skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
his code looks like a hack job by a poor programmer

Well, it does. Specifying case insensitive match and then handling both cases yourself reeks of someone who's never parsed anything before. The second case won't even do anything, it's already been done! And even if the language or the libraries worked that way, what about mixed case! Let alone parsing HTML with regexps in the first place. Python has BeautifulSoup for not-well-formed documents.

It's reasonable from that code snippet to infer the author understands neither the language he's using nor the problem domain he's working in.
Plus, if you're building something that is actually solving a problem for people that you know you might find that you get it right in fewer iterations than if you're only getting feedback from outside users. Being more familiar with the problem domain and the people most affected by it can certainly go a long way towards building something people can get excited about.
"But under the circumstances, I'd rather plow along, always positioning myself to have a co-founder, but just as ready to launch alone if need be. I'm not afraid to do that and I don't think other single co-founders should be either."

I think that's the right attitude. It's like a marriage. Dual income is a wonderful thing. Sharing costs, having a permanent partner to plan with, complementary skillsets, etc., etc. But that doesn't mean you should go grab a mail order bride catalog.

There are plenty of successful solo founders out there. There are also plenty of amputees who overcome that disadvantage and run marathons. 2 good founders are way more than 2 x 1 good founders. Having a good co-founder almost certainly increases your chance of success and magnitude of it. It's not just that you have 2x the work output. You have a duty to someone else all of a sudden-- quitting is less of an option (and quitting ALWAYS kills startups). You have a second set of brain cells to catch you being stupid-- and you will be stupid about some things. You have a cheerleader at the low points. You have someone else keeping their eyes peeled on your market for opportunities that you might miss. You have a whole new set of connections/relationships to leverage. There are some great studies showing that a group of average people outperforms solo smart people on complex problem solving tasks (here's one-- there are lots: http://is.gd/4O3kn )

I think you're wrong about the child/stepchild analogy, though-- or maybe it's just that I think you're wrong that your child has even been BORN yet. It's more like a house that you've started building, but all you really have is a couple of boards, a few sketches, and maybe a solid foundation.

Of course, maybe you are more in love with YOUR idea/vision/existing code than the idea of just building something great and being successful... Which I guess is fine. :-) But unless you already have a growth curve that goes up and to the right, I tihnk a good co-founder is way more of an asset than the thinking/coding you've done to date.
Talking about 37signals it is not exactly random number and random word: http://37signals.com/33
Was surprised to see this happen:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0%2C1%2C2%2C4%2C8%2C16%...
This guy is basically right. Twitter isn't social; it's a PR tool.

What's annoying is that you have all these "broadcasters" (bloggers, celebrities, media personalities) telling me how great Twitter is. And for them, the people with an audience, it is.

But guess what - most people have nothing worth broadcasting about. It turns out that the average person has very average thoughts. Who knew?

The other problem I have with Twitter is that it's just Twitter. It makes me cringe to hear tech luminaries talk about using Twitter as infrastructure (e.g. replacing RSS). Does nobody else mind handing over that level of power to a closed, corporate body?

I'll give microblogging a serious thought when there are protocol standards and more than one provider is actually operating in the space.
0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,?
The actual story:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/04/technology/steve_jobs_ceo_de...
Here's one interpretation: What will the simplest program that outputs these numbers output next?
Why did you use Oracle in the first place?
My suggestion: Start with say 5% each with 90% unallocated. The more your work on the startup, the more you gain shares.
The perfect job comes along rarely, and it generally doesn't stay perfect. Our career focuses change over time, or the company undergoes a shift as work increases or decreases, or your favorite co-workers move on to different opportunities. The longest I was completely satisfied with a job was 3 years, and then the company was sold and things became very bad, very fast. I found an interesting new job in a week.
but not too many
This is why the company (or individual) who figures out how to properly measure social media and provide metrics will be an agency conglomerate or be purchased for ridiculous amount of money.

I know there are a few out there trying to figure this out, and it is a behind the scenes rat race that isn't publicly discussed because each firm fears the other will get there first.

Exciting times.
I just did a search on Twitter for #profood. A large majority of it was RT messages. How does one find the discussion that is going on about #profood in all of this? Speaking for myself, I would find it much more efficient if there was a profood forum, blog, or even BBS. Any of these solutions would provide a signal-to-noise ratio that is manageable, and have the bonus of being intended for discussion and discourse instead of requiring users to quote one-another to get a message out.
I'm excited to see where this goes. I've always felt like finding a job is probably the most annoying thing to go through. It'd be nice to have companies try to find you using parameters that they find useful. I'm not sure where it will all end up but I'm glad that people are actively working on this problem in a sane way.

