skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
of course, it's so easy to raise tax when everyone knows it's at 18% across the country, not when nobody has any friggin idea what your municipality's tax is!
For the same reason why they search for "facebook login" on Google.
Food and childrens clothing are also exempt from UK VAT.
In Germany i think it is easy to fire employees in the first 6 months (probation period). A probation period of up to 2 years might be possible, but I am not sure (there was a lot of discussion about this some time ago).

One thing that happens is that some low-level jobs have high fluctuation. Especially as the government pays some additional money for some jobs in the first couple of months (which seems extremely absurd to me). So some clever employers fire their employees once the government subsidization has expired...
well, taxes in germany are now going to be shipped overnight to greece, where they will be used to pay back german banks. I'm starting to feel kind of robbed, honestly
VAT and sales tax are very different things. It would not be true to say something would cost more or less depending on whether sales tax or VAT was paid by the consumer.

Please educate yourself ;)
This was great, however, it also rests on the premise that management and those above them has the knowledge and ability to recognize what constitutes a bad employee. Sometimes, through their own ignorance, what is "bad" really is good. It's so sad that that type of problem permeates the software industry. Firing "bad" people fast should be a good thing but only if you can judge bad from good.
My area has very lax telecom regulation and we've had fios available fir years, and two competing cable companies. Prices are some of the lowest, and speeds are some of the fastest in the country.
I have my homepage set to http://google.com/advanced_search?num=100. The num=100 makes the select box default to 100 results per page. I've been using this for years; I loathe pagination. In the past (let's say the Geocities era), it wasn't rare for me to click through to pages 2 and 3, even when showing 100 results per page.

Aside: I swear there used to be an option on the Google home page for a (possibly very brief) time circa 1999–2000 that allowed you to select the number of results per page. But the Wayback Machine makes it appear otherwise, because a cursory glance at the archives shows that the select box only appeared pre-2000 on google.stanford.edu. But I don't think I ever googled from that domain. I might be wrong on the last point, though. There's absolutely no way I'm wrong about the select box appearing on the home page, though, because the removal of it was the entire reason I began clicking through to "Advanced Search", so that I could change the value to 100.
Why AMD's notebook prospects are looking up
GBP 14Bn/year says that's not a bad thing... And another GBP 60Bn/year if we scrap the Barnett Formula. That'll right all our economic woes, and not cost the English taxpayer a penny more.
damn, every third one sounds like a good idea to me.
If you bought an iPad (or pretty much any other item online) it is unlikely you would spend any taxes on it. If you did, many states require the purchaser to report and pay the taxes themselves, not the retailer.

Additionally, sales taxes vary widely state-to-state, so for an that has the same MSRP everywhere in the US, it seems to make sense not to advertise actual tax amount.
"Blame your government" - that's not meddling in foreign politics?

Some Apple apologists need to get out of Reality Distortion Field.
This is going to be a little more technical than I'd like, but it should be concrete enough to implement on a computer.

So, start with the color sphere: a unit sphere, and each point in the volume represents a color. Around the equater is arranged the hues, roygbiv. Moving north or south changes value, by adding white or black, respectively. Moving inwards toward the north-south axis reduces saturation; the exact center of the sphere is a perfectly neutral 50% gray.

Traditionally a set of colors is supposed to be 'harmonious' together if, when one constructs a polyhedron inside the color sphere, with each vertex being one of the chosen colors, the polytope formed has it's center of balance at the center of the sphere.

That is a 'designer' set of colors --- emotionally flat but visually pleasing. Emotional content is added by moving the centroid off center, charging the whole color set with a color 'cast'.

This definition, of course, fails when monochromatic schemes are chosen, but monochromatic schemes are almost always highly emotional unless a suitable accent color is chosen (usually a complementary, so as to move the COB to the center of the sphere).

For more information, read Itten, Keely, Albers, &c.
To be pedantic, food (except for, roughly, `luxury' and catered foods), children's clothing, and books, amongst other things, are zero-rated, rather than exempt (a separate category which includes medical treatment and education).
The EyeWriter - Open Source Hack to Draw Graffiti With Your Eyes
I don't have a strong opinion on it yet, but I think that once I'm used to it, I'll probably find it an improvement.
How do they get enough PageRank to be the top non-facebook link?
A way to look for thesis statement samples
Thesis statement is extremely important especially if you are asked to attempt a thesis at the academic level. There are many students that struggle to write excellent thesis statements.
Yeah, I recognize the 'old internet' look, having seen a zillion of those pages back when I was on 2400 baud via CompuServe... but still.
Thankfully you have everything you need to know in text, but I suggest you watch the video.

I love when hackers create unique solutions for those with disabilities... and well heck, solutions that just make life easier for anybody.

