a soil floored hut (just swap the soil), in a carpeted house another.

Also, crotchless pants (as it's North American I assume they mean trousers), don't they freeze their bits off?

Lastly can't find anything about her own family, all the bios just have info about her background in Chinese medicine.

Edit: One son, http://www.flickr.com/photos/27779597@N04/3774983613 plus this is interesting http://www.spinachandhoney.com/search/label/Diaper%20Free
yea i know its fun to touch things, but if i was your co-worker i would have put up one of those protective screens that covers the LCD panel. That way everyone's happy.
That's definitely a lot more full-featured, but seems like overkill for what I was trying to do.

Had I known about `git symbolic-ref`, I might have used that instead of `git branch`. On the other hand, I would have needed to re-implement lots of what `git branch` does, such as detecting the difference between not being in a git repository and simply not being on a branch.

The interface of `git branch` seems stable enough that I doubt it will break this. If it does, it should take me no longer than 5 minutes to fix, since that's about how long it would take me to re-write the whole thing from scratch.

Is there any particular reason that using `git symbolic-ref` is better than `git branch` in this case, given that I want human-readable output, instead an unambiguous filesystem location?
China-ASEAN Looking to New FTA, and Decoupling from US and EU
Cool...I posted this up because I'm pretty sure I have some kind of number-form ("spatial-sequence") synesthesia. I've always been good with math since I can look at a problem (numbers, equations, etc.) and "see" it's shape. This is actually very handy when coding as well (different sorts of coding problems have their own shapes too!)

Anyone else have experiences they can share?
You should mention what sort of project you're working on, and you should include contact information in your profile.
"Your idea is great, but we'll wait for someone with a better pedigree to work on it" - Did the rejection letter/mail explicitly indicate that ? Or is that your own conclusion ?
It's by default in msysgit bash.
Same here :-( I would need a 1000 years to learn all the things and work on all the projects I would like to. Since I only have 50 years or so left (if I am lucky) on this 3rd rock from the Sun, I will have to choose the top 2% of cool things on my long list and stick to those...
Actually I think he is right, JK implies two proper nouns. I should have put "jk" or "just kidding."
http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html #12
I like this idea, but perhaps in addition to being overloaded, the term "hacker" is also too broad. The constructive sense of hacker can apply to any domain; hardware, software, social engineering, etc. I would suggest any new terms be more specific.

Personally, I would appreciate a term that can be used to specifically refer to software hackers; something that conveys the concept of programming as an artistic medium.