skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As a lover of the Twin Cities, this is definitely a saddening read. Minnesota is a pretty great place to work in tech as an employee, but it's not currently the thriving area of tech innovation I'd love to see it become. It's too bad, too, since in theory the Twin Cities has a lot going for it for startups: lower cost of living, highly educated workforce, and theres nothing like a long, bitter, winter to justify long periods of time spent indoors hacking ;).

Obviously there's no simple button-press solution for a city to become a startup capitol, or else every city would have pressed that button by now, but I do think that the focus on Corporate Tax rates is particularly wrongheaded. Just about every survey of "Business-Friendly Tax Rates" tends to put CA, MA, and NY near the bottom, surely a higher tax rate can't be that discouraging to potential startups?
Internet Marketing Strategies
PHP already does that via PDO. PHP's "Register globals" was deprecated exactly one year ago, in 5.3.0.
Twitter Speedlinks of the Week July 03-July 09
That seems like it would be worthwhile (to cut down the number of queries):
http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/pricing.html
But I mean, shouldn't conservation of energy be invalid right now, as more matter and energy fall into our universe from the outside-place? It sounds like he's not just saying black holes spawn universes, but that universes exist inside black holes. Thus universes should grow in mass beyond what they started with, and should eventually lose all their mass to Hawking radiation.
"I carefully choose php for all of my projects because it's better than all of the alternatives. I know I'm not alone in my thinking."

I often hear 'more practical', but rarely 'better', would you care to describe what features work better for you than what the alternatives offer?
Have you tried using your desk barefooted?
The man wants to enrich himself by boning the hottest chick he can, and possibly at her expense if she is seeking a longer relationship. It's perceived sexual gratification vs perceived financial gratification. Both are similarly illusory IMO.
Jakob Nielsen: iPad apps need more interface consistency
He had his Internet removed at 12 due to a nasty staph infection.
I think "bolted on" would precisely be the issue. That tends to translate into "bypassable" and "brittle".
GM Volt Battery to have 8-year/100k miles warranty
Really cool way to make a quick but effective decision. I would never have the time to research these fees on my own, glad someone out there put this together to make it easy to make a decision.
I thought the implied answer was, "They didn't think of it." not "they didn't get around to it yet".
Internship!
That Tax Foundation survey would seem to suggest that CA (48), NY(49), and MA (36) aren't good places to start a startup either.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/bp59_es.pdf

I think that the other factors mentioned in the article: innovative incentives for investors, locality to VCs and experienced (successful) startups, and a great community of developers all factor in more heavily than tax policy.
The 'Tags Customers Associate with This Product' are also great:

snake oil(775)
ripoff(697)
waste of money(671)
throwing your money away(613)
unconscionable(529)
stupid(502)
pure garbage(440)
immoral(433)
cheat(404)
In both my last job (latexsearch.com) and my current job (smarkets.com) I've worked with couchdb in fairly large scale installations. I haven't experienced a single bug nor had any couchdb-related performance problems. It's pretty solid.
Cabinetry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinetry

It doesn't have to be overly taxing physical work (requiring a lot of strength), but it is usually a very active physical work (requiring constant movement).

Getting well paid while doing it might be tough. It is not a well paid job by default. However, with some imagination you might be able to use your scientific/math/engineering background to make products that have decent margin.
Whenever I get this thought I always tell myself wait ten years and we will probably have some kind of virtual reality interface to computers where we could at least walk around a lot.

I've always been way too optimistic with technology :-(
YeSQL: An Overview of the Various Query Semantics in the Post Only-SQL World
Creating HTML Email That Works
How about instead of using the resume / cover letter combination you ask a series of interesting questions similar to the YCombinator application?

This will 1) weed out all of the people who spend minimal effort on a job app and just spam their resume / cover letter everywhere, and 2) will give you answers to questions you actually care about. The more unique/interesting the questions the more unique/interesting candidates it will attract. UChicago used this method in their "uncommon application" to attract a class of really smart, unusual people who were passionate about learning.

