jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
Forget Greece, Save Italy
http://chaselanc.com/post/7029017575
It seems the Greek fiasco is headlining just about every newspaper and magazine these days. Europe and countries around the world are focused in on how Greece can finance the next few years of its government and how it can do so without defaulting. To be sure, a Greek default would have massive consequences worldwide. But it seems many politicians and investors have overlooked other countries that seem to be in pretty bad shape too. Enter Italy. Moody’s has recently indicated that it may downgrade Italy’s debt due to macroeconomic structural weaknesses and the surrounding economic turmoil of its neighbors. Just last Thursday, Moody’s said it might downgrade 13 Italian banks if the the country’s rating is cut. Most people might consider taking Italy’s warnings more seriously for the following reasons. Italy has experienced decades of declining productivity and poor growth. 2008 and 2009 GDP declined by 1.3% and 5.2%, respectively. The unemployment rate is 8.3% and youth unemployment is 29%. The nation’s debt load of 1.8 trillion euros makes it the 4th highest public debtor in the world. And while having debt isn’t a bad thing, it is when your GDP is sluggish - resulting in a debt/GDP ratio of 120% (compare that to Greece’s of 140% and 2x that of Spain’s). Beyond the sluggish growth and high debt load, Italy, like Greece, has a number of problems that make solving these issues quite difficult. For example, collecting taxes seems to be uncharacteristically hard. It is estimated that Italy will lose €120 billion from tax evasion in 2011 (not a typo). Compare that to Greece - €15 billion a year. While Italy’s Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti is widely credited with shielding Italy from the global economic crisis, it seems a little premature to consider Italy a success story. As Berlusconi loses his political grip on a country he has ruled for 17 years, Italy’s annus horriblis seems to be just getting started.
FSFE Fellowship interview with Anna Morris
https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=652
https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=652

Anna Morris is co-founder or FLOSSIE conference for women in Free Software, Manchester Fellowship Group Deputy Coordinator, and Co-Director of Ethical Pets Ltd. She is currently writing a book on video editing with Free Software, and volunteering with Document Freedom Day 2013 in her spare time.

She talks about running her e-commerce business with Free Software:
Intelligent Home - A Future That Never Happened?
http://www.stormdriver.com/blog/intelligent-home-a-future-that-never-happened/
Inspired by the recent Anroid@Home presentation, this article goes back in time to bring you some crazy inteligent home concepts from 50's and 80's. It looks like history keeps repeating itself all over again.
The Indie Box
http://www.theindiebox.com/
INTRODUCING A BRAND NEW MYSTERY SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE FOR INDIE GAMES!
Speak Human now available online in its entirety (for free)
http://speakhuman.com/look-inside
A year ago, I started to give away my book online, one chapter at a time. Today, it's available online in its entirety. If you're the one tasked with marketing a company, I urge you to give it a read; there's a lot of hard won information in it.
AT&T disallows tethering, loophole is falsely rumored
http://agentgenius.com/gadgets/smartphones-gadgets/att-disallows-tethering-loophole-is-rumored/
AGBeat dispels At&t tethering web rumor - get the facts.
LynxFit + Google Glass + Chromecast = Fitness with sensors on your TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FPXzk3yppxc
Yes, with lynxfit for Google Glass, you can cast your fitness content from Glass to TV and challenge your friends. Then take it on the road with you because ...well Glass.
Israeli Entrepreneur Hacks Girlfriend's Facebook Relationship Status to Propose
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2251307/Do-want-change-relationship-status-The-amazing-Facebook-proposal.html
she said yes!
Researchers can predict gender based on Tweets
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/07/new-twitter-alogrithm-could-out-dudes-pretending-be-lesbians/40451/
Researchers have put together an algorithm that can predict the gender of a tweeter based solely on the 140 characters they choose to tweet. Aside from stalking, there is market value in knowing gender. Looks like it should be possible to defeat the algorithm.
How Good C# Habits can Encourage Bad JavaScript Habits: Part 3
http://enterprisejquery.com/2010/10/how-good-c-habits-can-encourage-bad-javascript-habits-part-3/
This post continues to focus on areas where C# developers tend to make bad JavaScript decisions based on their previous training. The languages are similar enough syntactically that C# developers tend to not invest the time to learn JavaScript’s differences.<p>The following post points out several misunderstandings that can get you into some confusing situations: Function Scope, Hoisting, & Closures
Judge dismisses FBI's appeal - or how NZ started to get its balls back 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/7491404/US-appeal-on-Dotcom-evidence-dismissed
NZ judge has said that Kim Dot Com can not be extradited until the FBI provides all of their evidence, the FBI appealed, Judge tells them to bugger off.

