skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Dear Publisher,

Despite having vast datacenters full of machines that combine and recombine data in wondrous ways, we can't be bothered to send you an email with your actual name on it.

Yahoo! continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and
services, in alignment with business goals and our continued
commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences.

This email was too short, so we spun the buzzword roulette wheel and out popped this sentence. It says nothing, every business "evaluates" and "prioritizes" stuff, it's called management.

After conducting an extensive review of the Yahoo! Publisher Network
beta program, we have decided to close the program effective April 30,
2010.

We had to tell you about the extensive review, we don't want you thinking that we're shutting down a business unit as a knee-jerk reaction to some unpleasant business numbers and pressure from the board to do something, anything rather than sit around with our thumbs up our asses.

We forgot to consider the possibility that if we really had done an extensive review, we'd have found someone to buy the business outright. Shutting it down without a buyer might make you think that we're losing so much money nobody will touch it, which reflects rather poorly on our "Continuous evaluation and prioritization of our products and services," but hopefully you're too damn stupid to figure that out for yourself. After all, if our board isn't smart enough to know we've reached rock bottom and begun to dig, why would you figure it out?

We expect to deliver final publisher payments for the month ending
April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All
publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those
mailed by January 31, 2011.

Because our content will no longer be delivered to your ad unit
spaces after April 30, 2010, we recommend removing all YPN ad code
from your pages by that date.

Or else you're going to look pretty silly when your pages break!

For the opportunity to continue earning revenue, we suggest using
Chitika, a leading advertising network that syndicates Yahoo! Content
Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process
for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform. Click here
for more information.

We are, of course, getting kickbacks. But we won't mention that, we'll make it sound like we're giving you friendly advice. Which you will take from a management team that can't keep their own ship afloat, much less figure out who else has a decent product.

We thank you for your participation in the Yahoo! Publisher Network
beta. If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please
contact our Support Team at (866) 785-2636, Monday through Friday from
7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT.

Don't call, ever. Or we'll be forced to put you through voice mail hell before connecting you to a call centre in Laos.

(Apologies to Job Gruber)
The only reason I can think of is for internal statistics. For example the website owner can run a report on their customers broken down by a state or country.
Nowadays with GeoIP, this is obsolete.
This doesn't address 0MQ's performance improvement claims, which I would have thought was the biggest thing the RabbitMQ guys would want to address.
Marketing is not a department
>I've been looking for job opportunities w/ the big 4

Just curious. What draws you to working for the big 4?
If I wanted to write a blog post which elaborated on all possible internationalization issues, it would become a PhD dissertation and take a year to write.

And then it wouldn't even touch on all the issues.

You have to start somewhere — and let's face it, dealing with the two silly problems I mentioned would get us 80% of the way there.
Caffeine consumption improves short-term memory and even makes dendrites in the brain spindlier. I'll accept the downsides.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/RSNA/2238
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/472473.stm
Your post reads like you've never actually been to India. I won't comment on the quality of Indian programmers, but I would say it's nearly universally accepted that the Indian flavor of English* rates at about the middle school level in the US. I have never seen so much poor grammar and misspellings in public places anywhere I've been. My guess is that they are taught English phonetically and that as long as the spelling looks like it would be pronounced correctly, the fact that it's way off doesn't matter at all. Most Indians, provided they're from the same region, speak to each other in their native tongue rather than English (whether it's Kannada, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, etc). English is the fall-back when people don't share the same Indian language.

* I'm commenting on popular English, not scholarly works.
Not much by way of technical content. Although when the original charge is that the protocol is "fundamentally flawed", I don't know how you can respond specifically beyond saying "it works and people are using it" (which it seems to and which they are).
The unsolvable problem is that in this day and age, both parents work.

Usually links to the Onion don't belong on Hacker News, but in this recent case

http://www.theonion.com/articles/increasing-number-of-parent...

jest is truth.
Well-funded YC startup looking for employee #1
Absolutely — which is I would recommend providing multi-line edit boxes for addresses.

That way you can enter your address any way you see fit. You really know best how to address mail so that it gets to you, why would I want to pretend I know better?
He presents a false dichotomy. There is nothing stopping an iPad-like UX being configurable in a way which makes geeks happy. It's just a matter of putting the configuration controls out of the way of most users.
Slightly off topic, but does anyone know where I can get the 8-bit music featured on the Engadget podcast?
Indepth look at my freelance logo design process – Part 1
Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) closing down. One less competitor for AdSense
Wikipedia used to have a list of them, I remember there being at least 5, possibly more.
And when you've paid $150 dollars for a disneyland park hopper pass, that $12 slice of pizza and small soda doesn't seem that bad either, but you're still being taken to the cleaners.
It's a free app? Seems like they could have charged $4.99 for it, and still sold about as many... Wonder what the decision went like to make it free.
only 2? :(
Exactly.

