skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My point was:
Yes, you can cram differently typed values into the same array, but this won't make sense unless all elements in the array share a common interface to access them. If this is not the case, all the dynamicness is useless, because you cannot do anything with the elements inside the array.

And once I arrived at this important realization, all the discussion of 'yay, I am SO dynamic' kind of fell over, because a lot of things reverted to the same principle of interfaces and programming to interfaces.
Excellent video production. Understood it immediately. Easy to imagine the nano-machine version of this. Bravo.

I also liked the 'summary version' of the conversation. Short, sweet, to-the-point. Two wins.
That's not true.

If your cashflow is showing an upwards trend so that you'll be paying up your debts you are still doing worse the moment any of your predictions about your future income stream do not work out. Now you have two problems, on the one hand you have a problem in your business that needs your attention, on the other you have the credit card companies that are after your skin.

Debt is fine as long as the going is good, when the going gets tough it becomes a real headache quite fast.
Cool for people who use Loopt I guess BUT this is really not fair to other developers (especially the competitors of Loopt).

It feels like one of those "Well, if I let YOU do it I have to let EVERYONE do it" type of things, and AT&T should have said no.

I also find it interesting that Apple isn't mentioned anywhere in the deal, which is strange because the article makes it seem that AT&T has the power to just tell Apple to break one of its developer rules for a special case. Shady, if I do say so myself.
So much for the credit card companies keeping tabs on how much they are exposed. If everybody would do a trick like that it I'm sure it would implode VISA or MC in a heartbeat.

Nice trick though. Did you ask them how they managed to get that many cards ?

What kind of an interest did they end up paying on the total amount of money the borrowed that way ? (in other words, what was their eventual cost of their financing strategy ?)
Every brilliant idea is obvious in hindsight. That is precisely what makes it brilliant. Nobody saw what was sitting in front of their noses, and then somebody did.
ps - i'm not sure why there are <p> in my post. i put two line breaks between paragraphs.
What is your company going to make? (YC '10) 
I thought I'd start a thread for prospective YC winter '10 applicants to share their response to the question: What is your company going to make? Perhaps we could use this as an opportunity to get some feeback from YC alum and the community on the description of your startup's idea/product. Here it goes...

Say Hi! connects you to people and places nearby using your cell phone. You can pinpoint your current location, search for new friends or businesses, and exchange chat messages. It’s like a phonebook that gets updated wherever you go.
Go with what's familiar and what I use? Sounds like good advice. But I'd still like to work on a project that needs help more than some of the bigger, more recognizable ones that already have droves of dev's trying to help.

What parts of the FreeBSD project could use some help?

EDIT: Their projects page is pretty cool, I might go with one of those projects then.
http://www.freebsd.org/projects/projects.html
Ask HN: Startup Idea - Dating with anonymous profiles
In regards to the #8 (Dating) from list of ideas posted by PG: http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

here's an idea.

have a dating site where users register, fill in profile, upload avatar etc. - but when they search for other profiles, the results are presented in an anonymous manner - so, for instance, instead of displaying avatars of users, display a default image. List only some aspects of the users profile (like interests / profession) and let users decide based on that if a certain profile seems interesting. If so, they can connect and only then, the avatar and other details are shown.

The fact that the photos /avatars are hidden can both serve as a pro and a con.

A con because profile pictures/photos are one of the most engaging aspects of such a site.

The upside of this approach will be that it will encourage only serious daters and at the same time limit folks from deciding based solely on physical appearance.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but would like to know what you think about it. If such a service already exists, my bad for posting this.
Most relevant sentence: "After the 14-day trial, the always-on feature will cost $3.99 per month, added to your AT&T bill."
Definitely true.

Email is a good way to get to know someone on a technical level where you're kicking around programming problems or mathematical theorems. That's probably one reason why international open source collaboration works so well - people are (1) focused on the technical and (2) often share a common internationalized hacker/geek culture

On the other hand, to get to know someone in a romantic/sexual chemistry way, email is atrocious unless the people involved already share a lot of cultural reference points.

It's a lot like sending out a resume - you're not trying to pack everything about yourself into the written text, you're just trying to be interesting enough to get a phone call. With the phone call, you're trying to be interesting enough to get the low-risk face to face meeting. And so on...
The point is you can look something up when you want to. I also am never entirely certain I will not re-read parts of particular books a few years later, and it's just really nice that they're just there, ready to be read even in the middle of the night. Re-acquiring a book may be difficult in certain cases, and takes time even for the easy ones.
When I started a company in Canada I did not have a bank presence there, had to hire about 10 people in the first 60 days, rent an office, furnish it get a house and so on.

