skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Service that negotiates and switches between companies on your behalf.
My phone contract period has expired. I have a feeling that if I ring my phone provider up and let slip that I'm thinking of moving to another provider they'll offer me a deal. I don't want to do this myself. Is there a service which would do this for me, or could it viably be created? If not, why?

Critique the viability of this idea.
I could see applications of this being very useful for military and peaceful solutions, especially if superatom chemistry can replace the demand for rare-earth elements.
My phone's got more processing power and more memory than the laptop I bought 5 years ago. It also has a GPS, camera, accelerometer, voice recognition, and cellular connection. And it fits in my pocket.

The laptop cost $1600 when I bought it. Why are we complaining about a $500ish phone?
This is the github page:

http://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit
Wow! It's almost as good as a PDF viewer.
GCC's was intentionally designed to be so convoluted to keep anyone from developing out-of-tree code that interfaces with any of it's internal representations, all for ideological reasons -- Stallman wanted to make sure noone would write any non-GNU features: IDE integration, language frontends, optimizers, target architectures, etc.

You either have to treat it as an executable black box, or fork the whole damn project -- which actually happened back in the day when the FSF's sole paid developer refused all public involvement with RMS's blessing.
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Most impressive! reminds me of "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smash_TV. Wish there was an in game cursor (sights) to help track where I'm shooting.
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I've never looked at a book and thought "wow, I wish I had video here".

I have looked at a video and thought "I wish I had a transcript instead".
The resource list might benefit from some review.

Startupping is defunct now for more than a year.

The Reddit link points to a list that doesn't seem very active (top is one month old, lower items many months old).

The Red Herring link 404's on the site.

Digg's "startup" matches in December 2009 are probably not of interest or use to HN readers.
Well put.
"The suit is back" is back!
First, remember that even though the internet makes international dealings trivially easy, much of the interaction (most perhaps?) takes place entirely within the borders of one country.

That is true and current laws in most countries would allow you to sue someone for defamation etc. Even cross-border in most cases. The problem is not the legal framework it is rather the policing that is the problem. Laws per se do not stop criminal activity. My own argument is that the community itself should do the policing, perhaps aided by better software and a device that ... can send a 60000 kV spike back to someone's computer when he behaves badly :)
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Just curious, in what piece of writing did Doctorow predict this? I'd like to read it.
Amazing story. No doubt this will be a movie for sure!
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The game is a lot of fun! I spent a bunch of money playing Smash TV back in about 1992 and this is a lot of the same fun gameplay and a couple of similar graphics. A couple of suggestions:

* Make the weapon recharge happen automatically when the level clears or you die, so the player doesn't have to stand there and wait for the recharge.

* Disable the traps after all regular enemies are dead. There is no additional challenge or fun from killing a few slugs while you run around and collect your big prizes.

* Automatically do something sensible with charge ups and get rid of the store and equipment screen altogether. The fun factor of shopping is not high.

* Make a big cursor indicator so it's easier to see the player and the target at the same time using peripheral vision.

* I would get rid of falling off the edge.

* I kept hitting the map button on E by accident and I want to move it.
At first glance it is non-sequitur. On second glance it is specious. It's also redundant: Amichail's other comment about theoreticians and conjecture proofs added whatever it added to the conversation already.
Great to see a sequel. I liked the first one so much I paid for it. Can't wait to start blowing stuff up again.
Earnest advice to a billion dollar corporation from a three hit a week blog
"Makers" http://craphound.com/makers/

I won't go into the details. It would stray far into spoiler territory.

Although, the idea actually appeared a few years ago in one of his earlier works that "Makers" is based largely on.
The last robokill was the best flash game I ever played.. Very impressive work.
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Came here to post this: "how is this different than PDF?"
While we're talking about car sharing, I'm a huge fan of the car2go model. Basically, it's Zipcar except you can park in any public parking space instead of having to return it to the spot where you picked it up. It looks like they're trying to make most of their money from corporate contracts, such as the City of Austin, which is the only customer during the pilot phase. They're probably also writing some of it off as advertising. It's run by Daimler and all the cars are Smart Fortwos, which I see pretty much every day now. It's not open to the public yet in Austin, but between that, the bus and a folding bike to make half car2go, half bike trips more feasible, I wouldn't need my rarely used car at all.

http://www.car2go.com/portal/austin/page/mybookings/mapEnlar...
I live in San Mateo County and can already check out, along with other Northern California public library patrons, full color editions of a limited but hopefully growing selection of quite good books. The system uses Adobe Digital Editions software for display and DRM and replicates the library one-patron-checks-out-a-given-book-at-a-time model.