Brilliant work all!
Adapting your database models to an exotic NoSQL may eventually alter your functionality. Users don't like change.
Given this, what is the cost for the services of a professional editor? Is the model going to be a flat-fee or percentage of book sales?
If you are a tech entrepreneur in the social media ecosystem (facebook, twitter, social-games), you probably dont need a reminder since all your friends in either of these networks will have a status for "happy mothers day" :)
Hacking ChatRoulette’s "Report"
Because we know the history of governments, especially our Federal government, and there is no higher authority to appeal to.
Right, so the failure of significant progress towards Drexler's vision must be due to some kind of secret conspiracy of physicists and chemists rather than, say, the fact that atom-by-atom assembly is ridiculously hard?

I should probably vaguely mention that my PhD work was not entirely disconnected from the idea of fabricating devices by placing individual atoms in locations with sub-nm precision. I suppose I should be offended that nobody let me in on the fact that we're supposed to be suppressing that kind of work.
yeah, it drives me nuts. if a monster like Google can't make something cross browser compatible... what are my chances?
What makes you think a VAT will stop municipal and state sales taxes? States and cities will not easily give up this revenue. More likely, we'll just have VAT in addition to everything else we now have.
reddit, digg and others were able to make the transition without altering their functionality. I don't see this as a very hard argument for not.

Even if it were the case, careful planning for the transition could mitigate distasteful changes.
Pish, I don't mind the taxation in this country it's only typically Tory voters that complain and from the last elections that's only 37% of the country.
HN has always had a fair share of post exposing bad/stupid things done by online companies (remember the stories about Google Buzz & privacy problems?), and I think that since Calacanis is from the startup scene, this makes him doubly relevant here.

And there's no doubt that trying to get people to click on Adsense ads while mistakenly thinking that they're going to log into their Facebook page is slimy and worth exposing.
How would you say it?

If Apple equalized the price in Germany then they would actually be selling in Germany for less than the rest of the EU... They don't see a pfennig of that tax.
Every single major political party in the UK has stated they will work with Europe.

David Cameron of the Tories stated there would be no _further_ "giving up powers to Brussels". The other two stated that they wanted to work with Europe.

This results in no change by my reckoning.
Thanks for the link. I found the article confusing.

Was the article specifically about the list of results in this posting:
http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challeng...
I am sure that other systems can be compromised, but I gather this is concerning Windows only?

I ask because when reinstalling a Windows/PC last week, and I needed to copy some missing drivers (network/video) onto a USB flash drive from a working computer. I happened to notice there was a Ubuntu installer on the USB stick, and was very tempted to install Ubuntu!
Funny, I thought the reason people should use a service is its worth, not auxiliary novelties.

If I make a pitch to somebody, do you think I should rest assured that they'll go for it if I word it in the following way, "Now I know that by almost all metrics this kind of behavior is bad, but we did some looking into what other people are doing, and it's unique."?
Really? What about the longer term? I'm pretty confident that in 2015 you'll still be able to make money by writing apps for iPods, iPhones et cetera; I'm not so confident about facebook games.
All good reasons, but for me and mine it's still easier to start with MySQL. Now I say that coming from a lazy standpoint. I use debian and do my best to not stray from the default install. Having NoSQL servers in the repo and books on the self go a long way towards a rich and vibrant ecosystem that makes it easier to get started with.

I know CouchDB is in debian stable, but it's at .8 last time I checked and >.9 breaks some things between the two. I would feel more comfortable once a solution is in the repo and basically feature stable.
It is the programmer still remains in him reminding people to "RTFM."
>Wow. I wonder, have you and this smug author ever considered that you are the problem?

I'm positive I am part of the problem but I haven't found a better way for me to build a top notch team given my skill set and inclinations. As we grew I hired a good engineering manager who was able to reduce that ratio significantly.

To reiterate, in the interview process I explicitly lay out the methodology and all the risks involved as I understand the pain, stress and cost that a failed hiring causes. The end result of all of this was a very talented and efficient team that produced a great product which dominates it's vertical.
Ask HN: Any health tips?
What works for you and what don't. Lets hear it.

I don't know about you guys but vitamin b complex really helps in my ability to focus and mental acuity.
It's going to take ... Postgresql.
Yes, but in many of those countries it's already Monday.

Since my mother lives nineteen timezones ahead of me I have to be pretty on top of the whole "mother's day" thing.
You might be able to scrape color + ratings data from sites that offer downloadable themes / editor color schemes / etc. Or why not, a dataset of fine art paintings.
Please educate yourself. Nick Clegg has been calling for tax cuts for years. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/sep/15/libdemconfere...

