skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Most people think they're good drivers, even bad ones (thanks, Dunning-Kruger!)

I'd like to see a rating and ranking system for drivers. A console in your car with a big red button-- when someone around you is driving recklessly, you target them and punch the red button... they rack up demerits (or frowny faces or whatever) and they can go to a site to see how they rank up, and how people think they drive.

Not that it's feasible or anything, but I'd love for somebody to do this; there are people in dire need of this service (myself possibly included).
"But were the effects of an accident limited solely to me, I am sure that the utility I get from being able to coordinate with others while on the road is greater than the cost of a marginal increase in the chance of an accident."

Are you sure? The study the article cites (see http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2009&itemno=5... ) says that for light cars (trucks are worse), the risk of crashing is 1.3 (1.4, 2.8) times higher for talking on (reaching for, dialing) a cell phone.

I'd say that increase in risk is significant, especially because the potential cost of an accident, even if you don't involve anyone else, is so high.

Sitting here thinking about it, I'd rather miss a call.

(EDIT, the study actually said crash or near-crash event. Not sure how to process that.)
You should point out what you disagree with instead of (in addition to) downvoting. What is your opinion?
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In my experience socializing with a bunch of random people - even in the form of short, useless conversations - leads to cuties.

I have a no-iPod rule these days - I never listen to music on the go. Headphones-on is a great way to miss out on interesting people in life.

[edit] Also, this is in no way a comment on what you ought to be doing - but for myself I find that when I feel absolutely beat and just feel like crawling into a little corner and being alone, I do the opposite instead. I've never been disappointed. Instead of withdrawing into my own space I try to engage as many people as possible - and as a result end up more refreshed than I would've if I had sat for 3 hours in front of HN hitting Refresh.
Thx for trying it. By maps integration, I assume you are referring to when Google displays a map when you type in an address or business name at the top of the results? I just want to make sure I understand exactly the use case.
both the "locals" and "students" plan can easily be handled by a narrowed search in elance. Its simply a missing feature. If there are enough buyers that want this search aspect, it will appear very quickly.
Image Approximation with Genetically Selected Cosines
The triple-30/10 rule for great business leaders
It doesn't even have to be a matter of conscious strategy. Assume there are many, many creative people with many, many internal projects in many, many states of half-done-ness or neither-killed-nor-approved-for-rollout.

Any competitor launch immediately gives all similar internal projects a second look, by a larger group of reviewers. The people working on it get another burst of motivation. To release it, even in rough 'labs' form, now benefits from an additional 'news hook' and blunts any impression Google is not innovating.

It doesn't require a strategic plan, or large preemptive investment in ideas that are then intentionally held back -- it's just normal big-but-still-creative company dynamics.
I don't mean to put the boot in too much, but what comes across is not just lack of empathy but lack of self-knowledge. The fact that the OP has to think why people don't like him strikes me as... troubling. This is not a personal comment on the OP - everybody has people who don't like them (hey, some of us more than others) - but if you really don't know at this stage in your life what it is you do that puts those who dislike you off, I suggest you collar some of your good friends and ask them straight up, because you really need a hint.

Note: I am not suggesting that one has to "fix" things other people dislike; every (sane) character trait is a trade-off between good points and bad points. But one should be aware what they are.
What I found most interesting is the detailed analysis of the expect costs and benefits. What I strongly disliked is how it was cast in jocks vs nerds theater.

I understand that Slate's readership isn't HN's readership, and that just the facts aren't enough, that there needs to be some kind of emotional story to hold the reader's attention.

But is jocks vs nerds really it? Is that the most interesting thing? Wouldn't a more generic dreamers vs. hard nosed realists be something a wider audience can identify with?

Perhaps you're also looking for strong passion, not just the widest general interest? But even in that case, the jocks vs nerds cliche? Nerds hate any kind of sports related activity so much they won't even allow their home city to host the Olympics?

It just feels tired and forced. But the economic analysis was great.
True, but I'm pretty sure mapping to C-m also maps it to the enter key.
"That’s reflected by Zuckerberg’s efforts to motivate each person according to what gets them excited: For engineers, that means giving them the best product to build, but for business executives, it means big financial incentives."

Do engineers just need interesting technical problems to remain happy? If the engineers were motivated by big financial incentives, would they get them?
The court is talking about putting senior Google execs in jail. Considering they'd be limiting their legal liability by cutting off service to the country, I think they'd have a pretty good rebuttal to any lawsuits.
Yes, I'm still working on getting the non-javascript enabled functions working properly. At the moment the site does require JS, but it won't when it's "done", though the UI will be somewhat clunkier without the JS.

I've thought about adding a flowchart of some type, but in actuality there isn't really a sequential path through, other than having to plan your goal(s) before you can track and connect on them. I'll considerate further and see what I can come up with though.

