jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Negotiating and licensing software
Hi guys and gals,

I could use your insights on how to price my software for a unique (to me) situation. In the past I have charged by the hour or rarely by the job for desktop applications. This time I'm thinking of trying something different.

Background: I have a contract coming up that involves software for an embedded product. I haven’t spoken directly to the company yet but I have an internal champion at the company who is pitching me to come in to save a critical project that is going to miss its deadline. I've already started writing the software in anticipation and intend to have it finished before I talk to them.

The company currently has a non-software engineer working on this project and it is apparent that he will not be able to meet their deadline. Because of the inexperience of their in-house engineer, they will need to use faster more expensive hardware than they might otherwise. Frankly, I don’t think their current approach will work – they just don’t realize what they don’t know. Their deadline is in a couple of months.

Value proposition: On top of delivering something that actually works, I could save them ~$24K a year, year after year, because my more efficient code will allow them to use a base version of the hardware they are spec’ing instead of the more expensive one.

Normally, I charge $150/hr. I think this job will end up taking around 100hrs ($15K). Since I think this solution is more valuable to them than $15K I’m exploring other options such as:

Thanks in advance.

(rest of question is continued in comment below)
Show HN: A high-speed (60sec) options platform on crypto
https://popcoin.gg/
You bet on the direction of crypto chart in the next 60 secs (up/down). If you're right, you can win >60%, if you're wrong, you lose your investment. Onboard just with an ETH transfer, no KYC. Fun mode available.
Show HN: Chesskool – Platform for Chess Improvement
https://www.chesskool.com
Launch day is here!
This has been my passion project, to recreate Duolingo for chess!

I always thought Duolingo had amazing "hooks" to help people learn new languages, so I implemented its spaced-repetition, reports and daily and weekly training reminders in a Chess learning platform for chess improvers!

I built it in Meteor.js and React.js. I chose Meteor to be able to add Cordova in the future.

The Caro-Kann course (for white) is completely free, if you guys want to try it.

What do you folks think?
Two Relatively Capable Technologists Fail to Play PlayStation Game
http://www.benmoskowitz.com/?p=590
When two excited tech professionals can't manage to get a new game working on their PlayStation, is it time to reconsider game consoles? Will the web the new console?
The Top 35 Startups that TechCrunch Missed Out On
http://startupplays.com/blog/top-35-startups-in-tech-that-techcrunch-missed-out-on-ma-2012/
These are the Top 35 Tech Startups that TechCrunch doesn't know about and didn't cover in May 2012
Tell HN: You should start a startup to compete with Shopify
It's the perfect future Y Combinator startup. The business model is exactly the same as Yahoo Stores, so it's well proven to the YC partners.

It is a somewhat hard problem, so you'll need a team with great hackers and almost definitely a designer.

While Shopify has built a best in breed product, it certainly hasn't dominated the marketplace. E-commerce is a slow moving marketplace, you'll have plenty of time to outsell Shopify. You could even undercut them on price for a while.

Shopify only just raised their Series A round so you aren't even that far behind. http://www.shopify.com/press/articles/7-million-series-a-funding/
I'm matching $10K worth of DonorsChoose.org donations (code: breadpig)
http://startingpoint.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/09/harnessing-benevolent-web-for-schools-reddit-coms-alexis-ohanian-on-matching-donorschoose-org-donations/
I was on CNN here from SXSW to announce joining the advisory council of DonorsChoose.org but also to celebrate it with a $10K donation that will match anyone who uses the 'breadpig' code at checkout. I've been so impressed by their fight to make the world suck less one classroom at a time -- after all, I (selfishly) need more startup founders to invest in and technical talent to hire.

Visit www.donorschoose.org/AlexisOnCNN or make a donation to any classroom project on DonorsChoose.org (preferably one in Math & Science, but it's up to you - find something that inspires you!).
Helptext.js
http://luckydev.github.com/helptext.js/
jQuery plugin to have help text in the form elements
Show HN: Minimundo Travel - Pinterest & Hipmunk-inspired travel planning
http://www.minimundotravel.com/
Minimundo Travel was born out of my own personal frustration with planning big trips. I always have a hard time keeping track of what things I want to do on a trip, as well as when/where I already have things scheduled during the trip.