And note that if you overzealously validate, you'll get garbage data anyway. What do you think I enter as a phone number if I can't enter my number at all?
I found this post disappointingly short on administrative details, unlike Max Klein's earlier Rentacoder-related post, which is surely the definitive reference on this subject:

http://blog.cubeofm.com/the-subtleties-in-outsourcing-using-...
Until the wrong zip code is written or it's illegible. They go to great lengths to deliver mail that is damaged, incorrect, etc. and not having this extra information would end up being too expensive to continue this practice. They would have to say "get it right or we throw it out".
Are you sure you read it ? He's got this in there (or was the text edited?)

> would like to gain some programming experience preferably under the supervision of an experienced programmer.

I think that describes a mentoring situation fairly accurately.

If you can find something that interests you a lot, then contact the lead programmer on the project and see if you are welcome to stick your oar in.

Keep in mind that most people will reluctant to do this because most software guys are under serious pressure to deliver and may not want to take on someone that might slow them down.

If that's their worry make sure you tell them they can nix the deal without hard feelings if they feel that's the case, that might give you an edge on the way in.
How does this reply add value? The blog post presents a problem that I (being an American) rarely even think about. I wanted to see how others deal with this issue. WTF is this reply doing?
I actually work for one right now, however I'm not happy with the role I was moved to - so im looking for other opportunities within the various other service lines at my firm (as well as others).

I like the big 4 because it a stable work environment, the pay is good, and benefits are amazing (24+ vaca days and im not that senior!). The trick is finding a spot you're happy in can be a problem if you're not into accounting/auditing. Depending the position/management/etc you can be overworked, so thats something to be cognizant of.
Previous submission:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1036509

I only found this one by SearchYC, not by Google site-restricted search, which is happening annoyingly often recently.
"Acually, as typical American"

It helps, when mocking a people, to convey such mockery through proper use of their language. ;)

More seriously, there's no need to douche up the conversation by throwing around slurs against nationalities.

EDIT: Apparently people disagree on that need. Ah, well.
While accepting generic address is nice, if you actually use the address for anything actually knowing the Country and Zip+4 for the US gives you a lot of power for things like advertizing campaigns. Also, the chances of a user entering bad data when given an unformatted field increased dramatically.

My suggestion is to give the option to enter generic information but don't let that become the default.
One more try to modernize US surveillance laws for the Internet age
Freemium: Everyone's Doing It, But How?
Online Transcriptions
Transcriptions of information blitz in the form of audio and video, call toll free number 1-(877)-323-4707, accepted formats MP3, MP4, WAV, WMA, RA, RV, CD, WMA, RA,RV,RMA,RMVB,DSS etc.
You just know someone is going to make a display wall out of them.
I've spent about two weeks in India. Most Indians don't speak English. The college educated – a tiny minority – do.

The mangling is somewhat typical of a lingua franca in less-than-cultured contexts. That a shop owner can't write properly in their third language doesn't say much about the intellectual class's abilities.

Real Indian-English – the stuff you hear on the news – is a proper dialect (akin to, say, Scots), not simply bad English.
I'm not sure how to put this, so bear with me. Once you go down the road of "configurability" you immediately lose the focus that would come with a device like this. IMO the reason that the IPhone/IPod/IPad interface "works" is because they PREVENT things. It isn't for everyone, sure, but it works for most people. Good UX design is as much about removing abilities as it is about gaining them.

Your average "joe on the street" doesn't want a computer, they want a consumer electronic device (a game console, a point-and-shoot camera, a television).
Be Your Own OpenID Provider with Tonido OpenID
Maybe ebay or some domain auction would get you some traction. Also, not to put too fine a point on it I don't think they're very strong names, the only exceptions are slowdance.co.uk, and jkz.in, that has to be worth something more than 5 pounds to someone in India.

Did you have any specific project / reason in mind when registering these ? If so maybe you should add that so that the name can be placed in some context, like you did with the 'bec.ause'.
BusinessWeek names Inkling (YC 06) one of America's most promising startups
A real person, a lot like you
We've been told for years that database normalization is good. Removing data redundancy is good. This is one reason forms are broken into so many separate fields as discretely as possible.

That said, once a company decides to do business outside their country of origin, some serious rethinking of customer-facing forms (and fields, if applicable) is in order.
What is your site's address? I'd be curious to see it.
I should probably clarify something, given how heated the discussion is becoming.

