skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Along the same lines here, I would say just don't make mistakes or large commitments in general that will tie you down. Don't get arrested for underage drinking (or DUI), don't risk having kids, don't take stupid chances with your life or health, don't screw up your credit, don't take on lots of college loans if you can avoid it, etc. Being able to live anywhere and on almost no money will make it a lot easier.

Additionally, do talk to a potential long-term partners about the entrepreneur lifestyle (and not having a high-paying job for a few years), do read as many blogs and books on entrepreneurship as you can (you won't have time once you actually start a company), do go out of your way to meet as many people as possible, and stay in touch with the smart ones.

Also, TAKE PROGRAMMING CLASSES.
> If you lose your job, you're out.

The corollary to that is that if you are 'too sick' then a reason to fire or lay you off will be found. So, in those terms, "if you have anything serious like cancer, then you don't really have health insurance".
Is the 'paperless' office here at last?
House passes health care bill, 219-212.
Once they took the public option out. I stopped following. Yes, the foaming at the mouth Tea Baggers already won. This will be a flaming red herring for generations to come. Expect lobbyist, PR firm workers and paid town hall agitators everywhere to get nice bonuses at the end of the year.
Probably closest to Architect. It's a truism in programming lore that you look back on your old code and don't understand it (hence you should comment), or you smack yourself on the forehead / cringe in embarrassment at how dumb you were.

But I've never really had this experience, except for code I wrote a long time ago (15+ years) when I didn't know enough kinds of abstractions and how to judge their weights, and I was susceptible to over-engineering. When I come back now to code I wrote a 4 or 8 years ago, it seems written in a fairly obvious way, and it's easy to modify.
Facebook is using both.
Well, shucks. GG, America. GG.
Read it, it's worth it. And if you don't think sleep is important enough to read this much about just start reading it and the author will convince you.
As a current college student, I'd recommend they try their hand at starting a student organization that does something entreprenurial (a microfinance organization, or a group providing tech services to the poor, for example). I suppose I don't have the experience to compare it to launching a startup, but from what I've understood about startups there are a lot of similarities:

- You are the one in charge, you have to make stuff happen

- You have to figure out where money is going to come from and how to make it last (if you don't have a legitimate budget sheet you're doing it wrong)

- You have to think about recruitment and retention of members (hard when payment is not an option)

- You have to manage and motivate people

- You have to set goals, develop a vision, and convey that to your members

- You have to find organizations who can help you, and learn how to form mutually beneficial partnerships

- You face hard times and good times, but have to keep going regardless

- You learn your strengths and weaknesses as a leader (good for knowing what to look for in a co-founder)

- If you are really passionate about what you're doing, you'll learn what it's like to really devote yourself to an organization

- Somewhat trivially, you'll need to learn how to handle lots of emails, personal contacts, and competing time commitments.

The nice thing is that the cost of failure is pretty much 0 in a student organization. If it doesn't work, no one will really care that much. But if it does, you've made a mark on your university and probably learned a lot in the process.
Ditto. I would emphasize the second to last one -- sales and marketing are parts of the business stack that I have little experience in, so they are the most daunting to me. I'd imagine that's the case for a lot of other technical people as well.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1208904
Those are great topics, and I would add: "Choosing your team wisely".

A former college entrepreneur myself, it was easy in the early stages to ignore "feelings" that our founding team didn't mesh well, but as the company grew in size and responsibility, those initial feelings became show stoppers.
WHY IS THERE NO C?! :)
I'm sure that's the theory, but I'd really like to see the studies that prove it. Because against those studies are all those studies showing how important sleep is to memory formation, judgment, and cognition in general. And I find myself questioning what experience the interns are getting that doesn't involve judgment and memory formation. I'm having a hard time reconciling the two.

Additionally, if it actually worked that way, others would be doing it too. Doctors aren't the only people who would like to "attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years"!
Interesting how a similar service just announced their launch a day earlier on HN also:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1207187

Looks like we have ourselves a nice little competition!
Some discussion of the impact on startups in the thread at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1208019

While it didn't discuss all of these, it seems to me that the things that will directly impact startuppers:

Pros

- Community rating, etc will make it easier for people with pre-existing conditions to get coverage. For people who have pre-existing conditions and want to do startups, it makes it possible.

- Might also make it easier for bootstrappers to get coverage.

Cons:

- The new taxes are concentrated on capital gains, so will tax startups and angel investors most of all. [This bill proposes a 3.8% increase on cap gains. The administration is also planning to change the regular cap gains from 15 to 20%, so if everything passes the rate will go from 15% to 23.8%, or a 58.6% increase.]

