skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's different in that it's less cumbersome to maintain and that you can do more with the bookmarks than just 'cd' to it. For example, some other commands that are included are lsbm, mvbm and cpbm, which allows you to resp. list the files in a bookmark, and move or copy files to a bookmark. It's overall a lot more flexible and easier to extend common commands.
her roommates are okay with people using a room as a hotel?
Variable Cost Living: A Tale of Fiction Due to Friction?
It's definitely a point of contention, but one that can be solved easily by paying for utilities for a month & buying a 6-pack or two.
Roll your own, start a EC2 box when ever you need one and start openVPN or use it as a SSH Tunnel :) Just consider it as a $0.1/hr charge.
There's always some asymmetric information. If there weren't markets wouldn't exist.
I took the next step in disambiguation: http://akkartik.name/bash.html#cd
The design for an implementation of a bridge, not for all bridges. Most software patents try to patent all bridges.
Great read. My two favorite quotes:

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is the obverse of Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, in which the free market coördinates the behavior of self-seeking individuals to the benefit of all. Each businessman “intends only his own gain,” Smith wrote in “The Wealth of Nations,” “and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” But in a market environment the individual pursuit of self-interest, however rational, can give way to collective disaster. The invisible hand becomes a fist.

and

Limiting the development of [complex] securities would stifle innovation, the financial industry contends. But that’s precisely the point. “The goal is not to have the most advanced financial system, but a financial system that is reasonably advanced but robust,” Viral V. Acharya and Matthew Richardson, two economists at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business, wrote in a recent paper. “That’s no different from what we seek in other areas of human activity. We don’t use the most advanced aircraft to move millions of people around the world. We use reasonably advanced aircrafts whose designs have proved to be reliable.”

The second seems quite applicable to software engineering as well.
I've never met the guy and I like him a lot. This is probably why I gave him the benefit of the doubt when reading the blog entry and why I think the detractors calling it "ham fisted" and "unsatisfying" and "inconclusive" and "lacking empathy" must be people who did but skim over it before spraying their unhelpful personal attacks.
I agree with you. I think it is a fine question. Why are people so defensive about it? One of the arguments is that people can prepare for it. Okay, prepare for it. You can tell if someone has prepared for the question or not by how much they think when they answer it. If they've prepared for it, the answer better be a good one.

Furthermore, if someone gets defensive when the question is asked, then that tells you something about that person. It tells you how they operate in tough situations. It tells you if they are honest. Honesty matters a lot in a stressful situation, because if you are trying to fix something and someone who messed up isn't saying they messed up then it is going to be a lot harder to fix it. Once you've discovered the error someone made and the truth comes out, now you're stuck with someone who messed up and lied to cover it up. An "oh... yeah, I might have flipped that switch..." will go a long way toward making everything right.
If you're using vi/vim for real programming, you'll want to know about tag searching as well - it's one of the better ways to deal with multi-file source code. In both nvi and vim, control-] jumps to the tag under the cursor, and control-t pops back to the previous context. (You'll need to run a program such as ctags on the source to create the tag index first.)
My understanding is that you need to be very careful about saying anything negative at all in a reference since it opens you up to a potential defamation lawsuit, and that it's therefore prudent to either give a positive reference or none at all.
Would it also help people who enjoy airplane silence book seats far away from other peoples' conversations?
This may be close. http://www.utilitran.com/ They claim to be streaming the ordering supply chain system for convenience stores.
You could call it Stalkr :)
Are the smart getting richer?
Another garbage 5 minute tech tutorial on the front page. If you can't figure this out on your own you shouldn't be responsible for your site's SSL cert, or anything else related to security.
"Land rush on pure mathematics" is exactly right. They're being allowed to essentially claim the entire problem, rather than a specific solution which happens to be better than well-known alternatives the industry is still free to use.
"Oh, fancy meeting you here, on this private island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, I was just on my way to a real estate seminar. You?"

It could work.
> I am not saying that software patents shouldn't be abolished - just that such a result is highly unlikely to come from any ruling in this case.

You're probably right. The best way for a person to help get software patents abolished, IMO, would be to join their local Pirate Party -- http://www.pp-international.net/
You are standing on the shoulders of people who design languages, vs. standing on the shoulders of people who write libraries. Languages are much closer to the central concepts in computing, and the people who work on them have done a lot more careful and general thinking, in general, than what goes into libraries. Libraries are great to build on, but only so long as they are almost exactly what you need already, because you can't change them to any significant degree.

There's a reason why all the best languages (lisp/forth/etc) are language building languages, not library building languages. A library building language is just a DSL that you can't modify. You can write anything in it, but so what? You can write anything in Brainfuck too - that's what the term "Turing tarpit" was coined to describe.

