skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Do Facebook Pages need groups application?
I already have a groups application on Facebook (apps.facebook.com/groupsplus/) and thinking the ways I can make it addable to pages.

Maybe school/community pages may need groups for different graduation years/branches or artist pages would have higher engagement if their albums/movies... have their discussions, media files, walls... on separate groups.

What do you think?
Mobile Megatrends 2010 presentation (.pdf)
>Oddly, I share his concerns about HTML parsing, but I think he's wrong to not use an HTML parser and do everything by hand

It looks like he didn't really understand how BeautifulSoup (or for that matter, xpath) works. For example, he seems completely unaware of the '//node' syntax which would completely sidestep the issue of encoding structure in the code.
Typing services to Psychiatry clinics in Texas
This is shockingly widespread:

http://raisethehammer.org/article/868
Absolutely! I don't disagree with you at all in that regard. But I also feel that a lot of startups overvalue traffic, hoping they'll be the next Facebook or Google when in fact they're never able to scale to meaningful ad revenue and bankrupt themselves chasing the often misunderstood notion of freemium.
I'm just curious, were any HN readers actaully inspired a bit to move to Detroit? I am currently at work researching Detroit because of this article.
This reminds me of my hero of project management, Tom DeMarco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeMarco

His approach was that every task is either 100% complete or 0% complete.

No task is ever "80%" complete. If you really think that it is, then break it down into smaller tasks, 80% of which are 100% complete and 20% of which are 0% complete. This way it becomes much clearer what is complete and what remains to be done.

I have never allowed anyone to report anything as n% complete for values other than 0 or 100. As soon as someone does, that's a pretty good sign that they may be confusing motion with action.

Remember OP's discussion with Jim...

Me: Jim, how are we doing with getting Ansys ported?
Jim: Great, I have a bunch of calls into them.
Me: How are we doing on the Nastran port?
Jim: Wonderful, they said they’ll get back to me next month.
Me: How about Dyna 3D?
Jim: It’s going great, we’re on their list.

Now imagine how much different that conversation would be if each question started with, "Which tasks are complete and which tasks are incomplete?"
An LLVM backend for GHC: implementation and benchmarks: PDF
any chance of this running in IronPython?
Supply and demand is not the issue here. My point was about SEO/SEM in terms of "gaming" the system AND producing low quality content.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124173784714798437.html
[msn] thin and light
i would also make the "# views" text lighter. it is distracting when quickly scanning the left column for answer counts since it's the same size.
Rails is such a fast moving target that keeping totally updated books on the shelves is probably just as frustrating for the book publishers as for those wanting up-to-date books.

That said, the Pragmatic Programmer's book Agile Development with Rails is a pretty good intro: http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with...

But, with Rails 3 (with many changes) coming in the next few months, books are going to become outdated yet again.

As for Ruby in general, the fairly recent The Ruby Programming Language (http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David-Flanag...) is a pretty good intro. David Black's The Well-Grounded Rubyist (http://www.amazon.com/Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-Black/dp/1...) is recent, and I'm sure a great book, as his previous (Ruby for Rails) was excellent.
If the price of the newspaper suddenly included the cost of producing the content, you can be damn sure the guy on the street would notice the difference.
Jim Butterfield's speaking notes for a computer history talk.
Also, people could circumvent the restriction by just using the Google cache.
Web application development, ecommerce solutions, database design
Just FYI, it isn't my site.
I definitely agree that many outlets are bloated and a lot of fat needs to be trimmed. That would be my first step before blocking search engines.

If I was a content producer (which I'm not so my experience here is limited) but I would be upset by sites like Digg, Reddit, Mahalo, etc. that simply aggregate news, drive up my bandwidth costs, and leave me with fleeting traffic. There's nothing really meaningful in this relationship. It's like a superficial date that never gives you a kiss at the end of the night, but always expects you to pay for dinner.
Topic background info links (for others like me that had no idea what Microfluidics entailed):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfluidics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinky_Dinks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_microarray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab-on-a-chip
But what happens if people don't want to pay?
Well, I was confused because getContents seems to be of type "IO String": http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/base/P...

