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43,690 | 43,596 |
bigidea
|
Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied
|
dawie
|
It is often tempting to substitute 'smug' with a word like 'satisfied', but we must resist this unnatural temptation.
| null | 0 | 8 |
2007-08-18 01:57:47 UTC
|
43,695 | 43,458 |
henning
|
12 Important US Laws that every blogger needs to know
|
Keios
|
Another tip: don't make important legal decisions based on advice from people who aren't lawyers.
|
Applicable to more than just blogs.
| 1 | 5 |
2007-08-18 02:16:57 UTC
|
43,696 | 43,635 |
danw
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
Any idea on how traffic trends for news.yc are since the relaunch? Was traffic dropping before the change? Has it gone up after?
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 11 | 48 |
2007-08-18 02:21:28 UTC
|
43,698 | 43,416 |
plusbryan
|
Lies, Damn Lies, and the Number of Sexual Partners
|
adamx
|
shouldnt this be on reddit. and not here?
| null | 1 | 8 |
2007-08-18 02:45:20 UTC
|
43,701 | 43,686 |
motoko
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
My mother is the director of gifted education in a major midwestern city's public school district. She doesn't believe in evolution.There are quotas for minorities. Many otherwise qualified students are denied acceptance because their places are reserved. And not just a few... many.Logistically, kids need to be bused from other schools, but transportation is uncooperative and the schools resent the hassle. There is also an additional bureaucratic and testing cost. These costs are in addition to running the programs themselves, but _these_ costs specifically antagonize other political entities in the school district.And of course... unlike special ed, teachers resent busing away their best students. They fight over dumping the worst, of course.Politically (within the district) gifted education is a career for pariahs. They create hassle for the "normal" (aka "real") teachers and they have no power to deter neglect or abuse. The teachers and staff in the department are paid less than require more education than "real" teachers. This drives away the best teaching talent and firmly entrenches the some least ambitious teachers within the department. The curriculum is a petri dish of all sorts of inane pet political agendas. Especially in science and math, the teachers don't know the subjects themselves, so these subjects simply aren't taught beyond a pre-packaged lesson plan.The consequence: the most qualified students leave the district (if they can.) Instead of integration, communities become more and more segregated. Fact is, if you don't "segregate" special resources for the best within a community, the best will leave. School districts only have incentives to reduce segregation with their local district. But segregation is inevitable, and failing to deal with it merely bubbles the segregation to higher levels.Hence, I'm writing this from Silicon Valley and not the midwest.UpdateSo nerd education is the nerd of education. If you were a nerd in school, and you remember how _you_ were treated, doesn't that seem like a plausible extrapolation?
| null | 0 | 22 |
2007-08-18 03:01:11 UTC
|
43,704 | 43,640 |
ed
|
The Power of Good UI Design
|
danw
|
Apple's next ad campaign?
| null | 3 | 8 |
2007-08-18 03:08:11 UTC
|
43,707 | 43,686 |
palish
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
Assertion: The American K-12 school system is broken in huge ways. Let's talk about it!
| null | 2 | 22 |
2007-08-18 03:24:29 UTC
|
43,708 | 43,608 |
motoko
|
Cringely: Surviving Immortality
|
ph0rque
|
1) Singularity is interesting because it changes what it means to be human. The idea of "machines enslaving us" suggests that people are thinking like movie plots: machines become "human-like" amid confused humans doomed as common everymen. What's more likely is that the modern human will become obsolete in the same way that the hunter-gather human has and the agrarian human is. Machines don't "enslave" us, they _become_ us.2) How long until irresponsible birth is as egregious as irresponsible death?
| null | 0 | 17 |
2007-08-18 03:26:50 UTC
|
43,710 | 43,654 |
palish
|
Help me build a Top 10 Facebook App
|
myoung8
|
This sounds a lot like "I have this great idea, please build it and split the result with me 50/50". That doesn't work, sorry.
|
I'm pretty sure this app will have many millions of users. It incorporates video-game-like elements and involves strategic competition which will keep users coming back.I will take care of the front-end design and securing advertising.Willing to split equity 50-50.Email me if you're interested.
| 1 | 3 |
2007-08-18 03:28:18 UTC
|
43,713 | 43,635 |
Caligula
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
I am very disappointed at the editing. I understand if the user includes profanity or hate speech but nitpicking? It just seems like censorship when it doesn't need to be.
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 22 | 48 |
2007-08-18 03:39:32 UTC
|
43,716 | 43,596 |
mnemonicsloth
|
Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied
|
dawie
|
No kidding. Also:Life Partners of Homosexuals Frequently Gay Themselves.
| null | 1 | 8 |
2007-08-18 04:07:20 UTC
|
43,720 | 43,635 |
Hexayurt
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
I think the art would be to stop people joining the site when it reaches an acceptable level of coolness.Isn't this how Metafilter survives and maintains its excellent quality?
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 14 | 48 |
2007-08-18 04:45:15 UTC
|
43,722 | 43,686 |
motoko
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
"And for reasons that no one understands, African Americans' IQ scores have tended to cluster about a standard deviation below the average--evidence for some that the tests themselves are biased."sniff sniffLike evidence "for some" that the tests work when you like the results ---but don't when you don't?
| null | 4 | 22 |
2007-08-18 04:48:30 UTC
|
43,723 | 43,640 |
gibsonf1
|
The Power of Good UI Design
|
danw
|
My 3.5 year old daughter figured out how to zoom in and out with the pinching motion :)
| null | 2 | 8 |
2007-08-18 05:01:52 UTC
|
43,726 | 43,576 |
gibsonf1
|
Emacs visual cheat sheet
|
nickb
|
Thanks for the great link - I'm just switching over to Emacs (from the LispWorks IDE) right now - the timing is perfect :)
| null | 0 | 2 |
2007-08-18 05:05:43 UTC
|
43,735 | 43,686 |
patrickg-zill
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
Isn't it obvious that the answer is yes? No disrespect to the many people who have Down's or other syndromes, as many of them are wonderful human beings; but the current attitude is that they would rather spend $100K on special assistants so that little Danny can be taught to use the bathroom by himself by the time he is 14, rather than spend that same money encouraging 100 smart kids.
| null | 3 | 22 |
2007-08-18 05:57:01 UTC
|
43,737 | 43,608 |
jey
|
Cringely: Surviving Immortality
|
ph0rque
|
Singularity Summit 2007 in San Francisco: http://www.singinst.org/summit2007
| null | 2 | 17 |
2007-08-18 06:26:00 UTC
|
43,739 | 43,686 |
davidw
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
And here we go with the politics...
| null | 8 | 22 |
2007-08-18 07:41:54 UTC
|
43,743 | 43,635 |
pg
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
It's the final straw that we fix typos and abusive punctuation in submission titles? That seems a bit melodramatic.I'm surprised to think anyone didn't already realize we did this. Did you really think people on news.yc had that much better spelling than reddit users?
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 1 | 48 |
2007-08-18 07:54:12 UTC
|
43,745 | 43,596 |
mpc
|
Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied
|
dawie
|
Eary iPhone adopters are the easiest for Apple to satisfy....
| null | 2 | 8 |
2007-08-18 07:59:17 UTC
|
43,747 | 43,390 |
SwellJoe
|
Richard Stallman safe after Peru earthquake
|
nickb
|
This also just in:SwellJoe safe after Peru earthquake.Paris Hilton safe after Peru earthquake.About 6 billion people I don't know safe after Peru earthquake.Anybody else think this is an utter waste of a headline/link? Everyone except the people injured or lost in the Peru earthquake is safe after the earthquake. We don't need a headline about every single one of them. The silly rumor about isn't news, and the fact that it was a rumor is certainly now news.But maybe I'm just grouchy because I'm coming down with yet another summer cold (God must have smote me because of my atheism).
| null | 1 | 8 |
2007-08-18 08:03:53 UTC
|
43,751 | 43,686 |
trekker7
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
All these smart kids should just do startups, get rich, and skip school entirely, provided they can learn the basics themselves, and their social lives aren't too screwed up by this. If college students can start companies, why not brilliant high school and jr. high students?
| null | 5 | 22 |
2007-08-18 08:16:52 UTC
|
43,756 | 43,755 |
ks
|
Weeks of hell at Opera Software
|
ks
|
Video here:http://nettv.aftenposten.no/player/player.php?id=5180
|
Video available here:
http://nettv.aftenposten.no/player/player.php?id=5180
| 1 | 5 |
2007-08-18 08:47:33 UTC
|
43,759 | 43,635 |
axod
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
I know this isn't the right place to ask this, but why is there no down arrow for submissions/comments? And why when you upmod something does the arrow disappear! Where's the undo?
