skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Google Chine _the_ source of political information for the people? Why on earth do you think this?
Should have mentioned to jump to the bottom of the page. Many of the examples are ugly, but Minion and Utopia are, of course, pro Adobe fonts used in a large number of professionally-typeset books.
> Of course Mono for Apple would be an abomination that had to be destroyed (considering how they sued Psystar and even Wired on publishing an article about hackitoshes)

Cocoa is a direct descendent of NEXTStep which is an open spec. Hence the NS prefix on class names. Here's "Mono for Apple":

http://www.cocotron.org/

http://etoileos.com/

http://www.gnustep.org/

You mention MS "endorsing" Mono as if that means something.
I Created a Startup Aboard a Bus from SF to Austin: Pairwise Launches at SxSW
NC Health Insurance
Are you concerned about health insurance? Most people are even if they work with a big company.
I have no doubt that Goog will continue to operate in China. At the end of the day, there's way too much money on the table to do something as drastic as that.
It maybe true that some of these comments sound hypocritical but I feel that you are comparing apples and oranges with your comparison. Joel Spolsky spent a lot of time/energy on his Joel on Software blog and from his user base there "spun off" a business. Joel might have never spent on marketing for Fog Creek but he sure spent a lot of time on his blog that functioned as marketing for his business. His blog was not his business, he didn't wrap a subscription model to it. The same is true with Paul Graham, he built a following with his essays which "spun off" a book and a following to his other ventures.
The Great Recession, and why IT can't save the world
We don't need to do this only within the states, we can also just do systematic experiments.

Once upon a time, we wanted to determine how much health insurance affected health. So we (and by "we", I mean the RAND corporation) created several different health insurance plans, and randomly assigned people to different plans. From this, we determined that very high deductible insurance lowers costs by 30% (relative to full coverage), but health is unaffected.

We have not performed a single experiment since then.
I don't think investing in municipal bonds is a very good idea right now. If you look at the problems of pensions around the country counties and cities are going to declare bankruptcy unless unions back off their demands which they probably won't. All around the country politicians are putting their heads in the sand hoping that these problems will just blow over and hope for another housing boom.

Right now holding onto cash is probably the best bet. I'd expect deflationary pressures to continue despite the federal reserve's inflation. They haven't started dumping money out of planes yet but they will if the default rate starts to climb much more.

The rating companies who assign those AA and AAA are useless as well. Recently Moody's Investors Service threatened to lower Iceland's debt rating to junk. Why isn't it there already? It's absurd.

Right now I prefer to invest my money in business opportunities and hold onto as much as cash as I can. It seems like risk out there is extreme when interest rates are 0%. How can you judge what's actually going on in the economy when the price of money is so distorted? We're facing a serious shortage of capital right now and the notion that a 0% interest rate is the way to raise more is insane.

Anyway if these municipal bonds explode on you I don't think anyone is going to bail you out.
Honestly, here's what I want

I know it sounds crazy, but what if I had that? Who should I talk to? What should be my next step?
> The point is that work others find interesting/important in some way are posted; most authors consider their own work to be worthwhile.

Most authors consider their own work to be _theirs_ as well. My stuff is under creative commons; I've no problem with people wanting to see it, or even submitting it somewhere; but being prohibited from submitting it myself while others are encouraged to, that's not something I find acceptable.
An up-vote is a bit different from a down-vote. It's a way of saying "I agree. Were I to post a comment, it would be similar to yours. In fact, you said it better". See, there isn't much to add to an up-vote, because it is agreement.

However, a down-vote is rebuttal. However, when no actual rebuttal is given, there is no meaningful conversation happening. It's just an anonymous rejection. I think that to be meaningful, a down-vote should _require_ some explanation as to why. And, the 'rule' should be that simply disagreeing is insufficient rationale to down-vote. You must state why.

Absent this kind of 'rule', I worry that HN encourages group-think. It's already a kind of psychological school yard, I fear. One gains "cred" by earning points. Ideally, these are earned by meaningful contributions and commentary. To avoid these anonymous down-votes, however, posters might very well be adding comments that seem consistent with the rest of the group, instead of what might be regarding as opposed to that of the majority.

The idea of charging would not be a good solution, at all. That would have a worse kind of school yard effect -- a nursery school effect, in fact. That would say "it's free to agree, but to if you disagree with somebody, you have to pay to express your disagreement."

If this is to be a forum of ideas, then make it so. Anonymous/un-qualified nay-saying does not contribute that.
I think it sucks too, but the truth is that without the app store you would have to pay a lot to match their billing system and exposure (top app lists, what's new, featured apps, etc). I mean, it's too easy to buy apps on the app store. Customers lined up hungry for apps with their CC on file ready to pay. Also you get to use their CDN. It makes it easy for the little guy to sell 100k apps on the same playing field as the big dev houses. That shouldn't be overlooked.

