skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Texas, even in the DFW Metroplex it's a pretty common activity for the good ol' boys.

On that note, I know a lot of people who do seasonal hunting as a means of very inexpensively keep meat in the freezer for an entire year, the amount of money it saves is amazing.
Hearing this, I thought I'd jump in. The stack is open-sourced. The Flex SDK and BlazeDS (if I remember correctly) are both open-sourced, as well as the AMF specifications. There is absolutely no reason why you could not write AS3 code and MXML against the Flex libraries and build your own Flex application without Flex Builder (the IDE, which costs a paltry $199-$299 last time I checked).

I've done it, and it does work. Is it a pain? Of course it is. Do you get the Adobe built data components you get with the advanced and charting editions? Nope. Can you build them yourself? Of course, and there's a bunch of open source controls & components you can download too.

You really have to be careful whilst criticizing a company who essentially gave away their protocol and build tools. They could just as easily have marked that IDE and tookit up to $1,000 and we'd still buy it.
RunMyErrand: Post your errands and get connected with local Errand Runners
and i feel like an idiot. didn't realize that today was the 4th. i would imagine that June 1 would make more sense though...but thats pretty nit picky.
Buy WoW Gold
What does everyone else thing of the site mymmoshop? A lot of people are saying it is the #1 one site in world in terms of where to buy wow gold. My experience with them has been great so far. Peace out man.
Statistics and Computer Science
I have to take some statistics courses for my degree and I'm having a hard time staying interested. I think it would help to know that statistics is very important to computer science. Please tell me how and why.
I hope he gets a sale, but 500k seems a little too much. He hasn't monetized his apps, and there doesn't seem to be a clear cut way to monetize such apps.
It put me in the incorrect school. Good idea but work on that email validation
The point of trademark law is to prevent someone else from exploiting a company's investment in branding. For example, preventing Joe's Corner store from renaming themselves as "WalMarts". The law should NOT be used to protect Wal-Mart from criticism (Wal-Mart Sucks!) or even to prevent a competitor from using the Wal-Mart name and trademark appropriately (Shop at Joe's Corner Store because we pay our employees a decent wage, unlike those pricks at Wal-Mart!"). In other words, the law should protect against the theft of intellectual property, not against free speech.
Charging Elephant Mutilates Software Mogul
In my experience women are far more self-conscious meeting the opposite sex, displaying a complete range of behaviour from being nasty to people they like through to completely avoiding them because they can't cope. It seems this is one of those articles destined for women's magazines.
Directed energy weapons, electric cars, wind power, quantum computers, nanomachines, fabricators, etc etc.

Just because the leading edge existed 50 years ago didn't mean it did shit for anybody.
Well duh, Fansnap has a 1 million dollar per year ad budget :). And now it's 15k vs 15 million!

In seriousness though, Fansnap has done a kick ass job on many many fronts. Luckily the market is a $4 billion industry so I think there's room for a few companies to play. I believe PG's point was that a bootstrapped company can now compete with a venture-backed company. That wasn't always the case.

Compete isn't very accurate anyway.

-Dan, Co-founder, TicketStumbler
Hey thanks - I did not knew about Grooveshark and now I am a fan. Its not the same as spotify but it works.
Healthcare debate boosts Internet advertising
True, but don't discount the importance of interpretation of results.
Statistics is probably the most useful maths-based subject hat I did badly in (out of disinterest). It wasn't until a year after my statistics course that I realised its importance..

I used statistics in a uni project to analyse audio data to perform event detection. The goal of my part of the project was to determine the most optimal balance between accuracy of event detection and power consumption (it was to be run on embedded hardware). I wrote some tools which gave different statistical data of an audio clip, which we could then use to determine a power-efficient, yet accurate, algorithm to do real time event detection. The program gave such data as root mean square of the audio clip, its skewness, kurtosis, standard deviation and a bunch more, as well as combinations of these (and graphed them visually, superimposed on the sound wave).

