skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The litigation risk is a huge component. There are going to be massive shareholder lawsuits (against both Bear and JPM) coming out of this. And who knows what kind of shady dealings at Bear might come to light during the acquisition? Dimon & Co. had only a weekend to put this deal together -- not nearly enough time to fully inspect Bear's books and to figure out all the risks of the trade. They had to set a price low enough to protect themselves.
kind of a joke, but good to know some background. thnx
Thanks for (re)posting this. Missed the original. And it is one of the best essays I've read (and will be re-reading) in months.

Would scanning for a dupe (even if tinyurl'd) be a linear search or could it be hashed in News.YC's code
No need: Grab satellite images; Parse the spots for availability; Produce a "Heat Map". Done.
Heck, it already scares me. Wait, make that "confuses". Well, in fact I'm just not getting the point.
"Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades"
- James M. Kilts, CEO and President, The Gillette Company.
Hail the hackers
Let us all pray for Zed's sake that his mighty cynicism was strong enough to convince him to sell his Bear Stearns stock as soon as he got it.

Apparently Bear Stearns employees were partially paid in stock, and a third of the outstanding shares are held by the employees. According to the NYT:

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/the-cost-of-bea...

the drop in stock price averages $375K per employee. Of course, the stock was not evenly distributed across the company, so some employees lost much, much more than $375K, and some lost less. But, still... that sound you hear is the sound of 14,000 Bear Stearns employees losing substantial portions of their life savings.

Index funds. Index funds. Index funds.
Get Back your Screen Space: Maximize Firefox Viewing Area
Man, I was just thinking how my screen was really cramped in FF, this article had a few good pointers.
How much does Load Runner cost? Thousands of $$?
S&P index futures down 30 pts, US 10yr note up one and a quarter points, Nikkei off 4%. The US market is going to shit itself tomorrow, not because this is a negative event, but because this indicates just how bad things really got.
According to co-workers of mine who used to work at Bear, the stock comes with a rule that requires you to hold it for a certain period of time. So most of these guys probably got burned.
Very good article. Gave me a lot to think about. I especially found the "Cash and Sex" theory very interesting. I've always been into the whole young starving artist fantasy and this article somehow articulates the rationale behind some of my personal decisions.
For an Aus publication they forgot/left out, "The Bank" ~ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241223/ where a programmer
"mathematically predict stock market movements" ~ http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Reviews/Reviews.asp?ID=1172
So much for the efficient market hypothesis... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_market_hypothesis
How many satellite images are updated with real-time frequency? Likely answer: none.
Know Thy Code
I like JMeter too. I've just started using it and I've been very happy with it.
For one thing because the Fed is buying the crappy mortgages and mortgage securities that brought Bear Stearns to it's knees. IOW the Fed is accepting those securities as "good" when they really aren't.

Also, the Fed is extending federal insurance to BS somehow. Prior to Friday, BS had no such insurance, paid for no such insurance, did not follow the rules for such insurance but now, surprise, their customers get Federal insurance for free.

So yes, it is indeed socialism for the rich: your dollar is being devalued to buy worthless mortgage securities so that a firm used by the wealthy can be saved from collapse.

Bernanke's pulling moves out of his ass here: he should have let BS fail. Now every hedge fund will think the government will save it (which the government may try). Those are the same hedge funds that have been posting returns above 20% annually for years and that you need at least $200K to open an account. These funds didn't want to be monitored by the SEC while their value was going up. Now they've hit a snag and they're crying like babies for a Federal bailout paid for by your dollars.

P.S. OMG! They just did it! Just off the Washington Post presses:
=====================

"[The Fed] announced a new provision that will in effect do the same for major investment firms. Starting today, and lasting for at least six months, this new operation will allow "primary dealers," which are 20 major Wall Street firms, access to cash in exchange for assets in which the market is not currently functioning"

=====================

So for six months the Fed is going to buy any and all illiquid (read "crappy") securities that these 20 Wall Street firms can't unload on their markets. Astonishing!

