skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> the fiction around transacting temporary real-estate is just too high

Er, should that be "friction"?

Also, the right-click functionality on that site is infuriating.
We have plenty of theories of Software Engineering. The problem is that there are impediments to empirical verification of these theories. There are other impediments to replicating the results.

Hang those impediments on any discipline, and you transform it from a technical field to mumbo-jumbo. Basically, the problem has to do with flows of information.

Free/Open Source helps, as it facilitates the flow of information. However, it's not a complete solution.
... a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor... and would have different conclusions written on it that you could jump to.
It's also covered in the official Python tutorial.
exec /usr/local/plan9/bin/rc
I thought that was a very interesting experiment, but I thought of it more of a proof of concept rather than a "I wish this could work for everyone".

The thing that will ultimately make something like this impractical is the emotional attachment to the places that we live. It's likely the same reason that you wouldn't want to live in hotels year round... at least not for your whole life (if you're a contractor you might have some experience with this). People, unlike data, like to decorate, have things set up a certain way, and have a place they call home.

While it's interesting to imagine a world where people only used what they needed when they needed it, we can see some of that today. That's why people will rent a pickup truck for a day while they're moving, or pay to go to a public pool. They don't need to own a pool or a truck year-round, just for a bit of time, which is a little like utilizing server resources.

The part about living in a nice hotel for a day, however, was a good example of something we don't see very often. I guess we really don't have a real-world version of excessive "server load spikes" where you want to live somewhere REALLY nice for a day or two, but analogies can only go so far
The gold box/pepsi/coke/cola/jolt/id/idst/soda languages are indeed interesting, but from the outside of VPRI it isn't easy to figure out what they do. Listening to Alan Kay try to summarize it in a few minutes (http://irbseminars.intel-research.net/) makes it sound like even he doesn't understand it very well.

Piumarta seems to be a very sharp guy, but it's strange that a software project that is supposed to radically simplify the software stack still doesn't appear to have a working prototype of a complete two-kernel (pepsi+coke) system, almost five years after the albert paper (http://piumarta.com/papers/albert.pdf) that sketched out the basics was written. Kay keeps talking about how cool it is, and Piumarta has given at least one talk about how cool it is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn7kTPbW6QQ), but as far as I can tell it doesn't even exist yet. There are working pieces (which are each tens of thousands of lines of code), but from the outside there doesn't appear to be a working pepsi+coke system yet, let alone iterations on it. The VPRI progress reports don't even mention it.

VPRI seems all over the place, and Kay is talking about objects with AI-complete interfaces now. The mailing list is dead, and the wiki is pretty much dead. There's more information on Piumarta's personal website than anywhere else. I know it's supposed to be blue sky research, but it still seems weird.

My impression of the whole thing is that "complete" reflection/self-description is not a good foundation for minimalistic systems.
Yes. This is yet another post against static typing, that does not compare against the best languages the static typing world has to offer. Let's compare with a type-inferencing Hindley-Milner-based language.
"None of those features are included in IBM's package.

Even so, IBM believes its service, called LotusLive iNotes, can beat Google because it has a much larger sales force and relationships with corporate customers going back long before Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were even born in 1973."

I give up.
I could certainly understand the justification for removing individual torrents, maybe even the broad category of pornography, but why the front page?
how about elance for students only. Like facebook used to do requiring a .edu email address
What Google Can't Copy (Easily)
Chicago Loses, Nerds Win: The real story behind Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid
Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO
Hey HN. I wrote this for Slate today and wanted to share it with you as it breaks down the conflict in Chicago over their own Olympic bid, good-government geeks on one side, pro-tourism jocks on the other.
p.s.: rio won the bid for 2016.
how is this different from using aliases?
Ask HN: "Gmail" x "Highrise" x "MailChimp" ?
Out of curiosity, is there any SaaS service that effectively combines hosted email (with IMAP, BlackBerry support and such), contact management (so all users can participate in discussions with customers and vendors — very much like 37S's Highrise but without this necessity to Bcc/forward) and someemail tracking features MailChimp/Campaign Monitor employ — such as which emails were opened, when, which links were clicked and so on?
Yeah, when I saw the subject line I thought the article was going to be about vasopressin/desmopressin. Not only does it improve memory retention, you don't keep having to take bathroom breaks during lectures.

Seriously, though, it's probably not a good idea to throw diuretic hormones out of balance unless you really know what you're doing.
It is not exactly the same transformation as you said. Information and matter are for practical purposes fundamentally different. You can't just copy a device a million times over with near-zero cost, and you also can't change mechanical devices with the same facility that you can change bits.