When someone tells you what their favorite language is, you should ask what that person does. If all they do is write web apps, they probably like their language because it is a good web app DSL. Nothing wrong with that, except that it doesn't scale (webapps scale, but they do it by scaling the database, not the language).
I think I'm posting all of my ideas that didn't make the cut. This one would be challenging unless you could directly book flights for people-- or at least change their seats. Also, you would need a large number of people to use it before it became useful since you're really working with a narrow population of people flying on a particular flight.
Ask HN: Review my webapp - Goalbot
The popup div idea was probably a bad one, baah :)
Learning is about the future. You want to take knowledge you have gained and use it to make the future more like what you want the future to be.

So then, when you perceive something, ask yourself, "How will additional events like this one affect my future?" Imagine scenarios where the event might occur again and play them out in your mind. Imagine yourself reacting the same way or a different way. Like playing chess.
Holy. I have a MacBook Pro!

I thought the 13" silver Apple laptop was still a MacBook.
I know you're joking around but I thought I'd answer anyway. The key aspect of flights is that your "victim" isn't going anywhere. He's stuck in that seat and can't escape nearly as easily as he could if you approached him in a cafe, museum, etc.

EG - Got a startup that'll need buy in from a major wireless carrier (you're gon' change the industry like the iPhone did!) but can't get attention from any of them? Imagine what you could work if you were sitting next to the CEO of Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile on a 6 hour flight. How much would you pay for the information to get you that seat?
Exactly. It's important to remember that both copyright and patents are instances of the public willingly ceding, in very specific cases, some of their constitutionally-protected freedoms (in the case of copyright, freedom of speech) because doing so is seen to have a positive net effect for society (the creation of more art, better technology).
Actually, this is one of the things I used to use screen for.
I agree that most small stores could benefit from a "just-in-time" inventory system, but I'm not sure it could be styled after Walmart's. The key to their success is the massive quantities they move, as well as their network of delivery trucks. Essentially each semi is treated as a mobile warehouse stocked with a variety of carefully picked products. So instead of having cash tied up in inventory that may or may not sell, any one store can pull items from a truck as soon as they are sold off the retail floor.

As an example, I work at a "mom n pop" style mattress store that has 19 locations throughout the Midwest. We essentially have one main warehouse and two delivery trucks to cover the entire state of Illinois. Wednesday is the only day of the week that I can get any kind of inventory, and even then I'm unlikely to get everything I requested.

With that being said, I do believe that a simple web interface that could track the flow of our inventory through our network of stores could greatly improve efficiency. Even though every individual item is carefully tracked manually, I still have no easy way of identifying where I could potentially pull a particular model or size from to serve my customers. To find that information, I have to literally get on the phone and call each store individually to inquire about what they have. An automated system would certainly be welcomed, the question is only how. Could be a hard sell to a company that still relys on dial-up and fax machines...
Spaces or Tabs?
Do you use real tabs or spaces for tabs when you write code? If spaces, how many?
I really like the concept and I'm glad someone managed to try it out. I also immediately thought of Airbnb (good job on ramming your brand into my brain guys!), but there seems to be something missing that even Airbnb doesn't quite cover: standardisation, perhaps?

If you're extending the parallel to cloud storage, sure, you can spin up and spin down as required - but you (generally) stay within the same provider to do so. So you know what your costs are going to be, you know what's available, you trust it to be there when needed, and so on.

When it comes to living, everyone's their own provider. As the OP found out, people have stupid bills; people change their schedules; people can be fundamentally dishonest toward strangers; people aren't a consistent platform. It's peer-to-peer, so it's like - instead of using Amazon to run your website, and spinning up instances, you're relying on Joe Bloggs's spare server space in Watford. What if Joe Bloggs changes his mind?

Would a solution look like a compromise between the standardisation of hotel chains and the flexibility of crowdsourced space? Perhaps. You'd need a trusted third party who could guarantee stuff. Guarantee that the living space is fairly represented and scale costs depending on facilities and features (location being a feature) - just as you pay more for 2 CPUs in the cloud, you pay more for 2 bedrooms on the earth. Guarantee that the overhead costs are totally consistent, broadband, cleaning, etc. Guarantee that if someone changes their mind you still have somewhere to stay the night. And, you know, that's starting to look an awful lot like an aparthotel chain.

I guess the difference is you could have one mega 'cloud' landlord who, instead of building custom aparthotel buildings, leases apartments from private landlords. The cloud-landlord sorts out checkin and checkout cleaning, services, etc; it's kinda a distributed aparthotel. Hell, it's starting to look a lot like the way some universities do accommodation now. Is it a step beyond Airbnb's self-managed approach? Yes. Would it allow variable cost living? Yes. Would it work as a business? Nobody's done it yet, so who knows. I'd guess not, though. Costs and overheads and stuff.
India 101-Quick Guide For Indians and Foreigners Alike
Great article. I'd love to hear more about what it's like to try to get pieces in Slate, if you ever get bored and want something career-negative to write about.