Thanks for the feedback.
In theory, I agree. In practice, this is too much effort in my mind for the benefit you get out of it.
And banks in the U.S. can shut down any email addresses by sending financial information to them, don't forget.
"If I could drum one thing, just one thing, into the head of every person on earth, it
would be this: THERE IS NO ONE TRUE WAY. No one true religion, no one true
philosophy, no one true relationship style, body size, sexual technique, computer operating
system, educational method, pepper-to-garlic ratio. There might be one true way for
you, personally and individually, but that’s as subject to change as you are. To say and act
otherwise is to cram yourself into a little box that doesn’t fit, making yourself and everyone
around you miserable." - Heather Freeman
> It definitely discredited the article and the scientists involved.

How can a statement by the editor of a journal who didn't have anything to do with the study beyond publishing it discredit the scientists that did the research? Guilt by association is well established as a logical fallacy.
The forking is not noticeable on today's machines; especially on this rather small scale. And yes, I would say that typing "cd `bm log`" is more cumbersome than typing "cdbm l". cdbm does pretty much the same behind the scenes anyway (with some error and argument checking), so why worry about that one extra mini process?
A friend of mine (PaulJ, co-founder of xs4all) came up with that long long ago, and had it researched. It turned out that the increase in weight because of the fins and the increased drag during landing would offset any savings.

Nice though, to see another example of people coming up with the same 'good' idea, one more reason to abolish patents.
There's a much simpler way: an iPhone app that would let you take pictures of UPC barcodes, and would upload the UPC + GPS to a database (which would look up the UPC with the central UPC service to find out what it means.) it would also let you enter a quantitative capacity (not how much there is at the moment, but rather how much the shelf looks like it was spaced to hold.) Searching could be done from the same app or on the web, and the indexers rewarded with discounts—on the specific things they're indexing—for previously unindexed (UPC, GPS) tuples.
After all the negative press constantly surrounding Zuckerberg, it's refreshing to hear something positive for once. And, as always, it's inspiring to see evidence that tech founders can potentially be great CEOs.

I think the real value of this article is the info on Facebook's internal policies, though. Ranking people based on relative performance? Relentlessly replacing lack-luster employees? A focus on providing individual incentives? Sounds like a really good (though scary) environment for ensuring that people do their best work.

It's well-known that big companies are much less efficient than their smaller counterparts, but this seems like a step in the right direction for closing that gap.
Why apple isn't, or at least shouldn't be, building a tablet.
Wait - I thought it was dotfiles.org? It went down a few months ago and hasn't returned. I'm not getting a response from dotfiles.com either.
Personal Fabrication Machines. Not expensive/rare 3D printers though, there are over 1MM personal paper cutting machines like the CriCut and CraftRobo that have already been sold. They need good software to drive them. I think there is a tremendous market opportunity here and would be interested in any feedback people have.

There are some slides fleshing the concept out on this page:

http://ycombinator-w10-cofounder-search.tumblr.com/

What do you think?
Wow. I know he's cartoonist and it is literally his job to over simply, but still wow!
Tasks or Threads: what’s in a name?
I don't think the metaphor works very well. Cloud hosting is much more like a hotel (or a hostel), since you stay on the same "infrastructure", but you don't have a dedicated physical location. Moving between infrastructure would be a nightmare for computing as well.
A Single Genetic Tweak Gives Mice Longer, Healthier Lives
That's a pretty good question. Speaking as an engineer, I would like to have FU money. But the reason I want FU money is so that I can always work on interesting technical problems instead of all the little crap that is also necessary in day-to-day work.
The DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

- The content owner may sent a counter-notification, and the Online Service Provider must put the content back up with two weeks, or it may be held liable for monetary damages.

- The original DMCA notice issuer must then actually sue the content owner to actually remove the content

- If the issuer makes a false claim, and it can be shown that they knew it was false, then they can be held liable for significant fines under the DMCA.

The only downside I see is that an average Joe doesn't know how this works and can easily have their content removed for ten days or longer. For breaking news and the like, ten days on the internet can be an eternity. But usually its not a problem.

I'm curious, how would you address this problem better?
and for text-groups...
ForeclosureDump.com goes nationwide/worldwide
www.ForeclosureDump.com connects Buyers and Sellers of Foreclosures, REO’s, and Credit Distressed Properties, FREE of commissions. Sellers, post your property for sale including description, up to 5 photos, and contact info. Buyers, you can search FREE.

http://www.foreclosuredump.com
Looks good!

If it's completely free it will indeed not make you a lot of money, but what you could consider is to limit the number of validations an IP can make in a certain window of time.

If they exceed that ask them for a contribution.
"What boosts a firm’s stock price, and the boss’s standing, is a rapid expansion in revenues and market share. Privately, he may harbor reservations about a particular business line, such as subprime securitization."

The problem is misaligned incentives. Cash bonuses paid out long before the consequences of decisions become clear create problems.

