skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree the low level courses aren't very interesting. But when you are teaching to a class of thousands there really isn't a better method. Project based work only works when the students are interested and can be engaged. This is what I was told the 100 levels were about anyway. Weeding out those that don't take the material serious from the ones that do. And it's very rare I've had a lecture that I couldn't skip. The professor posted the lecture online including pdfs and podcasts. Unedifying is highly subjective. A particular part of the material that might seem easy to you could be difficult for someone else. But cancelling the lecture all together won't be a solution.

>>

I assume this depends on the subject and the teacher. Courses that I thought were going to be easy (Intro to Art History for example) turned out to demanding than they let you believe. Maybe things have gotten worse since I was in college (even though SAT scores keep going up). When I left highschool projects and labs had to be dropped due to budget constraints. (School couldn't afford the glass nor the insurance from what I heard). When I arrived at uni, a technical uni, collaborative, project assignments were a major component. The midterm and final were used to pad out your grade. I.E. if you had strong project grades and 1 bad exam grade it couldn't be used against you. And I've heard of students only showing up for only the midterm and final, but I doubt you could get away with it for engineering or the sciences.
"Race" in College Admission FAQ
> the part about triangles having to have sides of equal lengths.

Did you miss the equilateral qualifier?

EDIT: ah, it appears this qualifier was added to the blog post between your reading and mine.
"If" is one of my favorite inspiring poems. Here's a great video version of it:

http://www.vimeo.com/1305608
Well, #1 and #2 aren't mutually exclusive.

In our experience, IE6 users are simply unwilling -- or more to the point, unable -- to upgrade. The people who come to mind are parents whose kids have moved away, office workers, unfortunate souls in school systems or other non-profits that don't have a decent IT budget, etc.

My shop leans towards #1 and will include IE6 "compatibility" separately. This works well for our clients since IE6 is rarely being used by the people that our clients' sites are built for.

Unless we're explicitly asked not to, we use a banner-style alert as a general practice in order to encourage upgrades. We use IE6Update:

http://ie6update.com/

On a side note, Microsoft's "Browser for the Better" campaign was actually pretty helpful because we could say that upgrading to IE8 was feeding hungry families:

http://browserforthebetter.com/
Virtual address would be great - kind of like Google Voice for your mailing address. If my mail typically went to a PO box, it would be nice to check online/receive alerts when I receive mail and who it's from.
Who to Hire
What does fairness have to do with capital markets?
People don't choose who to work for based on whether or not the 'boss' is an asshole, in fact I would put forward that most bosses are less than nice, even (or maybe especially) the successful ones.

The biggest deciding factor for most people to choose where to work is the size of the paycheck and the benefits, a nice boss is 'nice to have' but not an absolute must. And that is why people are frequently frustrated about their workplace environment. Some will burn out or even get ill.

But quitting because the boss is a jerk and taking a paycut to work for a nicer person is not common, even though it definitely does happen.

I think it is idealistic to put these things forward as traits of entrepreneurs. In an ideal world they would be, in the world we live in the reverse seems to be the case more often than not. I'd rather live in your world though :)

I've been a boss, and I've tried hard to be one of the nicer ones. The downside of that is that your employees will find that they do not really know how to deal with that, so their interpret 'the boss is nice' as 'we can do what we want'. It is very hard to be both a 'nice' boss and to stay productive, that is why I think that most experienced managers adopt a less than 'nice' stance to keep the wheels turning. They don't much care if people think they are jerks, as long as the trains run on time and the bottom line is going up.
If I'm a one-in-a-million programmer in a population with one billion people (which I assume is what you were getting at), to have a thousand people better than me would assume that 100% of that population are programmers. They are not. Say for arguments sake that 5% of the Chinese population are professional programmers, then if I'm one in a million then I have around 50 other people on my level in the entire country.

On the other hand if my entire gimmick is "I'm a decent programmer but I can speak Japanese!" and you limit yourself to that market then the reality is that your opportunities are drastically smaller than even "American programmer who is self-qualified with good experience, solid skills and good work ethic looking for a 9-5 job in America."
It all seems a bit precious to me and doesn't seem like a space where people actually do anything significant or challenging, other than send out tweets. I guess you've got to spend your VC money somehow.
I can cite you off-hand at least 10 examples of not-so-nice people that made it big in business, I have a real problem finding more than 3 that I think are or were successful and that are very nice people.

It may be just my experience. But the Dilbert series has to ring true to so many people for a reason.
I can name without any effort a few geniuses that didn't lack neither common sense nor social skills (Feynman, Darwin, Newton, Da Vinci, Leibniz, Pitagora). I'm sure that there are scores of them.
I would say that the equation "Super-High IQ = Super-Low Common Sense" is simply wrong.
"Plays well with others" as he describes it just translates into "extrovert."