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 13 | 48 |
2007-08-18 09:34:49 UTC
|
43,761 | 43,686 |
AdamG
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
So Time thinks that not letting an already arrogant kid skip two grades is "failing" her. The most important thing for a school age kid is to become well-socialized. The correlation between skipping grades and turning out well is just a correlation - it may be that those who were not allowed to skip were so messed up socially already that they were less likely to convince their schools to let them skip grades. In contrast, if you're well-adjusted and smart, it's more likely that you'd be able to convince school administrators to allow you to skip a grade. And, of course, Time misses that distinction, making it into a clear case of "the more grades skipped the better."
| null | 6 | 22 |
2007-08-18 10:01:42 UTC
|
43,763 | 43,608 |
rms
|
Cringely: Surviving Immortality
|
ph0rque
|
Most people focus on the technological singularity, the development of strong AI.I think the more likely singularity is biological singularity, when individual human consciousnesses become immortal. A single human thinking about a problem for 10 million years should be able so solve pretty much anything. It gets easier if we can copy and accelerate ourselves. Hopefully infinite is enough time to figure out the fourth dimension or black holes. Then we get to go to the next level and figure out our next problem.
| null | 1 | 17 |
2007-08-18 10:17:09 UTC
|
43,773 | 43,654 |
vlad
|
Help me build a Top 10 Facebook App
|
myoung8
|
http://humanitieslab.stanford.edu/HumanAndMachine/224The poster does not know how to resize pictures--so what? To say that only programmers can design successful facebook apps is a bit arrogant. I'd say a lot of social users would be able to help come up with an app and make it popular, if they knew how.However, almost always, you need a programmer to write something like this, as well as keep it constantly improving, since one can't just create something in a one-shot deal and think they're done.If you are sure your idea is as good as you say it is, it will be worth it to learn enough programming to make a facebook app yourself, get it popular like you said you will, and when it hits big you'll be able to find tons of developers.There are some business (or art) people who have dabbled in programming and made some contributions, but it is almost always 'hackers' who do.I think the problem people have with this isn't just that the programmer might end up doing more work for a program that might not go anywhere, but that the "opportunity cost" (some business lingo) to work on this delays completion of something else the hacker is already working on (with more equity and closer to fruition.)Finally, hackers would probably rather team up with another hacker (same culture, understanding of computers) than a business guy at our young age.
|
I'm pretty sure this app will have many millions of users. It incorporates video-game-like elements and involves strategic competition which will keep users coming back.I will take care of the front-end design and securing advertising.Willing to split equity 50-50.Email me if you're interested.
| 0 | 3 |
2007-08-18 13:15:51 UTC
|
43,774 | 43,665 |
greendestiny
|
Brad Fitzpatrick's Thoughts on the Social Graph
|
danw
|
Doesn't OpenID have facilities for defining other identity information, such as friends for instance? I don't think OpenID or any other open schemes will succeed by having information stores divorced from applications. They will only succeed as protocols for existing sites to cooperate. I don't doubt the large players will be slow in adopting this sort of thing, but the smaller companies can bind together.
| null | 0 | 23 |
2007-08-18 13:23:09 UTC
|
43,775 | 43,635 |
surya
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
Democracy has a weird tendency of favoring idiocy.Just take a look at this discussion:
http://reddit.com/info/2ga89/comments
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 18 | 48 |
2007-08-18 13:26:17 UTC
|
43,776 | 43,635 |
nirs
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
I think it is a great idea that a human editor is involved, and site content being edited. A similar process happen on a good wiki, and I always enjoy when my prose is translated to English behind my back :-)
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 17 | 48 |
2007-08-18 13:32:56 UTC
|
43,779 | 43,686 |
sanj
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
I'm embroiled in parts of this debate with myself. By most measures, I'd be identified as a smart person. Perhaps even "really, really" smart. But back in the 4th or 5th grade, I wasn't selected as "gifted".The practical upshot is that instead of going to a different school and being surrounded by teachers who were in tune with my needs, I stumbled through a public suburban high school replete with all the drama that Judd Apatow can fit onto the screen.I consider this a very lucky occurence.Why? Because it forced me to keep myself occupied rather than expecting anyone else to do so. It freed me from a mindset of educational entitlement.By spending this years in a regular school, I was able to learn take on a host of other activities that I found interesting at my own pace and at my own behest. My intellectual development and curiosity drove me forward.And it forced me to learn how to navigate elements of the "real world" that end up being speedbumps along the way. Isolation from that is a mistake. I've many friends who've learned that the hard way.Now I'm a happy adult with a precocious son. I'm getting worried about his teachers in kindergarten are going to deal with a child who happily decides if numbers are primes and points out square roots.How do I teach him to learn for himself. To realize that his school gives him a starting point for his education, and not the entireity. To help him end become a ferociously curious individual who gets stuff done, not in some isolation chamber gifted bubble, but in the real world -- omplete with alliances and politics and emotions and conflicts.It's hard. It was hard to live through as the student, and I expect it to be hard for me to live through as his guide.But it is absolutely the right place to end up.
| null | 1 | 22 |
2007-08-18 13:40:53 UTC
|
43,781 | 43,740 |
vlad
|
Embarassing Bill Gates video
|
aandreev
|
Let's see PG dance like that.
| null | 3 | 10 |
2007-08-18 13:43:25 UTC
|
43,794 | 43,635 |
vlad
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
To be fair to Paul and the moderators, the title of this submission used to be:Goodbye, HACKER NEWS!!!! I'm going back to Reddit.I don't think this site was meant for everybody to post whatever they want. There should be respect for other people's resources; while Reddit and Digg want as many users as possible, there is no such leverage here.I think the mistake is that users start thinking they can do whatever they want just because a social site is free.
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 19 | 48 |
2007-08-18 14:43:23 UTC
|
43,800 | 43,118 |
FatBastard
|
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (by Jared Diamond)
|
Tichy
|
This story is only interesting as a historical artifact in itself. It was a nice example of the current "conventional thinking" refuted by that other story yesterday about how England escaped the malthusian trap. Why is this story still here and the newer one gone already? Jared Diamond is very useful in this field, so maybe vote up some of his newer stuff?
| null | 9 | 29 |
2007-08-18 14:51:45 UTC
|
43,802 | 43,786 |
amichail
|
Using Data to "Brute Force" Hard Problems in Vision and Graphics (Google TechTalk)
|
amichail
|
SIGGRAPH 2007 paper and presentation here:http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/scene-completion/
| null | 0 | 13 |
2007-08-18 15:00:58 UTC
|
43,805 | 43,635 |
taeeb
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
Caaa iOaass
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 26 | 48 |
2007-08-18 15:07:18 UTC
|
43,809 | 43,799 |
amichail
|
Liberal Arts Professors on Attending Grad School--Is it the same in Comp Sci?
|
vlad
|
My advice: only consider grad school after you have completely given up on startups. It's better to be a cofounder of a successful startup than to be an academic.
