skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A lot of you are being pretty hard on this guy. It's a good story, and if you don't have business experience you can learn a lesson from it.

Just because he liked "The Secret" doesn't mean he's some asshat who deserved what he got. Hindsight is 20/20 and it's obvious he had a lot of reservations throughout the ordeal. But when you're dealing with a good con artist (I have), they can make you believe anything. Reading this story brought back a lot of memories of what I went through. But I could see all the sings from a mile away while I was reading it.

Once you've been conned, it will never happen to you again. Unless you're an idiot.
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great read, I just note that this particular Wright story is pure technology, so they could experiment on remote hilltops (i.e. without market feedback).

I totally agree that experimentation can lead you to insights that no one else has had - that no one else can have without it, but which are plain once you've played with a prototype. It doesn't mean you're more perspicacious, it's just that standing on a hill, it's easy to see more. Climb a few hills that no one else has, and you have a unique perspective.
You compare nutrition of apples with peanuts, then say it's natural for humans to eat apples. It's natural for us to eat peanuts too - compare the nutrition of apples with peanut butter if you want to make that argument.
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How is it different from Clojure?
Narraciones: hasta que no escuches nada
The ones I use on a daily basis and love using since it solves a problem/need/pain for me.
layar.
Ok, but the point is that everything else being equal, that person has a much better shot at things today, because of the very small amount of capital necessary for a web-based business.
It's different in that, being common lisp, it's actually useless. Might be fun to tinker, tho, with its CLOS and stuff.
Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, it's not Common Lisp. Scheme, Clojure, and Common Lisp are all very different beasts.
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Bootstrapping a web application platform
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies gets prequel
Startup failure and different cities
Sounds like a droid fanboy to me.
This is from his book, 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
I love this book for explaining in simple human terms why we need science so much.
Dropbox (if they still count as small).
What computer science can teach economics
Constantinos Daskalakis applies the theory of computational complexity to game theory, with consequences in a range of disciplines.
The $250,000 was not a hard offer
Choosing a niche and executing well is important but what stops from other fishes having their lunch at your part of pond?

The pond is so vast and the river flowing into it is so wide that all the other fishes are welcome to anything they find in the general vicinity of me. I'm hardly starving. I also find time to publish a blog titled Tasty Worms Here and release open source swimming techniques. (Plus, although many people think my section of the pond is the size of a mud puddle if that, I think I'm probably, hmm, fourth biggest fish in these here parts? Maybe third. I don't spend too much time thinking about it -- too many tasty worms to eat, not enough time to worry about other fish.)

I don't believe in luck, and I think it lacks explanatory power. For example, the top 1% of iPhone apps rake it in next to the bottom 99%. If you were to ask me why, I'd talk very little about luck and very much about how the App Store is virtually designed to encourage churn and blockbusters, which exacerbates the Winner Take Most effect to the point where it gets almost absurd.
Scott, thanks for the story and I sympathize that things did not work out as well as you would have hoped.

BUT having re-read your post a few times, and obviously not being involved at all, I am not sure that Tanner is the malicious con man you make him out to be.

ie being a douche != a con man && things not working out != being manipulated.

For example:
1. Additional cut to Zen Club
- Zen Club the company is separate to Tanner, the individual. If both are contributing to the App Company (eg you mention the brand, the photoshoot etc), then it seems reasonable to both to be part of the split. I agree that you should probably have negotiated both Tanner's and Zen Club's contributions together, but it seems irrelevant whether you split it as Tanner gets X% and Zen Club gets Y%, or Tanner gets (X + Y)% and Zen Club gets 0%.

2. "We started reporting to Tanner like a boss" and Ryan always agreeing with him.
- These seem to be interpersonal dynamics that doesn't necessarily point to Tanner being a con man. I assume there was no backroom deal where Tanner paid Ryan $X to always agree with him etc, in which case Ryan made his own decisions which simply happened to disagree with you. Similarly if there were no deals that forced you to start "reporting" to Tanner, then it seems like everybody simply fell into this dynamic.

3. Invisible Lawyer and Boilerplate Contract
- Did you ask to meet the lawyer?
- The lawyer is presumably busy, and you mentioned he wasn't being paid for his services, so the fact that you got a fairly generic first draft and the whole process took a long time doesn't mean anybody was being malicious. Even in the best circumstances contracts take some time and always with multiple revisions first.