I took a credit card with me that was backed by a dutch account, went to 'Royal Bank' and asked to open an account. They asked how much I was going to fund the account with and produced the card.

No credit score, nothing. They asked, ok, how much. A six figure credit card advance later my account was open and we got bounced up several floors to a personal account maanger.

That's one way in which you could use a credit card to fund a business, but the credit line on the card was secured by an account abroad, so it wasn't borrowed money like in the example above.

Funny look on the face of the clerk :)
A system that is "not computable or equivalent to a Turing machine" is not "within reach of implementation within a computer system". (Unless, of course, the Church-Turing thesis is false. Do you have any evidence of this?)
Previously submitted and now dead.
Do you care about current situation only? I've done 3 of these things (run a company, freelanced, currently working for another company), but I'm currently working for a company.
From the article:

"The app isn't running in the background; it's working server-to-server."

So presumably all they've done is a deal with AT&T to access the cell-location data for a subscriber, and using the app to tie that into their Loopt identity. Nothing special going on inside the iPhone OS.
This is just what my first impression of the idea is: A dating site where you hide the user's pictures sounds like a dating site for ugly people.

I think people care about how someone looks, whether they want to admit it or not. I think you're going to have a tough road to user acquisition if people invest their time trying to get to know someone online and then don't like the other user's appearance for one reason or another.
True, but they used it a little too often in the sense of "amateur", which doesn't do justice to what hackers are in computing today. In biohacking it's a different matter in 2009.
NetBase Tragicomedy: The Perils of "Magic" and Language Processing
This is from the probability course I took a year ago:

"Probability theory has become indispensable in computer science. In areas such as artificial intelligence and computer science theory, probabilistic methods and ideas based on randomization are central. In other areas such as networks and systems, probability is becoming an increasingly useful framework for handling uncertainty and modeling the patterns of data that occur in complex systems."
- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15359/

Don't lose track of the end goal. A part of earning your degree is to build your toolbox and skillset. Competency in statistics and/or probability theory can be another asset for you after you leave the ivory towers of academia.

(Yes, I understand statistics != probability. In fact, probability theory is a subset of statistics.)
Arctic Temperatures Highest in 2,000 Years
The unlinkability is to prevent people who post a link from essentially posting a (biased) comment that can't be voted down.

The colours is just to discourage lengthy "Ask HN" posts I think, yes.
This makes me miss NY. One side-effect of moving to practically suburbia is acquiring the car shackles: I pretty much can't do anything without having to drive there. Some destinations are accessible by bike, but not many.
It probably tastes good. The inventor probably went through a lot of rejects before coming up with this winner.
I think the issue is the focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness. GTD is great on the efficiency part (i. e.: tracking and execution), but not on the effectiveness part (i. e.: what should I be doing right now, what are my passions, what is my mission in this world).

To do lists are important even when you need to relax. For example, I love to do trip check-lists so I minimize my stress DURING the trip. And, even if you want to turn-off, you need to plan for that. Just turning off GTD (or whatever other tool) is not the way to go IMO.

I highly recommend First Things First by Dr. Covey. It outlines a process to find out what's really important to you, and then how to execute them. I think a combination of FTF and GTD is ideal.
PG on Loopt CEO, Sam Altman:

I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be.

Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?"

What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want.

(source: http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html)
No, his arguments are not 'just because', this is a pretty smart guy and from what I get out of it his reasoning goes like this:

If the mind is a physical system then we can attempt to recreate it by computer but this is no guarantee that such an attempt will be successful.

For an example of such a situation, imagine that it would take all the resources of a planet in order to create a single AI then it might be theoretically possible but in practice it would fail anyway.

And that is assuming that it is possible, for which there is no proof until it is done. If the mind turns out to depend on mechanisms that we can not model accurately enough to get the desired effect then the whole deal is off.

There can be no 'proof' that AI is impossible, just as much as there can be no 'proof' that green elephants do not exist.

The only proof that would be acceptable is for someone to produce an AI.

Nobody needs to present proof that it is not possible.
This article is inspiring but it fails to mention that no studies have shown that the device actually works. The FDA approval process for medical devices is very different then from pharmaceuticals; to oversimplify, efficacy does not need to be demonstrated, only safety (i.e. the device is not toxic). Thus the fact that the device is FDA approved doesn't really mean much (although it sounds great).

As with renewable energy, cancer treatment draws massive attention because it is such a big problem, and potential miracle solutions constantly make headlines.