To scratch that itch, I built a tool to (1) collect things from around the internet that I might want to do on the trip and (2) help organize them in a visual way. Minimundo is the result.

I'd love any feedback people have, especially anything regarding what does/doesn't make sense. I'd also love any suggestions for promoting the site. Thanks!
Show HN: Memory Hammer, An always-on Anki review system
https://github.com/abishekmuthian/memory-hammer
I created Memory Hammer to address the problem of accumulated reviews in Anki.

Since Memory Hammer uses an always on e-paper display we can review an Anki card as and when its due.

Although the concept of Memory Hammer was in my mind for several years, I managed to build it only now. As a PoC, it supports basic cards with plain text and I hope to improve it over time through user feedback.

Have you faced the problem of accumulated reviews with Anki? What's your current solution to address it, Would Memory Hammer be helpful to you?
Put "Web 2.0" Out to Pasture
http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2009/04/06/Put-Web-20-Out-to-Pasture.aspx
The term is now meaningless. At least increment it, or just forget the term and conferences all together.
The Biggest, Baddest Security Events Ever
http://www2.csoonline.com/exclusives/column.html?CID=33495
The top eight events that changed the course of computer security history (and two that didn't).
Email newsletters worth subscribing to
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/07/15/email-newsletters-worth-subscribing-to/
Seems to be a problem with that url when coming from hacker news ?

Try dropping the slash http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/07/15/email-newsletters-worth-subscribing-to
London Hacker Meetup tonight @ Songkick hq
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=29436612023
More details here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6677098162
Coinlab (Y Combinator funded) sues MtGox
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dl6uz/coinlab_sues_mtgox/
Coinlab (Ycombinator funded) sues MtGox
Ask HN: Can I get a job writing shell scripts?
I have about 10-odd years of experience writing code. Though I am no expert, I am good at writing bash scripts.

I already have a full-time job but I want to get something else on the side. Exposure is more a priority than money.

Can I get a job writing shell scripts? I would happy debugging somebody else's code too.
HTML5 arena fighting game
http://chleba.org/arenafight/
Game prototype for two players of a fighting game writen in javascript, nodejs. Inspired by Dark Souls game.
Hacker bookmarks:using Google speadsheets as a database 
http://apps.rflab.co.za/hackerbookmarks/
A light-weight personal bookmarking service written in JavaScript.
Google Responds To FTC With “You’re Looking For What, Exactly?”
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/06/google-responds-to-ftc-with-%E2%80%9Cyou%E2%80%99re-looking-for-what-exactly%E2%80%9D.html
I'd love for law knowing person lurking here at HN to explain why exactly does the FTC think they have anything near a case here, I do concede my Google fanboydom but other than they were pressured by Google competitors to act there doesn't seem to be any merit to this, right?
Why Apple Does Support In-store (While Others Don't)
http://fourstarters.com/2007/09/10/why-apple-does-support-in-store-while-others-dont/
Reinier and I were at the Apple Store Regent Street this afternoon, admiring the new iPod line (short review to come soon). Besides finding some new details about the iPods that aren't visible in the adds, we also noticed something about Apple's personal approach to offering support: the Genius Bar.
Google Promises Again to Swear Off Binge Hiring
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/google-promises-again-to-swear-off-binge-hiring/
MySpace Needs Internal Not External Developers
How Much Should I Charge My Clients?
http://kevinboss.net/website-design/how-much-should-i-charge-my-clients
Whether you’re a brand new web designer, or an experienced web developer, you should have pondered this question at some point. I think putting a price on my time was one of the most difficult and subjective things I’ve had to do. My biggest consideration was how much I needed to make to cover my overhead & make a profit. Usually when you’re in business, you want a few bucks to show for it.
Programming HNs?
Are there are any other forums like HN but solely discuss programming/CS stuff?
Review my Startup: SendTweet.com
http://www.SendTweet.com
Send an automatic tweet to everyone that opts into your email list.
Hacker Takes Responsibility for Wikileaks Takedown
http://mashable.com/2010/11/29/hacker-wikileaks/
11/29/10 by Stan Schroeder
ASK HN: Will you help me finish this fundraising app for Watsi?
http://app.groundbreakr.com
Note: I made this fundraising app over a weekend to demo the concept. It doesn't actually work. It's just been sitting for half a year collecting dust.