At least the Justice system has more sense than the police or politicians.
AMD Firepro marketing gets a little… heated
http://tech.icrontic.com/news/amd-firepro-marketing-gets-a-little-heated/
AMD has stepped up their Firepro marketing and taken a pretty direct shot at their competition in a new video released today, entitled “Good Idea, Bad Idea”.
LittleSis offers gov 2.0 social network platform
http://www.transcapitalist.com/transcapitalist/2009/7/25/littlesis-an-involuntary-social-network-for-political-heavy.html
An "involuntary" Facebook for powerful people and organizations
Peluang Usaha Ahasu Gnaulep | Begin The Plan
http://iskandar.co.tv/peluang-usaha-ahasu-gnaulep.html
Peluang usaha ahasu gnaulep adalah cara kita untuk mencari peluang–peluang yang menguntungkan untuk memenuhi kebutuhan hidupnya. Hmmmm … Pas saya liat dan perhatikan dengan seksama (woot) alangkah terkejutnya saya :D Peluang Usaha Ahasu Gnaulep, lho lho, kok dibalik-balik kenapa tu?? nanti akan … peluang usaha ahasu gnaulep seperti kata terbalik ahasu gnaulep = peluang usaha. Jadi Peluang Usaha ya Ahasu Gnaulep hehehehe …. hmmm jadi kontes ini hanya di baca “Peluang Usaha” saja karena kata “Ahasu Gnaulep” adalah kebalikannya.
Show HN: Worry-free object traversal in JavaScript
http://jclem.net/2012/steeltoe.html
A co-worker today challenged me to come up with a way of traversing objects in JavaScript without worrying about whether any intermediary values were undefined. It had to be short, and it had to have an elegant syntax. This is what I came up with.

I'm curious about how it could be done better, or whether people feel like it's an abomination, and a violation of the way people expect to work with objects in JavaScript.
Show HN: Natural Language to SQL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOuu01ILlc
C-Phrase is available under the free tier on AWS.
The video gives exact instructions on how to launch.

Please give it a try and give us some feedback.
Master Time and Space with JavaScript
http://www.noelrappin.com/mstjs-faq/
Master Space and Time in JavaScript is a new book aimed at developers who have a basic knowledge of JavaScript but who need to learn about newer tools and practices.
Ask HN: Is there a non-MVC Node.js framework?
I'm looking for a plugin-based node.js framework, as opposed to the MVC (or MV*, etc.) which is all the rage these days. I discuss my reasoning in a short blog post, but I'm hoping the HN community has some insight. And, if I can't find an appropriate one, I'm considering starting one.

Your help/wisdom is greatly appreciated!

Blog post discussing the question is here:
http://cscrunch.com/blog/corey-pennycuff/open-question-there-non-mvc-nodejs-framework
Mesos 0.16.0-rc platform packages available
http://mesosphere.io/downloads/
New Mesos 0.16.0-rc platform packages available
Second Earth Found? Location Is Promising
http://latest-informative-news.ourscompany.com/second-earth-found-location-is-promising/
NASA announced a major milestone in the quest for life in the universe Monday: The discovery of another planet close enough to the sun it orbits to potentially support life.
Called Kepler-22b, the planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth and about 600 light-years away. And it orbits in the “habitable zone,” the region of space just far enough from a star that liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface — a discovery could have profound implications in the quest for alien life, said Alan Boss, an astrophysicist with Carnegie Melon University.
Show HN: Which Super Bowl Advertisers are building relationships on YouTube
http://www.touchstorm.com/videoscoreboard/
If video is now more valuable than ads, who's keeping score?

This scoreboard gives a snapshot of the most successful campaigns from the 2014 Super Bowl. We're measuring the ad itself plus any adjunct video content specifically related to the ad and marketed on YouTube around the Super Bowl. Feedback welcome.
Clustered Networks Spread Behavior Change Faster
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/network-behavior-spread/
As startups we are essentially creating things that will change people's behaviour. For example Amazon made people purchase books online instead of going to bookshops, and read ebooks on Kindle instead of paper books. How to spread the behaviour change should be something we think about constantly.

