skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm curious whether you're planning to have Goalbot automatically learn from the collective successes of your users (example "people who skipped this step were twice as likely to fail at goal X"). Surely some goals are going to be personal, but I could imagine a lot of interesting insights arising from studying the paths of those who were successful.
The main point to argue here is that in this case the patents do not protect an invention they protect a "reasoning process", a concept (or several). In mathematics once you know and understand the solution, even for the most complicated problem, the solution becomes obvious. (The same happens with any cognitive process.)

If for example one of the days I teach my students the mathematics behind MPEG and if I am a good teacher, then the very next moment the MPEG algorithm is obvious to them.

On the other hand the implementation of an algorithm can be complex and laborious and it is worth being protected, but this is done by copyright. (Nobody should be allowed to copy-paste code unless the author permits it.)

But I must admit that I somehow understand your point here. Let's say that someone discovers such a smart concept that is worth being awarded with a temporary monopoly, even if we protect a cognitive process. But in this case he already has the monopoly! The only thing he has to do is not to disclose the idea to others. (The algorithm is a trade secret in this case.) Eventually the secrete will be revealed, maybe by reverse engineering, but the company in discussion already has profited on its temporary monopoly. (This is natural protection for software if I can say that. Not the same case for a device invented in 18th, at that time all you had to do was to open its box and copy the mechanism inside it. Here patents are fully justified.)

Trying to find out what is the exact patent protection period I have found what Jim Warren said on "Public Hearing on Use of the Patent System to Protect Software Related Inventions" Wednesday, January 26, 1994 San Jose Convention Center, and this is exactly my point:

"(6) Reduce the protection period.
Issue a finding that 17-year software protection patents are
clearly unreasonable where, in an industry where significant
innovation can often be created in months, most innovation
has minimal costs relative to traditional inventions,
manufacturing and distribution is trivial, products can be
shipped within weeks of being finalized, great profits can be
attained in less than a year, the life of a product typically is
only a few years, and all of the growth of the industry, from
inception to Diamond vs. Diehr in 1981, was barely three
times the 17-year monopoly period.
Shorten the one-time protection period to no more than,
say, two years. Sui generis is justified."

To conclude my long post, sorry for that :), I must say we are developing products that make use of audio/video compression techniques and I needed to develop and implement several such algorithms and I can say for sure that software patents were not at all helpful for me, on the contrary, they only gave us head aches.
While this sounds like good news to me, as a current fan of NPR, what exactly does hyper-local mean and how is it different from just local? Usually these stations cover metropolitan areas, so how local can you get?
Obama under fire for taking Chicago’s Olympic bid trip
In short: If you are successful, you are remarkable!!!

and I agree with vaksel completely: it sounds like a slave driven environment.
Absolutely, the site needs a lot more content before it's particularly useful. Those are all great goals, I'll definitely be doing some research and developing content in those areas.

I have a lot of thoughts on where the site is going, and how public profiles will work, but I hadn't particularly thought about the "famous how-tos" angle. Thats really interesting, I'll add it into the brainstorm soup!!

Thanks!
To build a website that asks other people what their best startup ideas are so I can use their ideas as my own. I think I'll call it no-nda.com
Maybe, maybe not, but with respect to the posted article which is clearly referencing § 512(c), the DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

We're talking about takedown procedures, not DRM.
a laptop with a monitor that can expand and contract allowing for greater viewing space.

And not the crappy dual screen mock up they have now that looks like it was invented in the 90s.
Interview Question: How to check multi-threaded applications?
All,

I was asked this by one of my friends.

In my experience, multi-threaded apps are usually built with a premise of fire & forget (process incoming orders & dump to database), or drivers. (In Windows kernel, Windows passes requests to registered callbacks, so all instances of the callback will use the same synchronization object (if needed), so race conditions do not arise.)

The other general answer is to use formal methods. For example, Windows provides StaticDV to check your driver for race conditions.

I am still unsure if the answer is complete. Thoughts?
I wonder if the same people opposing the Olympics would oppose, say, an economically dubious high-speed rail line?
This is basically what happened at Google except that they had the sense to reprice the striking price of the options to make them meaningful again.
Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property are not natural rights. They are artificial. Even Thomas Jefferson, who fought pretty darn hard for natural rights, knew that IP was different. http://www.tostepharmd.net/soapbox/ideas.html
No kidding.

A much, much more simple way to put it is
anything *args is a list, anything **kwargs is
a dictionary.

The * simply means list (set).
** simply means dictionary (name/value pairs)

* and ** has a much different meaning in other
languages as parameters.