I can see why a lazy input stream could make things opaque even in a completely type-safe program, though.
You clearly haven't used the language on real world project. In CL world, there is enough people interested to develop actively several implementations.

Also, you (as others making opinion on language from blog posts) are for some reason fixated on the idea of stuff in standard library. When it's not in standard, it doesn't exist. Wrong.

You forgot that in CL, library developer has the same freedom as CL implementer. You are welcome to roll your own continuations, embedded compiler or transaction layer in your chosen popular blub for example.

All your reasons are superficial.

The "ancient" argument is not worth commenting.

Unicode has just about every CL already implemented.

Explain your reflection reservations. Heard about http://common-lisp.net/project/closer ?

You can emulate single-dispatch of Smalltalk OO in exactly 0% of wrapper code.

And tools, I hardly miss something when tracing, profiling, code completion, live upgrades, image snapshots are either solved by standard, implementation or SLIME.

Also you forgot to write that "LISP is interpreted and slow" once again.
Government could take an active role and redefine zoning laws to allow for agricultural areas in some formerly urban areas. Other cities in Michigan have done something similar: Flint started a program to assist moving residents out of sparsely populated, heavily foreclosed areas, into more densely populated areas, consolidating people and turning abandoned neighborhoods into parkland.
StackOverflow benefits from two things: 1) started by Fog Software who has a reputation, and 2) there's a natural filter in place with its content. Perhaps just perception bias but I think it helps weed out an overload of questions like "how can i get listed on search engines".

At some point there needs to be moderation to maintain quality and define the scope of the site, otherwise I think it will struggle to have merit, IMO. The first question I clicked on is regarding "social media" by a hotel owner. Certainly a valid question but how is this related to startups? Are you assuming that any business getting started = startups?

http://startups.com/questions/1447/how-can-i-define-my-strat...
Even shorter summary: The AS/400 was created for good, but has been turned to evil.
Web Security Tool Copies Apps' Moves
Don't quote me on this, but I believe you can get this running by way of IronClad. (AFAIK lxml doesn't run on IronPython without using IronClad right now.)

http://www.resolversystems.com/products/ironclad/
On the right "panel", serif font and sans serif font right after it clash terribly. The thumb tack on top is too corny and cliche, you don't need it. The ad is very distracting and even disregarding that, it breaks the flow of the design.
What Life Leaves Behind
I bet the guy didn't mention YouTube just to avoid giving competitors "free publicity". Just another example of how fixated his mind is on legacy business/marketing practices...
Did Easy Money Derail Indian Software Product Companies ?
The search for life beyond our pale blue dot is fraught with false positives and dashed hopes. Will the chemical and mineral fingerprints of Earthly organisms apply on other worlds?
OT: but you can disable google cache with a META tag
"Also you forgot to write that"
Okay. You want to argue with yourself not with me, to the point when you start rewriting my claims.
So, you go and argue with yourself.
Spy Shots of Upcoming GMail Interface
What would you do with the spinach though? Presumably it couldn't be eaten by man or beast. Or does it convert the toxins into less harmful substances?
Its good for social media consultants, marketers and gurus.
Apple protects your senator and congressman from iPhone caricatures.
Never had an issue with it, the phone seems very sturdy and the battery cover doesn't have any trouble on my unit. Also, the haptic response is amazing, never seen anything like it. The camera IMO is fine for what I need, I'm sure they'll fix the focus issue soon. My only major gripe is the keyboard, it's usable, but the numbers are quite tedious to type in, so I usually revert back to the on-screen keyboard (which is great, especially the prediction) when I need to type a long string of numbers.
Last year at a presentation at the Founder’s Forum in Hampshire, England, CEO Kristian Segerstrale put up a slide with a dinosaur and expressed his desire to “kill EA.” Now he’s joining them instead.

