skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Perhaps. But shipping a used textbook via USPS Media Mail usually costs <$5. That's fairly inexpensive.
With the possible drawback that anyone who you're connected to thinks that you're becoming a Belgian monk with a goat fetish.
For another example of an interesting legal use of BitTorrent, see murder, Twitter's Ruby library for deployments using BitTorrent: http://github.com/lg/murder
Here's the thing. Don't be put off by the expensive price of ergonomic chairs. I bought my Aeron chair in 2002 and have used it every day since. It's made a huge difference in my back and neck.

The chair cost be around $700 at the time, so that's <$100 per year or <$0.50 per day.

Also the chair came with a 12 year warranty. A couple months ago the pneumatic cylinder went out. I called a local Aeron deal and since I bought the chair from a authorized dealer, they sent somebody to my house and fixed it for free.
I have never joined facebook, and am thankful for this. But I was suckered into joining linkedin, and when I saw they had uploaded my contacts list from my gmail account, I had to leave.

Still not quite sure how they did that.
you can think of it as a market place for existing logistics providers who auction off leftover slots.. so if one can afford to send stuff without too much of a hurry, shipping costs would be greatly reduced, win , win for logistics provider, shipper as well. Clearance businesses would love it :)
Resource Management Simulation - Communication vs. Penalties
I completely agree. OSM attracts data nerds, not cartographers.
One way I intend to ensure trust is to have shippers use either Paypal or Amazon payments to accept shipment payments... By proxy, a shipper's identity will not be anonymous anymore since those services do require bank account information which is a thorough form of ID.
FB is ingenious in how it leverages three amazingly powerful forces: Advertisers, individuals' Ego, and Group Psychnology (put more bluntly, herd mentality).

FB and the Advertisers are harvesting value from the herd, day after day. Brilliant (I'm not being facetious....this time).
My advice would be that no matter which of these languages you pick, do NOT use a framework (at first). It's important that you learn how the language itself works and puzzle out the common patterns with your own solutions. When you're done learning the basics of web development, then start looking into frameworks.
This is a novel use of the word "monopoly" -- There are currently (from the article) over 600 natural cork producers, and yet a single company, gaining 20% market share, with what looks like nearly 100% of the synthetic cork market, is somehow the one who "broke" that "monopoly"?
sounds like a good idea!!
The title should have been:

iPhone/iPad apps are for Apple making money and the web is for innovating

Other people might make money too, but Apple will make money.
My point isn't that you can't undercut the shipping companies. It's that if you do so, no-one will offer to deliver things for you, because they won't earn very much.

I mean, they might. It depends on many factors. I just thought you should think about it from that end too.

Example: If you were driving from point a in city A to point b in city B, how much money would you want to first drive to point a' to pick up a parcel and to deliver it to point b' before you reach your destination. $5? $10? Just something to think about.
Panic attacks can be reliably produced in normal people with certain drugs, leading to the implication of biological causes.

Anxious people tend to be more prone to panic attacks. A panic attack usually begins with a benign biological malfunction (misfiring of adrenal gland, slight breathing irregularity set off by allergies) that would otherwise be mild and possibly ignored, but if it launches a feedback loop of negative and anxious thoughts, it can become panic.

So the cause is, in part, biological. That doesn't mean that cognitive-behavior therapy in addition to drugs isn't usually a good idea.
If anyone is interested in a comprehensive course in video or website format, you should definitely check out the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (nptel.iitm.ac.in). It is an combined initiative by all the IITs, IISERs and IISc,Banglore staff. There are around 40 lectures in each course. This is not restricted to only CS, they have ECE, Mechanical, Civil, Mining, Ocean tech, Electrical and what not.

(You all may face some problem understanding the accent).
You should pick a specific niche market (students, small businesses that need to ship stuff, ...) and market to them, try to get actual real customers. If it doesn't work, ask them why not, and/or try a different niche market.
I am self employed and according to the banks I spoke to I am not staying in the UK long enough for them to give me an account.
Sprint Android 2.1 Update At Last Coming to HTC Hero & Samsung Moment
The New Scabs: Digital Journalists
Blogging neighbor and partying Georgetown students clash
Just add an info text about how it is all not true. Humans will read that but data mining will not.
Maybe he realised that he wasn't really Philip K. Dick and decided to escape in order to find himself. Hopefully there'll be a failsafe, like a four year lifespan.
Thx for your comment--that is great validation. I also just found your other great posts (http://www.twitter.com/grellas).

I should have been more clear in my post about my current strategy. I'm really looking for deals that, if successful with the angel money, may not need VC with decent probability, and if they do take VC, it wouldn't be for that much. In other words, I'm less concerned with the risk of follow-on terms at the moment.

