skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sigh. So much misinformation in this thread. The main person who champions that fructose interferes with satiety is a guy named Lustig. Here some real research is placed up against Lustig's claims:

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...

and http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-...

From the article:

"Hold on a second…Lustig is forgetting that most fructose in both the commercial and natural domain has an equal amount of glucose attached to it. You’d have to go out of your way to obtain fructose without the accompanying glucose. Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is nearly identical to sucrose in structure and function. Here’s the point I’m getting at: contrary to Lustig’s contentions, both of these compounds have substantial research showing not just their ability to elicit an insulin response, but also their suppressive effect on appetite [3-6].

But wait, there’s more. In studies directly comparing the effect of fructose and glucose preloads on subsequent food intake, one showed no difference [7], while the majority have shown the fructose preload resulting in lesser food intake than the glucose preload [8-10]. A recent review of the literature on fructose’s effect on satiety found no compelling case for the idea that fructose is less satiating than glucose, or that HFCS is less satiating than sucrose [11]. So much for Lustig’s repeated assertion that fructose and fructose-containing sugars increase subsequent food intake. I suppose it’s easier to sensationalize claims based on rodent data."
Average dev salaries for an angel-funded startup?
I'm in discussions with a couple guys who want to start a company, already have an angel lined up (one of the co-founders, actually), and I'm trying to figure out how much to ask for my monthly salary.

The angel/ co-founder wants to put in enough money to float the company for 5-6 months, at which point we'd either shut it down or (hopefully) have additional money coming in.

I've worked with these guys before so I trust them, but am just looking for a fair number to ask.

$4K/month? $5K? $6K? More? Less?

Also I should add that I'm in NYC, in case there are any geo differences.

Thanks!
Learn to do something that brains don't directly help: Karate, Customer Service, Sales, Welding, Drawing, etc.
What if you have a startup idea that you think is great but you don't want to tell anyone because you're afraid they will steal your idea?
This is precisely it. 1/10 are Macs, but among college students, it's 27% (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/07/big-macs-on-campus/). This is why MS is worried.
The nice part about the Ph.D route is that you have guides to take you to the boundary and point it out to you.

Plenty of people think they're at the boundary and pushing but are actually stuck at a (close in) local maxima of crackpottery.

The real geniuses never even see a boundary. They just do their thing and let everyone else put labels on it later.
Beyond the 10,000 Hour Rule: Richard Hamming and the Messy Art of Becoming Great
I guess you've never heard of farm subsidies.

I have, and we should get rid of them. But they're not actually that large in relative terms: $20 billion/year per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_Sta...). That comes out to around $60/year per American, and even if it goes entirely to lowered food prices (no), that's a small fraction of what we spend.

Furthermore, even if you were right and there was massive subsidization of food prices by the government, how much you pay is still directly proportional to how much you consume, so there's still some pricing signals in the market. Those signals are almost entirely absent in our "free market" (not) health care system: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/headline/doctors-are-governm...

And, for those that can't afford that, we have WIC and food banks/pantries or church-run soup kitchens (also indirectly subsidized due to non-profit or church tax status).

Sure, and welfare for those who need it is a good thing.
Group physical activities can be good. Group because emotions are social and you can't develop them without peers, physical activities because everyone's strengths and skills are different and, and there's no hiding a difficulty or weakness behind rationalizations. There are many different contexts where this can be applied; things I've done at different times include construction work, rock climbing, martial arts, and dancing.

There are plenty of volunteer work activities with a physical component, and recreational kinds can be competitive or just participatory. You get some healthy exercise but it also pushes you out of your comfort zone and requires you to interact with other people in a different way. Chances are when you start doing something you won't be that good at it, while being surrounded by those who are much better; accepting that and then working to improve your abilities will boost self-confidence and interpersonal skills as well your physical abilities.
We feel that NOLOH is significantly advanced to warrant a small fee for commercial purposes. As you can see from my previous post we offer several free license options, including free licenses for open-source projects.

Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your viewpoint), we live in a capitalistic society and need to recoup some of the costs associated with our team's development over the past six years.

Furthermore, we open-source every new module and component on our github either through an MIT or BSD license. We've even taken the unprecedented step of integrating github into our site as can be read here:
http://dev.noloh.com/#/blog/2010/06/30/demos-demos-everywher....

Like Google, we open source anything non-related to the NOLOH core. Similarly , they don't release the details or the code to their search engine. Also, we're working on legalize that would open source the core if anything were to happen to us.
That sucks. I've wanted an app that did this forever.
You are right about that - I merely wanted to highlight that there are always other avenues of enlarging the sum of human knowledge. Investing your mental resources into a PhD is only one path a person can choose in order to strive reaching that goal.