Right now it uses a JSON feed that I got from Watsi to display projects, but it needs manual entry of projects to make this concept work. detail about this on DN: https://news.layervault.com/stories/11029-ask-dn-will-you-help-me-finish-this-fundraising-app-for-watsi-

I've already discussed the details with Watsi and would like to finish this app with a little help from my friends :)

Email me if you're down. trauma.barbara@gmail.com
Ask HN: How much raise should I be looking for when moving to US from India?
I'm a Software Engineer working remotely from India. My current compensation is $200K. My current employer wants me to move to San Francisco. I've read that the cost of living there is very high compared to the other cities in the US itself and several times when compared to India. To address my concern, my employer has promised to increase my compensation to $250K. I have two questions here:

1. Does the raise justify the increase in the cost of living there?

2. If the answer to 1 is not, what is a reasonable equivalent compensation?

While looking for an answer online, I found an equivalent income calculator[0] based on PPP. It tells me that the equivalent salary in the US should be ~$714K. That number looks rather outrageous. Hence, this post.

[0]http://salaryconverter.nigelb.me/
Show HN: Simple Web Bookmarking on One Big Page
https://linkzie.com
My blog post about this Show HN submission: http://peterlyons.com/problog/2011/03/show-hn-my-bookmarking-app/
Ask HN: What to do with excess off-grid solar electricity?
I'd like to bring to attention the question asked here:

https://permies.com/t/85965/Economical-excess-grid-solar-electricity

"""
William Bronson wrote:
What can we make to sell from any excess electric?
Compressed air? Nitrogen or oxygen extracted from.the air? Ice? Dry ice? Purified water? Milled lumber? Split firewood? Hydroponic weed? Hydroponic hops? Server space?
...
"""

I'm interested in ways of turning the excess electricity + extra work on my behalf + whatever needed equipment into something which is sell-able / profitable. The prices offered by the government for feeding in electricity into the grid are miserably low where I live.

Ideally, the proposed ideas should not be dangerous (e.g. "Compressed air") and not require a substantial initial investment and/or special licensing.

The idea of making ice (mentioned above) and selling it, seems actually pragmatic enough, but there is not much demand for it where I live.
Your Brain on Vim
http://symbolsystem.com/2010/12/15/this-is-your-brain-on-vim/
oh so (wonderfully ;) true...
Ask HN: Rate my startup mashape.com
http://www.mashape.com

Mashape is an API marketplace for developers that want to distribute or consume any kind of service that runs somewhere on a server.

It's in private alpha now, but I'll give you an account almost immediately if you use the invite code "HACKERNEWS".

I'd like to have some feedback on:

1) Do you find it interesting?

2) In the first 30 seconds on the site, did you have any good or bad thoughts about Mashape?

3) Did you find the Guide section, and the sample code, easy to understand?

Thank you.
Bayesianism: The Rationalist's swiss army knife, power saw, and flamethrower
http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/technical.html
You should read the introduction at http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/bayes.html first if you aren't familiar with Bayesian reasoning. The introduction is a bit repetetive, so skip over parts of it once you understand the idea.
Quantum circuit “simulator”
http://www.davyw.com/quantum/
AKA "I have no idea what to do!"
Recursive Game of Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtJ77qsLrpw
The Droste Effect in game of life
Ask HN: Good gift for a kid interested in coding?
I want to find a gift that encourages her to continue toying with her interest for coding. She's turning 12 and has played around with python a bit. Says she wants to be a coder when she grows up.
Ask HN: Value of "Smart Money"
I have a fairly promising startup in the digital media space which has spent quite a while building its core product offering - we did not follow the current MVP trend. It'd actually be most accurate to say we built a couple solid products, pivoted/reengineered, and finally have some good traction in our new target market.