That being said, I wonder if they can be justified if the angel round is small. Say I it's a $250K round and so the preference takes up $500K. You go to raise $3M VC and the VC says we want 2x because they got it. Can't the entrepreneur say, look that was for the angels because the round was so small and it doesn't make sense for us in a round this large? Of course it is all negotiable but the knee-jerk "we need to get everything they got and more" seems out of place here.

Also, I'd personally be fine with participation with a cap. It just seems entrepreneurs are more willing to go with 2x, non-participating. But my experience is very limited so if that's the norm it's fine with me. What terms do you usually see, 1.5x with participation at a 3x cap?
I've seen it implemented as a binary, so VIM can call it (I think someone wrote a plugin already). There's a version for textmate that works quite well.
The results are sent to an army of 7,000 freelancers, each of whom must have a college degree, writing experience and a speciality.

I don't have a degree, and Demand Media signed me up. I wonder if they've raised their standards.
Social media cpc programs are much cheaper

Except when they're not. weeps I was paying 60 cent CPCs on Facebook when I pay about 4 - 6 cent CPCs on AdWords... and conversion rates were nothing to write home about, unless it was to vent. (AdWords: 18% conversion to trial. Facebook: < 2% conversion.)
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Open shop night at Sprout community science lab in Davis Square, Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Also, google Willoughby and Baltic.
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Given the last mile problem which others have mentioned, could you not try a hybrid solution where people drop packages at post/courier offices in the destination towns? They can then be delivered by regular post or courier but at the local rate. So, basically you are turning passenger cars into long haul delivery vans for the postal service.

I don't know if this is economically feasible, but something to think about anyway.
1. Perhaps something similar could be done with people travelling on airports? (Ok, it's very dangerous to just carry random stuff, but perhaps would work for books or things like that)
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The question is, if a transaction does go sour who foots the replacement bill, if it is irreplaceable what happens then?

Seems like there would be an accountability problem, in a big shipping company the drive would lose there job taking anything, to much risk for them, here if someone takes something what would be the repercussions?
Emotional Interface Design: The Gateway to Passionate Users
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What The Economist doesn't mention here, but should, is that content farms negatively impact both the experience of anyone who wants to buy something online and that of anyone who wants to sell online.

Lots of small businesses succeed by creating "long-tail" content, and using it to get organic traffic. A ceramic mug company, for example, could have a blog that also told readers how to paint ceramic mugs.

The Demand Media model is to outrank that content (of course), and then to monetize the ranking with contextual ads. So the article's content must be meaningful to search engines--but it can't be a complete answer to whatever the visitor was searching for. If it is, they'll bounce; if not, they'll keep clicking, ideally on an ad.

Someone who controls the ad (and captures the profit from transactions) can have a more relevant and useful call to action. The article, for example, can end with "Ready to paint your ceramic mug? Order a mug painting kit now, and get 10% off!"

Instead, the mug company will notice that their traffic is dropping since they can't rank for the same long-tail content. Instead, they'll start paying for traffic. And when they do, Demand Media gets the money for their next article.
Thank you very much... very sound idea.
I wish the article had given an explanation for their claim that lumbar support doesn't help anything. They say the spine needs to stay S-shaped, and that's exactly what lumbar support is designed to promote, so what's the problem?
I'd ship many empty boxes at the beginning, to test how many of those arrive the destination.
I can't believe that some ergonomics researchers are actually endorsing my crazy idea of setting up a treadmill and walking while working.

Maybe I have to try that now. It's a pity that treadmills are so pricey.

Incidentally, the ability to move around in different positions while reading is a major reason I bought the iPad.
I suppose the payment is done after the package arrives...
American society has a high rate of mental illness because, due to some horrible choices in how to build our society and economy, our society is literally breaking down, and because our lifestyles are very unhealthy. In that regard, I'm not talking about high fructose corn syrup or preservatives-- which are mild as far as unhealthy things go-- so much as long commutes, withered social networks, a geography of alienation, and a work culture that expects even average Americans to make sacrifices for work that only make sense for the most ambitious 2-5 percent. The meager social safety net and lack of universal healthcare also creates an environment where crippling mental illness are more common, due to the feedback loops that turn a mild "rough patch" into a full-scale nervous breakdown (once the job is lost, health insurance lapses, medical bills pile up, et cetera). Our problem with mental illness in this country is because we're an unhealthy society, and we're so unhealthy as a society that throwing drugs and money at the problem won't substantially help, but that doesn't mean that the drugs are causing the problem.

