skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I went from a job at a company whom provided insurance because they could get a pretty decent deal by bargaining with their 150+ employees, to a company who doesn't provide insurance because you can't really bargain with 9 employees.

Luckily, the second job pays me enough to get insurance on my own and I still make more than what I did before, but if I had a family to think of that may not have been the case. For someone in that situation, it would likely be easier to make that jump because of the assistance the government can now provide to those who can't afford insurance on their own.

Not to mention, when the exchange opens up in 2014, more small businesses will be able to provide insurance to their employees and those who absolutely can't take a job with insurance will have more options.

Furthermore, with the tax credits small business will get for providing insurance to their employees, it might free up financial resources for business who already provide insurance to their employees, allowing them to expand their workforce.
I'd love to open an account this week if you want to send an invite.
The entitlement unsustainability is entirely a problem of demographics. People are living longer and having fewer children, so the ratio of young working people (who pay) to old retired people (who benefit) is diminishing.

The classic answers are to either increase FICA taxes or cut benefit levels... which seems idiotic, when the obvious solution (to me) is to just raise the eligibility age. Part of the problem is that people are living longer, and are mostly healthy and able to work longer, so raise the retirement age.
I read this article in the print version and I was a little disappointed.

It seemed to mainly focus on paypal, credit cards, new interfaces to paypal and credit cards, such as on mobile phones. Those are not frictionless and not almost free.

There was only a passing reference to Chaum and other money systems.

I think that a system that was very distributed, where each individual could play the role of a consumer or offer credit or lend their reputation to back others, could be pretty big and cut down on the currently exhorbitant middle man fees.
My only relationship to duck duck go is as a user. nothing else.
second question -> I know full well my words could have absolutely no effect in persuading you, as search is such a personal and habitual experience. So instead I resort to simply saying; use it for a week and let the site speak for itself. Pardon my deliberate canny dodge.

anyway after a bit of a rant here is what i consider the most powerful feature of ddg: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209619
@ptn ... quote 'oprah an't that beautiful either' and she got her own show. this an't going to work if you r not going to get out of your comfort zone.

upside, posting a Ask HN is a good stand. Try make a video next.
is your "pre-existing condition" diabetes?

Yep, type 1 diabetes. I also have autoimmune hypothyroidism, but that's rather insignificant in comparison (one 10 cent pill per day).
It's not just founders, it's a big deal with startup staffing in general. I took an effective pay cut when I went to work for a startup because they weren't big enough to buy health insurance in bulk the way my previous employer could.

My CEO wrote about this last year: http://www.benhuh.com/2009/08/01/the-killer-fear-of-guarante...
Is there a system pasteboard command like Mac OS X's pbcopy and pbpaste?
This is a pretty common piece of software. Any specific reason you posted it?
Don't get me wrong - I know checks are pretty much non-existent in other countries - but to say we're stuck in the 80's? That's a bit over the top. Clearly, until you do banking here and deal with a company like USAA, I'm not sure you're qualified to comment.
>Is there not one good benefit of this search engine that you can put in to words?

It has a duck.

Just use it for a week.
- Why start your own business? Why start early?
So that you won't have to work some stupid boss and complain all for the rest of your life. We all make mistake along the way. Better to learn from any mistakes early.

- How to be a domain expert?
Got to love the subject, and be really really really good at it.

- How do you know if you have the right Idea?
There is not right idea, just a solution to solve a problem.

- Why it will be the hardest thing you will ever do?
f!

- How do you bootstrap?
Try to be a bit creative here alright.

- How do you find investors?
See above.
This isn't really true. You can incorporate a company and as long as you have two US citizen employees, you can get a company health plan that bypasses pre-existing conditions. (This is true in California by law, but I am not sure about other states)
duck duck go uses its own index.
Can you provide a reference for this "cash benefits for doctors who reduce long-term costs" portion of the bill?
Of course—but if Apple doesn't want to do that design, they really shouldn't be allowing people to set $400 as a price for an App in the first place. In fact, I'd say that any price over $40 should get the developer a phone call with the App Store marketing department (you know, the one that chooses apps for "Staff Picks" and arranges large front-page banners and such) asking them whether they're sure about the app's "value placement" in the store.
So it's just showing your work? Well it sounds like you have it answered, just start showing people your blog.
Mgrs manage... most of the time they dun do technical shit! more importantly is that u, not other. u being a CTO wat can u do to make things fast with IT.
I missed two. I typically interface HN via RSS, not the main "news" web UI, and never bothered to count the number of items on the first page. I really had no clue what language it was written in. Not too bad, I suppose, for signing up considerably less than a year ago.

