skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm sorry, I should have said "patent barriers" instead. Apple is faced with the necessity of cross licensing their patents with their competitors in order to continue developing smartphones. I don't think Apple will be able to aggressively use their patents to prevent MS, HP, etc from copying.
"If only coming up with a great political idea was as easy as writing a high quality encyclopedia article."

Coming up with a great political idea is probably pretty easy. The difficulty comes in convincing lots of people to make the sacrifices and compromises necessary to implement the great idea. That's why they call it politics, no?
8. Pay them.
A good point and it seems to be validated in studies involving new democracies: http://www.technologyreview.com/article/25048/

"Unexpectedly, the civic decisions--often involving road, sanitation, and water projects--were nearly identical whether made by majority vote or village elites. Giving power to the people, it seems, does not automatically lead to tangible material changes. Yet when people were allowed to vote, they expressed greater contentment with the results."
How far off is a heads-up display? That would change the game.

EDIT http://www.microvision.com/vehicle_displays/head_up_displays... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_retinal_display

These things are expensive, but electronics get cheap fast.
Or, Trading $140k/year for $110K/year and _taking_ two weeks of vacation. I'm astonished at how few people in Silicon Valley companies take more than a week off per year. I think it's unhealthy, and, ironically, likely reduces their effectiveness overall.

But, as one who took a day off, and came back to 192 email, at least 10-15 of which really needed me to pay attention - I don't understand how to leave the work place gracefully. It's almost like I have to hire my replacement, and transition all my responsibilities to them prior to taking any time off.

I couldn't agree more with the author of the story - once the basics like shelter, housing, food, water and Medical Care are taken care of, spending quality time with friends and family really is the key to happiness.
Do you want to show off a project/app/hack?
In light of the feedback I received on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379942 I am trying to pivot.

People have said they would be interested in hearing about projects/apps/hacks that other HN members are working on.

If you are interested in doing so, contact me:
marc {at} ideatin {dot} com

All I need is about 30 mins of your time, for a 10 - 20 minute taping.
Americans are materially wealthy relative to most of the rest of the world. I would suspect (without having any sort of citation to support it) that, when compared to Americans, most of the people who have ever lived in any time and in any country have known nowhere near the standard of living represented by a $60K annual income in the U.S. today. If that assumption is true, and if the premise of this piece is also correct, this would mean that most of the people who have ever lived throughout all of humanity's existence have been unhappy with their lives. That would seem to me a dubious proposition.

I think that neither money nor happiness is the key but rather contentment. Life dishes up the good and bad to us all, and we often can't do anything about that, but learning to be content with what we have is an achievable and worthwhile goal for all - and also a better measure than money can ever be of whether we have lived our lives well.
This is why WordPress will never take off.
Anyone know if the OS can be upgraded to 2.2?
neilc, I personally agree with your intuition, but Daniel Kahneman's point seems to be that, on average, you would be as happy making $60k as you would be making $1 million a year.

This concurs with a lot of other research that suggests that human beings are terrible at estimating what makes them happy. I enjoyed this book on that exact topic: http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/...
Except you can't copyright a musical scale, one note sequentially after the other.

But you can copyright a phonebook, one name and number sequentially after another?

My conclusion is much the same as Vivtek's, although heck if I understand how information that is public very widespread can somehow become special because it is in a text file made by somebody else. I mean we're literally talking about an alphabetical list of names in a text file that contains public information available in hundreds or thousands of various places.

But as my HN friend pointed out, databases can be marked, and if you lift them it's very possible to get the nasty gram.
Google has the engineers and the legal department to take on Blackboard. If they took 6 months for a dev team with this as their primary task and were willing to have actual tech support they could demolish blackboard with a single sales rep in 5 years.
if for you as for me the video never actually loaded (VIDEO AVAILABLE SOON), i believe this to be the same video, which loaded instantly for me:

http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/videos/Go-For-Launch.h...
It's still decentralized. Not one company has access to all e-mail, as with Facebook.
One of the best all-around plotting packages for R (in my opinion) is Hadley Wickham's ggplot2 .

Take a look at the following pages:
http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/scale_datetime.html
http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/geom_line.html

While not specifically inentended as a 'time-series' package, ggplot2's facilities handle time-series data well. Ggplot2 is available on CRAN (i.e. install.packages('ggplot2'); ).

In truth, you don't even have to use a special package if the 'prettiness isn't important.'

df <- data.frame(
day7 = start + round(runif(100, max = 7 * 86400)),
hour10 = start + round(runif(100, max = 10 * 3600)),
y = runif(100)
);
plot(df$day7, df$y);
plot(df$hour10, df$y);
Add a command to make a sound and/or push the build window / ide forward at the end of the compile. It really is as simple as that if you want it.
Its not, but if it was it would be because it had Google backing it. Lack of a known corporate support system is Moodle's weakness, and Blackboard's sole reason for success.
Nothing to see here other than deranged fanboyism.

