skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'll try to make a point that I had in my head while I was writing my ramble.
In the forum case, the method of finding interesting persons is to go where they are. It's the same mechanism that drives the crowds to popular clubs and pubs - people want to be where it's cool to be. That will lower the percentage of cool people there in that place, and the cool people will move on to the next place. The clubs try to counter this by having guest lists and bouncers that only let you in if you're cool enough (that's not an easy thing to do online).

In the RSS case, you're not trying to find cool people by going to their favourite place, instead you go to their homes. Which is all nice and well, except you have another problem: how do you find out where the cool people live? Especially if you get all your input from the world through the RSS feeds, you're well on your way to getting a very limited view of the world (sort of like only watching Fox News, or one of the other more or less biased news outlets).
Your RSS sources will act as gate keepers by only linking to what they find interesting, which can lead to a narrowing spiral.

In short: RSS is very useful, but make sure you're not only listening to a single subset of opinions. To prevent this I do what I suspect what most people here do: I keep track of my favourites using RSS and look for new stuff on HN, Reddit, etc.
More generally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
What type of low-stress work do you do? I am currently looking for a similar situation.
Skype confirms open source client plans
How would you launch a site like the story book one without good design? I get that you can gloss up many sites after the fact, but there seem to be a number of categories (e.g. games) where UX/Aesthetics are key from launch.
Poll: do you have a wikipedia page?
I've noticed quite a few users here with wikipedia pages (recent example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=917647) and was wondering how many have the honor.
Yes, there's a wikipedia page about me
No, there isn't a wikipedia page about me
I'm not sure what this link is trying to tell me. Faster than JavaScript but slower than Java is "the fastest interpreted language"?
No street view, but the satellite images match the allegedly non-existant streets shown in the article's screenshot. Curious.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...
I take issue with the implication that anyone that makes a redneck joke is infringing on Jeff Foxworthy's copyrights/trademarks. The phrase:

> ...confusingly similar to those owned by our client.

Seems to imply that if I make a redneck joke it's 'confusingly similar' to Jeff Foxworthy's supposed trademark on "You might be a redneck if..." I think that this is a fine line to walk and I have lost any respect that I might have had for Jeff Foxworthy. Just because his rise to fame was on the back of a redneck joke-based comedy routine centering on the line "You might be a redneck if..." gives him no right to try to ban the rest of the world from making redneck jokes just because they might be confused as having come from him. (And I'll bet that if you make the name of your program "Redneck jokes that have nothing to do with Jeff Foxworthy" he/his lawyers would still sue that someone was 'using his name' to make money)
Lambdas and closures in college? Yup, I definitely went to the wrong one. Well, more like I went to the best my small east-european country (Romania) had to offer, which proved not good enough by far.
Interesting to see their growth. I absolutely love the xobni free client. I'd have Plus if Corporate would pay for it. Enterprise could probably be sold to them easily.
> Unless you use version control

I don't see how version control avoid file duplication. When you work on multiple branches at the same time. You necessarily have to retrieve each branch in different directories.
There isn't a wikipedia page about me yet, but I suspect it will happen eventually.
The list feature seems to be about crowdsourcing the categorization of the users. Someone can put me in the list programmers. I suppose they have some quick filter options.
I've been just looking passively. There are a couple of issues that I have to overcome. One is that my resume really doesn't reflect my experience or knowledge. I tend to do a lot of side-projects, many of which may never end up being viable products, but ones that I gain a lot of great experience from. The problem is that in many cases I know I can do the job, but I can't back that up with material proof (except by maybe interviewing with someone that can quiz me on the technical issues).

I totally get where you're coming from about shooting for the interview. I think that's a very good point.

As for moving around within my current company: unfortunately that is not really an options. The company I work for is very small (6 people) and to change the type of work I aim for the whole company would basically have to shift it's focus...

Insightful though! Thank-you!
one of the biggest lessons here is really how he actually shorted those mortgages. He created a situation where the downside was relatively limited. Some people balked at his potential 8% loss on the trade, but it also meant that he was not betting the farm on the trade. At the same time, he had this great optionality in place. If what he predicted did happen, the fund would profit hand over fist, and it did.

If you look at the people who profited from the crisis, they all did a similar play. It was not shorting stocks, it was taking advantage of mispriced insurance.
Congratulations. You've attended good schools.
Agreed that it's a strange comment. It was about the only thing I disagreed with in that piece.

Surprising too. I often find more inspiration from fiction than non-fiction. Plenty of fiction work has factual elements of science and technology behind them; they are just stylized into a story. Often, it makes the reading more interesting.
I think any team consisting of 2-3 people can't afford any person who has only one skill.

It's a pretty common evolution for a designer to branch out into UX, so if one is looking for a designer it would be natural to look for a designer + UX engineer.