Financial institutions can partly remedy this by replacing annual bonuses with long-term reward schemes like that adopted by Credit Suisse in 2005. If a decision proves to have been reckless/short-sighted a few years on, bonuses can be retracted.
We have plenty of theories of Software Engineering. The problem is that there are impediments to empirical verification of these theories.

I don't get it - software engineering is not physics. There doesn't need to be a Grand Unifying Theory. Software engineering is like skinning a cat - there's more than one way to do it.
Or you should have started working on it a year ago ;)
I think I like it, but I'm probably not going to use it, at least now.
I've been beaten.
The shot-callers of tomorrow are flying next to you in today's coach.

The lion and the mouse parable seems apt here.
And for the most the ideas in these patents are far from "obvious."

predicted_mvx = median(left_mvx, top_mvx, topright_mvx)
predicted_mvy = median(left_mvy, top_mvy, topright_mvy)

These two lines of pseudocode are patented. In reality, they usually are implemented in just about two lines. There's nothing non-obvious about it; if you take 15 minutes and go test the only two possible median prediction methods, this one comes up as the best.

And yet it's patented. And most video coding software patents are just like this one: stupid.

If you want even more ridiculous ones, just go look at motion search patents; they've basically patented everything under the sun.

Patents should be on implementations, not ideas. Algorithms are ideas, not implementations. People didn't do this decades ago; the inventor of Quicksort didn't rush out to patent it. But today, any time anyone comes up with an algorithm, they instantly patent it, because the system is broken.
Given that Zuck is their first engineer and largest shareholder, I'd say yes.

The point wasn't that you don't have to pay engineers well -- just that technical challenges are a good way to inspire the right people. (Business people might be inspired by the chance to make big deals, but not so much by the chance to make difficult deals).

It's also harder to measure the positive financial effects of smart engineering. If somebody saves a million dollars worth of hardware through some clever optimization, that's easy to calculate; if they reduce the time it takes to display a photo by 10%, that's important, but harder to calculate.
http://highdeas.com/
Interesting article. I wish it would have addressed the go-to stat of the pro-Olympics crowd here in Chicago, namely that no Summer Olympics has lost money since '84.
I'm starting to feel like I won't make what I want, until I'm paying myself. If the owner of the company paid you 100% of the value (which is hard to measure) then he wouldn't have a interest in hiring you... (nothing left for him)
Having a captive audience is always nice, but I can see some privacy issues with this one :)

Also, it would require a lot of people working in concert to make this work, which suggests that if there is such a market right now it is organized by people with a lot of pull.
Handily, by two girls nonetheless! :)

They have very, very good cupcakes.
Most software patents I have seen patent the result, not the means to reach that result.

A normal patent is for a specific way to reach a result. I can patent my specific "illumination device" (light bulb), but I can't patent "illumination of a space" (lighting a room).

To bring up a well known softare example, Amazon has a patent on one-click shopping. There is no way to create another way to let customers buy things with a single click without infringing that patent, because the patent is for the result (order & payment of goods with one human-computer interaction) not the way it's implemented.
I want to be left alone full-stop - but if the upthread idea was implemented right, that would help the situation, because you could seat people who don't want to talk next to each other, thus preventing the mismatch of a talker next to a non-talker.
Understandable. I'm still working on getting enough content in the learn and plan sections to make it truly valuable without network effect from the connect section (which is a social network/forum combo).
Yup. But it has too strong an emphasis on shopping, listing prices, etc, and lacks a clean hierarchy. Too many duplicates, and not enough reviews, e.g.
http://www.epinions.com/search/?submitted_form=searchbar&...

I'd love something with a Yelp-esque interface that allows me to search for any product, whether grocery item or gadget, or whatever. e.g. "I wonder what people think of the Blueberry Stonybrook yoghurt?".

Previously it wouldn't be that compelling, but with mobile computing being what it is now, it could be very helpful.
I think part of the problem is that he was attempting to find sublets to fulfill his space needs. This is a pain because each period of stay has to be negotiated, which is time consuming... especially when you are moving around a lot.

What you really need to make this work is a provider of living spaces with set prices and set contracts for set durations. Think extended-stay hotels crossed with a fast food joint. You can walk into any McDonalds in the US and know what will be on the menu, and for roughly what price. Likewise, you need a place that you can walk into with various room options and set prices/terms. I guess you could call them franchise apartment complexes.

Well obviously the closest thing to what I'm describing is a hotel. The problem with hotels is that they are too expensive, and (often) don't offer kitchens or offices.

I'm going to pick $1500 for a reasonable Big City rent amount, which works out to $50 a night. Throw in furniture rental and a maid, and it's probably more like $70 a night. So really, if you could rent a studio apartment as if it were a hotel room for $70 a night, you'd be breaking even but gaining all that flexibility.