Apple and Google are having a good bout of competition in the market. This is generally good for everyone as they continue to try to one up each other on features and value. This is what we (consumers) want, not one company or the other engaging in anti-competitive dirty tricks.
They are also patent trolls.
"data is stored in the cloud, which is illegal"

Which data is illegal to store in the cloud?

Could you please provide a source?
And they bought out their most powerful competitor, WebCT.
What does he consider "learning" a word? I'm genuinely curious, because it seems like there are so many ways to do this, especially when you are already comfortable with more than one language. Does he memorize the closest translation in his native language? Use a picture? (and if so, does he use the same set of pictures for each language?)

I doubt I could accomplish 100 words/day, but I may try his approach anyways.
Sorry man, but I didn't piss in your oatmeal this morning and I certainly didn't say any of that stuff.

I complain about oversimplifications and demonization and you come back at me with even more of it?
In short: Don't hold your breath for numpy support on App Engine.

The news is that, a handful of people today began commenting on the issue ("Please add NumPy [to Google App Engine]"), presumably because someone on some mailing list urged this action (http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=19...). Google mails all people that follow this issue whenever there is a comment, meaning that if you have voted for this issue you have ended up with ten "me too" emails in your inbox today. Which led to followup comments like this one: "Please stop to comment for nothing!!! It's spamming all of us (and sorry for this message)
What is that pressure starring for one day now?? Are you all in the same team??"

Google has ignored this issue for over two years. They also ignored "No way to delete an application" (which sucked, given the small quota on App Engine applications you can build) for almost a year and a half (http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=33...), despite 1000 votes and 100 comments. Deletion is clearly a simple fix, so you shouldn't assume that community requests would really sway Google.
I feel for your friends drop from his potential, but the fact remains he did this all the while it was illegal. The legality of the product changed nothing in his outcome. You cannot argue that making the product legal would have changed his outcome in any way at all, for he smoked his way to mininum wage illegally. He could have just as easily chosen bourbon to lose himself in, as thousands and thousands of people do each year. At least smoking himself stupid he was less likely to kill himself or someone else. Any police officer will tell you that drunks are a problem and stoners are not.

I can tell many similar stories of friends who lost their way with drugs and alcohol. Bad shit happens in this world, and being successful means not only hard work but avoiding temptations. You've got to do well in all aspects of your life : to me there is little difference between the person who won't but any effort in to study and accepts a minimum wage, and those that put effort into study but waste it all by being a drug addict.
Oil cleanup workers report illness
OP wants a distributed operating system. Linux, FreeBSD and Windows by design are not distributed. POSIX specifically cripples this. How do you take into account an action that needs to be distributed but have a central return point? How will fault tolerance be handled? Expecting every application to handle this won't work, what's needed is a distributed operating system.
Trends reverse, and "this thing is going up forever" trends usually reverse with a huge drops and without a warning.

Check this http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/momentum-play-...
Heh.

Don't beat around the bush, man. Spell it out for us. What're you saying here?
Apparently you only needed $40,000 to be happy in 2004. http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2004/08/01/you-only-need-40000...
Where is the value in Apple? Its ability to trick Americans into buying very expensive, yet very restrictive, products that most of the time they really don't need? That's actually a very harmful thing, from an economic perspective.
Hardware for connecting a computer and a projector or other auxiliary display
> iTunes works really on Windows...

Please don't troll here, help keep the level of discussion high.
Great work! This tutorial is a huge asset to the Rails community.
I don't believe you watched the TED talk by Daniel Kahneman embedded in the blog post.

Daniel Kahneman mentions the 60k stat after his discussion and says "for Americans".

That should lead you to the conclusion that the number would likely be different if you did the gallup survey in a different country.
Sir, as always you make excellent points.

Though in this case, I think you may be neglecting one thing. As the article mentions towards the end, humans are creatures of comparison. Someone earning around 60K in America can see that they are better off materially than most of the people in their city and if they pay any attention at all to the world they will know they are vastly better off than the majority of the world. At that point they are hardly wealthy, but better off than most.
Oh, I think there are other important similarities. You've got to remember that the UK was (basically) a representative democracy at a time when the number of representative democracies in the world was... what, three-ish? Important similarities include:

1. A bicameral legislature (commons + lords vs house + senate)

2. The idea that representatives should represent individual districts

3. Most importantly, the whole "common law" thing
And be replaced by who?
And The Winner Of TechCrunch Disrupt Is… Soluto
americaspeakingout.com is filled with examples of this law in action.
Do we really need to get paid for everything we do?