Good quiz, though.
well I did notice the privacy policy - duck duck go does not store ip addresses - you can also search via https if you wish.
Glad to see another Canuck here. If you're ever one province over, give me a shout.
Emacs has pretty good/massive documentation: for help, just press "C-h t" (Control-h, then t ...) for a tutorial. Or, type "M-x info" to get into info mode and then scroll down to the Emacs section. Type 'h' in info mode for a tutorial on info ...

Are you using Scheme or Common Lisp? For MIT Scheme or similar, you might want to take the Emacs tutorial in Edwin instead (start MIT Scheme with the "-edit" flag) since it contains Scheme-specific commands. Also check out http://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/ and follow the directions to install xscheme.elc - it gives you a Scheme-mode optimized for MIT Scheme. This doesn't compare to SLIME mode for Common Lisp, but I don't know of a good substitute.

That said, there are QUITE a lot of Emacs and Scheme-mode commands, and the only way to learn them is through use. Once you're familiar with the basics (motions and evaluating), you might take a list of commands you want to master and put up two or three at a time, making a point of using them. Here's a very limited and basic set of Emacs/Scheme commands: http://github.com/bcdarwin/SICP/blob/master/emacs_bindings_s...

There is also customization via the .emacs file or Emacs Lisp programming; see the Emacs info documentation or the O'Reilly books on this.
If you're in the sales/no-sales dilemma and you're a key asset for selling I recommend first to cowork side by side with somebody with experience in sales.

If you came from some engineering field you must have some idea about selling, probably starting seeing sales as an engineering problem, I recommend these articles:

- http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/sales-marketing-machine/jbos...

- http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/sales-marketing-machine/intr...

But in my opinion sales is all about no-procrastination and acting very quickly instead of planning too much.
I mostly agree with you, and I do think there's a great deal of gaming going on in the numbers.

But I also think one reason for having 4 years for the benefits to kick in is to give the private companies implementing those benefits times to adjust.

Given that concern, it's probably not nearly enough time.
do a couple of videos and ask for feedback for your existing customers. preach a lot on how ur solution solve your customer's problem.
For 7 years, I did. And I am glad that, temporarily, I need not.

Edit: Conversely, if you do not have experience of more modern banking systems, I am not sure you can appreciate the appalling state of the U.S. one.
I'd also love to open an account with ING, if you'd send one my way.
A few mainstream banks (non-FCUs) did this as well. Smaller banks mostly, but even BB&T made out okay through all the commotion.
$750/year is about the cost of so-called "catastrophic" insurance: high deductible, low monthly. Worthless for the kind of chronic ailments that old people suffer, invaluable for things like car accidents or leukemia. Only an idiot would rather pay the fine than buy this kind of insurance.
Ugh.

I know that posts like this give managers the warm fuzzies, but I doubt there are many entrepreneurial hackers who want to advance their careers slowly by proving themselves as an up-and-comer to some manager.

There is too much opportunity out there to waste your time in this kind of startup.
I second looking at darkxanthos' blog posts about his experiences with "social skydiving": http://socialskydivingwithjustin.posterous.com/social-skydiv...
Get out and find people a bit like yourself. My advice: Find a hackerspace where you can collaborate with people in person. You can start by helping them, or giving them input without exposing your work all at once. You'll be around people who understand your type, and some of them will likely be shy as well. Many of the meetings at these places are not overwhelmingly crowded, but there are enough people there that you can lurk if you want to. As you get more comfortable with the people, you'll find it easier to share. Eventually, you might even give a presentation with another member, to the group. Or maybe you'll give a presentation yourself. You'll be able to practice your interpersonal skills on people who won't judge you very harshly.
Why @ Is Held in Such High Design Esteem
"Next time you see an old person eating bacon and eggs in a restaurant, picture that person's bypass operation, years of statins, and excessive end of life care that you are paying for..."

Cardiovascular disease is mostly caused by carbohydrate consumption and inactivity. The Feds subsidize these, and health care "reform" will make the problem worse.
The reason is the $265 billion tax break given to employers for providing health insurance.

During WW2, there were wage controls, but employers needed to attract workers, so Congress gave them this small (at the time) tax break for providing health insurance to workers. (They don't have to pay payroll taxes on that portion of compensation.) Who doesn't want to encourage employers to provide perks to their employees, especially perks that improve their health?

But this has blossomed into a huge market imbalance, where people can't change jobs due to insurance concerns, and buying individual insurance puts you at a huge financial disadvantage compared to employer-provided insurance.
I have not heard that catastrophic coverage is banned by the bill, but the end of this sort of insurance is implied because of adverse selection. Either "insurers cannot refuse coverage" will have exceptions, or reduced cost/reduced benefit programs have to go. Maybe it will take a year or two before the "quality standards" get enacted, but I can't see it not happening.

I don't care about the people who choose to go without health insurance to save money. I wind up paying for them when they get hit by a car, when their appendix bursts, when they have a freak aneuryism, or when they fall down their stairs.

