skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That is one of several factors at work. Others include changing rapidly norms about what top management can pay themselves, and a shift towards keeping intellectual work here while moving grunt labor offshore.
why is this a missing opportunity?
It's a matter of aesthetics, but you're still in a for loop. In the Clojure code you have assigned user to a variable and are out of the "loop".
To Cut Calories, Eat Slowly
Good grief. ExactTarget's website is off-putting - they appear to be one of those "I can't quite work out what it is that you do" companies, complete with a 10 page signup form just to see a demo of their product, and various "whitepapers".
"Handles all the JDBC bullshit so you don't have to." Music to my Java-addled ears!
This device is ridiculous in the same sense as how all those iPod clones (looks like iPod, has iPod like controls, but no syncing) and iPhone clones (like vTouch, etc, looks like iPhone but no app store) are ridiculous. These imitations just try to be something else and do a bad job at it.
let me guess, we are going to see a lot of people using this title right above their "See Plans and Pricing" button.

Anyway, good job, A/B rocks, lot of people are leaving on the table a lot of conversions cause they are too lazy to test and track stuff.
Dear Lord. I can't even set up a few Dominoes without knocking them over accidentally. Imagine setting up some of the massive contraptions they did in this video. Accidental set-off could literally kill someone.
HTC defends their own innovations in Apple patent lawsuit
I just yesterday upgraded to the KSO Treks after about five months in regular KSOs because.....

- I hadn't done the tape mod, so the straps frayed and eventually broke.

- The Treks have more waterproof materials.

- I managed to slice up the soles. The Treks have thicker soles.

I'm looking forward to a run in the rain today :)
"You brought up people not wearing seatbelts despite laws, apparently implying that building codes would not be followed as well."

I pointed out that seatbelts were a bad example for your argument. All you've done is emphasize that seatbelts are a bad example that don't fit what you're trying to say about building codes.

As as per the Turkey example, one would hope you're willing to acknowledge that even with the ability to inspect every structure, such factors as corruption, poor inspectors, bad inspection practices, plain human error, etc. mean that the we cannot assume universal compliance.

As important as building codes are, there are factors entirely separate from the codes themselves that determine how well they're actually followed.

"while seat-belt laws have not achieved 100% compliance, they have raised rates of seat-belt use"

I'm afraid you can't firmly demonstrate that relationship; 1981-1997 was also a period of extremely heavy propagandizing to get people to wear seatbelts.
> the government must consult engineers, civil liberty orgs and people in the know on these policy moves because this is obvious scaremongering.

What's the definition of "must" for which the above makes sense? (I'd like govts to consult others, but I recognize they can get away with not doing so.)
usually first article in Inc magazine I read was from Joel. His overall comprehensive thinking was a great resource and inspiration to me. I will miss his well written articles and often good topics.
I have a total of about 2 hours drive time every day - Audio books have been great, especially after work.

It has been a great way to decompress; I actually enjoy, to an extent, my commute since it allows some of the days tensions to dissipate and I get to listen to and finish about 2 books a month.
Apple released the iPhone in 2007. They didn't even release the iMac until 1998.
Historically the word "evil" has had a pretty broad meaning. Among tech companies the word has a new and fairly specific sense that follows from Paul Buchheit's slogan "Don't be evil." That's the sense I was using. It has a pretty low bar. It means, roughly, winning by taking advantage of people instead of by doing good work.
Artificially limiting the capabilities of the hardware (people pay for) with the interest of keeping control, can't possibly be in the same league as "shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want".

People also lose the perspective of scaling the current trends set by Apple and others to everything ... what would happen if all the documents within your computer would be DRMed? What would happen if all personal PCs had software only approved by a central authority?

SciFi? They are already releasing a bigger iPhone who's functionality overlaps that of tablets / small laptops.

