skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Fighting for parking spaces... you might be surprised how underhanded even that can get. The state of California has a rule in the vehicle code about abandoned cars. It's clearly intended to deal with cars people just walk away from (without intent of coming back), and perhaps some that are left in unsafe places (on the freeway etc.) The code mentions the court system addressing some aspects of it.

The city of San Luis Obispo (known as being the first for banning smoking in public places and one of the first to have curbside recycling) came up with 72 hour abandonment. There are no 72 hour parking signs. But go on vacation, away to visit family, carpool or use your bike instead of driving, bed in bed with the flu for days... and a car left is in violation. They mark a tire and the street with chalk and leave a little "courtesy notice" under a windshield wiper and then at three days tow. Beside the high towing fees, and a substantial impound release fee, there is also a citation for abandonment ($280).
Of course the towing contractors charge a hefty per day storage fee. They (the city police and parking agency) may reduce/rename the abandonment citation considering picking up the car from the towing yard to be "no intent to abandon". Of course some strapped for cash may not be able to get a car right away, and end up losing a vehicle due to the high ransom at the towing yard. The pirates may extract a lot of money for cargo ships, but on a personal level what the City of San Luis Obispo does to people hits harder as a percentage.

Note that this practice happens even in from of ones own home, even if there is no parking shortage. Neighbors that don't get along use it as a way to harass each other, and in some places people call in complaints to tr and get parking spaces. As a college town, there are many places were units have no off-road parking, or insufficient off road parking. The city makes money on this, as do the towing contractors. They see to meet the public notice requirements without people noticing... I know of an employee who has bought dozens of vehicles at auction for the minimum bid (towing/storage fees).

There's dirty business at every level it seems.
"Hardcore pirates will always find a new excuse. Most of them just don't want to pay. They can't be counted as lost sales if they never had any intent to buy."

This may be the case, but allowing people to share your application freely will make it that much easier to create more pirates (IE: someone who doesn't know that much about computers searches your app on Google and finds the "free" version instead of your site).
Another language religious war. What the heck. I got some time, I'll jump in.

With all due respect, he's wrong on the library issue. Lisp lacks good libraries, period. Couple years ago I have a project in mind and tried to develop it in Lisp. I couldn't find good libraries on database binding, SMTP/POP3/MIME, threading, Unicode, etc. Most were abandon-wares or not complete. Sure I could have written them in Lisp, but then I would be developing Lisp libraries instead of my app.

The JGraphT example he picked was a bad one since Lisp supports the graph-like data structure happily. It's like saying you don't need a hashtable library since it's already supported natively in the language.

Edit: I don't mean to bash Lisp (I like it a lot and had done a Lisp implementation in C) but the standard Lisp library issue is a real one. It should not be just swept under the rug.
This is not really a startling revelation, businesses need revenue to succeed but where does revenue come from? Customers .. duh! They also need to attract customers to gain angel inventors, funding, and partnership deals.

I'm not sure that I agree with the author's opinion that time would be better spent innovating on User Interface / usability. Having run a business since 2000, I would say that delivering an innovative service to a very specific marketplace and at the same time developing a rapport with that segment should be the ultimate goal of any startup.
Ringo-evented - a JVM based alternative for Node.js built on Netty
It's also worth noting that the SEC thinks python is a good language for specing ABS.

http://kelloggfinance.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/the-sec-gets-...
Mercy is an exemption from fair. Sometimes mercy is right, true. But as often, mercy to one is "unfair" to another.
20 Examples of Simplistic but Effective Logo Design
I've biked all over the western United States, and I've never had actual beer cans thrown at me. That said I have been on the receiving end of a certain amount of aggressive driving and general idiocy but the prevalence is pretty much the same city or country.
Developer, if you read this, please offer the sale on Steam! I will gladly buy it
Who you are is a more accurate predictor of entrepreneurship and success. That being said the two schools that have the best track records are Stanford and UIUC. Stanford (Google, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems) and UIUC (Netscape, Paypal, YouTube, Oracle, Yelp, Farmville)

http://www.quora.com/What-startups-have-come-out-of-Stanford...
http://www.quora.com/What-startups-have-come-out-of-Universi...
> Are they really that horrified by game mods containing nudity, or are they just control freaks?

I'm sure it's the latter. Having complete control over distribution makes it far easier to monetize the content. See the iphone app store for example.
It's not casual gamers, it's gamers in general. All of my friends who have bought this game ignore issues with it because "IT'S STARCRAFT II!!!!!!!!". Gamers are the weak, and easy to manipulate, they give in, boycotts aren't effective, and for video games you can forget about having any sort of unified front. Back when I still read reddit's /r/pics there'd be a weekly posting of BOYCOTT MWII steam group of some sort and everyon was playing MWII.
"The problem is that Goldman's traders use a special computer language called "Slang" that was developed for internal use only."