| null | 3 | 18 |
2007-08-18 15:12:58 UTC
|
43,811 | 43,799 |
rsel
|
Liberal Arts Professors on Attending Grad School--Is it the same in Comp Sci?
|
vlad
|
It's not as bad in CS. In English you have the problem of working on fundamentally bogus stuff in addition to the structural problems inherent in grad school.
| null | 1 | 18 |
2007-08-18 15:17:28 UTC
|
43,815 | 43,742 |
omouse
|
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
|
rms
|
Very fitting that this link is posted by someone who shares the same nick as Richard Stallman.
| null | 0 | 3 |
2007-08-18 16:16:26 UTC
|
43,818 | 43,786 |
far33d
|
Using Data to "Brute Force" Hard Problems in Vision and Graphics (Google TechTalk)
|
amichail
|
This was definitely the most interesting paper at siggraph this year.
| null | 2 | 13 |
2007-08-18 16:34:24 UTC
|
43,825 | 43,635 |
alex_c
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
I'm starting to feel like we need a meta.news.ycombinator.com, for all this meta-discussion... I'm sure the politics are fascinating, but they feel the same as those of every online community since the dawn of the Internet... :pAh well, I guess I could just not click on them in my RSS.
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 15 | 48 |
2007-08-18 16:58:45 UTC
|
43,826 | 43,635 |
toemaz
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
A good alternative: http://www.dailyhub.com/ from the owner of http://www.onstartups.com/
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 8 | 48 |
2007-08-18 17:01:50 UTC
|
43,829 | 43,793 |
Tichy
|
Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society, by Freeman Dyson
|
corentin
|
I have all sympathy for heretics, but to claim that CO2 is not a problem because there could be a countermeasure seems like very flawed logic. Apart from the countermeasure not really convincing me (genetically engineer plants to grow faster???), without recognizing the problem, it is unlikely that the countermeasures would be taken, so it would still remain a problem (assuming it is a problem - I merely wanted to point out the flawed logic).
| null | 1 | 32 |
2007-08-18 17:29:32 UTC
|
43,830 | 43,822 |
nostrademons
|
Democracies with two major parties invariably promote discrimination and brainwashing.
|
amichail
|
This is true, and an astute observation. It's also unavoidable - or at least one of the better alternatives.Everybody has their own ideas of how things should be. In a society of 300 million people, that means 300 million different ideas. There will be some overlap, but obviously they won't all think the same things - then they'd really be brainwashed.Unfortunately, there's only one way that things actually are. So somehow you've got to condense the myriad of different cultures, beliefs and desires into a single reality. Governments have relied on various ways of accomplishing this:1.) Kill everyone who doesn't agree with the "official" culture. Eg. Rwanda, Bosnia, Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, U.S. conquest of Native Americans2.) Kill the most vocal proponents of alternate viewpoints, enough to terrorize the remaining citizens into keeping with the party line. Eg. modern Russia, several South American governments, apartheid South Africa3.) Convince the population that eternal damnation awaits anyone who disagrees with the party line. Eg. the Catholic Church4.) Split the population into many little populations, each of which can have their own reality. Eg. former Yugoslavia, former Soviet Union, American Civil War, Roman Empire. Problem with this is that each sub-state still wants to impose its reality upon its neighbors, so you often get continual warfare until one gobbles up the others.5.) Convince a majority of the population that they really agree with you. This is the "discrimination and brainwashing" you refer to.6.) Develop some fundamental principles that everybody agrees on, then agree to disagree on the specifics, knowing that eventually reality will come swing your way. Eg. the Enlightenment theory behind liberty and democracy#6 seems to be the ideal, but it requires some cognitive dissonance, namely the ability to say "I disagree with what you're doing, but will defend your right to do it." Most people are not capable of this kind of cognitive dissonance - either they slip into "I will not defend your right to do this" and end up with #1 or #2, or they slip into "I agree with what you're doing" and end up with #5.So #5 is the most stable system that a large civilization can enter. Most Western democracies actually function as a combination of #5 and #6, with the masses adjusting their beliefs to fit their leaders and the leaders themselves agreeing to disagree under fundamental principles. U.S. democracy is currently in danger because a disturbing number of "leaders" (on both sides) are suggesting #1 or #3, but the political party system is meant to encourage #6.Incidentally, the same problem happens with multi-party governments. Most multi-party systems are actually run by coalitions, where a bunch of parties get together and say "Okay, I don't totally agree with all of your viewpoints, but for the sake of getting things done I'll let you do things your way."
|
I find it amazing that people, particularly in the US, identify themselves as liberal or conservative. Why should people agree on a seemingly arbitrary set of issues?My guess is that they do not, at least initially. But they do associate themselves with the party on which they agree on the most important issue to them. Agreement on remaining issues then comes as a compromise. But I think it becomes worse than that. After a while, people start agreeing on issues that they would not agree on otherwise. For example, religious conservatives who identify themselves with the Republican party may not initially agree with the party's policies on the environment. So this is a form of brainwashing.But there's also discrimination. Democracies with two major parties tend to divide their populations into two, thus resulting in unwarranted assumptions and discrimination. Having said this, there are probably important reasons why many countries end up with only two major parties.
| 0 | 8 |
2007-08-18 17:31:36 UTC
|
43,833 | 43,822 |
clay
|
Democracies with two major parties invariably promote discrimination and brainwashing.
|
amichail
|
I would like to introduce to this thread a book that recently came out called Myth of the Rational Voter. Byran Caplan argues that voters on the whole make irrational decisions and even lists 4 specific "biases" that voters suffer from.Here's a podcast that explains the book: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/06/caplan_on_the_m.htm...
|
I find it amazing that people, particularly in the US, identify themselves as liberal or conservative. Why should people agree on a seemingly arbitrary set of issues?My guess is that they do not, at least initially. But they do associate themselves with the party on which they agree on the most important issue to them. Agreement on remaining issues then comes as a compromise. But I think it becomes worse than that. After a while, people start agreeing on issues that they would not agree on otherwise. For example, religious conservatives who identify themselves with the Republican party may not initially agree with the party's policies on the environment. So this is a form of brainwashing.But there's also discrimination. Democracies with two major parties tend to divide their populations into two, thus resulting in unwarranted assumptions and discrimination. Having said this, there are probably important reasons why many countries end up with only two major parties.
| 2 | 8 |
2007-08-18 17:56:02 UTC
|
43,835 | 43,686 |
gojomo
|
Are We Failing Our Geniuses?
|
karthikv
|
Ironically, one of the ways to "fail" a genius is to label her so:"The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids"
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/But, you also can't hide from someone that they're not being challenged by the same academic work as their age-peers, so you'd better be ready with some special challenges for them.
| null | 11 | 22 |
2007-08-18 18:02:09 UTC
|
43,837 | 43,799 |
npk
|
Liberal Arts Professors on Attending Grad School--Is it the same in Comp Sci?
|
vlad
|
I can't say anything about CS, but in physics, these comments are spot on. The essay points out: "A Ph.D in the humanities is useful for one thing only these days, and that's being an academic." Ok, a phd in physics gives you more flexibility, but while you're in grad school, your professors expect the best and brightest to go into academia, the less smart go off and work in industry.Again, I don't know if the "academia uber alles" attitude pervades CS. But, suppose it's common. Imagine how that will make you feel if you want to go work in something so undignified as consumer internet applications. The academic attitude is really a brainfuck, UNLESS, you want to be an academic :)
| null | 2 | 18 |
2007-08-18 18:13:01 UTC
|
43,843 | 43,822 |
gojomo
|
Democracies with two major parties invariably promote discrimination and brainwashing.
|
amichail
|
Your observation would work better on your personal blog than as a story on "Hacker News".