Also, before search engines that are censoring the results in China ... we had nothing comparable. You're also free to implement your own search-engine and index all the web-pages Google does ... but try creating a phone that connects to the iTunes store and that can run iPhone apps ;)
How would your father update the iPad without a system running iTunes? That is the only major thing I do not like from what information has been released.
This just tells me Intel's store is a bad place to sell something, since successful marketplaces don't need to bribe their participants.
The shrew loo
Something else to note is that OK Go got its way with the label, and this video is embeddable.

For reference, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060736
Yes exactly. Their original headline ("Businesses grow faster online!") did not hit their customers' pain point directly as they adopted (the very famous) benefits not feature mantra. What worked for CityCliq was "Create a webpage for your business" which is clearly a feature (apparently which provides a lot of benefits).

Moral of the story is to A/B test even the most obvious advice. You can never do enough of A/B testing.
Someone is supposedly making new accounts for commenting on this story! HN needs a better fraud detection system, no?
> Don't the last two patents basically give them the right to sue ANYONE who has ever made some sort of GUI application, including vendors in their own app store and people who write apps for OSX? Aren't these basically design patterns?

Welcome to the world of software patents. Many of the other ones are probably also very basic and widespread, they're just not worded in such a way as to make it so obvious.
"And if the penal code made people not kill and rob and steal, prisons would be empty?"

Let me know when someone gets convicted of a seatbelt violation after the extensive use of forensic evidence, victim testimony, and a statewide manhunt.

Let me know when a police officer sweats a confession out of someone that ey didn't wear a seatbelt.

Let me know when police offer a reward for information leading to the conviction of someone who failed to wear a seatbelt.

At that point, your apples will then become oranges.
"#3 Alienate everyone close to you" is the complete opposite of what I do. My favorite technique is to read a book out loud to my wife (and before I was married, to friends). It improves my reading/pronunciation and we discuss the book as it progresses. We learn something new while spending time together. Someday I hope to read to my kids and have them read back to me. I like reading by myself too but I'd rather read it with someone.
> what part did credit rating agencies like Moodys have to play in all this?

Don't forget the SEC. It gave a ratings monopoly to Moodys and two others (whose name escapes me).

Yes - the SEC said that the ratings from Moodys and the other two are the only ones that count for regulatory purposes. What could go wrong....

Regulation is systemic risk.
Mirror for solar energy
IPhone/iPod 101: How to get the most out of your battery
I schedule a "meeting" in my calendar in the middle of the day. Then I use that time to leave the office and exercise at the gym. This also tends to prevent someone from inviting me to a meeting at that time. I find it really perks me up in the middle of the afternoon when I tend to drag.

At the large company where I work it is not unusual to be elsewhere on site for a meeting. So, I have not asked for permission. However, I do know my boss does the same thing.
Audiobooks and podcasts work just fine for drivers (and on the train too). It's the weirdest feeling when you find yourself picking the slowest lane in traffic just so you can spend more time enjoying what you're listening to.
I thought 37s did 4-day weeks? did they stop that practice?
Joel received a question regarding this sort of feedback in an SO podcast.

He brought up a case where someone made it to an on-site interview, and it was noted that the guy repeatedly belittled the office assistant and sort of thumbed his nose at her. In this case, he would refuse to give advice to this individual because he wouldn't want to give him insight on how he could fake being a nice person well-enough to get a job somewhere else.

However, overall his general stance was that you're being compared to a large number of applicants. Even if you were qualified to get a job there normally, someone could've applied that happened to wipe the floor with everyone. Regardless, the odds of you reapplying aren't that high (though he notices it), so it's simply not worth the effort - if he noticed you stood out, he would've made the effort to continue. Whereas otherwise he could be driving business value elsewhere.