4. If the runway ran out you would have no income while Tanner still had his gym.
- you not having an income if the runway runs out is a standard risk for founding a startup
- yes Tanner still has his gym. He presumably spent some separate time and investment to set up and keep running, so this also doesn't sound malicious.

5. After you quit, domain / email / ftp accounts were changed
- standard practice I would think

6. Ryan got 5%
- I agree it does seem low, but it is possible this is a fair deal. Think of it this way - the investor put in $250K, Ryan did not put in any money, was working part-time, and none of the apps got approved into the app store (is that a technical responsibility?).

7. Other 'grievances' (eg drives BMW, not using real names, acting career, charging you for an 'overpriced' gym membership and DVD series, alcohol, charging for $30 pillows, 'squatting' in the spare office, etc)
- apart from adding color to your story these details are irrelevant at best
- at worst it makes Tanner a douche, or wasteful with money, but does not necessarily make him a con man

Obviously I don't know the full story so take what I wrote as you will. It just seems a shame if you take the belief that you were conned (and more importantly, take an overly-sceptical / distrusting view into your next project where it could become self-fulfilling) based on only 1 of several possible interpretations of what happened.
How to curb Internet addiction?
Sometimes I feel like my job is akin to being a professional Crack tester. I clearly have an addiction to FB, Twitter, Email, RSS etc but they are all absolutely crucial to my work. Its affecting my productivity bigtime. What can I do?
Ask HN: Introduction to Ruby/Rails book(s)?
Hello, I'm looking to purchase a book that introduces Rails (probably some Ruby too), and whatever else you think should be important for someone looking to get in to Rails. Thank you! Main criteria, is it's up-to-date, as many of the wrox and black titles seems to not be.
... Which Apple has made an externality to them. Greatly increasing the total cost but hey, not Apple's problem any more.
My geo/social situation means I'm not likely to hear about a startup before it's beyond my investment capability; which leaves my own startup, which doesn't really count.
how about using something like http://www.slifeweb.com/ I am quite curious to hear about whether these tools help or not and maybe ways of using it that I haven't thought of.
Most of the gripes seem to be software problems that should be fixable in short time.

I wonder about the browser: aren't there browsers that are common to all Android phones? Or does each Android phone need a customized browser?
I've been using www.rescuetime.com it is absolutely amazing but its not helping... maybe even making it worse. the stats are addictive
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I'm a student having a hard time having to study 6+ hours a day on the 8 hour free time I have, trying to enter the university I aim for (I'm Brazilian). When I started this regime, the hardest habit to drop was the internet, of course ;)
My solution was radical. I gave myself a fixed (and limited) time frame where I could browse, check on email, update social network profiles, etc. I've been studying programming for a long time also, and there's a proper time frame for that too.

However I acknowledge it may be harder if you're in between: trying to control yourself but having it crucial to your job. As hard as t may be, I could only recommend my own strategy: trying to organize your time properly, and stick to it.
Mate, I was going to write a reply, but I don't think you want a discussion. Look at this:

> If you don't believe that an automatic medical treatment is a basic right of any citizen then there won't ever be an intelligent discussion.

Your conclusion is that automatic medical treatment is a basic right of any citizen. You say that there's no intelligent discussion if I don't accept that, and compare not believing it to believing in creationism.

I don't accept that medicine provided by others under threat of force is a fundamental right. I have well thought positions on this.

> And just to answer your question, yes - I would have you arrested.

I do respect that. I mean it scares the hell out of me, but at least you'll say it. Most people won't bite that bullet. I disagree on the borderline murder thing, because I don't think being born in the same place as someone makes you morally accountable to protect them without any say on your part or agreement between you.

But seriously - I don't want to be part of this system. I don't agree that being born in the same place as me makes me accountable for your life without my agreeing to be.

But you say:

"If you don't believe that an automatic medical treatment is a basic right of any citizen then there won't ever be an intelligent discussion."

If you can't intelligently discuss this with me not agreeing with your conclusion, then it'd be kind of useless for me to continue huh? In fact, I reckon that no matter how many suggestions I put forth on a better way to save people's lives than a government run medical system, I don't think I'd change your mind.

