skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The value is a function of the scarcity of the degree, the quality of the professors and the amount of resources.

Since the last variable has gone up with no decrease in the scarcity there's more value for fewer people, proportionally, than there was a decade ago.

The author argues this just further raises the walls surrounding an already fortunate class (because, let's be honest, if you get into Harvard, you're either talented as hell or extraordinarily well-connected).
Yes and no -- there's a chicken-and-egg aspect.

If a Harvard education was useless -- and Harvard alums to a one all room-temperature iq, slackjawed mouthbreathers -- it wouldn't matter how scarce the degrees are, as they'd be valueless.

Once you assume a particular level of educational quality and/or other 'intrinsic' value (here 'intrinsic' == everything other than the pure scarcity premium) it is of course the case that ceteris paribus the degree becomes less valuable the more people have it.

But even then not entirely: if you cut the class size too small the consequent diminishment of the alumni network might take away more than the increased scarcity gave.
This is hilarious:

Schmidt: let me, some of your assumptions about Chrome adoption are wrong. The adoption rate of Chrome is [very strong]. We are going to do a better job of getting that message out.

Schonfeld: Steve Ballmer calls it a rounding error, is it?

I don’t respond to Steve Ballmer questions. Next question?
I agree with him to a point; that point is probably about the $60 an hour charge limit.

We charge $55 - $70 per hour for custom work; I think that is a reasonable expense. I've seen quotes from competitors that work out at anything from (assuming they took the same number of hrs) $120 to $300 an hour.

That's silly; I really cant imagine they can give a small or medium business any extra value or quality we could.

(once branding comes into it, and really big companies etc. I agree prices do climb; and rightly so, but I get the impression that's not really what he's talking about)
I don't know what language this is in, but if it's C, you meant to say inet_aton(string, &addrstruct), and that string is probably more valuable than struct in_addr. Since C doesn't offer a 128 bit scalar type, I'm not sure how inet_addr_t helps you any more than u_int32_t.
Much of IMVU's client and website (tens of millions of customers) were written with TDD. I've long been a proponent of TDD once you pass the prototyping stage and you need to write a production-ready component with [most of] the edge cases figured out.

The "red green refactor" loop is more like:

1) What's the next problem this software needs to solve?
2) Write a failing test that demonstrates the missing need.
3) Implement said behavior.
4) Refactor until you don't see anything else to refactor.

I think step #1 is one of the most important and yet I don't see much discussion of it. Pick the most "key" tests to write first, whether that be your happy path or the functionality that has the most risk.

On refactoring... I work with people who TDD all of their work and other who write unit tests afterwards. In my experience, those who test-drive are more comfortable refactoring otherwise. When I was test-driving imvu.task ( http://thespeedbump.livejournal.com/63798.html ), I spent a great deal of time just staring at the code after it was written... it's very continuation-heavy code... and suddenly I saw a refactoring that collapsed it by 1/3. We've hardly touched the code since. It solves the right problem with the right amount of code and I think it's only had a couple very obscure race conditions.

In summary, TDD is one of my favorite tools for focusing my efforts so we build what we need, but only what we need.
I'm tired of telling friends and family how to install and maintain systems like "a computer hooked up to a TV". There's a reason why there are more TiVos out there than MythTVs.
They pay as much as anybody going to a private school. Many state schools charge just as much for an out of stater. If you are gonna spend that much money, you might as well go to a great school if you can.
"Sergey: There is also the security aspect. In a recent hacker competition, Chrome was the only one to escape unscathed in terms of security vulnerabilities. And more stable."

When, oh when will people learn that touting the security of a product by how well it did in hacking competitions is not a measure of how secure it is?
While true, this means that the CPU can be used for other things.

Also I doubt its I/O bound because there is still lots of scanning to do (but I am not 100% sure). Also with fast hard drives (or SSDs) it might be CPU bound.