* args is very similar to ... in other languages
that let you send n arguments.
Yes, the plan and track sections of Goalbot are based around 'learning' which subgoals are most effective in reaching the parent goal. This was actually part of the original inspiration behind the idea.

Also, I agree that there will be some personal goals added. At the moment we're getting around the public/personal issue by making goals public once a certain threshold of people have typed it in manually. This way no private goals will ever be made public (though as the site develops I'll likely have to make it a bit smarter).
The nerd angle seemed a bit forced.
Are there any Facebook employees/ex-employees here on HN? I've often wondered how many PHP developers they have on staff and how they manage deploying/integrating stuff in PHP for production.
I really don't see how drastic changes are outside of Google's ability. Google (and Yahoo) can both bucket-test drastic interface changes to 1% or 0.01% of their audience, effectively simulating a small startup doing the same thing.

(Related: post-search deal with Bing, experimenting with user interface in this way is Yahoo's explicit strategy for competing in search.)
What about some sort of design feature that led to the cars being able to stack and support each other, preferably with out external equipment. I think if you could fit 4 cars in a standard parking spot (side by side + vertical), you'd have a compelling offering.for urban environments
There are two ways to take a risk:

1) Bet on something unlikely and get lucky

2) Have an advantage over others so that your chance of success is higher than the average chance of success.

#2 is pg's approach to startups - starting a company is "risky", but starting a company if you're determined, smart, and connected to a system that turns entrepreneurs into companies isn't risky at all, with a ~50%+ success rate.

On a sinister note, insider trading falls into this category too - the market isn't a random walk if you know information that will move it, and your information gives you an advantage over the average investor.
Ok, I'll go out on a limb and say no we don't. If you followup to the authors blog, he states:

"At its core the theory relies on practices. Now there are good and bad practice concepts. The idea of practices has been around for fifty years, but these practices are loosely defined. We need a practice concept that is more precise."

That doesn't seem to really drive home the need for a theory of software engineering to me.

What we need is a better definition of what the craft of software requires (the practice of writing software) - not a theory of software engineering. Then we need to think about how we encapsulate those basics of software craftmanship in a way that we can communicate to each other and apprentice newbies into. There's still no silver bullet for managing software development.

I recognize that in some ways, the author is pointing out that we tend to drop everything and reinvent the wheel every few years. But that's how the consultants make their money, right? Isn't incumbent on us (practitioners) to call BS when we see it? If the point of having a theory of software engineering is to stop the rush from one process to another, that's not going to stop the snake-oil salesmen. They'll just move on and talk about how the "theory" doesn't measure how much better the new process is because it is such a radical new process.

I'm also curious about the number of successful software deliverables that are due to the software engineering process followed by the team that created the software. Anybody here feel like the most successful project you worked on was due to the specific software engineering process that was used?
Funny you should mention that. One of my beta testers was particularly hung up on the word "subgoal". She thought it sounded too technical, but so far everyone else has thought it was okay.

There are some other wording changes I'm contemplating, so I'll have to give this one some further thought as well.

Thanks
I'm still frustrated by how far behind we (North Americans) are in terms of payments. What ever happened to using debit cards online? I find promise in email money transfers. But it's still a closed circle. Canadian banks only allow it among Canadian banks.
(not the best one, but just some thought)

a website that allow FOSS community to pay up developers based on community request. basic goal : to speed up FOSS development.

i.e: let just say that user A want to donate $100 to pay any developer to create a 3D driver for X card. Later, user B want it to and increase the pot $150, and so on, and so on. At some time, some developers take a request and developing it, publish it and take the money. As a profit, 5% of the pot will be taken by the website.

So this website basically functioned as a mediator between FOSS user and FOSS developer.
My answer: Software patents are invalid as much as hardware patents is invalid. They should be abolished.

From what I have read and learn so far, the patent system and copyright system are redundant. The free market already rewarded risk-takers in the form of first-mover advantage, among other things.

I could summarize you what I learned about the history of innovation.(The early American book publishing industry and their relationship with British authors, James Watt's true contribution to steam technology, the fashion industry, etc). But I think it is better for me to point you a book that have all of that and explain it better than I can.

http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...
I once heard Enron used a similar strategy, although I can't recall the source. They would annually cut their most "unproductive" employees. It turned out that those who remained knew how to work the system and to win at any cost. Hopefully Facebook will fare better.
What is EPUB?
I have met many smart poor people.
I have met many dumb rich people.
I've never met someone with business savvy who was poor (for long).

