skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I tend to think that a lot of the loss of respect that people have to copyright/IP/etc breaks down to:

1. The abuse of these rights by corporations. [e.g. 'patent-mills' that just crank out patents on any idea that pops into the heads of their engineers, even if it's just falls into the formula: "everyday object + {computers,internet} = brand new idea" or "patented idea 1 + {internet,computers} = patented idea 2" ]

2. The egregious way with which Congress/Corporations have extended the duration of IP rights to levels of absurdity that boggle the mind. Do people really believe that NBC would have had no reason to create a radio, and then television network if they were not guaranteed to still have copyrights on all of their content in the year 2010? Do you think that the person that wrote the "Happy Birthday" song, wouldn't have written it if they weren't guaranteed to hold a copyright until the year 2030 (not to mention that they took the melody from an earlier song, probably without licensing it... the horror)? From Wikipedia:

> The Summy Company registered for copyright in 1935, crediting
> authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman. In 1990, Warner
> Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for U.S. $15
> million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at U.S. $5
> million.[5] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims
> that U.S. copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized
> public performances of the song are technically illegal unless
> royalties are paid to it.

This is not an example of creating something of value. They are leeches that are sucking money out of the economy on the back of maybe a weeks worth of work (I hope that you're not going to claim that "Happy Birthday To You" was the result of millions of dollars of investment...) prior to 1935. It's rather an example of someone creating something 'trivial' and expecting to 'hit it big,' never creating something of value again.
From what I know about Chinese consumer psychology, Apple could double the prices of iPhones & make more sales. The Chinese love luxury products.

I've been in front of the Versace and Gucci stores in Paris and when the Chinese tourists come they are absolutely swamped. They could buy the cheaper knockoff in their own country but it's considered low-class to walk around with those. And once you've seen the real thing you know how to spot a KIRF
Orkut scrap flooder
I'm not sure about that - a methodology necessarily makes assumptions about what is important in running a software project.

If a methodology says that you must write everything down on cards and pair program, etc. etc. as the fundamental basis of the approach, and that is really ultimately counter-productive to the efficient running of a project, then you could quite fairly describe the approach as 'bad', or at least faulted.

It's a question of whether it helps or gets in the way.

Also, you can really only take good parts of it if the people executing it don't start themselves seeing it as somewhat religious - if they feel we should 'do agile' and that means following it as written down, then they're unlikely to be open to cropping bad pieces off.
Absence of evident is not the evident of absence.
good news, but the post is too shallow.

this one has more meat: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/100x-internet-0628.html

the promising technology is "Optical flow switching":
http://www.mit.edu/~medard/papersnew/WOBS%20Final.pdf
"Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by you,
Mr. Weems, when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the
minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or
corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the
government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit
in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public
interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law.
Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask
that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private
benefit. That is all"
- from "Life-Line" by Robert Heinlein (1938)
> expressive

cough she mistook "defiantly" for "definitely".
Believing in God as an all-powerful deity can be refuted with logic alone, but that's not what makes me an atheist: it's mostly out of disgust at what organized religion has done to humanity. Religion in itself can be a source of good or evil, but I am convinced the power structures inherent in organized religion can only trend towards evil.

In the specific case of the roman catholic church I believe the pope should be arrested & trialed for crimes against humanity, stripped of his powers; vatican city should be dissolved & any claims of diplomatic immunity should be rejected. Never gonna happen though.
Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
BBC Launch Olympic Site and Facebook Fans “Saddos”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBmavNoChZc#t=6m15s
Try getting a refund when their crappy plugin crashes your browser...

How about the printed copy that's now unusable (because it's, you know, paper, and paper has a habit of getting crumpled or ripped or wet or binned...)

Even iTunes doesn't make me pay for an mp3 again if my HDD dies...
The prose is almost certainly inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. "At the Mountains of Madness" may be a good start, if you like this sort of stuff: http://www.dustylibrary.com/horror/5-at-the-mountains-of-mad...
Per capita GDP is deceiving, because the wealth gap between the urban middle class and rural population is huge.

For example, Guangzhou, a metropolitan city, has a per capita GDP of $23,232, about the same as Portugal, yet the country as a whole averages $6,567. (wikipedia 2009 numbers)

edit: links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prc
The Library of Alexandria didn't have a copyright division.
Agile - great if you're mostly seniors with experience, a good sense of time management and communication.

Else run for the hills!
Australian here .. I've always had a bloody atrocious time in my travels, with my accent .. so I just standardized on "American-sounding" and I get along just fine with people understanding me, mostly, about 100% of the time .. except when I reveal I'm from Australia, and the whole thing unravels into a nationalism-filled diatribe about how I'm not a "true Aussie" since I don't speak A'Strine properly ..

