skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Many of the arguments seem to assume a large university. While there are large universities, there are also some fairly small ones. While Berkeley has 25k undergrads. Stanford has 6k, and there's always Reed and so on.

At the smaller universities, many of the early classes are quite small. And, yes it's possible for 1st years to get quality time with "name" professors.
Looks good. I wanted to try it but I couldn't complete the sign-up process.

First I couldn't see the sign-up form because the vimeo video overlaps it. Then the tool I use to generate password (supergenpass) wasn't visible (presumably because of the lightbox effect). Finally, once I signed up I was redirected to a page not found error. Guessing here it doesn't like email addresses as username...
Making Root Unprivileged
5 cent clicks? Bingo competition is lower than I thought
And somehow, in the process, they generate the memes, jokes and stories everybody will be obsessed with one year later. That is the crux of the story, and one you have missed. The despicable part is true, and all too obvious. The idea generation is harder to explain.
Except that the former is plainly false, and the latter is pretty much indisputable provided you aren't walking up to the phrase with a preconceived notion that it's codespeak for something more sinister.

I should add that I very much agree with what you said about Google being in a position to make a much stronger stand for privacy rights in this country. I equally think that this is a pointless little shitstorm that detracts from the larger issue by making privacy advocacy look like petty language lawyering.
Posterous Makes a Play for Business Blogs
it would appear that their definition of small business is a bit different from mine. a 'low' daily minimum of $50 a day (or ~$1,500/month) is beyond the total monthly advertising expenditures of many locally owned and independently operated mom & pop establishments.

This may help explain the low visibility of so many small companies however.
Tumblr camera stats
... and how many hoops do you have to jump through before you find out how much the job actually pays?
"Cletus's post raises very valid points and expresses the feelings of betrayal of many people who contributed to StackOverflow many hours of work for free."

I'm kinda curious about this sentence. Are there people out there who didn't know that Joel runs his website/forums/StackOverflow for Joel's benefit and not necessarily for the benefit of those who contribute?

I read a bunch of Joel's articles in college, then decided that his site wasn't the place for me. I felt that I wasn't really learning anything new from him, and that the forum participants were rehashing really basic stuff that I'd already learned and wanted to move on from. When it came time to get a job (which was right around Joel's big "Great Programmers Work for Fog Creek" push), I kinda laughed and figured that if I were really a great programmer, I'd rather go build search engines or financial models than bugtracking software. So I just quietly applied to financial software startups, stopped reading JoS, and didn't make a big stink about it on the Internet.

I thought about not writing this comment because, as Raganwald notes, I'm being part of the problem and not part of the solution. But I found my life got so much easier when I started worrying about my goals first and other people's second, rather than assuming other people were looking out for me and then feeling betrayed when it turned out they weren't. That doesn't mean being an asshole or never lifting a finger to help someone. It means that when I help someone out on the Internet, it's because I want to, and I don't expect Reputation or Karma or a job offer because of it. They're nice if they happen, but not something to expect.
No don't you'll kill us all
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, so that's where my energy is going.

Okay, I'm stopping. Found it appropriate to make 4chan style jokes in a thread about 4chan.

That hypothesis is very interesting actually, as it concerns me personally. I've gone through a trolling phase not late ago :( and I fit well in the target demographic (male, young, won't comment on the smart part).
Zeus in-the-cloud
looks like they need to find one given the state of links on their main index (in Opera at least)
I feel sorry for anyone in this industry who looks toward people like Joel Spolsky for guidance.
My personal favorite not mentioned in the article is HDD (Hate Driven Development) When the only force accelerating progress on a project is your pure hate for everything the project represents.
no easter egg in the source of the last page? oh well.
We mostly had problems with the remote, but also various pieces of hardware, like the roku. The playback would show up a little dark but I don't think it was directly related to the setup. It was also choppy over the wireless at times. We did a 2 month experiment and decided it wasn't ready. The programming available is horrible though. How many times can you watch Helvetica?