Also, when running applications currently the CPU must load the app, scan it, then run it, while the GPU can probably do it faster thus making the system overall more responsive.

Wait... Also, the real-time scanner is limited. It does not do a full check on every file because that is too expensive (though it might be damn close), with the GPU they might have the power to make scanning through your whole computer 99% moot since every time any program executes the virus scanner gives it a 100% scan, fast, without the user even noticing that it happened.

I can see lots of benefits of this. Go nvidia.

I am hoping nvidia kicks intel to the stone age with a new processor and such. Or at least comes up with some REAL competition, something that AMD started but could not maintain momentum. This is probably step 1. :)
Too much noise on twitter.

The fact that the author thinks that he'll know everything a company he follows ever tweets indicates that he's probably wasting too much time on Twitter.
At work, I run ratpoison on my Mac. About the only programs I use are xterm and firefox, and they can both run under X11.
Vanity fair had a (IMO) much better article on Harvard's endowment drop at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/harvard2...

Also, from the Vanity Fair article note:
Officially, the university charges $48,868 a year for undergraduate tuition, room, and board that’s an increase of 50 percent over the last 10 years but only a small number of students actually pays that much. Back in 2004, under growing pressure from Washington, and in response to outsiders who accused the school of (a) elitism and (b) hoarding its immense wealth, Larry Summers shook up the world of higher education by announcing that students whose parents earned $40,000 a year or less would be able to attend Harvard gratis. Two years later, that cutoff was increased to $60,000, a figure well above the median U.S. household income.

Still, Harvard pressed ahead in its efforts to ease the growing burden of tuition. In December 2007, declaring that excellence and opportunity must go hand in hand, the university’s new president, Drew Faust, made another stunning announcement: henceforth, students whose parents earn as much as $180,000 a year would pay no more than 10 percent of their family’s annual income in tuition fees.
1. /australia|new ?zealand/i

2. "Some people, when they see a problem, think, Oh, I'll use Regular Expressions. Then they have two problems." -jwz
If you like this option, you will probably like Isolator: http://willmore.eu/software/isolator/

By default, it puts the focus on the current app by blurring whatever is behind it. It's pretty customizable and can do things like hiding all other apps automatically, putting a backdrop, etc. The blur effect might work better than just hiding for some people.

One other nice thing is that it lives in the menu bar and can be called with a keyboard shortcut. So, it doesn't have to be 'on' at all times.

edit: this or other utilities and shortcuts mentioned in the comments of the article itself
That's a really intriguing idea (I too noticed how pg gets people to read drafts - I started doing the same here and there with varying results).

The issue would be it would have to be fairly private, right. In some way at least. Because if the idea is to preview and make suggestions for improvements / revisions prior to posting you wouldn't want it public at any stage :P At the same time you'd want to keep it vibrant and full of content.

(by which I mean #1 sounds the better way)
Scarcity doesn't add to the value of the degree. It multiplies it.

The more the degree is worth by itself, the more restricting it increases its value. There's a balance point somewhere in the middle.
That article hinges entirely on defining success as reaching a c-level position at a fortune 100.

The diminishing presence of ivy leaguers could just as well indicate a shift in priorities by the kids or the fact that the really big money was in private hedge-funds for the better part of the last decade.
Thank you. Any idea as to what kind of problems I can run into on Windows?
Yep.. of course it is. Is flash good for PCs? Is Thai food good for international cuisine? Choice & competition are GOOD. We just need better ways to find & filter apps (& information in general).
Actually more people want that than you'd think.

There are people who buy thousands of domains, and then park them with some company like Oversee.net. Sure, the websites they get are crap. But each one makes a few dollars per month for zero effort. Multiply that by a lot of domains and soon you're talking about real money. And besides, sometimes someone will want to make a real site with one of those domains and will buy it from you.

If you don't like them you call them domain squatters. If you do you call them domainers. But for better or worse they are part of the Internet ecosystem.
Ask HN: Trusted JSON Parser, why doesnt browsers themselves provide one?
I write many Firefox plug-ins and other JavaScript code where I have to deal with lots of JSON data.

