skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I refuse to take anything from Trollaxor seriously. These are the guys who used to crap-flood slashdot with nasty ASCII art. They're the pre-4chan professional trolls.

Just read the rest of the blog to be sure :-)
1401 machine language was my first assembly language experience - I wrote a one card card deck duplicator and a one card card deck printer. Those photographs bring back memories - I can hear the printer playing The Star-Spangled Banner.
@mixpanel
Just added :)
Boo hoo. I golf, but the basic gist of this story is "tax payers used to subsidize high-end golf courses for executives, then those tax breaks were taken away, resulting in the growth of less-expensive golf courses that would actually appeal to the taxpayers who were previously subsidizing the wealthy members of the high-end courses."
I use monit on my linux boxes.

It requires some setup but the big advantage of this is that it can not only tell you when your site is down, but sometimes ACTUALLY FIX IT by restarting nginx or whatever you need it to do.

This is something a monitoring service can't do since they don't have access to your box. Of course it's not going to be able to fix all situations that could cause downtime, but if it hits a scenario you anticipated it will.
What is possible? Everything. It just depends on what level we are able to effectively manipulate the universe. Suppose for a moment that the universe is comprised of 'bits' at the very smallest possible scales. We do not currently have direct (root) access to these bits, so we must manipulate them from within the system. Because our universe is NP-complete, given enough control over these universal bits, anything that is thinkable is possible. Will we ever be able to control these bits? It remains to be seen, but I should think so eventually.
Well the other browsers aren't going to make their product better if no one knows of anything better hence the tv commercials.

They didn't contribute to Firefox instead of inventing their own browser because if they have a browser of their own their contributions and improvements don't have to be approved (or denied) by a 3rd party.

Chrome also does not make things more complicated for existing web developers as it is based of webkit so it renders pages very similarly to Safari.
"To date, Chrome really hasn't had the success that I suspect Google had anticipated for it," said Sheri McLeish, a Forrester analyst.

What sort of comment is that? One could create a quote like that about virtually anything in the world.

The article as a whole seems pretty bad. Looks like the author was looking for a reality to support his thesis...
How about: @reddit and @scribd? Check out: http://rankedindex.com/yc.
But, you know, I think you should have as much fun as you can when you're an undergraduate and play around until you're bored. That way, you'll be a more interesting person when you're a full member of society.
This is a truly fascinating financial look into a culture which is far, far more foreign to me than Japan ever was. (Granted, they golf here, too. I still don't get it. I mean, I know it is a networking tool and sort of like WoW for "grownups" but, much like "grownups" vis-a-vis WoW, I just can't feel in my bones how I would ever actually enjoy it.)
Ah, very interesting. Didn't think of this in relation to my point above but it explains why Chrome is open-source too.
Have you got any links to these surveys other than your friend? I would be really interested to know the incidence. The actual number is ludicrously hard to pin down:

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

The biggest problem is that nobody really agrees with what a "gay man" is for the purposes of counting them anyway. Does just one homosexual experience count? What about if (as this survey suggests is common) you have a lifetime of clear homosexual thoughts but no opportunity to act on them? What if you're any of the infinite variations of bisexuality between completely homosexual and completely heterosexual?

I tend to work with 4%-8%, depending on definition, but I'll be the first to admit it's a total shot in the dark.
Why do you say it's a joke of a platform?
Behavioral Economics with Mechanical Turk
@reddit is not really a "company" account. It just reposts links that make it to the front page. I think most people would get annoyed by this. Thoughts?
For MBA grads, it’s the worst hiring season ever
To be fair to Google, they tried to contribute to Firefox back in the Firefox 1.x timeframe, but they realized that Mozilla is rather dysfunctional open source project. It is incredibly hard to get feature work into Mozilla as an outsider, so they decided to go their own way. In a way they got what they wanted in the end, now with Mozilla copying stuff from Chrome wholesale now that someone else has made them look bad.

The main things holding Chrome back adoption-wise is a stable Mac version, and extension hooks to support popular functionality like AdBlock and Noscript. With those you'll start seeing geeks and tech influencers switch, which will probably start eating at Firefox's market share. It's a testament to the power of Google's brand that it's got as much market share right now as it does, which is mainly at the expense of IE.
I use http://sucuri.net/ for a very simple up/down, content changed notification system. It tracks those as well as DNS, HTTP Certs and a few more. It's also free :)
Ask HN: What's the worst thing that could happen to Google?
What could ruin the Google profit party? I have a hard time imagining another search engine coming along that everyone would suddenly jump to, but I guess it is possible. It is trivial to switch search engines.

I can't come up with any reason why AdWords spend would suddenly vanish. Presumably companies are spending so much on AdWords because they are getting a return.

