You can use wget to download an entire site, but I really, really wouldn't pull HN like that.
If you really want everything then here's one way to do it.
Start with curl, pull http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1 and then use Python and BeautifulSoup to extract the items that come with it. Then pick the smallest number that you haven't pulled yet, and repeat.
But I would be absolutely certain you've got it all right before letting it loose, and it is ethically required of you to throttle your bandwidth when doing something like this.
But think twice - there might be better ways of learning what you want to learn.
Why not just give in to information addiction? Unlike many other addictions, there's the possibility that the knowledge gained from it could lead to beneficial outcomes. As the book "Ambient Findability" says: what we find changes who we become.
I like your advice. I actually made a living on eBay/Amazon for a while during college by selling used video games. My current living expenses aren't much higher now than they were then, since I'm not raising a family or paying a mortgage.
Comments on every story like this follow the same predictable pattern. On Digg and Reddit, it's basically: "Haha, dumb liberal arts major! Of course you can't find work in the USA! You deserve what you get because we live in a just and fair world and everyone is responsible for everything that happens to them in life and the consequences of all their decisions!" Some of the comments here are similar, but other comments point out the fallacies in that line of thought. As someone who was a high school valedictorian who wanted to get a CS or business degree, but ended up with a Bachelor of General Studies in English, I've given lots of thought to why students get liberal arts degrees. Most students are unprepared for college-level classes, especially in mathematics. Despite having a perfect GPA in high school, I failed calculus - not because of partying (I didn't drink) but because I was totally unprepared for college-level math after bad high-school math classes. Mental illness is also a major reason why lots of people can't handle the rigors of an engineering or even business degree. According to NIMH, 26% of Americans age 18 or older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder [1]. Also, 40 percent of students have felt too depressed to function at sometime during their college career [2]. Throughout college, I had: never had a girlfriend or even kissed a girl, worried all the time about the end of the world and other potential threats, had never learned how to masturbate, and was concerned over whether God loved or hated me. Now THAT's mental illness! When they have a heavy cognitive load from mental illness, students are less able to deal with challenging classes. Finally, after going through the stress of being being unprepared for college classes and suffering from mental illness, many students end up with humanities degrees because they figure "at least it's a degree in something" and that any degree is better than no degree, because that's the message being broadcast from tons of outlets - guidance counselors, college advertising, college advisors, etc.
that's sad... because 95% of this liberal-arts hatred is jealousy, because the perception is that the liberal arts types have much more fulfilling social and romantic lives.
you know the joke, 'getting a degree in art and complaining you can't find a job is like getting a degree in computer science and complaining you can't get laid'
That's not a mental illness. That's some sort of an existential crisis. I recommend you stop worrying about problems you can't solve, and start living. It's the only way you will find out what God thinks of you, or whether girls like you, or whether the earth will end.
And everyone is unprepared for college (as they were for high-school, or elementary, or kindergarten, and especially for their first job). The difference is in how they approach it. Personally, I locked myself in the library until I could do Calculus problems blindfolded, and then went to the bar to celebrate with my friends. Your results may vary. Note that feeling persecuted and defeated after you flunk a Calculus test is not a viable solution.
I had a lot of other symptoms and was diagnosed with anxiety by a real doctor (not by internet commenters). Plus I had very high scores on inventories that are used to measure anxiety and depression. Also, SPECT and fMRI studies show that people with depression and anxiety have very different brains than people who are mentally healthy, indicating that some people have a baseline level of resilience that's higher than others. And tough love doesn't work. It's just another way to beat up on people who already feel beaten down. I still agree with most of your points, though.
I too would like a way to see an archive of all previous stories submitted to HN. For example, Digg has an option to let you see all of the stories that reached the front page over the last year, ranked by votes.
According to Compete, MovieForumz currently has around 5000 unique visitors a month. Did you sell the site, or is it still bringing in money - albeit with a smaller audience?
MovieForumz is a past success of mine and is no longer running. It has been closed for probably 2 years now and still receives about 5-10 thousand uniques per day even after all this time.
Not everyone has the mathematical intelligence, willpower, mental health, and emotional stability required to make it through an engineering, science, or even business degree. In addition, many students feel they have to go to college just to get a job. For those reasons (and others) many students end up studying for a liberal arts degree. What should those students be doing instead?
Not everyone has the mathematical intelligence, willpower, mental health, or emotional stability required to make it through an engineering degree. In addition, many students feel they have to go to college just to get a job. For those reasons (and others) many students end up studying for a liberal arts degree. What should those students be doing instead?
