skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
IPhone Startup
I have a business iPhone development proposition to someone who is willing to partner. No pay is offered up front, we would both be sacrificing our time to build something big - the rewards are there for the taking.<p>To the right candidate or candidates, I will offer a significant share of the companies' profits on this project. I will fully disclose the details of these applications and the share you will receive once I have chosen the right person(s) for my team.<p>I am open to online collaboration if the right team is formed.<p>Looking forward to hearing from you.
See

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

for more details.
For PHP, use MySQLi or PDO.

http://php.net/manual/en/mysqli-stmt.prepare.php

http://php.net/manual/en/pdo.prepare.php
Yeah, I don't agree. Being the author, I may be a bit biased. ;-)

The post is attempt to put into words an explanation of what it is that we do that other engineers can understand. It's an attempt to explain by analogy.

Nothing in there is being used as a buzzword. We build actual ontologies. Our system is an actual abstraction on top the data. It's operation follows the same pattern as an operating system.

Not only that, I wouldn't call 'abstraction' or 'operating system' a buzzword. (I'll grant you that 'ontology' is bit overused at times, but we don't use it for buzzword compliance, we use it because it actually describes the data models that we build for each instance. But you know, even 'synergy' means something and can be used in a way that's correct?)

The picture of the internet is in the section referencing how the computer operating system has brought us into the information age -- hardly a a non-sequitur. The rise of computing power and the labor savings that good abstractions like the operating system gives us have actually shaped our modern world.

I'm sorry you think the piece is fluffy. I'm a software engineer who helped build the system. I interact with operating systems every day. I ran the piece by a whole slew of engineers in the company to make sure that I wasn't off my rocker in what I was describing, from the analogy about operating systems to why our system has incredible potential for the future. It's not gratuitous wanking, I promise you.

(Maybe the title just needs to be softened? Make the analogy more clear rather than making it seem like we're declaring our system to be a 'operating system' in the classic sense of the phrase?)
The article is about more than just a bunch of vaccine-phobes. It's about many different superstitions people embrace irrationally.

E.g., FTA: Famine remains a serious blight on humanity, yet the leaders of more than one African nation, urged on by rich Europeans who have never missed a meal, have decided it would be better to let their citizens starve than to import genetically modified grains that could feed them.
An Interview with Artist Mark Wilson
I've edited the post to include this comment (for completeness), but it felt like a good cop/bad cop situation, even if it weren't deliberate. Lots of teams said the same thing. It was probably all in our mind, but it's something that will be in the minds of future interviewees as well (people really build it up for themselves).
And I disagree, which is the point of the OP's article in the first place. I think the quote can be read as a genuine compliment - saying, "you put yourself down too much - it turns out you really are good at communication, and I'm impressed with your skill in this area".

Let's put the author's premise to the test, and add emoticons and exclamations:

You disguise a PR piece as an objective 'how to' in a national business publication, coming across as an authority, the underdog, and an all around nice guy who really cares about his customers. You're an engineer who claims to be 'weak' in the sales department, but all evidence to the contrary: nice 'sales hack'! :P
Writing a generic XML pickler in Haskell
It uses webfonts: http://webfonts.info
I love the idea... unfortunately something is seriously wrong with their website. They're selling fonts you can use on other websites. I'd expect that they know a lot about fonts - yet, when you look at their own source:

font-family:arial,sans-serif;

Why don't they buy at least one really high quality font from (for example) Linotype? Not even for reselling, but for use on their own website - to show the difference it can make... Why do they try to sell fonts for websites, but don't try to blow my mind by using one of ITCs, or Vialog, or something else for their own main text.
As an aside: it's not uncommon for groups of people to say they value one thing but, in their aggregate behavior, act as if they value other things instead. This is particularly blatant where moral obligations are involved.

If instead you are suggesting that you will live by example and proselytize to your fellow man to do the same, then really you're using "the invisible hand of the market" to enact the change you desire.

It sounded to me like his point was more that it doesn't work to just sit around waiting for the "invisible hand", i.e., someone else, to fix a problem like that. Someone has to get up and actually do something and persuade people.
The problem, as pointed out in the article/thread, they want products that will _immediately_ scale if the need arises.
could set up something in the private version that pings home to find out if there's a new version available, and if there is, provides the download link or similar.
Judged on my experience, by storing millions of keys in Tyrant, I would say it's very durable. While this is a great blog post, I think the author misses stating that Tyrant supports master-master replication and "hot" backups - which makes Tyrant _much_ more durable. Making fallback code is also pretty easy for a master-master systems (much easier than doing it for master-slave systems like MySQL is - - which for most parts require manual work, while fallback code for a master-master system can be automated ).