Interesting considering the vast majority of HNers are introverts: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722
Top IT Turkeys of 2009: The annual list of bad behavior returns
The difficulty is how you define "most restrictive" in a strongly typed language. If I have classes which implement multiple interfaces which aren't subsets of each other... maybe cloneable and serializable? Which is more restrictive? Does C# solve this?
> If you go to university because you want a job, you're a fool.

Even if that's what your elders had been telling you all your life? I'm not saying it's their fault either; after all it worked for them [1], so it made sense to pass on a working theory. I just don't think it's apt to label a young person foolish just because they listened to the (flawed) wisdom of the more experienced.

[1] I'm speaking only of the U.S. Baby Boomer generation like my parents, since that's all I'm qualified to speak of.
Published 2004.
For real. You really don't need those features.
Being not-so-nice can definitely be a symptom of playing well with others. The stereotype of the "popular" kids in high school is that they're jerks. And yet, they're considered the ones with the best social skills!
Osmotic Power Debuts in Norway
$400 for a logo? Why are you so expensive?
Polyphasic sleep for knowledge workers considered harmful
1 point by lsb 6 hours ago | link
We're currently T -4 hours from the raison d'être
The secret of Tim Ferriss's success.
Reminds me of this statement (Braveheart):

"The problem with Scotland, is that it's full of Scots"
I found http://www.cqc.state.ny.us/misc/hottopics/fcwheel.htm to be the most interesting link on facilitated communication.

Look at it through the lens of two-from-four thinking. http://www.cawtech.freeserve.co.uk/nat_neg.2.html

We think it is a binary question: does the message originate with the patient or the facilitator. Think harder; there are two binary questions. Where does the message really originate? Where does the facilitator think it is coming from?

It is very tempting to think that these two questions are pretty much the same and most always have the same answer. This gives us two of the four possibilities: it really works, its is deliberate fraud.

The piece by Doug Wheeler opts for the third of the four possibilities

>The effect was powerful and personally devastating, as feared.

Most of the facilitators were unaware of the illusory nature of facilitation, so the bottom dropped out of their world, like a cuckcolded husband discovering that the child wasn't his. (except the other way round, kind of, it is the weirdness that makes this so interesting.)

So there is one story about the people in comas and another different story about healthy people being sucked in by a powerful illusion. The scary part of the second story lies in the escape route. An outsider insists on doing careful experiments. Those inside the illusion are annoyed at the waste of time, but unconcerned by the possibility of a negative result.

So when Madoff conned lots of people was there a similar illusion at work? People were convinced that he persuaded them that he was legitimate. But he could have been in a coma, and his investors facilitators, producing the message: these are great, safe investments. The standard narrative credits Madoff with extra-ordinary powers of conmanship. That has implications for us as potential marks. We must look outside and be vigilant against an external enemy. But if the facilitators experience is part of wider picture we never suspect that key communications are not coming from him but from us.
No kidding. At least when Brin spent company money indulging his wife, it was on a genetics startup.

Or maybe that's just my engineer's aesthetic showing how little I care for objets d'arte in the workplace.
That is part of the Rupert Murdoch controversy: many (all?) of the News Corp. properties are behind a paywall, but the paywall has a hole in it the size of Google. ;-) Google pays them (but not enough to stop them from complaining) and indexes their sites. They intentionally allow users coming from a Google search to enter their fiefdom, but throw up a paywall for direct links.

http://www.google.com/search?q=rupert+murdoch+paywall+google...

They have a serious conundrum: they want to be indexed by Google so that they can attract visitors, but they want to be paid by subscriptions (paywall), which is more lucrative than advertisements (assuming they can convert visitors into subscribers).

Even if they closed the "referred by Google" hole, they would still have to allow the googlebot unfettered access in order to index their site. This would make the hole slightly more obscure, but it would not close it.
Second that. They're orthogonal, to a certain extent. I find it hard to imagine someone with an extremely low IQ to exhibit a lot of common sense, so to my feeling the relationship is the reverse, but in potential.

I would define it as 'super high IQ' = 'potential to exhibit high degree of common sense'.

Because people that have a super high IQ are not 'common' in their common sense does not automatically mean they are not right. Common after all is used here almost as a stand-in for average, but common sense means something else entirely.

This interpretation of common sense will get you in to Asperger syndrome territory when you look at individuals with a very high IQ, who can have a serious problem communicating their ideas to people that can't follow their train of thought.
That is a really interesting comment. I hadn't really considered the "popular" kids theory. I think you've hit the nail on the head with that one.
This is a great roundup of what traits you need. One other I will add is the ability to give and get feedback. This is slightly different than "plays well with others" because it is the ability to take and iterate on feedback from 1. your market, 2. your potential users 3. your friends and family and 4. everyone else.