Personally I'd take designer+sales or designer+sysop pretty happily, but those are fairly rare skill blends!
Being a homemaker and mother is a legitimate full time job

...and therefore not "dropping out", right?
It really reminds me of BillMonk (http://billmonk.com - sort of defunct since they haven't renewed their SSL certificate), a project that was the genesis of Obopay back in 2006. It was very similar to split-the-bill and had a strong emphasis on mobile (ahh - remember when having SMS apps was cutting edge). It had notifications, long-term tracking between parties, and several ways to split it for registered users, but also provided easy service for unregistered users.
I used it pretty continuously for about a year but ran into two big issues. One - it was difficult enough to SMS in a bill to split evenly, and a pain to itemize the bill even online. I imagine that even as a web app optimized for different mobile devices, this could still be a problem. When you're at the table and trying to figure out the bill, time is key - that means a quick UI and fast latency.
The other issue was getting other people to use it. I convinced maybe three friends to use it over the course of that year and none used it for more than two days. It's difficult to get people to use and stick to.

That said, structuring it as a longterm balancing solution for financial "partners" like roommates might be a better model.
Does Wave allow for the same separation between protocol and client as e-mail?

E.g., could Mozilla/Apple/Microsoft/GNOME each write a Wave client that can use Google's Wave server (or any Wave server for that matter)?

(Apologies if this is a basic question, I haven't dug through all the developer documentation as of yet...)
Sincerial, a general recommendation service, launched
I did something like this. Living as a homeless person is probably the biggest perception change you can have without drugs.
"You don't really get to see into the author's mind when you are reading non-fiction; it's all about the facts."

This is very wrong.
TED Blog: Watch Day 1 of TEDIndia live, for free
I think that's a slippery slope to go down as far as what is predatory vendor lock-in and what is not. It is most definitely vendor lock-in if you had to use an iPod ($200) with a Mac because the software only works on Apple hardware ($600, can break and may need to be replaced within a year). Whereas with OSX, you purchase it with the intent to use it on your Mac that already came preloaded with an older version of OSX.

Does the software work on PC? Sort of, but it's unsupported. Should they be forced to support it? Probably not, because it may heavily impact their business model, bottom line, and stability. What if they don't want the no-name-brand manufacturer to make customers think their product (OSX) sucks?

The fact is that Microsoft locks in customers by mere quantity. OSX has prestige and quality, but it requires the customer to acknowledge they don't have a genuine choice in hardware vendors unless they want to manipulate it into working (although I do think Apple's license is dumb with regard to saying it can't be (pre)installed on a PC).
I first started listening to New Sounds in the '80s. I would record shows using a timed cassette deck, and listen to them on the bus ride to work. Unbeatable for learning about an incredible range of music.

After moving around I lost track of the show, but learned they had a Web site with archives. At first they offered shoddy Real Audio streams, but they switched to mp3, and then upped the encoding quality.

This show has been a treasure trove of, well, new sounds.

Check out the archives: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2009/11

You could stay busy for quite some time.
Load balancing at Github: Why ldirectord?
You're going to die at some point, why fear this form of death over another form?
personally, I disagree with point 5. I think is is possible to separate the bullshit surrounding work for your love of creating the things you create. I spent five years pouring all the money I got from being a SysAdmin into my hosting business. The business is ramen profitable now, and growing quickly.

Key, I think, is to separate yourself from the company you work for. think of it as being a contractor. "I'm giving you the best advice I can. If you don't take it, well, I've still done my job" and "I will work for you as long as the money is worth my time. I understand that the opposite also applies, and I don't take it personally if an employer feels they can do better."

(then, you also need to deal with personal failure, but that is true even after you become independent. Though, personally, I find it is easier to say "oh, you didn't like my services? here's a full refund" now that I'm a product company and the things I'm selling are not as limited as my hours. Not giving people refunds when I personally fucked up was one of the things I liked least about selling my hours. But it is just very difficult to do so.)
Dissension Festering in the Net Neutrality Ranks
IIRC, it wasn't present in the original Core Duo and Solo.
How did you escape that terrible, terrible prison?
this is excellent not least of all because it could replace most of the crap tv that kids are told to watch while parents do something else.
You're a hypocrite, and you're playing a part. "Look at me, look at me. I'm an environmentalist! I'm a good and unselfish person!" But really, you're just looking for an excuse to lash out at someone. I know this because I do it all the time.

Did you know that the #1 reason people buy Priuses is because they like to distinguish themselves as "environmentalists"? If you Really cared about the environment, you would work hard to actually accomplish some change, instead of wasting your time ridiculing someone over the internet.