I am a true Australian, since I don't actually live there, and consider anyone else living there, not an Aborigine, to be just a bunch of bloody tourist wankers, heh heh ..
For more discussion (of a blog-post about the answer by Atwood), see here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=944673
I agree with (1), (3), and (2). I'm not so sure about (4), and (5) depends on (4) anyway.

I have a problem with having to respect the wishes of an author regarding to a copy of her work that I hold. Especially when the copy is on my computer. The reasons are simple: computers copy things around. They don't move them. Therefore, I can't really give that song I have on my computer. I can only give a copy of it. And maybe delete my copy afterwards.

Now there's the real problem: the author would have me delete my copy, because it simulate the inconveniences of physical supports, which help her sustain her business model. There is a clear conflict between me potentially hurting the revenue stream of the author, and the author wanting me to artificially restrain my behaviour. I don't know how to solve it. But actively deleting my copy of each work I "give" or "lend" can't be the solution.

I also believe it shouldn't.
I sometimes think that it is better to burn the money (as in, set it on fire) than it is to get an MBA if you want to work in startups.

On the other hand, if you want a cosy job in a nice company that does something that relates to physical production, an MBA would be suitable.
The FSF does not randomly go off and fight for GPL software projects. They only fight for those that they own the copyrights for (been specifically assigned the copyrights by the authors).
I'm impressed with the length of dialogue between the two, and disappointed that it got condescending on both accounts. As far as I can tell, Mr. Brown is legally correct and yet Elanor had some wisdom to offer him. I still haven't heard his work, but I'm thinking about it on her recommendation.
Or develop a piece of software(a Firefox extension?) which will fix bad grammar and raise to fame among grammar nazis. Scratching your own itch versus learning to live with it.
"Challenge any atheist and they'll admit that the existence of one or more deities is possible, but very unlikely."

To which I counter: "Needlepins & how many angels they can hold." It just doesn't matter.

"God lives in a place where reason can't go" is the kind of weak argument I hate most about theism. If you're arguing about the remote possibility of god existing, you're pulling at straws.

Is it so hard to accept that we are just animals with highly evolved, yet ultimately limited brains? Is it so hard to accept that we can't understand everything?
No. You both are wrong.

Buddhist hell is not a place or something to believe in, but it's an explanation of a certain state of mind. The same for god.

So it's not a tradition or something to believe in (btw it's nothing to believe in buddhism as it'd contradict the basis of a buddhism where you just practice with the guidance of your teacher, you don't believe in things but rather check them).

Btw it's a pity and quite a cultural harm that mistranslations or just inability of western discoverers of buddhism to think beyond some closed view caused spreading lots of bullshit about buddhism.
Mofa führerschein
Mofa Führerschein gesucht? Dann auf zur Fahrschule M.Rehse in Neuss. Wir freuen uns auf euch wenn Ihr einen Mofa Führerschein bei uns absolvieren wollt. Bei uns bedeutet Mofa Führerschein Spass. Also meldet euch am besten noch heute bei uns an und besucht usn auf unserer Webseite
Well, it does matter to me, tax-wise. In Germany there is kirchensteuer, so it's in your best financial interest to be non-religious.
Google is your friend :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensch
Birth horoscope seventh house,7th House of Partnerships and Marriage
Yes, same here - I need to pronounce certain things in an American fashion to be understood at all when at work in the US. And much like this example, it revolves around the 'r':

'Excuse me, do you have you wireless internet access here?' (pronouncing it British / Australian style as a two syllable word)

'Sorry sir?'

'Excuse me, do you have you wireless internet here?'

'I'm sorry I don't understand'

'Do you have you wiYERless internet here?'

'Yes Sir, we do have wiYERless. Here's an access card...'
Wind Power Development
A Dutch comedian once described this as the church of Aliquid, for people who believe there is "something". Despite most people calling themselves non-religious, Aliquid turned out to be the most popular faith in the Netherlands.
>So yeah - secured loan is the way to go

If you want to play their game yes, but I would refuse to pay the bank just for the privilege of paying them more money.

If the bank isn't willing to give you a low limit, high interest credit card, take your checking account, etc elsewhere.
> He has not convinced me that there's any reason he should have that right.

OK, suppose your girlfriend agrees to have you take some rather private photos of her under the condition that you will never make these available to someone else. (Or the other way 'round if you're a girl) One day you break up and you're sharing these photos. Does she has the right to stop you distributing them?