I don't mind paying for the service either. It seems like something I'd want to have exposure to and support to work towards a good solution to this problem whatever it turns out to be.
It only took a handful of lunch counters and a handful of busses.

With today's media, it certainly wouldn't take more than a handful of towns. Most of us probably have enough people in our personal social graph to pull it off.
How will you prove that your answer is correct?
Excellent post!

And if you follow the latest online copywriting best practices, you'll know that creating 3-5 persona types for your website navigation is all that is required. Almost every one will follow one of those 3-5 pathways.

Sidenote about the test the article runs - re: adding text to a graphic tab...

In 1985, after finding that pretty but unlabeled icons confused customers, the Apple Computer Human Interface Group adopted the motto, "A word is worth a thousand pictures," And a descriptive word or phrase was added beneath all Macintosh icons.
It's definitely important.
But the current situation in Iran suggests that Hearts and Minds alone isn't sufficient.
I know this guy.

Here is the direct link to his project.

http://grathio.com/2009/11/secret-knock-detecting-door-lock....

This little project really exploded on him, it's been on a bunch of high profile websites in the past couple of days, knocked his server offline, etc, etc.
Sometimes it is OK to post articles with minimal content, too. But not always.
Why start with 0?

1,2,4,8 works fine.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2C2%2C4%2C8%2C16%2C32...
0, ...
Were I to pay for this kind of service I'd want to know who's looking at me (not just how many times). Are the hiring companies vetted in any way?

There has to be more balance in the model. Employers can look at you and see how your peers (or actually, anyone with an account) rate you. Hiring companies should be similarly exposed.

As I understood it, we provide the content, we pay for the service, maybe we get job offers from companies that don't suck. Who's getting the most value from this arrangement.

(let me state for the record that I really, really like SO. I'm just iffy about this careers business model)

It would be good to offer the service free to the unemployed (if that could even be verified). It's terrible practice to charge people for access to a job if they need the money for food.

Maybe a more fair arrangement would be to offer the service free after X number of comments or questions contributed. That way, even if you don't get a job out of it, there's a direct relationship between what you contribute to SO and what you get (aside from all the free knowledge).
Works properly if you take out the 0 term:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,25...
1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512
Starts here - http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/steve_jobs/2009/index...
It's reasonable from that code snippet to infer the author understands neither the language he's using nor the problem domain he's working in.

Well, does the program actually work as intended? If so, that's a pretty good indication that the author does understand the language and the problem domain, even if the code isn't pristine.
Choice can backfire(1), and must be taken in moderation. But, of course: "The greatest miracle is this: when hungry I eat, when tired I sleep."

(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More...
The gist of the article (which is the gist of the headline, and the gist of several comments I've read about this on HN) is that Apple doesn't support X and don't whine about it. If you want OSX buy a mac, if you want open development don't buy an iPhone, if you want X, don't buy a product that's not X.

That's true in a tautological way--it's true by definition. But it's not useful. I don't want a mac--I want a netbook that runs OS X. I don't want an iPhone--I want a phone with an iPhone-quality software stack with an open software ecosystem. These are not mutually exclusive--they're not inconsistent. There's no inherent property of OSX that excludes netbooks. There's no inherent property of the iPhone software stack that excludes an open software ecosystem. These are arbitrary choices by Apple--perhaps good for a lot of people--but not what I want.

And so I want these things--netbooks, phones--that don't exist. Well, fine. I'll make them. But then there are people out there who are actively preventing me from making them, and thus having the things I want. Not only is Apple saying "We don't care about X" but they're saying "we hate X and will prevent it from coming into being." It's being needlessly antagonistic.

That's where the whining comes from. People want things that don't exist, they try to make them, and something actively prevents it.

Now you could theoretically go the other way--we have an open software ecosystem and let's construct a great software stack--we have netbooks and let's construct a great OS. But this must be harder to do, because (as an experimental fact) it happens much less often.
"If you write it they will run it?"
This was discussed earlier today at: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=923355
This flaw doesn't hurt your service, and you do more with TLS than most people here.

I do? The only thing I use TLS for is the Tarsnap website.

The odds of you or me or anyone else on Hacker News developing a crypto transport for which an attack as slick as this would be required are basically nil.

Tarsnap's transport layer is described and implemented in the public Tarsnap source code. If you're so sure that there are easier attacks against it, please go find one. :-)

This isn't so much a TLS problem as it is an HTTP + TLS problem.

Agreed. The whole thing is a layering violation, and it's not surprising at all that it's screwed up.

name the widely-used cryptographic transport protocol that someone invented that didn't subsequently have very serious flaws uncovered in it.