I really think we should get paid for everything we do for for-profit companies. And if someone at a for-profit company is saying "We'll hire you, but only after you've 'paid your dues' by giving us labor for free", they do not have your best interests at heart.
The term patent trolls gets thrown around too much.

Did Blackboard put together a patent portfolio, and use it dissuade potential competitors? Or do they have a separate business unit that writes patents without actually producing any valuable product and seeking to make money from lawsuits?

The latter is a patent troll; the former is a business best-practice.

(I feel compelled to say that I don't agree with software patents in any form, but until the system is reformed, it's stupid not to play by the rules.
I am afraid that saying cirgarettes are carcinogenic is a simple fact. It has been established strongly that they increase the risk of cancer, and that is the very definition of the word.

With that said, I support your right to decide for yourself what is an acceptable level of risk for you and to enjoy them if you please. I choose to refrain, but that is my choice and you have every right to make a different one.
Big companies seem to care less, so are one option. For example, Microsoft hires plenty of people who didn't live in the Seattle area prior to being hired.
This surprises me given that it seems pretty clear they are about to lose their projected dominance in the smartphone game to Android. I can't see how you can justify that sort of valuation without projecting them to be the dominant smartphone platform. The iPad seems to be doing well but it all hinges on the same OS as the iPhone. Is it possible that Jobs "reality distortion" field is now working on the market?
No! Apple is a hardware company first and foremost. If they acquire Dropbox, they'd just mess it up!
Ubuntu 10.04 Long Term Support: Lucid Lynx Benchmarked And Reviewed
Why not build off of this base specifically for schools? Blackboard is always going to be hanging over you. Why not get Google in your corner by relying on their open code?
In Canada it is illegal to store student information on servers outside of Canada. At least that is what I was told when I was asked to create a CMS.
That's exactly what I was thinking. As a producer of content, if a specific app is denying you an income, why would you not just block it.

Sure, you're turning away customers, but you're turning away customers that aren't paying.
I think the key to the $60K happiness threshold is that it represents being in the top 20% income bracket.

Standard of living may be lower elsewhere, however, an individual's relative wealth (especially with respect to peers) is probably what's really relevant:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3315638/Rela...
Oil spill in Alaska closes 800 miles of pipeline
Great list. I'd add on to that:

1. Employee self-assessment forms - We don't need HR to make to my manager make me tell him what I think I do well/poorly. Business jargon is no substitute for 2-way honest conversation.

2. Managers that try to shoehorn every problem into one solution.

3. Being restricted to technology choices that your manager knows.

4. Being the single go-to guy for everything in your department because no one else is interested enough to learn things on their own - Want me to setup your enterprise Java portal while fixing IE CSS/Javascript bugs that our web developers couldn't figure out while debugging a WordPress plugin for another department? Sure, you want fries with that order, sir?
Of course it is, I'm not saying you're wrong. Although usually one company has access to all your email. As far as the user is concerned it's still centralized. That is, our data is still stored in a centralized place. The protocols for these open social networks however call for decentralizing all the way to the user level, and that's not how email is (though it could be).
That's a pretty crappy design.
If I had that wealth I would still keep coding... just for fun and for the sake of coding! Probably I would focus on something extraordinary, like robotics or AI.
Couldn't those feature easily be added to this code base? Why not turn it into an open source Blackboard competitor?
That just seems like a business opportunity - dealing with regulatory hurdles.
Ask HN: How do i determine how much software development will cost?
I'm starting a business to create a software/hardware product and i need to estimate how much the software will cost to develop. I dont have any experience coding to know how to determine this and no idea where to get this information. Any ideas?
Grades, and almost any student info in general.

Come on, if you've spent any amount of time in the education industry you know this.
Just to the cloud point, as of early May, 8 million students and counting use Google Apps as the official choice of their school.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/schools-are-almost-ou...
Well, Desire2Learn managed to beat them off with a stick, and is doing quite well these days actually.

But yeah, they're pretty evil in general.
A Python Code That Makes Any Song Swing
English is well on the way to being a default language. It has the most speakers of any language (Chinese has more native speaker). In Europe, almost 90% of kids in countries where English is not the main language study English as a second language.

Among adults in Europe, I believe that in every country where English is not the main language at least half the adults speak it as a second language.

English is the standard for aviation and maritime use, by treaty. It's also the de facto standard in computing and most of science. If one is going to deal internationally, and is only going to know one language, English is the best choice.
There is at least one Canadian school amongst the 8 millions students using Google Apps as their official suite.