That is what I love about HN - Comments are dissected in a constructive manner.
Raise your hands if you own a Mac and don't have a virtualization/dual-boot setup.

crickets
Showing income tax alone seems one sided. What about property and sales taxes? Are these lower than other states?

See the Tax Foundation's "Tax Burden" report. It examines several types of taxes. California is ranked sixth highest for the year 2008.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/336.html
Are you getting equity? If not, why the hell would you want to take anything below a regular salary? If yes, it really depends on the circumstances.
Is screen scraping really unethical? I mean, you've sent me a bunch of text... whatever I do with it is my business.
When the iPhone 4's separate-button volume controls came out, I thought Apple might use one of them for the shutter. It would have really increased the utility of the phone as a camera. I already use Camera+, this would have been a great new feature.
Doesn't work on my iPad. "easer to share"
Not so much and none of the other argument make sense either. How about cheap and not as bad as people say it is for a marketing campaign?
it is to some people...a) you are breaking the ToS b) you are stealing their content to resell/republish it as your own
looks like someone has a bit of an Affiliate Marketing background :)
This bullet point needs to be taken out and shot for all platforms to which it refers.
Thanks for your answers. If you don't mind me asking, how is that model working for you? It's not that I am cheap of anything like that, but somehow I am put off by that model in a web framework. Maybe it's due to an abundance of pretty good free ones out there, since I'd never be put off by any other middleware that is not web oriented. Weird, I know.
90% pensions for workers retiring early are lavish even if they are "cop and teacher" pensions. The teacher's unions are one of the worst at resisting political reforms.

Did you read this article, referenced by the author?
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_california-unions.html

What evidence convinced you of your current positions?
Kotkin definitely has an axe to grind with respect to "traditional urbanism". Among urban studies circles he's often criticized for his "anti-urban" (i.e. pre-automobile/highways urbanity) stance and his pro-suburban views.

If you read his works he seems to relish predicting the downfall of San Francisco (a Disneyland city in his mind) and Los Angeles.

He's certainly not as outright crazy as Wendell Cox (another noted anti-urbanist), but I certainly don't agree with much of of what he writes.

That's not to say all that he has to say is bunk. He usually raises a lot of good issues. But it is worth, as you suggest, noting some of his clear biases.
to the owners of the content, it's similar to scanning a book at a library then reselling it without their permission
Derek Sivers launches KarmaList
Can Circuit Theory Help Critters Connect?
Mountain goats, mule deer, sage grouse and black bears can’t recognize park boundaries or wildlife areas. They roam far and wide across Washington in search of food, water and mates, relying on interconnected corridors of undeveloped land to survive.

Conservancy ecologist Brad McRae is out to help these critters. He has created a technique that uses computers to locate wildlife corridors.

Borrowing from engineering models that predict electricity flows through circuits, the technique creates maps that pinpoint obstacles—roads, mountain peaks, subdivisions — impeding the movement of species.
As George Carlin said: "the planet is fine! we're fucked..."
Great Hedge of India
Peppermint OS One-08042010 Screenshots
There is plenty of blame to go around in what has made California such a dysfunctional state.

You cannot, however, take Proposition 13 and pretend it's not part of the problem.

If a proposition is put on the ballot most of the time it requires a simple majority. Three strikes and the prohibition on same-sex marriage were done by a simple majority.

Taxes?

A 66% approval is required thanks to Prop. 13.

California is like Scandinavia with no taxes.
For ThatHigh.com, I searched textsfromlastnight for stories containing the phrase "marijuana" etc. Worked like a charm.
Sharpie reinvents the pen with liquid pencil
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Correct, that's one of the reasons why New York City got bailed out in the 1970s - everyone was scared of what it would mean if the city went bankrupt. NY state can't declare bankruptcy, so even though it's in a similarly bad situation now, there's not the same urgency to fix the problems.
Sort of an aside, but this article has the worst graphics imaginable. Why is about 1/2 the graphic made of garbage stock photos or "helpful" graphics like that giant up-arrow with a percent symbol on it?

Ugh.
To be more precise, I think green ideology is a secular rehash of Calvinism. It follows the same basic sin-and-redemption narrative.

I've often wondered if the failure of green ideology to take off is Asia is due to the absence of the Judeo-Christian hole for it to plug into.
>> "US tax revenue per-person is pretty much in the middle of western Europe."

> Not really. The OECD average is 36%, Americans pay 28% and no western European states pay less.

Yes really. American's pay 28% on a larger number, so the amount of money per person is basically the same.

BTW - you're ignoring corporate taxes, which are a significant fraction of revenues. They don't actually change the equivalence but they do increase the "revenues per person-year" number.