According to your logic, she has not. After all, you're just sharing among friends. And it's not as if she's loosing income of something like that.

Following the authors logic, your girlfriend has the right to stop you distributing them. For you made a promise before she agreed -- you basically entered a contract.

His point is that he offered copies of his work under certain conditions (called copyright). In other words, he expected everybody who agreed to the contract not to copy and redistribute his work. He expects them to hold their promise, their site of the contract.

Nobody's is forced or required to enter the contract and make this promise. You're free to make your own music and share it. Or used someone's music who doesn't expect you to make a similar promise.

However, violating your promise (ie. changing the conditions of the contract) is clearly immoral.

Or would you want to be the victim of somebody who changes the contract conditions after the deal was made? Or would you want to be lied to, or have your friends break their promises?

If the answer is 'No', then copying stuff without a license is clearly immoral.
What kind of case were you using? That the case you described fell apart has nothing to do with the fact that it was DIY and everything to do with the fact that it was likely a cheap POS (from the way you described it). Spend some money and you get fully toolless designs, full-body aluminum, etc. Buy a quality PC case from a good manufacturer (Cooler Master, Lian Li, etc) and you won't have to worry about a thing.

Some examples of good DIY cases:

http://www.corsair.com/products/800d/default.aspx

http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=32

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2870

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=...
Why would you even want to know all the answers? Sure, I understand why you want to convince others that you (or your particular collection of fairy tales) have all the answers.

But then you are talking about power & influence, which I guess is the main reason why something that evolved for biological reasons is still around centuries past its expiration date.
> Does Cory Doctorow's way of doing this scale to movie production?

It may: http://www.ironsky.net/
I suppose I could have put "knew" in scare quotes as well as italics.
> 1. The abuse of these rights by corporations.

> 2. The egregious way with which Congress/Corporations have extended the duration of IP rights to levels of absurdity

I agree, but I've never seen anyone take a stand against that abuse. Eg: TPB steals from everyone, including independent artists, Open Source contributors, and people who support copyright reform.
It's a Yiddish word that I picked up when living in the US (and working/living around many American Jews). It roughly means "an honorable person" and I've heard it used as an honorific term to describe another person (as in, "he's a mensch").

MW says: "a person of integrity and honor". It's my desire that people might view me as a mensch one day.
I would add more points:

- availability: Apple's presence in Eastern Europe and China is spotty. Plus the value added services do not work (cannot buy from iTunes Store? What's the integration of Apple stack good for, if you can't use it?). This point was partially addressed in the article, that Apple is planning to open new stores in China.

- pricing: They also use strange exchange rate for their prices. It is cheaper to fly to New York, have a weekend in nice hotel, purchase a Mac and fly home, than just purchase it at home. Western Europe has similar problem - at the time, when 1 EUR = 1.5 USD, Apple used 1:1 exchange ratio. WTF?

- service: it is bad, really bad. When something breaks and you need your Apple product fixed, you don't want to wait for weeks until they bother to do. On the other hand, the competition tries hard, I have experience of having my stuff fixed NBD (no, I didn't purchase NBD service).

Regarding the MS Office - they are not the same. MSO2007 for Windows is better than MSO2008 for Mac. Not only it is significantly faster, but also has more functionality. So when it comes down to decision, whether you want to look at aqua widgets or have solver available, it comes down to getting your job done.
Prior discussion from two weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1443873
Web of Shell Companies Veils Trade by Iran’s Ships
It sounds as though you've already made up your mind ;)
Oh I wasn't aware that there were testable definitions. Then I consider it unlikely that the adults in the German family are either obese or overweight. On what are you basing your claim that their BMI is greater than 25 kgm^-2?
Welcome to Pregnancy Resources
In my mind, there are two distinct arguments: that copyright is about the moral rights of the owner, and that opyright is economically useful. The moral argument has nothing to do with payment as such; it is all about control.

Agreed, technology has some interesting effects of the notion of ownership: consider sampling and wikipedia to name but two. It affects the economic argument much more than the moral one; technology doesn't so much invalidate the concept of ownership as make certain modes of ownership uninteresting.
In my mind, there are two distinct arguments: that copyright is about the moral rights of the owner, and that copyright is economically useful. The moral argument has nothing to do with payment as such; it is all about control.

Agreed, technology has some interesting effects of the notion of ownership: consider sampling and wikipedia to name but two. It affects the economic argument much more than the moral one; technology doesn't so much invalidate the concept of ownership as make certain modes of ownership uninteresting.

edit: spelling
I seriously shy away from "saleable product", so my thoughts are purely from a conventional ad supported website model.

