skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I believe property taxes make up much of the school, etc. budgets in most states.

Yes, however: (1) property taxes do not fund the entire school budget in most states and (2) states spend money on a great deal more than just schools.

If anything, it should be a flat tax.

Um, isn't sales tax already a flat tax? It sounds like you're describing the simplified internet sales tax agreement mentioned in the article...is that true?
There's kind of a trend towards reactive-AI architectures in some areas, especially in game-AI and robotics, with a focus on concise human authoring of situationally reactive plans, as opposed to autonomous learning/etc. The intelligence comes in the ability for a human to specify a fairly concise, high-level plan, which will then "do the right thing" in various situations, without having to explicitly specify all the variations of what that might be. That admittedly gives it a strong PLs focus rather than being a pure AI problem.

Three papers on different approaches, getting sort of progressively further from classical planning as time goes on:

http://www.ai.sri.com/pubs/files/1364.pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.106....

http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050311/isla_01.s...

The last one is the direct inspiration for this library I assume, since it's the source of the term "behavior trees". I agree that many do have somewhat more complexity; for example, the 2nd link above is a reactive system with working memory, resolution of joint and dependent behaviors, etc. But game developers have tended to want to strip things down as bare-bones as possible, due to wanting: 1) minimal CPU usage; 2) a simple enough model that not-very-technical gameplay designers can specify a lot of the behaviors; and 3) something simple and deterministic enough that the engineers can predict and debug its behavior.
I've yet to see that many inappropriate uses of the word "consumer". For those of us versed in economics, it's a real word with a real meaning, and there's no evidence in this thread that the usage of "consumer" deviates very far from that meaning.

Changing language for political purposes is a dubious business to begin with. Everyone just learns what the new euphemisms mean and no one's actual thinking is changed.When the existing semantics are already pretty accurate, the process of euphemism just makes the language inelegant and confusing. "Citizen" has a distinct meaning--there's no need to turn it into a euphemism for "consumer", or to discourage frank and precise discussion of how things affect people in various economic roles.
Climate myths: They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11643
After you show her the retina display, show her the HTC Evo display.

"OOooo... I can actually read some of the text on that one!" she'll say.

Pixel density is nice and all, but a lot of people would rather have a bigger screen.

This illustrates Android's biggest advantage and biggest weakness versus iOS. Choice.

The trick for Google is to introduce some standards that will make different Android phones more consistent. Hell, they could do the same thing for the hardware. Crank out a cellphone chipset that manufacturers can customize instead of rolling their own and then being 8 months behind the latest Android release, if even that! Then the variety of Android phones out there will be a true strength and not a weakness.
Seriously? To my eye, verticals look ragged on that screen, thanks to the not-nearly-as-high-res, hexagonal pixels.

Edit: I see discussion of gamut.
To quote http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm:
The Color Gamut of the Nexus One is much larger than the industry standard … which is actually bad because it makes all colors appear too strong and over-saturated. … all they do it distort the colors in the images and photos on-screen

What good is it to have a larger gamut if the software doesn't support it? All graphics online & in apps use standard sRGB color space information. There’s simply nothing to display outside of that gamut in 99.9%+ of cases.
I do believe it is pretty obvious.

Your analysis ignores the fact that in-state retailers pay property taxes, income taxes, user fees, and employ people within the state who in turn pay taxes.

If you convert the traditional cost-benefit analysis into a cost analysis, then you can prove that literally anything is a bad idea. But that's not a serious way to argue a point.
Mr. Grove should consider, in my view, another contemporary issue that puts our society at risk: the failure of basic infrastructure and the general fragility of engineered environment.

We have centralized (and industrialized) food production. Our power grid, efficient in some ways, creates massive central points of failure. Centralization of basic retail (e.g., the "big box" stores) has gutted small-scale local manufacturing and retail. Our transportation infrastructure is optimized for cheap oil leaving us with roadways too expensive to maintain well and a neglected rail system.

His paradigm for building "scalable" industry in the US sounds as if it might be locked back in the vision of industrialism that got us into this infrastructure problem in the first place.

I suggest that the scaling we most want is not a few firms that grow very large, but rather many small business industries that better distribute and decentralize essential production. Examples: Invent agricultural equipment and supply technology in support of small forms and more labor intenstive forms of agriculture; focus on manufacturing equipment improvements for small factories; focus on distributed and decentralized power production and distribution. Such investments are more difficult to finance because there is less often just a few big winners that generate a handsome ROI -- it's lots of tiny wins. But it's tiny wins that scale "horizontally" across regions and scale up employment just fine while at the same time giving us a more robust, resilient society.
you are one hell of a man to post this.
Take care.
edit: directed at sivers
Phusion is doing pretty OK.