> nominal terms the US may be higher, but I don't really see that that proves anything.

Actually, it does.

> The main problem is of course that so much has to be paid for by the individual in the US that is efficiently taken care of by the state in Europe, so comparing tax rates misses a big part of the issue.

I'm not comparing tax rates. I'm comparing tax revenues per person.

You're pointing out that western Europeans get more for the same amount of money.

Combining those two facts tells us that a tax dollar goes further in western Europe than it does in the US.

If the US govt wants to provide the same benefits, it either needs more money per person than European govts or it needs to take the relevant amount of money from its other expenditures.
can someone link to the article behind the paywall?
My dent is this comment. Suck it, Einstein!
I'll agree with this under the condition that we're talking about the most recent release of Office.

Having had to wait 2 years for an Intel version of Office was disappointing. Office 2004 ran perfectly smoothly on my old iBook G4. But on a MacBook that otherwise should have run circles around that iBook, Office was nowhere near as responsive, and would often thrash the disk while trying to open documents.
I think all of those things you list are legitimate contributions to the body of knowledge. Just the bump you added was really really small in some cases.
IPhone 4 Service Emulator for Android
I didn't know about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
http://www.apple.com/why-mac/

I don't know about the technical details, but comparing it with the Apple website makes one thing clear: Microsoft has no design sense.
most of top ones without the bottom 5.

The nub of the matter is this, IMO it's OK to do what you have to do to gain momentum even if that would be classified as technically spam or what have you, as long as you do it with style. This means sending relevant content to people who want it but just don't know it yet, NOT sending people stuff they may never want and what you do send has to be 100% pure quality.

90% wouldn't agree with this but IMO it depends on where you're coming from and what the odds are against you. Just do it well and make sure that the end result is a positive for your potential clients.
I've always seen conservatism as being rooted in the immutability of human nature and social structures (and a related protectionism for existing social structures) and liberalism as being rooted in the idea that improvement in the human condition is possible.

Green ideology is rooted in the idea of absolute limits to human progress and a related idea that attempts to exceed these (often relatively arbitrary) limits are somehow sinful. I consider that more right-wing than left-wing. It says "know your place and stay there" not "try to make something better."
If you find Sudoku boring you just need to add more constraints. For example, try solving one by considering some ordering on the entries (say, Left-to-Right then Top-to-Bottom) and only allow yourself to fill in entries in that order... then time yourself!
For those of us who gravitate toward the code examples instead of the English it would be more clear to leave out the PHP example at the very beginning. Took me a moment to figure out what was going on.
There are some good points, however the emphasis needs to be on how green regulation is applied.

The article seems to be complaining about "green" regulations (which are outdated and inane), not against the idea of the necessity of sustainable technology.

One quibble, more offshore drilling will not solve the problem, and causes problems, as in the Gulf of Mexico. It's also a drop in the ocean of energy demand. It solves nothing.

You only need to look as far as global rising energy consumption (especially China) and the supply/demand curve. Basic economics. This means the sustainable energy problem needs to be solved, and what better place to solve it than in California?

We need solutions without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For example, make it easier for entrepreneurs and relieve the tax burden to encourage businesses. Provide an environment where technology (even green technology) can thrive. Create incentives for people to adopt more environmentally friendly approaches to living, etc. I think there are plenty of examples where sustainable living & and strong economic fundamentals can coexist.
Here's the article I was thinking of when I wrote that:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/phys-ed-why-doesnt-...
> to make sure the engineers are interchangeable components, as well as that the company adds as little value as possible to their customers (while still wringing profit out of them).

Wow, you actually describe the place I worked pretty accurately according to what I witnessed there.
I would be very surprised if any of these things will help you at all. None of them provide things that people really want. More importantly, attempting them distracts you from figuring out how to find out and make what your customers really want.

For example, you can try to spam to your heart's content, but people have this thing called a back button. Even if you can get a few people to bite, they'll most likely ignore you once they figure out that there's nothing there.

You can try to say "235 users online" when there aren't any, but that won't actually give users the experience they want. It might fool them for a little while, but that won't matter anyway if there's no reason for them to stay.
i'd ignore everybody hating on the facebook login. this group is a little niche. it was probably a good decision for the first pass.
It sounds like you do have a merchant account? If so, disregard my comments - I thought from the original post that it was like a hobby business and you were limited to Paypal, with no other options in place. But if you're doing regular business transactions I guess it's fine.
Remember, they can't copyright facts, no matter how much sweat of the brow it took to compile those facts. Recall Feist v Rural, wherein someone made another phone book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...
What if I wanted to offer the following broadband service for free:

• 512Kbps to anywhere

• 10Mbps+ to select sites like ESPN, YouTube, and others who agree to subsidize the service costs in proportion to use

Why should this be illegal, as long as everything's disclosed up front?
Flywheel power grid storage project gets DOE loan
the point with the "235 users online" would be to get the user to signup...then once they are signed up and in your database, you can a) tout that you have X users...which will get your coverage + more users b) can eventually email them back telling them that the site was massively improved.
Without repealing Prop 13 and making our tax system more equitable, we cannot reduce the high property/sales taxes

I don't know anything about this issue, but your statement here doesn't make logical sense. You're saying (if I interpret it right) that "property taxes can't be reduced because some people are already paying low property taxes".

