skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The wealth comes from within the borders of a given country. Government might not be in the business of creating wealth, but it is in the business of controlling who gets to be within its geographical borders.

If you look throughout history, it's never really worked out well to allow a rich minority to determine what happens to people and the land. Since time immemorial, a rich few have been abusing the property rights of others. Even America was founded by a rich minority who took the wealth of the land from the majority incumbents.

It's the same thing as always.
I find it interesting the objections begin and end with 'it would be impossible to review all content'. Not that I want that, but someone could probably figure out a way.

Why does no one bring up the fact that it's completely subjective? What one person finds offensive is completely different from another person. The internet will suddenly consist only of kittens and puppies in an effort by companies to avoid suits, and then someone will decide kittens and puppies are offensive too.

(I understand Italy isn't seeking specifically to ban things that are simply offensive, but that's the direction we'd go just seconds after letting a suit like this one go through)
Ask HN - Review My Idea: Make Work More Like Games
Oh the branching and merging can be big problems for some of us :-)

The difference is that hg preserves the local commits as part of the upstream commit-set. That gives it a lot of information when making decisions about merging. SVN only has two versions of the file: what's in the server and yours. There's just less information to merge intelligently.
Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee
Popular Cafes here in Seattle (Victrola, Vivace) have been shutting off the wireless on weekends for at least a year now. People seem used to it.
Yep, it's pretty frustrating when you're on the go and looking for something to eat that isn't going to spike your blood sugar and put you into a coma in the afternoon. Not too many options here in Canada.
It seems like a very reasoned and logical firing to me, and it's a nice touch that they aren't glossing over the reason.

If you want to be a partisan newspaper, that's legitimate, particularly if you are willing to state that is what you are aiming for.
To clarify the above, generally we'd get three kinds of laptop customers.

The first were "on-the-way" types; they'd get a latte or mocha and a pastry, using their laptops while they did (on battery), then leave. Not really any personal contact, just a matter of business.

The second group would do the same, but would generally be friendly with the staff. They seemed to stay a little longer than the above, but it's possible that I only think that because they were recognizable and friendly.

The third group were what I called "squatters". They'd set up at a table like they owned it, and generally didn't care who they inconvenienced in the process. The squatters tended to stay for hours, and tended to try to stretch their coffee dollar; buying drip and adding a lot of sugar and milk, or doing the same with espresso to make a ghetto latte. More than once I found squatters who unplugged a grinder or a coffee machine to plug in their laptop, and then got ranted at when I informed them that I needed the outlet to provide service to others.

My experiences certainly don't prove anything, of course.
Thanks! My loans aren't too bad, [just] under $100K, all federal. I'll be out of debt in 5 or 6 years while maintaining a good standard of living.
Just followed you on twitter. I'm @jesselamb. :)
Yes, I'd like to see a /ycombinator/founders list and a /ycombinator/companies list.
Thanks, I wrote the interfacelab article.

We (at the time I was the CTO for massify.com) evaluated a lot of different configurations and nginx+php-fpm+apc was about the fastest we could get the site going.

Glad the article was useful for you.
Business Shouldn't Be About Making Money
I'm really impressed at how quickly the US government responds to the demands of its citizens. (in this instance, a demand for a startup visa.) US is an example of true democracy.

In countries like India, it can take several years to get simple demands of the people into law. Most politicians there are incredibly self-interested and care little about the people. (I'm not saying US politicians are not self-interested, but at least they listen to their people.

If only the governments of India and other countries in similar situations began listening to their people's demands.. then these countries would be so much better off.
True, False, & NULL/None/nil/Blank logic in MySQL, Python, Ruby, and Excel
Visited.org - Watch YouTube videos by keyword
Hey guys,

I'm working on this project for a class here at UC Berkeley, and I'm wondering if you could provide some feedback.

Basically the idea behind it is that there isn't a very good way on YouTube to sit down a watch a bunch of miscellaneous videos that are all high quality and relevant to what you want.

For example, if I wanted to watch some funny videos while eating breakfast, YouTube's comedy channel isn't very appealing, and the rating system on YouTube is pretty meaningless.

We thought a better way would be to classify videos based on a single keyword that immediately comes to mind when you watch the video, whether it's "awesome!" or "funny" or "scary".

Then the rating process of each video revolves around that keyword, making the ratings much more relevant to what you want to watch.

Could you guys take a peek and let me know if you have any thoughts?

--Michael
Emails from Network Solutions were included in the backup of the site. Apparently it's their policy to suspend sites for 10 days after receiving a counter-DMCA notice and reinstate the site after 14 days if they haven't been served with a lawsuit.