There are still some companies left idling along from a group 10 years ago that sold commercial event-driven webservers / reverse-proxies / caches / load-balancers that were much better than Apache, but are heaps of shit compared to the nginx ecosystem.
> talent to catch up to Apple on that

With the exception of the better-than-Apple notifications, isn’t Android just attempting to copy lots of UI idioms from iOS in a slightly less usable manner? This is a Mac → Win GUI situation again, is it not? With engineers and programmers driving Android as essentially a Google side project, what’s to actually instill serious quality control and innovation for interfaces?
If Google cared about UI, they would buy Phonegap or Titanium. Overnight that would release developers from the unholy mixture of Java and XML and free up the development platform to millions of web developers.
Having an active money manager working on your behalf costs money that could otherwise be sunk into growth capital in an ETF tracking an index.
See Burton Malkiel "A Random Walk Down Wallstreet" for a very detailed and full explanation.
I agree, although they did mention that important point at the end:

Finally, it's possible—likely, even—that the correlation between Toxo infection and World Cup success is a coincidence, or that it reflects some other common trait among successful soccer nations. Maybe it helps to have raw meat in your diet, and Toxo is just a side effect?
I'd be very surprised to learn it was this complicated, but this is a very interesting take on it.

Do people tend to have such a bulk of credit cards/credit card numbers that they'd test them in such a fashion? And also, wouldn't it be very risky (detection/police wise)?
Better read the fine print really good, business brokers worth their money are very hard to find and it's easy to get locked in with some shyster that will bank on you selling your business eventually and him pocketing a part of the sale. They're worse than real estate agents.
Absolutely true, especially the vice-versa part. Everyone's definition of success is different. Others may think you are a failure based on this post, while thinking you were a success based on almost every other post. Their perception of your success or failure should not change whether you feel successful or not. The only thing that matters is whether you yourself feel successful or not. If not (having read your blog for a while), I'm certain you're on the way to change things around.

And yes, big changes are awesome. Took me almost a year to change my work/school situation but now I'm finally happy about how things are going to be.
Don't predict the future. Bet on the future. If you want to have the mobile skills that will be in demand two or even five years from now, pick what that will be and invest in learning them. You can always hedge by dabbling in the other platform.

For me, I am learning iOS first and Android later (Actively pursuing and coding iOS projects and monitoring the latest flavor-of-the-month Android state-of-the-art and evolving best-in-class Android apps with interest)
Ask HN: Digg crashes my browser
Whenever I visit the new Digg website, (I use Google chrome 5.0.375.9), my browser freezes up and then crashes. Has anyone else experienced this? or is it just unique to me?
why does google chrome barf on his site? (windows vista)
do you regret the trip to Burning Man?
I've made a few trips to Kaua'i I couldn't necessarily "afford" and haven't regretted it.. which is why I ask. Thank You.

edit: seems like you liked it :) Good on you bud.
Or make sure you understand the intricacies of asset protection and hide as much of your wealth away, out of reach of your ex-spouses lawyers.
Good additional points. I do want to say that I am not the original poster. I was speaking from the benefits I would see if I was in that situation.
I've looked through 'bizbuysell.com' a bit, there are lots of real businesses there but also quite a few that look like the online equivalent of 'pump-and-dump'. If you go there as a buyer looking for an online business better do your homework real well.
Strong asset protection should never require hiding!

You should always be able to have all assets fully revealed, and still be protected. Never depend on secrets.
I'm not sure whether one can say that EE is harder than CS, or vice versa. For starters, which subfields of EE and CS are you comparing? If, for CS, you pick Theory of Computation, Algorithms, or Machine Learning, then those are pretty difficult fields. If you pick programming languages, databases, or user interface design, those are "easier" than the aforementioned (although still challenging in their own right).

In EE, if you pick some of thee classes that Stephen Boyd [http://www.stanford.edu/~boyd/] teaches at Stanford, I would imagine those are difficult.

How much more difficult is convex optimization than complexity theory? I'm not sure, but I don't think one's necessarily easier than the other.
> What I'm saying is when people use the phone search
> they are trying to search the phone part of the
> device (SMS, email, etc...).

> That in mind I see Apple's point here as being
> "we think developers will abuse search if they
> are allowed in and we don't think users want that
> so we're keeping them out"

This is a straw man. Apple can weight the search so that search hits in the more important apps are always at the top of the results.
For an Opera user, it's still damn annoying to have to start up another browser. I tend to have Chrome running as a fallback but it does always grate me when people don't bother to fix their sites. And it's not as if Opera was that fussy.
> As a developer I think you're obsessed with features. Whereas users don't necessarily want those features.

The Apple iPhone is a mobile experience.

Those of us who are fortunate to forgo its "lack" of features, understand that it can add value to part of the routine and boredom of day-to-day life.

It's actually fun to do something productive and/or kill time with it while out-and-about.