It's typically only Labour voters (who are either public sector workers or who pay minimal tax anyway) who are happy for other people to pay more tax.
Exactly! This concept of "firing" is the purview of assclowns. People that have no management skill yet who lust after director or VP titles after a year in the industry. These people are doomed to building small things. Small companies, small product, small careers. You better wake up and realize the world is made up of people not code.
That kind of thing is pretty much standard practice. Presumably the real Banfa Banfa stepped up and claimed the page.
"Mr. Genachowski has provided no evidence that the current regulatory approach is failing." Like the fact that ISPs are throttling the traffic of their customers, inspecting packets and giving preferential treatment to some in the name of "reasonable network management"? Like the fact that virtually everyone who has access to broadband at all has at most two provider choices, despite investment of "$576 billion in communications equipment and structures"? Like the fact that we lag behind other industrial nations in both speed and access to broadband, despite the "explosion of investment and Web innovation" this article attributes to light regulation?

Regulation isn't perfect. As others have pointed out, it tends to benefit the big guys, and raise barriers to entry for competition. But given that we have big guys, that's going to happen anyway: oligopolies are very good at pushing out or buying up competition, entrenching the need for their services, and bullying consumers. They do so all the more aggressively if no one is watching them.

If we accept that Internet access should be provided by the Verizons, Comcasts, and AT&T's of the world, then we should accept that they should be regulated, as effectively as possible and as heavily as necessary so that this compromise doesn't give the public the short end of the stick. Whether we should accept these companies as Internet gatekeepers at all is another matter.
perhaps a link to your app or a snippet about it?

Also we could put this up in a spreadsheet. That would be helpful in looking clearly at the avg sales by category of apps (games, business, etc)

P.S: I'm planning to develop an Android app too.
Until cash payday no credit check affordable and free of tension
No, if he'd said "Blame the government and make sure you vote for the SDP in the next election" then that might be meddling in foreign politics.
A real mouse or a computer mouse?
If the US gets a VAT, we better get a lot of other taxes removed in the process.

My wish is that we simplify our tax system to the point where I don't need software and a tax attorney to figure out my taxes. I am not much into laws that require me to hire people / buy software to comply with (maybe, gotta love TurboTax audit insurance). I would prefer a flat-rate tax per taxpayer (skip all the marriage questions.
Five Things IE9 is (Actually) Doing Right
if you know SQL well, start with that.

If you think non-relational makes sense for your use case, try it out for smaller, non-critical parts of your system till your understanding grows.
you can then decide more confidently
The source of that quote is a nice read: http://brehaut.net/blog/2010/on_iteration
If I understand correctly this leads to some bizarre inconsistencies; for instance bras up to a certain size (34B?) are "children's clothing" and untaxed, a fact which must cause dubious rejoicing among the less-endowed women of Britain.

Also I seem to recall that some foods are taxed differently depending on whether you intend to eat them in or take them away -- even for things where it makes no difference to how they package them. If you tell Pret A Manger that you're going to take your chocolate mousse away but wind up sitting down and eating it in the store, you're breaking the law. (Not sure whether that's the VAT or some other issue).
It wasn't secret! See e.g. the "debate" Nobel Chemist Smalley had with Drexler in Scientific American and then I think the JACS. Smalley started out with a straw man ("fat fingers") in both, which is not a sign of honest intent.

The bottom line is "where are the grants and research centers for Drexler style nanotech"? Either he's lying about this---I'll admit most of my info about this is from him or people in his orbit---or he's mostly right.

Or let me put it this where: when you graduate, where are you going to be able to go to work on "Productive Nanosystems" in his style? Name names, this should be something you're looking for or at least aware of, or can ask about tomorrow when you go into "work".

ADDED: I know it's "ridiculously hard", for if finances hadn't gotten in the way I would have most likely eventually gotten a Ph.D. in work "not entirely disconnected from the idea of fabricating devices by placing individual atoms in locations with" atomic precision in the '90s.
VAT is always listed separately in Europe as well (on the receipt) - it just has to be included in the advertised price.
I like how Chris Dixon incorporates stuff he learned doing an MBA into his startup blog. Those are two different worlds and there aren't many people who are fluent in both. I'm not very interested in the bulk of what MBA programs teach; perhaps it's my ignorance, but it seems like a lot of voodoo that is mostly about solidifying corporate culture with an elite caste of guess-who at the top. But some of the ideas that Chris has written about that come from there are quite interesting and relevant to our world -- his post on commoditizing complements, for example -- so it seems like he's a pretty good filter. (It's sort of a unique niche in the startup blog world, too. Positioning?)
As an employer you will find yourself with the quality of employees that you deserve. Treat your employees right and they'll be loyal and hopefully will treat you right in return. Treat them bad or whimsically and it will come back to you just the same.

Employer-employee relationships differ from country to country but the above is I think a universal truth. Be a 'bad boss', hire and fire at will and you'll find that your employees will continuously be on the look-out to see if they can do better before you have a bad (pointy) hair day.