People go without health insurance because it is incredibly expensive. For a lot of people it is a crappy deal, or just flat out unaffordable.

It is interesting how people who thought they couldn't afford health insurance used to be portrayed as victims. Now they're the bad guys, they broke the system for everyone else, and you don't need to care about them. What a difference two years makes.
Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Ah, right! Rereading the thread, that seems the more likely interpretation.
Metal and Jazz, sometimes Country. Metallica to Cat Powers to Django Reinhardt to Travis Tritt to Sepultura to Ida Maria to Godsmack to Opeth to Jennifer Holliday to Jeff Buckley to Rise Against to Jesse Dee to Pantera to Stone Sour to Paul Brandt to Hank Mobley, etc., etc., etc.
That's not even an answer... For me it doesn't have any benefit (it hasn't got my google search profile), but I'm also interested in what benefit do you see in it. Even just because I'm curious...
Im not quite sure what you were watching or reading... but in the video i watched, in the link above, he actually says some games cant be played on a touch screen. He didn't say that it wasn't a gaming platform. Besides, it's just his opinion lol
Now, yes. But based on Hekla's history there's real danger.
Be humble and remember you do not always have the right answer. Listen to advice from everyone and learn when to take some of it with a grain of salt. Question every piece of information from every source, including your own gut feelings. If you can learn to challenge the boss on financials, listen to your subordinates on their recommendations, and be weary of your own misconceptions, you will do just fine.

Best of luck!
Author of the blog post here. I posted this mainly to get feedback on the different password hashing schemes for open source software/frameworks with the added benefit of some background as to why bcrypt matters. I defer to fellow HNer tptacek's article about secure password schemes for a complete explanation on why bcrypt is the best. It's linked in the post but here it is again for reference: http://chargen.matasano.com/chargen/2007/9/7/enough-with-the....
My understanding is that this type of insurance is not an option under this law.
This looks really cool. We still do a ton of Flash development and this looks worth playing with.
I recommend that you read this book: Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr Maxwell Maltz. If you practice all the exercises in the book, particularly the one at the end of chapter two, you will start seeing tangible results after day 21 and significant results in a few months. I cannot recommend this enough!
Which are made of cats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8VTeDHjcM
Hacker. I work on trading systems, it's a huge part of the job to find obscure and occasionally somewhat ridiculous bugs in other people's code under time pressure.

And, unrelated, but why are there pictures of sushi everywhere? It's very late, I'm very tired, and suddenly, I'm very hungry for what is not a standard late-night snack...
Wow. I'd love to see Textmate support this!
with respect to a blog, create a fresh anonymous online identity, and go from there. no need to show it to people you know. let it continue to be closed off so that you can comfortably show off your work. include it on resumes only if it is applicable, where you can feel more comfort in the fact that you're putting a whole lot of yourself out on the line and that adding the blog is just a drop in the bucket.

with respect to app/business, find a partner who is willing to be the face of the company, and operate behind them. no one really has to know that you're supplying the code.
Great suggestions here. I'd also suggest improv classes or acting classes. Most large cities have improv classes of some form, and your local community college is bound to have some acting classes. They are a great way to get in front of people in a controlled setting, and try to do weird things. After pretending to be an elephant in front of an acting class every week for 3 months, it's amazing how much easier it is to talk with a stranger about your product.
It's not that hard to understand.

MySQL is a popular RDBMS starting point. Therefore, almost by definition, if you run into someone using a RDBMS but not really knowing WTF they are doing, they're quite often using MySQL.

If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool.
FlashPunk - Setting Up Our Game
Entrepreneur Group Interview: Etsy.com Shop Sellers
Every piece of paper I have was given to me by someone else.
Catastrophic insurance, with a high deductible, is what I carry. They are going to be grandfathered, but no new policies of this kind will be allowed under this law. An all encompassing health insurance, with the kind of deductible they have legislated, is not cheap.
The parts in quotes above are taken directly from the body text. What's not to understand?
No, but it IS a discussion forum.

Would you rather OP had posted "Ask HN: What do you think of ddg?"
Does the FF toolbar allow HTTPS searches now? And is the "useless page blocker" optional?
Just keep in mind that you are going to die eventually, and that life is short, so it will be relatively soon.

There's so few ways that embarrassment will kill you but there's many ways that being really really alone like that will kill you.

Worst thing happens is you get laughed at, best thing happens is something really good. So focus on the really good. laughed at isn't anything.
I used to be awkward, then I realized that by talking to people when I feel that way I can transfer my awkwardness to them, and split between the two of us its not so bad. The shyness comes from trying to handle it all on your own.
I don't understand how your logic follows. There are no rules in the Senate bill that cap premiums, or establish floors for the premiums of high deductable insurance. Won't adverse selection drive down the cost of high-deductable insurance as it becomes a proxy for "insurance for 20-30 year olds unlikely to make claims"?