That was my first hands-on intro to statistics. Other things I've encountered since then is statistical clustering for the purpose of data classification and pattern matching, statistical analysis of text for spam detection and other such things.

I wish I'd payed more attention in class as I find statistics to be one of the more useful things which I didnt learn.. though I bought an intro book on statistics recently and am working my way through it, hopefully learning what I missed.

The problem with my course was that it wasn't very hands on. It was too abstract, so it was difficult to see the value in it and therefore easy to neglect. The thing is, though, that a lot of technology we use every day relies on statistics. If I can give you any advice, it would be to force yourself to do well in statistics - it'll pay off in the long run.
5 things computer science students should focus on
What should students be really focusing on to ensure that 5 years from now, they are still highly sought after, no matter what the state of the economy is.
I guess it's hard to give an answer to an ambiguous input that will please everyone. Personally I would have expected the 1st of the month.

It seems unusual that "next June" and "last June" both pick the 4th of the month (today's date); but just "June" gives the 1st of the month.

Also "next June" gives "Friday, June 04, 2010 12:00:00 AM" so it picks the day of the month based on today; but the time of day doesn't depend on the time now.
I can't find the NYTimes article link now, so these will have to do: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/7/750786/-Incredibly-Sh... and http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/04/incredibly-shrinking-m...

Anti-GS scare-mongering and global conspiracy theories aside, it's fairly clear that only the really large players (Getco, GS, Renaissance) stand to make clear benefits from HFT. But that's alright - they're entitled to, if they figure out how. What is also clear is that the casual retail investor is getting screwed by HFT, and will never realise it.

CDS and krap mortgages were strawmen, so I'm not going there. I am curious to know though - do you have your fingers in algo trading in some manner (trader/programmer)?
>chump

>their kids

You're apparently not going to be winning any parenting awards.
I could come up with all kinds of reasons why modern technologists aren’t as good as they were: rotten educational facilities, modern tort law, endless bureaucracy, the death of the lone inventor.

Unless one or two of us bypass all that crap and do a software startup.
Statistics has direct applications in:

* VM optimization

* Data Mining

* Machine learning/classification

* Hueristics

* Benchmarking (and other measurment)

Indirectly there are even more. There isn't a week that goes by where I don't go looking for solutions in statistical methods.
How about this:

“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.”
how shocking that all those things are directly related to government. >_>

well, a decrease in lone inventors is natural. when all the low hanging fruit has been picked it takes standing on shoulders to reach the higher stuff.
Ask HN: Could a virtualized YC work?
I have been mulling this idea around in my head for the better part of a year now and wanted to get the feedback of the community.

What I would like to do is put together a completely virtaulized version of the YC model (with a twist).

In this model, I would not take an equity stake, nor would I be investing in the companies directly. Instead, I would pick 10 or 15 teams bi-yearly and give them access to resources. Teams would remain in their own location, but we'd meet via webcast every week, hopefully with guest speakers. I doubt the speakers would be nearly as forthcoming as they would be face to face, but I think it could still be a very valuable experience and may still instill the peer pressure (though on a lesser scale) that YC does to push people to get stuff done.

Do you think it would work? Why or why not? What would you change?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts, comments, questions and concerns.
Fansnap: http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=-2468732506894565801

TicketStumbler: http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=8285194011102117400
It might offer some benefit to a group in a remote location like North Dakota, I suppose. But it's hardly an ideal model or something that is likely to add tremendous value.

Overall it does not sound very optimal to me, but I'd love to see you prove me wrong.
I can assure you we're looking into this entire busted chain of communications. The way this was handled (by us) was completely unacceptable. I am not a happy man this morning.

We will make this right.
They have partnerships with sports blog networks (e.g. SB Nation) and music sites (e.g. imeem.com).
Oh, I'm not saying that you should 'overcommit.' Just that 'spamming everyone' isn't really a great idea.
This reminds me of a neat trick I saw in an old 4k demo: adding text (e.g. the creator's name) at the very beginning of the binary. They'd figured out what the text meant in machine language, then added a few opcodes after to undo the effects of executing the text directly.
I went out on a javascript date once.