As near as I can tell, capitalism doesn't reward the smart at all. But it rewards those with business savvy. Maybe some people call that intelligence. I don't. It's more an ability to shrewdly calculate just how much you can take advantage of other people and get away with.
This is exactly why I will never go into business with a non-technical person. This site is exactly what I think of when I think "business person".
There's Aptera, I guess:
http://www.aptera.com/

MIT did a neat concept car which could be stacked together for compact parking as well.
I attended a presentation by him I think two years ago at Startup Camp. I was rather unimpressed. He arrived and confessed he really hadn't given it much though, he hadn't prepared at all, and so launched into 45 minutes of rambling. Basically all his advice could be summed with, "Just do what I did."

Obviously, the company has come a long way since then, and I doubt someone as smart as him wouldn't have learned a lot during that time.

I hope that sometime soon I can see him again so I can change my impression.
How much is "a majority" of your users? You've got to figure out whether it's a power user feature that's not relevant to everyone, or something that people either don't need or don't understand.
Are you saying that being business savvy always requires taking advantage of other people?
What about something straight out of Snow Crash? Take one of those storage space rental places, and rent out something like that on a daily basis. You might have to do some work on getting things like plumbing,etc in there, but it would be cheap space that could be rented quickly and for variable amounts of time.

Of course, it would be relatively low-quality... but in Snow Crash he wasn't living in a 'high-class' neighborhood.
This is seriously a fantastic idea. Could really focus development on a number of fronts.
I've slowed the popup dialogs down a bit, but I might need to rethink how it works based on the feedback here.

Thank you for taking the time to check it out.
I posted a quite similar idea (though mine had some charity donation aspects too it) here some time ago and the final consensus was that in an ideal world it would be great.

But in actually fact it wouldn't get much by the way of serious pledges and it probably is more off putting for the developers.

(I still think it is a good idea though; and sorry cant find a link to the old thread)

EDIT: found it, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=682450

Actually my idea was more different than I remember :P (sorry). Your is a better approach to the problem.
It depends on whose morale. I would love to work at a place that made an effort to place only brilliant people around me and that didn't tolerate less. Netflix works in the same way.
And this would be better than checking the dishes themselves?
In all the commentary so far (e.g. on Chicago's WBEZ public radio, playing in the background), I haven't heard a single mention of the hassle it has become for many people to visit the U.S. I've seen this point made many places, including in comments on this site, particularly a year or two ago. I've heard it from friends and acquaintances.

I don't know whether it would have influenced the decision at all -- my ill-informed impression is that many of those decision makers don't travel in such a "plebian" manner. But I've been wondering. Given what I've heard, if I were a non-U.S. representative casting my vote, I'd take it into consideration.

Overall, but again without having paid particular attention, the Rio decision makes sense to me. South America has not seen much of the Games. Brazil is an up and coming power. Much of the world is weary of the excesses of U.S. hegemony (the excesses, as opposed to the entire role of the U.S.), even if it did in general take some heart in Obama's election.

Perhaps, also, this is a leading indicator of a decline in the need to kiss the U.S.'s posterior.
Okay, we won't. Oh, wait, were you referring to the article?
maybe they'll add hyperlocal stuff to their already amazing iphone app ?
He dismisses hard work because it exists at all income levels, yet intelligence also exists at all income levels and he considers it the dominant factor. He needs to demonstrate that intelligence is more correlated to present wealth than work ethic is.

He also dismisses risk taking as only being useful in combination with intelligence. Can he provide an example of an intelligent person who became rich in the absence of risk taking, hard work, and luck?

Wealth being equivalent to intelligence must be a very flattering idea if you are rich, but I have observed many smart and hard working people who do not become rich.
It's not so hypothetical. It's more the typical response of a programmer when formal methods come up. But I meant it as an observation of typical reactions, not as a hypothetical debate.
No, a true theorist would say we need theory or theories, not a theory.
Something like this exists already... http://micropledge.com/
A majority of our users is in fact all of our users except us. We have less than 50 active users for the moment (it's still a beta).
Google can easily copy it, but a feature I'd like is a more convenient way to search within sites. The idea is expressed better in a picture : http://imgur.com/jRj89.png
Studying a study
Smart or Tango might cover you pretty well there.
Slave labor can accomplish some amazing things. Almost every ancient wonder was created by slaves, and they stand out as colossal (pun intended) compared to other structures of the time.

Some people are slaves by force, others by addiction, others by ambition. Some people thrive under that sort of pressure, others break down. I'm not sure where I'd stand.

Also, there does tend to be a huge survivor bias in talking about startups. I suppose it's much easier to talk about the few successes than the many many failures.
Unfortunately, the company set up to sell this product: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_(automobile) has gone bust, although the engineering firm soldiers on. Video needs to be seen to be believed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPOkeJCiw9A&feature=relat... BMW have a similar concept called the 'Clever'.
Mark has a reputation for superb arrogance. Have you read the leaked emails he sent to the ConnectU people? They basically read, "It doesn't matter what you wanted, I have a better idea than you, and I won't waste my time trying to make you feel good about yourself."