Treat them well and they just might amaze you in what they can do for you.

Managing people always was the part of the job that I dreaded the most, as the ceo of a relatively small company. The biggest reason for that was that it took time away from my 'first love', computer programming. But I hope that I never treated the employees of my company as cold and heartless as the article suggests, I'd be interested to hear his employees side of the story.

Different strokes for different folks, it is very well possible that this strategy will work for a certain style of CEO, in a given job-market and location, but I'm fairly sure that it would not have worked for me.

I'd rather spend a bit more time on the hiring side of things and get the right people on board than to go for a 'trial-and-error' approach like this and to have to go through the painful (for all parties) process of getting rid of a third of the new hires every six months.

I have a particular problem with the sentence:

> Your team thinks you suck if you don't have the chutzpah to fire.

That speaks to me of a CEO that is at heart a very insecure person.

You don't fire people to show you've got balls.
Qualifications?

- Rape, murder, arson, and rape.

You said rape twice.

- I like rape.
New Setback in Attempt to Contain Gulf Oil Spill
I think another benefit of NoSQL datastores is the ease of making changes on a live system. There's a great presentation[0] by Steve Huffman (in part) about how reddit ended up using Postgres as a key-value store as much for ease of adding new features as performance. Go with what makes sense for your application and worry about scaling when you have users.

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1330552
..an oft-overlooked option, sadly

That and cheaper hardware used more intelligently.

Even more sadly,I have found these topics, RDBMSes and hardware, to be areas of great ignorance and, perhaps therefore, fear among software folk.

More importantly, it will probably take a substantial effort to de-mystify these two.
This is exactly what GPUs do today, and it is also why NVIDIA and ATI are trying to make their GPUs available to programmers for general purpose use. See CUDA (http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home_new.html) and Stream (http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/TECHNOLOGIES/STREAM-TECHNOLOG...). These technologies let programmers use the parallel computation engine of the GPU to solve problems. Using such a tool is non-trivial, as the problem has to benefit from massive parallelization and you also have to have a problem big enough to overcome the data load penalty (getting the data from main memory/disk to the GPUs memory for processing).
Obama bemoans 'diversions' of IPod, Xbox era
Is it just me or is ignoring the interview process in favour of the firing process as poor as the opposite? The best method is to weight them about equal.

Have a rigorous interview process where you try to hire only the best fit. If the new employee is a failure, have the ability to admit you made a mistake a correct it. Best of both worlds.

Firing a new hire is not a cheap process and it does affect your reputation/company morale.
> Is there any hire at will (which as a term of art includes firing and leaving at will) European country with socialized medicine and the dole?

Britain probably qualifies to some extent, because employees cannot claim unfair dismissal if they were sacked before they'd been working for an employer for one year.
Built in replication is a big step towards that goal. Healthy competition between open source databases is good for everyone.
Sounds like there might be an interesting psychology at play. Anecdotally, I didn't even notice the changes until they pleasantly surprised me.

I wonder how many others feel this way.
Stephen Fry on binary choices
Avoid fads. Overdoses of this or that trendy food or supplement are surely a bad idea. Support healthy eating by daily outdoor exercise. Get more sleep than you have been getting recently.
Art That Sells Itself, Literally
You dont always have the option of a usb or wifi software stack at hand. Some embedded software don't even need linux or another os to operate.
where are the grants and research centers for Drexler style nanotech

Same place as the grants and research centers into warp drives and unicorn husbandry?
Because your statement stinks of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about how the markets function. It's anti-market populism looking for reinforcement. If you have some data or evidence that institutional players reaped great reward because they have undue influence I'd love to see it.
The model for your data depends on your data. What data are you trying to store?
Lots of startups getting incubated in Texas
I made my mommy a website: http://becauseyouremymom.com/

And here is the message I sent her on the site: http://becauseyouremymom.com/loves/savant
This title with Linux and devices/drivers got 50 points - seems like hacker news is moving towards the original meaning of hacker.
This is basically what I did in 8th grade, then in 9th grade I joined the FIRST robotics team in our high school, which I would strongly recommend if there is one available.
Full-body scanner triggers fight over small
Plenty of exercise. Try hundredpushups.com for a nice, easy-to-start program.
I uncheck the box before pasting a URL I don't want shortened. It may be slightly annoying but it does not "damage my reputation".
Bill Gates wouldn't have taken off without his mother's help who arranged a contract with IBM for her son in the beginning. And I'm sure there are similar stories for the others too. Let's take Ellison's Government project called "Oracle" that the Govt. never used - looks very suspicious and we know very little about how exactly this turned into a private company.

I don't believe in their cheesy "self-made" stories with $1000 put into the company that eventually turns into a multi-billion corporation. That's just impossible.