The downside to the 30% is that a chunk goes to the review process. It's nice when it catches legitimate bugs but sucks that in a way you're paying to be censored.

If you don't like it, you can always develop for another platform though. You might not make as much but if you value ideals over making money, you have options.

70% of 100k sales is better than 100% of 1000 sales.
The reason is there's a very specific law about video rental privacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
Http://www.khoanhkhacbencon.com.vn/
The "innocent mistake" primarily consisted of a small number of drivers who did it more than 100 times... That's pretty telling. If it was a mistake why did they do it over 100 times?

The rules are pretty simple and no cabbie mistakenly thinks they are in Westchester when they are on Park Ave. It's quite obviously a scam, but not one that all NYC cabbies perpetrated.
Me and Brandon have been working tirelessly since Tuesday aboard a bus with spotty wifi to create Pairwise. It's an app that lets you broadcast and receive a short message in a very small area (say, conference center). We solve the problem of not knowing who to connect with at a conference, party or gathering, or not having the right introduction to make that connection. Users can use Pairwise to meet customers, fill hiring needs, connect with others in the same space, etc. Eventually, the goal is to turn downtime into business networking opportunity, maybe say, at airport waiting areas. We still have lots to iterate on the product (like switch to LinkedIn instead of Facebook), but have been learning lots from talking to people here. It's be really great to meet and get feedback from readers of HN here at SxSW, you can connect with me through @euwyn. Any tweets to help spread the word to enable us to learn more about our proudct would be huge: "@pairwisemobi launches location-based networking for new business connections, created in 72 hrs aboard the startupbus: http://pairwise.mobi Phew, it's been a crazy week, any words of encourage are certainly appreciated.
Considering that the app store is barely profitable, even with that 30% currently, you can hardly call it "gouging". And hey, if you don't like it, umm. Don't develop for the iP[hone/ad].
He makes it sound like it's an option, but with globalization and too many people, we've got competitive pressure like never before. You have to keep running to stand in place.
Silk is a fantastic set. Been using it for years and haven't found anything more versatile.

Also recently came across the excellent (CC-licensed) Fugue set.

http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com/
It's method, not methodology. The former refers to a specific process or procedure employed to accomplish a task while the latter describes the study of such processes and procedures. The discussion we are engaging in here is a form of methodology; the things being discussed are methods.

I don't tend to get hung-up on usage, but it really is shocking to see how many articles, blog posts, and comments written on this subject make this mistake.
I don't even waste my time reading this guy's blog anymore. He's illustrated to me that he is corrupt and supports revenue models that are fraudulent ripoffs of his startups' customers.

As hackers who want to create a better web, we should stop promoting the words of people like him and jc and others who give the internet a bad name. We should just banish them from the web -- they make it worse for everyone but themselves and their uber-elite little group of scammers.
Actually it's a surprisingly simple problem to solve. Split comment and submission karma. Reddit, which HN was inspired by does that already.

but to just "not give a hoot" is hard

try it! at 1k or so karma you have more or less nothing to lose.
How about the following: whenever a user down votes a comment, a popup comes up describing the community rules for downvotes (e.g. "don't down vote just because you disagree", etc). After having been shown this box a couple of times it could be disabled for that user so that is isn't too annoying. New users would thus "learn" the rules as they use the site.
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

or if you're using Chrome...

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jggheggpdocamnea...
My HN account is 521 days old and I can't downvote. Granted, I don't comment or submit very much, but I would assume that getting to 200? karma is something of a brake on opinionated newbies downvoting anything. Of course, this is less of a brake on idiots.
When using Gnome I've always configured them to be on the left anyway. But using the same order as in OS X, close on the far left.

People still have the choice to move them to the right if they want. Viva la choice. Windows and OS X both suck in that regard (though I understand them wanting the consistency).
My Vanguard money market is yielding 0.01%. Ouch.
The 30% is a value proposition you can take or leave (develop somewhere else). I like it since I don't have to pay bandwidth or credit card processing fees. Ignoring bandwidth, it isn't that different from going through other credit card processors or PayPal.

As to taxes, I only get taxed on the portion I receive (Apple gets taxed on their 30%) so I have no idea where this "double-taxed" stuff is coming from.