^^^ What in God's name are traders doing going anywhere near a programming language? Surely this is some mistake.
Background for other HN'ers:
The author Andy Swan is a successful multiple exit entrepreneur and seed investor. From the site:
"I've started and sold two companies.
I have investments in 7-8 others.
I love helping passionate people create wealth.
Win."

Andy's one of the regulars on AVC, has an extraordinarily sharp business sense, and he's also a connoisseur of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon: http://andyswan.com/blog/?s=pappy
If you're in America, there are similar tax breaks available, so make sure you look into those.
Inducing Salamander-like Powers of Regeneration in Mammals
It isn't self evident. That's why research and studies are performed.

We can assume or think a lot of things are self evident, but if there isn't any hard facts lying around, we can never be sure.
Interesting, the Lisp image on my Laptop has ALL of that preloaded, and quite a bit more.
Is a sub-case of the more general "freedom to tinker" with the things you own.
Why is scaling such a popular obsession? Some hypotheses:

It's survivor bias. When you go to found a venture, where do you look for inspiration? You find a very successful analogue and read all about them. For example, if you want to found a social network, you look to Facebook for inspiration. And what is something that many incredibly successful web properties are worried about? Scaling.

It's objective, or it feels objective. You load the web page, it takes 20ms. You make a tweak and load the page again, it takes 15ms. You can measure benchmarks, and then you can point to the benchmarks getting better and claim that you were objectively successful. The fact that there's a scoring system lures people into the game.

It's fun to think about. Nobody likes the guy who points out the danger that the product will flop. Everyone likes the guy who points out that the product might just be so successful that we'll be overwhelmed by success. You get to sound like an ambitious, expansive optimist when planning out all the fancy hardware you're going to need. You're focusing on the positive, just as all the self-help manuals tell you to do.

It's Parkinson's Law, in its original form: By default, the size of a business unit grows until it is limited by resources, because the path to power in an organization is to be big. Lots of subordinates, lots of infrastructure, lots of budget. You might think that an organization would lavishly reward the person who could singlehandedly run the entire web infrastructure off of a single PC, but often the opposite is the case. So it pays to puff up the scalability problem as big as you can, in order to get the resources to build a big team, so that you gain political power from being the head of a big team...
I feel depressed to see you make such a shortsighted comment. Seeing it modded up makes it worse. :(
You can still do that for single-player maps AFAIK -- the Map Editor lets you run any map that you can download.
The OODA Loop
Yes, with our software you can. I'm guessing it works with PayPal too since it's the same library.
Rights are inalienable, but their recognition by those in power is delicate and must be protected everywhere -- even when it doesn't seem like it matters.

Besides, how hard would it be to implement a reputation system instead of censorship? Bonus: they wouldn't have to pay the censors.
PARRY encounters the DOCTOR
most recruiters work for the company and the company pays the fee, sometimes a flat fee or a % of the yearly salary of the new employee
but, the car drivers would pay the increased premium as if they drove their car into a wall. I have a problem with that.
From a legal and personal responsibility standpoint, the law is lopsided, but it may act as a deterrent to driving in the first place, thereby encouraging bike use. I think that's what the OP of this thread was trying to get at.
I guess Guido van Rossum doesn't count either :-)
That's a good feature in Lisp. How would that negate the need of a graph library? I once needed to do topological sort on a graph. Sure I can code it myself but I ended up calling the Boost library for it.
I wouldn't want to get hit by a car on my bike no matter who was going to pay for it.
Hmm, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but this is a pretty lame article. It's more like a thinly veiled advertisement disguised as a thought-provoking content piece:

"People say email is dead. No, it's not! In fact, we've got this awesome email newsletter that's just for startup founders, and it's doing super awesome. Long live email!"

Gee that's...convenient.

Obviously email is not dead. But what about email newsletters? People actually still read these?

Apparently they do, since StartupDigest seems to have a successful model built around this, as do a few others. Why/how is it successful? Is the format truly superior to a blog? Is there a reason why email newsletter ONLY is superior to blog + email newsletter (+ RSS + Twitter + Facebook + etc.)?

These are questions which I'd have been interested in hearing the author's perspective on, but this article is nothing more than a bit of hype in response to another bit of hype.
If you view the page with Javascript disabled, you get

"For security reasons Javascript is required for this website to work.

Why?

Because Javascript runs on your computer.

Which means no information is transferred over the internet when you type in your password.