I could have written the same thing as a nerdy techie article, pointing out flaws in input validation. Do you think this would have gotten my point across? How many people would have read that article? Would it have made it to Hacker News?

Look: this is not a rant about Americans. It just so happens that US has developed most of the internet as we know it and it just so happens that most of e-commerce happens there. I'm sure any number of websites in other countries are guilty of similar sins, but you have to start somewhere.

The point is, we should start thinking more carefully about how we validate forms and store user data in that "global economy" everyone is bragging about.
Zip codes may cross state lines.

Example, please?
I don't know much about Romania, is $25 really a top-tier rate?

From experience, when you talk about top programming talent, the rates between countries start to converge. So almost everyone at the top demands > $50 an hour regardless of the geographic location.

Of course working at that rate means that you not only have exceptional technical skills, but you can communicate well, have a business sense and actually care about the success of the project and the customer.

I still freelance part time on select projects but my hourly rate is rarely less than $50/hr and that's only because i do not take on large projects due to my day time work and business. I also stopped working with customers who differentiate on price alone.
agreed - the big 4 job market is RIDDLED with generally useless recruiters. KPMG and EY i believe use 3rd parties (taleo and apply2jobs) to power their internal job list and they are by and large horribley user-unfriendly (which is why i made the site in the first place).

I got listing by polling the sites and each site needed a custom solution to pull the data down. Creating the mechanisms for grabbing jobs from each site took 80% of the total dev time.
It's not universally true, no.

If you under-validate, you risk sales you can't complete. Mind, that's less dire when you have email addresses - but we know the problems with trying to validate those on forms.
Is this part of the deal that Yahoo signed with Microsoft?
Cars are probably the best example of this, because there's a lot of technology in cars and nobody cares about it. Cup holders are famously important. I'm reminded of something from this story about a guy who goes undercover as a car salesman to learn how the business really works:

"As I prepared to leave, my editor offered me this advice: "When you're interviewing, don't tell them you know a lot about cars. They don't care. If they ask why you want to work there, just tell them you want to make a lot of money."" (http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/page001....)
Agreed. I did not find the end to be optimistic at all. I found it to be a totalitarian nightmare. Let's face it, technology like this isn't going to be "opt out" if the government has anything to do with it. Show me a government that, when given more data about the personal lives of the governed, didn't become more oppressive in using this information to first encourage, and later coerce specific behavior.

We already see this coming with "smart grid" technology, whereby the power companies would be able to control when you use certain appliances. Now imagine gaming that system, whereby you would be allowed to use certain devices more if you correct certain behaviors. There's just no end to this.

Now imagine a group of people decides that they are going to "opt out" anyway, and go off grid. They defeat the sensors in their lives in some fashion because they no longer wish to be tracked and monitored. The response is predictable: These people are labeled as subversives who use resources without accountability. They are not good citizens. They promote societal unrest. They cannot be allowed to ruin the lives of their fellow countrymen with their selfish behavior. They must be forced to comply.

Yeah, disturbing to say the least.
It's more insidious at a Best Buy where large purchases like HDTV with accessories are often financed and the salesperson says they can have the best without paying for it (right now).

The average consumer has no clue and doesn't want to learn that digital is digital, not like analog. All they know is when there is poor signal they get nothing on their TV (or blocky) where on their old TV they at least got a viewable picture with noise.
Having been around long enough to remember when nearly every PDA supported IrDA, I'd agree that the whole bump thingy seems like one really complicated (but very clever!) workaround.
Instead of using 'Witch' to command+tab between windows and apps, I actually find the built-in method of switching far easier to use: Command+Tab switches applications, Command+` switches windows within an app. And bundled with my probably favorite OS X shortcut to un-minimize windows[1], I don't see a need for added utilities.

[1] If you Command+Tab into an application that's minimized, it won't be restored, unless: Command+Tab into the minimized application, and while holding down Command, press Option, and then let go of Command; your window will spring back to life. This sounds and feels awkward at first, but quickly becomes second nature. (I use my left hand thumb+ring finger to Command+Tab, then I just move ring finger from Tab to Option, and let go of Command)
> designed to be a consumer good

That is the iPad, and iPhone/iTouch before it. I don't know what you mean by "decent home computer" but for me "decent computer" is not compatible to "consumer good". Consumer goods are black boxes that just work, computers are DIY tools.
> I don't know much about Romania, is $25 really a top-tier rate?

Yes, it is top-tier.
Google brought me to this article; I'm showing the jump to near where the issue is mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#By_geography
> Caffeine – When activated stops your Mac going to sleep! Great for presentations or watching your “on demand” TV shows.

