skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Cable Freedom Is a Click Away
When Science Becomes a Casualty of Politics
Oh no... /o\ When did you take take these courses?
This link has already been submitted by Anon84.

Is there a way to remove my link and make it count as an up-vote to Anon84's link?
Me too. I have been thinking of something along similar lines for a few days now. Getting tired of having multiple notebooks, and post-its that I can't seem to find when I want them most

Any words of advise here Peteris?
As much as I really don't like the guy, I think Mark Boulton would be up there. His UX work for Drupal (some of which is at http://d7ux.org) is really top knotch.
Actuatr: Open Your Data To Developers Instantly
Similar to elev.at (http://elev.at/), it's a way of converting legacy & proprietary data formats to a web-accessible version.
I did them both about 2 years ago. I didn't take any organized notes, I'm afraid-- I'd have been happy to pass them along if I had.

If you're going to continue following in my footsteps, I suppose the UC Berkeley Operating Systems course and Knuth's "Musings" series will be next up.
This is something I wish I had considered before going to an engineering school. Not only could I have gotten practically the same education at the local community college for much less, I may have avoided the 100+ student lecture classes my freshman and sophomore years. This was probably the most difficult adjustment for me when starting college (along with the lopsided gender ratio in engineering).

Unfortunately, as a senior at an expensive college-prep school, choosing community college would have been a huge blow to my ego. It also would have ashamed my parents, who are immigrants and place much emphasis on having the best (read: most prestigious) education possible for their children.
The Perfect Server - Mandriva 2010.0 Free (x86_64) [ISPConfig 2]
Sure.

I had a knowledge database back in 2002-2004. It was an application that I used every time I was learning something. It wasn't too advanced, I had to do everything manually, but now I am going to automate as much as I can.

Here is how it worked, every time I'd learn something from the web, I'd copy/paste the key information into the application from the source I was reading, add tags, wget the page (so that i had local copy of the database) and link to local copy. This was I was accumulating tons of information. Some days I'd review everything I had accumulated and add some comments with where it could be relevant. When I needed something, I'd just enter some phrase or keyword that I remembered, like 'linux security chmod' and I would locate the key facts about this topic that I had stored.

Now that I think of it, it can be argued that you can do the same with Google, but it would be a bit slower, you'd have to see which site was it and you'd sometimes make mistakes of locating the right one. But if it's in the database, there are just a few results and you can recall precisely which one is the right because you added the result. It's you personal knowledge database, not the knowledge database of the whole universe as Google is.
If you can get a complete list of valid URLs, you can try to fuzzy-match the URL against that. If one real URL scores much better than all others, you can redirect, otherwise provide a 404 with a choice of the top matches. I'm not sure automatically redirecting from incorrect URLs is within the HTTP spirit, however.
> That is OK of course, but it is a minority view.

Probably in the general population but I would have though it a fairly typical attitude of those who ponder these issues in depth with an open mind.

I should add that a great part of my relativistic attitude is informed by what I see as a great and inherent evil occurring in the world that apparently very few others seem to be bothered about - human caused animal suffering on a mass scale. I sometimes wonder if those who do not find this inherently bad can truly be sentient beings - but logic dictates that they are. Acknowledging that others don't share your point of view does not imply inaction in moral issues.
If Google was a woman
"The Source" for all your game used memorabilia 
J.O. Sports, Inc. was established in 2003 and launched its online website in 2008.

Among the many facets of game used memorabilia, J.O. Sports, Inc. specializes in NFL team and player deals. Our business model focuses on bringing legitimate game used merchandise to the collecting community.

We are honored to help bring integrity and honesty to the industry by offering authentic game used and autographed memorabilia to collectors. We have built a model that benefits the teams, the players and the fans. Our direct relationship with the teams and players sets us apart from other game used dealers and we will continue to stay focused on being a legitimate source for all of your game used needs.
I was going to bring this up myself. Basically, they are hiring people who are experts in BI in order to do consultations for other companies. That way, they can hire 2500 people who already know Cognos BI (which IBM owns) through education and then send them out to companies to do consultation work.

It's a brilliant idea, and they'll make a LOT of money.
I hope we are too busy finding good things to build, good ways to build them, and good people to build them with (and for!) to sit around gossiping about who's over the hill and who sucks.

The entire spirit of HN is to upvote what you like. We don't need to engage in meta-discussion about which blogs are worth reading because we simply upvote the specific posts that are worth reading. Prolific and consistently good writers simply appear more often.

If you, I or anybody else doesn't like what Joel writes or Jeff writes or Reg writes, the solution is definitely to write a blog post. But not this post. Instead, write the kind of blog post you want people to read. Be a force for positive change.