- Shifts costs from the older to the younger, so most startups here will pay more.

- In realistic scenarios, will probably increase the deficit, affecting interest rates. But that's long-term.

A mix of good and bad for startups, depending on where you are in the process.
House Passes Health Care Reform
The only answer is the culture behind a decision. If you're doing things right you are following a "plan" and solving a problem, a feature is your catch about a possible solution. If your competitors copy it, you did your work right, it means that you have a good knowledge of your userbase and generally of the domain.
The problem will never be a competitor copying you, it's if a competitor implements your next feature before of you and the solution you're coming up with is the same.
At that point, you're not managing the rules of the game anymore.
Arc90 lab - a collection of interesting web & usability projects
The internet is becoming the dominant factor overall in the global trade in protected species

The internet is becoming the dominant factor in everything.
You appear to be replying to mechanicalfish, if I've got this indentation correct. If this is a high schooler's web site, my web browser is really screwing up the rendering of the photo: http://www.michaelfbooth.com/ (Link is from mechanicalfish's profile, so I don't think it's a secret.)

As for myself, I'm 31, and I echo mechanicalfish's message in toto. I'd also add that the Puritan impulse in America is alive and well, it just moved on to things other than religion. This is one of them. If sleeping the way your body tells you to sleep is less miserable than sleeping correctly, then we can be pretty sure that it's wrong; the surest sign of correct behavior is misery. That's not the whole story, it's only one component, but it's there.
It even has location-based technology: it lets you know when your friends are near!
I use Etrade, which has not-great customer service, simply because they have a 0% foreign exchange fee policy, and reimburse for all ATM fees. (And I have a Capital One credit card for the same reason). If this is important to you, you should have a look at:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Ca...

The only thing I'm missing is a digital check deposit method. Etrade doesn't like taking deposits very much.
What if you moved to a different state to find a smaller than 10.3% tax in US?
Don't worry we will make sure they stay on the bottom rung of the ladder - safely managed by guys called Chester from Yale or Havard who have never seen a public school.

After all these are just geeks.
I've waxed eloquent about this on HN before, but some subfields of software development is rather treated like engineering (and, I would dare say, qualifies as engineering).

I work on avionics software. There is a lot of planning. There are formal requirements based on industry standards and the needs of the users. There are oodles of verification procedures to ensure that the software written does what the requirements demand. There are peer reviews. There is certification paperwork. There are quality audits on the requirements, the code, the verification, the reviews, and the certification paperwork. There are on-ground tests. There are flight tests.

We do require the "engineers" to have relevant degrees, and if our software crashes... well, hopefully nobody dies, but, it's a real and sobering possibility.

On the other hand, all of the engineering-esque work that goes into avionics would likely be utterly wasted on most web applications, iPhone programs, and video games.
A bit surprising that this link was not here before... Unfortunately they still don't like my developer-specific queries.
Great day for the US. Still America is far behind in health care reform if compared with other developed nations.
But moderate reform is far better than no reform at all.
Hi! I'm one of the creators (Branden). For folks that are interested - HYPE is a creative-coding framework for ActionScript 3 (Flash). The idea is that there's a lot of power in the language, but there are a lot of designers and other new developers that have a hard time tapping into that power. That's not to say it's just for "n00bs" - HYPE can make many tasks just plain easier for developers of all stripes.

Unlike other frameworks with the same kinds of goals, HYPE doesn't put training wheels on the language. Instead it makes things easier and more consistent. For example, if you're working with time with HYPE, then it's a Rhythm - no matter what kind of "time" frame-based or clock-based. HYPE bridges the different APIs so that you have ONE way to think about time.

Josh and I aren't trying to save the world - we think HYPE is pretty cool and wanted to share. He's globe-trotting high-end designer and I own a software development company that does, well, just about everything. But we met back in 2001 at a Flash conference and the Flash community has always been important to us and our careers. This is our way of giving back to the very vibrant that helped us launch our careers.

As for the folks who see stability - I hate to say it, but I'm fairly sure that's a player issue. I'm kicking around Chrome with the 10.1 beta player and I'm not having any issues.
SQL vs CODE
I'm pretty sure your children will be able to use it -- they'll be eligible because they were a dependent of a member. (Just like your spouse would be eligible as well, because they are the spouse of a member.) That's all it takes, really.
Ask HN: What advice would you give a young technical cofounder in a "CTO" role?
What have you experienced CTOs or technical managers learned that only comes with years and years of experience?