Edit: the mirror is at http://cryptomeorg.siteprotect.net/

and the email to MSFT from Network Solutions says:
"Attached please find a Counter-Claim Notification received from John Young of www.cryptome.org on this date. We note that pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) we will reactivate the Web site following the allotted time frame (not less than 10 and no more than 14 business days) unless we receive notice of litigation."
Javascript: A Language in Search of a Standard Library and Module System
Ask HN: Resources for new business tax/legal information
I've formed a LLC in Oklahoma. I filed with the Secretary of State and registered with the local tax authority. I'd like references to sites that are filled with useful information - too many seem to be superficial wrappers around sales pitches for ebooks and pre-made forms. My current interest is in the construction of operating agreements, as that's the step I'm on. Also, I'm unsure of the specific requirements for keeping myself free of personal liability.

My company's specifics: Revenue is from the purchase of virtual items in a browser-based game, advertising, and I'm looking into developing Android and iPhone applications. Resources regarding reporting and the taxation of these would be particularly appreciated.
There's a man that went around music festivals here in new zealand for a couple of years - he'd put himself in a custom-made suit (faraday cage) and would then stand on a platform and hook himself up to a coupla thousand volts... Bloody impressive, except for the day he didn't do his suit up properly. He survived that one, but I haven't seen him perform in a while...
Here is how I (try) and explain it to my coworkers when they say "svn branches as well".

You are right. Svn can branch. Can. But branching in svn is always a dangerous proposition. There are a lot of mechanics involved with branching it right initially, making sure that branch is properly tracking Trunk (you have to constantly merge from Trunk down into the branch to hedge the bets on eventually merging that branch back into Trunk). Properly merging a big branch into Trunk is also an undertaking, and more importantly, it requires the whole team to know its happening and "Be careful checking stuff in for I AM MERGING".

Also branches in svn aren't private. Anyone can see them. They are private by convention sure.

So compare all that workflow with a DVCS. The branching is free. It happens all the time and you never notice it. The merging is smarter, because it has to be, and the history is more complete, because it has to be to enable the merging.

When you do consciously branch it's a quicker, more robust operation. Doing big scary feature branch merges isn't as scary since they're happening privately before you push back to the (culturally defined) central repo. Yes you still have to merge from "trunk" to branch in DVCS but, again, it's a baked in feature since thats how you pull changes from someone else (for example in git you fetch changes from the central repo into remotes/master and then merge them into your master. Same operation as merging master into feature branch, or branch into master).

Yes you can walk to San Francisco from New York. But you can also Fly.

That's the end of my rant. Obviously it's based on my experiences with these tools and not yours. Just trying to give some context and justification.
I've been deep in cafe culture for almost 20 years now (hanging out in them since I was just starting high school, and now I've been working from cafes and home for 3 years), mainly in the Chicago area.

There was a big transition over the past 10 years when coffee shops went from being smoking establishments mainly catering to young people and people on the fringes to being places where a wide demographic of people meet to talk and, for many people, work on computers. Laptops + wireless breathed new life into independent coffee shops at a time when they were being hit with smoking bans and still licking their wounds from a decade of starbucks expansion.

The transition to wireless has created a thriving cafe culture that's more busy than I've ever seen it. The cafes around me are so packed all day every day that I have to time my arrival to make sure I get a seat. 10 years ago they were mostly empty during the day. And it's not just more customers, it's better customers. Schizophrenics who sat with a single cup of coffee for hours while harassing other customers have been replaced by young professionals who buy double lattes.

The vast majority of coffee shops that didn't embrace or take seriously the transition to wireless have lost all of their customers and closed. It's been somewhat heartbreaking for me to watch some of my favorite coffee shops sit empty and eventually close down because the owners didn't take the wireless transition seriously and/or because they held on to an imaginary ideal about cafe culture.

Turning it off on weekends makes some sense; people aren't working there as much. However, it's a dangerous idea for cafe owners to take the anti-wireless sentiment too far. It reminds me of when I worked in academic libraries during the period they were still holding on to their luddite fantasies about the role of libraries. If you own a cafe and are considering this, you better make damn sure that your cafe has enough of these ideal, laptopless customers. I've seen a lot of cafes gamble on this and lose.

All that said, it's interesting that wireless has made coffee shops so popular that people once again value them as social centers.
I'd just like to note that the words "at least in the book review" were not present in cwan's comment when I made the above reply.
I would have been in such deep shit at an american college.
I wish I could vote your comment up a thousand times.
I stayed in Pittsburgh for a month in a place with no wireless, and there was a cafe nearby that let me sit all day with my laptop and my dog! I was amazed, I drank as many mochas as I could, but I wished I could pay an hourly rate or something, I really didn't want them to feel taken advantage of.
Are your users able to access the recording of the call, or do they have to rely on the transcription?

What benefits does your service offer over Google Voice?
I don't think that would sell too well. Most of American Television is people getting beat up. (Even CSPAN! if you count verbal abuse)
You're probably thinking of etckeeper: http://joey.kitenet.net/code/etckeeper/
I agree with all of your comments, that's why I gave the disclaimer: (Remember, this is just a landing page-not a useful UI)

May not be a great UI/UX, but in pure conceptual design, it's pretty neat.