Is this study valid? Is it possible to build "clustered network" instead of "random network" initially? Please comment.
What is Edgerank and How Does it Affect Your Brand?
http://www.thecrmprocess.com/2012/11/08/what-is-edgerank-and-why-should-you-care/#.UpkPwNKmhe8
Whether we choose to use Facebook solely as a personal social network to connect with friends and family or to help humanize and grow your company, remember that Facebook is a tool.
Ask HN: Advice on factoring percentages for PWM SSR power driver
I could use some help developing a function for controlling the on off timing of a Solid State Relay which is driving the heating element in an electric still.

The SSR will only switch while the AC wave is at the zero crossing, thus limiting the minimum switching time to approximately 8.3 ms. For stability I would like to set a minimum of 20 ms switching time.

I would also like to set the power level between 0% and 100% in 1% increments. My current solution is using the formula "%Power X 20 = timeOn / 2000 - timeOn = timeOff"

Although this works, unfortunately it results in longer than necessary on/off durations in order to get the intended duty cycle.

Eg. A 50% power level would be 1000ms On / 1000ms Off. This would not be as efficient and harder on the element as it would be to get 50% power by having the element 20ms On / 20ms Off.

Hopefully I have explained my problem in such a way that makes sense. What I believe I need to do is factor the larger fractions created by multiplying the the percentage, down to as small as possible with a "numerator On" or "denominator Off" value of no less than 20ms.

Any thoughts or advice or articles/tutorials covering this subject would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ask HN: Geek Attractions in NYC [non-tech]
i'm spending next week (including christmas eve) in NYC with my wife - celebrating christmas and our 1 year anniversary. are there geeky attractions in NYC that would be worth visiting? already have plans for spider man and pee wee's playhouse. i was hoping there was something geeky/nerdy/computer-science-y i could show her.

not exactly your typical HN content/question, but i figure if anyone would know where to visit in NYC it would be you guys (or at least that's my best bet)

thanks in advance...
Assemblino.js - Modeling and Simulation for Robots and Mechanisms
https://assemblino.com/
Newborn online tool for building simple models of robots and simulate them, with JavaScript, and some drag and drops.

Requires WebGL, Chrome recommended.

GitHub repository: https://github.com/nrox/assemblino.js

Consult docs:
https://assemblino.com/docs.html

Check the database (ongoing work):
https://assemblino.com/explorer.html

Examples:
Neural Network and Robotic Arm: https://assemblino.com/show/public20123372.html

Servo with brackets test:
https://assemblino.com/show/public18979576.html

Multiple servos:
https://assemblino.com/show/public19060338.html
10:10 Do robots trade on tweet data?
https://twitter.com/dave_lampton/status/436201101637865472
Retweet me NOW to find out @dave_lampton !
High-Rise Commercial, My Own Office
Hack Tahoe
http://hacktahoe.org
If you find a security flaw in Tahoe, the Least-Authority Filesystem, we'll give you a t-shirt with a big Thank You from us and a working copy of your exploit printed on the front.
Be kinder than necessary ...
http://www.jeffbridges.com/fish.html
"Be kinder than necessary 'cause everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

cool fish story with a thoughtful quote from Jeff Bridges, yeah, that Jeff Bridges (actor in Crazy Heart, the Big Lebowski, etc)
Go Meetup Munich, 24.04
http://www.meetup.com/Munich-Gophers-Go-User-Group/events/175786132/
Hi, I'm organising this event for the Go programming language, 24.04 in Munich. If you happen to be free on this evening and enjoy go, beer & pizza feel free to drop by. As this is our first meetup it's probably going to be a pretty small round :). Everyone's welcome!
CounsiLand – Fun and Personalized Career Advice
https://assemblymade.com/counsiland
Join Assembly and Help Us Build this Awesome App.
Hello, #World - dynamic Twitter background
http://ovidiu.ch/hello-world
An experiment between Twitter and Yahoo! Weather APIs.
Demandforce is cheating the review system on Google Local
http://smallbusinessshift.com/articles/demand-force-dominates-google-local-dental-reviews/
Why would Google ever partner up with these guys? They are threatening to remover all the positive reviews if you cancel their $300/month service.
Show HN: Cross-Platform Multiplayer HTML5 Word Game
http://wordoff.com
I work at a small game studio in Chicago and we just made this word game that works on the web, Android, iOS and more platforms coming soon. The front end is HTML5 with cake.js and Phonegap for mobile. The backend is Node.js and CouchDB.