Is it possible? Should I bother trying to explain, in that there's a chance I'd change your mind?
"...the lack of trained and skilled workers as opposed to the surging numbers of graduates has led to the emergence of an abnormal trend where graduates are paid the same or even less than migrant laborers."

Everybody wants to talk and earn, nobody wants to actually work.

Do you see a problem here?
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OpenLoopz: Getting Things Done on Android
It's a beautiful text and kept me company for many months: I have probably slogged through it slower than you can came out victorious.

For every chapter on Rudin I must have done a whole complimentary text, though. It's scarce on fluff and every line requires careful attention, but it will prepare you for analysis better than any ghastly 2000 page beast on "Calculus".
Ya that should be the minimum required to bootstrap. I always thought the definitive minimum code for lisp was here:

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/jmc.lisp

Or at least from a historic perspective.
A bit off topic, check out JScheme http://norvig.com/jscheme.html a Scheme implementation for the JVM.

Peter Norving wrote it initially as a way to learn Java in 1998. So he decided he'd write Scheme implementation in Java in couple of hours.(I swear, his Java code still looks better than mine today and he wrote it 11 years ago. :))

I see loads of code in JScheme that could have influenced Clojure to some degree.
I'm reminded of this zen-like story ...

In the United States, I have a close friend named
Jim Forest. When I first met him eight years ago,
he was working with the Catholic Peace Fellowship.
Last winter, Jim came to visit. I usually wash the
dishes after we've finished the evening meal, before
sitting down and drinking tea with everyone else.
One night, Jim asked if he might do the dishes.
I said, "Go ahead, but if you wash the dishes you
must know the way to wash them." Jim replied,
"Come on, you think I don't know how to wash the
dishes?" I answered, "There are two ways to wash
the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in
order to have clean dishes and the second is to
wash the dishes to wash the dishes." Jim was
delighted and said, "I choose the second way - to
wash the dishes to wash the dishes." From then on,
Jim knew how to wash the dishes. I transferred the
"responsibility" to him for an entire week.

If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup
of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the
dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance,
then we are not "washing the dishes to wash the
dishes." What's more, we are not alive during the
time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are
completely incapable of realizing the miracle of
life while standing at the sink. If we can't wash
the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to
drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of
tea, we will only be thinking of other things,
barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are
sucked away into the future and we are incapable of
actually living one minute of life.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

When I'm doing something I try to be in the moment, doing it because it's the right thing to be doing then, and not hankering after the next thing to do. I'm finding that much of what I do is done faster, cleaner, more elegantly, and with greater satisfaction.
It's several years older and implements the standardized language Common Lisp.
Useless how?

It has all the relevant constructs you'd need and more.
And it runs on a JVM with access to Java lower level libraries.

Far from useless I'd say.
The point of the article is that this is a specific example of a larger trend. Have you ever noticed that when the mainstream media covers some science or technology field you happen to have expertise in the coverage is always incredibly shallow and contains several glaring errors? You perhaps labor under the assumption that all of the rest of the media's coverage of subjects you have less independent knowledge of is unbiased, accurate, and thorough. What evidence do you have to support that assumption?

In truth there is very little reporting in the mainstream media these days. Most media conglomerates rest on the advantages of access and consumer inertia. The big papers would rather "report" on their content-free, uncritical exclusive interview with a major figure than actually do the grubby, uninteresting behind the scenes grunt work to break legitimate news.
Socialism != Communism. I was saying exactly what you're saying: Capitalism but with legal and social protections; Capitalism with boundaries; and that's what most people refer to when they say Socialism.
Starting with Clojure
Should I first learn Lisp before starting with Clojure?
I think physicians learn in their studies that washing one's hands does not help all that much. They do actual experiments testing how long you would have to rinse your hands to get a significant amount of bacteria off it - it is a very long time.

Recently I read a study (or talked with a doctor who told me about it, can't remember) saying that it is actually more efficient to use disinfectants occasionally (ie on demand) instead of washing one's hands all the time. People tend to be wary of disinfectants because they tend to sting on the skin, but apparently the stinging is only a sign that the skin is already damaged. Apparently the disinfectants also contain stuff that is good for the skin, so using them is not as bad as it seems.
Clojure is two years old and already has more useful software being written in than CL.

CL is a failure, admit it.
This doesn't appear fraudulent in any legal sense.