I love the idea of terrifying your potential buyers into an acquisition rather than wooing them on bended knee. We need more of that.
My billion dollar business idea
How is scratch so different from other programming environments ?
JQuery and the Content Editor Web Part
please test it in IE6
I don't know if I would say it's corny. I would have said it's too tacky.

(Sorry; it's Monday.)
I think Facebook is trying that with their 'fan pages.' Facebook is certainly trying to catch-up with Twitter, even though they have a huge lead in many (if not all) respects.
Soviet-style mathematics
I'm not sure why I'd use this instead of http://answers.onstartups.com/ - I'm much more likely to participate in a community founded and managed by intelligent individuals that I respect. The site makes no mention of who's behind startups.com, why I should trust them, and how I know they won't violate that trust.

That said, it's cool that someone has based a megabucks domain name on Stack Exchange.
But what happens if people don't want to pay?

Not everyone wants to pay today. The people who do pay have access to much more content, by subscription, than the people who only read what is free. That's a distinction that could survive for a long time--paying customers having access to content from charging providers, and everyone having access to content from free providers.
@BHeard

BHeardUSA.com

#BHeard
Great website! I actually will probably take advantage of this.

As far as design goes, the site looks pretty good. It's not super flashy, but I think that's generally a good thing.

A few minor nitpicks.

1) I think you should put a few images on the homepage, and possibly elsewhere. Text is nice, but I find I value the visual description as well. A picture's worth a thousand words and whatnot.

2) This is very minor, but when I was registering, I accidentally hit enter before I entered my password. Naturally, the page spit back a few messages saying I needed to fill out more fields. I have no problem with this, as it's just standard behavior. What bugged my was the error messages indicating the fields I had left blank. The title of the field and the field itself get separated by the error message, which itself seems too big. I'd consider a different way of indicating that a field needs correcting. Very minor though.

EDIT: The login screen does this too, and also, when I mistype my login, it just says "please correct the errors below" which is not a standard "your login is incorrect" message.

Also, I guess I have no idea if having an account actually provides me with any advantages. I didn't see any changes with the site, other than the fact that I could logout.

A bug: After logging in, when I click on one of the worksheet topics to fill out my preferences and then generate it, I am automatically logged out.

Great site overall!
Graphical mode on the C64 was difficult, ZX Spectrum was much easier for that. C64 ended up being the better game engine, though :-)
Gerald Weinberg on writing
That's pretty typical. Startups get bought out because they start taking market shares away from the 8lb gorilla. If they're wooing them, there's really something wrong there and they should start thinking real hard how to compete and gain market share against the gorilla rather than the former.
Some years ago I was a high school Java instructor. I'm a big fan of teaching one concept at a time, so I actually started out everyone on LOGO since it was an introductory programming course. LOGO is a great way to learn the basics about commands, loops, and the exacting syntax of computer languages.

The next step was to start learning Java through Karel J. Robot ( http://www.csis.pace.edu/~bergin/KarelJava2ed/Karel%2B%2BJav... ), which was a nice, easy segue from LOGO. After going through the Karel material, the students could dive into more advanced stuff.

The course was self-paced, so if you mastered the LOGO stuff in one day and wanted to move on, you could. You just had to show that you mastered the relevant learning concepts.

All in all, this was a great way to structure a course. So yes, LOGO can still be relevant.
Agreed on the numbers.

Almost every web browser on the planet can run javascript, independent of operating system or underlying hardware. I don't think you can get more accessible than that
Presenting Founder Collective
I meant to downvote that but accidentally upvoted it. Anyhow, I thought it was a bit ridiculous that a startup technology site support IE 6.
Well, first off, you don't fabricate facts, that would just be lies. You can tell by the title that he set off to write an article about how the droid is bad. Not a comparison, basically just a rant about where it sucks. I'm sure I could just as easily write the same kind of article about the iPhone or definitely the Pre. What makes it even worse is that many of the issues stated in this article are nonexistent at best. First, the YouTube HD issue, no problems here. Then, the build quality issue, again, no problems here. Feel free to review my other comments for my quick review of the Droid.
They're doing it to increase adviews.