And if you don't feel like writing, don't get sucked into pointing fingers and sneering at others. Spend your time reading the good stuff.

Once there was a horse tied up on the side of the street. Whenever someone tried to pass, the horse would kick them. Soon a crowd gathered around the horse until a wise man was seen coming close. The people said “This horse will surely kill anyone who tries to pass. What are we going to do?” The wise man looked at the horse, turned and walked down another street.
Does anyone else think that while Fogcreek and 37signals have done something cool, a whole generation has tried to imitate them with little success and the constant posting of Joel + Jason does this site little/no good?
Unless someone is literally flooding the front page or otherwise flagrantly spamming, I'm a big fan of just letting the voting system work its magic.
You're right. Next up is Knuth's "Musings". :)
This article repeats some of what was already discussed here, but I found it to be helpful when I was in your position:

http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/11/24/are-passions-serendipi...

Hope you stick with it -- good luck!
Hi. I replied above.
AT&T says you’re using too much bandwidth Bad you
There are two issues here: the business idea (of the jobs site), and Joel's puffery.

I'll make no comment on the latter point, but I have to wonder about the former-- if the hiring process is broken (and I accept the argument that it is), what's a better angle for a start-up than what Jeff and Joel have done?
Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 3: The Best Defense is a Good IP Strategy
I was wondering how the "X post" or "4 stars" info was making it into the google search results. I was thinking that google may have been parsing the data somehow, or that the site itself was providing that information somewhere. It seems that if google is indexing microformat information, it has some foot hold already. If the microformats specs are as bad as Atwood makes them sound, hopefully the attention they are receiving will force them to tight the spec up.
Well, it puts an end to certain types of programmes that use loan histories. For example, some libraries allow people to check their personal loan histories. This is useful if you've ever dug deeply into a given subject at a library, and would like to check what you've read already. Another example is the use of loan histories to generate lists of recommended material. So there is a cost, but I think it's a cost that librarians were willing to pay to protect people's privacy.

I see your point though, the costs to Google and their users is higher.
What do you think of Fantasy Interactive (http://www.f-i.com)? Not trying to self-promote, just want to see what people think. We've done some big portals like http://ea.com, http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events, and http://atari.com, but also more experience-focused sites like http://panamera.com

I'm a big fan of the HappyCog crew, Information Architects, and Huge, to limit it to three.
First Evidence of Brain Rewiring in Children
By Extension, Chrome Battles Firefox
Netvibes launches Wasabi: Interview with CEO
The 'Feedback' link on the left covers the main content for me in FF 3.5.5 on 32bit Vista.
The story was reported yesterday on National Public Radio with the title, "Reading Practice Can Strengthen Brain 'Highways'"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1212531...

with additional details on the research.
Hmm...

Who changed the title from "50 ideas for the new catonmat.net website" to "Ideas for the new catonmat.net website"?

I liked the "50 ideas" more. As tests have shown, people like concrete number of things, like "10 Things You Should Buy For Christmas" or "5 Unix Utilities Everyone Has To Know"

Any way to change the title back to "50 ideas"? :)
Apple to Overhaul iTunes Service?
Good idea. I wrote this one down as well!
I don't think no. 30 is a good idea, I find it very irritating when a site does this. If I want to open something in a new window/tab, I'll do it myself.
Schwarzenegger on 1973 Dating Game TV Show
How Europe's Discarded Computers Are Poisoning Africa's Kids
NBC Universal Taps Adgregate Markets To Launch Mobile Commerce Advertisements
The only thing they haven't nailed is the Extensions site: which isn't wonderful to navigate quite yet.
GOGII Raises $8.2 Million Series B For Free iPhone Texting
Polaris launching Dogpatch Labs free startup space in New York
Another crusty old twit getting all self-righteous because the language has moved on and left him behind. These are all perfectly fine, useful and well understood terms. Some are quite specific to certain fields, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with jargon given the right audience. Bandwidth, for example, is a beautifully succinct and expressive word to use when talking with a technically savvy audience. The English language is always evolving. Learn to deal with it.
And furthermore: Schmidt did not say the quote was being used out of context, despite all the publicity.
TechCrunch?
silly little detail - the "/" between options top right made me think it was a breadcrumbs style path. gave me one of those "wtf? that can't be right. oh... right." moments (which is probably not a good thing).
Thanks. I will reconsider this idea.
With respect to programming jobs startups, it seems like there are at least two ways forward. One is to find a new way to match programmers with existing jobs. The other is to find new kinds of jobs entirely.