I haven't had a chance to use this method though ( I just thought of it recently), so I make no guarantees. Good luck!
Preferably the body of someone else.

(And to be honest, the ads for pure resistance workouts are even douchier.)
How about cutting your job down to part time and doing active things the rest of the time?

How about going on a long walk every lunch break and maybe a short walk in the afternoon too?
This is only natural because the Internet age has and continues to significantly shorten users' attention span. What's considered new gets shorter life spans as information travels at a faster rate. It would only make sense for businesses to take full advantage of real-time analytics (for ad dollars) before whatever data gets stale fast.
Well, usually more is offered in return than a warm fuzzy feeling.
Ask HN: How do I find other work from home hackers like me?
I have been a stay at home hacker for 9 years now and while it certainly has benefits, one of the biggest drawbacks is that there are no people I can simply walk over and talk to about my work. Is there a site that will help me find other people who do what I do (other than HN)
Absolutely it does...

1. The sit and watch - lecture model needs to die.
2. Students need to be given the option of sitting or standing in class and be allowed to alternate.
3. Punishments like sitting in detention, losing recess, or timeouts, should be replaced with activities like squats, sports, running laps, or simply walking.

The wisdom of taking a hyperactive kid's recess away has always baffled me.
The study mentions nothing of eating habits; are we to believe each man (in 1982 no less) was eating a very healthy diet and all other factors were taken into consideration with regard to their lifestyle? For all we know they sat in front of the TV with a big bowl of ice cream, or ate a heavy meal in the evening before sitting down to relax. What about stressors, work or otherwise? Meh.
Sorry about that, I'm not usually a thread hijacker.

Q: is the plan to have point releases (1.2.1) to roll up e.g. stuff from prim, num, equal branches?
Could try an extended leave of absence to do a short-term, physically intensive project (like habitat for humanity or some type of volunteer/relief effort) -- that way you see if you actually like it. It's possible that semi-regular breaks are rejuvenating to the point that you don't need to embark on an entirely different career.

That or UFC.
I think you'll find this same problem with all of the high paid (physical) jobs, unless you invent the next macarena or something.
Because those are willing to sell me a slice of the company? This guy seems to just want money as a charity case. Unless there's something I've missed.
> Erlang is not really that fun or exciting to use

It depends what you use it for. Its brilliant for infrastructure - software that has to live forever and survive no matter what gets thrown at it. It makes a lot of the hard problems go away so you can focus on the fun and exciting stuff.
"It's not really racist, but I guess you could say that. I'm not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever."

This is basically his thesis statement? Here's mine...

Christopher Mims you're a fucking goof not a journalist. Here's a gun, go kill yourself.

What a retarded article.
I love mine and highly recommend doing it. You can do it VERY cheaply too. I went with 2 Stanley FatMax telescopic sawhorses and a door.

Non-affiliate link: http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-11031-Telescopic-Plastic-Sawho...

Horribly outdated but accurate pic: http://icecreamforeveryone.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/img_0...

I feel more creative, have more energy throughout the day and my back feels stronger.
I would suggest you immediately read Steve Blank's "4 steps.." book. He discusses this issue directly, and provides very detailed methods for validating your idea.
Indeed so, but consumers are suspicious of new connectors, as are motherboard manufacturers, fearing that they're being asked to spend a bunch of money on a new format that won't connect to anything else. Like...er...HDMI. Upgraded functionality to something everyone already knows (cat5) is a much easier sell psychologically.

I don't think the brittleness is a big issue. Pro a/v techs often use heavy duty cat5 cables with rugged connectors (http://www.amphenol-airlb.com/Rugged.html - this is the best supplier IMHO). Then, making cables just needs a supply of jacks and a crimping tool - neither is expensive, and being able to do field repairs or make additional cables is a lot better than some custom connector that can only be built in a factory. Finally, power and signal on the same cable is a huge win.