Soon we'll have to swap dollars for toilet paper: they'll both be better suited for the other's purpose.
I was actually kind of joking because it was submitted two or three days after news.yc launched.
From the Times article:

The companies said that the Federal Reserve would provide special financing in connection with the transaction and that the Fed had agreed to fund up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’s “less-liquid assets.”
A new functional language: C#
I could see this turning into a tool that allows parking garages to sell spaces in advanced. If I'm already downtown it's unlikely that I'm going to think to pull up my phone to find a spot that will probably get taken before I get there. (I would be more likely to use a satnav system to find a parking spot, but the problem of the spot being taken in the meantime still exists).

Using the same technology, but for parking garages to sell in advanced (think fandango or stub hub for parking) would eliminate the only remaining issue.

You could even use an auction format for the prices (garages will like this) so that when parking for major events is sold, the prices reflect the demand for the spaces.
Do not half the posts on techcrunch have something to do with Ycombinator in some way? :)
Well, someone has already poked a hole in the "satellite images" idea -- not updated enough.

OTOH, let me attempt to rescue your excellent idea with this suggestion: cameras mounted on nearby buildings? Cameras are getting really cheap!
How Yahoo lost its way
Now what were you doing searching for a Flash decompiler... just kidding.
"Build your castles in the air. That is where they belong. Then go build foundations under them." -- Henry David Thoreau
It still holds, but it takes time for information to be priced in. Remember the insanity with pets.com, koop.com and the like not so long ago? We're seeing another "Emperor's New Clothes" situation today.

The market will price things appropriately in time but, as the saying goes, the market can stay irrational far longer than you can stay solvent.
Homelessness to 500 million dollar empire, Tyler Perry's Story
ApartmentRatings.com showing source code in home page
I just discovered this problem myself. What do you think happened, and how can this be prevented? This reminded me of the Facebook source code leak.
Tricking your brain to make wise investment choices
its web -9999.0
Invasion of the Money Honeys
"We don't have venture capital, we just have money." --Philip Greenspun
Do not be so quick to say 'illiquid' and 'crappy' are the same thing. Markets can act irrationally, both on the upside and the downside. Note that even when LTCM failed in 1998 (a MAJOR credit insolvency event - read 'When Genius Failed'), the Wall Street banks that bought out their balance sheet ended up either break even or yielding some profits once the markets went back to normal.

"Ironically, after the bail-out by the other investors, the panic abated, and the positions formerly held by LTCM were eventually liquidated at a small profit to the bailers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_term_capital_management
I think this could be the source of a lot of interesting discussion w/r/t startups. In particular, I'm interested in people's opinions regarding the influence that this will have on the ability to create startups in the US in the future.

I am (was?) planning on starting a company with a few friends when I come back to the US this September - will this still be feasible? What sort of impact can I expect this sort of event to have in terms of getting funding/etc. Do you suggest that I just scrap the whole intention to create a startup and try to buckle down and get a job (in case the economy gets really bad)? Should I consider leaving the country?

I expect that most of the answers will be "things will be bad" or "it will be hard" - but I guess I'm looking for something more concrete/specific (if possible?). I'm pretty naive about matters concerning such large scale systems as the US economy/etc.
The prospect of giving small, interesting sites the opportunity to hit Yahoo's homepage is very, very cool.
Thanks for responding. Are you using it for serious development? Have you learned anything interesting about its DOM/Javascript integration?

