skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I suspect we also need to look at carrying costs. Let's go back to the list from the comment above:

car ownership => leases => Uber
suburban homes => urban apartments
vacation homes => timeshares => prepackaged "experiences"
careers => gig economy
pay for printers => pay for ink
books => the Internet
videos & DVDs => Netflix
CDs => Spotify
exercise bikes => gym membership
building companies to last => hitting quarterly numbers.

Gig economy and short-term companies are arguably not a choice but exogenous. The job for life has been replaced by "at will" redundancies.

Home downsizing is clearly down to rising cost; saving up gets less and less feasible. But the move from suburbs into the centre is cultural.

Home gym => gym membership I suspect is also down to increasing real estate cost. A gym is much cheaper than the incremental mortgage cost of an extra room.

Media libraries => Spotify/Netflix is about increasing choice. They're not entirely replacing the library (people are buying more vinyl for totemic ownership), but replacing the radio and TV channels. Replacing someone else's limited range of choices with a much wider one. It then gets put on in the background as wallpaper.

(dear god this site needs a formatting reminder and preview button)
The talk itself (not a final processed version, just a "dump" of the live cast)

https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/7561/
It would be so much easier for everyone, if companies would IPO earlier. Evaluation of your option value would be straightforward, there is liquid market, no need to worry about investors preferences, ratchets, etc. Also the whole market gains a lot of efficiency if basic financials are public.

Not so long ago, companies used to IPO way earlier... Microsoft, Apple, Amazon...
> I don't have to ask Ubuntu and Debian and RedHat and god knows who else, "mother may I" before I write a program.

You can just offer your own repository and have the package you distribute install it. I think you are confusing linux package managers with appstores.
How Outernet is bringing free internet to the world's poor
Ian was well capable of reaching out to his friends all by himself, he also was capable of using twitter (which he did) and his cell phone. HN is not the place to alert your friends if you have suicide on the brain, in fact it is probably the last thing you should count on since there is absolutely no guarantee it will be posted or that some friend of yours would see it in time.

I'm not myopic for seeing that Ian had many more ways of reaching out to others than asking people aready reading this twitter feed to post it to HN which could then possibly result in someone close to him reaching him in time to make a difference. That's patently absurd reasoning.

> Ad absurdum argument. Ian's posts weren't the attention seeking behavior of some high-school drama hound, this was clearly a legitimate meltdown by the founder of Debian, someone who was a part of this community, not someone random as you suggest.

Yes, but that does not make the community responsible, as much as you would apparently like.

> That's why the post about his tweets was being upvoted -- people recognized there was a legitimate issue that needed attention.

Well, an 'upvote' is not giving attention to an issue, it is just a way to express support. Attention to an issue is to figure out who is close enough to Ian to go and do something about it. And I notice that nobody did, not you nor anybody else for that matter. Given how connected the world is do you really believe that HN is now so important that in matters of life-or-death the right thing to do is to ask for a post on HN rather than to contact someone close? Do you actually believe that none of Ians twitter followers would be better placed to make the link? Do you know Ians HN handle?

> Then the Dang intentionally removed the post, blinding everyone to what was happening simply because they didn't want people to "gawk."

No, he didn't blind anybody. If you were a friend of Ians then you should not rely on HN to make the difference in situations like these. It is an absolutely horrible thing to attempt to make that link. Of course it nicely fits in with your inner narrative that someone needs to be blamed here and you've figured that should be Dan because he killed that thread. But having been in Dans shoes in the past makes me a bit more knowledgeable about how these things go and the fact of the matter is that in the past those threads stayed up and people still killed themselves, and some threads may have contributed to the person killing themselves (see the thread where Aaron Swartz asked for help). Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

> That's pretty reprehensible, in my opinion, and though I'm sure it wasn't intended that way, actions have consequences.

That action did not have the consequence you tie to it. If you read Ians words carefully he explicitly asked all his friends NOT TO STOP HIM. So how come you are so clever about this that you feel that it is right to blame a complete outsider just because a forum thread was deleted. Ians life or death did not hinge on that in a way linked strongly enough that you can make these outrageous claims.
I also see this with one of my brothers' names which is Olly <surname>.
But a free AOL. Net neutrality makes sense when you pay for it. When someone offers you a free service it is hard to complain about the quality. You might refuse to call it "charity" but I don't think there is anything wrong with it.
This one point alone is enough for me to reject Free Basics:

"HTTPS support:
We encrypt information for Free Basics wherever possible."