Heck, if my app is really good, I might get on the front page of iTunes or in a commercial.
Except that the reporting about the incidents in Toyota may worsen it (e.g. the car starts accelerating when the accelerator is hit by accident, the person remembers the news stories about Toyota accelerators, and flips out and loses all rational thought). This is partly why in the 80s the incidents were more common in Audis.
And we all wondered why they so adamantly opposed having GPS installed...
I already acknowledged that some cases are pretty clearly not just human error. And I haven't really been to New York (drove through there on the way to the Boston area once), so I don't really know firsthand. However, the cliche is that New York cabbies are typically foreign and speak poor English. So I have a little difficulty thinking that they all are perfectly clear about every detail of their jobs and there are no mistakes rooted in language barrier/cultural barrier/just not knowing the geography as well as a native of the area likely would.
I'll respond at this level, although the point was only fleshed out in the subsequent discussion with swombat.

Brooks was writing about a different thing. No Silver Bullet is about techniques for writing code. He specifically mentions programming languages, OOP, AI, graphical programming, etc. as examples of 'silver bullet candidates'. His arguments are based on, among other things, the complexity and changeability of the 'software entities', and the main point is that it's hard to get the code right. This all has very little to do with the methodology one uses to organise the writing of code and all the things that need to happen to allow the code to be written.

It has become common for people to broaden the meaning of 'No silver bullet' and use it, appropriately or not, in various other contexts. However, in those circumstances, no tribute to Brooks is required if you, for instance, are explaining how there is no single method to make sure your toddler doesn't poke out your cat's eye. Your indignation over the referenceless unoriginality of this blogpost is really unsubstantiated.
Awesome! Thanks for that. Silk has been great but sometimes the icon I want just isn't there.
He's got some money, and he wants to safely invest them without too much risk so he buys bonds. Then he states his opinion on the risk of the historically low rates we're experiencing right now.

How exactly is that corrupt and supports revenue models that are fraudulent ripoffs of his startups' customers?
Make Windows 7 Look Like a Commodore 64
The standard refutation of Metcalfe's law, by Andrew Odlyzko and Benjamin Tilly, is hosted at http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf

On page nine they conclude:

Metcalfe's Law and Reed's Law both significantly overstate the value of a communication network. In their place we propose another rough rule, that the value of a network of size n grows like n log n. This rule, while not meant to be exact, does appear to be consistent with the historical behaviour of networks with regard to interconnection, and it captures the advantage that general connectivity offers over broadcast networks that deliver content. It also helps explain the failure of the dot-com and telecom ventures, since it implies network effects are not as strong as had been hoped for.
Appengine ?

Edit: Appengine Datastore offers the ACID properties that simpledb lacks, is hosted and massively scalable. It offers a subset of sql, and also allows to forget all sysadmin/dba stuff. It fits all the requirements of the OP
Fast growth is pretty easy when it's growth from zero.
That's an interesting idea and should be explored further. The idea that as you gain standing (karma) you can expend it on socially damaging acts that may be useful. It would certainly alter the dynamic and make the downvote less casual.
s/some/most/g
8,000 page reply to a one line question in Indian state MP assembly
Discovered Underwater Advertising Above Ground
12 Ways to Market Your Website For Free
I sympathize with the general point, but Toyota is also the fourth largest employer of unionized auto workers. They've been careful about threading the needle between competitive effectiveness and appeasing the unions to avoid getting legislated out of existence by "friends in high places". They have an advantage over the legacy auto manufacturers, though, in that they weren't here in the 70s to make the stupendously bad decisions that the unions have handcuffed the Big Three to.

(Though I guess the whole "the clever hawk hides his claws" thing is not working that well this year.)
Yup, that's the hard part. Empathy is a skill that can be developed though, and it can be useful, and not just for altruistic motives.
Do you mean, what if you had a database like the GP says he wants? You could post about it on HN and give hackers a chance to try it.
I can definitely see where Bill is coming from. I think part of the problem of working a full-time job while simultaneously trying to launch a startup is spreading inspiration too thin.

When you are working any type of demanding full-time job, you are asked to problem solve, innovate, and provide meaningful contributions. Simply put, the more thought and inspiration you put into your full-time job, the less you have for your baby, your startup. That's not to say you have NONE, it just means you have less. Less energy, less brainpower, less time, just less.

Odd jobs, on the other hand, work more like a release for your brain. For Bill, tutoring math was easy, fun, and fulfilling. It re-filled his inspiration, rather than drained it.

Way to go Bill, and thanks for this post.
jv
Here in NJ, the Governor is swinging blindly with an axe. If much of his cuts get passed, there is a real possibility some local munis will actually go bankrupt... along with their bonds. While this is speculation right now, it does seem that either counties are going to go broke or the State is.

There was also a story not too long ago about foreign investors forgoing the usually favorable T-bills because there were considered too risky. I am not quite sure what that really means. Here it is at WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB3000142405274870480420457506...

