skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That anecdote was worth it just for 'Johnny von Neumann' ;-)

I've generally heard that most scientists of the day considered von Neumann the smartest man in science (he'd have to be - he single handedly revolutionized several branches of CS, Physics, Math, Economics, etc. Somehow hearing him called 'Johnny' makes him much less intimidating though ...
I think increased Federalism is really our only hope. Increased centralization, or even our current level of centralization, simply makes the central control construct too rich a target to pass up, and too easy a target to capture. This is the 21st century, and everything else is decentralizing; why isn't governance?

We shouldn't be arguing about which one-size-fits-all health care plan should be enacted at the national level (and it's extremely hazardous for an entity which can print money to be doing anything of that nature anyhow); we should be letting the lower jurisdictions work it out. (If you don't think states are large enough to do that, go look at actual stats; many states are larger than entire major European countries and nothing would prevent states from banding together or adopting each other's systems once proved, it's not like poor Rhode Island would have to come up with their own de novo plan. In fact such sharing mechanisms already exist to some extent.)

It is also a trivial exercise to show this permits a much larger set of people to get the much more of the things they desire out of their government, whatever those things may be (including "less things" if that's what the people want).
Quality Life Insurance Leads
life insurance websites are fully optimized to attract people who are searching for life insurance leads online.
Ah, fair enough. I (mistakenly) assumed it was in the US - it sounds much more reasonable if it took place elsewhere.
It is probably a case of overfitting, but it could also be the case that they are fitting an existing model that really has 17 parameters. Without more context, it's a little hard to judge. If I remember, I'll look at the full paper tomorrow. It might make a nice example.
Wrong Choice Of Footwear And The Related Issues
Many people suffer from foot pain, ankle pain and joint pain but they find it hard to track the reason for their pain. One of the major causes of pain can be your wrong choice of shoes. Walking with uncomfortable pair of shoes can cause serious problems to your feet and can become a source of pain.
Fair enough, I assumed that initially everyone over 18 would get $250k. Now you could say that's an unrealistic assumption, but... so is the program. 19 year-olds can vote, how enthusiastic would they be for a program where they get the shaft? And the under-18s can't vote. People will expect to get something. (Consider Social Security, when that started people received benefits before they had paid a dime into the system.) Costs would inevitably balloon out of control. And that's not even considering other practical concerns. What about fraud? What about both legal and illegal immigration?
Flash, perhaps. But considering the Nexus one runs on Java, as do many devices with even less powerful hardware, he's dead wrong on that point.
I've often heard this argument regarding security and I always have trouble with it. It's really not that much trouble to scam someone and it's actually rather fun... I think people often operate in a kind of need based mode, they get it in their head they want X and so they go about going to get it, probably trying free routes before pay ones. The only exception to this is in the enterprise scenario where there could be a penalty for getting caught at something.
Why yes indeed. Although it's more an issue of the ratio of parameters to data points. Consider, for example: if you had 20 data points and used 20 parameters to fit them, you would generate a model that fits all 20 parameters perfectly! But the model would probably be useless for any new data points, because it takes into account all the irrelevant aspects of the 20 data points (their "randomness").

Have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting
> Let's further say I'm a Democrat, but Ford decides to donate a large sum of money to a Republican candidate.

So what? You're an employee, not a shareholder.

Shareholders are free to vote out management. They're also free to choose which companies to own.

> Should I sell my stock?

Yes.

You're not obligted to buy/own their stock, they're not obligated to do as you'd like (unless enough of your fellow owners agree).
Get good at charging for results rather than hours. You can get a higher hourly rate if you're good at it.

Find a niche with strong demand but without a lot of competition. New platforms are often good targets (Facebook, iPhone, Hadoop ... etc)

Move someplace where the billing rates are higher. You can almost always clear more in big cities, even after accounting for the higher cost of living.
There is not much to rebutt... Apple is clearly pushing HTML 5 heavily. They are one of the founding members of the spec and they have invested countless millions of dollars in WebKit development.

Claiming that Adobe is pushing HTML 5 more than Apple is absurd. It's like saying Microsoft is pushing OpenGL more than Apple or [insert silly analogy here].
I agree with pedalpete's comments.

But would like to add a couple of points.

One, from my experience, sorting through and dealing with all of the spam on craigslist is more work than it is worth. Look else where.