Because of smartphones, people are searching more and more. Local search ads seem like they could be a nice new rev source. At the same time more people are getting online, so more searches there too.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: golf is about getting trashed and seeing if you can still manage to ever put the ball in the cup. While on a business outing, the object of the game is now to play WORSE than the exec you are there with. Golf is no longer a competition, but a social function. Turns out I don't enjoy social functions OR golf.
@fanchatter
Hype Flash Framework
You Don't Know Jack About Software Maintenance
http://www.dotcom-monitor.com/
I want to reply and concur with li0nheart's response to this suggestion but I don't see a reply link for the comment. I think the list should be for twitter accounts that are fed by founders instead of bots.

http://twitpic.com/nyf2j

EDIT: I see it now. Odd bug.
How about Microsoft including an ad blocker in the next Windows Update.
Making a nice place to work can be a great motivation to start a company if you've just finished working somewhere shitty.

The new goal, helping customers be awesome, is directly related to maximising customer success - no?
Your hack is broken: run -> ruun?
> We lack sufficient evidence to prove that we reside in a Matrix-like construct.

I'm not sure we even have sufficient evidence to suggest it, let alone prove it.
@wattvision
Micro-communities in Elementary School Classrooms
I have an idea, but I won't mention it. Anyways, I really like the guy and listen/read him every chance I get. Thanks Joel.
A magic number like 100 ms seems like a bad idea. Also, it's not clear to me what happens when minimum path latency is > 100 ms. Based on my superficial understanding, the uTP rate would go to (nearly) zero.
> such in-memory copies are implicitly granted with the disc

The story isn't saying no-one is allowed turn on their Macs because we're pirating OS X by making copies of it.

Apple's point is Pystar is breaking the license under which OS X is distributed by installing it on a non-Apple computer therefore any copy is an unlawful copy.
Replacing the Office Chair with an Exercise Ball
It's like Silverlight. Initially people were like "oh flash is already on 99% of computers" but failed to realize the fact that 99% (not really, but close enough) of computers come with Windows, and Microsoft controls Windows. Microsoft, when ready, can easily get people to use it.

And with Google, all it has to do is slap that browser on its front page if it really wanted the average user to switch.

Obviously Google chrome still has some kinks, so they won't want the average user to switch just yet (assuming that's even their goal).
@heyzap
True, that would really hurt them. I can't even immediately come up with any reason why they couldn't do that, ad blockers are a very legit piece of software after all. Given how much sense this makes, what's been stopping MS from doing it so far?
CloudKick also, very nice for some general, free monitors with email notifications.
At least this entire thread was devoted to the content of my message. </sarcasm>

That said, the original responder was right - I made a technical mistake. This I have learned from.

THAT said, I can't believe there are this many English sticklers on Hacker News. (I however view this as a good thing, as it contributes to more logical discourse and less lawlz, etc).
Don't include it.
NSA to store yottabytes of surveillance data in Utah megarepository
I don't think advertising is going to be able to sustain Google indefinitely. As more tech-savvy users get on the web, their tolerance for advertisements will dwindle, along with advertisers' return. Google probably knows this, which is why they've moved into other markets like Android and Google's office tools. As far as search goes, I think they're either going to be king forever as we know it, or a 'better' search will come out... though I can't think of what could make search better than what Google has.

I, personally, would like to see Google become their own ISP. When there was news they were buying up 'dark fiber' I thought this might be in their future plans.
EDIT: I see it now. Odd bug.

Not a bug:

We also have some new features to prevent flamewars. The most conspicuous is an exponential delay before reply links appear on deeply nested comments.

http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#29apr09
from looking at history it appears there are times when armed conflict is the best moral choice a society can make.

I agree, however I think we make the choice for war far more often than is morally necessary. We don't seem to draw the line at morals, but at whether it's financially beneficial for us. It feels like war has become America's most exported product.

So I find your position laudable, yet misguided both on its goals and means to achieve them.

I think you need to re-read what I said, you seem to be going off on a staw-man of your own creation. I merely mention that it'd be great if we could no longer afford war. I was arguing against war, not for using entitlements to pursue the goal of eliminating war.
Build a Company for the Long Term
Ok, Joel. We get it :-)
I want AdBlock and Greasemonkey. Once those things work properly on Chrome, I'll switch happily.

(If they already work, and I just missed the news, please tell me.)
Because MS is also an advertiser. Bing would become immediately worthless to advertisers if they did. Plus, assuming MS let their ads through and blocked Google's, Google would yell "anti-competition lawsuit" faster than you can say, well, anti-competition.
Feynman's report comments briefly on the software, but it is much more relevant as a way of thinking about engineering in general.
What could ruin the Google profit party?

