skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The article gives an explanation of why I picked NJ: "Mr. Fleischer [the author] is president of Bogen Communications Inc. in Ramsey, N.J."

Incidentally, counting states is a bad approach. 1.1% of the US population lives in states where the top 2 insurers have at least 90% market share. The 4 states you described as being competitive (CA, NY, FL, Oregon) account for 25% of the population of the US.

In retrospect, this is roughly what you'd expect. You can't sell health insurance across state lines. Small states can only support one insurance company (due to the fixed costs of hiring actuaries), while big states can support many. So after some thought, I suppose you are right, and the oligopoly model probably does apply to insurers in small states.
This is the best description by far that I've seen of most PhDs. It passes the "Would my mother understand this" test.

I'll be sending this to anyone who asks what a PhD is really like.
Your first point hit home way too quickly! I made similar mistakes in my first 'business' which really made me appreciate the difficulties in starting a community oriented website. I found that I didn't truthfully answer the question about what value it provided and whether there was truly demand or whether it was a build it and they will come approach. When I left Co-opRatings the adage every end is a new beginning really came true though, good luck on the new endeavor!
Sharpie Liquid Pencil
True, but this is mainly true for so-called "conventional" warfare in Europe. For asymmetrical warfare, especially in parts of the world with less than stellar infrastructure, "cheap and simple" has been much preferred.

I suspect there's at least one valuable analogy applicable to startups here.
Ask HN: What are the most effective forms of emotional conditioning?
I don't mean Pavlov. I'm talking about mental toughness. Emotions are arguably the most important thing to manage in life. In some respect, that's what we do all day long.

I'm wondering if any of you know of any techniques to become emotionally stronger/resilient.

The most effective strategy I have found is listening to motivational/positive audiobooks.

Boot camp? I started making a list of hypothetical situations that would elicit the most nervousness/fear from me in various parts of my life (career/spiritual/relationships/health/etc). Just writing the list was difficult. Anyways, made me think some smart guys hear would have some hacks for managing emotions.
Ask HN, Review our startup (The Scholar App) - student collaboration on Facebook
This is a screencast of the fully functional prototype. We'll be launching for the fall semester (right around the corner).

Looking for any and all feedback!
A cup or two of lowfat plain yogurt will provide as much protein as a typical shake, and is a much more healthful option.
Googler Discusses How To Discover Start-Up Ideas
More like the fertilised egg (if you aim the erection properly.)
(Just a nit, but you may want to prefix your title with 'Ask HN:' so folks know that this is not a link to a phone product page)

I have had the HTC Evo on Sprint in San Francisco since it came out. 4G is supposed to be here later in the year, so no 4G here yet either.

I love this phone. I have no idea what all the battery bitching has been about. I prefer to charge it nightly, but I have forgotten several times and easily get two day's out of it.

Most interesting to me was to see how "complete" the app store is on Android. For virtually every iPhone app I've actually wanted, there is an Android version available. One odd thing is that I haven't paid for an app yet. Everything I want seems to be free.

So yea.. the camera is good, reading on it is fantastic (so much nicer than the iPhone, as my iPhone-using coworkers agree), all the google services are really nicely integrated and we just got the Froyo update over the weekend.

Do it!
Apple acquires Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc
> if you always play by the rules you'll never make it.

I suspect many people reading this very forum are living proof that you are wrong. Indeed, two of the most popular themes in the experience of successful founders seem to be building mutually beneficial relationships with business contacts and building a trustworthy brand in your market.

In any case, "this is business" is not an excuse for antisocial or unethical behaviour, and a cheap throwaway line is not justification for deliberately messing other people around.
By the way, you ~could~ argue that Sally could get by with less money for Social Security, Medicare, and benefits. It wouldn't work, though, as it would be predicated on the idea that individual endeavors would be more sustainable than large-scale investments among an aggregate population. Even if we opened these services up for private enterprise, it's unlikely that they would operate as efficiently or more than the government bodies. Some people take that as a maxim, but they don't evaluate the services currently offered with the appropriate considerations. The most notable of which is "Caveat Emptor." Private enterprise can cut corners and save money, sure -- but someone's paying the cost. In no research that I've seen do private industries significantly out perform government institutions without a lot of cajoling and numerical torture.

The postal service is a frequent scapegoat here. Yet, the price of a stamp has been nearly constant when evaluated based on purchasing power and inflation. Further, try doing a cost comparison between FedEx, UPS, and the USPS for the same package. I've worked in shipping and receiving and both FedEx and UPS have more than their fair share of delivery issues and damages. Yet, I get bills and letters in the mail _very_ regularly and reliably. Go figure.
A cup or two of lowfat plain yogurt will provide as much protein as a typical shake, and is a much more healthful option. Especially try Greek-style yogurt for higher protein concentrations.
The bottleneck with Fun is going to be the network latency.

Any piece of UI that needs extra care, e.g. a very long list of items, is implemented in javascript with appropriate lazy rendering.
This is exactly how it feels once you get over the initial elation of passing the blasted thing!

Of course, with all the Ph.D.s creating little bumps all over the place, various people have to come along and fill in the gaps between the bumps. They don't get enough credit.
Did something similar recently, and adding dynos didn't help. Then I realized I was limited by my own bandwidth; both my co-founder and I could hammer heroku from our homes and still see the same maximum throughput individually.

Our main take-away was that their caching layer was really effing fast.
Wireline broadband is limited in many areas by (near-)monopoly providers. It often isn't economic for multiple providers to chase each others' wires into the home.

Wireless might be restricted by spectrum licenses, but there are usually a number of options.
I think I would like to try it first and if I like it, then associate it to one of my accounts.
> The profit motives of private health care favor denying care, since not paying out money is a good way to make money.