Two, for your potential new client, it is really all about your portfolio. Do you have a good one?
I generally assume Americans/Europeans are comparatively well-informed on the economies and present socio/political situations of America/Europe. I could have used Japan as the main example, but if I alluded to something like "90% of the foreign population from my town is either unemployed or has emigrated in response to a government policy which paid foreigners to leave" I'd probably have to give you the back story on why central Japan has lots of Peruvians/Brazilians and their social status, then give you a rundown on what the difference between a seishain and a hakkenshain is, then discuss the changing norms about lifetime employment, then explain why the Japanese benefit system makes it almost impossible to land a seishain job unless you look like the perfect applicant, and finally get to the actual numbers which demonstrate my point.

Which would be difficult because I have about five minutes left on my lunch break and then it is back to the web programming salt mines.
What is temp-to-hire?? I think the "temp" part is an extended probationary period, right? I don't think you could fire someone 45 days into a 60 day probationary period and then expect to not pay unemployment because of some agreement between the employee and employer. Does the concept of temp-to-hire exist as law or policy in any government agency?
> who are not known for the smallness of their governments, consistently manage to have the highest standard of living and the most well-functioning and democratic governments in the world?

Their standard of living is not the highest.

Moreover, they're basically monocultural. Minnesota works about as well as the Scandanavian countries.
That's pretty outrageous if the claim in the paper is true - this is a really common problem that I ran into as an undergraduate doing modeling to fit bacterial conjugation rates to differential equations for predator prey dynamics.
Obligatory plug for Io, my favorite prototype based language: http://www.iolanguage.com/
All the people defending the iPad as "the computer for the average person" are missing one important point. Those of us upset about the iPad being a highly restricted device, rather than an Apple tablet netbook, are not upset because it is targeted to a different audience. We are not upset because we will not be "the needed geek" anymore (I bet most are actually quite happy about that).

No. The problem is that Apple did not release anything else. They did not release a product for "professionals." Thus, some, perhaps many, IT people are upset because they were looking forward to a useful tool, and instead got a toy for mom.

edit: And I want to add, there is no sign at all that an Apple tablet netbook will ever be released. Many people are frightened that the iPad represents where Apple is going for all of their product line.
Right you are. I've worked in 3 states, and they all work that way, so I mistakenly generalized.

Some research suggests that it really varies state by state (even the states that are generally 'at will' each have different exceptions) - so caveat my statement as appropriate for your state.
Google's case is weak. Since you own Bandzoogle.com before Google's sites, you should counter sue. BTW, whatever happen to "don't be evil"? All sugarcoated PR craps from Google?
You have valid points, but you also must consider how different France is from the U.S. When their unions strike over compensation, for example, they close down roads and burn things. Our unions strike by marching in circles with signs. Most of the immigrants you speak of live in the equivalent to housing projects. America has housing projects, but much, much fewer. It's something the French have embraced, to the detriment of their society, because it keeps their immigrant population from integrating. America prides itself on it's diversity and France prides itself on it's "Frenchness." I think you need to consider all of these things when talking about the reasons the young, unemployed French riot.

One more thing. I don't know about the ethnic or age breakdown, but right now French and American unemployment percentages are same. The difference is the French unemployed have healthcare and other social programs, so they're better off, in many instances, than Americans.
Coming up soon: all ad-supported iPhone apps will include some sort of "weather at your location" feature.

I also wonder if this is a way to strike at Google via AdMob...
Good idea, but unfortunately Sitezoogle isn't the product; our members just know our main website brands like Bandzoogle (that are protected by existing trademark).
On the other hand, I bet a large percentage would spend it quickly and have relatively little to show for it at the end.

Professional football players make a ton of money, and guess how many end up filing for bankruptcy within 2 years of retirement: 78%.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1...
I can't speak for the rest of HN, but in my case I want no subsidies from the Government. What I want the goverment to do is get out of the way so I can get on with creating wealth for me, my family and any employees I hire. Having small companies grow into big ones is a net win for the government.

'subsidize your likely-to-fail startup with their own health'
Not sure how to respond to that statement, but all paid employees are offered to exchange their time and effort for cash compensation. It's up to those individuals if the exchange is worth it or not. If there is a chance of a detriment to their health, then they'd need to factor this in.

I think you'll find that your downvotes are because you disagree with the majority of readers of this site, not because of tone or sarcasm.
It would hurt for a while, but I for one would welcome Microsoft's demise. Linux is much nicer to program for, and wouldn't take too long to convert the majority of programmers over to it, and thus most programs.

Plus, it's not like there aren't any other options, several of them quite good. The market would adjust to fill the gap.
Some thoughts...

Project rates rather than hourly.

Get out of the freelancer mindset. You are a small business, not a roving employee.