Honestly, I don't disagree with him.
I haven't seen them, but I applaud the idea. The Series AA documents we and WSGR produced have been used by many startups and have saved them a great deal of time and trouble.

http://ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html

The Series AA documents are intended for angel rounds, whereas it sounds like the Series Seed documents, despite the name, are intended to be used with VCs. It could be harder to talk VCs into using standardized documents, but it would be great if that happened.
this was produced quite a while ago (2008ish), but i didn't see it anywhere on this site --- have there been any comparable systems produced recently?

also, it's missing some functionality. c'est dommage!
Hmm OK Go seems to have broken YouTube
Twitter 'firehose' (all tweets) open to select startups
I used to love audiobooks, until I realized how much longer they took over reading. I prefer podcasts for drives, but even a lot of those aren't very focused and tend to banter.
Maybe Apple succeeds most when they take advantage of people and do good work. :)
The Making Of videos are great as well.
I agree. It smacks of a proxy war.
Ask HN: Review/Test My Latest App (test on Chrome if possible)
Wow - they knocked off YT?
The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company...

How sad, especially coming from someone whose opinion I respect so much.

I love reading books, programming, sports, good food and drink, and a whole bunch of other things. But none of those things is an end unto itself. I do all of them as part of building a better life. Why? To share it with other people!

No matter how many cool things are on my list, sharing my life with others is always #1. If I find myself alone, then sure, I'll pick up a good book or project. But avoiding other people in order to have more time alone for books? Except for extreme circumstances, that just doesn't make sense to me.
Using Open Source Dia on Linux
What I meant by motivation is priorities - "The time you have available to [work|study|family] is only time you aren't doing something else."
Not necessarily just blogs, but I'd say around 100 articles easily. I'd also include tutorials and discussions that are substantial as part of reading those articles.
"subjects ... consumed roughly 10 percent fewer calories when they ate at a slow pace"

this intuitively feels like a negligible optimization. don't eat your ice cream slower; stop eating the ice cream!
I have a hard time to see reality in this survey and as the physics professors said, if did not create the statistics you can’t believe it.  German society is in general skeptical on advanced technology when it comes to bio-science.
Here's a radical idea: only read books that you enjoy and find interesting. Don't measure reading success by the number of books, but by how far your hair was blown back :-)
Killer Quote:

"...Instead of impressing focus groups, designers should do a thought experiment: Imagine what Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive would have to say about your interface..."
It could be a "you infringe on as many of our patents as we do infringe on yours" thing too.

I expect a counter-suit.
I have this problem as well. I keep getting the urge to code. I keep hoping it becomes practical and that I get something (meaning $) out of it, but the truth is that's just an excuse I use to justify spending so much of my free time to code. The problem is that once I've solved the core coding problems, progress stalls. I'm still worried about the day my wife gives up on the idea and I lose the coding time I get now.
Also:

> 23 per cent of around 1000 respondents in the survey said they would be prepared to have a chip inserted under their skin "for certain benefits".

The title is simply wrong. These sentences do not have the same meaning. Flagged the article :(
>> "since books can usually substitute for human company: you can take them with you on the train and to meals and curl up with them at night and so on."

Seriously? Comes across as slightly sad to me.

The top priority on everyones list should be friends+family IMHO. Everything else is just 'stuff'.

Also I'd say there's far more to be learned/gained/enjoyed from other human beings than in any book.
I agree. I believe that the people cheering at the end of the video is everyone that helped out from Mindshare/Synn Labs.
See my reply to tome.

There are lots of good blogs out there. I think a substantial number of bloggers end up getting published in books, and a lot of good writers blog. There is a lot of information out there, my primary point is that you don't have to consume it on parchment for it to count.
Dinosaur-eating snake discovered
The only person who had a chance of successfully doing that was Woz circa 1976. But I'd even bet against him.

[EDIT: Better grammar]
"Just as many hours and insights went into making the iPhone UI as it did the physical device"

I seriously doubt it, unless you are counting all the GUI elements since the Xerox PARC days. Designing and manufacturing a device like the iPhone (or any other modern electronic device) is insanely complicated. It's bad when you use reference designs. It becomes absolutely insane when you invent something new.
"if" it were an attack on Google rather than HTC, I wonder what it is that has spooked Apple to bring out such a big gun now, rather than earlier?
That's one of the first things I wondered while reading this.