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.

Also, patents are not made in specific lines of code - patents would be a smaller problems if they did. They do patent abstract ideas.

To put simply, the main difference is that (besides the fact that most software patents are bogus) since software is pretty much a set of ideas and nothing else (as opposed to hardware where you have a few ideas and a lot of work worrying with beauty, physical constraints, durability, etc) a good team of programmers will have a few hundred good ideas in the course of writing any non-trivial piece of software - which means that patents can kill free software (since it is unlikely that people working for free would want to license software patents), and also make commercial software projects impossible (even if you have the money, having to license patents from 100 different companies would surely be discouraging - specially for a small company).
You might be replying as if I'm disagreeing. If so, please re-read ancestor posts with the other spin.

In short: most of the objections people have to formal verification also apply to modeling something in software to begin with.
Yes, pain is strongly linked to memory, which is why makes such an effective teaching a disciplinary aid. However, it is contextual and sniffing pepper spray might make you remember the wrong thing. ;)
walmart style inventory management / analytics for mom n pop size stores
The number of upvotes such a content-lite article gets on HN is interesting, and maybe an indicator of a changing demographic here.

What's next? a few pages on Ruby's method_missing? :-)
Working on Email Analytics right now.
This works for me:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sum+1%2F+%28n+*+pi%2...
Cost of Testing
Perhaps an opportunity for Bing to make inroads?
Hackable Investing (Hackable Business Development Continued)
When you read this, keep in mind I work at Airbnb :)

I think this failed because it was so contrived. Here is a more realistic and reproducible example of how my girlfriend is living variably in NYC. She currently has a lease in Brooklyn for about $900 / month but doesn't need to be there all the time. This weekend she will be house-sitting in NJ, next week she is visiting me in SF for a week, and in December she plans to stay with her parents for the holidays.

To continue to have occasional access to her apartment, not screw over her roommates, and make this lifestyle remotely possible, she listed her place on Airbnb.com. She so far has booked about $700 that will go towards October rent. When she needs to be in Brooklyn, she simply marks her dates as unavailable. Her place is still open for December, but has enough interest that she'll be fine.

Using Airbnb absolutely reduces the friction for these short term stays. If a listing is dishonest, we'll drop it like it's hot. If your host bails on you, we'll find you a new place to stay. SO, sam lessin - Despite having a new lease, don't give up on variable cost living! -Chris
Unsolicited dating site. That is a hell of interesting idea.
A bit of both. The reinvention is partly very similar to business books, each of them saying the same things, but with a different spin... and not mentioning the others nor their similarities. For software, the rapid creative destructionism of hardware - disruptive innovations - creates opportunities for the next methodology to get a foothold.

On the other hand, just as different branches of engineering (chemical, mechanical, civil etc - and their sub-branches) need different methodologies because the issues are different, a disruptive innovation in effect often creates a new branch of engineering, that changes the issues, so that, a different methodology really is appropriate. My thesis would be more compelling if I could think of some examples.

But here's an observation: if methodology really mattered, wouldn't the firms that followed one of them triumph over everyone else? But that doesn't seem to happen. It's not because methodology is unimportant, but that it is unimportant relative to marketing and technical innovation. In "real" engineering, most of that has settled down as they mature, and methodology rises in relative importance. [Just my thoughts]

EDIT I think the above count as some of the impediments mentioned by stcredzero.
A social network for people who fly on airplanes regularly that helps people book seats next to each other so that they can enjoy a nice conversation rather than sitting in silence for the duration of the flight.
You do the same thing with Apache-Verisign as an example ships all their certs requiring an intermediate certificate. I run into a lot of websites in Firefox and Safari that cause SSL errors because they're not passing along the proper intermediate cert.
This wouldn't help the issue with having 4 different video connectors, but to Apple's credit, they are standardizing on Mini Displayport.

Part of this issue exists because Apple keeps "standardizing" on new (display) technologies. This is good, because it helps drive the industry forward, otherwise we'd still be stuck with VGA, but it's not really standardizing when the next product cycle, like every 18 to 24 months, there is a new standard they adopt across all products.
I have these functions in my .bashrc

addpi()
{
echo "cd `pwd` $1" >> ~/.pi;
echo
}

pi()
{
`cat ~/.pi | grep $1`;
}

Usage: when you are in a dir that you want to bookmark say
addpi <name>

when you want to return to that dir from anywhere say
pi <name>

Ofcourse you need some kind of resolution if you have 2 matches in the grep, but it works for me.
A question about video over bluetooth.
Im looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Bluetooth_2.0 and see that it can do ~2.1Mb/s

and H.264 can do 352×288@30.0 at 960kb/s for level 1.3 of HiP video.