In the video world, it's very desirable to be able to quickly feed signal over varying distances in some new location you've never been into before and will only occupy for a few hours. HDMI cables are a pain, like all fiberoptic cables - very expensive, short runs, and they're so delicate that they need lots of structural shielding which makes the cable springy and hard to manage (which usually necessitates an extra pair of hands). Then, monitors and cameras need power, which means either annoying little adapters plus additional heavy power cables, or else heavy battery packs (which cost $$$).

If the component electronics for this standard are affordable and reliable (and I expect they will be, given similar existing products) then the pro video community will be all over this in short order - a breakout box that delivers 12v DC, has audio & video i/o, and hooks onto a belt will be a godsend for many people even if the camera and sound gear doesn't catch up for a few years. 100w is plenty of power for most requirements.

From what I see of the evaluation units (http://www.valens-semi.com/products/5play-evaluation-kit.asp...) the technology should be easily deployable, and 'revolutionary' would not be too strong a word to use in this context.
We used jQuery UI as a framework, but built a lot of custom widgets for the wires, modules, nodes, receptors, etc. Yahoo Pipes was certainly an inspiration for our design, but we rethought the concepts behind using wires (using them as a control flow mechanism, not a data flow mechanism; e.g., there are no wires for variables, we use them in sort of the way MIT's Scratch does).

We don't know of any framework for this sort of interface, and we did not want to use Flash, so we just rolled up our sleeves and made it ourselves. jQuery and jQuery UI, however, were instrumental; for this sort of new-ish UI, it was useful to have the ability to progressively layer functionality onto HTML elements. We also made extensive use of the $.Widget framework to construct our widgets in the same fashion as jQuery UI's.
Mathematicians rival octopus in World Cup final prediction
I suspect one factor is a sort of priming. Take Perez Hilton which sounds a lot like Paris Hilton and Obama, which sounds a lot like Osama. In both cases, the collective conscious was primed for the sounds of the name in the brands. I don't think the associated imagery transferred over to the new association necessarily, but I feel like the stimulation of similar precursors (several people the previous year who maybe looked a little like Coco Rocha) in the group's consciousness may be a factor.
Depending on your location, there may be institutions similar to Dogpatch Labs or Hacker Dojo. These are places where hackers can get cheap temporary 1-2 person spaces to work. I don't know of any outside of the bay area though.

I think a 'find other hackers site' is a great idea. Given that you are a hacker yourself, why don't you make a site like this? If it was well made, I would use it.
VideoSong Schooled The Video Star
firefighter in an urban/suburban area. starting pay in chicagoland area for a firefighter/paramedic is 55K. exorbitant increases as you gain seniority, along with a pension.
CA has those in spades (it overcomes the whole tax thing), MN does not.
Superhuman: the Incredible Savant Brain
Huh! I always thought the downmods were capped at -4, and further downvotes just made the comment lighter, and therefore less readable. Sorry to hear that, that's tough!
The whole payments industry is totally insane when it comes to transparency. This is a really useful tool.
Clojure has never really had a point release before, so who knows.
Yeah, sharing links to your apps should work. If you make an app without creating an account, it is publicly shareable for about 1 day. Whoever creates an account to save it will take ownership, and then it becomes private.
Unfortunately this is of no help to me. Here in Geneva, Switzerland, the problem is not choosing the apartment, but being chosen among all the other people who want the same apartment you do. I've seen people stand in line just to visit one apartment. I hear there are even worse places than Geneva for finding an apartment.

Businesses have sprang up to help people find apartments, so it is possible to outsource your apartment hunt too, but it costs much more than 90$.
There a many services like that. Most of them are targeting a very different market though...
No, but the tax system is better there.
Yes, enumerate is useful for that. But even if you did not now about it you could have used count from itertools to get the same effect:

import itertools
for (index, item) in zip(itertools.count(0), "hallo"):
print index, item

Itertools is worth checking out for other goodies, too.
Learn FOSS online through Spoken Tutorials
Professional sports player. ;-)
My cousin is an intensive care doctor and he is on his feet all day long running from one place to another, but I guess it will take a long time to become one...
Ye I agree completely, my point was just that, if you really really wanted to and you lived a bottom to mid middle class lifestyle to you stretch 2 million and never have to answer to anyone again.