It should be stated that there are tools for MySQL that enable "automatic" fallback for MySQL: http://code.google.com/p/mysql-master-master/
So which browsers and OSs are supported then? Because when I go to browse fonts I just see a whole load of Arial :p

A search function would be good too, the question I want answered is can I do my existing design using it.
I'm not convinced I like the methodology, but I do like the question.

I've done some similar testing of my own to see what the performance impact of using libraries' mechanisms for flushing writes to disk and found I could get pretty decent performance results.

However, I think this type of testing can prove that something isn't durable, but not being able to prove something isn't durable by observation doesn't imply that it is durable.

The only answer I'd really trust would be something along the lines of SQLite's testing strategy. Those guys get it right.
Is there any way for the common man to do this? It seems like a pretty sure bet that oil will be more expensive in five years.
What's Wrong With Charitable Giving—and How to Fix It
There are several outfits trying to do this lately, but I just can't see these services gaining much traction.

They seem to exist to provide for the whims of font foundries who want to eat their cake and have it, in a way that no-one else gets. The stock images and icons on web sites can all be downloaded and used on other sites illegally as well, yet in practice this hasn't killed either the stock suppliers or the web in general!

Meanwhile, why would any professional web design firm recommend to their clients that they commit to writing a blank cheque, indefinitely, after the design contract is finished, (edit: and relying on a service outside of their control!), just to keep their site up and running and looking correct?

It's not as if there aren't alternatives for the cases where use of non-web-safe fonts makes a difference: we've been using custom images, even dynamic image replacement techniques, since forever. These don't really scale from occasional uses like headings and pull quotes to the full volume of body text, but for typical body text sizes using custom fonts is unlikely to gain any useful improvement anyway; even most pro-grade don't have the kind of hinting that the Microsoft and Apple standard fonts have.

So I have to wonder, why should the world bend to the font foundries' obsolete business models, when there are numerous alternative technologies available that get the same wow factor where it counts, there are many free fonts available (including a few genuinely of professional quality these days), and there just isn't much of a compelling selling point from the client's point of view to signing up for fonts-as-a-service?
Most Internet traffic bypasses tier-one networks
One of the World's Biggest Botnets Killed
That's a extreme, and highly interesting claim, and I'd appreciate a reference if you can find it.
i love the idea, but there's no way i'm going to pay for the service until it supports IE, at least (i can accept that it doesn't work on chrome and the like, for now).

i hate IE, but its still a huge chunk of the browser segment.
You've already read six paragraphs of drivel that won't help you, so I'll now try to redeem myself and give a few useful pieces of advice.

That's a writing anti-pattern. Please don't force me to read deliberately bad text, take the time to rewrite it so that the non-drivel paragraphs come first, and nothing else after them.
Using the current population numbers always seems odd. At the current population growth rate does that mean we have only some much smaller amount, say 40 years left?
http://tinyurl.com/yzajvbq
Rupert Murdoch: for whom the net tolls
There's a whole boatload of oil based Exchange Traded Funds:

http://etf.stock-encyclopedia.com/category/oil-price-etfs.ht...

I've never done this, but I think they should be available to purchase through an online broker like Scottrade, etrade, etc.
The Early Days of a High-Tech Start-Up Are Magic
Users: New Oracle support portal a 'fiasco'
It does support IE - IE has supported @font-face for the EOT format since IE5.5, it was originally a proprietary IE property that has since been standardised.
The funny thing is that this reads like sarcasm to me as well. I think it's just your very abrupt style. "It took a day and a half" implies it should have happened quicker and it's not your fault.

Please don't take this personally!
Vidly (YC S08) first to launch HD video on Twitter
Importance of YC
Lately I am seeing more and more articles about getting YC interview and tips to ace it. I really don't understand why you guys are giving huge importance in getting through YC. I understand it would be good, Its not like you are finished if you don't get through. I think if your product is good, your startup will become something even if you don't get through YC.
Applying to YC should be one of the steps and not the only step. I have seen articles, if they are rejected by YC, you guys behave as though you are at the bottom pit.

R
Well, true if everyone was engaging in Barter - but that wasn't the case here. Ideally you find something that you are good at - Firewood, Jams, Honey, Art - make lots of it, and exchange that for the stuff you need, using other people as your proxies for cash.
Weird list, as Las Vegas and San Jose already have free wifi. Perhaps others too?