I hope you're right about the reason I'm being downvoted and that it's not because of the typical anti-TV mentality that will sometimes accompany these threads. Sorry for doing a bad job of wording that. (and probably this as well)

Come on guys! As if hyping yourself up with startup news isn't a waste of time. Most of the threads on here are junk food news now. It's no different than watching something on cable.
does it really only allow you to upload 100k of data?
They could do with a proof-reading ninja..."forfill": http://bit.ly/forfill

Don't mean to be petty, but that sort of attention to detail is really important as far as I'm concerned.
Not for me. Can you browse http://ycombinator.com/images/y18.gif ?
XUL is a double-edged sword. It allows deep integration between extensions and the browser, but you pay for it in performance.

Chrome has positioned itself towards performance at the cost of extensibility. Thus I expect it will be difficult for them to allow true extensions in the way Firefox does without giving up some of their trademark speed.
Breaching Fort Apache.org - What went wrong?
Dygraphs: Better Time Series Graphs
I was definitely happy with a structured less chaotic life. I went back to work (as a consultant though) for a year after a major financial crunch off the last startup.

Going back to a 8 hr day job helped in many ways beyond finances

-structure

- a good routine

- minimal decision making on a daily basis (I mean things like should you let go of the employee, should you buy another server or manage with the same, calling up electricity backup repair etc)

- lesser stress levels

- social activity without feeling guilty of time spent.

- broader focus. You keep yourself open for more ideas.

The only feeling that would be odd is - control & speed.

As far as the working for others is concerned, I think you got to accept it. You are in a job for a purpose, it is not as exciting and rewarding but necessary. And it does has its benefits.
The Economist's 2009 Books of the Year
It is pretty trivial... that was my point. If it weren't trivial, then people would just skip it and move on. But it's cute and still sufficiently non-trivial to be a helpful filter for the person who has to sort through the tide of resumes.
Couldn't help but think "CrunchPad" as soon as I read that.
Seriously? I was expecting something a little harder...
I don't think that they're universally too busy to blog, but I do think that the truly great programmers blog very infrequently because they have better things to do. Paul Buchheit's blog shows about one entry per quarter while he was working on Friendfeed, then it went up to about one per week after the FaceBook acquisition. Marc Andreesen has gone dark since starting his venture fund. I know many really awesome programmers at Google who have zero Internet presence, because they're too busy coding. If you want to know what Rob Pike thinks, you read his code, because he doesn't write much otherwise.

I've found that when I'm working on something really cool, I tend to go relatively dark on the Internet too, and there's an inverse correlation between my comments and my productivity. In other words, when I talk I don't know what I'm talking about, and when I know what I'm talking about, I don't talk. ;-) But I cycle through doing/talking phases several times a year, so I'm continually refreshing my experience. Someone who's been doing nothing but blogging for 3-4 years (which seems to be the time it takes to build a major audience) is probably pretty rusty technically, which makes their advice suspect.
I watch about 1-4hrs per day depending on what's showing. Mostly sports but I like NatGeo, History, Travel, Discovery etc. I don't watch any sitcoms but there are a few well written shows like Mad Men, Wire etc. I also enjoy stuff like Top Gear and Ultimate Factories. But it's mostly sports for me.
I could't find it... Is's too good a reference to let it pass.
Yes, businesses are definitely waking up with regards to data. They are suddenly realizing that their various systems are currently or are capable of generating shit loads of valuable data that the business has no idea what to do with. Executives and managers learn through conferences, industry events, etc. that OTHER companies are using this awesome data to generate BILLIONS or save BILLIONS etc.

When you see a company like IBM thrust itself into a field like this, you know that the field is entering mainstream business. This is a perfect time to position a firm as a "niche analytics firm" that focuses on high-end projects where IBM just can't compete.
1.) The person you want to hire is probably going to grate at the use of terms like "ninja" and "monkey", even if you only intended them ironically.