|
I find it amazing that people, particularly in the US, identify themselves as liberal or conservative. Why should people agree on a seemingly arbitrary set of issues?My guess is that they do not, at least initially. But they do associate themselves with the party on which they agree on the most important issue to them. Agreement on remaining issues then comes as a compromise. But I think it becomes worse than that. After a while, people start agreeing on issues that they would not agree on otherwise. For example, religious conservatives who identify themselves with the Republican party may not initially agree with the party's policies on the environment. So this is a form of brainwashing.But there's also discrimination. Democracies with two major parties tend to divide their populations into two, thus resulting in unwarranted assumptions and discrimination. Having said this, there are probably important reasons why many countries end up with only two major parties.
| 4 | 8 |
2007-08-18 18:55:36 UTC
|
43,850 | 43,822 |
epi0Bauqu
|
Democracies with two major parties invariably promote discrimination and brainwashing.
|
amichail
|
There are at least two separate questions here: 1) why does the US have only two major parties; and 2) given such, why do people often pick one and stick with it for all issues?The first has been studied to death. It has to do with more with how the US government is set up and less with the psychology of its people. There are other countries with different setups that are not two-party dominant. One viable way out of such dominance is some form of party-list proportional representation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_represe...) .The second is all about psychology, it most certainly has several components at play. I posit the most prevalent are attitudes of commitment given the initial choice of party and some form of path of least resistance.The former is common in psychology. It is a natural instinct to think your group is better as soon as you join it, for whatever reason, even an arbitrary one. This even happens in psychology experiments when groups are assigned randomly. The latter reason is simply most people don't research any issues nor do they want to. They go with perhaps the simplest method to decide, which is listen to what the group told me before. There is some real trade-off here. To be fully informed is perhaps impossible. You need some sort of proxy for most policy issues. Blindly following one of two major parties (on the other extreme) is probably not the answer either of course.
|
I find it amazing that people, particularly in the US, identify themselves as liberal or conservative. Why should people agree on a seemingly arbitrary set of issues?My guess is that they do not, at least initially. But they do associate themselves with the party on which they agree on the most important issue to them. Agreement on remaining issues then comes as a compromise. But I think it becomes worse than that. After a while, people start agreeing on issues that they would not agree on otherwise. For example, religious conservatives who identify themselves with the Republican party may not initially agree with the party's policies on the environment. So this is a form of brainwashing.But there's also discrimination. Democracies with two major parties tend to divide their populations into two, thus resulting in unwarranted assumptions and discrimination. Having said this, there are probably important reasons why many countries end up with only two major parties.
| 1 | 8 |
2007-08-18 19:05:31 UTC
|
43,852 | 43,848 |
Tichy
|
Am I Too Old To Be A Programmer?
|
nickb
|
Salary expectations? Willingness to work overtime?
| null | 4 | 15 |
2007-08-18 19:15:32 UTC
|
43,856 | 43,799 |
danteembermage
|
Liberal Arts Professors on Attending Grad School--Is it the same in Comp Sci?
|
vlad
|
I think being an employee and launching a startup are on a continuum of sorts. With a startup you get lots of uncertainty, but lots of independence. There is a job to do, you decide how to do it, and the market is your metric for success, for better or worse.As an employee you have a lot more security (worse case your perfectly steady paycheck disappears for a bit to be replaced by another, maybe smaller maybe larger steady paycheck) but most likely your performance is reviewed by a pointy-haired boss.As a graduate student, usually you get paid a pittance (sometimes you pay for the privilege), have even more uncertainty that a startup (after 5 years or more you may be kicked out; good luck transferring your credits) and your performance is reviewed by a committee of pointy-haired bosses.If you were to actually plug all that uncertainty into a utility maximization problem assuming a risk-averse individual, I seriously doubt it comes out as a good idea for any field, without maybe adding in a variable for "must prove myself more intelligent than the mundanes with a formal title bestowed by the intellectual aristocracy"Of course most don't really know that going in, and the article was right; once you are on that train it's hard to get off. All of this sounds a little bitter (I used to be a bright eyed idealist; I promise!) but I'm in the midst of slogging through my dissertation and things will be much better when (if) I can finally put on my ridiculous floor length hood.Anyone good with optimal control of vector-valued stochastic processes? Have I got a deal for you!
| null | 4 | 18 |
2007-08-18 19:23:41 UTC
|
43,862 | 43,832 |
rms
|
Want to do a startup with bootstrapping!
|
hira_khan
|
Is GenITeam your startup? There's certainly room in the marketplace for companies like GenITeam but most of the people on this site are strongly against outsourced development for the products they are building. That's cool you're running it out of Pakistan though, I haven't seen any freelance development firms in Pakistan before.How is the local programming education? Do the Pakistani universities teach Microsoft languages or Java or something else?
|
Want to do a startup with bootstrapping!<p>By Khurram Samad: Founder & CEO GeniTeam<p>The write up is based on my personal experience and learning while working with serial entrepreneurs. After having helped various startups, I launched GeniTeam in 2006 to provide dedicated software engineers to help entrepreneurs develop products with bootstrapping. Over the years, my own startup has gained momentum and helping promising startups based in North America, Netherland and Israel. <p>GeniTeam Business Model:-
Many people come across innovative idea but fail to materialize it for lack of resources. The barriers for high tech startup are high for huge upfront investment requirement. Hence, many people seek funding from venture capitalists, by giving up significant amount of equity or give up idea for lack of access to funding. GeniTeam provides an alternate to such entrepreneurs by allowing them hire virtual team members with GeniTeam, at fraction of cost to help entrepreneurs materialize their dreams. The dedicated virtual team members are hosted with GeniTeam in Lahore, Pakistan and whose growth is linked to growth of startup. The time difference allows entrepreneurs to monitor and instruct virtual team members in evening and generating cash flows for startup by doing consulting or job in day time. <p>How my faith strengthened on business model:-
The company's business model has evolved out of my personal consulting for CambridgeDocs, an XML conversion company. I worked single handed from my home in Pakistan, to help the startup expand its product line. During my consulting, I refined "virtual team" model and build the confidence to expand virtual team in Pakistan. After 6-8 month of successful work, the company decided to start its offshore operation in Lahore, Pakistan. This strengthened my faith on my business model, as most of the engineers working with CambridgeDocs were graduates of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. After establishing and training initial resources for offshore office, I started helping multiple companies. Over last 3 years, I have refined the processes for virtual team and created few more success stories.<p>Does GeniTeam take Equity:-
We only take equity if we invest with the startup. Our resource cost is pretty nominal, and hence startup's generally don't need to share equity. The partnering startups are free to change vendor or quit us, if they wish. They also have an option of acquiring virtual team to own the startup team. <p>Then how does GeniTeam make money:-
GeniTeam primary cash flows are through product development. GeniTeam is working on "Team Room", "Multiplayer Mobile Games over GPRS", and online tutoring application, developed in rich internet applications. In future, GeniTeam would like to help startups refine ideas and develop marketing plans.<p>Is GeniTeam a traditional outsourcing company?
Our philosophy is radically different from traditional outsourcing companies. GeniTeam believes in building partnerships with startups, and growing with them. GeniTeam is serving niche high tech startup segment, not catered by traditional outsourcing companies. Distinguished by vision, our model allows partnering companies build and retain expertise X as they could do by hiring resource with them. <p>How can people manage people from 10000 miles away?
This is the most frequent question I hear on sales. I believe internet has revolutionized our lives, and also the work environments. With such changes, virtual team and virtual office have become reality. However, the processes to manage virtual team are slightly different and require enhanced communication and reporting techniques. It requires almost 1 to 2 months, to fully reap the benefits of virtual team. I personally believe, it really worth investing time and few bucks in idea.<p>
How to Contact GeniTeam?