Become a full service shop rather than an hourly component added by someone else. You create more value that way. Maybe even partner with a designer and grow your team as you go. Contract out parts of the project your team doesn't have expertise for.

Establish yourself as an authority as a developer by blogging and creating great open code (oh, you are the guy who built that?!) If I haven't heard of you, then you have a challenge on your hands!

Become a better salesman rather than becoming a better programmer. Though certainly keep growing as a programmer.

Move more into niche areas in which your skills are more scarce.

Sell a unique service and build a brand as opposed to taking in nearly ant type of job.

Sell! Sell! Sell!

Indirect ways to raise rates...

Hire cheaper developers to do work for you.

Move to an area with lower living costs.
Words of wisdom. If you aren't really able to walk away from a job, you're not in the drivers seat.

In your case, I'd recommend trying to work 6 month contracts and always try to have a new one in the queue for more money, if possible, so you can ask for an increase at the end, or take the other job. But be classy about it.
why will foursquare and gowalla in trouble. Apple's blog clearly says you cant get user location only for ads but if you are using it for other features you can get it and use it anyway you like.
Amen !
Average post rates of over 1 per second and peaks several orders of magnitude larger.

Are they running the server on a cell phone? Why would that necessitate a change to Scala from any language?
Disney's Kevin Mayer: Pay Model for Premium Content Uncertain
Wow, badass comment. I had no idea, thanks!!
“Used To Be Free" is not a good business model
I think doping is awesome, and it should be legal. Treatments that are proven safe for athletes could then be used by everybody else. I would love to never need to exercise, or sleep again.
In case they file a UDRP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain_Name_Dispute_Res...) complaint, make sure that your contact info is correct on your whois (http://www.whois.net/whois/Sitezoogle.com). I know somebody who lost a UDRP complaint because their contact info was out of date and the UDRP complaint wasn't sent to them, so they lost by default.
I don't think 'sitezoogle' would even try to claim they were also thinking of the numerical 'googol' as a basis. (If so, they're doomed.)

Rather, they made up a fun name with a long-U and ending -gle sound. '-oo-' is fairly common for goofy/froopy/groovy/loony 'U' sounds, and '-gle' is the common playful way to spell its sound, as in giggle/wiggle/finagle/beagle.

Still, I think the little guys have got a tough case. '-oogle' was rare before Google, and 'sitezoogle' for website services sounds like a sites.google.com or some other Google-derivation. And, they probably did have 'Google' in mind when they chose both Bandzoogle and Sitezoogle. (Bandzoogle was probably a little safer as long as it wasn't a search-engine for finding bands.)

So they may not need a lawyer as much as a new name.
Comprare to some very interesting languages (Haskell, Erlang, Scala) Python is more widely available and allows you to produce good, portable, well-performing code quickly and easily.

Yeah, absolutely not true. You need to do a little more research before you say very silly things like this.
It's simply shifting the problem. End Social Security? Great we solve the money problem. New problem: Lots of old people are going to die. Pase it out slowly? New problem: Lots of voters support Social Security and want to see it continue in some form. So obviously the solution is somewhere in the middle and there are no easy, ideologically pure, answers.
I think what's lacking in Ballmer is passion:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/airport-lounge/2093699327/

My impression of the man is he's just a sales guy - interested in making money, but lacking any vision or genuine enthusiasm for technology. Consequently Microsoft has mostly become a cash cow.

As the saying goes - a fish rots from the head down. When there's no passion for changing the world, it happens elsewhere.
intuitively yes I agree with you, however, the problem is that the building of infrastructure or worker training is done in the abscence of market signals. Hence the likelihood of a bridge to nowhere or an army of trained workers in a useless field is high.

Certainly projects like the Hoover dam or interstate system have many positive externalities that last a long time - but it's not always easy to come up with these projects, and the labour involved is only a small percentage.

When you divert productive capacity of the economy to unproductive use (such as building an unnecessary bridge) then society as a whole pays because of the diversion of resources (including labour and capital). The problem becomes more acute, because the 'shovel ready' projects are generally uneconomic ones - in many cases, if there was a positive return to be made from undertaking a certain activity, then the private sector will already have undertaken it.

I think the best use for the paid-unemployed is in things that are labour intensive and help with society. Helping clean houses for new mothers with small children and old people would be one thing, because these activities are economically unviable and you wouldn't be putting anyone else out of work.
So you're comparing Windows since 1995 with everything Apple have made? No wonder Microsoft appear to have badly stagnated.