YCombinator has funded at least one company finding new ways to match programmers with jobs. And I think YCombinator itself is a new kind of job for programmers :-)
Fake money for fake outrage ... has a certain insane consistency.
I love how twitter is constantly trying to reinvent the wheel for a simple message passing service.
Private Company Valuations: Serious Materials, Inc.
I got this same feeling while reading it, that the author strung together thousands of words to illustrate two strange points: that what Joel and Jeff have done is different from the existing model and thus, might not work and that Joel is past his prime even though he was once really good.

Are those two points really worth thousands of words, whether they are true or not? It doesn't seem like it to me. I wish that at least 500 of the words would have been used to introduce me to something new that the OP thought was better than StackOverflow/Careers.

Of course, the irony is, here I sit writing a comment about an article while producing nothing. I think I'll go write some code.
Teux Deux: slickly designed little to-do app
Paying for outrage is not new. I used to work in D.C. and almost every week there were ads in the paper for protesters. As I remember, it was relatively good pay if you were of college age.

But virtual money for emails? I have to say I like it. Now everybody can be fake outraged.

Or maybe I should say I'm outraged?
Stackoverflow Careers deserves serious criticism. I think it was delivered too soon. They should have waited until StackOverflow became more established.

I've used Stackoverlow on occasion but I don't think the point system means much, and shouldn't be used for an associative career site. People that are competent aren't on stackoverflow all day answering questions for people that didn't read the documentation.
But not all the time.
How we can say this is normal?
"28. Highlight The Python Code As In SQLalchemy Documentation." -- Yes, they're using Pygments.
Note that Fordham is basically going to provide job training... basically IBM is looking for a high tech version of a vo-tech to train people in the IBM way.

And as soon as IBM can, they will ship the job over to the Philippines where they will pay a decent wage of $500/month.

(When I was in Manila in August I saw multiple billboards advertising jobs at IBM).
Poll : Do you hate .NET?
I ask you for no particular reason. You don't even have to give a reason or try to prove your point. It's just about how .NET makes you feel.
Never worked with it
Ustream app could mean more concerts streams (and more AT&T headaches)
Take a look at the implied CPMs. They're insanely high - much higher than any large advertiser working with their sales force would be paying.
Sex education has no credibility. Abstinence only sex ed doesn't work, but guess what? Neither does any other kind.

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/abstinencereport.asp

Lack of contraceptive education effectiveness
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/does_anything_work_in_se...
There's a HN guideline that says:

If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

That's probably the reason why it was edited out.
Huge Inc. did the CNN redesign
Two things.

1. Intelligence in one area does not imply intelligence in another. I don't know all of Schmidt's areas of expertise are but I doubt it includes English. (Don't link me to wikipedia, already read it)

2. Even if he is an expert at English, people are very sloppy with their native language. All you need to do is go to a university for a couple of weeks to figure out most PhDs make the same grammatical errors as the rest of us.
This is awesome news. I work out of the Cambridge Dogpatch Labs, and besides being a kickass office to work out of, the community that works there is very sharp and diverse. A few YC/ Techstars companies included.
Oh, thanks!

I had missed this HN guideline.

Sorry about that, will not repeat this mistake!
It wasn't a long exposure. What you're seeing is the fuel/exhaust spreading out and catching the light in the upper atmosphere.

There's two kinds of chemicals. I guess the yellower is compressed liquid oxygen spilling out laterally as the rocket spins. I don't know what the blue is but it's probably the propellant.
Isn't the rule the degree of oversight required is importance-of-task/trustworthiness-of-person?

And if you want to minimise oversight you need to avoid untrusthworty people and/or give them unimportant (but still useful) work.
Ask HN: Icon in title bar broken?
I was pretty excited... until I saw the CPMs. It costs $10.50 CPMs on their education pages. By comparison, $10.50 will get me about 200 clicks on AdWords. (The minimum of $50 a day also means that the "learn the quirks of the site" period would be wildly expensive for me.)

I'd love for somebody to come up with something anywhere close to as good as AdWords for me... but I'm still looking.
Pew Center Report on hacked CRU E-Mails [pdf]
Including furniture.
Definitely an option, and for some it may be the only practical way to afford college. Certainly you'll come out of college with less debt.
How the iPhone Changed Kayak’s Business
Surely a very large message passing service has different requirements than your typical system.
I have check that the information is true on other sites, but the nicest photo was on The Sun.
I read it as an honest criticism of the sales pitch for a product, and not really as an opinion about Joel's writing. He did make some good points.
I'm amazed there isn't a single mention of Jetpack in the article.

Neither does it mention how ultimately gimped Chrome extensions are. UI modifications like vertical tabs, for instance, would be impossible in the Chrome model.

