skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think patents are a big impediment to innovation.

And I think they are morally wrong. Why do I lose my right to do something because you write that thing down before I do?

Coming up with an idea is only a very small part of the battle. Making a viable product is much harder but also not the biggest problem.

The biggest challenge often is getting people to buy a thing. And we already have significant incentives in place for that.

There are things that we need that take a great deal of investment to discover and that cannot be protected with trade secrets.

But if the innovation is of significant value, presumably one can make a profit from it and get to market faster than the competition, so there is reward for innovating.

People that need an innovation can also create a bounty or reward for making it happen. And we have seen a lot effort in response to things like the x prize and darpa's grand challenge.

So I don't see how the alleged benefits of patents justify the curtailment of individual rights.
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What about drug discovery? The road to approval is a long, risky, and amazingly expensive one. Without patent protection, there wouldn't be a lot of incentive to develop new drugs.

I think, as software people, we tend to generalize the ridiculousness of software patents, and we decide that all patents are ridiculous. There are industries where innovation is the result of serious risk and serious investment, and it is in everyone's best interest to encourage that. The rub is figuring out which industries and which classes of innovation should be protected, and which should not be protected.
What the "Truth in Caller ID Act" (just passed) impacts
Because if they were, people wouldn't get so fat?

Whomever figures out how to make people want to loose weight, rather than convince them they should force themselves to loose weight are going to make a fortune.
Code Anthem's Law
Come on... do you think the theory holds ground?
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Vancouver is not sorry. There are plenty in Vancouver who predicted something like this would happen as a result of doing business with Bootup Labs.

If anything, Vancouver has benefited from this because it is now more likely that Bootup Labs will be booted out of Vancouver. Bootup labs has been hurting the startup community in Vancouver for quite some time and it will help the environment there if this kind of sour leadership is forced out of town.
Actually, a tax is termed "progressive" when the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. A "regressive" tax is a tax where the tax rate decreases as the taxable amount increases.

It's true that "progressives" often advocate "progressive" taxes, but the term has a technical meaning when applied to taxes. Feel free to look it up yourself.
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You can probably find prototype versions of DNF out there too if you look hard enough. I fully realize that "Java is dead" posts are heavy down-mod territory right now because there are so many emotional and financial ties to the platform, but wait a few years.
"The less the median developer on a software project team is paid, the more the project will cost to complete."
yes man... I'm somewhat addicted, but i am trying to filter out junk and spend more time on useful things
Why It's OK To Manipulate Google
Because prestige is what they are selling, and prestige takes lots of time to produce. The greater the prestige, the more good professors want to teach and do research there, and the more good students want to learn there. This does influence the next generation, and so on. If the quality of people stays consistently high, the prestige remains.
There is actively asking yourself what you wish someone would build, and there is telling yourself something doesn't exist because it isn't defined 100% the way you would define it.

The difference is where your failure lies I think (of course I don't know you; just inferring from your comment).

It could be highly possible that you don't in fact have any critical problem that hasn't been addressed in a worthwhile way already by someone else. This is certainly true if you are young and a student.

I can guarantee you however that you simply won't be able to say this the moment you get into business. There are so many things that businesses need - from general to niche - that an inquisitive mind couldn't possibly ignore.

Perhaps the key is not trying to think of something you need right now, because your right now is saturated and complete. Perhaps what you need to do is enter the workforce in an area that interests you and make their problems yours.
Rubber Stamping is Out: Energy Star to Close a Giant Loophole
I thought this paragraph was a work of art:

The term “arrested development” is now deprecated by professional psychologists, and has been replaced by “developmentally disabled.” This is good news for us pop psychologists hawking crude over-simplifications about functional adults, since we can safely steal the term. I assume you are not retarded enough to read this as a theory of clinical developmental-disablement.
Much of what I've seen/read about Lean Startups seems to be recasting of Lean Software Development and SCRUM/Agile techniques applied to the niche of "Startup". Much of those can be rooted in Lean techniques from Toyoda & others (Deming, Ford) applied to manufacturing from 60 years ago.

Can you comment on why you think those (SCRUM/Agile/Lean SW) are different than Lean Startups? For example, if someone is practiced in SCRUM and is doing a startup - what do they have to gain from learning about Lean Startups?
Could you be more specific? Is it just a font thing?
You have an interesting idea of failure.