I don't care about helping the environment right now. And I enjoy ridiculing people on the internet. At least I'm honest.
Interesting results so far: 25% of teams have a designer, 66% of teams want one.
Upmodded despite disagreeing with you. At least now we get some idea about what your problem with the article is.
web app that uses closures to bridge the gap between the DOM and the javascript variable environment

I'm curious what this means, can you elaborate on that?
I once helped a friend win a bet. She had a wager with someone who would be on wikipedia first (of course without getting deleted in an hour or so). I found something about her that meritted mention in an article. She won 50 American Dollar.
As long as you're not doing anything drastic and your basal metabolism stays fairly constant, reducing your caloric intake works fine. Second law of thermodynamics.
Ask HN : Do you use a timesheet app?
If you use one, which one do you prefer? What do you like/hate about it?
It's never the "story" that's important. It's the various voices, the acting, the spending some quality time before the day is over that's more important, which can't be replaced by an iPhone obviously.

Nice service for something like a 16th birthday gift though... "remember the times..." something like that.
I do not see a designer as someone critical to the success of a startup -- you can safely hire an external designer who isn't necessarily as passionate about the company and still get a very decent design. Furthermore, I kinda see design as a problem that needs to be solved once, while technical and sales/marketing problems continuously arise and need to be solved.

Disclaimer: I'm in a niche enterprise market, so design is less important for me than startups developing for consumers.
No need. The browser page can do the fade to a dark page, and you can set your computer monitor to power off after so many minutes in the settings.
Or they could use a horse/mule/camel/water buffalo/elephant to push a wheel and run the pump.

Plants -> Big dumb animals -> Labor: the original solar energy.
The Future of Offer Monetization in Social Games
The thought occurred to me at times, but I must admit, I would also feel a bit bad about it. It was OK when I was a student, and I wish I had taken on more cool jobs (if only to work as a waiter and get to know people). But know I feel bad for the people who don't have the education I have. I have the possibility to get a high paying IT job - they don't, and rely on the "normal" jobs. I don't want to take it away from them.

Though I admit I am undecided, sometimes I feel like whatever, just do what I need.
I had one for a few hours.
Biggest text link ad providers for Canadian traffic?
Who are the biggest providers of text links ads for Canadian traffic (other than Google and Yahoo, which I assume are the biggest)?
I think you are missing my main point.

If the site owners have kids, they will understand all the vast differences in parental philosophy and choices. And they can predict some of the positive and negative reactions to their product.

I personally have a negative reaction. I also clearly stated that I thought others would have a positive reaction.

The point isn't the specific reaction of any given parent. It is the full spectrum of reactions that the general population will have. If they have children, this is a topic they probably already know. If they don't have children, they could be in for surprises.

So it is a valid question -- "Do you know your market?"
I agree, I consider myself to be somewhat multifaceted and it would be nice to find a cofounder or two who could also help out with multiple aspects of the startup.
the problem is that you can't complain. Who do you talk to? Call the cops for getting scammed out of $10? Call the company? Which one? The game company? The phone company? The ad network?
I would be more likely to use it if it was paid - if I am relying on it I would rather be sure you have a reason to stick around.

Also your site is lite on details - makes a lot of claims about protecting this or that without any explanation on how this protection is achieved.

How do you validate integrity of the content? Do you compute and compare hashes of all files?

Also, you should list the world-wide locations you are checking from.
Harvestimates - Zillow for Used Farm Equipment
I was actually thinking of signing up for one of your VPS'es, but it seems you're at capacity at the moment - any idea when there will be more space?
1) Thank you.

2) I'm not sure what "this" you're referring to, but we'll let it go. Regarding credit card dispute resolution process, I'm not following you on that either, but we'll let that go too. Regarding this MindJet incident, as of 60 minutes ago, the company has come to its senses :)

PS: I just noticed that the tagline of your company is "People are talking about your brand. Are you listening?"
Sounds like someone I could chill with. Gyokuro tea is good but it's a bitch to make. Try Silver Needle tea instead. =)

Wonderfully honest and as always I love the stab at the ridiculous hype surrounding gigantic user bases that lose money on 'every meal' served.

An excellent read.
Yes. That's the idea. What Google has open sourced so far has been a federation backend and a text client. As far as I'm aware there is only one other graphical client interface at this time called PyGoWave I think.
This is where class action suits come in handy.
It doesn't have to be a boy. There are many poor communities around the world where fully grown men would be thankful for any job.
No, it doesn't fork at all, it simply records the values of registers and memory that will be modified by each instruction, so that they can be restored later.
No, I wouldn't pay $30 a month for TV. But I might pay a-la-carte for certain channels or shows, if it was cheap enough.