Huh? As a service provider, why would I want YOU to encrypt traffic between my customer and me? I mean, it defeats the purpose of HTTPS. Its literally saying "I'm going to be a Man in the Middle and for a change, I'll also have the keys to decrypt the traffic". Yeah, right.
I have a single peeve with this otherwise excellent article: "My after-tax salary is less than $100,000 USD/year, so by definition it is impossible for me to exercise my options without borrowing money."

This fact isn't true "by definition". It's true "by arithmetic". We say a fact is true "by definition" if it isn't true for any other reason. [1]

[1]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/nz/arguing_by_definition/
And of those 79% how many were closed without ever being fixed?
More wonky stuff : https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t...

"When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people."
Tell HN: Happy New Year
Obviously Ian was not thinking rationally, which is precisely why his tweets needed -- and would have received -- attention.

He was part of this community. He was in crisis and it was obvious. People would have wanted to help.

You don't talk someone down from a ledge by turning your back on them.

That's all I'll say on the matter.
This is very useful! I accepted an offer with few options and low salary at a start up after I graduated from my masters, and only realised what I have missed out on a couple of years later. I left with fewer options than people who joined years after me. Wish I knew a bit more about startups and their options earlier.
I don't think the article mentioned England dominating Scotland in the sense you mean.

However, so you deny that the nation comprising 90% of the UK's population thus dominated its imperial adventures and also dominates its national politics? The UK must be a very odd country.
Ask HN: New Years resolutions
So HN, tell me about your New Years resolutions. Do you have any at all? How do you plan to make it?
> What will happen in Wayland case?

Nothing at all. Very few modern applications use server side font rendering anyway, the ones that don't either are obeying fontconfig rules independently already or will keep ignoring them.

It's not even different for Windows and Mac OS X, some programs do their own font rendering that's different from the one provided by the system.
Sans emphasized racist remark, that's pretty sad.
The actual success story, USA included South Korea in visa waiver program:
https://vwp.ustravel.org/sites/default/files/South%20Korea_0...

I think all parties would benefit if USA would add a few more countries to Visa Waiver Program like Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania and Croatia.
Thanks for the summary.

However, what do we have on the formal proof side?
Issue on the NN vs. Free Basics debate is how telcos charge consumers for data
Also if it's obscenely large, it might be better to keep it on disk and load only as much as you need/can.

That's what this technique does, since the kernel doesn't fully load the executable file to memory, it'll mmap it but only load data from disk as it's requested.
Facebook servers will be saying, "Hold on, so you want to buy a Camera, noted down(I've recommendations for you by the way). We're good now and I can send you to your destination. All for performance reasons of course."

I had respect for Zuckerberg, have lost it completely.
JRuby and Truffle Update
> Obviously Ian was not thinking rationally, which is precisely why the post about his tweets needed -- and would have received -- attention.

You don't know that for sure so you can't make the link.

All I note is that you didn't do anything when it mattered and now you're quick with the knife of blame.

> He was part of this community.

So are you, and yet, if you posted a bunch of stuff on Twitter about how you were going to kill yourself and ask for having that posted on HN it would neither be the appropriate venue nor would it be productive to have your inner mental health discussed ad nauseam by strangers. Trying to rebuild your reputation afterwards would have been a lot harder because those HN discussions tend to hang around just about forever, long after you came to your senses again.

> He was in crisis and it was obvious. People would have wanted to help.

So, who were those people that would have wanted to help? I don't see anybody here saying that if they had heard about this in time through HN they would have hopped over to Ians place to stop him from doing his deed. You really just keep on adding speculation and claiming it is factual.

> You don't talk someone down from a ledge by turning your back on them.

Well, you don't talk someone down from a ledge either by standing on the ground next to the fallen body and blaming random bystanders who - conveniently - decided to stop the public discussion of the persons mental state as though that is some kind of spectator sport.

> That's all I'll say on the matter.

You felt the need to start this subthread, it is interesting that you should choose to bow out of it now, it would have been better if you had not said anything at all.

If the facts of the case interest you this zdnet article seems to be the most informed:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/debian-linux-founder-ian-murdoc...

It does not in any way shape or form list a lack of HN involvement as a contributing cause of death.
The Economist also has a piece advocating strong crypto and opposing backdoors :

The Economist | Internet security: When back doors backfire http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21684783-some-spy-agen...

One important aspect that is missing from all of these articles though, is that strong encryption doesn't actually lock spooks out. It prevents them from conducting bulk surveillance, but not surveillance in general. One of the most important things we learned from the Snowden revelations is the existence and efficacy of the NSA Tailored Access Operations group, which brags that it can hack into any device, anywhere in the world. They use software bugs and backdoors to get into devices and install keyloggers, remote control software, and similar. They get around encryption by using the rest of the attack surface.