As JoachimSchipper points out, the SSH transport protocol has done rather better than SSL. More importantly, however, you're unreasonably limiting things by restricting consideration to widely-used protocols: In general, widely-used protocols tend to be protocols designed by committee which contain everything except the kitchen sink -- and it's that precisely that excessively large feature set which makes SSL so hard to get right.
That seems fair, but I wonder whether in the long run the cult of personality surrounding him is good for Apple. His ultimate achievement as a CEO would be if he can translate his efforts into continuity.
I went to SO Dev Days in San Francisco and I'm certainly not the best of the best. At least I didn't think so until now.
Disobedience? What a very, very odd thing to bother you. Disobedience of what? The cult of conventional business wisdom?
Clojure has #(+ % 10) for Arc's [+ _ 10]. Does anyone know if Arc inspired Clojure, or whether there's prior art for this syntax?
The travel expenses is reimbursed by YC up to a certain amount. It's no expense for the founders except time.

I'm curious what led you to Hacker News if you don't see the value of YC more than the money.
I'm a moderately regular (though infrequent) stack overflow user, and I think it's great. I am perhaps biased because some of the work I do is supported by affiliate advertising (though at this point not very much!). And our affiliate links aren't munged onto user-contributed content.

Anyway, aside from my bias, I think it's great in part because it makes Stack Overflow money and I Think they deserve that, and in part because it has zero impact on the content the user contributed. It was already a link to Amazon. If anyone follows that link, Amazon is likely to profit and the only reason anyone would follow that link is because it's on Stack Overflow.

I'm not sure how I feel about users adding their own affiliations, since in that case they might be taking advantage of Stack Overflow's traffic. I'm also not sure how I then feel about Stack Overflow replacing existing affiliate links with their own (and I don't know how they are handling that situation anyway).

It definitely seems a grey area, but I think in this particular case SO is not abusing their users.
That's kind of interesting - I wonder why that sequence is off and yet:

0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256

and

0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024

come back accurately.
isString is the cheapest method out there, it just tests a tag bit in the pointer. Pretty much an AND followed by a branch.
How about just hire a PR firm?

Yeah you get good media contacts with YC but that only takes you so far. What's good is the community of founders who have gone thru YC.
I wonder why...

Because you need to beat Alpha over the head with data in order to convince it to say "well, maybe the first value just doesn't fit the pattern".

As a mathematician, I'd say that Alpha's approach here is entirely reasonable.
There are lots of reasons for lock in. E.g., many can't move to a place with better job market because of their family.

I'd also guess that those who spend lots of time on StackOverflow are overrepresented among those with low job satisfaction.

Edit: If I had more time, I'd spend it on perlmonks, instead. I might be spoiled; StackOverflow probably looks better to other communities.
"His mentor was Koichi Sasada (ko1)."

That's the guy who wrote YARV. So it's not too surprising that ko1 would point him in the right direction.
I don't think anyone else even comes close.
As has been argued around the business web, Jobs' absence/incapacity for better part of a year - while Apple continued to develop dramatically better than the rest of the industry - may have been helpful as a demonstration of what the organization can do on its own.
This works with 0:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,...
It is sort of useless advice, though. If you're the sort of person whose inclined to "do it wrong", you already are. If your not, simplistic advice isn't going to help you find the one correct way to do it wrong. You'll just end up wrong.
Nice story, but it sounds more like a pet project which landed him a job rather than a company which was acquired.

He states "With Automattic, I am still an entrepreneur", but he's really not: He's an employee and his objective (to have a job again before he was 29) indicates that's his lifestyle preference.

Entrepreneurship isn't about finding a 'job' at another company, it's about making that company.
Goo appears to have something similar in its op (partial evaluation) function.
A Yes for a NoSQL Taxonomy
Agreed, don't start with zero for that. There's no real number n such that 2^n = 0, so the the closed-form expression you were seeking won't be found that way.
Uh, obscure programming knowledge? Most of the questions on StackOverflow are about methodologies or about how to do something in some specific programming language. How obscure is that really?
Installing a plugin or having to register is still a waste of time - especially when the article could be sourced from a number of similarly reputable sources.
I actually use the tip on nametags. I'm now known as "Smiley" because I put smiley faces on nametags instead of my name. I'm dorky what can I say.
Well, that could be done by brute force. Realistically, though, it's more about whether anyone can beat your answer.
right, but my point was that if you give it one less data point, i.e.

0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256

it detects the pattern, but if you tack on the 512 it duffs it.
From: http://www.livescience.com/environment/091102-africa-rift-oc...

"The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so."

So I guess there's still time to submit planning applications to build fancy new hotels on the ocean-side...