I actually recently interviewed a bestselling author in the middle of promoting his new movie, and he acted the same way. Perhaps I'm in the minority of people who really enjoy people like that. It takes courage to call somebody out on their shit, and when you do it makes life more pleasant for everybody else involved.

However, as was said above: How do you know he wasn't rolling his eyes at what somebody said, and just happened to be looking around at the same time?
Suppose you meet someone who is poor. How do you tell whether they have "business savvy", and how do you avoid your judgement of that being affected by the fact that you know they're poor?
Yeah, but even some random ad-hoc curve from geology for packing of sediments does better with empiricism than lots of Software Engineering. Heck, I bet some carpenters have more effective metrics than many programming groups do.
Did you read the article? It mentions how many different things he's tried and how much he's been criticized for his many failings.

He's remarkable because he was willing to change his company and himself again and again till it worked.
"""Zuckerberg insisted the goal was easily attainable. He took regular breaks throughout the day to do 10-15 pushups, even if he was in the middle of a meeting with visitors. He completed the 5,000."""

5000 push-ups, one week = 715/day assuming 7 day week. That means 48 breaks per day of 15 push-ups. So assuming 12 hour days, 4 breaks per hour.

So every 15 minutes he did 15 push-ups for a week?
Ask HN: Rent-to-own idea practical?
I’ve had this idea about a rent-to-own program that would let you change your place of residence while keeping your lease intact, in effect gradually building up your equity in a home. What are the holes in such a business model?
What's wrong with the site: restrict?

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+d...
The Most Famous Internet List
Something like the robotic vacum cleaner (I think it was called "Roomba" ??) except instead of vaccuming, it will steam clean. Also, instead of doing it all day willy-nilly, it will only activate when it senses your poorly-trained or bad dog soils the carpet when you are at work.

Diapers on a dog just dont seem right...
it is nothing like a "slave driver" environment. People are extremely smart and focused on building cool things fast - top to bottom.
So your take is just that things change so fast, it creates chaos.
Society of the mind was one of the best books I read when i read some years ago!
Nobody but power users understand this feature, and it is not convenient. Is your mother using site: restrict ?
I don't see any inconsistency between what you've said and the idea that having more money makes it easier to get more money.

If you start with $10M then, sure, you may well end up with less than that, especially if you aggressively try to turn it into much more. On the other hand, you're also much much more likely to turn it into $100M in ten years or so than someone who starts with $1M -- who, in turn, is much much more likely to be able to turn that into $100M than someone who starts with $100k.

If you're claiming that someone who starts with $10M is likely to end up with less than someone who starts with $1M then, sorry, I don't believe you. (But feel free to convince me otherwise.)
That many contracts don't allow you to do that ?

For instance, I have a house on the market right now waiting for it to sell (tough luck!), but I'm not allowed to let it to someone else because of contractual provisions by the bank that holds a partial mortgage.
I agree. But if the guy next to you, working the same stuff as you, is paper worth 5mill more just b.c he started there 6 months earlier than you, then the equation changes.
I've been working on it in my spare time for the last couple of weeks.

The code is there, Im just not sharing it with you yet :D (some cleaning up to do and a bit of fine tuning)
Competition.

I believe in English this business model is called "mortgage"
I have found that people who think the idea is worth half the company are usually so irrational that they make really bad decisions about their contributions to the firm later on.

Companies like this can't thrive if the scales are not balanced in terms of ownership, labor, and results. Animosity and resentment brew and people get selfish and defensive and it all breaks down.

It appears that is what has happened in the fundable case. Perhaps the programmer did not feel like the business guy was pulling his weight. Maybe for him, the upside of working all the time and fixing all the bugs in the code and making the site reliable weren't worth whatever he was getting from the deal. Maybe he wanted the business guy to spend some money on more programmers or maybe the solution was more reliable infrastructure and it wasn't something the programmer could fix with more code.

Who knows. I just know that from the tone, it isn't good and lots of users of fundable are left in the dark now. Sad.
This goal is definitely attainable; it depends on your fitness level.

I would have no problem doing 100 pushups every hour 8 times a day.
Google? Honestly, I just took what I assumed was going to be a plunge back into Python for web development (preferred lang is Ruby). I opted to relearn Python because Google has a visible preference for it. After a 24 hour refresher (reading Guido's documentation), I am pleasantly surprised. Who knew Python actually has some strong things going for it? ;)
I think if you could programmatically allow one pop up at a time, it would make a huge improvement.