Microsoft have changed a lot since 1995. They moved into the mobile space with Windows CE and Windows Mobile. They moved onto the web starting with software like Internet Explorer, Outlook, IIS, Windows Live Messenger and moved onto websites such as MSN, Hotmail, Multimap, and, more recently, Bing. They moved into hardware and released the Xbox, Zune, Zune HD, Xbox and Xbox 360. They moved into online gaming with Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live, which have evolved into social networks and marketplaces for both these products. That's ignoring all the different major changes to Windows-related technologies, whether .NET, DirectX, Exchange, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, Windows Firewall, or Microsoft Security Essentials, which have all changed beyond recognition or outright didn't exist back in 1995. Hell, Microsoft have even made a standardised video codec called VC-1. There's probably others, but that's much more than "nice fonts, widgets, and ... nice shadows here and there".

Were these products innovative? Some definitely were (Xbox Live stands out), some weren't especially innovative but had advantages that caused them to compare favourably to their competitors to gain significant marketshare (Xbox, Internet Explorer, DirectX, .NET, Windows CE, Exchange, IIS), some weren't and have largely languished (GfwL, Windows Media Player, Bing). Besides, Microsoft's victories have traditionally not been through direct innovation as much as incremental product iteration which they generally do well.

Apple have grown at an unprecedented rate, and any company compared to them doesn't compare favourably, but that hardly means Microsoft have just sat there doing nothing. Trying to this into a "Apple environment vs. Microsoft environment" battle which is completely artificial when neither company exists in a vaccuum as they create platforms for other companies to build on.
> When you put it like that, I sound like a socialist, and not the unrepentent capitalist I hold myself out as.

If the shoe fits...

There's no reason to subsidize college education. The recipients get the benefits, whether they are economic or non-economic, so they should pay the costs.

The other problem with subsidizing college educations is that the colleges see the subsidies and raise their prices.
Athletes as lab rats - awesome! And they're to dumb to care.
This article reads like made up techno-jargon to me. Anyone with real knowledge in this area have any more insight?
Absolutely, and through its use in the games industry it's easily the second-most popular Prototypical language in use -- but the ECMAScript languages are orders of magnitude more popular.
> always try to have a new one in the queue

I would take it one step further. Always have at least two active contracts at any given time. Real leverage.
If the model really does have 17 parameters, though, then they need a heck of a lot more than 20 data points to demonstrate its correctness.
Git SVN Workflow
Progress is by definition a good thing. The problem arises when it comes to classifying things as progress.
Cocoa Tips and Tricks
A redditor explains how to handle multiple projects while freelancing
No, but the absolute amount that you clear is still way more.
Does anyone know what exactly is meant by the claim that the new Active Record is, "built on top of relational algebra", particularly in light of the fact that not even RDBMS are strictly relational algebra?
See http://github.com/rails/arel for examples of it.
I didn't down vote you, but I'd imagine you got down voted for not adding to the conversation. Your reply was the same as "me too."

Just a guess however.
The Inner Bezos (1999)
Freelancing isn't quite my baliwick but since when is lack of knowledge a barrier to commentary on the Internet.

1) You need to focus on marketing/selling yourself to better clients. I don't know what your current strategy is, but hypothetically say you're primarily getting your work from Craigslist. You're generally going to get mostly cheapskates that way. If clients were coming to you because you were identifiably the best in the field and they felt We Are Willing To Pay For The Best, then they'd be offering rather substantially more.

2) Its fine to describe yourself as a PHP/MySQL programmer when you're with friends like us. Never talk like that in front of a client. You aren't a PHP/MySQL programmer -- that is just the tool you use to solve the problems that keep them from making stupid amounts of money. Code monkeys are cheap, people with strategic vision/soft skills/industry expertise/etc who also have the ability to knock together a DB when required are expensive.

3) In service of #1 and #2: get a blog if you don't have one already. Start solving the problems that people who have money have. They'll soon start coming to you with their problems and offering you money.

4) Some folks have already mentioned OSS contributions here, which is great if you want to brand yourself as The Man to do X. That could either be customizing your OSS for their needs, adding a few feature for it, or doing something related.

5) Find folks to mentor you. I learned more about freelance rate setting from five minutes talking with Thomas than I had in the previous five years of working at two companies which do consulting as their business model.
Have you considered contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation? They might take interest in this case (I know they did some work in these sorts of domain name disputes before), and they are near enough to Google HQ that they might have some contacts there.
When I was using a Macintosh SE in 1989, my peers told me that I was dumb for not learning DOS commands so I could use a "real" computer. (Somewhat ironic: Now I'm a Linux user and spend all my time at the shell, and most of them are happily using Windows or Mac OS X...)