Anti-trust regulation to split Google and AdSense/AdWords would probably figure as the Ultimate Nightmare Scenario. I don't necessarily think that it is likely, but then again I never saw an OS/browser tag-team as being a threat to world peace.
Past tense of swim is swam right?

http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/swam.html
You should actually read the article.

And, please look up NP-complete, because I don't think you know what it means (as opposed to just NP).
If you pre-pay 3 months or a year a good web hosting costs $4.5-7/month, with cronjobs, and plenty of space where you can store regular offsite backups.

An almost trivial one-liner with curl can do this kind of service.
Is not the fact that children are stealing their parents' money worse than that people are stealing money from children?
Ooh, then it's all good. I obviously have not been paying enough attention to HN updates. :)
@picurio
I sense a bailout coming on.
This just in: Daniel Dennett cites Ludwig Wittgenstein as one of the 100 most important people of the century. And coming up later on the 11:00 news: Heisenberg admits, "I never could have done it without Bohr."
nginx does caching reverse proxying now, as of 0.7.48

http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpProxyModule#proxy_cache
I like Joel, and hes made a nice place to work...

but, its _too_ nice : I need the anarchy of a startup.

The atomic moments of xen calm are appreciated more against a backdrop of reality-chaos-screaming-towards-outrageously-impossible-product-deadline.
That's an awesome article.
It is a social game, but i'm not sure how much it's not as social as basketball or any other sport really. Those who don't play for money or to win an executive over (redundant) play in order to hang out with their friends. The game itself has its own interesting skill to acquire, but I guess since it doesn't have an athletic component it's lost in the "shuffle" of old person games.

Still, I defer to George Carlin on my opinion about what we should do with golf courses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C7c-nZIyfc
>In Cleveland, two clubs facing declining memberships, Sand Ridge and Mayfield

Since the 60's, the Mayfield Country Club has offered curling -- I think I was told it's the only "dedicated" (not a hockey rink) curling ice in Ohio. I note this purely for amusement. And, yes, I curled there once (the only time I have ever curled).
This article recalls PG's essay about how schools are detached daycare facilities from the real world. Although this system for the classroom could stunt intellectual curiosity and breadth, it could also empower kids early on to get really good at what they like and what the market wants. The math whiz wouldn't have to take equal parts of every subject, which ultimately get forgotten about if they are of no interest whatsoever.
Our office, too, went through the Ball phase a couple of years ago. 80% of the office had one. In the end though not a single person stuck with it and the office was ball-free in less than a year.

Personally I found that I slouched MORE when using the ball because I could no longer lean back against a backrest. So when I got tired towards the end of the day I'd lean on the table instead. Result: Upper back pain. The other thing that annoyed me was being unable to shift my legs around at all - they BOTH have to be flat on the floor in front of you. No crossing one leg or changing the angle of you knee joints or anything like that.
Jim: "And how much is that?"
Dwight: "It's only 25 bucks"
Jim: "ooookay."

http://www.tbs.com/video/index/#/all-video/shows/the-office/...
However, Android isn't a direct moneymaker. Android is just a way to ensure that they make money off mobile search. aka advertising.
Luckily, 56% more productive also means that a mechanic who uses this can make more money and tell the guilds where to shove their objections.
Don't use it to the exclusion of external tools though. monit doesn't help if the server has no connectivity or no power. On a similar tangent, configuring a mutual restart policy (eg: if cron fails monit restarts it and vice versa) is also a good idea.
Ken Auletta: What Google has taught us
"As more tech-savvy users get on the web" => you realize you got it the wrong way round there, right? In other words, advertising will just get better on the web. Google's golden there.
YES. They should teach this in journalism school: if they did it in 65% of the time, then phrase it that way.
Ask HN: Is Linus creating AI Life?
I was reading a HN page http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=898675 where Linus argues that Linux was not "designed" and was struck by the strength of his views. Here are some quotes:

"I'm deadly serious: we humans have _never_ been able to replicate something more complicated than what we ourselves are, yet natural selection did it without even thinking.

Don't underestimate the power of survival of the fittest."

This intrigued me so I looked at his blog http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com where he comments a few times on what he is reading. I will list some of the books he mentions there:

Phantoms in the Brain,
The Brain that Changes Itself,
Why Evolution is True,
Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins

This quote is interesting:

"Usually, I tend to read about genetics or similar (that is, when I read anything serious to begin with, which tends to be less than 10% of the time). This one is obviously related, but about the processes that came before it all began. And it also gives more of a look into the issues faced by <BOLD> somebody </BOLD> trying to do experiments in the area."

From the above comments his viewpoint possibly falls into the artificial life camp that tries to imitate traditional biology by recreating biological phenomena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life).