Please visit www.geniteam.com to know us more and contact us at [email protected] for details.<p><p>
| 1 | 1 |
2007-08-18 19:35:54 UTC
|
43,868 | 43,755 |
rams
|
Weeks of hell at Opera Software
|
ks
|
Working from Home solves the problem, No ? You would assume that with a real tech company like Opera, that would be the case - but you never know.
|
Video available here:
http://nettv.aftenposten.no/player/player.php?id=5180
| 0 | 5 |
2007-08-18 19:54:49 UTC
|
43,871 | 43,847 |
rams
|
Unstoppable Subversion
|
nickb
|
SVN has already lost mind share with the real hackers, the thought leaders like Linus Torvalds - It's the new COBOL of the open source version systems. The decentralized version control systems that are open source are really pushing version control systems in new directions.They are addressing important questions about the committer/non-committer divide, which SVN only perpetuates (at least with open source projects). BTW,should corporate spiels be posted here ? I agree that Collabnet deserves some credit for sponsoring dev of SVN. But is this the appropriate forum for a post like this ?
| null | 1 | 4 |
2007-08-18 20:00:18 UTC
|
43,873 | 43,635 |
steve
|
Goodbye, Hacker News. I'm going back to Reddit.
|
jmpeters
|
eh, I'll always use both. Maybe I'm just that big of a slacker.
|
It was worth putting up with the sycophancy of many of the commenters here who seem to participate only to impress PG, their would-be benefactor...for a while. It was worth it while the stories focused on the niche we are all interested in, startups. The change to more general-purpose news, the attempt to re-create the Reddit of old, seemed to be made without first asking the overall community for input (unlike the way that Craig Newmark makes all changes to Craig's List, for example). Although it has apparently been going on all along, this title-censoring thing is, for me, the final straw. Yes, Reddit has been overrun by the unwashed masses. It has become messy in the way that democracy itself is messy. But this site is getting the feeling of an artificially sterile place for tech elites as defined by PG and his minions. So I'm going back to the unwashed masses, even if it means having to read a few more titles about cat pictures. Best of luck, though, PG, and thanks for the great information this site has given me thus far. I will continue to follow your impressive career and your essays with great interest. PS, Editors, feel free to change my title to "Hacker News Rocks!"
| 24 | 48 |
2007-08-18 20:07:31 UTC
|
43,877 | 42,887 |
thomasswift
|
Javascript or Flash Widgets debate. Help me choose what to use.
|
thomasswift
|
thanks for all the comments and thoughts
|
What are your thoughts, tips, and/or best practices for either?
| 5 | 8 |
2007-08-18 20:23:38 UTC
|
43,878 | 43,847 |
palish
|
Unstoppable Subversion
|
nickb
|
My biggest beef with SVN is that I can't checkout from the repository and have it automatically know when I delete or add files and directories. That is, I have to remember to use 'svn rm' instead of just 'rm'.Past that, it's great.
| null | 2 | 4 |
2007-08-18 20:25:25 UTC
|
43,880 | 43,875 |
thomasswift
|
Is today's internet killing our culture? Andrew Keen v Emily Bell
|
sofus
|
This guy makes my blood boil.
| null | 2 | 1 |
2007-08-18 20:41:57 UTC
|
43,883 | 43,822 |
mynameishere
|
Democracies with two major parties invariably promote discrimination and brainwashing.
|
amichail
|
Institutions, unlike people, can be truly idealistic. No NRA member is 100 percent devoted to guns. The NRA itself, however, is 100 percent so devoted. This same thing is possible with political parties. For instance, the "Nationalists" or "Communists" or "Fascists" or "Libertarians" can be counted on (to a large degree) to adhere to their platform.In parlimentary systems, ideological parties, like the above, can get represented, and often make up the shaky coalition goverments that hold power. With the right kind of backstabbing, Nazis or Bolzhevics can wipe out their allies from within and seize control. Just not possible in the US...In the US's winner-take-all system, the parties themselves must compromise on their plaform, and generally aim for about 50.1 percent of the vote--they'd rather 60 percent of gun-lovers than 100 percent, because the latter is unpalatable to the rest of their members. Therefore the crazy fringe of every issue is alienated. The GOP and Democrats are not really restricted to a given platform. This is why "GOP success" can never amount to a Fascist takeover, and why "Democrat success" can never amount to a Communist takeover.* Suggestion:When the admins see something as "off topic", perhaps they should enable a down arrow for that post only, allowing everyone else to decide for themselves.
|
I find it amazing that people, particularly in the US, identify themselves as liberal or conservative. Why should people agree on a seemingly arbitrary set of issues?My guess is that they do not, at least initially. But they do associate themselves with the party on which they agree on the most important issue to them. Agreement on remaining issues then comes as a compromise. But I think it becomes worse than that. After a while, people start agreeing on issues that they would not agree on otherwise. For example, religious conservatives who identify themselves with the Republican party may not initially agree with the party's policies on the environment. So this is a form of brainwashing.But there's also discrimination. Democracies with two major parties tend to divide their populations into two, thus resulting in unwarranted assumptions and discrimination. Having said this, there are probably important reasons why many countries end up with only two major parties.
| 3 | 8 |
2007-08-18 20:54:12 UTC
|
43,884 | 43,847 |
mhartl
|
Unstoppable Subversion
|
nickb
|
Subversion is a big improvement over CVS, but it still has some problems. Perhaps the biggest is the difficulty of making branches, and keeping them in sync with the trunk (which requires keeping track of revision numbers by hand in the comments). There have been many times I've wanted to make a branch but just couldn't summon the mental energy to do it.I've found darcs to be a significant improvement over Subversion. As one example, here's how to make a branch using darcs:$ cp -r my_proj_trunk my_proj_branchThen running$ darcs pull ../my_proj_trunkin my_proj_branch keeps you in sync with the trunk.
| null | 0 | 4 |
2007-08-18 21:01:26 UTC
|
43,893 | 43,892 |
epi0Bauqu
|
bigger screen = higher productivity. ( for me it can what about you?)
|
rokhayakebe
|
Are you serious about 47 inches?
|
I have a small 13 inch screen notebook. It works fine for me. It s light enough to carry around and the battery last a good few hours. But I find that when using my 47 inch screen monitor I just enjoy working more. I haven't measured output, but I believe It is slightly more than when I use my notebook.
| 5 | 1 |
2007-08-18 21:23:40 UTC
|
43,894 | 43,640 |
tomek
|
The Power of Good UI Design
|
danw
|
Babies are extremely fast learners. This particular one might have had a prior exposition to the interface, so I'm not really impressed. If you left your shiny iPhone with the baby for couple hour and next thing you would see was "Buy a new toy" in your Todo list... now that would be pretty cool.
| null | 0 | 8 |
2007-08-18 21:25:03 UTC
|
43,896 | 42,854 |
toisanji
|
news.ycombinator meetup - Cambridge, MA
|
bokonist
|
I will be there also.
|
We did a news.ycombinator.com meetup this past June and the turnout was great. Let's do another. It would be great to have a mix of summer ycombinator startups and people thinking of applying this October.For a time/place, how about:
Sunday, August 19th at 7 PM
1369 Coffee House in Central Square
757 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139Leave a comment if you are interested.
| 16 | 20 |
2007-08-18 21:33:11 UTC
|
43,897 | 43,881 |
portLAN
|
Hacker News Posting Guidelines?
|
epi0Bauqu
|
Some of the old stuff is classic, and will be new to younger hackers:
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/
|
I am one of those users who welcome (at least the experiment) of broadening news.yc to "Hacker News." However, if the last few days of postings are any prediction of the next n, then perhaps some Hacker News Posting Guidelines would be in order. I think that there should be a link to them on the Submit Link page because new posters won't know (and old posters may forget) that the Hacker News announcement even exists. PG's "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" maybe a good start, but I just don't think it is enough. My suggestion would be to add:No politics.
No old stuff.