I covered the seed round myself based on previous startup success, we raised a couple million in series A from a variety of angels (mostly well-to-do real estate folks, who mostly are not-so-well-to-do these days). I now have a terms sheet for $5M from a high net worth individual who I respect for his sales skills and past business success, but who honestly hasn't a clue about the technology market and is definitely an aggressive personality type.

I am seriously considering going and shopping this deal to traditional VCs. I'm not in the Bay Area so my choices are probably limited since my understanding is that Bay Area VCs won't invest outside Silicon Valley. What's the community wisdom as regards "smart money" - am I going to get more value out of the connections VCs have as compared to the bird-in-the-hand value of let's take the growth capital and immediately start executing?

(New throwaway account for probably obvious reasons)
Slack backtracks on new text editor
Just received this email from Slack as a reply from my feedback:

----------------
Hi Emile,

We really appreciate your feedback, and we hear your frustration. We're sorry for the impact this is having on your ability to communicate with your team and on your overall productivity. We made a mistake by forcing everyone into this feature without providing an opt-out for customers like you: people for whom the existing behavior was working just fine.

We've started working on a preference that will let you return to the previous message composer. We don't have a specific release date to share right now — it's this team's top and only priority, however, and we expect to have it available on the desktop within a couple of weeks, with Android following shortly thereafter.

We will follow up with another note when this option is available to you, and we'll include instructions on how to enable it.

Again, we're sorry for the disruption and we're grateful for the feedback. We missed the mark on this feature! We will do our best to learn from this and avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Best,
Pamela
----------------
Ask HN: What are the benefits & pain points of using EC2 for daily development?
I've been thinking about using EC2 for my main development environment so that I can get quick and easy access to heavy resources during those times that I need them. I'm aware of a few startups that do this as an internal standard (most notably Quora), but I'd like to learn more about the benefits and pain points before I invest the time.
HyperTag 0.4.3 – Introducing Semantic Search for Text Documents (yes, even PDF)
I have added a useful new feature to HyperTag: Semantic search for text documents (including PDF's and epub's). It is powered by DistilBERT (transformer) using the awesome https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers lib.

It works like this:

Install: $ pip install hypertag

Import text documents: $ hypertag import path/to/directory

Build the index: $ hypertag index

And search: $ hypertag search "your important text query"

Hope any of you find it useful. And always keen on feedback!
Great List Of Skymiles Tracker
http://skymilescreditcard.info/track-skymiles-calculator/
Do you track skymiles with a calculator?
Ask HN: expanding on MVC with frameworks for declarative UI description?
Having written a bunch of UI code for iPhone I am now tempted to design my own framework to factor out reusable parts. However, before I begin I would like to tap into collective wisdom of this community - surely someone has done similar work before and if so I would be glad to learn rather than reinvent.

Here's how I see the structure of a single "page" in an application, expanding on MVC:

1. The Model - a software component and backing storage which provide access to the data. The important thing here is that Model itself must represent data how it's structured in the user's head, not how it's really stored in e.g. a relational database.

2. The Model Schema - a declarative description of types, relationships, and arity of the data entities stored in the Model. Model Schema could be an XML file, for example.

3. Text (Copy), possibly localized. A simple key-value text file would likely suffice.

4. Layout description - list of UI controls and their design attributes (colors, fonts, margins, alignment, grouping/proximity etc). This also includes binding from controls to the Model Schema and to Copy. Layout description also can be a declarative description, such as an XML file.

To make this whole thing come alive I would need a layout engine that can take layout description, create UI controls, populate them with data according to bindings and place them on screen according to design attributes, taking content into account. The difficult part is handling arity.

If I can pull this off, I can see enormous benefit: a designer, a developer, and a copy writer could be iterating independently based on a single common document - the Model Schema - and seeing the complete animated result of their work as they make progress.

So what are the closest things to this that someone else has already done or tried to do?