Which means that no one can intercept it."
Yes, from when I looked into it the bottleneck seemed to be the SMSC (short message service center), which receives the message then sends it out to users when they are available. Apparently, SMSC's often became overloaded with the popularity of SMS. You're right, SMS I believe takes place on a separate mobile network rather than the open Internet, which is why it's subject to the fees and different behavior. I'm at a point where I'm torn between writing SMS technology off in favor of email, or considering it for certain things, because we're still a long way away from everyone comfortably accessing their email via mobile.
In what respects? I got in to Stanford, but could not go as I am international and they do not have financial aid for students. So I never went to college. I would love for you to elaborate.
No ifs...alternatives to statement branching in JavaScript
Is it really such a terrible example? It was basically Java, but then dumbed down a bit, as I recall.

C# later evolved into a competitive, modern language, but that first release was distinctly underwhelming. Take a look at the closest thing to a changelog I could find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_.NET#.NET_Framework_1... And I particularly draw your attention to the list of changes in 2.0, which include but are not limited to: Generics, 64-bit support, partial classes, nullable types, anonymous methods, and iterators. Maybe nullable types shouldn't be on that list, but a language without any of those things is getting pretty old fashioned.

Sure, C# 1.0 is no COBOL, but there was little or nothing new about C#, and I'd hesitate to even call it modern for the time, even if it would have been hailed as a major triumph in 1975.
May be you can share what Lisp image you use? I'm always open to Lisp development and see what's possible.

I went through CLisp and SBCL for Windows, but decided against SBCL due to its large runtime image.
Get him a 12 step book? Be there for him. He can't and won't quit until he wants to. He must make the decision. Aside from throwing him in rehab (like some do here in the US) there isn't much you can do. All you can do is let him know that you love and support him and want him to get better.

Therapy might help him work out his other personal issues which in turn might help curb the binges.
This is what I was thinking. Riot Games (makers of League of Legends) came into existence due to Defense of the Ancients. DOTA (and all the Warcraft licenses it sold) was only possible because they could build a mod of impressive size.
Purpose is to gauge mindset of the two owners and is there a difference in mindset when it comes to buying apps?
How do I get coworkers to accept my brilliant new thing?
See, that's what I get for not checking Digg in years. I remember when I first tried reading it--must have been 2006/2007--I was finding that every single comment that got downvoted to oblivion on a political discussion... was one putting forward a conservative opinion. I quickly gave it up as another instance of Internet Liberal Hivemind.

Too bad I couldn't have caught it sometime between the swing from Liberal Hivemind to Conservative Cabal, it might have been worth reading.
Melatonin works alright as long as you wind yourself down a half hour or so before you take it. I found that if I took it while still up late on the computer, I would get tired, but not enough to fall asleep.
There isn't much standard about (implemented) SQL: http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms/ - so... ;-)
Sean Parker Sees a Bright Future for Chatroulette
Believe it or not, this is quite common in the industry. I developed some software for one of the Big 5 banks in Canada and I saw first hand traders learning to program using C++, Java, whatever they can get their hands on because they need to test out models, perform calculations that Excel can't do readily - although VBA is a trader's best friend.

Recently, they've been using R more and more. And as you'd imagine, their code is horrendous but hey, it works.

What I learned is that the entire financial industry relies on Excel and really bad programming. It's really scary to think that 37Signals has better software and software practices than a bank.
Speaking of Harry Potter's fic, Robert Cialdini's book was much better then I imagined.
in all seriousness, the articles posted on hn are typically interesting or at least well thought-out. but this one is just stupid. it doesn't make one think "well gee, IS email dead?" instead, one asks "what the fuck is wrong with hn?"
What particular problems did you run into while raising a family of three in a condo? It's not a common occurrence around here, but I've concluded that more of it would be a good thing, so your input would be helpful.
Poll: When was the last time you wrote some code?
There are tons of coders on HN, how many of them are active?
reading HN while my code compiles
I forgot, it's been too long
never wrote code
This is fine, while companies like Infinity Ward / Activision / Blizzard censor artists and developers and remove creativity from PC Gamers, companies like Id, Epic, and Valve are filling in the gaps. Valve just released Alien Swarm for free with all the dev tools needed to modify the game.
Blizzard, you need to return to your roots, and remember your fans, not your wallets.
That's me in a nutshell....no wait, this is me in a nutshell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3UHYLTcmM
Uhh... When I came home and saw the second plane hit on TV, it took about 10 seconds before I and most of my friends were on IRC, on a moderated channel that got realtime news relays. Actually, there were several such channels, since they hit capacity pretty fast. That's how I got all the valuable information, like how there were reports that a plane was headed for the Eiffel Tower, that I could share with my offline family.

If I had wanted to let someone know I was okay, I probably would have tried SMS, found it didn't work, and then made a note of letting some blabbermouth know once I found a landline or netcafé. 'course, I didn't live in the US, so this is pretty hypothetical.

The point is, I got news (and could discuss with friends) faster back then than I probably would today.
"you can't "pirate" a car. If I took your car, you'd be less one car. If I copy a game, nobody is less anything."