MacHeist gives away bundles of simple free Mac apps every few months.
Combustion is a chemical process, but it is hardly a controllable one. In this case, a fuel cell doesn't combust the fuel, but instead converts it into water and CO2 while stripping the electrons directly from the hydrogen (I think).
> Isn't the whole point of renewable energy to have a perpetually renewing "closed system"?

Nope. Renewable just means the energy source can be replenished. Technically, charcoal would fall in this category, even though it has a pretty hefty C02 output.
In Defense of Financial Speculation
Sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree. I knew a bit about MacHeist, and I still had trouble figuring out what the site was about from that page.

Unless the purpose it be purposefully cryptic and intuitive only for those already "in the know", the entire site design fails. You have to burrow in and find the forum to finally get some useful information: http://www.macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8945

It's amusing that the first line of that Forum entry points the reader back to the useless ego-stroke that is their About page. The comments are also amusing. Should provide some clue to the MacHeist guys about how to make things more better.
Movie News-Captain America,Zoolander 2,Conan Remake,Superman 3.0 Make Headlines
Without arguing the points above one way or another:

Unless I misread your initial message, you suggested that the government was not "taking" wealth from anyone, but rather it somehow had "surplus" wealth to be distributed. My question is more finely tuned to "where did this 'surplus' wealth come from, if it was not 'taken' from someone at some point?"
Scientists conclude that physicalism is true (i.e. reality consists only of physical entities). From this, lit people conclude that relativism is true.

The argument is pretty straightforward: if only physical entities exist then there cannot be any truth that is true in all times and places, since such an overarching truth is universal and not particular, whereas all physical entities are only particular.

Hence the irony of modern scientists arguing for absolute truth with those who merely follow the scientists' assumptions to the logical end.
Oh cool! I didn't know that. Learn something new every day.

Hmm, . . . , that's very interesting. I wonder if the etymology of SHODAN is from the Hindi shodan? Maybe it's just a coincidence?
True sexy stories -- geeks have them too?
Tangent: This reminds me of a free book I downloaded on the kindle: Metagame http://www.amazon.com/MetaGame-ebook/dp/B002AJ88LC
This is a bill that proposes to give US venture capitalists the overt ability to terminate the residency status of founders and their families.

US employers already have this power over employees that hold visas. Why do you trust employers but not VCs? (Or put another one, there is potential for abuse in either arrangement, but I'm not convinced that VCs are fundamentally worse than employers.)
Agreed on all counts. BioShock was awesome (its use of music and art-deco design was amazing), but System Shock 2 was simply one of the best games of all time.

Deus Ex also rocked, though its sequel was decidedly sub-par.
I did something similar: near the end of January I dropped all soda, increased the amount of meat, cheese, eggs, and vegetables in my diet, and removed almost all rice, pasta, and bread from my diet. I added a large water bottle to my desk and drank it all day.

I kept some desserts, but replaced all my snacks with cashews and other nuts (high fat/protein content, low carbs).

I've lost almost 20 pounds since then. It's damn effective.
I'm very happy about this proposal, and I certainly hope it passes, but the cynical part of me has to note a few things:

1) This hasn't passed yet. Let's see what happens, the US government is a bit deadlocked right now.

2) I'm not convinced this happens very often. Maybe I'm wrong.

3) I can't help but notice that the demand comes from VCs and investors - people who control large sums of money - rather than "citizens" or "people" in the broader sense.
I used to work in a tech support call center. They tracked every metric you can imagine. A large percentage of the tech support staff were WoW addicts, so I could definitely see this working.
Is this your bot? If so a second link to the Hacker News discuss page would be nice.
There is going to be design "homogeny" no matter what, it will be whatever the standard style of your browser is or renderer is. Right now, that standard is pretty ugly, and its pretty hard to go from that to something that looks decent. There's no reason someone writing a scientific application, or someone who can't afford a good designer, or doesn't understand the importance of design, should have no other option than something that looks pretty poor. The goal of a good standard is to allow applications to look really good out of the gate, which doesn't prevent you from then customizing it.

Look at Mac OS X for desktop and iPhone. These are the OSes with the most focus on a interface guidelines, but the also have the most unique looking apps as well.
Hollywood Appeals Landmark ISP Piracy Case Loss
The above articles are not at all convincing. They are also hosted at sites that have a vested interest in selling you weird shit to put in your body that will supposedly make you live longer.