Would it be possible to stream video of this quality smoothly to a bluetooth watch/screen.

and leave enough of the channel open for input from the watch?

In short, why aren't we streaming video over bluetooth?
Yelp for products. I use Amazon in this way now.
Were it not for prior art, I'm sure the design for a bridge could be patented. And then someone would invent a truss bridge, a covered bridge, an arch bridge, a cable stayed bridge, etc. each getting a patent because each improves on the state of the art. You can patent just about any physical implement. The reason "obvious" stuff (physical equivalents of OneClick) are not patentable is due to prior art dating back to the stone age. Now computers have opened up a land rush on pure mathematics, which used to not be patentable but now is through clever wording. IMO this needs to be resolved by legislation (whichever way you come down on the debate.) The existing patent framework is just not designed for it. So bringing it up before the supreme court is a good step forward.
Add fins to catch the wind on the sides of airplane wheels so that the wheels automatically begin to spin on landing approaches. This should help by reducing the amount of rubber that is lost on landing and increase the useful lifespan of airplane tires.
What if we made a site where ideas could be posted, along with the likely resources required (programmers, marketers etc.) and interested parties could sign on to them. An idea which garnered a full group could spin off into a project/company. The site wouldn't make money but would be valuable for the participants, and would be fitting as a derivative of YC, which finds companies from the very beginning.
Some of the comments make me remind of an Isaiah Berlin’s best known essay in which he distinguishes between two archetypes: the hedgehog and the fox.

“The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows but one.”

To paraphrase him in his 1953 essay— The Hedgehog and the Fox:

"There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'…[T]aken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel — a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance — and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle…The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes."

The fox is the generalist, who moves from domain to domain with ease and agility,examining large surface areas, covering wide spaces; the hedgehog is the specialist, who slowly and meticulously delves deeply into the nature of a single domain, uncovering secrets that lie beneath."

So who would you want to be?
A Hedgehog, who have a single big idea or explanation, or a Fox, which looks for a lot of intersecting causes?
> voted up simply to voice my love for Vim.

Please do not do this. It leads to really banal "vote up if you like _ too" posts on the front page.

I think a lot of people find vi unpleasant because it so unapologetically makes the trade-off of having dozens of (composable) single-character commands you have to memorize upfront, rather than a more conventional interface whose advanced features you can gradually learn. You can't really get an accurate impression of vi's strengths until you've already committed to memorizing a lot of commands - the terseness itself is a major feature in the long run. (Emacs is similar in this regard, but with very different trade-offs.)

For most programs, this trade-off is probably hard to justify, but for something that one spends a lot of time working with directly (such as a structurally-aware text editor, photoshop, autocad, etc.) it's probably reasonable.
Jim Collins says: "The fox is complex; the hedgehog simple. And the hedgehog wins."
we don't have vacations?
A hyper-local politics application.

Allow users to give feedback on every representative, bill, or amendment that affects them from their specific city, county, and state.
Social insurance-- similar to Lending Club, but for insurance.
Latin Becomes a Living Language on Facebook
Indeed! Never exercise options without a full understanding of preferred vs common stock, and what sort of preferences the founders and investors have. Naive founders may end up signing deals with ridiculous liquidation terms.

Also beware offers of significant amounts of stock in exchange for sticking around for an acquisition. The investors likely know the company won't reach its liquidation preference and thus whatever shares they give you are actually worthless.
Submitted just for the idea that a dead language could come back into use, perhaps even evolve, based on a niche community coming together online.
IBM Launches iNotes, a Gmail Competitor for Business
It depends on your priorities. Many U.S. families move long distances every few years, and many young single people move significantly more often than that. Certain jobs can require someone to move almost daily. Part of it is because people want to, and part of it is because the culture makes it easy by providing technology that enables it. My guess is that the future will probably trend towards even more flexibility in mobility, not less (especially in the U.S.), although there will always be many people who want to settle down.
Personally, I'm willing to take a fractional increase in a small chance of death for the convenience of my sister being able to call me to tell me her car broke down in another part of the city while I'm on the road. I realize some people use their phones for trivial matters while driving, but almost every phone call I give or take is brief and with a purpose (someone calling me on the way to an appointment to let me know they are not going to be there, for example).