Repost but from presentation by Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering:

1st generation - It's about the Technology (Big mainframe computers - had to go to specialized training at HQ to be able to use it, let alone program it. Early dotcom sites where you could theoretically buy something if you could figure it out)

2nd generation - Features (Mobile phones with streaming TV, MP3 - all thrown in, loosely coupled, none integrated, some Internet portals)

3rd generation - Experience (Craigslist, MySpace (it does what their target market wants them to - peer communication), Google is getting there... Facebook is getting there, flying sheep aside).

In Jared's opinion, the Apple iPhone leapfrogged directly to the 3rd generation - it's not a phone, it's not a portable computer - it is a great way to kill time (everywhere I go I see people trying to kill time on their mobile phones, rarely is it an iPhone).
Sorry - please email me specifics? derek@sivers.org Thanks!
I hasten to point out that "opinion makers" and "scientists" are widely disjunct sets of individuals. (There's also a big difference between "taken seriously as a risk" and "taken seriously as the most probable outcome", and it's very easy to trip the first threshold without tripping the second. Even a 10% chance of, for instance, terrorists using nuclear weapons has to be taken extremely seriously even though it's highly improbable.)
What's ridiculous is that the financial industry just extorted a trillion dollars out of the US Government, and now instead of increasing taxes on the industry that makes money by moving money around, the government is looking to squeeze productive enterprises to make up some of the shortfall.

There's absolutely no justification for even having this discussion in Congress. Can we please have our Ghandi-esque civil disobedience revolt now?
The greenhouse effect was a plot element in a 1991 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Time_(episode)
Better to be concerned now and look foolish than to dismiss concerns and be proven naive.

What exactly does concern accomplish? Shouldn't you be "concerned" about space aliens invading Earth? Shouldn't you be concerned that your neighbor is a witch who has put a hex on you? I mean, it would much better to be "concerned" about that dire threat than to merely look foolish for ignoring it, right?

This rhetoric about "concern" troubles me because it comes from nowhere. It is not based on a factual analysis about the growth of government power in recent history; it is just ahistorical venting of misplaced anxiety.

The fact of the matter is that in the US, top marginal tax rates have declined significantly over the last half century. Government control of industrial policy has declined radically. Government commissions used to literally set prices for all kinds of goods. Airlines couldn't set their own routes and schedules while banks couldn't open branches in adjacent states. Now, all those regulations are not only gone but considered quaint and absurd. Does any of that history ameliorate your "concern" at all? Or is your concern resistant to facts?
My understanding is that half of everything you earned and bought while married is on the table. Stuff you owned or earned before the marriage is not on the table unless you want it to be. Non-marital property vs. marital property.

I'm not a lawyer.
In addition to the links _delirium provided,

http://chrishecker.com/My_Liner_Notes_for_Spore/Spore_Behavi...

http://aigamedev.com/insider/presentations/behavior-trees/#r...

http://books.google.ru/books?id=1OJ8EhvuPXAC&lpg=PA370&#...

and for people who prefer XML there is a simular architecture based on FSMs called XABSL,

http://www.xabsl.de/

which is used heavily among Robocup teams.
Relevant chart here: http://realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT090909050230&... ("shows the peformance per watt and performance/mm2 of silicon for various CPUs and GPUs.")
you sure? I've taken an armchair perspective at google overall, and they seem to be moving toward things that "look better"...

They can afford good UI and to think they don't understand the value(if it does exist) would be incredibly naive.
Why, if you're searching for symptom X, would you want to find emails with X, text messages with X, and that image which just happens to contain X in its filename?

You could very well want any of those things searchable for symptom X if the email, text message, or Image has relevant details for symptom X. Perhaps the image is an X-ray, the email is a diagnosis from a colleague, or the text message is relevant data about the diagnosis. The very fact that you think they should have to load 3+ different apps to find all the data relevant for symptom X or purchase a high priced propietary app that somehow bundles email, imaging, documents and sms all into one interface shows a lack of vision. Just because every medical device in the field works that way doesn't mean it should.
I agree that Android up till now has been as you describe, but I've no idea what they're planning for Android 3.0. I assume that part of the reason why Android's UI idioms have been a less usable copy of iOS's so far is because they were rushing to rework what previously resembled BlackBerry into something more iPhone.

I get the Mac/Win analogy, but Microsoft never really grokked UX, while Google generally does. Given that UI is their focus for 3.0, I'd assume their UX people will have more input this time around.
Also, make sure you're pursuing your own definition of success and not one you picked up from somebody else:
http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_ph...

(De Botton's books on these and similar subjects are worth a read)
Top three apps I would love to see this integrate with:
1. Omnifocus
2. Textexpander (better than at the moment)
3. Clyppan

Dropbox, you all deserve a beer.
There surely is value in the business there. One basic formula for business valuation is 110% of annual gross revenue + the value of any hard assets.