Feel free to challenge me to a game. My username is bobbylox (you can also use FB connect to play against your friends).

Enjoy!
Ask HN: How do/could you use Mechanical Turk
I've seen a lot of "instant" services that appear to have a group of workers behind the scene, and they appear to be a sort of "siloed" Mechanical Turk.

So what DO you use Mechanical Turk for? Or what could you use it to accomplish in a cost effective way?
Videos for MIT 6.00 - Python Version
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-00Fall-2008/LectureVideos/index.htm
Not entirely sure how new this is.
Open sourced 4 side projects
http://andrei.oprisan.com/open-sourcing-4-past-projects/
I just open sourced 4 side projects: a Google Apps purchase order system, a social fitness and nutrition platform, a virtual phone system, and an API building platform
Engineering College in Kota
http://www.riteskota.com/kota.html
Engineering college in Kota a Institute Of Technology & Engineering Science is one of the oldest & leading institute of Rajasthan which focussed on the concept of imparting practical knowledge to its students.It provides engineering & management education from various recognised universities of india and abroad to the students/working professionals in both regular & correspondence and Part time mode.

Website: http://www.riteskota.com/
Email : riteskota@gmail.com
In depth: The Pirahã tribe (Number-challenged Amazonians)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto?currentPage=all
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=235862 reminded me of a much more in depth (and thusly much more fascinating) article on the Pirahã.

It touches heavily on Noam Chomsky's big language theory as well as the soft Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
The quote of the day.
Getting started is more important than being the smartest person in the room.

What's your quote of the day?
How to create web graphics for the new MacBook retina
http://blog.kickfolio.com/retina/
The new MacBook Pro sports retina graphics. Here's how to implement @2x graphics for the web.
Good stuff you discovered in 2014?
In the spirit of classic threads "What book changed your life in [year]?" or "Best book you read in [year]", I'd like to ask fellow HNers about good stuff you discovered in 2014.

Feel free to talk about books, software, hardware or any other stuff that has made a difference.
India to help build 2nd Silicon Valley in US
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_to_help_build_second_Silicon_Valley_in_US/articleshow/2400030.cms
Y Combinator and all other angels/VCs should take note of this !!!
Let it Bleed: SF Pensions will bankrupt city within a decade
http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/2205802/
Fully 20 percent of all current employees are eligible to retire tomorrow--and 27 percent of cops and firefighters can hang it up now if they choose, according to the DHR. Since a retired worker can cost San Francisco nearly 98 percent as much as a working one, goodbye parties are just the beginning of the city's pending expenses.

So we're already taking away services from people who live here to pay for people who no longer work here.

But that's not the worst of it. There's an even bigger financial apocalypse right behind this one. By 2015, the city's pension contribution will swell to at least half a billion dollars--as a best-case scenario. Meanwhile, the city has a $4 billion unfunded health care liability looming that it hasn't saved any money for.

San Francisco can either bring its benefits into line, substantially raise taxes and fees to maintain the status quo, or severely cut services and employees. Or it can do all of the above.