The real strength of JSON data while using it with JS is that you dont have to bother much about parsing it, which is a real headache if you are using XML.

But then most of the code reviewers including JSLint display "eval" as unsafe. I then end up using Jquery, prototype etc to parse it.

I wanted to know if there is a better way. Why dont browesrs provide a safe alternative to eval? And parsing it by custom doesnt make it 100% safe either.
It's an elegant idea.

However what it isn't (quite) is a solution to the problem; where does revenue come from. :)
Pentagon: Our cloud is better than Google's
Ah. I didn't even see that there was a latest article. For some reason, the wording didn't really indicate to me that this was an additional development, I just assumed it was yet another repost of an old topic.
The overhead for taking credit cards in a small business is huge. A small bookstore owner I knew said the card processing fees were more per month than the rent or utilities.
Business people who fly a lot would be willing to pay quite a bit for a service that they could use to save time and travel headaches. That seems to me to be the niche that they should focus on near term.

One question that's not clear to me, which they could offer in retrospective analysis, how often can they make a recommendation that actually improves your arrival time. For example, if an airport is blocked by snow or thunderstorms then switching to a different flight that goes to the same airport may have no effect. What I didn't understand were the kinds of problems that they could not only detect, but offer an alternative that had a higher probability of arrival within a desired window. I don't see that explained on their website either.
Street Named with a Twitter Account
How many of his client projects do you expect anyone to have heard of?
I've assumed half the reason Google's been on a custom logo binge is to drive users towards specific search terms and boost AdWords revenue. Show an obscure geeky thing one week to keep the baying nerd masses happy, show Michael Jackson the next.

It's nice to see "the little guy" getting a boost as well!
In front of the press:

Eric Schmidt: It seems like Sergey has jumped the gun. We should focus mostly on search, and some of the ideas Sergey has.

I could only imagine what goes on behind closed doors.
Right, it would definitely be "private". Meaning, in #1 the reviewers would be a group of moderators who the community trusts through a "Friend DA". Not sure we are going to get some legal document drawn up, but basically the community knows the moderators aren't going to be sharing the early draft of a blog post with anyone.

The blog post only exists in the system for the submitter (reviewee) and the group of reviewers.

That's why http://tenderapp.com/ stood out to me, because it it's a support tool, so has this idea of moderators (support staff) who are the people allowed to view a private post.
What mobile app platform to target? iPhone vs Android vs N900
Signs and Symptoms of Diabetes You Must Know
These guys are awesome! I'll definitely check out the 'pay-in' beta ;)
That sounds like the right range for hiring an independent contractor directly for working on a website.

Of course if you need someone with specialized skills (like me), you'll have to pay more. And if you're going to someone who has to hire and manage multiple contractors, you're going to pay overhead.

Also your competitors may be assuming that they will need more hours than you do. If that is happening consistently, then you should increase how well you're paid. :-)
Network Side Scripting - Modifying HTTP responses with Netscaler, F5 and Zeus
That site is fun, but too addictive a time-waster. Let's hope it doesn't show up again any time soon.
Interview with Will Wright on his entertainment startup, the Stupid Fun Club
Advanced applications of Network-side Scripting
I'll take anything over "clj-ray" or "rayjure."
> Harvard exists in a finite amount of space.

True, but that's not the limiting factor in this time frame. From TFA:

"Granted, it would cost money to teach more students. The university would need to invest in land and buildings and professors. But that's precisely what the university spent the endowment on. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences alone expanded by more than 125 positions over the past decade and increased spending by hundreds of millions of dollars. The university gobbled up nearby land and erected a collection of handsome new buildings, creating over six million square feet of new space since 2000 alone."
My brother in law just finished Harvard. He got excellent financial aid, as did most in his class. Why should not accepting more people equal stinginess? They have, yah know, standards...
I think you are right on the effect. I bet a developer who hands over $50 will be a lot more uptight in delayed deployment of that app.