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/case_studies/lakehe...

I'm betting that Google or a 3rd party will eventually piggy back a for-pay educational tool on the existing Google Apps school customer-base through their Marketplace.
A systematic approach is required for all international essay competitions
Taking part in an international essay competition needs preparation and planning. With proper time management and understanding of how the essays should be written you will be able to submit and, maybe win, the essay competition. If needed a good writing service will assist you in the process.
I've seen many startups use Tender App (http://www.tenderapp.com) which seems very well designed and developed (by the team at entp!).

Here's an example of their help/FAQ/doc system:
https://help.tenderapp.com/faqs
You can delete an app.
maybe COCOMO II or COSYSMO to give you an effort estimate. They're meant to be calibrated to your environment though.

Or a book like this:
DeMarco, Tom. Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement and Estimation. ISBN 0-13-171711-1.
I made this account because my other one was on non-procastinaio mode. I was also hoping that someone would reply to me and then I would contact him. Thanks for the heads up.
I forget who it was who said that money is like sex: you only think about it when you're not getting enough of it, and if you are you find something more interesting to think about. I also forget whether this was supposed to be a commentary on money or a commentary on sex.

In any case, if you're getting enough of both you're probably pretty happy.
Sounds like a free-for-all, ie a nasty court battle. How can he own 30% of your company if he has nothing in writing? An email stating intent isnt the same as an email stating "You acknowledge i have given $x for x% of the company" and of course without a signature thats a pretty big presumption.

Pretty much its an issue of whats more likely to piss him off and is it worth the cost of court.
I get bored of games remarkably easily compared to the average person or the average programmer, it seems.

Games that have managed to keep my interest enough to play most of the game, in reverse chronological order: Portal, No One Lives Forever 2, No One Lives Forever, Super Mario World, Super Mario Brothers 3, and Super Mario Brothers.
It ain't about the capital. It's about iterating and learning with speed.
Indeed. Java -- more precisely the JVM's promise to code once, run anywhere -- had Microsoft worried in the late '90s. Rightly so, IMO.
If they did purchase dropbox they would probably integrate it into mobileme and require a mobileme subscription in order to use it.
It's possible to extract emails. I've done it using the steps here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/export-email-addresses-from-f...

It's generally within FB's terms of service to store Facebook ids, but unless you're a larger company like Yahoo, I don't think you're allowed to do much else other than use the data for your app.
I think what's crazy is that Google has ignored the Google Code spam issue. People really should have an opt-in checkbox that says "Should this message be forwarded to 852 starred recipients?" or [insert armchair solution here]. It really is truly annoying tracking bugs with Google Code.
It's extremely difficult to estimate the amount of work a software project is going to take. If you're working with an experienced developer, and have a good specification of the software you're building, they will probably be able to give you a ballpark estimate.

No matter how good the ballpark estimate is, it won't be right on, either in terms of time or money. Every piece of software you build is, by it's nature, unique. If it wasn't, you'd just license the existing software.
In my experience, "travelers" are just tourists who have a complex about it.
As long as your second hand smoke doesn't affect others.
> Could Microsoft's investment be seen as a HUGE strategic blunder?

Oh I don't know. Maybe Microsoft's shares in Apple will be its most valuable asset in another 10 years... (1/2 joking)
> It's not particularly nice to be called a dick..

I read a lot of excerpts from his post as him just ranting against a general 'you,' not you in particular. I wouldn't take it personally.
Republicans quickly established a powerful online presence with that project.

poe'd!
As far as disruptive technologies go I think saluto, if they deliver on their promise of solving users' computer problems deserves this accolade.

I have always lamented the fact that personal computers users have to double as system administrators to keep their systems running smoothly and the tech industry has been trying to alleviate the pain by moving to web based applications and alternative easier to use devices such as the iPad but if saluto can really deliver it may just give the desktop a second chance at life and that would truly be disruptive!
I can only assume that it's talking about household income. A family of four with an income of $240K has a standard of living nothing like a single person earning $60K.
You might try shopping your idea around some place where programmers congregate -- like, ohhh, HN? -- and get feedback on the specifics.

Don't worry about anyone stealing your idea. Anyone good enough to pull it off is already too busy with other projects.
Or fully in your dash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSnIXfoSU6I
Is it just me that thinks it's insane that companies can permanently plan to not pay (or pay small) dividends?

If market trading is solely based on the ability to resell stock at a higher price how is the market expected to select companies that deliver real value to the economy?

Surely the ability of a company to consistently and stably deliver dividends to the stock holders would be the best measure of success, re-investment cases aside.

Unless I misunderstand the only shareholder value in this context is the ability to flip the stock or get a piece of the action if the company is sold.