Why not just put more ads on each page? At the point where the page would get split, just put an ad.
No complaints, better than my previous Blackberry Tour (9630)
Dear Every Blogger Whose Post Title Starts with the Word "Dear":

Find a new linkbait gimmick. This one's played out.
> I think forcing a PDF download in order to have any idea what you're getting is a mistake. Some sort of HTML preview would be really nice.

Second, and it would be helpful to view some demos on the front page. I realised I was going to download some sheets, but what did they look like? Shouldn't be too hard to screenshot a few as demos.
I'm pretty sure by "boilerplate" he meant:

Python 2.6.4 (r264:75706, Nov 2 2009, 14:38:03)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 0.10 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
? -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help -> Python's own help system.
object? -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.

In [1]:

Not any sort of actual setup the user is expected to perform.

As for "no installation", it's not that hard to install ipython on Linux. Windows, well, that's another story. But I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not whether it came installed or not, as the effort to install is very low for anybody who's going to be motivated to do this sort of exploration in the first place. The question is, how is anybody supposed to discover that this is possible? I knew about iPython and I didn't even know it was that easy.

Additionally, you did not find this because it was sitting right in front of you. I have many friends who had things like Commodore 64s who never learned squat about them. You found them because you found documentation about it that wasn't drowned in gigabytes upon gigabytes of other information. You had limited, high-quality documentation to draw on, or good magazines, in the days that all the good magazines ran stuff like this. That's the missing step here; not the existence of good learning tools, all of which will actually blow away the experience you could get on those older machines (which were easy, but incredibly limited), but a way for anybody to stumble on them and find out what they are in the current environment, when a site full of crappy little flash games is orders of magnitude easier to find that a tutorial on Processing (http://processing.org/ ).
In case you're wondering, I think you're being downmodded for using the term "internets".

(It drives me nuts that when people downvote you, but don't give an explanation)

Given your karma and how long you've been here, you should know better! FOR SHAME!
I used to run a meetup group, and on their site they allow users to RSVP "Yes, No, or Maybe." Along your same lines, I found Maybe to be utterly useless. It was really just a "No" for people who don't like saying no, so I disabled it (thankfully they give you that option).

Either you show up at an appointment or you don't.

Along the same lines, when you start a business, either you're profitable, or you're not. I've seen plenty of startups do the whole "motion" thing, busying themselves with building their product and twiddling knobs, meeting, and imagining how big they'll need to scale some day. Non of which is action.
Ask HN: Good, reasonably priced market quotes provider?
I'm looking for a provider which I can use to develop a web app where I can display the real-time (or even delayed) value of a portfolio (like Yahoo, Google finance etc).

Does anyone on HN know about reasonably priced providers? I could find DTN.IQ, but would love to hear other opinions.
Put your hand back down if you require more than the statistics and conclusions of a so-called expert in his blog. A little supporting data sure would have been nice.

Then again, maybe OP's been lying all along.
Homework is useless and video games are good for you
I don't want to make too much of the typo, but Playfish really is a horde of 8lb. gorillas.
Agreed. And Dharmesh got a lot of good startup founders to commit to using answers.onstartups. Startups.com is a great domain; perhaps they can work together?
Are you talking about only the web-startup domain, or life in general? I think there exist domains where you can't get something worth talking about done in a few months.
It's easy to confuse activity (non business results-producing tasks) with productivity (direct business results-producing tasks). An entrepreneur is one who attacks that difference with zeal.
Well, actually,

sudo apt-get ipython
sudo apt-get install ipython
ipython -pylab
sudo apt-get install pylab
sudo synaptic (<--used it to find pylab packages)
sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib
sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib-data
sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib-doc
ipython -pylab

And then the program works.