I anticipate CS will become a more narrow discipline, just as math has (remember that almost all of theoretical computer science and much of theoretical physics and theoretical economics was once considered part of applied mathematics...). I would not consider that a failur though. Those who wish to focus on the theory will stay with CS and those who wish to focus on the application will drift into the field of its application, again much as math, and much as you described.

I would hardly call that either a failure nor would I think CS would be reduced to teaching intro classes. First, remember that in the parallel of mathematics, people in math heavy disciplines will continue taking math classes throughout their undergrad. Again, there is a real demand for people with math degrees both working in applied mathematics for the industry and because it makes a good basis to branch out to other fields (I am getting a masters in math and work as a DBA...) So, I would hardly call that a failure, just a narrowing of focus, which can be a good thing. Those who want that focus will stay with it with less baggage in the applied side, and those who want the applied focus can target that with less baggage on the theoretical side.
I'd generalize this further: economics doesn't explain anything until you realize that money is only one sort of accounting of wealth and status transfer.
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HN designers: where are you?
The other thread about HN contractors seems to be focused on developers and admins. As a single founder/developer with little or no design skills, I'd give my right arm for a reliable designer who could handle the design work on my projects.

I tried guru and elance but only got replies from people used to creating brochure sites and who have little understanding of modern web app design.

If you're a designer who is available for work, please post a link to your portfolio and your hourly rate - I'm sure I'm not the only HN user looking for you.
Yes,

Idea is 1%, execution is 99%.

Moreover, ideas can not be patented. I consider that current laws are far too strong. But even current laws do not allow ideas to be patented, only a particular method of executing an idea. So as soon you begin doing business, your idea will there for everyone to see and steal.

But also: unless the people around you are hardened venture capitalists willing to also put effort into thinking through the implications of your idea, the assurances of people around aren't that valuable.

Steve Job's market research method is instinct but the question is whether you are Steve Jobs. Still, the people around may be willing to think a bit about your but they going to think and re-think and consider market conditions and so-forth. You, yourself, can put in more effort than anyone else. You can get yourself to succeed with that if you continually force yourself to be critical. I remember a discussion of Mark Zuckerberg's ability to continually criticize and discard ideas that didn't seem to work, including ideas he thought of the day before. The number one mistake of failed-novelists and fail capitalists is falling in love with an idea. A startup is a business. Most if not all businesses succeed by sliding from one niche to another until they gain real traction. It's a process of chaotic self-renewal where good ideas only play a small part. Google might seem a counter-example but remember, Google is continually re-inventing their search process. If Google really stuck to the one idea of Pagerank, they would be killed by now.

And after all that, think about how worthwhile it is to pursue an idea on the scale you're talking about. I myself am pursuing an ambitious app at the moment but I'm not kidding myself that my approach is the best business plan. I'm pursuing it for reasoning of idealism.

By all means, if the larger-scale idea you're pursuing is something you simply think should exist, then go for it. If you put enough energy and commitment into it and it really is a great idea, then it will come into existence. But don't kid yourself that this is best way to run a business.
The problem is that money trickles down from the point of transaction, and the volume of the trickle is determined by your leverage.

So what you're saying is that the people who get people to buy a thing should make almost all the money, followed by the people who make viable products, followed by the people who do the research and development and come up with the ideas coming in dead last.

The problem is: in this model, the people who come in dead last are the ones who keep the innovation pipeline full.

I don't like the present patent system, but without something like it the only people who make any money are those in marketing.
Do I ever hate the SSRN web site. Damned thing never actually produces the file for me.

Thanks for the link to the author's site. He has a non SSRN link to the paper on the following page; the link text is the "(PDF)" that follows the SSRN link he first cites.

http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/papers/evh-08.htm
WebKit2 and WebKitGTK+
Another example: Andrew Garcia (I believe that's his name) he is in American Idol a former youtuber (American Idol force people to delete previous-show-promotion e.g. youtube videos).
The upside is that you get support. MS has long ago stated the end-of-life for XP, and that time has come and passed. Should Ford keep selling spare parts for the Model T?
Nope. Without some sort of patent, each participant in a collaborate effort gets nothing and whomever is most successful in marketing the result gets everything.
Take away quote for me:

"So many of the products we're surrounded by, they want you to be very aware of just how clever the solution was... [a solution should] speak to how you are going to use it, not to the terrible struggles that we as designers and engineers had."
That looks related to the actor-model for parallel processing.
Thanks! I wasn't familiar with HN's post formatting.
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Most infuriating thing about the Inspector in Safari: the shortcut to open the inspector won't also close it.
The Status Quo Effect (Or, Pay Without Play)
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Doesn't the whole lean startup thing suck the joy out of building something which you are passionate about?
All you need is RamDoubler!

http://macreviewzone.com/archive/hardcider/Reviews/RD9.shtml
I got the "Something went wrong" message when trying to update my profile.

edit I think the site logged me out before updating my profile, and then when I hit "update" (while logged out), that's what gave me the error. Might want to put a before_filter to make sure only logged in users can update stuff.
Wish it wouldn't mangle the formatting of the address, but that's probably the fault of Google.
Man, these are great advices you have been pointing in here.