Many HN readers are involved enough in software and hardware to understand that it approaches impossible to protect yourself indefinitely against an advanced persistent threat like the TAO.

So if NSA can already get around encryption when they have a specific target, the only thing encryption blocks them from doing is Orwellian mass surveillance... Something which statisticians agree is useless, technologists agree is dangerous, and voters agree is intrusive.

It kind of blows up the whole security vs privacy false dichotomy, and I wish I saw it in the dialog more.
I'm from a similarly corrupt European country, and while these things are common (misuse of the judiciary, police being indistinguishable from criminals etc), there is often more to these stories.

In this case, it appears to be the result of a dispute between a former owner and current one. In that case, this appeal is only one side of the story, and the judge may well be proceeding based on evidence provided to back up any allegations.

I'm writing this because as much as I've witnessed corruption, I've also witnessed shady characters blaming everyone else for their misdeeds, especially the country, judiciary etc. "It's the oppressive regime that caused me to do something wrong, now they're repressing me" etc.

While I'm not suggesting the company is at fault, it is also not clear that there is no cause for what is happening. Calling for foreigners to apply diplomatic pressure to the Moldovan state without having the facts of the case is also a form of extra-judiciary pressure, much like the alleged conspiracy against the company.
It helps to understand the company's situation and progress, and to make sure you get the "right" type of options and are aware of any vesting periods or other conditions that might apply. Try to have access to the latest balance (could be feasible, depending on the role you are joining with) and growth figures. Personally, I would not value them at zero but rather as something closer to a performance based bonus with an extra risk.
Here's How Google Is Taking on Uber in 2016
I spent a whole afternoon+evening reading before recommending my brother a laptop that is a) available where he happened to be and b) would probably just work fine with Linux.

The article discusses several points that would substantially improve Linux. And it addresses your concerns several times, like here:

"There's a great chance that you, as a user, won't ever encounter any of them (if you have the right hardware, never mess with your system and use quite a limited set of software from your distro exclusively)."

Ignoring criticism and possibilities of how to improve Linux ("cause it works for me already") doesn't do any good. IMHO the article is a great write-up that could help to improve these issues in the long run.
Microsoft: Additional steps to help keep your personal information secure
Is there any password generator in this reality which does that? Serious question. More than zero?
The more common problem I see is the reverse: people do the math for the optimal scenario, see big numbers, and then assume that's how much the options are worth.
Data mining for the taboo: searching for what isn't there
Is it really that hard to find a buyer for private shares in a "good looking" startup? It almost sounds impossible, yet I talked to some people who said it's not that hard. I guess I have to find out..
Why is it so hard to convert these to cash the same instant you exercise them? If there are some special terms attached to your share of the company that prevent you selling the shares directly, you could just make a (transferrable) derivatives contract with interested investor(s) where you pay them the dividends from the stock?
You've missed my point. There is no point in levying a profit based corporation tax. I'm suggesting a straight internet sales tax, similar to VAT, rated to raise a revenue comparable to what the country is missing or on in terms of corporation tax.
I haven't, but a coworker has. I'm not sure what the brokers cut was - but as far as I know it was pretty straightforward, with the broker handling all legalese/paperwork.
I don't think it's haphazard; much of TFA's point is that people don't make the distinction correctly.

So, here, it's saying that few Scots/Welsh/etc were involved in fighting the slave trade, politically.
Java highlights from 2015 WITHOUT using buzzwords (Well, almost)
I wonder if this is related to i18n or country lookup. Chad is the only semi-common English-language name that's also a country name, that I can think of.
Last I had options there were companies(etrade in my case IIRC) that will do the whole buy/sell for you; they flip them instantly and give you the cash. I suppose that depends on the type of options and how the company has it setup?
Facebook 'Free Basics' Service Suspended in Egypt
There's an interesting Econtalk episode on those schools: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/james_tooley_on.htm...
The point is to level the playing field and de-power the global corporation. They have now become more powerful than countries and I see that as a problem. It means that they can overpower democracy, which we are seeing more and more through the corruption of our politics.
Does nobody read the article before it get's published? For me a whole paragraph (beginning with "The most sensible response") is twice in the article.

I can see what the article states happening. When I was in Sweden as an exchange student all the Chinese exchange students were travelling around Europe. But not to the UK, because of the additional visa requirement.
Symbolic execution (6.858 Fall 2014)
The UK is a very odd country politically. Two of the last three UK prime ministers (Blair and Brown) were Scottish. The third, Cameron is (partly) of Scottish descent, Cameron being a Scottish surname. Scottish people appear to be rather over represented in UK history, politics, and culture given their relative population, for whatever reason.
Using tools is good, but also people should test them in their unit test, for what it should/should not be accepted

If you're forbidding items beginning with numbers, just have a test try passing '1a' and failing the match
Sometimes, like in the UK, the agency is used to avoid getting caught by employee regulation or IR35. When caught, the client is considered the employer of the contractor and the contractor an employee. That has costly consequences on both, hence the intermediary.