I ask because for the problem I'm working on, a full Silverlight app wouldn't make sense; but if it were possible to use the Silverlight plugin to work around some of the bottlenecks we've encountered for Ajax development, I'd be interested. Given that most of the bottlenecks have to do with rendering in the browser, though, I imagine this is a long shot.
Thanks for this; I'd give it a vote if I could. It would be better if it was from a business magazine and not business writing from a lifestyle magazine; it's kind of light weight writing.
Proving that your publicity is more important than your product, most of the time.
it takes time for information to be priced in

That's basically why I called it "scary". It's amazing that there was 28 dollars/share worth of missing information in this situation. If that sort of oversight lapse is at all common, we're screwed worse than we can possibly imagine.
They should make a little widget that others can load on their servers to help in the effort:

Down from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx in France,

Up from yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy in New Zealand

Etc
Ask YC: Python implementation
which python implementation would be good for windows platform with GUI + serial comm: connectivity?

thanks.
Getting technical on my usage of the terms "illiquid" and "crappy"?

In this case "illiquid" and "crappy" securities are the same: securities that are worth much less today than they were yesterday and that are projected to be worth even less tomorrow and for which the bottom has not yet been predicted. Those are certainly "crappy" since no one holding them wants to be holding them. They are certainly "illiquid" since no one _else_ wants to hold them.

And your reference to the LTCM bailout are hardly reassuring.

This is a great deal _only_ for J.P. Morgan.

It's a very bad deal for U.S. citizens, most whom have no large holdings in J.P. Morgan. Essentially the taxpayer is taking on all of Bear Stearns' bad investments and J.P.Morgan is getting all the good parts of Bear Stearns at reduced price.

But that's only the beginning. The Fed guarantee to back up these 20 Wall Street firms for the next six months will be disastrous. That gives them 6 months to dump all their garbage onto the Fed. What a deal.

Hey, I've got a 1995 Buick that I can't sell and I'd like the Fed to buy it back for the $8000 I paid for it. I had no idea it wouldn't become a classic selling for twice what I paid for it. Justice! Give me justice!
How would you check your mobile phone for parking spaces if you aren't parked? I guess you could have a passenger do it, but that's not always possible.
Cells bring clean re-use to your Rails views
This relates to a question I have. Aren't all of these recent 8, 9, and 10 figure buyouts/IPO's in the tech fields creating a ton of angel investors?

(All of these doomsday predictions seem like classic shoddy attention-grabbing journalism to me. Not hn material indeed.)
The prediction of "a 1930s-like Great Depression" removes all credibility from the article. Why should I even continue to read after that?
+1 for for brighter colors and having the level meter only in the "i". However, I would have the level approaching red a little before the dot, then make the dot entirely red. Additionally, I'd make the dot square; having it round kills the whole bar / level effect.
Mozilla: Firefox 3 beats IE7 and Opera in memory tests
Government approval sought for quantum encryption
They're all more or less the same to me. I suggest ignoring all of the comments here and simply take a week-long break from tweaking your logo. Come back to your logo when your mind and imagination are fresh.
Why would you want to, exactly? It's not exactly a state secret.
J.P. Morgan Rescues Bear Stearns
Putting executable server-side code in your static document root and using a language that encourages it.
Basecamp E-mail Integration via API
Ask YC: What happened to Thinkature?
I thought this was one of the best YC startups and it looks like they're now defunct.

Anyone know?
Apache JMeter and ApacheBench.
{]i[}  serious fucking business.
It's bad alright. JPMorgan bought BSC for half the price MySpace was sold for, and this included a billion dollar building (and only after the Federal Reserve agreed to protect them against certain liabilities).
Good ideas are good ideas in any market. Stay frugal and lean and aim for profitability without any outside investment, and you'll do fine...or fail, but at least you won't be too scarred from the experience.
But if true - will top hats be in fashion ? (or is my historical knowledge of fashion waaaay wrong). Could be a killer time to be in the top hat business.

/satire
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&...

how CoS feels.
An interesting facet of this fiasco is that the poison of artificially low credit is also being touted as the antidote. I for one believe that we would have been better off if we let the economy slip into a recession in 2001 and coped with 7% or 8% unemployment, rather than causing a massive asset bubble and a gigantic financial mess.
I agree it is an inapt comparison, but the article is a good read if you construe that phrase as "a really, really bad global recession" rather than an attention-grabbing historical reference.
Yes, I am. They are not synonymous in this context. Don't take it personally.