I know that reality is a lot different. For example you start shopping for espresso machines and instead of buying the nice consumer model you go out and but the commercial model. The consumer model would have suffices but the commercial model is so much cooler looking.

It happen, everyone has something superficial that they are going to buy the top of the line of. For some it is cars for other it is a hobby but, yes this can burn up a lot of cash. I have seen a few though that have turned 2M into FU money, one of them actually decreased their standard of living because, not answering to other people, was the top priority in their life.

But, with a low amount like 2M it has to be your top most priority. Also keep in mind I am in Florida and not the valley so the economics are different. Here even at the peak of the land bubble a decent middle class house could be picked up for 200k and home ownership is a big piece of the FU puzzle.
It can if there is no historical technology culture. MN is in a bad spot because it has high taxes and no history. Plus, the government (both state and local) really don't care about technology startups. Heck, most of the large IT shops in the area are run by people who don't want tech startups because that would increase their costs. They already recruit from around the area (Iowa and ND) for tech to keep the price down.
Here's an example of what we mean by document collaboration: http://crocodoc.com/O3Za0.

This is a link a snapshot of our newest homepage. What do you guys think of it? Critics welcomed.
That made me smile because an extended leave is exactly what I tried in May/June, going on a bike trip across Europe. Unfortunately it didn't rekindle my love for my job.
Yes. But the approach with index only works for actual sets. And if you have actual sets, you might as well use Python's built-in sets.
No, not miles of empty land, just a change from some of highest taxes in the country to the some THE lowest.

http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/09staxrank.html
Alzheimer's Complications &ndash; examples of Complications of alzheimer
Berkeley DB comes to mind; it's been around much longer than MongoDB.
Work as a deckhand on a superyacht. The responsibilities of a deckhand include cleaning, varnishing and painting, polishing, tender operations (small-boat handling skills required) and working the lines/ropes. This is a hard work position with long hours, but can have the added benefit of substantial tips on the larger and busier charter vessels.

Typical salary can be found here: http://www.superyacht-crew-academy.com/salaries_superyacht_c...

I work on a 78ft yacht in the Med, (http://www.camperandnicholsons.com/sales/search/-/page/sales...), PM me if you want more details about this kind of work.
yep! brilliant. do a "review my startup" when you launch the big update.
I wish the Governor and the State House and Senate leader would see it.
Scala isn't perfect, but it's a great language to have on the JVM.

However, the lack of API and ABI compatibility is a really big failure. I can't believe that they're shipping what is supposed to be stable software and we can't rely on our code to continue running, much less building.

We had to do a fair bit of work to fix our projects' 2.8 compatibility issues, and it's causing us all sorts of grief in terms of having to do lock-step upgrades of all libraries from 2.7 to 2.8.
"I often hear 'more practical', but rarely 'better'"

Why "more practical"? There are a slew of other languages and frameworks out there that could be used.

PHP gives you the flexibility to create more complex projects without being pigeon-holed into one specific framework. I noticed this with some of the newer languages (and frameworks) such as RoR and Django. The higher the level you go, the more difficult it is to get around the built-in features that try to make it easier to develop an application. PHP is at the perfect level for me. Higher than say c, but lower than something like RoR.

Also, the c syntax makes it to move onto other languages.

It's also been around for 15 years, which means a plethora of support and examples. The language itself may have some issues (naming convention, Unicode support, non-standard namespace convention), but it can still be used to create solid applications that scale well (if you know what you are doing).