Few days ago, I actually tried the concept on two "potential" customers, by using some hardware peripherals I managed to put together, and a very basic software, something which is far away in terms of design, quality and user experience from the final product, and in fact, the two customers simply didn't want to stop "playing" with the product.
I might be going off on a tangent here, but that site provided a rebuttal to that PPT...

http://www.slideshare.net/gmaney/computer-science-is-the-pro...

...though reading that presentation made me feel like I was reading Time Cube quackery. What the heck is "Automation Science?" Google didn't bring up anything specific...
Ask HN: How to teach HS students HTML & CSS in 1 hour?
Hi,

I've volunteered to teach a group of 30 high school students the basics of HTML & CSS. The class runs for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

How can I make it both informative and entertaining?

I would appreciate any advice.

Thanks
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As usual, history provides a slightly more useful perspective on patents, and on how their utility is changing along with society.

Although the idea of patents was first introduced a very long time ago, their modern version didn't show up until the 1800s or so. At that time, there were meager tools available to the average citizen, and innovation then wasn't like it is today. It more typically required a disproportionate outlay of resources, especially given that (at the time) labor was relatively cheaper than technology in the southern parts of the U.S.

Later, the U.S. underwent the industrial revolution, and innovation moved from profit-motivated individuals to profit-motivated companies; again, patents were seen -- correctly, at the time -- to be fostering the innovation that was advancing America's technological development.

But the landscape is much different today. The average individual has at hand resources that would have been remarkable to Ford or Edison, and probably dumbfounding to Eli Whitney. For roughly a month's salary, I might accumulate all of the materials I need to invent a new kind of robot, and if I'm interested in software, then all I need is a computer, some time, and a problem to solve.

So, now patents are no longer as justifiably the protectors of innovation, and now the case can be made that they are actually hindering it.

Conditions aren't the same now as they always were.
I think this includes your salary/compensation. That's probably why they asked you to sign those stock options, so they could say "Hey look, we paid this guy $X for R&D. That's a tax credit of $Y."
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I grew up there, and please do, because after living in a bunch of other cities nothing quite measures up.

You have no idea how depressing it is to live a stone's throw away in Seattle - it's like wallowing in a pit of mud right outside the gates to Eden. No offense to Seattleites, but your city blows in comparison.
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So essentially what you are doing then is taking money from investors who give you money to put into startups, giving two thirds to the startup and taking one third for yourself.

At this rate, what do you care if the startup succeeds or fails? You get $50k no matter what.

I can't fathom how you think this is a good deal for anyone but you. This kind of behavior is why vancouver will be better without you.
"Unfortunately, notifications were not addressed in iPhone OS 4.0."

OK, it was kind of passive aggressive of you (the author of the post) to just state this without any explanation backing it up, but I'll bite. Please do give us your rant about how local notifications (introduced in OS 4.0) in addition to the already existing push notifications does not address notifications.

Or maybe you just missed that part?
Why do you think software business model can't be applied to drug development?

On of the biggest problem with drug research is that it's highly regulated by government, so it's too costly for a small startup. Remove this regulations and you'll get a software-like situation with thousands of startups and new drugs.

e.g. read this: http://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the-busine...
You should see some of the Youtube comments.

I think, from here on out, anyone who hopes to break the mold in any way via the web will just have to ignore 99.9% of all comments. Too many people get their rocks off anonymously tearing people down, and sites just don't care enough about building a thoughtful community to combat it.
You could argue that whether a patent is awarded for an invention should have a dependency on the capital required to produce the innovation. Innovation, distribution and marketing for software has become so inexpensive that patents are seen as an impediment to innovation. While for innovations requiring more capital this may not be the case.
It's true that developing a pharmaceutical is an expensive process, but on the other hand the compounds used are often naturally occurring. In that sense, it seems to me that these are instances of "discovery" and not "invention", just like genome patents in general.