However, the general audience does not have the background to place these announcements in context, and neither does the typical journalist. It is actually rather easy to come up with an entirely new approach that seems to work under certain conditions (algae make biofuels! solar panels in space! mice cancer cured!) but has no practical value. Having said that, good luck to this guy and I hope the device works well.

(I work in medical devices for cancer diagnosis)
You're making a big assumption that "putting them all on the same side" has ever been seriously considered or that, were it considered, the result of jamming up gas stations was considered. Without empirical evidence to support these assumptions, Occam's Razor would have me believe that it's as simple as: nobody's really thought about it (other than, as pointed out above, to balance the suspension in high-performance vehicles).
I hate how lifehacking as a term degenerated. I remember first hearing it in 2005 and seeing instances of really clever "hacks" that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Using salt water as a mouthwash and baking soda to whiten your teeth, or learning about effective weightless exercises for staying in shape, or making cool and attractive piles to store your stuff. When computers did get involved, it was always something neat and small and pleasing - the FuzzyClock app on the Mac still stands out to me as one of the smallest and most pleasant programs on my computer, and I'm pretty sure I came across it via Lifehacker. Teeny tricks to make life better.

Somewhere along the road, lifehacking became focused more on productivity and less on pleasure. That's when I stopped reading Lifehacker. I know Merlin Mann had a semi-meltdown of a similar sort two years ago.

Zen Habits once really irritated me - it was list-based and monotonous - but for the last year it's really been a great source of occasional reading and relaxation. This article in particular was terrific.
“The Internet is everything” Deja Vu all over again
This was already posted, wasn't it?
wow, thank you captain obvious...
Only from America.
Wait a second! Are you saying that marketing and advertisement actually work and that you need more than just a good product?!
"It’s too late for my sister. She died and suffered terribly."

:(
Why to be bothered:

Because by strongly gendering arbitrary actions, you effectively do constrain people. You make it difficult for anyone to perform the action and still be considered masculine/feminine, when that action should have nothing to do with it.

Not sure I think the gendering of changing car tires is really a terrible offense (or in need of change at all), but that would be the justification for why you should be bothered.
I believe that a lot of the sites that put a lot of emphasis on matching algorithms and compatibility (e.g. eHarmony, Chemistry) already de-emphasize the picture aspect quite a bit.

I'll be honest, I have absolutely no interest in a site that eliminates physicality as an aspect I can use to determine the likelihood that someone may be a good match for me.
Amazon offers public datasets at http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/

They include census data, as well as a dump of freebase's data (which mirrors things like wikipedia). They also have some genome data.
Last time I checked, even though the web front end counts characters, the Twitter back end counts bytes (as does, I believe, SMS). So unicode doesn't actually save anything (for twitter).
Being lazy while pretending (possibly even to yourself) to work is the worst case scenario, though. I wasted immense amounts of time when I worked for myself, because I felt like I was always "at work" no matter what was happening, and I rebelled against that by not actually accomplishing anything some days, while continuing to have all the stress of "being at work".
How much is your life worth?
Lessons For Online Companies From An Offline Shop
WD-50 on the Lower East Side is Wylie Dufresne's molecular gastronomy restaurant. (Molecular gastronomy is applying chemistry principles to cooking.)

The tasting menu is all protein-based. So, if you have the wine, you'll feel very drunk by the end, since there are no carbs to round the meal out.

One of the signature dishes is a deconstructed beef tongue sandwich. The server recommends you try to "reconstruct" the sandwich. This dish is particularly well known because it is served with DEEP-FRIED cubes of MAYONNAISE. Very tasty, but definitely not for every day.

[Aside: I don't necessarily think this article belongs on HN.]
Considering the worst case situation, if this is unsafe, to be death, and best case is a slightly better treatment, I think thorough testing and a long approval process is certainly in order.
It’s too late for my sister.

But it's not too late to honor her memory. Press on.
i'm just kind of throwing this out there, since its similar. feel free to take any ideas and use them (just give me a high five if you use them):

i was mulling over the idea of a dating site that was more anonymous/private than the standard version. no searching allowed, no direct profile access allowed.

you're given a list of maybe 5 profiles that the site thinks you might like. you're required to interact directly (email style messages only) with at least one of them, and then give anonymous, private feedback on that person. the feedback is used to generate new, better matches, improve the algorithm, and weed out people who are spammers/jerks/etc.. you don't get new matches until you interact with people both ways, initiating with people on your list and responding to someone who has you on their list.