This is helpful in the early stages for product justification but also later on when larger decisions come up. You have to know how to seperate the advice from those that just don't believe you can achieve what you set out to do.

This is turning into its own blog post so ill stop there...
Robotics Resource for Indian Students
Myself and employees would be working on doors on cinder blocks if we were a billion dollar company burning money with no revenue. Karosene lamps, servers run by hampster wheels...
That's fine, definitely two ways to look at the problem. We charge a higher rate than some shops, because I think our work is worth it, and it includes things like IE6 compatibility. But these are just differentiation points, and there's room in the market for both approaches.

Regarding making things look easy, I've always enjoyed Law 30 of the 48 Laws of Power:

Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless: Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work - it only raises questions.

To each his own.
It's a fine line between 'social skills' (playing well with others) and 'manipulation' (getting others to do what you want them to).

Many people that are very successful are really good at getting others to do what they want them to do by pushing the right buttons. That does not make them 'nice people' or 'people that play nice with others'.
I wonder whether the neutral point of view principle isn't a significant part of the problem.

I've long contended, in discussion about the media, that it's absolutely impossible to have a completely neutral presentation.

Since this is true, it seems better to me to stop pretending to be neutral, and instead to acknowledge the ways in which there may be bias.
I'm not so sure I understand what you mean here, guys. If I'm right, using PO boxes or temporary virtual addresses is kind of redundant in this situation as it obsfucates the addresses anyway.
Looks absolutely horrible. What a waste of money.
Can't say at the moment, ongoing negotiations and the like ;)
I have been using a Now & Zen alarm clock for the last 3 years. http://www.now-zen.com/ (It looks like they are now calling the one I have the 'zen timepiece.') I was fed up with electronic noises. These clocks have a brass bowl that produces very pleasant gongs to wake you up. And it doesn't jab you awake like most all other alarm clocks I could find. It gongs and then waits a few minutes. If you haven't gotten up after a few minutes, it gongs again, and waits a couple more minutes. It gradually gongs more frequently over a period of 10 minutes.

Sometimes I am up at the first gong and sometimes it takes several. Now, hooking up my bowl gong to the wakemate could make for a great combination.
How To Build A Site That Generates Revenue
Unfairness is a signal of inefficiency in capital markets?

Sure this office might help them hire great workers and it might make them more productive at work, or it might be a boondoggle funneled to the founder's wife because they've raised over $100M. If you were an investor in Twitter, would this office make you feel good about how your money is being used?
I don't understand the last sentence in the quoted article:

Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.

Before Facebook could take credit for creating Facebook, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms around Facebook? The video states this took place during the Autumn of 2009. The chronology and weird verb tense makes the sentence super confusing.
didn't even think of that one! :)
>> "And how many offices have their own DJ booth?"

What? I can't quite see why you would need a DJ booth in a twitter office.

Looks like a good place for people to talk about how important they are. Not sure about being a good place for people to work and actually make stuff though.
We actually spent $400 for a logo using this site, but you can get something decent for even less. http://www.crowdspring.com/
Great idea. I could use a site like this, but I'm having some issues with it.

1. I created my first album on the homepage, but after I logged in using my Twitter credentials, the album I created disappeared.

2. Since I have new pages show up in in tabs instead of popups, the upload pop was confusing.

3. The invitation system was hard to find. (Turns out it's a small box under a big image.) And when I found it, it forced me to remember my friend's twitter handles. A friend who developed a Twitter app had his app search through users' past messages and recommend some friends for them to invite. Might be a good addition here.

For me it would be easier if you walked me through the process step by step and kept it all on one page without popups.

Having said that, the site looks beautiful and you have a great idea. I could use this.
Google Adds Breadcrumbs to Search Results Interface
The making of Another World
My question to you is: Are these ever not good traits for someone to have? I chuckle whenever I see this kind of post, because saying "having <positive trait> makes you better for <something>" is a non-statement--that's the definition of a positive trait.

These analyses would be more interesting if they were about qualities that aren't pure benefit. Would having a short attention span be of benefit, because you constantly work on the most profitable venture and never get stuck on something without potential? Or are the drawbacks too great? Is it good to be controlling of employees, because you want something done exactly right, or is it too annoying?
Ask HN: HN for mainstream news?
I like keeping up with what is going in domestic an international news but browsing sites like CNN and even BBC have become increasingly tiresome because of headlines like "Donny Osmond is new 'Dancing' champ" and "Dog OK after swallowing 100 nails"

Is there a HN type site that caters to mainstream news with I hate to say it but "highbrow" tastes?
Twitter is earning bupkis, which means that all this is being paid for by investors. How are they justifying this?