If you post a question, post 1 not >1. What else?
| 1 | 4 |
2007-08-18 21:34:04 UTC
|
43,902 | 43,879 |
jey
|
YC's Terms of Use: "When you click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page."
|
henning
|
Hm, looks like the "bios" link goes to about.html instead of people.html
|
I always love it when people pass up opportunities to engage in legal bullshitting.Although it is interesting to note that they claim that "make something people want" is their trademark.
| 1 | 19 |
2007-08-18 21:46:46 UTC
|
43,904 | 43,892 |
german
|
bigger screen = higher productivity. ( for me it can what about you?)
|
rokhayakebe
|
47 inches!
Maybe it's just too much, for me any screen with more than 1024 x 768 px works fine.
My startup is a webapp, so users screen size also matters.
|
I have a small 13 inch screen notebook. It works fine for me. It s light enough to carry around and the battery last a good few hours. But I find that when using my 47 inch screen monitor I just enjoy working more. I haven't measured output, but I believe It is slightly more than when I use my notebook.
| 2 | 1 |
2007-08-18 21:54:18 UTC
|
43,911 | 43,881 |
JBiserkov
|
Hacker News Posting Guidelines?
|
epi0Bauqu
|
Change title to "Hacker News Posting Guidelines?"We need _some_ posting guidelines.We need a spell checker, at least for titles (there is a typo in this very topic).We need _some_ moderation. (For me quality is more important than democracy).We need a section "Hacker's classic readings" (books, articles, essays).We need to calm down :).
|
I am one of those users who welcome (at least the experiment) of broadening news.yc to "Hacker News." However, if the last few days of postings are any prediction of the next n, then perhaps some Hacker News Posting Guidelines would be in order. I think that there should be a link to them on the Submit Link page because new posters won't know (and old posters may forget) that the Hacker News announcement even exists. PG's "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" maybe a good start, but I just don't think it is enough. My suggestion would be to add:No politics.
No old stuff.
If you post a question, post 1 not >1. What else?
| 0 | 4 |
2007-08-18 22:34:43 UTC
|
43,924 | 43,793 |
ivankirigin
|
Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society, by Freeman Dyson
|
corentin
|
BoingBoing featured this and a rebutting article:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/15/two_views_on_climate.ht...
| null | 2 | 32 |
2007-08-18 23:15:34 UTC
|
43,926 | 43,799 |
ivankirigin
|
Liberal Arts Professors on Attending Grad School--Is it the same in Comp Sci?
|
vlad
|
Not all programs are alike. I got a specialized masters in robotics. That opened up a world of opportunity and allowed me to work on very interesting problems. The space is well funded if you go to a good school, so you don't drain your savings to attend for two years.For PhDs in the field, I've never seen a more interesting set of problems, though I'm biased. A friend is working on rhythm as related to conversation, and studies dancing robots. It doesn't get much better than that.
http://beatbots.org/The drama of a PhD is less than that of normal office politics. If you act like an adult, everything should be fine.Here is what Monzy says about drama in the PhD for CS:
http://www.monzy.com/intro/drama_lyrics.html
| null | 7 | 18 |
2007-08-18 23:22:22 UTC
|
43,927 | 43,848 |
ivankirigin
|
Am I Too Old To Be A Programmer?
|
nickb
|
It works the other way around. Older people stop learning new things and their brains correspondingly lack freshness. With dedication, there is no age limit on an activity. Every field is learned by doing.You probably won't be a luminary in the field, but that isn't the question.
| null | 2 | 15 |
2007-08-18 23:25:24 UTC
|
43,928 | 43,875 |
ivankirigin
|
Is today's internet killing our culture? Andrew Keen v Emily Bell
|
sofus
|
In "The Long Tail" there is a great anecdote about a marxist in the 30s lamenting radio as pushing watered down art on uncritical masses. The experience of homogenized culture with mega hits certainly leads to less critical minds than the average person going to an art gallery. Luckily, the rest of the book is about how this is changing. More people are creating, and more people are consuming a wider diversity of content.Personal aesthetic is rising over megahits. This is a wonderful trend, enabled by the internet.
| null | 0 | 1 |
2007-08-18 23:32:24 UTC
|
43,929 | 43,875 |
ivankirigin
|
Is today's internet killing our culture? Andrew Keen v Emily Bell
|
sofus
|
BoingBoing on Keen on The Colbert Report:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/17/andrew_keen_on_colbe.ht...
| null | 1 | 1 |
2007-08-18 23:40:14 UTC
|
43,936 | 43,845 |
ivankirigin
|
The Cost of Losing a Developer
|
nickb
|
There is such a thing as "negative people". Folks that cost more in correcting their mistakes than in contributing to a problem. This often happens with anemic partnerships. The cost of losing someone largely depends on how good and useful they were. It is so case-by-case that such a list is useless.
| null | 1 | 9 |
2007-08-19 00:23:44 UTC
|
43,937 | 43,905 |
ivankirigin
|
Users' screen size matters
|
german
|
I understand if you don't want to disclose, but this is hard to discuss without an idea of what features you're including. Maybe something can be take out of the base screen.
|
My startup is a webapp, and we have a lot of problems designing the interface, the first one was the users screen size.
We think it should all fit in a 1024 x 768 px screen, of course is the screen is bigger than that, The interface will also look good, 800 x 600 screens is just a problem, we solved it with css (overflow-x) in that way an user could even work with a small screen.
Does any of you have the same problem?
| 1 | 1 |
2007-08-19 00:50:18 UTC
|
43,939 | 43,786 |
ed
|
Using Data to "Brute Force" Hard Problems in Vision and Graphics (Google TechTalk)
|
amichail
|
Anyone here working in this problem area?
| null | 3 | 13 |
2007-08-19 01:10:36 UTC
|
43,944 | 43,942 |
dottertrotter
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
Recently there have been quite a few posts on here, from people trying to find other hackers in their area to meet. Because the posts tend to get long and drawn out I created this. It's simple and just a start, but it should provide us a base for finding others in our area. If people use it, I'm thinking about adding a location based forum section.
| null | 2 | 55 |
2007-08-19 01:20:54 UTC
|
43,945 | 43,942 |
vlad
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
First on the list after you :) My city is wrong because the city ajax dropdown list appeared only after I had already clicked OK.
| null | 10 | 55 |
2007-08-19 01:23:11 UTC
|
43,948 | 43,842 |
juwo
|
Software - How Software Companies Die
|
rams
|
rams, are you M Ramachandra?
| null | 3 | 25 |
2007-08-19 01:33:59 UTC
|
43,950 | 43,942 |
sharpshoot
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
You forgot the UK.
| null | 6 | 55 |
2007-08-19 01:36:52 UTC
|
43,953 | 43,942 |
jey
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
Feature request: clicking on a marker causes a bubble to show up (like GMaps) instead of navigating the page away from the map.
| null | 3 | 55 |
2007-08-19 01:42:01 UTC
|
43,956 | 43,848 |
brlewis
|
Am I Too Old To Be A Programmer?
|
nickb
|
Could someone go in the next room and have pg put down that book and cup of tea? His robot was supposed to have posted hours ago about how startups are the answer to the problem of having to prove your worth to unreasonable people.
| null | 0 | 15 |
2007-08-19 01:50:00 UTC
|
43,957 | 43,942 |
Darmani
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
You might consider asking for a zip code rather than a city. I personally live in an unincorporated area of Saint Louis county, and I was quite tempted to name one of the three surrounding suburbs (all of which are politically considered a city). While the decision to just put down "Saint Louis" came easily, I'm wondering how much internal debate I would have had had I lived in an unincorporated area in the middle of nowhere.And then, of course, there's also the reason that just typing in a zip code is easier.
| null | 4 | 55 |
2007-08-19 01:51:46 UTC
|
43,969 | 43,942 |
epi0Bauqu
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
For the rest of the world and/or the US, just let people type in a location that works on google maps (city, country/zip code/even street address). Then geocode it with Gmaps API, and use that lat/lon to display thereafter.