I ask because I keep hearing young technical cofounders call themselves CTOs, and I think about how much we don't know (I'm fairly young too).
Good point. However you forget that those who make $1m in profit also know how to raise a stink, how to call their congressman, how to post a letter on the Internet. Just see how much debate there is around the estate tax issue. It affects very few but there is a lot of hoopla around it. That is because it affects lots of rich people.
joshua davis is a brilliant guy - i took a class with him a few years back at SVA and the things he was doing with Flash at the time were absolutely mind blowing... Haven't really looked into Hype too much but I'm excited to see where he and it go...
Are they still requiring everyone to get health insurance?
I think I should clarify; I meant the bill is going to cost 2-5X the $940 billion for the healthcare proposal. Why? Because our government is handling it.
I've wasted way too much time due to sleep issues.

My Miracle Mix:

- Morning: 100m Provigil (ordered from an Indian pharmacy, naturally!)

- Night: Melatonin

I don't take provigil on the weekends and sometimes skip a weekday so I don't build up tolerance to it. Some people say it's like adderall without any nasty side effects. Just do it and thank me later.
How much revenue does that employee generate?
I thought short-term gains were taxed with rates similar to ordinary income. Do you mean long-term capital gains?
Why? What do you need a physical branch for?
> do it full-time or on the side?

What's worth doing is worth doing well, consider your college education over and done with when you start down this path. A startup is time consuming, the first year is the hardest, it takes usually about three years to become established, though of course that changes from case to case.

> what kind of advice should I not listen to?

You should weigh every advice you get (including this!), as to applicability, sanity and whether it chimes in with your gut feelings or not.

> My skills are programming and designing, what kind of stuff should I learn?

If your skills are programming and designing you want to become very good at dealing with people. That's probably more important than either of the other two.

> do I really need to move to a technology-rich country?

No, you don't need to move to a technology rich country, but it helps if you intend to fish in a larger pool of talent, and it may make it easier to divest. Plenty of people have done this from 'non technology rich' countries, there are challenges and advantages there.

> how do you get customers and do sales if you are an introvert geek?

Better change that or you will not be doing well. That's the number one challenge you face I think.

> what to look for in a cofounder?

Trustworthiness, dependability and adaptability.
"The one thing that is not a commodity and never will be is that spark of an idea."

That's probably the most easily commoditized part, actually. A "spark of an idea", before all the actual work needed to turn it into something viable, is close to worthless.
What's a good unbiased plain English explanation for HR 3950?
$6,000 a year? I was paying $1300 a month to insure my family of four (2 29 year olds, 2 babies).
Excellent sales and marketing applied to a medium product -> microsoft

Lousy sales and marketing applied to great stuff -> DEC, SGI and plenty of others, now defunct.

The technology is but a very small part of all of this.
C# vs C++: more jobs and better weekends?
One interesting trend graph.
Pelosi: We have to pass the health care bill so that you can find out what is in it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To
Bing better at finding Chromium snapshots
I type this into Google: download chromium beta mac and click a dozen links.

I give up and on a lark try Bing. The first result gives me the exact URL:

http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/
any side effects? Stay up too late?
And for me this bill will allow me to keep holding off college to develop my startup and still keep my parent's health insurance (which I just lost coverage from).
That I do not doubt! Hence my desire to learn.
It's 2700 pages long, prior to maybe been amended by the Senate in reconciliation.

There will be plain English explanations forthcoming now that there's final stuff that's been voted on (what happens with reconciliation is TBD), but they'll necessarily be long. And it'll take a while to come up with them.

But don't worry, this issue will now suck most of the nation's political oxygen for this year and probably through 2013 and perhaps beyond. You'll be hearing all about it.

For now, I'd recommend checking out Keith Hennessey's blog, he's pretty good at this sort of thing: http://keithhennessey.com/

E.g. here's a good item on the reconciliation bill as of the 18th: http://keithhennessey.com/2010/03/18/understanding-health-bi...
argue has two meanings, to disagree and to assert.
–verb (used without object)
1.
to present reasons for or against a thing.

I agree that it's ambiguous.
There's an entire site dedicated to this sort of thing, thats slightly more organized than a big list: http://www.cocoadev.com/. Its Mac-centric, but it covers the Foundation framework, so its worth knowing about, even if you only do iPhone stuff.
In fairness: at that rate, even in Wichita, he's probably talking about high-deductable coverage. I like high deductable coverage. I like HSAs. They're a good idea. But they're irrelevant if all the insurers in your state refuse to cover your family.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 has a year by year summary
Alien Contact 101
For all of the talk about the impact of higher cap gains taxes on startups, the far more important impact is likely to be that potential founders will have a (slightly) easier time leaving their jobs and purchasing insurance on a less-broken individual market.
Help Us Google, You’re Our Only Broadband Hope. (The Government Has No Spine.)
Tufte on Microsoft's Courier digital journal
Rocky?
On Surprises and Business Models
- Don't be afraid to seek out resources at your school (alumni, entrepreneurship programs, professors, fellow students, etc.)