I think it's just the opposite; a product or service that you charge money for is way easier to make a living from than an ad-supported community. How big is the market for ad-supported communities for fish tank owners that are big enough that you could live off of them? A dozen or two? But how big is the market for companies that make a product or service that fish tank owners would buy? Probably thousands. Depending on your margins, you can make a living off of a handful of customers if you're selling them something (and you make money from the very first customer), but it'll take a large audience before you can make any money from ads. This also ignores the fact that ad-supported models have both users and customers, and they're not the same group, which can create all kinds of problems.

Identify a problem, create a solution, and ask people to pay for it.
If you read the literature, from ancient Greek to nowadays, you will find that every body is fighting the same thing at different degree. The main problem we all have on this Earth is that our life is relatively short and when we are comfortable enough to have food/friends/etc. we automatically start to ask ourselves, directly or not:

What do I want to do in my life?

From what you described, you have no answer to this question. You can see a psychiatrist, take some drugs, use all the GTD tricks or whatever, if you do not have this goal of what you want to do, this will only make the problem worse. You will be able to do a lot (in fact you already do a lot) but you will still have strictly no reasons to focus on anything.

So go, find a goal. Find friends who can help you to find a goal. Find strangers, too. Go meditate a week long. Do whatever you need to clear your mind and find 1 or 2 things you can do fully (your mind, your body etc.) for at least the next year (you are young, your life goal will change a lot) and do it/them.

You are lucky to ask yourself what is going on in your 20's. If you do not answer this question, imagine getting a standard job + family and then asking yourself the same question with 40... so, do it now and again on a regular basis.

We are all in the same boat and for most of us, the long term goal of our life is just a pleasant string of short/middle term goals with happiness on top of it.
Too bad our galaxy occludes most part of the picture. I'd like to see that image distorted in a way that better exposes how sky looks when looking directly up and down from galaxy plane.
This is the one we use at work and it works like a breeze :). Very easy to use and you can vary flavors without cleaning the machine, which is as far as I know one of the main cons for automatic machines.
Good advice. I'd go further and say that you should charge the customer for putting the spec together.
it lacks several core features, like audio & video chat, group file sharing, etc. Millions of years passed now it's still Beta.
ANooYoo - Free Self Improvement, Life Coaching and Goal Setting System
aNooYoo is a self improvement and goal setting system designed to allow you to identify areas of your life where you may want to grow and improve, to reach new levels of achievement through goal settings, and to obtain support as your grow. aNooYoo provides the ultimate free personal growth system which will aid in defining goals, setting targets and tracking your progress towards them
s/will abuse/can abuse/

I guess I should have been clearer. Apple can make it so that it's impossible for developers to abuse it.
Honestly, I don't know what to tell you. The only thing that comes to mind is get a Mac-Pro case and cut it up to fit your ATX board. You can find cases online from fries machines. They generally go for $4-500. Problem is they are built like $500 cases and there is a very small market for that. A market that has the money to afford a full Mac-Pro.

Lian-Li had a case that looked similar in design and concept. And you can have a look at this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811164...

But the ATX standard isn't really designed for optimized airflow; memory is oriented in the wrong direction, CPU is positioned right behind the, flow obstructing, drivebays, and hard drives are tucked in wherever there is space left (usually the front bottom).

Instead of any laminar airflow you get case makers sticking more fans along the sides, top, and bottom. Or they give up and do watercooling instead.

If you have the patience, get a Mac Pro case on ebay.
I love that. I had to do a similar calculation for how much change would be needed for a film festival. I was a volunteer that handled the cash and we needed to know how many $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills to have on hand so that we could always accept cash when people bought tickets.

I did a similar calculation making reasonable assumptions (most people buy two tickets at a time, most people pay with a $20 bill, etc.). It was fun and worked out quite accurately.

Best part was taking the actual funds collected and reevaluating to minimize the amount of cash needed.
Aeropress (http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/8e3a/) btw is another cheap and handy solution.
Maybe the solution could lie with people becoming a bit more responsible, and starting to donate to authors they like. In may require a bit of education, however. Like, teaching children that sharing is good.

I think the real flaw in the current state of affairs is the lack of an easy way to donate. Build that, and say "my work is free, just please be nice if you like it", and interesting things may happen.

Heck, people are more likely to donate when you give them your work for free, than buy your work at all. Provided that taking and donating is as simple as buying of course.

If there was an dead-easy, reasonably secure way to donate 1$ to the authors of a work I am currently enjoying, I may click on that button.
Me too. My gag reflex, mainly.
How Google tries to "generate luck"