I thought it ended a little abruptly, though.
The concept of monitoring social site streams for dating/authenticity purposes reminds me of a site I heard about recently, http://ge.la.to/

There are many sites struggling to gain traction in mobile aspects of dating, and the problem is likely that it's difficult to get a critical mass of users set up before using the feature is appealing.

Regardless, I'm not aware of anyone who has put all this together successfully. Dating (in many aspects, but surely online) has shown itself to be a tough nut to crack.
15 female pilots on K-8 training jets conclude China military parade
The comics rotate. Which one were you looking at?
The blogging and animated gif stuff seems pretty out of place in this package...
Like a motorcycle ;)
Although capitalism is crash-prone to some extent it is the most reliable system mankind has ever come up with. It is arguably because it's idea of individual success reflects the nature of the animal the system is supposed to work on.
Yes, this is horrible, this idea.
"its idea of individual success reflects the nature of the animal the system is supposed to work on."

I don't quite follow you. Please explain.
I have immense respect for those working under google's shadow to create a better/different search experience. The article clearly shows that their entire product development strategy is built around what google does and does not. Although as history has shown, when these companies accomplish anything they usually get acquired rather than becoming individually successful. But I guess history can only take you so far and Google was once a search underdog. So good luck duckduckgo!
Spaces.
4.
I'll be honest; dialogue boxes appearing everywhere put me off.
Much like Chicago's bid.
Agreed it had substance. Rambling wasn't a criticism it's just an actual demonstration of the fact that YC aren't measuring pitch ability but simply enthusiasm + domain knowledge. Passionate, Smart and Gets Things Done seems to be the key, and the fact that they are willing to release this "prototype pitch" so early is probably a good sign for the kind of startup YC wants (release early, innovate).
That is a datacenter, not a "cloud."
A recommendation-based feedreader.

This may be the answer to RFS1: what will replace the newspaper industry? People won't pay for content anymore, but perhaps they'll pay for a personalized service to sift through content.

I know reading recommendations have been tried several times, like at reddit. But perhaps you can get a leg up if you get more data on the user - twitter, delicious, etc.
Thanks for the honesty!

I'm assuming you mean the pop up dialogues when you've started planning a new goal (and not the tool tips when you hover over certain items). This is really designed for first time users to help explain how the system works.

Do you think that level of explanation is unnecessary? Or is there a better way of adding that information?
How about a news site that actually helps reporters/ photographers/ editors collaborate to create news, instead of just aggregating/ ranking already written articles?

The basic blocks of the news stories is source material: photos, quotes, observations that can be submitted by anyone.

Every contributor (sources submitting photos/ quotes/ etc, writers, editors) and every component (the photos, the source material, the finished article) are rated, and feedback goes both ways.

So, the best sources/ writers/ editors eventually float to the top:

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/FPFC5tEoeQIKX5
Well, I'm biased because my company is basically being sued over a patent that is, essentially, about as broad as bridge building (i.e. someone else essentially claims to have patented the idea of storing insurance claims in a database. Seriously.)

But they are fundamentally different in that software is already protected by copyright the same way any other creative work is. Copyright and patent protection are two sides of the same coin that are there in, according to the US Constitution (European theory on the origin of IP rights is different), to provide an incentive to create new things. Unlike a chemical formula or a mechanical invention, the software itself is already protected by copyright, just like a novel or a painting is. It's basically the only thing that I can think of that's protected by both copyright and patent protection.

In many ways, patenting a software system is far more akin to patenting a novel or a how-to book (I'm patenting the idea of a hero that fights an evil villain, and I'm patenting the idea of explaining to people how to fix a leaky faucet).

Again, patents are constitutionally granted on a pragmatic basis rather than on the grounds of some inherent right, so I think it's a perfectly valid to attack them on the grounds that they do more harm than good, and it's also perfectly valid to point out that they are categorically different than patents on mechanical or chemical inventions.
Four spaces except html/css where I use two.
def test(a, b, *args, **kwargs):
print a, b, args, kwargs

>>> test(1, 2, 3, 4, aa=5, bb=6)
1 2 (3, 4) {'aa': 5, 'bb': 6}

'nuff said
Tabs. It drives me nuts to see people use spaces for everything.

Tabs are there for exactly that purpose. If you want your code to line up properly, just comment on how wide your tabwidth is, and the reader of the code will adjust accordingly. Or indent in a tab-independent fashion.