Ultimately, I think a combined full-fledged extension mechanism + Jetpack is the best way. Provide the ease for those that can do with a limited API, and the power for those that need it.
How to make money on Twitter
Actually though you have a ton of flexibility on those tickets. If you need to move a date, it's easy enough to switch to any flight with availability in that class, no charge. Also, you can split it up and take half the trip, fly home for a while, then return and continue the trip where you left off. As long as you fly within a year, you can do segments 11 months apart really.
Best product demonstration video ever. The inclusion of the some day list is really what draws me in.

I will say, however, that any service taking potentially sensitive personal data (and though it may seem strange, to-do list items are potentially sensitive; imagine someone keeping track of their to-do items on a project for which they have signed an NDA) should have a privacy policy and terms of service page. I know legalese is bad, but I didn't sign up today precisely because there is no privacy policy or terms of service.
Referencing any VC on TheFunded is always a pretty good idea for an entrepreneur looking for capital. That, as well as talking to others that have pitched the person, are excellent ways of outing the jerks. Save yourself some time and just weed them out early. You'll have much more positive experiences this way.
I stand educated.

I inferred such thing must exist, but I never encountered it in the real world during my tribulations so far :)

thank you.
In addition to the above fuzzy-matching idea, you could also do something similar to Wikipedia, and for redirected pages, included a notice at the top like:

Redirected from catonmat.net/artikle

...to let the user know that they did not type in the most preferred URL, so hopefully they will correct their mistake in the future.
can you recommend another good advertiser with lower cpms? thanks.
Taxpayers don't pay directly for the Ordnance Survey.

"It is a separate government department that is now financed through data licensing rather than direct funding from the tax payer"

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/media/features/tra...

Having said that, public sector organisations licence data like everyone else, and that money does come from the taxpayer. However, if the Ordnance Survey were a private company then this situation would be the same.
thank you very much!

could this stand as a sub-topic for top photo shops, branching the 'top UI designers' main theme? (yes, I'm trying realy hard to subvert this topic :p)
I've been watching TV/movies either on DVD/netflix via the x-box, or Hulu by attaching my laptop to the TV instead of cable for the last few months. I'm pretty happy with it overall, and everything which I was really interested in is available.

Despite the massive amount of content available to me, I've found that I just watch the shows I'm interested in or a random movie and then go do something else. I think the main reasons for that are that there's no show that just starts after the current one (I completely stopped watching Colbert) and there aren't re-runs of old shows that I liked. In the case of the latter sometimes episodes of those shows are available, but I seem less inclined to watch them if I need to find and pick them then if I happen to see it's on some channel I'm passing by.
How Digitization Drives Energy Efficiency
What is it about the way we live right now that's not fit to adapting? Is it population, as you mention in your last sentence? Not asking as a challenge, just clarification.

We probably just squeaked through the big ice, and I think low population was a disadvantage for species survival. I think we "adapted" through the recent little ice age pretty well, although it was probably not an align-the-governments scale challenge.

Yes, we are living right now. I think we'll make it through.
Thats great to hear, I'm an EIR in the Dogpatch NY Office. If anyone in the Hacker News community has questions feel free to ping me.
We don't have to imagine too hard - see NYC and the building the of the subway system. Three companies (IRT, BRT, IND) building lines somewhat independently, leaving some areas covered by multiple lines and some areas underserved.
It would be amazingly daft to charge less through this system than they are already getting from big commitments. Those big accounts that buy a lot at once would simply go through this. If you're spending more than $10,000 it looks like you can already get a better deal. But if not you'll be able to advertise and not have to complicate it with sales people.

That said, I'm pretty sure NYTimes.com is already getting some pretty high CPMs (> $25 CPM). These self-serve ads won't be as visible as the large branding campaigns, but that's where the real money is.
As long as the problems are matched to the capabilities of the language, I don't actually care about what the language and capabilities are.

I judge how good things are by the human element. That hasn't changed. The software industry is as inclined as always to engage in death marches, shortchange quality, seek imaginary silver bullets, and devalue experience. In short it isn't fundamentally different at all.
The First Five Years of AWS
The Non NDA NDA
A highly-scalable, multicast, real-time, distributed message passing system with full-text search, archiving, deletions, dynamic subscription changes, access restrictions, open APIs with quotas, abuse detection mechanisms, spam fighting algorithms, different authentication protocols, etc.

Still think it's so simple?
Actually, the Five Whys isn't about finding a solution, it is about finding the core problem. I don't think that Joel's example is a good one, because after four true layers of problems it abruptly jumps to a solution, with absolutely no reasoning why this particular solution would be the best one, while leaving deeper issues just to keep the number of Whys at five.

The correct Five Whys process would continue past five questions, and end in something like "because the team is not prepared" or even "the team doesn't have enough experience with organizing events"; something that could be solved by, among others, preparing a checklist.