Projected to be less tomorrow? Says who? I would think that JP Morgan would not accept even a $2/share buy out if they thought it would be worth less tomorrow. They would only make such an offer if they thought it was a good deal to them with a potential upside. Thus they are willing to buy a "illiquid" asset and provide "liquidity" for "value" to themselves. It's how the world goes 'round. Illiquid and crappy may be the same thing now, yes, but investment is, by definition, making decisions for future profit. This is why, in terms of net present value, crappy and illiquid are not the same thing. JP Morgan is thinking "This is a great opportunity".

In terms to my reference to LTCM as being hardly reassuring: get over it. We are in a credit crunch. We were in '98, we are now. It's bad, yes. This is probably worse than LTCM. I never said this was good, I said that 'illiquid' and 'crappy' are not by definition the same thing. That's all I said.

I'm not even going to address your Buick analogy. Read this book - http://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Managemen... - it will give you a good idea how credit markets operate and how they can act irrationally.

Right now the major issue is that no one knows how to value themselves because no one else knows how to value themselves because no one can value their portfolios. And in that uncertainty no one can judge who is right and wrong, who is getting a good deal and getting a bad deal. This is exactly why this situation is so screwed up. And this is exactly why the Fed is offering to provide liquidity for the rest of the market: because no one else is liquid enough to. Yes, it is a moral hazard, it sucks, but it is how it is.

Look, this isn't a zero sum game. For all we know, inaction by the Fed could lead us down a more damaging path. There are smart people working there, with far more education and experience than both of us and then some. Let us not be so quick to judge.
The real question the market will be asking tomorrow morning is: are any other major banks on the brink of bankruptcy?

Financials are going to have a wild ride on Monday.
I learned that coding in Lisp is almost as enjoyable as designing Architecture (the building kind).
Coding for the mobile web
I wouldn't call it common, but huge companies make huge mistakes from time to time (recall Enron, Nortel, etc. just a few years ago) and the investors in those companies are the ones who pay the price. In this particular case the "missing information" is worse than you think: BSC shares were at ~$160 less than a year ago with much the same assets now being priced at only $2 per share.

Remember though, the assets haven't disappeared: They still exist and are producing wealth in the economy. None of the included properties are going to evaporate. As with Enron's meltdown, business continues as usual under new ownership, with the old owners now holding significantly lighter wallets.
The Next Slum?
Xkcd: Mythbusters and Zombie Feynman
IT Audit and Risk Management are two skills internal audit need to improve
“Information Technology Auditing and Risk Management skills are the top two areas where internal audit professionals need to improve”
Survey of more than 450 CAEs, internal audit directors, managers, and other professionals from all industry sectors
While I believe there is no evidence that a "1930's-like Great Depression" is in the offing, I can't recall a crisis in US financial markets as significant as this since the 1930's. The comparisons are premature but not unfounded.
> they did very little to control the economy

Huh? They explicitly controlled the economy. They pumped cheap credit and deliberately passed various legislation to further inflate the housing and derivatives markets.

You have to understand the government at all levels is in on the action when it comes to these bubbles. They profit both in terms of tax revenues and by straight-up payola. Government milks the scam just like the perps, and then when it falls apart they release a "lessoned learned" study and prosecute a few scapegoats they parade on TV. You'd have to be pretty naive to think the key regulators and legislators are genuinely surprised by these crises that roll around every 8 years. They're really involved in making them happen.
Yeah, it seems like they do these days. I guess my assumption is that amichail's site got picked up solely off the news.yc thread whereas most YC startups get covered after being in contact with techcrunch directly.
This is definitely not a symptom of problems in the Python community. Certain people will always be disappointed no matter what happens, and some of them can write well and make it seem like it's really a wide spread problem.