Seriously, you need an app for that?!
Very nice. Anyone have links for other languages? Python and ruby in particular.

My take is that we need to validate (people screw up and often), ask them to verify when we can't validate and proceed after verification.
I think the name itself would be a useful verb...
Ask HN: Should I pull an April fools at my Google interview on Thursday?
I love the idea and then at least then Google could know what they are getting themselves into ;)

The biggest problem is that it's a phone interview. I don't really know how to get OUT of the joke on the phone (I can't just grin uncontrollably and make them laugh).

Also, what would a good joke be?

Claiming to be a hired contractor conducting the interview in my name b/c I found a legal loophole allowing me to sue them if they don't interview him? I guess they would hang up.

Claiming to be SJ? Too obvious.

I was thinking of answering their "what Google product do you like most" question with their April fools' product... Or just making up my own fake product and out-googling them! I wish I could go there in person and show them a fake google product on my phone :(

Anyways, should I do it? I am expecting to be fooled and a pre-emptive strike could prevent that. har har.

And Dave, if you're reading this: I'm just kidding! Don't worry.
I believe you've just massively overestimated the prevalence of Hindi in technical discourse and on the web.

I tried to dig up some statistics, but Hindi isn't even prevalent enough to register in the stats:

http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/world-overview/92-language...

http://www.translate-to-success.com/internet-language-use.ht...
"Would it have made it to Hacker News?"

Heaven knows, we never see nerdy, technical material on this site.

Are you trying to "clarify" or "justify"?

EDIT: Serious question. At the same time you're saying "this is not a rant about Americans", you're also saying but none of you would have paid attention if I hadn't made it one.
Hmm, interesting. I could see this being a service that charges you a monthly fee. I'm sure that a lot of people(migrants mostly) would be more than fine working for fees which we consider really low. In more detail, if you make 100 an hour, giving 10/h actually earns you another 100/h every time that person runs a task for you.
I remember there was a thread here a while ago about the most vicious attacks we've experienced.

I don't think I get it too bad, but I do get them. I wonder where people come from saying some of the things they do, even here.
This is pretty standard in SV (the #'s mentioned by Mint are market).
Ask HN: Best practices for quickly selling a small company?
I have a company that makes less than $250k/year in a niche market. I have an offer to co-found a different, unrelated company. If I were to accept the offer, I would want to move quickly. What are best practices for placing a value a company of this size and for structuring a sale?

My goals are:

- get out quickly

- provide continuity for existing customers

- have minimal ongoing responsibility

- not leave money on the table (but otherwise, this is secondary to the first three goals).

Our stats

- sole founder

- 30% growth last year and this year

- 80% of revenue comes from professional services

- three other workers are on 1099 and amount to 1.75 FTE

- sales come from word of mouth

- our professional services are very repetitive and consist mostly of: account management, advice, and web production.

- cost of "goods", including providing the professional services, hosting, and infrastructure are 25% of revenue. Everything else goes to software development.

- our customers include the major association for this niche, which gets us in front of 2000 potential customers each year
Today, it seems, that others don't really see it that way either:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100331/0128358800.shtml
This challenge sounds like an excellent way to be rapidly educated about a broad array of security holes.
I think the middle ground of this possible fututre is very interesting.
What happens to all those folks who use specialist software such as CAD, Design, Music and other areas that still need highend systems and that know nothing about computers.
I have plenty of musician friends who know nothing about computers but know Cubase or Logic like the back of their hands.
The next 5 years will be interesting!
Really excited about this. It'd be great to see the Sass Textmate Bundle updated for the new syntax.

http://github.com/seaofclouds/sass-textmate-bundle
Cloudkick Moves (Quickly) Into the Hot Hybrid Cloud Market
Drinking coffee for its stimulant effect is like cutting the end off a piece of string and tying it to the other end to make the string longer.

That said, every day I tie one or two pieces to the end of my string.
I liked that feature. My coworkers and I would use it to settle up with each other when we went out for lunch. I never knew why they discontinued it.
This is what your downvote button is for.
Or you can just make the state field optional, add an address2 field, let zip codes be a free form string and phone-numbers a free form string. What cases would not be covered then?
Ask HN: Tips on going international
Hi all, one of the first pieces of feedback we've gotten for Alikewise.com is to expand beyond the US.

The main reason we are US-only is that we don't know the legalities of going international, especially in relation to Terms of Use and Privacy. (Technologically, we can make it happen in a few days.)

Anybody have any experiences with a US-based social site making itself available in other countries? For example, even if we operate in the US are we subject to EU privacy laws? If so, what are the issues to keep in mind?

Our starting places would be Canada & UK. Thanks!