Actually, thanks for that, I didn't know about that stuff, and it looks really useful. If I can figure out how to get the drawings to move then it will do what I want. (to visualize the action of unitary matrices on Hilbert spaces)

But my point was that in 1982, my non-technical parents bought me a computer and then I was away. A couple of months later I had an animated model of the solar system. And I hadn't read anything except the spectrum manual (and the equivalent one for the TRS-80).

I can work out how to do the above installation for my hypothetical 12 year old son, but my poor father wouldn't have had a chance. And I suspect that the same would be true for most non-techie parents.

And how is the hypothetical son supposed to go from the pretty blue curve created by the magic plotting program to an animated solar system?

I can't see how to make the graphs move. Perhaps it can be done. Perhaps it can't and I should use SDL instead.

The point is that it is not obvious to me. Whereas the equivalent questions were obvious to a child thirty years ago.
While I understand that everyone needs help, I do think this also highlights a not uncommon lack of drive to go figure it out yourself.

Among computer programmers this behavior is particularly common. I have a hunch that it's because smart people (programmers) are of often afraid of "starting over." And honestly I consider this the locus of pointless debates about programming languages, text editors, frameworks, et al.

To be like a kid again - and feel out of your comfort zone is the essence of self education. Children are little more fearless in this regard. If they are not, they should be reprimanded. To see this behavior in adults is lamentable (though understandable considering our nation's pathetic public education system).

I also remember not knowing what sin & cos were - but I also realized that they didn't have that much to do with programming in general. There was plenty of stuff left to learn.
We want to offer advanced worksheets for paying customer...we have options but nothing is concrete at this point.
Kind of like Mint/Intuit?
There is something very sexy about this.

Yet, I can think of situations where this is counterproductive. Take sales. Any company that has a sales cycle can create predictive models after a certain amount of time. They can make predictions like 80% of sales close after point x. So if a sales dept has 100 sales at point x, they can predict about 80 will close. If this model has proven to be mostly accurate over a period of time, it can bring a heathy sense of stability and consistency in the company.

I couldn't tell where Steve stands with this exactly but isn't a linear sales process what allows sales-focused companies to be able to scale? I know in the case Steve described it was not the way to go because the sales cycle hadn't been proven and needed to be developed. But once developed, you don't want to be reinventing the wheel each time a new sales guy joins the team right?
This is not StackOverflow. This is a hosted website that is powered by the same software as StackOverflow. The content here has absolutely no direct relation to StackOverflow.
Typing. The physicality of an interaction is not to be understated. I've seen wizards with specialized interfaces (Flash, PhotoShop, Final Cut, etc) struggle miserably with text based input.
Summary of YC Interview Advice
My collection of things I've been reading in preparation for our YC interview next weekend.
This JS-based Logo works nicely: http://logo.twentygototen.org/

Here are a few programs I made with it (note that the default is to 'run normally'. You might want to click 'stop program' and then 'run fast'):

* Sierpinski triangle: http://logo.twentygototen.org/83EGZPPC

* Sierpinski carpet: http://logo.twentygototen.org/4c5iy9iU

* Sierpinski arrowhead curve: http://logo.twentygototen.org/hYDSZt8h

* Hilbert curve: http://logo.twentygototen.org/CFyUSzqG

* Hexaflake: http://logo.twentygototen.org/AJeuVkKc
The reason why don't use HTML is because HTML cannot show complicate equations and layout without a lot of graphics. We will consider screencast.
That doesn't give you the flight path information
The SO system makes moderators out of those with high rep. So there'll be mods as the community grows.

But you're right. The owners will have to make sure that the community gets off to a good start. It's a fine line. Axe too many questions, and you stife growth, as people will leave. But leave up too many dumb questions, and it won't be a useful resource, and people will leave.
Thank you for this feedback. We will implement it.