2.) The person you want to hire is probably going to think twice about working with a group who considers viewing HTML source to be a demonstration of one's "ninja-skills".

3.) The person you want to hire probably got bored after 30 seconds and went to go do the http://www.pythonchallenge.com/ instead.
The New York Times is not "leaving revenue on the table." The Times has long been a special case in attracting higher-than-average quality advertising.

Consider these figures from the NYT 2008 10k and that the Boston Globe is probably representative of the class of principle papers in major cities.

Ad revenue by category

National Regional Classified Other
NY Times 70% 13% 15% 2%
Boston Globe 29% 33% 8% 7%
Regional 4% 56% 7% 7%

source: http://www.nytco.com/pdf/annual_2008/business.pdf
Products That Might Change The World
Cardiology transcription
Offtopic: I went clicking through your profile then your Careers CV and see that you did the modos rep tracker. I'm addicted to that thing, so thank you very much. It would be interesting if you added # of visits by user ID then told me that I was visiting way too often because I was a top X% user of the tracker :) Great tool, it has a permanent spot on my bookmarks bar. Thanks again.
Microwave popcorn for the cheap and lazy: put kernels in a glass bowl, cover with a dish.
I'm not sure what the deal is with all the criticism on here. Yeah, it wasn't all that hard - but that's the point. This is a good test of a basic level of skills one needs these days to be a Web developer (Firebug, parsing HTTP headers, deciphering Javascript, jQuery). And, it was fun.

All the hate reminds me of the quote: "Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting."

So, if you read HN and you were able to get through step 5, congratulations! You're at least an average Web developer.
I'm not keen on it either. I think the behaviour of the browser should be that the user controls whether it goes in a new window or tab, i.e.: LMB = same tab, MMB = new tab.

Oh, and if the link is Javascript that attempts to enforce new or different tab, then thre browser should send a distributed denial of service attack to the website. Or better still, assassinate the person resonsible for it (though I suspect this is AI-complete).
Then what is the incentive for working? Maybe wanting to get the project over?

More importantly, what is the incentive for staying in the project (besides pay)?
Yep, all true, but just give the site a spin in IE8 (full standards-conforming mode or compatability mode) or IE7 or earlier--the blemish appears in all of them. It looks bad enough to make it not worth standing on principle, especially when the fix is simply to put in the apostrophe character directly with no need for an entity.
Expression Web 3 Your New PHP Tool Kit [Software Tutorials]
Just disable Javascript...
Nobody has mentioned Khoi Vinh? Creative Director from the New York Times?
1. Thanks for pointing out elev.at - nice service. I hadn't seen that. Nice that it makes an API out of stuff that's already on the web.
2. Feedback link should not cover anything if your screen width is >~960px. Anyone else having a problem?
3. Wonder if '/' is confusing other people. I'll ask around...
4. Eek.. that's what happens when you grab a name and use it. I'm not married to it but I'll have to keep it at least for this competition.
5. Yep right now the upload limit is 100k so I can monitor and manage the load in the early days but that is going to change soon.
I may be, but I don't think most people think of those things you list as having 0 marginal cost, as they're tangible goods or services (although the listings one is a bit sketchy, I think a lot of people view being charged a lot for access to that sort of info as highway robbery, despite its very real value). The cost of information has been anchored at $0 repeatedly over the past decade, and we now use that reference point when deciding the monetary value of new info.

I think I was probably off the mark in my post. It's likely not the marginal cost they're considering, it's likely just that $0 is the new reference cost for info in many people's minds.
Surprising how reluctant the NFL has been to giving their fanbase a live online option. MLB is, by far, the best online streaming option.
Ustream:First Live Broadcaster for iPhone in App Store
Ustream Makes History With First Live Broadcaster for iPhone in App Store.Live Broadcaster for iPhone is available from the official iTunes App Store.
@patio11

I've been working on precisely this sort of self-service ad technology for over a year now. Something that can help site owners run a pseudo-Facebook Ads service.