My main problem with the iTunes App Store from a customer point of view is I feel like I have tunnel vision and can't really see the app and comments. I wish I had something like the Amazon shopping experience.
Ah, it seems the iPhone one 'barCodes' based on zXing only supports QR barcodes. Eep.
Isn't the reason Harvard undergraduate degrees are immensely valuable precisely the limited supply of them?

Harvard undergraduate degrees are immensely valuable because Harvard does not have to maintain the polite fiction that all individuals are equally gifted. As a result, other institutions which have to maintain the polite fiction that all individuals are equally gifted, but which would prefer to get the ones more gifted than others, look for the Harvard label.
Dyslexia and the reading brain
I agree with the basic premise of this article, but saying "99% of the time that quote will be a reasonable price" is disingenuous. While some customers that do not know the value web development expect to pay too little, they are just as likely to get overcharged by opportunistic developers.

It is much like getting car repairs. If you go in informed, you are likely to get a fair price, whereas if you don't you may be taken advantage of.
Closed platforms, for all their sins, are generally easier for consumers. The process to buy an app in iTunes is dead simple. Media Center PC's (for most people) require having a friend with patience and skill.
Did you read the article? That's precisely what it posits in the last couple of paragraphs.
It also helps to shop around.
Hmm, are the Nazi color themes a free extra?

Yes, websites are not free, but it's low hanging fruit, you see? There is very little barrier to entry, a lot of people know about them, and info on how to make them is readily available.

As a developer, I would not want to invest my entire future in websites.
RedLaser from Occipital (a techstars company, I think) is in the iphone app store.
You can check if native JSON is available by:

if (typeof(JSON) === 'object') {
alert('native JSON may be available.');
}

Three major browsers already include support for native JSON parsing: IE8, Firefox 3.5, and Chrome 3.

Safari 4 does not currently support the standard, but its underlying engine (WebKit) has recently implemented it. Hopefully the feature will make its way to Safari soon.
I think Yahoo with their widgets had the best chance, but Yahoo is acting in the spirit of their name.
As an exercise with PHP and the gd library, I wrote a couple of scripts a while ago that would generate UPC-A and UPC-E barcode images on the fly. I've always been fascinated with barcodes and scanners that read them.

http://jazzychad.com/barcode/
Just a few points:

- relative to clock speed, SSDs are still a magnitude slower.
- Loading the app is a 100% i/o operation. "scan it, then run it": your gpu
will not run your app. The scanning part, fine let's assume the GPU can do
it. You still have to DMA it over to the GPU which involves a lot. Still
not convinced it'll be faster than the cpu.
- "without the user ever noticing that it happened".. you still have to copy
the text pages over after being loaded, good luck not getting the user to
notice it.

Anywho, I am not an AV expert nor do I completely understand what they're trying to do with GPUs, these are just some thoughts I have off the top of my head.
I think Tim Ferris wrote somewhere about how to take advantage of this. The trick is to run the normal business expenses you would had to pay anyways through these cards. For example, instead of purchasing a $100 set of headphones, you spend $1,000 in Google Ads in which historical data shows will net you $10,000 in revenue.
How much is your website worth?
My problem with Android is my general problem with Google. It seems like they are incapable of doing the kind of UI polishing required to have a great consumer product. Given how they have treated some of their UI people, I don't see this changing. You need someone with the authority of a Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ive to do real design. You can't just have pretty icons.
Slashdot will have the best sarcastic comments ever
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/10/06/1742203/London-Stoc...
Ok now I have to take remedial grammar lessons?dude, I think it was a totally understandable post.
Have fun with this one!

Btw..