About the cost though, if you do the hiring yourself, the overhead is around 5%. Quite OK for insurance considering the agency also handle payment and invoicing (some big clients are bad at paying on time, but the agency will still pay you on time, weekly for example). If you use the agency for recruitment too, that jumps to 20% and much more depending how much service you require up to full outsourcing.
You don't like humanity, do you? :). Is your disagreement with FAI just about that we don't deserve to survive?

Also, I referred you to Meditations on Moloch not because of FAI, but because of the discussion on coordination problems. What do you think about the article's view of that?
Facebook faces IPO class-action lawsuits
Connected bracelet trains your brain to deal with stress
Xcode vs AppCode – Which IDE Is Better for iOS Development?
Even if you knew the number of shares outstanding at the time of the option grant, it would still be useless. The company can issue new shares at any time leading to dilution. Also at some future liquidity event (acquisition, IPO), a significant number of new shares can be issued leading to more dilution.

So yes, options are somewhat of a lottery ticket with ever changing odds. If the company does extraordinarily well, you will do well also. If you truly believe the company has a very good chance at financial success, you should stay irrespective of the number of options. If you are making a significant contribution to that success, a rational company will want to reward you and incent you to stay with more options. If both those things are not true, it is best to seek your fortune elsewhere.
USB storage is pretty straightforward today

Besides, for a "single application use", speed is not the biggest consideration. USB2 is several times faster than spinning rust
I wonder if this is the only case where the name/first name of the contact is exactly the same as the recipient's address.
I'm not sure who your claim is targeted at, but I read the whole article before commenting. The assumption of sensibility in immigration and border control agencies is laughable.
> The idea that the English dominated Scotland [...] is nuts.

What is your alternative explanation for, say, Fort George?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_George,_Highland
I agree of course. Unit tests like that are both basic sanity checks and, more importantly, protect you from stupid mistakes when the regexp has to be changed.
It's not just you, I also saw that paragraph repeated.
I'm surprised people don't take the time to figure out what the options actually mean and negotiate some of the terms. When I have negotiated with startups I have paid for legal advice to help me figure out what language I needed in the option agreement (for example, a pinterest-style clause that prevents me from having to exercise within 3 months of leaving) and negotiated for the terms I felt were important. Just because the agreement is written to give you ISOs doesn't mean they will qualify for ISO tax treatment when you eventually exercise, so it is better to let you give up ISO treatment and convert to NSOs in order to avoid having to effectively forfeit vested options upon departure from the firm or face massive tax consequences. The pinterest-style structure should be standard.
Please don't misquote me. What I actually said was:

> But let's not pretend that "it just works, right out of the box!"(TM) every time. [Emphasis added]

Of course Linux often works. Perhaps even most times. A couple of weeks ago I reinstalled my laptop, switching from Ubuntu to elementaryOS. Took me about two hours (not counting most of the backups). On Windows, I would have needed two days. I have done an OS install dozens of times, with various versions of Windows and various Linux distros. And I find that Linux is often easier than Windows, because you can install all the software from one official repository instead of hunting through the download pages of a dozen vendors. BUT, and here comes the big but - that still doesn't meant that it always works smoothly. (Not that Windows always works smoothly, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Linux' problems right now.) To claim that there are never problems is simply not true.

About shell commands: of course Windows has those. But when do you ever really have to use them? (If you are a sysadmin, perhaps, but again, that's not what we're talking about. We are just considering "normal" users.) Everything that needs to be done can be done graphically. The various Linux DEs have made a lot of progress in that area in the past few years, but don't kid yourself. There's still a lot you can't do with a GUI.

And on a final (not quite serious) note:

> You have to compare apples to apples.

If I did that, I would never get away from Mac OS X, would I? :D
I said in "ideal case" and not in general case and I was only emphasizing why the government attitude that Apple owes US government something is wrong.

As far as public infrastructure etc. is concerned only a minuscule portion of over taxes get spent on actual government functions such as protection of property rights and Liberty. Most of the money is currently going in wars we cant win or end, military junk and welfare. If I had a choice I would pay government to run a police force and courts but not for these things.

US gov already gets sufficient tax money to run its basic business. I would appreciate if the cut their spending instead of stealing money from me and Apple.