Didn't get a callback. :(

Hiohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Mint Software Valuation & Terms
True... Apple only send the armed thugs round when you lose one of their prototype iPhones ;)
Samsung’s Market Value Approaches Intel’s
Judge to Microsoft: OK, You Can Keep Selling Word For a Couple More Days
Ask HN: Should history be stated objectively?
Should history be stated objectively or should it be modified to avoid any problems that might occur in the present over past.

For example hypothetically, we should teach our children about racism and slavery in past or should we hide all this from them?

Or should we distort history and say such things happened because of purely economic reasons and nothing like raicism ever existed.

If we tell them the truth the people who were oppressed in past might seek revenge now. That will create unrest.
The article makes the mistake of comparing bleeding edge research of the 50's to modern commonplace technology. Yes we had computers in the 50's, but we didn't have one in every home and office. And none of them ran excel or World of warcraft. Similar arguments can be made with the rest of his examples.

If you want a real comparison you should look at todays bleeding edge technology or the commonday technologies of the 50's.
Okay, but what happens if you feed brain extract from trained flatworms to mice (or the reverse). Same with bees (on either side).

I'd expect no effect, but I'd expect some effect in related species (if there's actually an effect in the same species).

Then again, I think that the mice result is more surprising than the flatworm result, so my "expectations" are worth what you paid.
This is Greg Parker's blog; he's an Objective-C runtime wizard at Apple. Definitely worth reading. (Very low volume.)
U.S. Broadband Growth Continues to Slow
"You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

There's no way to state history objectively, but we can try our best. There's no need to sugar-coat it.
Why would people join something like that for 'access to resources' ?

What do you mean by that ?

What kind of peer pressure does YC apply to people to get stuff done ? Isn't the whole idea of a start-up to get people together that don't need that kind of pressure ?
"But can we really do anything with computers now that we couldn’t have done 30 or even 50 years ago?"

'nuff said. the author is probably just trying to be provocative. either that or he's an idiot.
Empty of useful content. Here's how to prove your point:

1) Show your readers that 20,234 searches in one month, coming from all over the world, is actually a big number. Maybe compare it to the pre-recession numbers for the same search terms.

2) Do some research and present results that show how many of those searches come from people who really tried to sell a kidney.

3) Present some proof that all this has anything to do with recession. The comparison that I mentioned in the point #1 is a good start.
CLR Inside Out: Code Contracts (.NET 4.0)
Credit Cards With Cash Back Tips
Two comparables to consider:

I know this is a tech. startup, but for 500k I could theoretically buy a brick and mortar business that makes me 50-100k per year. Given the risk of monetizing twtApps, I would probably opt to do that.

Also, SGN was buying up small fb app companies for 1-1.5MM about 1.5 years ago. Each was seeing 200-500k in revenues. And probably most of that was profit.

Using this comparable, to justify the 500k valuation, twtApps would need to be seeing 66 - 166k in revenues.
Update on Prostate Cancer and Cryotherapy
Massage Guide
The title is brilliant. Not only is it self-referrential humor, but it sets up an expectancy violation as well. While this doesn't help people who only read the headline to understand the conclusion, it helps people who did read the article to remember it better. (C.f. Made to Stick)
Lots of people who are trading in this way seem to congregate at http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumi...
Bit.ly offering even shorter j.mp URLs
Many people live in like-minded tribes. One of the tribal activities is slagging "the other". In fact, there's often a competition along those lines. However, since said other isn't present, they're really engaging a caricature that they invented. As a result, their arguments are weak.