Ycombinator.com Valuation $7.07 Million

News.ycombinator.com Valuation $9.52 Million

Bizinformation.org Valuation = $11,764.25 (hehe)
evgen,

You are completely wrong when you say "very few of them" have the level of consciousness required for the abuse to be torture." All factory farmed animals are tortured physically and psychologically -- tens of billions the world over. The vast majority, if not all, of lab-tested animals are tortured physically and psychologically.

You have no idea what it is to be tortured (not that this is required to take those who have been tortured at their word). If you did, you wouldn't dismiss the torture of those with very similar central nervous systems to ours so lightly. And the fact is, torture of human animals can bring out all the fight or flight evolutionary responses and fears we have within us as a result of our completely animal history and existence. Your cavalier approach to the tremendous suffering of others is a disgrace.

Once, again, you are trying to draw arbitrary lines based on what you want to be true to justify your own behaviors, which are morally indefensible. Do the research for yourself, since you don't want to listen to reason from anyone else.
Middle-men are a personal pet-hate of mine - I wonder if we should publicly name and shame on HN.

Difficult line to tread, but is it worth it?
Peter Thiel on the Singularity and economic growth
This is an important issue to discuss, because the bad economic ideas that hobbled Argentina's growth (protectionism) are still current in many other countries.

The graph about percentages of the population in primary schooling is quite interesting, and goes a long way to explain why Taiwan, poorer than Zambia within my lifetime, is now much wealthier than most other countries in the world.
> tweets from within the app...but instead we decided to also allow free-form responses risky, but important for maximum authenticity

I hope the MacHeist bundle people can learn from this.

Sending pre-constructed tweets is more like network marketing (alienate and/or annoy friends) than word-of-mouth.
Well, at my university, the common solution was to go to the library, borrow the book and then get it photocopied. Copyright infringement? Probably. Cost effective: yes.

I don't know a whole lot of students in India who will spend $260 for their textbooks over their entire undergrad let alone spend $260 on a ebook reader and then spend a lot of money buying books.

However, kindle may become popular with professionals perhaps.
It included Stephen Fry (Or at least his co): http://twitter.com/stephenfry/status/4659713168

Any details of how the scam worked and why so many were caught? I haven't seen any real details on it.
Roman Catholic church releases sex abuse complaints Itally | My Complaint
FWIW, the community at the newish ProBlogger.com does stuff like this. (I have no connection with it other than being one of the first to sign up and a prolific poster over there :))

But, actually, I'd see value in something like you're suggesting where the "reviewers" aren't professional bloggers or even "better than most" blog writers. Most blog readers are not better-than-most writers and might raise comments that are ultimately more useful.
You make a good point. I first heard about Hacker News from a giant magenta squirrel who was fighting a toad with chopsticks.
I get the feeling the folks at Channel 9 don't really care much about the prevailing opinion on HN.
It appears that the original source is here http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html (see "Customer Comments"), and the Amazon reviewer reproduced it without attribution.
http://www.thoughtworks.com/our-clients/

http://pivotallabs.com/clients

http://www.hashrocket.com/projects

http://www.thoughtbot.com/work
Actually, lisp macros are potentially "bad" [1] not because you need to understand macros further down in the lexical environment, but because you need to understand macros further up. This makes your code lexically nonlocal.

To understand (f a b) without macros, you need only understand f, a and b. With macros, you also need to understand all sexps containing (f a b) since a macro might be rewriting (f a b) to something else entirely.

It's a similar issue as with side effects. To understand a system with side effects or concurrency, you need to understand the runtime environment. To understand macros, you need to understand the lexical environment surrounding a function or macro call.

There are software tools to help (debuggers/macroexpansion), but they still make reasoning harder.

A past discussion which goes into more detail: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=656203

[1] Here, "bad" == "potentially hard to reason about". [edit: I put "bad" in quotes to indicate I'm not making a value judgment, but merely using the same language as the author.]
Buying Storage for a Virtualized World
Though it probably would be if the project were started today.
From the questions part of the video it appears that all the code that it generates is javascript and html.
I just use Evernote for saving things and HN upvote for liking things.