Now, about this 0.00%. I firmly believe that we are in a time vacuum, by design. You see, consumers form the foundation of our economic system. They are the engine. By keeping interest rates across the board obscenely low, we are providing much needed time for them to pay off debts. Once the bulk of the consumers become stable, then the rates should rise. Until then, the front of the caterpillar has to wait for the back to catch up!
Reflections on leaving Haskell
I'm curious about this so I'll have to read the forums. However I'd just like to say my experience with RSC has been nothing but pleasant. Throw in the fact that it's cheaper than slicehost and I feel even better.
Sorry for coming in late when no one reads anymore, but...

Clan societies (that is, most everywhere, before state monopolies on violence) had this kind of revenge for generations. Afghanistan and parts of Iraq are famous present examples.

Afaik (no references, but I think Wikipedia supports this), the research says that old Scandinavia's local ting was a bit more of a negotiating place for feuds than a governing/judging assembly.

Edit: Life on Iceland was certainly even harder than in the rest of Scandinavia. That would probably have left less time over for that time's main sports -- pillage, etc.
That's why this "hyper low" rate environment is dangerous. Because it won't last and when rates start to go up, the market will stall or even decline.

Excellent point. Of course, the government knows this, and will thus be terrified to raise rates for a long time to come. Any raising of rates will quickly cut short the recovery, and then the government will panic and lower them again. Welcome to Japan!
A pop-up is not going to fix the tremendous discrepancy between submission votes and comment votes. It's mostly a matter of 'how about acknowledging this was a poor idea'
>The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September. At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee used his iPhone to snap photos of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee's hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present.

I was present for this. It was a self-deprecating joke, not an actual admonition, and Ballmer later addressed the fact that Microsoft just isn't competitive in mobile right now, and tried to hype up Windows Mobile 7 (as it was then known).

I worked at MSFT last summer, and I had an iPhone. So did my (full time) office mate. So did my mentor. I think my team's dev lead did too. Probably around 40-50% of my team did. It wasn't frowned upon at all. I also used Opera on my work machines and the most I encountered was curiosity.

Every time one of these "Microsofties can't use competitors' products" articles comes up I find it really frustrating, because it's at best an inaccurate generalization.
Why aren't you using appengine?

What exactly is the point of triple stores? they're always much slower than a proper schema.

Do you use genetic programming in bioinformatics? if not, why not?

Is it possible to make profits in bioinformatics (ie. not be government funded) ? Specifically, are there free datasets that you can "infer" new information from using machine learning/genetic programming and sell this information for big bucks?
Pacquiao vs clottey live stream
watch manny pacquiao as he beats joshua clottey later tonight at exactly 9pm est in texas
Good summary, though reading the actual book may make it easier to internalize those principles. I figure that's similar to the 10,000-hour rule for becoming an expert in a field: the more time you spend internalizing something, the more likely you'll actually use what you just read.
OmniOutliner on the Mac is awesome for note taking.

Being able to take notes in an outline format allows me to order the information as it comes in. People often jump around and come back to a point or say they will speak more about something later, with an outliner I am able to keep topics organized better.
An up-vote is a bit different from a down-vote. It's a way of saying "I agree. Were I to post a comment, it would be similar to yours. In fact, you said it better". See, there isn't much to add to an up-vote, because it is agreement.

However, a down-vote is rebuttal. However, when no actual rebuttal is given, there is no meaningful conversation happening. It's just an anonymous rejection. I think that to be meaningful, a down-vote should _require_ some explanation as to why. And, the 'rule' should be that simply disagreeing is insufficient rationale to down-vote. You must state why.

The problem with your suggestion is that it would actively encourage fighting and discourage more agreeable discourse: Upvote all you like without comment but you must comment when downvoting.

Yes, a forum of ideas needs to have a certain tolerance for different points of view and opinions and for the friction involved in expressing those differences. But it's really quite a tricky thing to foster an environment where sharing different points of view is constructive and additive rather than merely socially destructive and a promotion of in-fighting, promotion of polarized "camps" within the community, etc. I am someone who has, at times, asked why I got downvoted because I wanted to understand what the problem was with my remark. Sometimes, that turned out to be a constructive exercise. But requiring people to state their criticism/reasons for nay-saying is highly unlikely to be constructive or improve the atmosphere here. It will most likely just promote hurt feelings, feuds and so on.
Getting to 201 karma is the threshold for downvoting I believe. It may have been moved to 251.
Ask HN: Did you order an iPad? Why or why not?
Hey, it's the weekend and I didn't see this posted here yet.

I am holding off. Normally I would splurge, but I can't really afford it right now. Maybe this summer.
On Cloud: Show off your rails or merb app with free hosting
That's actually a great idea. Maybe the karma point could be given back if the post is voted down to -4 (showing that it actually should be voted down).