When they run into said other online, they're basically cued up for battle. However the reality doesn't behave like the caricature, so all of winning arguments fall flat. Rather than acknowledge that they're lame, they lash out.
Sizing up Opera 10 Final: Can it Compete with Chrome and Firefox
A good point. It could be argued that with the arrival of computers and microprocessors, much of the progress of the human race became software, rather than hardware, based. He mentions Lisp, but that's just a language. 3D graphics, WIMP, OOP, the internet, and so on are all later than 1959.
There's so much interesting stuff here to read that on an HN story voted up over 100 times, there's less than 10 comments. Everyone's too busy reading. Speaking of which, goes to read.
Most twitter apps are getting maybe a $1/rpm, and that's if you can sell the space. CPM rates are below .25/cpm for the stuff listed on BuySellAds.

I tried to make a run at Twitter advertising (http://thebranchnetwork.net/) and found that most advertisers have little interest in general twitter advertising. Most marketers are beginning to realize that the best way to use twitter is to participate in the conversation.

500k seems very high for this, 50k would be more reasonable. Unfortunately for software developers everywhere you can't put a value on development time since its just a sunk cost.
It's clear from the article that he has no idea what defines current bleeding edge (I think this is true for the general populace).
If you spend enough on ads, you can make your traffic whatever you want. But that kind of traffic doesn't prove anything (except the initial premise: Fansnap has a lot of money). A more meaningful comparison would be organic traffic, which Compete doesn't break out.
Seems like the latter.
Share HN: hack your netflix queue
Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself
It's a generally meaningless article. It says that people are tentative when they are unsure of a subject regardless of gender. Plenty of weasles words in the article that confirm my point words such as e.g. stereotype, typical. Making the content of the article a bit vague and woolly.
They also state their data is 2 months old.
Yeah, the main point of the efficient market hypothesis is that high alpha (CAPM) is very, very hard to achieve, not that markets are steady and only react to new information.
It would be cool if it understood "Christmas" or other holidays. Also, things like, "two weeks after next wednesday at 1pm"
Well, yeah, obviously. And the trojan is still doing damage.

Which is why I can't take astroturfing douchebag shills like snprbob86 et al and their promises of a happy happy fun fun friendly new MS seriously. A leopard can't change its spots. And until I see IE change - MS is the worst company in tech and everyone who works for them is culpable.

Gee, can you feel the love in my comments? Hehe
If you type in "next june 1" it'll give you what you are wanting.
Magnetic Monopoles Detected?
History teaches us how dangerous it is to lock away learning
I was thinking something similar. Things like biotech (GM food being the biggest day to day change) aren't even mentioned.
Thankyoumario.lisp
Announcing Fees for Successfully Funded Projects, starting Sept 15th
> There haven't been the large public works project perscribed by keneysian economics in japan.

At one point Japan was the single largest concrete importer in the world. They were building roads and bridges and train lines like crazy. It temporarily juiced the markets but did nothing to sustainably restart the economy.

Japan didn't so much subsidize the zombie banks as simply allow them to float along insolvent forever. They never forced bankruptcy or write-downs.

> The internet stocks bubble of the late 90s also was largely unrelated to government manipulation.

The NASDAQ went parabolic in 1999 just after Greenspan cut interest rates as a precautionary measure to juice the economy in preparation for Y2K.

Tulips are addressed elsewhere. I don't know anything about Eastern European housing, but I'll bet its riddled with subsidies and tax advantages just like it is here.
reminds me of "Our Neural Chernobyl" by Bruce Sterling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(anthology)#.22Our_Neur...
If we tell them the truth the people who were oppressed in past might seek revenge now. That will create unrest.

If you hide the truth, those same oppressed people will still seek revenge, perhaps even more fervently.
Those two links are the same. Did you mean http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=8285194011102117400?
This guy ought to try a thought experiment: If it were possible, would he willingly agree to _permanently_ trade places with a _random_ person who lived in 1959?

That would serve as a summing function of sorts, to integrate all the different components of life-goodness into one binary value: Yes I'd trade permanently; or No, I prefer my life here-and-now.