There is a difference between clinical depression (pathology) and misery, which is often a result of bad circumstances, and even in a bad situation there's no benefit or justification being depressed per se, but that distinction is mainly clinical. A lot of people are miserable for circumstantial reasons, and no amount of medication can fix that (without damaging the person's mind). If you give an appropriate dose of an antidepressant to a person who is in the sort of horrible circumstances that are common for the US poor, you might stop the panic attacks and crippling depressions, but you still have a person who's likely to be miserable.

We do, of course, overdiagnose mental illness in the US. I know an eccentric but essentially normal person who was committed as a prank (Manhattan rich kids are the sort of sick fucks who would find this funny) and ended up in a mental hospital for 3 weeks (which is illegal, because you can only be held for 72 hours, and that only if you're in a state that represents direct danger to yourself or others). He was placed on all sorts of inappropriate medications, lost his job, and had more mental problems after the ordeal than before it. This sort of thing has more to do with our culture than with the drugs themselves.
"If I join a club and they sell my information (where I live, who referred me, what actions I perform in the club) to another company that is an entirely different matter."

I agree, and it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand: facebook does not do this, and never has.
I would love for a company that collects personal information and shares it or makes predictions or generates advertising based on it to expose ALL of it to me.

Don't just tell me what you're collecting, and what you do in abstract terms, show me exactly what you have and how you use it. If you have data on the frequency with which I visit friend's profiles, I should be able to see it. If you have data on external links that I've followed, I should be able to see that too. I should be able to see the amount of time I spend logged in, if they track that.

Everything. There should be not one thing that is not available to me through the basic interface. It doesn't have to be on the front page, but there should be an interface and you shouldn't have to be a developer to know how to use it.

I would always favor a company that was open about every piece of data that it held about me, AND everything it did with that data.
And 10c per text message...while the actual cost to the operators has approached zero.
Totally OT, but Willoughby and Baltic seems dead to me. I live a block from there and I just go to Sprout. Its generally free, great people and a really friendly environment.
I am unable to change my name or my birthdate.

EDIT:

You know, in the last day I've changed my mind on this deletion thing. I have my own domain name in the form firstnamelastname.com, and with all the will in the world, Facebook can be such a timewaster. Maybe I should just put up a little contact form on my website so anyone who doesn't have my email/number can contact me and be done with it. I don't want to have to dig through a load of obscure privacy settings every time there's a tweak to the site.
It's called memoization
Yes. If you have the money, and you've already been to the dentist [1], spend the money on a chair. Either you will (god forbid) not live to be forty years old -- in which case you won't miss the money -- or your forty-year-old self will thank you. So will your fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty and ninety-year-old selves.

(This is not to say, by the way, that you might not experience chair-related pain in your thirties, or even earlier. But the odds do seem to go up in middle age.)

My only concern -- highlighted in the article -- is that my Aeron isn't enough. I'm amused to find that experts think the thing is too low -- it is too low. But maybe that was partly because my pneumatic cylinder was about to go out -- mine just went. Fortunately my chair is also under warranty!

I'll look into these wacky standing chairs.

---

[1] Slightly off topic, but: I wish, when I was in my twenties, poorly paid, and absent-minded, I'd gotten email every six months saying "the dental checkup you're about to skip will eventually cost you something like $10k or $15k in root canals and crowns. Or, alternatively, you could lose your teeth and spend forty years cursing your bridgework and dentures."
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You're right. In my case, my battery was defective, it just blanked out one fine morning. :)

But I'd still press that some replacements for MacBooks are really out of proportion in terms of cost and one might regret not getting it. Namely - the logic board failures.
If my friends don't know enough to recognize the blatant falsehoods, they aren't really my friends, now, are they?
The whole privacy setup was never really about people's privacy -- it was about keeping them locked into Facebook. I think in their bizarre eat-the-world rampage thay've lost sight of this.

Which is fine, because with the new tools they're coming close to the position where an app can get so much data that it'll be possible for a competitor website to allow you to authorise it to import everything from Facebook -- friends list and all.

On that day there'll be a huge opportunity for someone to start a site offering to be what Facebook used to be: a truly private yet still social network.

A few pledges not to ever force you through hoops to try and retain your privacy, to never make your baby pictures public by default, and to never share your data, and there will be more than enough switchers to get the new place up and running.

Can't wait, tbh.
I've only been in a psych ER once, thank God, and the experience was a lot more traumatizing than the panic attack (worst in my life) itself.

To compound the badness of the situation, I went to the nearest ER, and I was living in Brooklyn at the time-- in a nice neighborhood, but 1 mile from serious ghetto territory. So the hospital was in the ghetto. Bad idea.