I realize that there are two parties in the interaction, myself and the other drivers I may effect should I get into an accident. 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.
Reminds me a bit of this article:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/chiat_pr.html

(not because of the author's experience, but rather a pitfall I can see occurring)
It's not crash-prone in places like Singapore and Hong Kong where taxes are always low and government instrusion always kept to a minimum.
Buy from crucial, when you factor in their free shipping they are cheaper than most half decent brands. You might find some super-bargain RAM cheaper if you don't care about whats stored in it.

Crucial also have excellent service for returns or if the stuff doesn't fit.
Honestly? Would you actually go up to him and say "I don't like you" if you saw him, or are you just being an Internet Tough Guy?
um...those are called checks. the reason that paypal got big was because electronic checks and wiring money is riskier than an escrow.
haven't you heard of alt.language.latin?
I'm sorry . . .

But the comic in the right hand
column of that Slate Article is
awesome. That is SO Chicago.
A simple drag and drop web interface for creating rich web applications-- no programming skills necessary.
Also, maybe it's a placebo aimed at getting students to sleep well before an exam?
Like Xobni?
Along those lines I know there is a very lucrative black (maybe more gray) market in which people will pay big money to find out flight plans of important decision makers. People paid that money so they could try to buy a ticket in the seat next to said decision maker. You've then got X hours to work a pitch.

I know this happens to execs in pro sports a lot (people trying to get sponsorship, get the leagues using their products, etc) and I imagine it happens in other industries as well.

How you make a startup/product out of this I don't know but I thought it was an interesting tidbit to share.
remember epinions?
To manufacture single-seater cars for daily commute. Saves fuel, traffic conjunction, parking space, maintainence, etc.
I've been thinking about something like this for the last few months. I think the mobile element is a great idea, and a very nice ice breaker - "Hey there, I'm Trent415 and superdate.com said you and I have a lot in common." Plus, you could determine if there was a mutual friend close by to introduce you. I also think there needs to be a wed based version that isn't location based, but I do like the mobile idea a lot.

I think the problem with dating sites at the moment is that they make it easy to lie. If you've ever used Match.com, or something similar, the dates tend to end up poorly because one person who claimed to be into music listens to the radio on the way to work, while the other person who claims to be into music has a Masters from the Royal Academy of Music, has played in professional symphonies and spends eight hours a day practicing. Also, that is NOT and athletic build.

Now, if you monitoring their streams (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, whatever), you could determine what they liked, where they went and who they knew. I suspect this is way better way to form meaningful connections (it's how I found the love of my life). And if you're just looking for a random hookup there's always craigslist.

I've been looking for a co-founder for the Y Combintor summer 2010 session - http://ineedacofounder.wordpress.com - so if you're interested hit me back and maybe we could team up.
Actually there are some people already doing this sort of thing: http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~mburo/orts/AIIDE09/index.html
Spoken like a true theorist.
How would you make money?
K-means clustering in Python
Like Frontpage used to be?
90% of the problems that people seem to have it are with the real-time typing, but Google will have "draft" mode built before it's out of testing. I'm not sure it's fair to say that it's a dud because you can see while people type. If Google's smart, they'll make draft mode the default.
This seems related: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/how-to-keep-your-mouth-...

"No matter how right you are, if you care about effecting change, you should never open your mouth without some sense of who will agree with you and who won’t."
We got the following message from an Airbnb user two days ago:
"I absolutely love your service and am actually considering using it as my primary dwelling place (instead of paying rent, telecommuting as a Ruby developer and traveling around the world)... This month I've been using jetBlue's All-you-can-jet pass, and AirBnB, to write a song in 12 different cities..."
Why limit it to flights? You could create a whole new stalking service!

1. Aggregate location info and travel plans of key celebrities from Twitter

2. ???

3. Profit
Until enough people either flag it or submit other posts with more substance, yes.

In the mean time, maybe the discussion will justify its continued existence on the front page.
Mobile app where you snap pictures/video of issues around your community (graffiti, broken streetlights, potholes, etc.) and upload to a site. Users can search by geo and vote on the ones they want to see fixed first. Local government subscribes to a reporting engine/workflow service that allows them to slice data and work more closely with their citizens in improving their locality.
Sonam Kapoor covers Prevention magazine October 2009
Sonam Kapoor graces Prevention Magazine for the month of October 2009. In this issue of Prevention Magazine she revels her secrets of being slim. So do check out her in the October 2009 issue of this magazine.
How about a cupcake company that sells designer bite size cupcakes to people who need a sugar fix.