If you can afford health insurance, and health insurance is available to you, and you decide not to buy it because you're 25 and you don't think you'll need it, you don't deserve my sympathy. If you can't afford health insurance, you deserve whatever we can do to make health insurance affordable to you. Please don't try to drag me into identity politics. This isn't a "rich vs. poor" issue.
"Why should the average 20-30+ year old even carry insurance?"

Because an accident or infection can run up $50k in costs before you can even put the paperwork through.
So I opposed this bill, but now I have an honest question: Rationally speaking, shouldn't I cancel my health insurance? I'll pay the fine, which is way less than my current premiums, and I'll just wait until something goes wrong to buy insurance, since I can't be turned down.
People don't ridicule me now, but they used to, up until I was 16 or so. That's probably it.
I'm not talking about the Duck Duck Go post. I'm always curious to see what people think of Duck Duck Go. I totally don't understand it.

If you posted "Ask HN: What do you think of Google", I'd flag your post.

(Oh, you're commenting because you can't see the parent post, which the author deleted, and which submitted Google as a news article. Now you know.)
I shall elaborate :)

"I and other gamers will decide what we think are gaming platforms"

He's not suggesting that it isn't a gaming platform - he's just saying that not every game can be experienced as well as it potentially could on that device.
Not everyone would be able to do this though. Working more than part time I'd feel that I couldn't put enough time into my education. I know some people are better at quickly being able to switch tasks and work effectively in short blocks but not all.
I think this presentation is based on a false dichotomy. Bottom up vs top down describes how you add any given feature, but agile vs waterfall is about trying doing a whole lot of features at once, vs. iteratively, one at a time. This presentation seems to seek to equate bottom up with non-agile and top down with agile.
I totally agree with you, but you skipped over the "WHY".

Why did it "blossom"? Why did it not get corrected after WW2? Especially when (forgive my lack of data) I'm sure public data could corroborate that the average time spent in one position/job has decreased steadily since then.
>If universal health care were really that important to entrepreneurship, why isn't Silicon Valley in Europe?

Lots of people with health problems and families can't work for startups at the moment who will be able to once this happens. That's why this matters.

I'd say the business regulations are the huge difference between those countries and the US as far as silicon valley goes.
DDG wins hands down with respect to privacy.
Hi all. I'm Josh, one of the team behind Banksimple. If you have any questions, feel free to ask us anything.

Of course, with the recent outbreak of spring weather here in NYC, I've been out and about instead of checking HN. But I'll follow this thread for any questions or comments that you may have.
Very interesting. Can you provide a quote/link of the legislation or some other authoritative sources about this?
8/10. I thought the last question was a trick, but the top bar IS orange so whatever.
Patting myself on the back for 8/10. I figured this submission would receive "Enough" votes, and obviously never took in the Green certification note.
So much good advice that's high-level so here's a real simple one...

Trim your nails.
"most of the healthcare reform goes to the practitioners who practice useless surgeries and interventions on a vulnerable population of elderly"

A lot of doctors don't want anything to do with medicare patients because they are often breakeven at best and in many cases a net loss. They are many times required to care for these patients in order to maintain hospital accreditation programs that allow them to look attractive to patients with insurance (where the hospital actually makes some profit).

It is good to pay attention to healthcare availability, but no sustainable solution can ignore the cost side. Excess litigation has played a significant role in the massive overinflation of healthcare costs. Flooding hospitals with patients with government insurance - likely to be net-negative income for hospitals - is going to destroy the healthcare system faster than it fixes it.
I would dare to say that our government sucks at solving any problem. A few examples:

U.S. Teens Trail Peers Around World on Math-Science Test
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12...

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23pri...

Lehman Cooked The Books Prior To Collapse; Geithner And NY Fed Implicated
http://thelibertyguardian.com/2010/03/lehman-cooked-the-book...

Let's face it; our government is setup to help the big corporations.
Will Creatine Actually Work?
Bodybuilders do all they will to extend their muscles. One method to travel regarding it's to stick to the accurate schedule of tough exercise and the other method is by taking supplements. Bodybuilders do both.
Wow, the smiling to strangers thing sounds like It'll help, thanks for that.

Here's another one I came up with: I live in a 12-store building where 44 families live. I will say hi and bye to everyone that shares the elevator with me instead of looking at my shoes and pretend they are not there. And I will smile while doing so.
BCrypt is the way to go. I recently used the ruby-bcrypt library and its really simple to use, the docs are also good on getting you started. I did have a couple of questions though. Can I tune the :cost parameter, and not have to recalculate the existing hashes? Also, how would I handle hashing SSNs since the domain of the data is very limited, and could be easily calculated, even with high complexity bcrypt?
He uses yahoo's index, as well as his own index to get the best results. So it's a combination.
That one was pretty drastic, but very true. Thanks for the advice.