There's an argument that perception matters, I suppose. For instance, banks spend a lot on making their public buildings seem solid and impressive to bolster confidence in them, when so many of their products are built on air.

Twitter is similarly intangible, so perhaps they're trying to say that they're an impressive company by having an impressive building. If that's the case, I think this backfires, by saying the opposite. It all looks and smells (er, in a non-toxin fashion) of the Aerons of the late 1990s. Even Fog Creek held off on their developer-focused space until they could afford it.

Is there really no better return that could have been made on that cash? (Could it perhaps have bought a "Remember Me" checkbox that remembers me?)
Many people around me show contempt for building website, I always reply with "Google is just a website too". Non-tech people usually have difficulty in seeing the difference between a highly complex webapp and a static web page.
I had yourmaninindia.com run the numbers for me and he came up with 3,096,288 rupees
What's worse? Having it all fall apart in complete disaster in 6 months? Or having it require continual Herculean effort to keep it limping along for years?
I operate an English language learning site, and we have one demographic that has a staggering amount of IE6 usage: 66% of our Chinese user base is using IE6. Needless to say, we continue to support IE6.
See http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p.html for an amusing and related story told in emails.

The software equivalent I find goes like this:

Business person rings up to ask us to develop a software package to run his business. The spec is always somewhat vague and very idiosyncratic. The businessman then explains that once we have developed this software for him then we will be able to sell it to lots of other businesses and that he will only ask for half the income in exchange for his amazing business knowledge. Plus, of course, we will be able to use his (free) implementation as a reference site.

We usually manage to contain our enthusiasm and decline these wonderful offers.
A student who has learned nothing will not receive an F because the professor doesn't want to admit that his teaching hasn't been compelling and/or effective.

That's not true. Professors would love to fail more students. But if you do, then you tons and tons of complaints, the university gets on your ass, and then you have to go back and change a few Fs to Ds. It's not worth the headache.
Scala? Clojure?
Sessions for Compojure
I will create a site that is designed for newer browsers. I am not going to forbid IE6 usage like I have seen other sites do. "Your browser is not welcome here, please upgrade." Instead, if IE6 works, it works. If not, I am not going to worry about it.
Your numbers are more precise than Patio's, but I think they miss the bigger point he is trying to make: distinguish yourself from the crowd, find a niche.

To your second point, he also does emphasize that you need to create a marketable niche. Programmers who speak Japanese would be very valuable, iff there aren't a lot of Japanese speakers who can program.
Cool technology ..... Check

Sweet office space .. Check

Revenue plan ........
can we see the logo? mind sharing?
I don't really agree with this.

Google is more of an application, which is accessed primarily via their web UI (other options for access are clients such as you find on various mobile devices and desktop widgets).

A static web page is much much different than Google or a similar webapp. Not to say that developing a static site that adds value for a business isn't worthy, but it's quite different from Google.
Think PayPal for shipping addresses.
I agree with you that this is a discretionary cost which they have justified to themselves and the people whose money they are spending.

My objection was his claim of "unfair!". Invocations of fairness are the resort of people who don't understand a system.
The Season of Stuff
Logo is one of those things that you just can't get done to someone else. I spent $200 on a provider once, and I had useless logos designed.

If you must outsource the design, you should pay more than $400 and reiterate probably 5 - 10 times to get what you want.
That code uses one of several gotchas in java: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/projects/sumatra/hallofshame
A game developer's guide to the RLX Common Lisp Game Engine
Hm, at Amazon.com we had desks made out of door plates in brown cubicles. Also, we made money.
Not an HN type but I like the Economist daily news.
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/
Not to mention the fact that the designer is the wife of Evan Williams.
They're all good, and maybe it's simply because of where I'm at right now, but particularly poignant is: 5. Make a mess of a major IT project. I have seen companies hit the rocks because they spent fortunes on computer systems that did not function properly. I’m not suggesting you never invest in technology, but make sure you take expert advice, and embark on such a move only when the time is right.
The epitome of design! Gotta love it!
Tell HN: Happy Thanksgiving
It's 1am here in the Philippines and want to wish fellow HN'ers and the community a Happy Thanksgiving!

Take a break, spend time with family and friends. Eat and get recharged. Hope you have a good one.
>Can you imagine anything more ridiculous than a bunch of CEOs of Verizon, and Google, and Sony Ericsson, and Nokia, sitting around the table, and going "How are we going to answer the iPhone ?"

Unfortunately, you will rot and die a sad and painful death if you don't do precisely that. As a company, you always have to respond to your competitors. Whether you choose to do that by trying to catch up to your competitors or blow the competition away is what matters.