Great that SEA gets it though.
It just depends on what sort of project it is. If you know that you will get millions of users per day starting from day 1, then you have to design for some level of scale from the beginning. Prototypes in Python are common at Google, but usually it will have to be rewritten before launch.
I'm not sure why recruiters prevent markets from working. In my experience they link up programmers and companies that aren't good about getting their name out there find one each other. It's sometimes a bit weird but under the right conditions it benefits both parties.
Precisely what category of "awesome new thing[s]" needs to be developed in Python and can not be implemented in Java or C?
I've found www.skyscanner.net quite good too, especially if you have a flexible schedule, as it lets you choose a whole month and shows you which days have the lowest lowest fares.
Invisibility Uncloaked
Re the higher server costs, have you looked at joining BizSpark? Although I think you'd have to use co-lo to be able to take advantage of the free production licenses.
Looks nifty, but the course appears to require quite an extensive biology background and is targeted at biologists. What I'd love to see is a "Bioinformatics Course in Python".
<sarcasm>Maybe they should just develop everything in lisp!</sarcasm>

PS Here's to hoping the W3C adopts the sarcasm tag.
But would it mean that? Would using server-side javascript make the project less likely to happen? How many projects absolutely depend on the language they're implemented in - especially given that javascript gives you all the scripting features that c++/java lack.
I'm not saying there's anything technically wrong/bad about Java/C++.

Awesome new things come from people's brains. Some people's brains are sensitive to things like motivation/happiness. Python makes some people's brains more motivated/happy than Java/C++ does.

An new thing may never get off the ground, or be taken far enough to become awesome if the developer doesn't have the motivation to work on it.
It's not really the same to use images... It's not uncommon to see websites with a light feel, where main pages contain actual paragraphs of text at size 16-18pt - you can actually make a really good impression by changing the font to something elegant in that case. You don't need any sacrifices for usability, SEO or content management when you design those pages. The text is there for everyone and owner of the website can edit it without going through image exports, etc.

Of course it won't look as good as it would in a pdf for a couple more years, but it's a good start anyways.
Scoopler (YC S08) is looking for talented Software Engineers
Thanks for the responses, One very important thing I forgot to mention was that, both of us have full time jobs, does that warrant outsourcing as an option?
That last step is quite a leap from the previous 6.
I'm seeing all Arial too. I think their servers are buckling under the load.
Why the investigation?

I'd like to acknowledge the projects that have proceeded Answers and inspired us, such as SitePoint Forums (we distribute their books), StackOverflow, Yahoo! Answers, Knol, and many others
A suggestion for Vidly: please make a video's view count available through the API. I just went with YouTube + bit.ly for a video & twitter related thing I'm doing because I have to have access to the view count.
Why has he been downmodded?

Downmods below 0 are ONLY for spam, and "me too" like posts!
Hmm, I guess I was wrong. That second version really does come off with a much more playful and friendly tone (almost completely thanks to the :P). Language is so sneakily expressive!
well done, tho adding :P kind of makes anything ok.

Your article makes you sound evil :P
The problem is that at Google, "taking off" is often equivalent to "launching". When Google launches stuff, it can have millions of users on day 1.
There are ETFs (exchange-traded funds) called OIL and USO which track the price of oil and oil futures. You can buy them through, e.g., Scottrade, the same way you buy stocks. Or you could just buy stock directly in oil companies, which would certainly expose you to the future price of oil.

It may seem like a sure bet that oil prices will rise, but the return would have to compensate you for (a) the opportunity cost and (b) the risk that you're wrong. Peak oil alarmists imply that the current prices don't accurately reflect future scarcity, so they should be able to make a killing in the oil markets and encourage conservation (by making current oil more expensive) at the same time. But if they don't have the confidence to put their money where their mouth is, they really should have the good sense to shut up already.

N.B. I do know some peak oil types who are long oil, and I respect them greatly for it.
Ask HN: Working on a Project to Learn
Hey HN, I am currently an undergraduate in CS and I have a bit of free time that I'd like to spend programming something. I learn best by working on some kind of project but don't know what to program. I'm not looking for a "resume builder" but if I could say "I made this for fun in my spare time and learned a ton" that would be a bonus. I am open to suggestions regarding language and platform.
So HN, let me hear your ideas of what I can work on so I can learn!

Edit: Like I said, I am open to suggestions and have no preference in regards to web apps or anything else.
http://www.TOTAL.com/
Someone should tell them to upload their encoder; they're apparently about 4 years out of date, which would explain why their video quality is rather subpar for the claim of "HD".

x264 - core 57 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2005 - http://www.videolan.or
g/x264.html - options: cabac=0 ref=3 deblock=1:1:1 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subm
e=5 brdo=0 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=0 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone
=21,11 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=12 nr=0 decimate=0 mbaff=0 bframes=2 b_pyramid
=0 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=3 wpredb=0 bime=0 keyint=60 keyint_min=25 scenecut=
40(pre) rc=abr bitrate=2000 ratetol=1.0 rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' qcomp=0.60 qpm
in=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 pb_ratio=1.30

Even Youtube does a better job keeping modern than this; there's no excuse for startups to be using outdated technology.
would be more correct to have (even Joel Spolsky)
The scalability argument doesn't make sense to me. When you're dealing with Google's scale, you need to parallelize horizontally, and you need to design your software in a way which lends itself to horizontal parallelization. For this type of software how much you squeeze out of a given machine is almost irrelevant to scalability (other than the cost of maintaining the extra machines). Of course once the cost goes up too much, you can always rewrite in C.
Philosophizing about Programming: Why I'm learning to love FP
He raised interesting questions, but mostly forgot to also supply answers.
Misdirection?