messages work somewhat like tokens. you get X number to start, they replenish over time, but sending a message costs you 1 token, and receiving a message gives you 1 token. this prevents spam, mass "lol ur hot" messages, encourages you to interact with people in a way that warrants them talking back to you, and encourages you to respond to people that you might not have been so hasty to respond to on other sites. but it still gives you the leeway to ignore people.

this is just a very brief bar napkin overview of something different from the standard way of doing things. thoughts?
Learning Lisp Fast
I do something like this with http://github.com/tylerhall/sosumi

I was planning to write something which alternates between Sosumi and Clarke (Skyhook FireEagle updater for Mac) so when you are at your computer and updating you don't eat into your iPhone battery.
Seems like these sorts of things will never work in a paid subscription model. The only way I can see them working is ad supported - show you vouchers for the shops/restaurants as you pass them etc etc.

Maybe it's just me, but would anyone here pay $3.99 per month for this?
From the article:

"I found a 1987 Italian funded set of clinical studies that showed successful treatment of tumors by the application of chemotherapy directly into the tumors."

It stands to reason that if it is true that directly treating the tumors themselves is effective, then this device will be effective since all it is is a delivery mechanism for the pre-existing drugs. While I guess it's possible that somehow the design of the device itself is defective, it does seem rather unlikely that they'd have come this far without at least testing the mechanics of the process on a pig or cadaver or something.
What's novel about this? 3.ly has been offering 8 char URLs for a while.
What Exactly is Cloud Computing?
There's some interesting work happening in OpenFF, a open source social media effort. Also, might I suggest leveraging your talents on a project I have been working on for a couple of months but have had some technical difficulties with. The project concept can be found by doing a web search on Victus spiritus, Monetization web2010.

I'd like for much of the source to be open sourced but to eventually create some focal contextual search site driven by social media information. You can reach me at messel at gmail dot com if you're interested, we'd be happy to have a fresh perspective.
Universities may need to compete explicitly on that advantage, without the pretence of a better education.

But that is what makes a better education - a well-rounded view of the world and a deep understanding of the material. That's the distinction between "University education" and "community college education". At least in high-level math classes, the "read the book and solve the exercises" is only the first part of a lesson. Understanding the meaning of the concepts, the epistemological implications, and discussing how it related to other areas of math is the true value-add.
Ask HN: How do you organize your $HOME?
My homedir is a mess. Aside from a few well managed categories such as video, music, pictures, it seems I can't keep my homedir organized. There are remnants of half a dozen failed organization schemes, all of them succumbing to laziness or imperfection. There are a few things I particularly fail at: organizing scratch pads (e.g. notes/logs for a project, one off scripts (which I will probably need later after all) and example code), other people's projects particularly if I start contributing back to them, and documents.

With the a long weekend coming up, I was hoping to sit down an do a serious re-org. How do you keep your homedir organized?
I would take this collection over a Kindle any day :)
Web apps should send flat HTML to the client. Following that, they should send a small bit of javascript to respond to clicks with a "please wait a moment" and cache the clicks. After that, the application can be loaded and can take over all the clicking and keyboard events.

This would reduce startup latency tremendously.
Because by strongly gendering arbitrary actions, you effectively do constrain people.

But what if it isn't me that's "gendering arbitrary actions" -- what if a majority of the gender itself is doing it?
Agree, think in the Descartes coordinates, it was Descartes looking at the corner. How many corners had people looked at before seeing before?.
I wondered about this. It was discussed about how Pre sends a location update with its debug bundle. I wondered why Apple didn't send a location update when they pole for the push update.

It wouldn't have to happen every time, but once every 5-10 minutes would be a good balance of phone battery and timeliness.
It seems to me that men would actually very much like to believe that women don't care about attractiveness, but we do. If it was the case that women don't care about attractiveness, why is it that (if research is to be believed) most couples tend to be about the same level of attractiveness? Probably because women actually do very much care about attractiveness. Is it possible to have some personality attribute that would outweigh average or below-average looks? Yes, but not nearly as common as most men it seems would like to believe.
I am having a hard time buying the hot women hitting on average bald gay guy story. It is fun to flirt with gay men, definitely, but not because we actually want to get with them, and NYC women know how to spot gay men. There's something missing to this friend of a friend of a sister of a... story.
You sound like the doctors on the article that says that "it wouldn't work anyway". I understand that you have a far greater background than I have and I respect that, but you must keep your mind open. Most of the great anchievements of mankind 'wouldn't work anyway' in the minds of the specialists of the age. And they were wrong. With all due respect, you, giving you background on the matter, can find any technical reason why it wouldn't work? Can any of your colleagues? I am not asking about a real test, just a theorical reason based on everything you know about the field.