In response to d_r words: "Will I get downvoted if I squeak out that this isn't Reddit or Digg -- that posts like these ruin HN? I found HackerNews just a few months ago with excitement that I can read about entrepreneurs, startups, VC drama, latest frameworks, math problems, and all other goodness. I devoured each link with the thrill of learning something new, in short breaks from coding. I didn't feel like I was wasting productive time.
Now I feel guilty looking at the front page.
(By the way, this is not meant in any way to put down the amazing project depicted here.)"
"and all other goodness" is what this is. It is an art to exist as a whole and actually live. Hacker news is more than "vc drama," and "startups," it is about taking control of your universe because it is all you have and all you make it.
Take my advice when the inevitable awakening hits you and take longer breaks and look, really look. The world is way more fun than "feeling like you are wasting productive time."
I'm sorry to be uncivil, but this is melodramatic nonsense. This article is not HN material and my relief at seeing it killed has been replaced by distress that it was resurrected. Perhaps the mod/pg who rezzed it could explain why?
So, have you noticed that a large number of people on this site say they want to go to X country/place before they die. I imagine they pick this as a goal, because it is actually really easy to achieve and you can't really fail at it if you actually try. All you need to do is get on a plane...
People seem really scared to set goals for themselves they may not be able to achieve (to bad those are all the really valuable goals).
I agree that it isn't -that- difficult to travel, but I also assume you're from a 1st world country.
For those of us in the 3rd world (Uruguay in my case), it's not "really easy" - it represents possibly a year or several years worth of earnings, plus a lot of diplomatic hassles (haven't been able to visit the US yet because of visa requirements, for example), and the fear of being turned back at the border after all that.
For many people in my country, traveling (possibly on the wedding trip) is the high point in their lives.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Well it allows you to test your theories of what is important to people, (and maybe how you judge them based on sex, race, nationality) to what people actually say.
For start-ups, it would be nice to be able to parse all of the things people want to do, and see if you could make that happen. If the site had enough answers (lets say if everyone on facebook did this, so say 400 million) and you could parse all the info to classify it into discrete groups, then maybe you'd find that 15 million people want to ride an elephant in the antarctic before they die. It could uncover some interesting business ideas.
And for the more technically inclined you could take the images and text as a training set for AI handwriting recognition, with the added help that each piece of handwriting starts with the same words. Or face-recog to match sex, race, age, then read the words and come up with some generalizations of who wants what.
All in all, I think there is plenty of material which can make this gratify your intellectual curiosity. Depends if you want to look for it, or want to be spoon fed it.
Sure. But this site isn't being introduced to HN as a startup. Usually there's a 'Please review my site', or 'Check out this new concept'. This just seems to be a regular link to a site, so I assume the content itself is what is deemed 'interesting'. I too am confused as to why this is HN material.
Somewhat off topic: I have a beautiful Polaroid Spectra E camera (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbao/4513815836/) which came with an empty film canister (but the dry cell battery inside still worked! http://vimeo.com/10859532). Anyone know where to find film? I know The Impossible Project has a bunch of them since their takeover of the Polaroid factory in the Netherlands, but they're $22 a pop (for 10 exposures.)
"and all other goodness" is what this is. It is an art to exist as a whole and actually live. Hacker news is more than "vc drama," and "startups," it is about taking control of your universe because it is all you have and all you make it.
Take my advice when the inevitable awakening hits you and take longer breaks and look, really look. The world is way more fun than "feeling like you are wasting productive time."
What do you want to _____ before you die?
I am doing it.