I'm going to eat my vegetables, go to the gym, and pass on the weird shit.
I read a similar article a number of years ago, but at the time there were no negative comments (to my memory). Funny how attitudes have changed.
This is a great idea and has crossed my mind many times. In fact, it was one of the motivations behind our current startup. (http://blog.iactionable.com/ & http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1126780)

I think (and hope) the achievement/badge trend will continue to grow and show up in all sorts of new places. The biggest hurdle we are facing is finding ways to 'hook' into the events which get tracked and converted into badges. Its pretty simple for websites, but for a company to setup or modify existing systems to automatically ping events is no small undertaking for that company.
Maybe there's an opportunity for consulting here too?

Then there's trying to decide what things are valuable for company X to track and award badges for. All this takes time and money. With a little backing info from research studies I could see companies giving this a shot. There are existing services which allow employees to give 'kudos' points to each other for things they do. This would be taking that to the next level and fully automating it.
Yes, the recording of the call is also available through the web interface. I haven't attempted to make it available through the customer IVR side of things yet (if you call your RingThink number from your cellphone you get an admin interface), but that's certainly doable.

To be honest, while I have an account I haven't played with Google Voice too much (I live in Canada so it isn't officially available here yet). This was something I came up with to respond to Twilio's weekly SMS competition, it's been fun to build out so far.
Ha! I seriously laughed when I read your comment. Only because I actually work for a company that sells SaaS Call Center software and this has DEFINITELY been on my mind. ;)
They also appear to be using MooTools, which is interesting. I instinctively expected it to be jQuery.
Clearly you didn't click though, much less go on to read the scientific papers linked from those posts. Fight Aging! is a science blog. It reports on published research and advocates more research into aging and longevity. The only thing it's selling is the idea you should give more money than you are presently giving to research efforts like Aubrey de Grey's SENS.

Really, it just illustrates how ridiculous and poisoned the cultural environment has become surrounding fat, aging, and research that someone would knee-jerk the remark above.
Larger Threat Is Seen in Google Case
PG, did you do any lobbying or anything beyond writing an essay on the startup visa? How do you think Kerry heard about it?

Edit: I answered my own question, startupvisa.com is the group that did the lobbying. http://startupvisa.com/about/
Yeah, we've been spreading the word.

I'm not a big guy, but I was getting kinda burly. I made one change, which was eating only half a Chipotle burrito bowl for lunch, instead of the whole thing. That ONE CHANGE dropped me 10 - 15 pounds.

No doubt about it, soda and processed food are poison. It not even like you have to go full-on zealot, just a trip back 20 years to eating meatloaf, nuts, vegetables, home-made bread.
Why would fact checking anyone be distasteful? Well, for instance, if I'm understanding correctly what Friel claims, it's something like this: Lomborg makes lots and lots of citations; their relation to the material they're cited in support of is often unclear; it often turns out that they don't in fact support what he's saying. If that's true, then fact-checking him would be a lot of work because of the many citations, and the vagueness of reference that would require more work per citation, and the (hypothetical) fact that often the citations are no good. (Failed searches usually take longer than successful ones.)

Begley doesn't claim to be offering analysis. It's a book review. Do you seriously think it would have been appropriate for the review to be twice as long in order to go into more detail on each claim it mentions?

Anyway. You say Lomborg addresses "each of Friel's claims made in the book review" (weird way of putting it, btw). OK, let's look at the first one: what's happening to the population of polar bears. Well, er, the word "bear" doesn't appear in Lomborg's rebuttal. There's a bit about populations of penguins; nothing about polar bears. Oh. Next: heat deaths and cold deaths. There is certainly some discussion of this in Lomborg's rebuttal, but he doesn't seem to have anything to say about one of the most striking claims Begley says Friel makes: that Lomborg cites a study from 2006 as showing that global warming will save 1.4 million lives that would otherwise be lost to deaths from cold, when in fact the figure claimed in that study is 850k. Next: stuff about the Larsen B ice shelf. No occurrence of "Larsen" or "shelf" in Lomborg's rebuttal.

Your claim that Lomborg addresses every claim of Friel's that's found in the book review appears to be totally false. Did you read Lomborg's rebuttal, or did you just hope I wouldn't?

Incidentally #1: Why the quotation marks around "distasteful"? That word is yours, not Begley's (still less Friel's). Begley used a different term.

Incidentally #2: Why the quotation marks around "analysis"? My best guess is that it's because I used that word. But I used it about Friel's 272-page book, not Begley's 2ish-page review.

Incidentally #3: Why "book review / editorial"? It says "Book review" at the top. It is dedicated to describing and evaluating a book. Its author is not an editor. It's a book review; it's not an editorial.
I wonder how we can circulate the good ones back into StartupList… can you let me know if you get past a first meeting?
Flavors.me emerges from beta: lifestreaming for the masses
US employers shouldn't have that power. That power distorts the market. It's unfair for aspiring residents, and it's bad for taxpaying US citizens.

Adding yet another class of people with unfair power over immigrants, and yet another distortion to the market, seems like a very poor response to that problem.