What am I missing?
I have had an Aeron chair almost since it came out. The same one have been traveling with me across continents for 12 years or so.

Don't get the nock off get the real thing.
When you said that, I just naturally assumed flattr succeeding and then Google imitating it.

Like Facebook Questions vs. Quora, Google Places vs. Yelp, etc. It's hard to compete with behemoths.
It is rather hilarious. I have similar situations more than too often when some of my students will argue with me that it is not possible to do something, even after they just received indisputable proof that it just happened.

I usually try to humbly explain why they were wrong in that case(usually some misconceptions on how something works), which will usually reduce the amount of future arguments regarding the material presented. While patronizing will usually just make them try to prove themselves more often , and catch you in the nuances of a subject.

In this case it doesn't surprise me that Microsoft was (again) caught trying to redefine standards based on their own perception of those standards.
Greg posted a nice compilation of shady tactics used during the startup period of major internet companies at http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/ruthless-enough-for-star...

A quick summary:

Facebook: Spammed Harvard Students

BitTorrent: Free Porn as Initial Bait

MySpace: Spammed >100M on Launch Date

It appears as if (slightly) shady techniques can give you the advantage you need to succeed.
On the other hand, one of the reasons for Net Neutrality in the first place was to encourage an open market for services like video.

The fact of the matter is that it's 2010, and I still have to subscribe to UVerse/Comcast/whatever if I want cable TV, and have to pick from their packages, and endure their stupid upstream contract disputes. If it's all packets, why can't I subscribe to a cable TV provider over the Internet?

Hulu, YouTube, etc. are addressing part of this problem, but anything that puts the legacy carriers at an advantage seems counterproductive to me.
only a little, make about 1-3K/mo from it.
I wouldn't consider most of the actions listed "unethical" per-se, some actions like; "creating a ton of pages with keywords to get long tail google traffic" are legitimate, while "buying an email list to spam people" can be downright illegal.
What is most striking to me is the frequency at which this site says "many PCs", as in "not all PCs". Or "can get" as in "won't necessarily get". With Apple products, buyers don't have to think. They just buy the iMac which fits in their kitchen nook, or the largest (or smallest) MacBook they can afford.

I'm reminded of when I went to the Apple store to buy a spare battery for my Macbook. I wrote down the model and serial numbers of both my existing battery and the laptop itself. I got to the store, walked over to the accessories wall and said "I'd like a spare battery for my Black--". "Black MacBook? Here you go." He hands me the battery. "Anything else I can do for you?"
Again? 2007, and here are some previous submissions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1202887

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1145907

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1144546

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=682293

Does this deserve going into my "Great articles" library that I'm building?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584806

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1585435
I think there might be a way to solve all n-SAT problems (if reformulated using conjunctive normal form) in O(C) best up to worst O(C * N * N) time and O(C * N) space (C = number of AND-clauses, N = number of distinct literals from all clauses). would that still be polynomial and a valid proof or even possible (not a mathematician I am)? on the other hand, proving P = NP would not be wise, morally seen, would it?
That's a good question, one that we'll be answering in a detailed blog post later in the summer. In short, there is push back from many that would like a free and open-source product, but there's also acceptance from many seasoned developers and development shops that understand that a tool with NOLOH's feature set takes a significant amount of time and money to develop, test, and support.

The truth of the matter is that unfortunately, our competitive advantage lies within our code and the significant R&D we've done over the years. We're also not at the stage where we could fend off a larger more well known framework from integrating our technology into their core if we did open it.

Many of our users feel that NOLOH easily pays for itself in its first day of use. We also provide unparalleled development support in addition to constant updates and new features.

I'm always surprised by those that will hem and haw over something that's not open-source. We spent the past six years of our lives and significant financial resources developing the technology.

As stated in a comment below, we open-source everything not related to the core, and are even working on legalese to ensure that if anything happens to us, the core would be opened.

My personal opinion is that if you value your time NOLOH is definitely a great tool to have in your development toolbox. I personally wouldn't do any web development without it.