I like my tabwidth set to 3 or 4. It makes code easier to read for myself. I can't stand it when I open a GNU project and it looks like someone threw up brackets all over my screen. This wouldn't happen if GNU didn't use an awkward mix of previously-assumed-8-spaces-wide tabs and spaces to indent their code.
I highly doubt Google has some master list of features already coded just waiting to launch when a competitor releases something similar. First that seems like a huge waste of time, but also it gives too much credit to Google in that they'd need to have all these ideas first. Just doesn't add up. I do think however that they do have the ability to, in a very short time frame bake up responses to competitive features. But I would imagine it would be more on-demand than off-the-shelf. Any ex Googlers here to comment?
Patents for software do not save time and money, nor do they make things run more efficiently, nor do they improve life for countless individuals. This is simply not the case.

I didn't say patents do that, I said software does that.

I do not believe software is "just a set of ideas." If that was the case, why do we need engineers to take an "idea" for a software system to implement that system? Building an idea with software takes time, experimentation, trial and error. Mistakes are made. Algorithms are optimized.

Do you really believe that software vendors don't worry about beauty and durability of their software product the same way manufacturers of physical products do? In a lot of cases, we have "designed obsolescence" of mechanical products, so I can't avoid disagreeing with your statement there.

The whole point of patents is to share the knowledge learned in the process of going from an idea to an invention that implements the idea. The problem with sharing the knowledge is that it becomes more difficult to capitalize on all the effort that went into building the invention. You let others know of the invention and how it was built so they can use that knowledge to further improve the world, while also protecting their ability to feed themselves while they work on more ideas to improve the world.

I know many believe software should be free, but the ability to kill free software is one of the benefits of patents. If a company or an individual makes some software worth patenting and then someone decides to give away that same software for free, then the patent holder should be able to kill that free software.

I don't believe that free is somehow more moral than not free. I don't see anything immoral about selling software. In fact, the motives of many who give away free software could be argued less moral than those who sell it.

Why is there an association between people who sell software and "bad" software vendors? A lot of proprietary software vendors are good people who want to create companies and employ more software developers to write more code and make the world a better place. I don't believe not showing all of your cards, or code as the case may be, makes you a bad person or a bad company.
Instead of needing to have bookmark-aware commands in the first place ("commands that are available are and bookmark-aware: lsbm, cpbm, mvbm, mkbm, ...") , it would probably be better to use backtick:

cd `bm shortcutname`

Forking loads of common utilities is going to add lots of superfluous complexity. Of course, at that point you could replace the whole bm suite with shell aliases or a script that contains

#!/bin/sh
# find relevant line by key, get the second field
grep "$1 " ~/.bms | cut -d " " -f 2

. Put that in your path, chmod u+x bm, and there you go. In this case, the bookmarks file is hardcoded to ~/.bms and you edit it by hand, but that's probably good enough. If you want to add from the shell, here's bm-add:

#!/bin/sh
echo $1 $2 >> ~/.bms

Put it in your path, chmod u+x bm-add, good to go.

If you'd rather have the bookmark file separated by tabs, just remove the -d " " from bm, change the grep to "$1\\t", and change bm-add to echo $1\\t$2 >> ~/.bms. Simple.

For an excellent intro on how to work with Unix's strengths, read _The Unix Programming Environment_ by Kernighan and Pike.
I agree.

I TA what I believe to be one of the better undergrad Software Engineering courses around, "Fundamentals of Software Engineering." As the undergrad TA (the other is a Ph.D. student with real-life industry experience), I can honestly say that it's a nightmare.

Software Engineering today basically amounts to anecdotes and marketing. I mean, if you look closely enough, there are some interesting theoretical nuggets: static/dynamic analysis, theories of testing, etc. But the reality is, a semester of the fundamentals of software engineering leaves you only slightly more able to choose a good development path than the next guy. In the end, choosing a quality process is a task left up to the reader, which is why we have so many pair and agile programmers (and so many more Duct Tape Programmers), IMHO. Developers either go for what's best marketed or for what's easiest.

At the end of the day, something unifying would be a huge benefit to everyone, but we're a long way off from that. Right now, the question is: Is that even possible?
A Photographer With a Bird's-Eye View of the Economy
yes, this is the premise of http://ge.la.to. Wait until you see our recommendation/compatibility engine. It's going to be awesome.
This is the best idea of the bunch. Instead of playing up the whole "American" angle it could be based on proximity (thereby working for the world). I'm sure the big boys have tools like this (zip code search), but as you suggested it would be a requirement and the whole push of the site would be to find someone local.

I like it.
How is the answer to this not "working on it"? (Not that any startup idea has one author. It's always a collaboration.)
The one with Obama at the podium, flanked by two mafia guys with tommy guns. And he says something to the effect of, 'Like we Chicagoans always say, vote early, and vote often!'
And Mini VGA for iBooks and old iMacs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-VGA