What if I "steal" your identity? Technically, you don't lose anything. I am just borrowing your information. Should this be okay too?

How about a website that posts valid credit card information. Before someone actually uses the credit card, it's just numbers and letters on website.

"Clearly this would spell big trouble for the auto industry. We might even introduce laws which make this act illegal, or otherwise induce artificial scarcity so that the price of a car doesn't fall to zero, because we decided, as a society, that the auto industry is something we want to encourage."

There is no "artificial scarcity". The talented people that actually make software, music, and movies are scarce. This is what you are buying. If this wasn't the case, anybody could make Photoshop (not copy) in a few clicks.

"Hmm. That sounds familiar. On the other hand, I'm not stealing someone's car when I duplicate it, am I? Suddenly there's this third party (the car manufacturer or retailer) who cares a lot about what I do with me car. They'd say, "No, it's bad for you to copy other people's cars" and do what they could to stop me."

Not "stealing" per se, but if you took the original developers work and put them out of business because you were copying (and distributing) it for free, isn't it almost the same thing?

I find these discussions really funny. A few weeks ago, there was a heated debate about the author from the thesis wordpress theme and wordpress. By creating the theme (and not giving back to the GPL), the author really wasn't affecting the original (since it technically was just a copy of some bits). Many people here were against him because of the political ideology behind the GPL. When the discussion leads to piracy and its effects (such as this one), everybody has a different opinion.....

"Copyright infringement isn't theft, not legally, not historically, and not morally."

It's counterfeiting, which is worse than theft. With theft, you aren't going to put a television company out of business because a few tvs got stolen out of the back of a van.

When software is pirated (like in this article), it really can put a company out of business and destroy their entire revenue stream.
Mentioned here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1521562

... but with no discussion.
If you really want to help your brother I doubt you can do it by remote control.

Have you considered that he's drinking because it brings out the brother in you?
Google is seeing 200,000 new Android activations every day (or, the entire population of Canada every five months or so). This November, Google is releasing a new Operating System. How can you possibly say that Google is becoming "laggard in terms of growth"?

AND given that if Apple grows, Google grows (more iPhones = more Google revenue through iPhone search ads), it seems clear to me that Google is not slowing down at all but is in fact geared to continue growing immensely.
Not directly, but the addon repositories have good SEO and they run ads.
Same as from a couple of days ago.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1571228
Maybe ask him to come and visit you where you live. Sometimes a change of scenery and a new place gets people out of a rut. Besides that sadly theres not much you can do. I am from India too and more than one person in my joint family has withered over time due to almost identical circumstances.
You don't need organization to get leftist censorship, you just need a majority (which seems to be the case in most general forums or news sites). Then, a natural self-righteous knee-jerk on the part of every reader gets conservatively-oriented things voted/shouted down posthaste. Surely you've seen an instance on the Internet where somebody says something which may be purely sane and reasonable, only to be followed up by 30 posts of "GOD, WHAT AN IDIOT", "I hate rethuglicans!", and "See, this proves how stupid Americans are, go eat a cheeseburger and go to church!"

Actually... I just realized that both sides tend to "prove" their points with lots of ad hominem. It's just that the ad hominem coming from liberals tends to be a touch better spelled; I think the smart conservatives quickly learn to keep their heads down, so only the dumb ones try to step out into the shit-storm.
Ask HN: Working for a startup == Visa?
What's the chance of working for a startup (in the US) if you don't have a visa? (from an European perspective)
Those aren't mutually exclusive... people trying to be overly serious can't have childish (selfish/ignorant) or unprofessional behavior?
No, power to the people as a philosophically-organizing principle was quite popular around the time Digg was created. The idea is that the big problem with the world is that the control is all in the hands of $WRONG_GROUP and the correct solution is just to democratically hand all the power out to your userbase and it'll all just magically work because you've solved the underlying problem.

The error of this thinking was the downfall of Digg, and for another example, Third Voice. Also, numerous blog owners initially fell for the idea that removing comments from their site is "censorship" on par with how evil it is when governments do it, and this idea is still current, even though it's nothing more than a recipe for getting destroyed by trolls after a certain critical mass is obtained. Like I said, the right answer is something else entirely. It's a recurring cycle on the Internet; somebody decides power-to-the-people is the way to go, the problems become manifest, the community takes action to contain the damage or simply flames out entirely, and some idealistic group of people get pissed off, declare that the people are now powerless and it's time for power to the people, starting the cycle over again. I've watched at least 3 iterations of this over the past 10 years. We're due for another "power to the people" explosion which right now is most likely to manifest in the distributed-Facebook community.
I think it is on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/
He was probably asking specifically for the Paypal app. Not that this isn't a good thread to talk about your startup, but the question seemed pretty direct and your response didn't answer it past "I'm guessing"
What about http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/ ?
Zip Through Passport Control & Customs With Global Entry