MySql's used for adwords and probably lots of other stuff. But their primary index (for the internet) is the proprietary stuff they've been discussing.
It's certainly documented that people have a short-term bias in their happiness choices.

However ... I started to listen to tunes on my machine about two months ago and I think I can look back on those two months and say I've been happier and more productive during that time. There are times to turn off the tunes - I never walk around with headphones - but music is cool and the article's argument about lottery tickets won't change that.
Wow, that was useless.. Will people really upvote anything that has "YC Interview" in the title?
Correct. There are any number of things that a person can do. The problem is, what are things that one can do that are effective, as well as avoiding trampling on other liberties in the process? The "use government" route is fraught with moral hazard and unintended consequences.
The fact that we all seem to assume Joel is above the standard communication defects found in all humans concerns me.
While I agree that the lower bandwidth of the written word leaves room for more understandings, it's interesting that sometimes the opposite is the case. I had a professor in grad school who was notoriously harsh to students (people would sometimes leave his office crying). Somehow I discovered that, over email, he was warm and encouraging. The easy fix was to simply do all important communication by email.
Oracle DBA here. I dislike the new metalink interface quite a bit. The UI is very poorly designed; cluttered, slow to load, and confusing.

Of course, the old metalink was also poorly designed. I guess you could say that it just went from bad to worse.
If anything, the article could be taken to show that any large organization is inherently destructive to efficiency and should be cut down for the good of society.
Anyone have numbers on how much faster V8 is than CPython?
Can you give any examples of pages where you think the use of an alternative font has improved the display of body text? I'd be happy to find cases where it makes a real difference, but it has been my experience that there just isn't enough variation at typical screen resolutions between, say, one mainstream serif font and another, that the choice of font is the deciding factor in terms of impact and legibility.

Good appearance on-screen seems to be governed much more by basic design characteristics such as x-height, and by the quality of the hinting, and frankly even the serious font foundries suck at those things in comparison to the Microsoft C-fonts that were designed for anti-aliasing, the old stand-bys of Georgia and Verdana that were designed with screen use in mind, etc.
Why don't you do the opposite: Create a hosted version that gives them the security they desire.

There's been plenty written on the disadvantages of hosting remotely - mostly around the inevitable support that comes with it.

Like Ford said: I've I asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses.
Welcome to 100-mortgage-advice.co.uk
It appears it was round about the time of JRE1.5. Actually, that was the last major runtime update, that doesn't mean the bytecode format changed, though obviously how the runtime reacts to the bytecode is a significant consideration when developing a new language. Anyway, it doesn't seem like the JRE is a largely moving target.
Soo.... their answer to the silos of information is yet another silo. Nice.
What you see as deficiencies, I see as advantages.

The point of the patent system (at least in the USA) is to provide incentives for people to come up with ideas that otherwise people wouldn't come up with. If you are racing to the patent office for fear that someone else will come up with the idea, then your actions demonstrate that you likely shouldn't be granted the patent.

For instance take the "mostly done" issue. If you have it mostly done, until that last piece arrives nobody has any idea how many other people had it mostly done as well. Which means that it is impossible to figure out how innovative your idea is, and therefore we don't have good evidence that you really deserve a patent. Given that handing out patents causes real economic harm to others, I don't think they should be handed out on such poor evidence and therefore don't want to see those patents handed out so quickly.

I am strongly against allowing an exception because it opens up a common form of patent abuse. The story is that a small company invents a new technology and get a patent on it. A big company would like the patent, but can't get access. Instead they get patents on all of the things the small company needs to do to commercialize their invention. Effectively they build a "patent wall" around the existing patent. And now the small company is forced to come to terms with the big ones.

The one issue you raise that I agree with is that often people build on their own ideas. The better mousetrap is often better in several ways, not all of which you think of at one time. But in that case I see two possibilities. One is that the subsequent innovations can be used without your other innovations. In that case you can get a patent on them. The other is that the subsequent innovations can't be used without your other innovations. In that case the patent you can get on your previous innovations will protect your subsequent as well. Either way things work out.
Recovery.gov's Systemic Failure
That's quite a relief to hear, with the future of net neutrality in perpetual doubt.
Yahoo.com - SpeedBit Search