I might be fine with restricting the right for others to sell pharmaceuticals based on the same compound for the same purpose, but certainly not to bar general research into what other effects it may have.
I have no real response to the post, but the book recommendation at the end is excellent. To Reign in Hell is a great book, and even people who know Steven Brust's other work never seem to have read it. (It's a more than slightly idiosyncratic version of the fall of the angels story & back in print within the last few years, I think, after being out of print since the late 80s/early 90s.)
> By all means, if the larger-scale idea you're pursuing is something you simply think should exist, then go for it. If you put enough energy and commitment into it and it really is a great idea, then it will come into existence.

I think that is describing exactly how I feel toward this. It is indeed something that must exist, and I am going to put together the money and people that will make it happen. I only fear about taking control of areas and domains where I should let other control and vice versa.
>Does Windows 7 scratch itches I didn't know I had?

This is just a UI thing, but if you ever need to work with two windows side by side, yes. Dragging a window to the edge of the screen automatically resizes it to take up half the screen. I know it's not exactly fundamental, but it's probably my favorite feature of Windows 7.

(That's not to say there aren't plenty of other reasons to upgrade.)
35% cut for Groupon seems high. I would imagine their margin a lot lower than this.
^ Highly recommended, it's a really good way to spend an hour.
You may have better luck finding designers by going to where they are.

Start following http://onepagelove.com/ and contact people you like.

Find stuff on http://dribbble.com/ you like and talk to them.

Also, if you can find a designer that has basic proficiency with the technologies you're using, it will save you a world of pain of having to do the integration yourself. With every additional person involved in integrating a design you will lose fidelity.
I think he just meant that the method of showing notifications to the user hasn't changed.
It also doesn't require effort and people are lazy.
So if one person goes through a long and complex expensive process to yield a complex solution to a problem, and then I do a bit of work and spend far less capital and come up with a simpler and less expensive solution, I should get paid less?

That reminds me of when they used to pay programmers by the K-loc of code they wrote.

Inventions that are simpler, cheaper, and require less capital are worth more for that reason.

One of the things that bothers me about some patent opponents is that their argument amounts to a devaluation of intelligence vs. brute force or slow plodding advancement. There really are "eureka" moments, and intelligence does matter. It is possible with intelligence to occasionally happen upon a brief compact insight that radically advances some art, and it is those brief compact insights that are worth the most.
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which estimates are you contesting? as someone involved tangentially in academia, none of these even raise an eye brow. you might as well be asking for sources that the sun will rise tomorrow.

if you really want hard numbers, pick your favorite public university. poke around. their faculty salaries will be public record. also, the student feedback on faculty will be public record. you should be able to figure out the average number of courses taught, and the average salary in about 10 minutes after you find the relevant excel spreadsheets.

a 3 credit hour course will involve at least 3 hours of work per week (you've got to transport your body to the room the students are in). a minimum of 1 office hour per week. you've got to come up with homeworks, and grade them. even if you look at 25 students' homework for only 1 minute each, that'll take about half an hour. so it takes 4.5 hours each just to do the bare minimum possible work for a class.

google for "average college tuition" to cover that part.

what's left?
I'd keep it fairly brief, trying to explain the difference between block level and inline elements. I'd focus on a standard header/body/footer type layout with usage of an H1, body, span, and p tags. You can throw in an em or strong for the sake of demonstrating more tags, but you've only got an hour to try and get the basics engrained in their heads.

Once you've mocked up the page with absolutely ZERO styling, it's time to delve into the CSS. I'd show them the basic selectors for background-color, color, height, width, and some font styling. If you have time, demonstrate padding and margins.

Lastly, time permitting, throw them a curve and demonstrate floats, relative positioning, or absolute positioning. This really might be overboard for an hour.. so it's merely a suggestion.
Well said. A lot of products I own make me feel this way, and its always refreshing to use some so refined.
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> What about drug discovery?

I can see how patents could help there. Are there any studies that favor patents?
You assume they collaborate to sell whatever the result of the collaboration is.
Poor sample size/selection?
My contention still stands as to roots and derivations of both terms.

However, I see too many, non-biased sites defining "regressive tax" as you do, to see the point in arguing. This battle was lost 50 years ago. The definition has apparently become an accepted one. I find that very disturbing.

For the record, I personally find the term to be a loaded one, and I disagree with it.
If there are lots of Model Ts on the road, yes, Ford should sell parts for it. They shouldn't be free, but Ford shouldn't abandon them either.