What do you think of this idea? He is well-noted for his programming skills and general ability. Maybe the kernel is just a basis for some sort of massive ai-life simulation?
wormly.com
It is trivial to switch search engines physically, but not necessarily psychologically. Plus you could easily switch, I switch occasionally, but to permanently shifting your usage trend is tougher.
google doesn't make money off "search". you don't pay them to click the search button. Google gets paid when people pay for you clicking on those ads (or viewing them with doubleclick). If the money that is spent on those ads+clicks is spent elsewhere that's the worst thing that could happen to Google.

Search share matters, because that share is matched with ad inventory being filled. If that inventory isn't filled, but they are still high in search shares, it doesn't matter. Odds are this won't happen though. Here's what is worrisome to me though:

Referral traffic is a good indicator of where things are going. Less and less traffic is coming from search referrals, and more and more is coming from social networks. If the paid referrals follow suit with the organic referrals , then Houston has a problem.
There's some overlap, as well as actor/message-passing concurrency (Erlang), dataflow (Prolog, Oz, etc.), constraint, vector-oriented (APL), etc. Probably a dozen more, depending on where you draw some fine lines. (See CTM for a good overview.) FWIW, Prolog is just as homoiconic as Lisp, and has compile and runtime macros.

Still, I was more wondering about teaching methodology, not enumerating paradigms themselves. What could be done to counteract the "standing on the toes of giants" effect?
Weird, if anything my experience was the opposite, almost too little management. Maybe his experience was exclusive to the way things were run at Juno as opposed to the trading side of the business.
Maybe the kernel is just a basis for some sort of massive ai-life simulation?

The kernel isn't the emergent life, the community is. The kernel is just the/(a) side effect.
I was thinking of industries (airlines) where you can't be a mechanic without being a member in good standing of the Right Honorable Order of Artificiers.
Android is actually a way to keep Apple from dominating, and to keep other mobile devices open.

Google knows it dominates certain services like search, so it can use Android to make sure other devices stay open in order to compete against it. This forces them to let people choose and Google knows more often than not that choice will be for Google services. For example if Android allows Google talk, then Apple will become tremendously pressured to do the same because it's supposedly a really useful feature.

Android forces others to be more open, Google dominates, therefore more open means more customers for Google, more eyes looking at Google ads, etc.
My math shows they can store 126,419,753,08,641 hours of uncompressed 640x480 video. This is based on 1 hour of video taking about 79GB of data.

Using basic compression can take the number of hours stored much higher.
I am a mac user (primarily) and I find this funny. How is Mac version holding back Chrome in terms of adoption when mac represents roughly 9-10% OS market?

Chrome already supports extensions, Adsweep works on Chrome as an alternative of ABplus. Noscript is used by a very small niche users, I seriously doubt noscript users are holding Chrome back on mass adoption.

I think switching browser is always a difficult choice for non tech savvy users. Personally it was a hard choice for me 4-5 years ago to leave IE for FF, but it was easier for me to make the switch to Chrome after I used it and liked it. I think my view towards a browser changed over the last 4-5 years and I see a "browser" as a tool as opposed to a gateway to the internet. I think most of the early adopters of Chrome are fairly tech savvy users and for chrome to be really mainstream they need to push chrome bundled with new computers (I think they already do that).

Chrome is awesome and it can only get better. I hope Google Chrome OS will be just as good.
this is VERY well done and has a few specific scenarios that are explained well. Money quote: "Last money in, is the first money out"
Remember the anti-trust party that was started when Microsoft started giving away a free browser in competition with Netscape? That would be nothing compared to the storm that would emerge if Microsoft tried to directly attack AdWords from its still-a-convicted-monopolist position with an action like that.
I think Google's biggest risk is in not owning enough of the most important corpora of web content which are getting created today: social information. The Internet is being reinvented as a network of people instead of just a network of publications. Facebook and Twitter are leaders in owning this people-content, but not really in searching it effectively yet. Even though Twitter is viewable (i.e. crawlable) and open, they still have proprietary data which could provide the best overall understanding of the information and relationships which flow through the Twitter platform.

The technology of web search continues to get commoditized today. Google is quite good at it, but Bing/Yahoo still do alright. Whoever provides a differentiated and important corpus of content for some fraction of web searches (i.e. social search or something like "real-time" or news) has the potential to capture the search behavior across all queries. Users only want to type searches into a single search box on the web.
DVR, Once a Mortal Foe, Is a Friend After All
quote from the article's source, itself quoting a non-online source: "a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (1024 Bytes) by 2015"

vapor.
I wish I could help with more authoritative data. Thanks for asking, but I cannot. All I know is that the 10 percent figure comes from Kinsey, but Kinsey's anecdotal reports were not scientifically gathered by means that would ensure that the percentage is representative. I could agree with the whole range you think is plausible, not being able to point to definitive figures.