The waiting room was about 10 by 10, with six chairs and twice as many patients. Even if you were self-admitted, like me-- actually, I didn't even want to go, but a girl I was dating thought I should-- you couldn't leave. It was 6:00 pm on a Monday and there was one doctor on staff. By the way, Monday afternoons in the spring are the busiest time in the busiest season for psychiatric ERs, so there's literally no excuse for there having only been one doctor on staff.

The TV was extremely loud-- probably 90 decibels-- and some of the shows that played were rather violent. Since 2/3 of the patients were obviously there for anxiety-related problems, this was clearly a bad choice.

You had to ask the nurses to use the bathroom, and if you pissed them off, they'd threaten to bump you to the bottom of the list. Since I was "compliant" and got out in 7 hours, I can't imagine how long the waits are for the people who were uncontrollable.
Actually in the superfuture the cost is negative; advertising based on the context of recent text messages causes the operator to make a small amount of money (about $.005) per message sent.
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Then the shipper could get ripped off.
Seeing as that design is never mentioned in respects to ergonomics and certainly wouldn't "bounce" anything, I strongly suspect the quoted passage was referring to the inflated balls you sit on.
It is brilliant, but that doesn't make it right. Facebook needs to recalibrate its moral compass. There are a lot of really good people working there, so I don't think it's an untenable problem; facebook hires good people regularly (I don't think I know anyone at facebook that I don't consider a good person, actually). But, there seems to be a disconnect about the badness of chipping away at users privacy for the benefit of advertisers and facebook. Facebook has definitely done enough things to make me mistrust them as a company since I've been a user...so, I don't share a lot with facebook, and I'm moving toward sharing less. My pictures are at flickr, and will remain there, for example.
Entertaining video of the android in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ930zzYxl8
Anyone else remember when the official bittorrent site had "THERE IS NO PORN HERE (ANYMORE)" or something to that effect splashed across the top of the page?
was really hoping this post was about http://www.myspace.com/zerozeronj/music/albums/a-m-gold-1316...

true zero is my fave
Iterators sometimes require restructuring, as in

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/coroutines.html

In Haskell they don't - you might write this "producer-consumer" composing a function that produces a stream with a function that consumes a stream. How would you approach that problem in C++?
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Self service platforms
Well, Facebook has to do something to pay for the servers and the programmers.

They're estimating $1B or so in revenue for 2010, that sounds like a lot of money, but that's an ARPU of about $2 or so -- most real businesses do 50 times that.

I don't begrudge them finding some way to get value out of their community, otherwise they'll be a day when they can't afford to run it, or decide to scale it down to something much smaller but much more profitable.

Any alternative offering is going to face the same problems; it's tough to monetize social traffic; I know sites that have incredible user engagements for communities in the 50k user range, but can't scratch together $800 a month to pay for the servers, never mind to pay for anybody's time to develop and maintain the system.
There was a boil-water notice for northwest Washington, DC, within the last few weeks. We heard of it late, then found that the affected area ended about a mile north of us. But there was a spectacular break in the suburbs just before Christmas, requiring helicopter rescue of some stranded motorists. So it's not just Boston.
I've had the Passover Coke (real sugar, no HFCS), and, even though I wanted to like it, I have to say that I liked regular coke better. Maybe it's just a matter of operant conditioning or something like that.

That's the only basis I have to compare HFCS to sugar. I would prefer to have a pastry from a real bakery or a homemade cookie to a Twinkie or a McDonald's apple pie, but there's a big difference between mass-manufactured crap and the expensive stuff other than that the latter uses sugar and the former uses HFCS.

The real problem with HFCS compared to sugar is that it's so cheap that it tends to be used everywhere.
Bogus Trend Story of the Week: The NYT on Americans renouncing citizenship.
I would not have written all that code without testing out your hypothesis first or at least in parallel with your products iterative construction.

Use your friends and family or your "extended network" first and see how / if people use it, if they like it, what is missing, etc. Sorry if this comes off as negative, it's not meant to - I can't tell you how many times I've written a web-service that does X, only to find out it needs to be implemented differently to do Y or realize the bigger challenge is in reaching my target audience or even finding who that audience is.

Customer discover and development is just, if not more, important than product development imho.

Also, take a long, hard, and honest look at your proposed business model and make sure it makes sense (using your friends, family, and extended network can help provide some data around this).
> So, unless the employee is a sucker, better terms for the angel or VC mean more % equity or up-front salary you'll have to offer the employee to compensate.

Great point.

Since equity has to sum to 100 at every point, that "extra" is fairly expensive.

If it translates to more salary, it adds risk to the biz.