DMCA: recipient pretty much must act under the assumption it's legitimate, legal action can be taken against someone who files one fraudulently.

This case: Apple is free to apply common sense, but no guarantee they will, and no legal action is really possible against "someone sends something making vague claims of proprietary technology".

It doesn't use any magic phrases that have meaning, like "patent pending", and it doesn't claim to be a DMCA takedown, so if Apple decides to yank an app, that's between Apple and the developer they screwed over.
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I would have thought sticking unsubscribe links at the bottom was standard practise by now and people would have caught on to it (i.e. look straight at the footer if they're looking for it).
Upside vs. downside
I don't think that's necessary. Some knowledge of Scheme/Haskell/Erlang might help though.
Many will use Firefox if you just ask them to.
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AMQP, Queues and Callbacks at Brightbox
Parsing HTML in Python with BeautifulSoup
The author makes a nice case for lazy evaluation, but I doubt the "goal to help experienced procedural programmers make the transition to Haskell" is achieved because he doesn't explain how to read special Haskell constructs:

mapM_ (interactFile (unlines . map processIt . lines)) args
ss <- mapM readFile fileNames
putStr $ f (concat ss)

A c++ programmer might ask: What do these dots means? Wat does the $ character do? Why us mapM sometimes used with and without trailing underscore?

It seems like one should learn Haskell first, before being able to understand the examples.
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I, for one, am tired of the stereotype that geeks can't be expected to maintain a wardrobe of nice clothes, understand what goes with one's bodyshape, skin-tone and how to mix fits, patterns and colors etc.
Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone
Killer "social media marketing" tip
Whitespace: The Silent Killer
Any startup that is working on an easy mobile payment solution. I'm excited for Jack Dorsey's new project and would definitely put some money in if I could.
The only problem with BeautifulSoup is that its kind of slow, but if it's fast enough for you go for it, otherwise you can try lxml with its lxml.html module. See also: http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/03/30/python-html-parser-per...
Monads can be useful as an abstraction; it's more than just a somewhat convoluted way to do I/O. Look at a parser written with Parsec, or the JIT code generation that Harpy offers with monads and combinators. It's very concise and readable. I also think a major strong point of Haskell that you omitted is the type system. I've never had so few runtime errors. Which might not be saying much, since I usually program in C++ ;) but after, I admit it, a fair time spent fighting with the compiler, my experience is that when I finally get it to compile the code is correct. The purity also allows for some clever optimizations; with native code generation, Haskell is very fast. Especially if you include the JVM start time, it feels much snappier than Clojure/Java.
I think you're getting too hung up on the title. The point of the article is not that all web developers can't code, but rather that often they cannot and do not value the skills of people who can.

If anything the title does a pretty good job of getting people to read it. Even if it does that by annoying a significant part of its target audience ;)
I am not sure if i qualify as an entrepreneur, but I like to call myself that.

It started by accident. I started freelancing, mostly for start-ups and other entrepreneurs. And along the way, I started picking up ideas and people offered me partnerships.

I'm more into starting lasting businesses than into flipping startups, and I'm not a success yet. But that's where I'm at.
> I use The GIMP for serious work

When you say “production of advertising materials” what do you mean? You work for an ad agency? Or you sometimes wear a “design hat” in addition to your other roles at your company? Because if you were spending 40 hours a week on design work, buying and learning and using Photoshop instead of the GIMP would pay for itself quite quickly.

I should have been clearer. I'm sure there exist people who use the GIMP, even though I don’t know them. I do not, however, think the GIMP provides “considerable competition” in the image editing space by any reasonable definition of “considerable”. I don’t have any solid numbers of my own, and really have no idea how I’d look for any, but if we just judge by, for instance, relative numbers of books offered for sale about each product, Photoshop has a simply crushing market-share advantage.

> quality demands seem so low in the print media industry

I don’t work in print media (I’m a political science student), but this seems like a pretty cheap shot. One could take similar shots at programmers, musicians, scientists, etc.
Dear Every Site That Paginates Articles
One thing that annoys me about sales people sometimes is that they always talk about "know your audience", but they'll almost never go "this is a technical audience, we need to talk in terms that technical people will respond to".
The Myth of Chinese Savings
I like the LeechBlock firefox plugin.
Suggestions for any good JRuby books would be greatly appreciated too!