Since PHP has been around longer, people really need to come up with reasons NOT to use it (and why I should be using new language X). So far, I'm not convinced.
Plus, in a lot of towns in the Dakotas, the broadband is way cheaper and way faster then the Twin Cities.
brilliant landing page
Are Your Computer Employees Exempt from Overtime?
Quite possibly true. Unless it builds on things I already know.
I'm sure tax rates play a role, but think the bigger issue is the lack of depth and/or interest among angels/VCs for software start-ups in MN. Now, if you have a medical device start-up spinning out of Medtronic or the U of MN, that's another story...
There was one key phrase there that makes me think it will be worth looking at: "We are dogfooding Veracity here at SourceGear"
It's not really irony, we just have different opinions. I've been covering the issues for a long time and disagree with MG here (I'll probably post a response to him in a few days).
I have only fired up lilypond a couple of times, but I have to say I am very impressed by this open source project. It obviously aims to be best in category.
If someone is willing to work for $3 an hour, it's because they can't find work they'd be willing to do for $4. I'm all for genuine attempts to alleviate poverty, but the poor should be allowed to decide what is in their best interest.
Taxes are famously lower and South Dakota does a fair amount of radio advertising promoting the taxes as such.
condp was rough for me. It requires too much shifting around of the pieces to figure out what it was doing.
Caller ID Spoofing on the Android
On all of those, if it cost less to hire someone for an hour than you make you should hire them and apply that time to something that pays your wages or your own endeavor. It is better time spent.

On taxes if you make over 50k a year you should have a tax professional and not H&R Block or worse yet yourself. I resisted this for years and lost a lot of money because of fear that a CPA would be expensive. A good CPA pays for themselves. When I finally broke down and went to one it cost me $1600 for my personal taxes and I gains 10K over what I could find. He also refiled my last two years (I think it was 2 its been a while) and got me some more money back.
yeah, in the new update I'm making sure that you can still tweet away if you have an unstable connection (as is the case with laptop users)
I bet pluggable storage layers would be really useful for building something like GitHub. Start with one of the builtin storage layers, and if scale puts strain on that, write a better storage layer.

GitHub more-or-less did that when they switched off of Engine Yard (where they were using GFS), but they had to roll their own with RPC calls. That also meant that they had to change Grit, their Ruby git library, to split stuff that had to get executed on the fileservers (where the actual repos are stored) and stuff that can be executed on the server that wanted the information. With pluggable storage layers, they could have changed how they stored the repos without changing their bindings at all.
Turn your iTunes library into a Twitter List with Playlistify.org
Isn't it a lack of structured and required interface consistency which pushes UI's to experiment and find new and better ways of doing things?

The examples in the video are just VERY badly designed apps. I don't think it has anything to do with 'interface consistency' as it does with hiring a good UI/UX designer.
That's great. At my last job I used Vault as a replacement to VSS(crap) and found it to be a polished product. I didn't like the dependency on sql server but it is robust. I am glad that they are open sourcing this as more options for the enterprise and business in general are good.

I'm using git now and it is leaps and bounds better than anything else I have used. (I like Mercurial too but the branching as a clone is somewhat of a deal breaker for me. I know that there are extensions to do this but I like the out of the box philosophy of git.)
Yes, increased liquidity has allowed us to more efficiently raise capital, but beware the liquidity dogma.

Increased liquidity has been good in the past, so anything that increases liquidity must be good.

Not necessarily. What are the other effects? How much do we value those? Can we even estimate them a priori?

OTOH, I would argue that most web apps proposed on this site aren't really making any lasting or constructive contribution to society.

The one thing that can be said is that web-startup founders as a whole are less powerful and perhaps less cynically self-serving than financiers, so they distort government policy less.
What are your areas of physical expertise or experience?
The Lean Startup Machine
I tried to look at it with my iPad and was unable to keep screen focus on a part of the window content (i.e. Center). Every second, the top left corner of the screen is moved to the top left corner of the image. Has this function any use ? Please, consider removing it.