Shame, would have been nice to see a new massive ocean appear there in, say, 50 years... I guess it might be rather disruptive to the people living nearby though.
Are API’s the New Open Source?
It’s amazing to me the amount of innovation brought on by comapnies opening API’s for developers to tap into. Everything from allowing 3rd party applications to run within your site to API’s that let developers pull all your data and do cool things with it.

It reminds me of the whole Open Source movement, but better. I love Open Source. I use it everyday in my life but if I had to choose between getting a companies source code versus getting that companies data? I’d choose data any day.
First...

I read it because everyone is reading it, but I hate reading it.

then...

Please, if you're starting a business...

Why would I take startup advice from someone who admits to being a sheep, and worse, admits to hating it?

I really don't know a whole lot about JF or 37s, but most of what he has to say really resonates well with me.

He has succeeded with a formula based on cool technology, out-of-the-box thinking, and customer revenue. What's so bad about that?

Naturally, there's not a one-to-one correspondence between his success and his advice, he may have gotten lucky a few times, and some of his advice may not apply, but I still take it with a grain of salt and enjoy it. The self-promotion doesn't bother me a bit; there are probably a few good lessons in there for all of us.

Maybe this is mean, but if you have succeeded in something, please share. Otherwise, listen until you have.
I'm not sure why no one's mentioned this but isn't Dustin responsible for having Mr X fired?

It seems the proper thing to have done would be to make the email untraceable to Mr X rather than just anonymizing the name.
I like the minimalist style of it. Reminds me of Helvetireader (http://helvetireader.com/)
Yes but in the recurrence relation, it said "for all n >= 1". I guess the additional term was the tipping point that let mathematica infer that the meat of the sequence was for n >= 1.
SO is turning out to be a really nice case study on web business. (1) Create a community that will provide free content to your web site; (2) charge them for the privilege of saying to potential customers that they are contributing. :-)

I wouldn't be concerned about paying for this, but what I think that it will not turn around the market as mentioned. Instead will create another hurdle for developers. The issue is that after a potential employer contacts you, the whole interview process will be the same as before. No Hollywood treatment you can be sure.

Moreover, for many companies search is usually done by HR firms. The SO interface will be used by these firms in the same way they currently use linkedin, etc.

I would be much more interested in free web site where you can list your accomplishments: projects finished, previous jobs, open source developed, so employers can have an easier way to compare you to your peers.
/me goes and creates 20 new accounts so I can ask embarrassing stupid questions.
Otherwise I get rejected from a job because I asked where to find a setting in Visual Studio while claiming to have N years experience
oh, jeez, just saw this. face palm
If that 8% is anything like myself, 90% of the ads I click are because my touch pad thought I wanted to click when I wanted to move the cursor. The other 10% would be an outrageous claim and I just had to see the other side of the door.
Not to be too harsh here, but...

I've been using "difference tables" (without calling it that) since I was 10 years old. I don't mean this to be bragging at all, because I didn't think (and still don't think) it was at all remarkable. It's just a basic method of analysis.
lol. I'm going to shut up. I re-read this and I probably make no sense as I wrote iran rather than Afghanistan.
WTF is up with Dell?
All the articles state a similar previous rift that caused the formation of the Red Sea took 30 million years. This Ethiopian rift is a combination of volcanic activity and tectonic plate movement ( from what i can read from other related articles ). How soon could this happen? Any ideas?. Just curious.
Step 1:review HN's registration scheme
Step 2:Copy it.
'If you're worried about stability, I suggest using the long term releases instead of upgrading to the cutting edge right away.'

The stable release didn't completely support using an external monitor on my video card. Seeing as I do presentations for a living, that's not so great.

'It's also important to remember that you are not a customer with a support contract with Canonical. You are a customer getting a great operating system for free. Something to factor into your calculations.'

From knowing a couple of people who work at Canonical, I honestly doubt Canonical support would consider lack of external monitor support a real bug.
Are you aware of flash cookies?
Obviously, people who Tweet that they are riding the train to work don't 'get it.'

Why? Because they're using Twitter to send boring, banal info that you don't care about, but perhaps their friend or spouse does?

I don't think anyone gets Twitter because there are so many ways to use it. I swore off it a while back, but then found it much more enjoyable after unfollowing about 2/3 of my list. Now, some of the ones I enjoy reading the most are the boring, banal parts of my wife's life that she experiences at work.
"They’re the elite of the elite of the best programmers out there. They’re the people who participate in Stack Overflow..."

participating in SO makes you elite?
Although, there are many convincing real case scenarios discussed by few (perhaps fit for 'elite' label), they are overshadowed by the majority - the badge-gatherers.

What I found (mostly) in SO is more of karmaholics, copying/pasting info from the web. Imho, it is more of a human-enabled search engine for your questions - you get a compiled list of filtered result for your questions, instead of you filtering google results.