The majority of the current catalog is unfortunately full of the long tail of crappy bodice-rippers but if you wade through there are some good books. I don't see Kurzweil's system adding anything other than irrelevant eye candy.
I'm going to hold off making judgement until Google's announcement on January 5.

I think they have something up in their sleeves. My guess is its mostly software-related though - new Android features or cloud/mobile services.
Culturally, the Christian world seems to have given up its war against the infidels a few hundred years ago (today, it is even close to giving up Christianity). While hostility towards outsiders may not be a necessary part of Muslim belief, it does seem to be ingrained in at least a substantial part of current Islamic culture.

The Crusades are an off-mentioned bugbear on the lips of moral relativists, and of course the Bible claims that the Hebrews drove out pagan tribes from the land of Cainaan. But in my opinion we ought to weight recent killings in the name of God slightly higher than those which occurred five hundred or three thousand years ago.

I could be wrong and biased because of the media I consume. Could you point me to a recent news story about a Christian or Jewish suicide bomber?
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> "We'll say, 'We know he's fencing here, and when we arrest him he's facing a life term and he'll turn on you.' Within a week, we'll find Blane in a drum in the East River, because that's how these guys play."

It surprises me that i'm not entirely opposed to that idea, but I really have to wonder if it's legal.
You seem to have an angrier version of my view toward cell phones. If I had a cell phone, I'd want one that just makes calls, and nothing else. That's not what others want, though, and in this case I look forward to a tablet PC as powerful as my desktop system in a few years, and I already do most of my reading anyway via computer and a PDF viewer or web browser.
I agree that a lot of universities are raising their tuition and basically selling debt to students (along with my experience that just because you have the same piece of paper I do doesn't mean you aren't an order of magnitude dumber).

That said, diploma mills only dilute this problem even further. It is up to the employer to set their standards. The issue is probably less about what is necessary to do the job and more about finding an honest employee who has the balls to try to prove he's worth the gamble despite not having the requested education.
There is big picture. And then there are details.

There is trending. And then there is individual timing.

Bill Gates pointed out a trend. Before most others.
Finding trends and patterns before others = you will usually not lose money.

But not being right on time = you may not make a lot of money either.

To do awesome in the stock market, a finger on both the pulses is necessary: trending as well as timing.

But it starts with the trends.

(Imho - candlestick is a good method for finding the right time - but only after you've analyzed the trends.)
Because some handwavy analogue to Moore's Law says that said laptop ought to cost about $400 now (and in fact it's hard to justify blowing $1k on a laptop). Have you priced something equivalent (compute-wise, screens are still expensive) lately?
You seriously have that issue with US employers? That's insane. If you're at an organization large enough to have its own HR department, delicately mention that you might have to speak with them regarding whether discounting the degree is on the permitted side of their "national origin" clause. (Exercise caution since this is pretty much the equivalent of the US ambassador saying "Hey, apropos of nothing: we have nukes. Like, lots and lots of nukes. Pretty big ones, too." at trade negotiations.)

As regards the INS: all I can say is that I sympathize.
> Enterprise - you call, make a reservation, get a car.

Not necessarily. It's possible for Enterprise to also run out of vehicles.
So making a mobile OS and having image recognition technology makes Google likely to be at the center of the robotics industry?

It seems like a stretch.
That's around the same price you pay for phone + unlimited dataplan in germany (atleast for iphone and G1).
Well, not quite missing the Point. I have a Kindle, K2, and kindle for my iPhone. I've read about twenty books in the last two years, and have been pretty happy with the combination of iPhone (for night time, car, casual) and Kindle (Bright Sunlight, camping, desert) devices.

But, The kindle/iPhone really are only good for light fiction. They are horrible for Scientific Texts, Math Texts, Anything with color, and reference manuals. I've been waiting for 18+ months for the MacTablet to come out, and, if something like Bilo is available with it's release, and manages to come up with a half decent/fast metaphor for random page turning (needed for a reference) - then it will be a hit.