Jason, care to comment if you see this/get a chance?
Except his posts all get a reflexive down-vote to -4. I don't see the point, obviously the discussion here is better for his defending himself.

Give the guy some credit for showing up in front of the firing squad and trying to defend himself.

Or we can turn this into a complete echo chamber where we can all bad-mouth Jason in absentia.
I used to visit http://www.bn.com store on every saturday & sunday to read more books.
Thanks. As for Copilot, I believe it reinforces what Joel is talking about using his blog to reach out to target customers. In the case of Copilot, the whole "summer interns at Fog Creek" series and the movie acted as the core message with the actual product in the background.
LLC for a one-person side project?
I've recently been inspired by reading about a programmer in Japan making an ISV business on kalzumeus.com and am interested in starting a side project of my own. I'm an American living in Asia and have a shoe-string budget.

Can anyone recommend any resources for creating an LLC? Is there a low-cost solution that can be done from the other side of the world? Do any of you have experience with this project? I'm living on much less than a US salary and don't want to take on debt for legal or administrative expenses at this point.
The Newton Running [1] shoe is also designed with additional padding on the forefoot to support forefoot based running styles, like barefoot running. I like them quite a bit. Barefoot really seems appealing to Luddites. The benefit of cushioning simply can't be denied. Even the supporters negatively compare the feeling of running on concrete barefoot to running on soft dirt. There is simply less impact on the body.

[1] http://www.newtonrunning.com/
How the U.S. military used social networking to capture Saddam
One shouldn't be able to patent something that's a direct consequence of having a specific limitation, This slide to unlock idea is something a reasonably clever designer would figure out in about 5 minutes.

And, BTW, is a common feature in many physical devices that employ a lock over a button. It reminds me of the locks I had in my car by the late 80's and the power button I had on a Compaq server in the early 90's.
> hey judging people who went through horrific experiences looks like fun! can I play?

Those horrific experiences weren't accidents. They happened because enough folks said "it's okay for me to do {bad thing} because {excuse}".

Also, imagine the response if it came out that a Pope or a Republican had done something similar.
I've worked with ExactTarget quite a bit. And the experience, sad to say, would not make me want to try CoTweet.
A 10% decrease in calories in the average diet is equivalent to dropping a serving of ice cream or a candy bar.
Very pretty, but I don't really get why I should use this vs any other to do list.

All the lists are public, and easy to find: http://redo.heroku.com/[0-9]+
It's a real shame, too - it's so easy to hate Microsoft when it gets hostile and starts abusing its position, because their software generally makes you want to scream. Apple, on the other hand, puts out stuff that is a genuine pleasure to use, but controls it in increasingly infuriating ways. What's a geek to do?

On the other hand, I wouldn't be too quick to avoid iPad startups; even if it feels "wrong", your reasons for expecting the iPad to transform the computing landscape are as valid as they ever were, and there are good businesses to be built in that space. I'd let the RFS stand, and not feel too bad about it. Business is business, we do what we can in the markets that we're able...Microsoft has sucked pretty hard for a long time, but I would never dream of blaming someone for basing a startup on the Windows platform, and I think people that ignored it over the past decade were probably making a mistake.

What I would do is be on the lookout (maybe even draft an RFS) for startups that offer a better vision for the future than Apple, assuming there are any people out there with ideas about how to get a foothold and subvert their control freakishness. Bolstering products that compete with the iPhone and iPad could be a start; if must-have software starts showing up on Android, it would really help.