Of course, in most places rent is much cheaper, so in Kansas City, for instance, the place would need to be more like $30 a night to make sense.

I wonder if it's economically possible to offer various apartment size places on a per-night basis at those prices. Does the hotel industry just rampantly overcharge, or is this an economic pipe dream?

If you did away with daily maid service (only have maids clean between guests), and things like complimentary laundry service, maybe it would be feasible. Thoughts?

Of course, there are other issues, like carting around your wardrobe. Maybe we can have franchise closet/changing rooms too. It'd be like a PO Box for your clothes.
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http://www.redbeacon.com/ ?
Agree Re the pop-up chat. I disabled JS, so I could read the article in peace. (and then wondered why I couldn't vote when I got back to HN!)
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Kinoma announced that its flagship product, Kinoma Play, is now available for Nokia S60, the world’s dominant smartphone platform.
Scientists Dr Catherine Douglas and Dr Peter Rowlinson have won the Ig Nobel Prize for Veterinary Medicine for their work looking at reducing stress levels in dairy cattle.... can increase a farmer’s annual milk yield by almost 500 pints.

Let me get this straight, this is hard scientific proof that more humane treatment of farm animals leads to higher yields? I don't think this is Ig Nobel worthy. I've seen much worse.

I think Ig Nobel is great and all, god knows a lot of research is far removed from practical applications. And given how important having a publication history is, we need something like this to keep pointing out when things get ridiculous. But I don't think this is all that ridiculous.

Plus besides the Ig Nobel, there's literally EVERY other media outlet, print, radio, TV AND Internet that's either making fun of science, criticizing it or completely and totally over hyping it which then leads to disappointment and suspicion. In short, it's all damaging.

And then frequently it gets to politics, and then we're fucked, when politics mixes with science, science always loses.

I am reminded of Palin and her mockery of fruit fly research. Apologies for bringing up politics on HN, but that really got under my skin. Thank god, someone quickly connected that research to autism. That should be like the 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon game, how quickly can you connect scientific research being criticized by a politician to something that might benefit that same politician or the things he/she supports.

Anyway, long rant to say, this isn't really Ig Nobel worthy.
The real meat: http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.6.3/NEWS.txt
Knight News Challenge applicant PaperNews could make Web news design suck less
I think the author missed a big potential market in which an Apple tablet could be very competitive. In between smartphones and netbooks there are e-readers that don't quite hit the mark. Sony and Amazon have their entries, but an Apple tablet with multitouch could blow them both away. We've heard the rumors of deals with texbook publishers, which if true would offer plenty of "look at me" opportunities on college and grad school campuses everywhere.
Awesome post - very helpful.
Rather, cloud hosting is a commodity.

There is much less qualitative differentiation than there is in accommodation.
Using your mother's maiden name as a secret should have died out a long time ago. Public geneaology is an argument against it, not the other way 'round.
Which is why most engineers are not CEO material. A CEO is someone who wants to provide vision, direction and leadership to a company long after the FU money is in the bank.
Financial market affects today's economy a lot. There's a great demand for assumptions and forecast involved in financial services. However the reliability of today's forecast and analysis methods leaves a lot to be desired. This situation is the cause of the current crisis.
I can't agree with you for one simple reason: I have never seen a file that exclusively uses tabs for indentation. There are always a few spaces accidentally thrown into the mix, and therefore, as you mentioned, the user has to know the tabwidth. Doesn't forcing the user to use your tabwidth defeat the whole purpose of using tabs?
You guys know that in Europe this is common? It's called a "bank transfer" and it is trivial to do, just need people's bank account and routing number and yes, people do hand it out. Many (most? all?) bank websites support it.

We have newly-arrived Europeans working at our US office that cannot believe people still write cheques here.

[Edit since there has been some curiosity: here is who underwrites the scheme in the UK: http://www.bacs.co.uk/ - as you can see it's not-for-profit unlike PayPal. US companies that trade in the UK (like ebay.co.uk of course accept payments in this way . eg see http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Payment-by-Direct-Bank-Transfer_W0...]
Thanks! Lots of interesting stuff there.
I think if you studied it, you'd find that most people who start out with a lot of money, end up with less, not more. The smart poor are hungrier and more willing to take risks.

And that's what really hit home for me: when he made the comment that risk counted more than hard work. I work for a company whose stock was severely depressed last spring. I know our fundamentals are good, we're a leader in a growing, relatively recession-resistant industry and that the stock would probably bounce back in a year. So I considered buying a $10k block of it when it dropped below half normal price, but chickened out when I realized that I couldn't afford to lose $10k or so if I was wrong. What happened? Exactly what I guessed: the stock is now back to to its high 60's-low 70's level and I would have made an easy $10,000 had I made the investment a year ago.

Reminds me how bourgeois I've become :-( Losing my stomach for risk!!