The product is finished and well worth a look. Only wish it was ready before NYT took the plunge :)

www.trafficspaces.com/tour/
New Version of Google Mobile App for iPhone Is Available In The App Store
Let's hope the web-ninja they hire will know that one does not need to put "javascript:" into onclick event handler, or better yet, that this pseudo-protocol should be avoided.
On the other hand, those tests are great for new grads who have ability but not experience and want to stand out in the piles of resumes that these companies receive every day.
It's pretty discouraging that most of the experts and people who spend a lot of time in a domain are so cynical about their products.

Some examples: almost everyone I know who worked fast-food as a teenager refuses to eat there as an adult because of their first-hand experiences.

Friends who write code for one of the major airline manufacturers telling horror stories about the systems code which fly the plane.

And I could go on for days about the things I saw when I was writing code for an emergency services (e911) company.

Now we can add farmers who wouldn't even eat the food they bring to market to that list.

It's a terrifying world out there if you're paying attention...
Having some problems as well, only after I have signed up. In Google Chrome, the 'ellipses' feature where it shortens the longer list items does not work for me; instead, the text wraps around to the next line.

Otherwise, a very simple and pretty web app. Love the demonstration video.
I'll add mine here as I'm having a problem logging into Reddit.

Startup 1: a product for online shopping sites to use to help customers make complex purchasing decisions. It was difficult to use (required user take a questionnaire) and was one more cost for ecommerce sites to consider. I was there only for a short, 70-hour-a-week stint as a contractor. The company and people seemed nice enough, but I've never seen a market for what they made.

Startup 2: Took a job as a manager of "professional services" (before I understood what that meant) for a business banking software startup. It had VC cash and was burning through it faster than it was getting customers. They sold, likely very cheaply, to a competitor eventually. I'd have stayed longer, but the "professional services" essentially meant travel, contrary to what I understood in the interview, so I left fairly quickly. The company just tried growing staff and office space faster than their revenues. I don't really know how or if the founders did on the sale, but it wasn't the huge success hoped for.

Startup 3: Mine! A rental listing site. Partnered with a "business" guy who couldn't really offer much. Went after a market just dripping with competitors, including rent.com, apartments.com and some guy named Craig. Faced chicken/egg problem in multiple ways. Hard to convince savvy landlords to list if no one else has. Hard to convince savvy landlords to list if no renters visit the site. Hard to convince renters to visit if no properties are on the site. Hard to convince search engines to rank me for much if no listings on my new site.

#3 wasn't all bad. I did get people to list and get organic traffic, but just not enough to sustain the project. I worked the longest and learned the most from the rental site. As a professional, coding a web app from CSS to the database, managing customers and system administration stretched me and helped me like nothing I'd done before.

And that's why I'm looking to make my future #4 a success. :-)
Seppukoo: Assisting your virtual suicide
How to make people tweet your message with one click?
Thanks! Sorry it's been broken for the past day or two, the profile page had some major markup changes. As soon as I get some time I'll get it working again (hopefully today) and I'll incorporate a little stat that tells you how many times you've hit the tracker in the past day/week/month/lifetime. And, um, if you know anyone that's hiring, feel free to pass on the link to my CV. Thanks. :-)
I was referring to unused inventory. Some publishers would rather run low-quality ad networks than house ads, even though it makes justifying higher CPMs much harder.
CakePHP on GitHub
well, that is one thing that will definitely set it apart from tumblr. hopefully they can use it to carve out a good niche.
Had a chance to stop by the space yesterday (construction is winding down) but the office is gorgeous: full professional kitchen, amazing sunlight with large windows, hardwood floors, high ceilings, etc. Maybe the "ideal" place for smart hackers and founders to work together.

Another plus: it's literally a up the street from Stand Burger, where we usually hold out Hackers & Founders meetup.