(This is a variation on Gregg Easterbrook's thought experiment in his book, The Progress Paradox.)
There's another date formatting library if you're using Prototype, that I've used for a few things (although I have to say, I like the OP better). It was kind of hard to track down and doesn't seem to have any continuing support, but is used as part of this nice date picker:

http://home.jongsma.org/software/js/datepicker

This is the .js file:

http://home.jongsma.org/js/lib/prototype-date-extensions.js
Ten Characteristics of Great Investors
Twitter braces itself for 'youth invasion'
Storage Systems for High Scalable Systems presentation
There is something in women which evolved for millions of years. Like many products of natural selection, it is highly complex. It works on many levels, some of which are banal, some of which are fascinating on the deepest intellectual and aesthetic levels.

It drives me crazy how many women hold themselves in low esteem. (I think it's worse in the US.) Even the plainest, most homely woman can light up given the right circumstance.
I've read both articles before, just re-read them again, and fail to see how you conclude that it is "clear is that the casual retail investor is getting screwed by HFT, and will never realize it." If you can offer a rational explanation based on fact or accepted theory then I'm willing to listen, but a wild assertion based on two random blog posts that make some weak assertions/assumptions won't cut it, IMO.

I am not currently involved in high-frequency trading, but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night. :) Seriously though, I know several folks who are, I've followed the industry for a long time, and market micro-structure is a very interesting topic to me. But, why does that really matter, anyway?
The submitter appended a # to the URL, too, to get it to pass the dupe filter :(
This piece is surprisingly profound. Here is the key insight:

Negative thinking feels good.

I think this is exactly right.

A compounding factor is habit. Once you've being doing the same thing over and over, it feels good to keep doing it and uncomfortable not to.

Another reason why negative thinking feels good is that it's passive, and it's easier to be passive than active.
Only humans allowed
You're asking two totally different questions here. History should be stated objectively when we know objectively (the U.S. declaration of independence was signed on July 4, 1776) and subjectively when we know subjectively (basically anything involving motivations for actions).

Whether we should intentionally lie is an entirely separate issue, and honestly, I don't see how any sane, well-intentioned person could propose lying in history classes.
I think that according to Rand, fairness is a moot point when it comes to this situation. She is saying that if you are capable of achieving wealth, then you will achieve it no matter where you start from in our society. She also explains that those who are capable of achieving are concerned only with their own achievements and awards, and those of others only so far as they help to achieve their own.

If you put all of this together, you end up with the person of achievement not caring where others started (or what they inherited) in relation to themselves. Fairness only holds value when the person getting shafted cares enough to give it value.

Besides, Rand's argument is that over the long run, it really doesn't matter, as the person who is capable of producing great wealth will do so, with or without an inheritance. The person who is not will quickly squander it all and end up right back where they started. Her point is simply that an inheritance does not change one's ability to produce.
Good advice for everyone except maybe yc groups burning through seed capital.

"sorry we didn't finish our demo because we took too many naps and ate Bon Bons"
Memories are made of this
"And none of them ran excel or World of warcraft."

His argument is that Excel and World of Warcraft are not much of a qualitative improvement over life in the 1950s.
Yeah, but there are always those women who are "IT" hot. You know, the ones that wouldn't get a second glance out in the bars, but look pretty good in the workplace talking about hardware and whatnot.
Tool of the Day: Pixlr-Online Drawing and Photo Editing (useful tools review)
Andy Grove: Paranoid survivor
Oops yes - corrected.
The digital geographers
Boom! That's what I thought. I am sure with some distribution partnerships you guys can catch up in terms of traffic.
Well? Is biotech a significant, qualitative improvement to our lives compared to what we had in the 1950s? Has it contributed to overall better nutrition and health, or even in better tasting food?
> "...most advertisers have little interest in general twitter advertising. Most marketers are beginning to realize that the best way to use twitter is to participate in the conversation."

Anecdotal eveidence bears this out for me, too, which I think is awesome. We don't need more advertisements; we need more authenticity.