San Francisco's benefits system is protected by the city charter, and is sustainable. The city, as we know it, isn't.
What happened to AltaVista and Yahoo? From innovator to imitator to forgotten
http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/08/what-happened-to-altavista-and-yahoo.html
AltaVista was Google before Google. They tried to imitate AOL and Yahoo, and lost their engineering roots
Ask HN: Manager forwarded my resume to recruiter, can I be positive?
Out of desperation, I directly mailed a very senior manager IT at a big tech company. The manager mailed me back and asked me a few questions and then he mailed me finally that he has forwarded my resume to their recruiter. It has been a few days since but haven't heard from anyone. Should I still be hopeful because I am everyday hoping to hear from them desperately and can't focus on anything. It is also because it is the best job with the best company I can work with. Also is anyone familiar with recruiting and how it works, I mean normally how long does it take usually for a recruiter to get back to you ?
We just successfully completed our Kickstarter Campaign
http://changingthewayyouwork.com/2012/07/18/were-funded-thank-you/
Thanks for all the support. If you haven't seen us yet, check us out and stay tuned for pre-ordering our products on our website!
Keep Your Workbench Clean Code Quality and the Professional Developer
http://www.readwrites.com/post/14264667861/code-quality
Think about a journeyman carpenter. The first chair he makes quite quickly - all of this tools are organized in this tool-box, his work-bench is clean of sawdust and shavings, someone has supplied him with neatly written measurements, and he can focus on making the chair. After this fourth or fifth, the work bench is covered in sawdust and his tools are buried in the shavings: he has to dig to find them. Some of the tools ended up on the floor and his measurements are missing. Is he faster or slower? Wouldn’t it have been worth his time to tidy his workspace, sweep the floor, and put his tools away between each of his jobs? ... (read more) ...
Windows 7 vs Android for Hello World
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ramaprasanna/archive/2010/12/24/quick-comparison-of-windows-phone-7-development-and-android-development.aspx
Of course if you're not using windows the equation changes immediately! Also I noted how much xaml was required for the WinMo7 Hello World. Seems like they've pretty much given it to you already in a template. Shame there's no real analysis of the long term costs of development including app-store deployment costs, acceptance rates, etc.
Show HN: TechPill
https://techpill.herokuapp.com/
All your tech news in one place. Uses News API and the HN API.
First Email Speed Reader
https://mailbird.zendesk.com/entries/45629364-The-First-Email-Speed-Reader
How do you become mega fast at processing your emails with Mailbird?

Here's a cool tip if you haven't tried it already-

https://mailbird.zendesk.com/entries/45629364-The-First-Email-Speed-Reader
Your last ticket ever
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-GPS-cruise-control-using-your-Android-iPh/
When I get a ticket, I usually bitch about it for a few months. Then I plan a letter writing campaign. This time I spent 5 years and designed an improved cruise control and worldwide database of speed limit signs.
Ask HN: Need advice: Single founder and Early stage chances with YC?
Earlier today I asked fellow hackers about their take on my app. But, just in the matter of hours my situation changed dramatically.

We were a team of two founders, me being the developer and the other cofounder, a marketing/sales girl. Ours/mine is a crowdsourced based non-profit startup in its early stages of development.

Due some reasons, she quit on the startup and I am now the only founder left in the company, I'm really determined to go ahead and apply for YC.
I have been working relentlessly to get to a shape.

I was wondering if this happened to anyone before and if yes- how did you manage to compensate the loss(may be for a good reason).

PS: For the curious, here is my original ask hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9267658
Show HN: An Audio Introduction to Nick Bostrom
https://radiobostrom.com/introduction
I'm working on this because I think Bostrom's work is extremely important, and deserves a wider audience.

I first read Bostrom's work in 2010, during my undergraduate degree. It has been a major influence on many of the projects I've worked on since then. In particular, the many years I've spent working at 80,000 Hours.

(80,000 Hours is a career advising service which—among other things—helps people act on Bostrom's ideas about the urgency of addressing existential risks posed by emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology.)
Ask HN: It’s snowing in Texas and Cellular data is suffering, why?
I’ve lived in a cold climate where it snows every winter for most of my life and the cell service doesn’t seem to be affected. It snows once in Texas and cell service is notably slower. Is this my imagination or something else going on?
Los Angeles, CA - Startup in 3 days
http://startup.eventbrite.com
Join a group to launch a startup from concept to prototype launch in 3 days in Los Angeles. See http://startup.eventbrite.com for more details.
HD5: Top 5 Hacker Events This Week
http://thestartupdigest.com/2010/06/22/hd5/
We've been trying out this new post called the HD5 using the data from StartupDigest to list and rank the top 5 events from all of the cities and categories we cover.

Here are the hacker focused events, let me know what you think!
Top Venture Capital Firms, investors list by market segment, year, funding round
http://www.fundastic.info/leaderboard?foo=&bar=
Fundastic.info uses CrunchBase data to get list of top investors and VC firms during a particular year/quarter.
In addition, top investors/vc firms for a particular market segment/funding round can also be obtained.