Great job Jon, Peter and co. at Polaris!
It would be cool if we could have effective contracts like this without having to get the legal system in the way. I wonder if the threat of reputation bashing is really effective? I bet if the friendDA becomes trendy enough, then being a friendDA violator would be trendy to bash.
They should have used an URL-lengthener. Just look what the shortening did to `analytics'.
As an aside, it's cute when Americans say "drop an F-bomb". Swearing simply isn't a big deal in the rest of the world. Go work on a trading floor at an investment bank, an "F-bomb" just just how they say hello...
Study: You'll wolf down 34GB of data today
Sorry, that response was more snippy than it should have been. I'll look forward to your Ask HN
Military use of consumer technology: War games
The 34gb number seems a little BS in my opinion (for example, it mentions that 16GB of that value comes from video games), but the figure that surprised me most: "the average American consumes a whopping [...] 100,000 words of information per day"
Steve Barsh - barsh bits - says it right - http://www.docstoc.com/docs/16875061/The-Risks-and-Current-P...
Because the life of the company is on the line. Every day. The day you forget that is the day you'll be headed for the scrap heap.

Doesn't sound like a healthy way of living / working.
Not having to seek new employment might be a motivation.
very cool. needs a fast js interpreter though.

it bring IE8 completely to its knees.
The link you are accessing has been blocked by the Barracuda Web Filter because it contains content belonging to the category of: Social Networking

Kind of ironic, huh?

I can't access anything from mashable or posterous from the office. Sounds like the first hurdle.
Jared Diamond: Will Big Business Save the Earth?
"If you’re an ESPN fan you have two options."

I've been pretty please with the offerings on ESPN360. I can get it through my DSL connection. (I think cable internet providers block it, but of course the point here is to break with the cable companies anyway.) They have a lot of NBA, college basketball, baseball, even European soccer.
You need one guy with the skill to write a bit of code and a hundred more to do the legwork of plumbing it into the source data for each customer. The latter is what you bill for, and it's commoditized (e.g. "FTP a CSV file from here, run this program, FTP the resulting PDF to the webserver then email the customer to say its done").
Designer truly matters. The UI is simply beautiful. One of the best products I have seen in 2009. This is going to my top 11 list.
BASD: Bait and Switch Development:

You get buy-in from a co-worker for a cutting-edge, poorly documented, sexy but controversial technical approach by promising to do the programming yourself. Co-worker doesn't raise the kind of objections he'd normally raise if it were his project and his problem, because he doesn't want to tell you how to do your own job ("bait"). Then, when it becomes impossible to meet the deadline, you convince management that you're badly needed in a different area, so they assign your coworker to "finish" off the project, except now he has to work within the straightjacket he always suspected you were creating for yourself ("switch"). You move on to a new and interesting technology.

Some call them "Bait and Switch Developers", but in the industry, they're usually just called "Enterprise Architects."
It also work if you put kernels in a plain brown paper bag.

But don't put them in a plastic container, the kernels get very hot and melt the plastic.
Topical River - Realtime feeds of trending topics from across the web
389 - HTML Experiments
City-go-round: Open transit data for 89 cities
It's December and no mention of Christmas Driven Design (CDD)?

Write your system how you wished it worked and fitted together, regardless of whether your wish of it somehow working comes true or not when you run it.
It doesn't take a degree to maintain or be an active contributor to an open source project.
and web ninja shouldn't be hyphenated... and résumé (or resume), not resumé... spacer gifs are lame... I figured the point was to spot the errors
Negotiation 101: To get to yes, start with no
Be wary of opening some of these in your primary browser (mine crashed).

That said, these two are particularly nice: http://the389.com/works/scrollbars/ and http://the389.com/works/moire/
"Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won't"

That's funny. I've got two bags of non-organic potatoes with sprouts all over them. Seems unlikely that I got the last two bags of viable potatoes on earth....
The more appropriate title: Food A Partisan Expert Won't Eat.
"Nature didn't intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result..."

We're going to have to start farming just about all fish soon. I find a lot of the source article here vague and unscientific. Nature doesn't intend anything.
AT&T to educate customers; will clamp down usage to help