To me, the "fixed cost for a fixed set of channels you might not like" model is the first thing the internet should destroy about TV.
The change reverses the logic of the expression, so I would expect the program to stop working - regardless of the value of the null pointer.
"I don't read fiction. I find it a waste of time. There are so many amazing things that are real; I don't need to spend any time on a made-up story"

a little later:

"I just wind down by reading or watching TV. I relate to Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I also watch House, M.D"

I find that a little weird. I personally think reading fiction is an indication that you have an imagination.
Google Wave Federation: Why it Matters
Hrm... maybe. There's still something kind of sad about it though. My two cents is that maybe this idea is not it, you're also close to doing something very cool - I think there is room to do some interesting things with kids and technology that help parents out and add to the fun and learning.

Or maybe this is it, and you need to add something happier about it? It makes me think of my daughters' grandparents who are quite far away, which is a bit depressing. The positive side of things, of course, is that 20 years ago they would have only got brief phone calls, and now they can do stuff like this even if it's obviously not as good as being there. So maybe some kind of positive spin on it? Target it more at grandparents? Just thinking out loud...
I watch movies and I'll watch TV shows ... There's plenty of creativity in the real world

You realize that movies and TV shows most certainly do not constitute the "real world"?

Nobody says you have to read fiction. But it's really a shame to take the weaker forms of escapism the world has to offer you rather than the deeper, ecstatic ones, just because the latter are in book form.
In fact, gdb can record the state changes and then store them into an "enhanced" core file, which can then later be used to debug the program in reverse.

It's rather like adding a "time" dimension to your core file.
;-)
From what I can tell, yes, when you run it fully federated. Like email.

I don't know about the outside parties writing Wave clients for GOOG's Wave server; I myself am just starting read the docs.
Great reply ... I had a look at Chunkhost, but it looks like they are in beta only right now, and I am not in the USA :-(

Looks slightly better value than Linode - a bit more generous on the RAM and disk side.
You have to be precise when programming; A statement needs to have one and only one meaning. It's possible to design a language that doesn't require semicolons (Basic, for example) or just be more terse than JavaScript. But a language who's grammar changes based on very subtle context is not acceptable.

When it comes to JavaScript, you'll find most people put the semicolons in even when they don't have to. It's just a highly ineffective feature. Now if they didn't have semicolons at all and designed the language appropriately, that would be different.
Yes, but AFAIK that was only for a very limited duration trace buffer. You're right, it is basically the same thing, but gdb can now do it for millions of instructions.
Grad school dropout.
If this is the way you feel I do highly suggest focusing on counseling, seeking an additional counselor for a second opinion, possibly seeking medication (things that can make you feel less depressed, anxious, etc).

Unfortunately as others have stated the majority of hackers are going to know logical responses. Since yours is that of irrational fear, it becomes difficult for anyone but a trained professional to help you.

Unfortunately I don't think this is an avenue except for people that wish it to be, but have you considered reading scripture? Sounds a little crazy but having faith can really change your perception on things. I don't think it's necessary to have a positive outlook on life, but it might help you to gain one. If faith means anything to you the story of job comes to mind.

Some people have a knee-jerk reaction to the suggestion of religion so if I've offended you in any way I apologize. I hope you do focus on your counseling and make an effort to focus on friendship or perhaps pursue finding people like you. It may help an order of magnitude just to be able to converse people battling issues similar to yours. I'm not sure how much this forum is frequented but I bet if you dug hard enough you could find something similar to this that may help: http://www.phobias-help.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=21
And specifically, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblu_and_Beatosu
No changes in elf or dwarf.
This 'trap' is really old... namely treating design as some sort of lipstick on the pig. Design doesn't consist in producing attractive photoshop files. In web UX is an intricate part of the design process and vice versa.
I think some people are missing the point: this is a service designed for parents/grandparents/etc. that for one reason or another are unable to be physically PRESENT for bedtime. Everyone knows being there with a book in hand is far superior.

Use your brains, please.
To me that's the bottom line. The real problem with the "Gold Rush" stories is that they make it sound like you can create an app over a weekend and pull in $100k for it. What I got from this post is that writing an app for the app store is the same as starting up any other type of business.

Albeit with its own unique challenges (getting approved, managing the poor review process, marketing, etc...)
So you can't tell the difference between how David Foster Wallace, William Langeweische, and Steven Levitt see the world by reading what they write? Or the difference between a conservative-leaning historian and a liberal historian? Come on.
FWIW, three children. Ages 3, 6, and 8. We live in Seattle. Their grandparents live in Massachusetts and Maryland.
You're right of course. It consumes tens of bytes of ram per executed instruction. But computers have gigabytes of ram these days, so it all comes down to what you consider a "usefully large" program. Millions of instructions -- no problem. Billions -- can't do that. ;-)
Except the time my iPhone went into Chinese-language panic mode and started warning me that something completely arcane was happening and would only shut down after I took out the SIM.

PS: No, the phone has never been jailbroken.