Personally I'm glad to see more companies become interested in Python and I'm looking forward to how PyCon evolves going forward. The thing to keep in mind is that PyCon is really a volunteer run conference. If you don't like something, volunteer to make it better. Don't like the talks this year? Join the selection committee for next year and help pick better talks.
What language is that? Looks like c# or java?
At what point do comparisons to Digg become more annoying than Digg itself?
This seems to be popular? Why? How often would this be useful and save time?

In what situations would a website be down for just you? Couldn't you just curl, ping, or traceroute a website instead?
http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=137371
My brother, who is a graduate student working in this area, points out that (a) doing this is much easier when you have a single instrument which you can train against ahead of time, and (b) even if the test were performed with a never-seen-before guitar, the guitar is much easier to handle than an instrument like a violin or clarinet which has more harmonics and is less percussive.

In short, this demo covers what is pretty much the simplest possible case... which makes one rather suspicious as to how well the methods involved work in more difficult situations.
Same here. Plus I've written a crawler that periodically checks items I've upvoted for new comments/activity and creates an RSS feed accordingly.
What happens to the share holders, as the stock was trading well above $2 at the end of the day friday?
If things get really bad I'll probably try to get over to London or somewhere with a stronger currency.

If things are just crappy, I'll stick it out, and dip into savings reserves if needed, while sticking with the current day job.
Looks like they went after Trac and the other SCM products with a raw and unfinished product - probably because the intern wrote it? :)

Google code will become a good alternative to sourceforge, when all this functionality matures... good for the free software projects!
He's saying they should have tried to slow the economy down when it was raging upward...which I think you know, but you were just being overly cynical.

In terms of the Fed wanting to promote the economy and "make money" for the government...not so much. The Fed as an organization is set up to operate independently, and in the long run the government is going to lose more money due to economic fluctuations. The whole point of a central bank is to smooth out the business cycles (to everyone's benefit).
It'll be fun to play with when the software comes out. I imagine you could make some very interesting vocals by tweaking the harmonics in vocal tracks.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=119360
All of our data was anonymized; we had no access to personally identiﬁable information.
Also, we had no access to text of the messages exchanged or any other information that
could be used to uniquely identify users.
What's Hot In Applied Math: Intro to Random Graphs
the text field is a little too hard to notice in safari given the pre-entered text. i suggest adding a thicker border and using javascript to select it on pageload.
> The whole point of a central bank is to smooth out the business cycles

That's the cover story. A few centuries of data from source around the world clearly show that central banking destabilizes prices and economies and aggravates the business cycle.

The purpose of central banks is to allow a connected elite to rip off the population at large through seigniorage.

This is NOT conspiracy theory garbage. This has been popularly understood at various times in US history. Tom Paine wrote about it extensively as a best selling author. Andrew Jackson got a mandate to dismantle the national bank.
not until bookmarks are easy to search through. which their might be a plugin for but that's not easy enough.
I don't see the DMCA removal notice for this request, but have seen it for other searches, like say [xenu].

You can see a lot of similar DMCA takedown requests for Google and other sites at http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi.
You can write off purchases before you incorporate (as a sole proprietorship), if that's what you're asking. Incorporate if you need liability protection or if you're going to take investment. I typically do that right away if it's a project I'm serious about... why not?
Four console games you might like...
Well, modern day central banks operate through Keynesian principles of economics which were not developed until the mid 20th century - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics - so I find it hard to apply the writings of Thomas Paine to them. I do realize the US Federal Reserve was founded before that (1913), but modern fiscal policy decisions are based on Kaynes' work.

Related to that, the historical US National Bank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bank_of_the_United_States) and Central Bank (Federal Reserve) have very different objectives. Do not confuse the two.
Another good one: http://lolinator.com/lol/lolinator.com/
very good and simple idea.
yeah, agreed.