Though, I have a sneaking suspicion Apple might also have an interest in being the "Ebook Reader" of choice for the MacTablet...
Twilio (phone call web API) is crazy fun: MicroISV on a Shoestring
:) Back when we (or I, anyways) called it news.yc.
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I've already seen an app that does this, but it's probably better to have the app dial an existing number in the the address book using some unique gesture instead of actually having to dial the whole thing

it's called Gesture Dial
It's apparently by a fairly widely published biologist, an expert on fish eyes, it would seem:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22J.+R.+JOHNSTONE%22+monash
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Thanks for the clarification. I've added tarsnap to the post.
I love it. Also whenever I see the word 'leviathan' it makes me wanna go install and play ufo: enemy unknown all over for some reason.
You could use lulu.com, if you wanted a personal copy.
> every car is a hybrid

While this may be true of WeCar, not all ZipCars are hyrids. At least not in my experience.
This is all wishful thinking.. but if anyone at Google is listening, how about discounts for us G1 users? We knew the G1 wasn't as good as an iPhone, but we bought it anyway, because we wanted to do our part in helping the Android OS succeed. Now it's one year later, Droids have come out, and I still get a "kill task" dialog every time I start a browser on the G1 (because it's slow).
Now all they need to do is have Wolfram|Alpha solve it and convert the work back into handwriting.
Just like how the iTunes Store is almost as good as an mp3 player? Apples != oranges.
Good idea - I may add this in the next version. In the current version, if the number you've started to dial matches a number stored in your address book, the full number will pop up which you can tap to select.
larry page has stated many times his goal for google is to create ai. What robotics lacks is computer vision technology more than anything else, and it's not so far fetched that google (or microsoft/yahoo/ibm) would have the most advanced computer vision technology if they chose to try (which they clearly are doing with google similar images / google goggles).
Bloody brilliant. Reminds me of Alien Breed personally, but has a nice balance of good stuff all round.
I've been very happy with the kindle dx for mathy reading when I"m teaching myself a new topic.

That being said, you do have a good point that its not quite the right thing (as yet, though maybe the right abstraction would help) for lots of page flipping, eg when you're working through a problem and looking up information to help
Sigh.. I was all excited about it and was thinking of dumping my iPhone, since it seemed I would atleast save some money in the long run. Unfortunately, it would cost me the same and T-mobile service isn't much better than AT&T (imho)

The only interesting conclusion from the article seems to be that Google is confident that Nexus One would be able to compete one on one with the iPhone on features and usability, hence they offered no major discounts to get the customers.
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Of all the true geniuses I have met none are "on the internet", or if they are, are passive observers. They tend to be too busy doing amazing things than writing about it. I have no doubt that each would be a "superstar blogger" if they so decided to, but I highly doubt it's ever going to happen.

In private, they share in confidence with people they trust and organizations that they work with who treat such knowledge as competitive advantage.

The thing is, once you are at the top of your field, what incentive is there to share if you are still making personal breakthroughs on a regular basis? I don't see any.
There are already other post(s) about the Google Phone "leaks".
> You can often rent cars from normal car rental agencies for $20 a day (though with fees it ends up being 40)

That doesn't take into account whether or not you have your own insurance (e.g. if you already have a car). It also doesn't take into account taxes. IIRC, Multinomah County (the county where Portland, Oregon is) has a 15% tax on rental vehicles. This is on top of the Enterprise quoted price. I don't know if ZipCar works this into their costs, but I don't remember ever seeing this tax on an invoice from ZipCar.

I've had good experience from a customer service perspective with Enterprise, but from a cost perspective, not so much. I once rented a car for a day from them which was supposed to be ~$60. The final cost with insurance, taxes, etc was over $100. On the other hand -- as a ZipCar member -- I can rent a ZipCar for ~$69/day and that includes gas.

I was able to sign up for $25 (+ $10 for my wife) by signing up at the Portland Gay Pride 'celebration' (I would say 'Gay Pride Parade,' but it was at the tents after the parade). We've also been able to get free credits when we see their booths at other events (e.g. VegFest '09). I've also gotten free credits for calling them to tell them that I saw the lights were left on on one of their cars (I was at a bus stop that was near a ZipCar spot).

While I have no complaints about Enterprise customer service, I would say that ZipCar is the Zappos of car rental (though I may be wrong since I've never interacted with Zappos; I'm only guessing based on all the stories I hear).
I like the idea. It's a non-stop negotiating service. It could be outsourced. And, unlike some outsourced personal assistants, it could be done passively by monitoring your credit card statements.

I think the basic economics for a specialized negotiating call center work out easily with people making $10/hour. One of the big costs of negotiating with providers is waiting on hold. But your call center software can recognize when an operator comes on the line and automatically route the call to a currently available negotiating specialist.
T-Mobile is significantly cheaper than AT&T, however. With the lowest number of minutes and unlimited data, I was paying $110 on AT&T (including taxes). On T-Mobile, this is about $70 with taxes. That is almost $500/year cheaper!
But a laptop that's much more powerful is about $250 these days. That's why people are complaining.