| null | 1 | 55 |
2007-08-19 02:19:27 UTC
|
43,970 | 43,942 |
bootload
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
"... find other Y Combinator readers in your area ..."Didn't work for me. Does anyone below the equator get listed? ~ Melb, Aus. Is there any other way to submit your location aside from form submit? What about a set of lat/lons, or selection by clicking on the map, or a drop down for instance?There's gotta be more ways to enter than just by IP. I can understand the reasoning as it's verifiable but it should probably used to weight user entry of data.
| null | 5 | 55 |
2007-08-19 02:25:45 UTC
|
43,975 | 43,665 |
mynameishere
|
Brad Fitzpatrick's Thoughts on the Social Graph
|
danw
|
I like the three paragraph "Problem statement". I prefer my problem statements more to the point. Examples:-------------------------------------Subject: Fire.Problem statement: Burns-------------------------------------Subject: Water.Problem statement: Unbreatheable.-------------------------------------Subject: Social Networks.Problem statement: Flash in pan.
| null | 1 | 23 |
2007-08-19 02:54:53 UTC
|
43,977 | 43,534 |
mangodrunk
|
What is going on with the editing of submission titles?
|
dpapathanasiou
|
We're wasting a lot of time, time is money! We are trying to start our own companies, and come here for meeting people and learning. This doesn't fall in either category. We don't have a lot of time in starting our companies, but I guess this is good because while you guys are being distracted by all this, I'll have read the important links and maybe make some breakthrough in my "killer app".
|
Twice now, I've seen my submission titles edited by someone else (probably Graham or his admins, if he has any for this site).Both times, the edits were innocuous (the first one improved the title ever so slightly) but unnecessary.It's not a huge problem, but it is a bit annoying.
| 2 | 32 |
2007-08-19 03:04:57 UTC
|
43,979 | 43,799 |
greendestiny
|
Liberal Arts Professors on Attending Grad School--Is it the same in Comp Sci?
|
vlad
|
I did my PhD in comp sci because I absolutely loved solving CS problems and I wanted the respect a PhD brings. Yep, that second reason is as stupid as it sounds, but I couldn't really consider doing anything else until I'd climbed that mountain education put in front of me. If you can't stop yourself doing a PhD, then go ahead and do it quick. Its exactly as frustrating as this article makes out, and CS academia is as about as crap that unqualified rant made it sound a few days ago. For the record I did my PhD in graphics, and while its a maths heavy field, so are so many others, it really depends on what kind of maths you're into.
| null | 5 | 18 |
2007-08-19 03:13:09 UTC
|
43,980 | 43,978 |
amichail
|
On the cruelty of really teaching computing science
|
dedalus
|
Also see:http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=76381
|
this djikstra classic teaches us some very important lessons about the nature of our craft
| 3 | 9 |
2007-08-19 03:17:41 UTC
|
43,981 | 43,942 |
sri
|
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area
|
dottertrotter
|
there is no way to delete entries -- i created 3 by accident -- and also no way to delete entries when you don't want you location connected your username anymore.
| null | 7 | 55 |
2007-08-19 03:19:53 UTC
|
43,991 | 43,842 |
staunch
|
Software - How Software Companies Die
|
rams
|
This is like a firsthand account of a company I know.
| null | 1 | 25 |
2007-08-19 03:49:28 UTC
|
43,992 | 43,534 |
michaelneale
|
What is going on with the editing of submission titles?
|
dpapathanasiou
|
I think its fine - anyone who things otherwise will find plenty of non editor places to hang out on the net.
|
Twice now, I've seen my submission titles edited by someone else (probably Graham or his admins, if he has any for this site).Both times, the edits were innocuous (the first one improved the title ever so slightly) but unnecessary.It's not a huge problem, but it is a bit annoying.
| 4 | 32 |
2007-08-19 03:58:34 UTC
|
43,993 | 43,832 |
hira_khan
|
Want to do a startup with bootstrapping!
|
hira_khan
|
I will try to answer the questions, to best of my knowledge.
I understand traditional outsourcing has been detrimental to product development, and probably worked well for business process outsourcing. At GeniTeam, with a focus on high-tech startup, the processes and models are totally different to traditional outsourcing firms. I believe a dozen success stories will definitely help people give the model a thought.
Hosting virtual team in Pakistan provided us with access to untapped skilled labor resources. With the recent surge in demand for skilled IT resources, startups won't be able to recruit resources within US; hence companies relying on innovative solutions to meet HR demands will get definitely get sustainable advantage.
Despite the fact of my upbringing in Pakistan, the experience has been very good. The good universities in Pakistan e.g. LUMS, FAST, GIKI etc, builds basic problem solving skills, that can be applied across various problems. To instantiate the argument, I will share with you that our resources are working on ahead of curve technologies, i.e. Flex 2.0, Open Laszlo, Google Gears etc, for which it's even hard to find resources in USA.
|
Want to do a startup with bootstrapping!<p>By Khurram Samad: Founder & CEO GeniTeam<p>The write up is based on my personal experience and learning while working with serial entrepreneurs. After having helped various startups, I launched GeniTeam in 2006 to provide dedicated software engineers to help entrepreneurs develop products with bootstrapping. Over the years, my own startup has gained momentum and helping promising startups based in North America, Netherland and Israel. <p>GeniTeam Business Model:-
Many people come across innovative idea but fail to materialize it for lack of resources. The barriers for high tech startup are high for huge upfront investment requirement. Hence, many people seek funding from venture capitalists, by giving up significant amount of equity or give up idea for lack of access to funding. GeniTeam provides an alternate to such entrepreneurs by allowing them hire virtual team members with GeniTeam, at fraction of cost to help entrepreneurs materialize their dreams. The dedicated virtual team members are hosted with GeniTeam in Lahore, Pakistan and whose growth is linked to growth of startup. The time difference allows entrepreneurs to monitor and instruct virtual team members in evening and generating cash flows for startup by doing consulting or job in day time. <p>How my faith strengthened on business model:-
The company's business model has evolved out of my personal consulting for CambridgeDocs, an XML conversion company. I worked single handed from my home in Pakistan, to help the startup expand its product line. During my consulting, I refined "virtual team" model and build the confidence to expand virtual team in Pakistan. After 6-8 month of successful work, the company decided to start its offshore operation in Lahore, Pakistan. This strengthened my faith on my business model, as most of the engineers working with CambridgeDocs were graduates of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. After establishing and training initial resources for offshore office, I started helping multiple companies. Over last 3 years, I have refined the processes for virtual team and created few more success stories.<p>Does GeniTeam take Equity:-
We only take equity if we invest with the startup. Our resource cost is pretty nominal, and hence startup's generally don't need to share equity. The partnering startups are free to change vendor or quit us, if they wish. They also have an option of acquiring virtual team to own the startup team. <p>Then how does GeniTeam make money:-
GeniTeam primary cash flows are through product development. GeniTeam is working on "Team Room", "Multiplayer Mobile Games over GPRS", and online tutoring application, developed in rich internet applications. In future, GeniTeam would like to help startups refine ideas and develop marketing plans.<p>Is GeniTeam a traditional outsourcing company?
Our philosophy is radically different from traditional outsourcing companies. GeniTeam believes in building partnerships with startups, and growing with them. GeniTeam is serving niche high tech startup segment, not catered by traditional outsourcing companies. Distinguished by vision, our model allows partnering companies build and retain expertise X as they could do by hiring resource with them. <p>How can people manage people from 10000 miles away?
This is the most frequent question I hear on sales. I believe internet has revolutionized our lives, and also the work environments. With such changes, virtual team and virtual office have become reality. However, the processes to manage virtual team are slightly different and require enhanced communication and reporting techniques. It requires almost 1 to 2 months, to fully reap the benefits of virtual team. I personally believe, it really worth investing time and few bucks in idea.<p>
How to Contact GeniTeam?