Note that existing iPhone UIKit cannot do content-sensitive layout, all layout positioning is independent of content and so often looks poor with truncated text or large areas of whitespace - this deficiency and the countless hours spent aligning text on screen were the primary motivators behind my thinking.
Social networks need a private "distance" measure.
Not all friends are equal. Not all work contacts are equal.

Social networks need a private "distance" measure, a scale of one to ten that allows you to fine tune your social network.

Sort of like having inner circles and outer circles.

Thoughts?
Ask HN: Good Android Development Blogs?
In February I switched from working on my company's iPhone app to our Android app. While I was working on the iPhone app I often found new ideas, inspiration, and fascinating explanations at excellent blogs such as http://www.cimgf.com/ http://cocoawithlove.com/ and http://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/. Since switching to Android, I've found only one blog I consider of equal usefulness as the last three, and it's only a few weeks old: http://mindtherobot.com/blog/

There are a number of other blogs floating around, notably the official Android Dev blog which has only recently started making meaty posts, and Romain Guy's blog, which unfortunately is largely outdated.

Where do you go for new techniques and perspectives on Android development?
Being an entrepreneur outside of U.S.?
Hello to all,

As a entrepreneur outside of US i will tell a small story and ask a question.
I'm Emrah, co-founder of https://designapp.io/ . I applied something like ycombinator in Turkey (biggest one) and DesignApp selected between 2500 applications. After a week and a few meetings they send a email about partnership! Thats great! however when i read it I face the fact. They want %5 for introduce us to investors (no seed funding) and also they will have a right to take second %5 whenever they want for only 10k$. Nobody asks that what you are eating, do you have a life, how will you join the meetings (they offer a partnership but they even don't buy a bus ticket for to go meetings). Its really hard to be an entrepreneur outside of U.S.. I am not ache for funding but when I receive a partnership offer I was waiting a seed funding too. But I am not judging them. They cant offer a seed funding because they don't have money.

So we are working hard to create a useful app and market place , and its actually going good ( http://ayofi.com/designapp.png ). I know, I can accelerate growing If I have more money than my pocket. So What the hack should I do now?
Hey HN, help two Latin American entrepreneurs attend to Startup Weekend NYC
http://igg.me/p/227149?a=817312
Recently Quotidian Ventures announced the sponsorship of ten tickets for the startup weekend NYC (http://bit.ly/RyuNSj). And guess what? We both apply and got selected, though we still need some money to make it from Colombia to NYC.
Palestinians blow hole in border wall...  to go shopping.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians
I know that this is off topic for Hacker News, but it was just too weird to let it pass.
Ask HN: Hijacked domain via hacked Gmail - advice?
1. A VC funded startup registered their domain name a few years ago with a small reseller for a larger domain name registrar.

2. Contact information for the registration account was the founder's personal Gmail account.

3. An attacker gained access to the founder's Gmail account, probably via a successful Phishing attempt.

4. The attacker moved the domain to another domain name registrar and changed the Whois to junk. The e-mail address in the Whois is a Gmail account.

5. Attacker deleted all messages related to the transfer in the founder's Gmail account except the last one sent from the reseller that confirmed a successful transfer.

6. This has happened about 48 hours ago. So far the DNS info for the domain has not been changed and the Startup's service is uninterrupted

7. According to Whois data, several domains with the same Gmail account as the attacker, changed Whois info over the past week. This suggests they may be victims of the same attacker and may or may not be aware of it.

Any advice on course of action would be much appreciated. Specifically, what are the registrar's responsibilities? How to best approach them? and can Google (as operator of Gmail) help in any way?

(note: new HN account to keep anonymity)
Ask HN: Volunteer coding opportunities related to global Covid-19 situation?
Given the isolation and more free time, I’m looking for volunteer opportunities to help the overall COVID-19 situation. Anybody know of any technology needs/issues?
Falling Out of Love (W/ Your Company)
http://founderdating.com/falling-out-of-love-w-my-company/
The first-hand account from founder of Manpacks about why he walked away from the company as they were starting to take off.
Ask HN: What are some good part-time software job sites?
Looking to make a few extra bucks on the side < 20 hours/week.