(But, to be fair, capacitative touch screens and 3G modems are not cheap parts.)
Usually, they'll get another car for you from another enterprise dealer or give you a free upgrade. I have made multiple reservations with enterprise till now and haven't hit the same problem. I am sure its possible but I haven't heard people talking about it,

Also, some of the points in the article are plain wrong. I have rented from enterprise in AZ (Tucson) and CA (Mountain View) and both times the location was convenient plus they picked me up!

Regarding the Saturday/Sunday, Enterprise dealers closed on sunday run a 3 day promo in which you get a 50% off, In grad school I used to plan many trips during the weekend so I can save some bucks on the rental.

Also, the insurance rates are available on the site and if you cough up about $10/day you are off the hook for damage to the car.
> $180 for a subsidized, non-Apple smartphone?

If the 'non-Apple' part is an issue then why aren't you buying an iPhone?
The Android iPod Touch equivalent is the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. It is much better than the iPod in nearly every way, unless you absolutely must have App Store apps. (It plays 720p MKVs, for example. This is good if you obtain your video files not-from-iTunes.)

Archos released it way before the software was ready, but with the latest firmware updates, it's excellent.
> The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off a bomb in the bathroom.

That would have been the logical from the start, with the shoe bomber. However, intelligence and committing a suicide bombing appear to be mutually exclusive, in that there doesn't appear to have been a single intelligent suicide bomber to date.

If any of these terrorists were intelligent, they could have rigged a time bomb from a damn cellphone, laptop or any carry on electronic device that allows timed outputs. Yet the suicide bombers climbing onto planes appear to have forgotten a few steps in their devices, like blasting caps or remote detonation. Being next to the bomb and surrounded by people kind of make it difficult to perform a detonation, especially when you're trying to light your heels on fire. Consider this, the TAPT placed in the shoes would have detonated just as readily if he'd banged the heels of his shoes together like he was trying to clean them, and no one would have suspected a thing, but common sense doesn't exist when you're trying to blow yourself up for illogical reasons. [Edit: IIRC knocking was the primary cause of premature detonation in improvised explosives, so why this wouldn't be your plan for detonation if it works too well already is beyond me]
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I have. Videos are sometimes very slow, and poor ways of giving information (talking heads). So I have wanted transcripts.

And books can sometimes use videos to help demonstrate thing (although usually when such a capability exists, people tend to overuse it).
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I think a little bit of parallax could help with the falling off the edges (making the edges more obvious), and give a nice added feeling of depth.
Isn't that a funny correlation? It's not like that's the easiest way to publish something on the web. I wonder what's going on here.
it's really fun. i got tired of falling of the edge though.
It seems like a valuable service and has a built in revenue model in that users could pay a fee based on the actual savings that they realize. There are two questions/issues that come to mind:

1) How wold the negotiations be facilitated? My guess is that this would have to be actual human-to-human contact, which seems expensive. One way to keep the costs down may be to develop a filtering system that only accepts users with bills that have a high likelihood of being eligible for some discount. That way your resources would only be spent on the users most likely to generate revenue for you.

2) Do service providers like cell phone companies discuss account details with a third party who is not the account holder? It seems like the type of thing that a big company wouldn't want to allow for any number of reasons (i.e. privacy concerns, preventing an "agent" from negotiating on behalf of the user).

Some aspects of your idea are topically similar to BillShrink.com although they aren't doing any negotiating on behalf of individual users. They are doing quite well.
Google ran an experiment for a while, in which they required their new hires to both

A) Have a particular SAT score

B) Have a fairly high grade from an accredited organization.

I'd love to hear the results of that experiment, and see if there was any correlation between job performance and those two metrics.
I currently have $6/month 3G internet from T-mobile (continued service from a couple years ago), so I will definitely be buying this at $530.
But here, reading the feature list makes it look exactly like a subset of Adobe Reader, with no advantages.
Others already mentioned the camera, GPS, multiband radio (RF).

There are also much more difficult issues of heat dissipation and power consumption.

Finally, you have to pay for tons of patents used in every phone. I guess Google does not have a good cross licensing contracts with Qualcomm/Nokia/others since it probably does not own any essential patent in this area.

You also pay for tons of interoperability testing Google has to run.
Wow, no wonder there aren't any startups making phones... the closest is openmoko which was part of a much larger entity.
They probably use dynamic pricing to make that very rare. (And if they don't, one of the other rental companies surely does, so you can always get a car if you're willing to pay the spot rate.)