Please visit www.geniteam.com to know us more and contact us at [email protected] for details.<p><p>
| 0 | 1 |
2007-08-19 04:03:52 UTC
|
43,995 | 43,845 |
palish
|
The Cost of Losing a Developer
|
nickb
|
It seems like quantifying the loss of a developer in terms of dollar value is pretty futile. That value is volatile from company to company.One thing we can try to do is measure the skill difference between two programmers. This is a hard problem, but if we assume that some percentage of their checkins are new features, some percentage are bug fixes, and so on.. Perhaps even going through and manually tagging each changelist (have a convention to prefix a changelist with BUG: or FEATURE:), then we have a sort of rough statistical model of their performance.So now we have two categories, bug fix and new feature. (I'm grouping refactoring into bug fixes for now.) Their performance in each category can be measured by (number_of_changelists / time). This assumes a perfect world, where each bug fix doesn't introduce new bugs, and each feature doesn't add any new bugs. These totally contradict one another, so we can tweak some parameters, perhaps introducing a percentage chance that one of their changelists will introduce a bug, which counts against their productivity score. (You can do some more interesting statistical analysis here at the sourcecode level to determine who's bug was fixed, and actually measure how often they produce bugs.)But wait a second, what's the value for 'time'? It could be their whole stay at the company. But what if we change it to be, say, a week? Now we can get a velocity value by doing productivity(t) - productivity(t-1).Those two metrics combined are pretty useful to measure a programmer. You have their productivity over a time value, and you have their velocity based on previous producitivity values.Now we apply it to the whole company. Add up everyone's productivity for the week and you get the current company productivity. Subtract that with everyone's productivity for the last week and you get the company's productivity velocity. To measure how each of them would affect the company if they left, subtract out their productivity from the equation and compare that with them in the equation.If your productivity score includes how often you produce bugs, you can actually measure who is hurting productivity more than they're helping it. However, each bug is of a different magnitude, so that number is bogus until you can measure the complexity of each bug.The one thing this system does not take into account is information lost because only that person knew that information. That's a very valuable asset and nearly impossible to measure. So the best way to account for that is to increase a programmer's productivity velocity over time. You can assume that if they're setting out to accomplish something, whether it's a new bug fix or a new feature, they will accomplish it in less time if they start working on it 10 years on the job versus one day on the job.Also, someone (perhaps the project leader) needs to put a weight for each changelist. The weight measures how valuable the new feature was, or how much value was added by fixing a bug. This has to be done by someone other than the developer, because they'd have an incentive to lie. This seems to work, because if you have a superstar leave after one day with the company, it doesn't hurt the company at all. Whereas if he leaves after ten years with the company, not only will the company's absolute productivity go down, but the velocity will take a hit for the next month or so too.All in all, it seems pretty hard to accurately measure a programmer's value, so I say screw it. Humans are great at recognizing patterns. The whole team should be able to recognize that Bob isn't pulling his weight or is under-motivated, and either give him extra vacation or reassign him to a sister company. Plus if the programmers ever found out they were being measured, the company's productivity would drop like Wile E Coyote. This sort of analysis should really only be applied after a programmer has left or if the company has made the affirmative decision to fire them (possibly to reestimate schedules), not as an ongoing thing.This is something I came up with off the top of my head just now, so it's probably totally wrong. More research into this field would be really interesting, because if we can measure productivity for a programmer, one could measure the global productivity scores for all programmers. Somehow, I think a certain company that starts with a Y and ends with an R that would be really interested in that.New startup idea? I'm too busy with mine, go for it. Businesses might pay oodles if you manage to measure programmer productivity accurately (or give the impression that you are).
| null | 0 | 9 |
2007-08-19 04:09:10 UTC
|
43,997 | 43,848 |
eli
|
Am I Too Old To Be A Programmer?
|
nickb
|
short answer: no
| null | 6 | 15 |
2007-08-19 04:14:57 UTC
|
43,999 | 43,905 |
bootload
|
Users' screen size matters
|
german
|
"... My startup is a webapp, and we have a lot of problems designing the interface ... We think it should all fit in a 1024 x 768 px screen, of course is the screen is bigger than that, The interface will also look good, 800 x 600 screens is just a problem ..."'we think'? Get a demo out and ask your users what size is best for them. Hint: grab someone for a quick 5min usage test (Joel test, 12 Steps to Better Code) ~ http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html
|
My startup is a webapp, and we have a lot of problems designing the interface, the first one was the users screen size.
We think it should all fit in a 1024 x 768 px screen, of course is the screen is bigger than that, The interface will also look good, 800 x 600 screens is just a problem, we solved it with css (overflow-x) in that way an user could even work with a small screen.
Does any of you have the same problem?
| 0 | 1 |
2007-08-19 04:23:54 UTC
|
44,002 | 43,839 |
eli
|
The Multicore Kerfuffle and a Dose of Reality
|
iamelgringo
|
"Venerable analyst John Dvorak, who generally actually understands what he is writing about..." cough sputter Are you kidding me? Dvorak? This is the guy who once wrote an article bitching about how the "Idle Process" was sucking up all his CPU cycles in XP. This is the guy who admitted on tape that he trolls for links from Apple fans by writing slanted anti-Apple articles.
| null | 0 | 8 |
2007-08-19 04:31:16 UTC
|
44,004 | 44,000 |
s_baar
|
What services would the perfect government provide?
|
rms
|
Besides a lot of the safety stuff you mentioned, health care for orphans and subsidized college education based off of merit and inability to pay (combined with a co-op, if the education is expensive), not disadvantagedness. I have always been surprised not only by libertarians not talking about this type of stuff, but how mainstream anti-libertarian arguments don't focus on these glaring issues.
|
Lots of hackers are libertarians, because there is a lot of logic behind the free market. But I think it's a terrible idea to let the free market handle absolutely everything, as advocated by some libertarians. Free education is a great thing that society offers even if the system isn't perfect. The free market has completely failed with healthcare in the USA. We need police and fire protection. I'm glad that every road isn't a toll road.Imagine an economically very free society with an average taxrate of 25%. What services should this government provide for free or subsidize?
| 8 | 11 |
2007-08-19 04:40:52 UTC
|
44,005 | 44,000 |
gibsonf1
|
What services would the perfect government provide?
|
rms
|
An interesting point on healthcare: can you name the major turning point from the days of old when doctors made house calls to today? It is the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, which permanently distorted the entire health care market. The government is very much involved with our health care system, and the result is growing trouble in health care. Adding more regulation will make it worse - history makes this point quite clearly.I think government should provide our National Defense, the Justice System, and Police.
|
Lots of hackers are libertarians, because there is a lot of logic behind the free market. But I think it's a terrible idea to let the free market handle absolutely everything, as advocated by some libertarians. Free education is a great thing that society offers even if the system isn't perfect. The free market has completely failed with healthcare in the USA. We need police and fire protection. I'm glad that every road isn't a toll road.Imagine an economically very free society with an average taxrate of 25%. What services should this government provide for free or subsidize?
| 1 | 11 |
2007-08-19 04:47:08 UTC
|
44,008 | 44,006 |
hira_khan
|
Fallacy of the Non-disclosure Agreement
|
tigerec
|
Sounds like interesting argument. But what about processes , that might get the company some advantage? Replication might become easy. But the authors perspective is really strong
| null | 0 | 1 |
2007-08-19 05:00:51 UTC
|
44,009 | 43,842 |
tomek
|
Software - How Software Companies Die
|
rams
|
I'm surprised Orson Scott Card wrote about that. I knew him only as a sci-fi writter, not a programmer. Maybe it's just his insightful mind that can wrap around many areas of life.
| null | 0 | 25 |
2007-08-19 05:07:32 UTC
|
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