As much as we might want to blame Jobs for this, I fear that once he's not holding the reins, the company will only start acting worse, as they'll have lost a lot of the vision that drives their actual innovations. And that's when the serious consumer-hostile bullshit is likely to start in earnest...
How To Crack The Code To Your Life
I love PeeWee Herman-esque machines, used to try and make them all the time out of Meccano when I was a kid :)

Laughed when I saw all the broken TVs against the wall too :D
On the StackOverflow podcast, I believe he mentioned something about not wanting to dominate the blogging world anymore. Someone says "Joel" and everyone else thinks "Spolsky." Yet, he doesn't mention that at all here. I wonder what's up with that?

Also, he says he's going to quit "for the most part" podcasting and public speaking. Is this also the end of the StackOverflow podcast? Seems unlikely that he'd force that onto Jeff, who seems to like it a lot.
You can contact the author of that blog via HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11

(sorry Patrick!) :)
> As to the disadvantages... what if you're fighting Hans Gruber and he shoots a bunch of glass windows?

Isn't this an argument in favour of barefoot-ness?
This is great stuff, and is an example of how its the relationship that is ultimately the most important for the attorneys.

I wish they took this to the next step and provided similar documents or template for incorporation for your typical small tech startup. While legal zoom and other cheap services can get you there, I am reminded of PG's interview on Mixergy, and how he remarked about YC companies bringing in their "broken" LLC's. Perhaps if there was a better template for startups to use (both LLC and s-corp), these companies could be better positioned when they get to the angel investor or vc stage.
Ask HN: Please Review my Web App: DealFan.com
How to Make Remote Team Collaboration Work
yea. anyone know what intermittent

Http/1.1 Service Unavailable

implies?
"Infringements of intellectual property aside"

Well, that's why they are ridiculous.
No. Eat greens.

Eating low calorie-density foods gets calories inside so much slower, no matter how fast you chew. Plus, they are packed with healthy nutrients.
I also fail to see the logic in the proposition of asking someone that already has a demonstrated self-control problem to "just eat slower instead".
Or the community interest. Is the plural of self-interest community interest? How much pain does it take to show the harmful effects of the monopoly outweigh the benefits?
hit "wtf" below "reusable to-do lists" to learn why ;). Let me copy that for you:

It's useful for stuff like workout routines, recipes, checklists (launching a website, software testing, travel checklist, requirements list, achieving drunkenness...). the more you think about it, the more uses you find. Anyways, this beats having to create a new to-do list at x website every single time you'll start something you do repetitively.

I know they're rather easy to find atm, but that's just while I find the best possible routes. One of the uses of the lists are to be shareable, so I don't know whether or not I will ever change it. If you need some privacy, though, check out http://done.io ;)
Not unlike how Java evolved: Gosling and Joy envisioned something to use for smart appliances and network-aware devices. Its popularity stemmed from the fact it was far more useful outside of that context in enterprise and client-server development.

And thank goodness too, man...did you ever see Jini? What a disaster.

Of course, I'm sure some will say the same about Java, but it's hard to argue against the fact it was more useful than originally intended.
You could try using Yahoo Pipes with some keywords to filter out stories you won't be interested in. That'll create another RSS (or ATOM?) feed that you can share with others of similar taste.
Greece Aid Sparks Opposition in Germany
High-Speed TCP Variants
Apple has developed--and I think even sells--an iPod Touch that's adapted to work as a mobile checkout for high-end retail.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/03/exclusive_look...

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/02/apple-looking-to-sell-ipod-to...
Ask HN: Reliable International SMS gateway with API (other than Clickatell)?
We have been using Clickatell's API to send text messages to US & International users for ~ 1 year. However, their US gateways have been down for a few days, meaning all of our text messages to US phone #'s are being rejected! For 3+ days, their customer service has been: "We know this is bad, we're working on it". This is a problem for us.

Can anyone recommend a bulk SMS gateway with solid uptime performance that offers a web API? Nice to have would be web-based reporting and a Ruby API library.

Has anyone used http://www.redoxygen.com/pricing/united_states/ ?