- Don't spend too much time planning; think through some basics, then build a prototype, and launch it. From then on it's all about listening to your users and iterating. I think this is tough for college students, who are used to overanalyzing things, and not used to just doing things.

- Don't waste away your college years over a start-up. It's great to start a company in school. But college is a one-shot opportunity. Don't forget that.
Ask HN: The health care reform will create more jobs?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/08/nancy-pelosi/pelosi-claims-health-care-reform-will-create-thous/
In other words, you have absolutely no evidence to support your claim and you're making up absurd extremist claims to scare us. This isn't Fox News, and the audience on HN is not generally susceptible to these kinds of low-grade scare tactics.
Let's say that servers cost $1500 each and a rack of 20 servers costs $1500/mo for hosting costs. Programmers make $80k/yr. Let's also say that C is twice as slow to develop for and let's say that Java requires twice as much hardware to run.

One java programmer writes an app that takes a rack of equipment to run and writes it in 6 months. Meanwhile, a C programmer takes 12 months and only 1/2 rack of machines.

After a year, the java app costs $40k in programming costs and an initial cost of $60k for hardware, so $100k. A year later, hosting costs rack up another $18k. The C app costs $80k in programming costs, $30k for hardware, so $110k. A year later, hosting costs rack up another $9k, so we're about even. You may argue that C takes > 2 times to write, and I will argue that java bloat requires more than a 2x hardware purchase, so we're talking pretty much a wash here. I don't think that your cost argument holds much water.
You must be mistaken. The Matrix didn't have any sequels.
I understand the point you're making, and don't disagree that the literal meaning of the phrase is inconsistent with what people typically mean by it (much like "I could care less").

I offer for consideration the difficulties that these issues create for natural language processing. If someone says "Everyone doesn't dance" - what exactly do they mean?

If you want accurate reconstruction of the intended meaning, rather than wanting to constrain natural language to having a single meaning for each statement, then you'll need both contextual and general knowledge to figure out a meaning. I would say that it's clear that someone saying "Everyone doesn't dance", assuming that that was all that was said, meant "Not everyone dances", since it's rather obvious that some people do dance. If, however, they'd said "Everyone doesn't want to die", it would no longer be clear, since it's possible for people to believe that literally no one wants to die (with appropriate excuses made for suicides and posthumous heros). But I don't think that rules of English will be able to tell you anything more about the case than that it could be meant either way; outside information will have to guide the parsed meaning.
I think one of the quickest ways to learn this is to jump in on the 'hard' end of sales, cold calls and approaching strangers.

Have a look at this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUct4NlxE0

There's a lifetime of experience in there, not quite 'cold calling' but he's got amazing talent.
Not until 2014 apparently. Here are some highlights of highlights for HNers from from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319)

This year:

- Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.

- Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

- Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.

- A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.

In 2011:

- Employers are required to disclose the value of health benefits on employees' W-2 tax forms.

- An annual fee is imposed on pharmaceutical companies according to market share. The fee does not apply to companies with sales of $5 million or less.

In 2013:

- The threshold for claiming medical expenses on itemized tax returns is raised to 10 percent from 7.5 percent of income. The threshold remains at 7.5 percent for the elderly through 2016.

- A 2.9 percent excise tax in imposed on the sale of medical devices. Anything generally purchased at the retail level by the public is excluded from the tax.

In 2014:

- State health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals open.

- Most people will be required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay a fine if they don't. Health-care tax credits become available to help people with incomes up to 400 percent of poverty purchase coverage on the exchange.

- Health plans no longer can exclude people from coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

- Employers with 50 or more workers who do not offer coverage face a fine of $2,000 for each employee if any worker receives subsidized insurance on the exchange. The first 30 employees aren't counted for the fine.

- Health insurance companies begin paying a fee based on their market share.

In 2018:

- An excise tax on high cost employer-provided plans is imposed. The first $27,500 of a family plan and $10,200 for individual coverage is exempt from the tax. Higher levels are set for plans covering retirees and people in high risk professions.
I've heard (hearsay) that this bill will squeeze the private insurers to unprofitability in a few years. If true, that would be a strong way to get us to the public option.