The recurring license revenue is nice. The billable hours are a little difficult to value though since they are very dependent on you skill set. If you are doing something fairly unique, and the buyer can't be trained easily or successfully than it might be hard to honestly justify that revenue when negotiating a business value and price.

What are you marketing and advertising costs now? If you say "basically zero" then you might have a lot of untapped potential value.

Since you are not interested in running a business and hiring people, I'd suggest selling now. It'll take a few months to find a buyer and a few months to close a deal so might as well start now.

To paraphrase Warren Buffet "no one ever lost any money by taking a profit".

On the other hand, $2k per month of passive income while in grad school is a great way to live and study and work without a lot of added stress.

I wouldn't take less than $125k for it, cash (don't carry a note for the buyer). And offer the buyer 40-80 hours of training over the first 2 months.
You keep saying this like it's news. Any platform, and not just mobile, is going to end up with winners and a long tail of losers or those that are not as successful. The current iPhone sdk and app store gives the lone developer a decent chance at making something that is successful though.
If I had time I'd dig up some links on this issue, but I don't. I can only repeat what I posted elsewhere on this thread - read up on the historical development of the use of language and linguistics to shape culture and society, both from the advertising industry and from the feminist movement.

The contemporary labeling of citizens as consumers is no accident, and not just an artifact of the mainstreaming of the economics field.
This really hits home for me.

After learning Emacs, which derives its awesomeness from the amazingly large set of stuff it knows how to do, I found vim to be good for other reasons. Vim is good because with very, very few commands, you can do things much quicker.

The "f" or "t" commands, combined with the fact that you can use "c", are just amazing. Same with the "i" (inner) command. Those few commands alone can make editing any line faster and funner.
I think it depends on the state but you're right that's how it works in CA.

Of course that means that if you're the only one working in a marriage that's half of your 100%. If you get married young you probably won't be starting with much.
I'm really hoping this happens for me. Not the bad part, of course; I'm hoping I've seen the worst of that. My startup is about to launch its flagship product on Tuesday after a year and a half of work, but we (myself and one of my cofounders that I live with) are currently packing up to go live with our respective parents, as the money's simply gone. It's been the most stressful 6 months of my life, as we've seen the slide into foreclosure and haven't been able to do anything about it, and it's all happening at the most important point of our company's life. I'm looking for the uptick from this, and I'll do what it takes to make it happen.
Marketing costs are around $350/month for some simple BuySellAds spots.

I think the ideal purchaser would be a web development company or enterprising web developer (PHP programmer with frontend skills too) who is willing to pay ~$100,000 up front for a growing and proven business, the client leads, etc. However, I'm not sure if this is possible to find.
Ok well...first...you're using "straw man argument" wrong since I'm not trying to refute Apple's position (not trying to be snide but just to make you aware for future use)

On your point you're certainly right but I'd argue this is where we get into the realm of "pragmatist vs perfectinist". There is a UI hit to returning 1,000 results as opposed to 2 or 3. It's a small hit but it is there. Apple, as the creator of the device, has the right to choose to be perfectionist about things even if it makes developers unhappy
You're raising some interesting issues. I don't see medical care as a purely economic interaction either, although the non-economic aspects have largely fallen away. Perhaps the rise of "consumer" as the default term is concomitant with the view that everything is economics. In that case we are all Marxists after all.

Isn't it interesting, as well, that you almost never hear the term "producer", given that there is no consumption without production?
Terry Tao, a mathematician, agrees: http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/continually-aim-...
For anyone that didn't click-through to it, Derek links to his favorite fable, which is well worth a read (one of my favorites too).

http://sivers.org/horses

He also wrote a song about that fable which is great, check it out here: http://sivers.org/mp3/DEREK_SIVERS-Still_Too_Soon_to_Tell-19...
I think it's more of a "Greek tax" -- you are supposed to pay it, but almost nobody does. The current system is pretty unfair to local retails. I recently bought a new camera. My local camera store, Keeble and Schuchat, had it for $819. Amazon.com had it for $819. Santa Clara County sales tax adds an extra $75. How many people are choosing Amazon over a local retailer in that kind of situation -- I bet a lot do.
You haven't demonstrated that the "contemporary labeling of citizens as consumers" even exists, yet. The only example in this entire thread uses the word "consumer" in the correct economic sense.

But while you mention it, I actually am irritated at the feminist movement for trying to redefine and taboo commonplace words. I consider this campaign against "consumer" to be a similarly misguided mistake.
is it and shouldn't it be a net worth upon marriage vs a net worth upon filing for divorce?

The yearly earnings of the breadwinner shouldn't matter, they both squandered that while married, right?, if they didn't well let's split it then, as that is fair?
> you can go back in to history quite a bit, about a thousand years.

What about 5000? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter%27s_wheel