This is an argument against all private insurance (home, auto, etc).
Interesting app but I disagree with the "going to Web sites on your phone to find information is a pain" assertion. On the iOS devices I've never found "web searches" that difficult. Am I the only one?
I do like the zero-click for information though, so that could be worth it. It is also nice to see DDG's continuing efforts to ensure "private" searches.
Honestly, this dude sounds like a nut-job. Owning a cell-phone won't make you a slave to technology anymore than owning a computer will. A cell phone is a tool, and a tool is is only how you use it. And besides, none of that has anything to do with media doublespeak, distracted youngsters, or the author's own idealization of the hippies.
A joint policy proposal for an open Internet
> (recent evidence suggests that your body simply adapts to exercise by getting hungrier)

Interesting. I have experienced the opposite. Exercising reduces my appetite and I have to consciously eat more to avoid losing weight. Do you have references?
Anybots on Justin.tv out in DC [live]
Quote - "What if you could build realtime web apps with the same ease as you build static web pages in PHP today?"

It's interesting how far we've come, no? PHP-based pages were once considered dynamic.
Many companies, software (Facebook) and otherwise (Toyota) have open layouts to encourage problem solving in groups.

Most of the good engineers I know are just as adept at hashing out a solution on a whiteboard as they are doing it quietly by themselves, and, given the sample set that I've seen over the years, I've found that the collaborative solutions tends to be better.
@rubashov: OP was talking about a vegetarian diet, not a vegan one. Whey protein should be fine. Whey is a by-product of cheese.
It's the anti-flamewar feature. The deeper the thread, the longer it takes for the reply button to appear.
Blackberry Bold 9700 - video unboxing Blackberry Bold2 9700
It is relevant because the economy is obviously not where it was 3-4 years ago. The bubble has burst, margins are getting squeezed all across the board and footing the bill on ever-escalating government-induced initiatives is no longer as easily stomachable for many businesses.

His exposition contains a lot of interesting facts and numbers. Just because he is not in the same political camp as you doesn't make his point any less valid.
Now, add a third dimension to that diagram that describes the number of people that know any particular bit of knowledge. That's more accurately what I would describe as the "sum total of all human knowledge." It's not known if no one remembers it!

You can then view the work of a professor as a tension between adding shallow bumps to the perimeter and increasing the depth in the center.
Then you follow the excellent advice given by "Sanity" in this Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/94hab/is_mba_im...
what are the thoughts that are going through your mind when you were like, uggh, i don't know if i want to login with facebook?
I'm probably not eating at a 500 calorie surplus, though I definitely eat all the food items you suggest.

I try to vary things, but I generally do pullups, squats, deadlifts, military press, inclined row, and bench press. Should I be doing something different?
Perhaps instead of down-voting this you can simply reply to it.

Unless of course you don't think that discussions happen everyday or that it's not ultimately saving us time.
laughed a bit at this part:

"My motivation for going to the gym was rather stupid but it worked — I wanted to become the mayor on Foursquare. I never did get the mayorship.. the gym rat badge will have to suffice."
I think you missed my point, which was that getting massively indebted to credit card companies at ruinous interest is something that 1) nobody outside the USA does (instead, people get massively indebted to normal banks, usually for somewhat lower interest) and 2) could quickly disappear inside the USA due to competition from banks or changing regulations.

Thus, it would be a very stupid move for credit card companies to rely on debt interest completely and forego merchant fees, even if doing so would raise their income short-term (which I am not at all convinced it would).
Even if this isn't baiting or flaming, it does seem to reflect skepticism -- which is fair. But I do think there are likely a lot of people who have contributed to expanding human knowledge without having done a PhD. I mean, lots of undergrad and masters programs involve doing your own original research project, and many more undergrads at least assist on research projects owned by others.
Reminds me of Steve Blank's post "You Can't Take It With You". Congrats, you might have some deep, unique understandings that might give you a unique insight into the world, but if you haven't offered it up to others in a way that can be retained or utilized, it's worth nothing. In this way, you are a selfish little piglet.

Ph.D's are let into the ether to be consumed and used for the world. Some more efficiently than others, but nonetheless, their research undoubtedly allows for a better world than your own, internal "a-ha" moments.

http://steveblank.com/2010/07/26/you-cant-take-it-with-you/
He doesn't get to choose whether to dump money into the black hole of Washington & Trenton.
Because canvas doesn't store layers, it is essentially just a bitmap.

If I drew a black box on a canvas, and then a blue circle on top of that black box, the canvas element does not keep the part of the box under the circle in memory; instead, it replaces the old "lower layer" bitmap data with the new "higher layer" bitmap data. So there is no built-in way of deleting that circle and having the canvas revert to the box data that was drawn first underneath the circle, which is essentially what layers are.

If you stack canvas elements on top of each other, one canvas per layer, then this restriction no longer exists - One canvas can store the box and the other can store the circle. That way, if I delete some of the circle, the canvas doesn't have to remember what was underneath it before, it just has to be transparent to let the next-lowest canvas bitmap shine through.
That depends how you define it.

My cat has a skin blemish on its paw. Does documenting this fact add to the sum total of human knowledge? Technically yes, but it's of no interest to anyone.

But there's an even continuum between this and academic papers of great import - what if I figure out the best strategy to defend against a Zerg rush and post it on a forum? What if I figure out a really cool new programming technique and blog about it? What if I write an academic paper on obscure characteristics of hyper-complex non-euclidian non-reimannian Q-manifolds in P-time that has no ramifications for anything and is quickly forgotten? But then what if a tremendously important application is discovered 50 years later?

Especially with the internet, what qualifies as human knowledge becomes completely blurred. Previously the qualification was probably getting published, but now anyone can make information available to anyone else and the rest of posterity.
Federated Fluther Lets Third Parties Integrate Q&A With A Few Lines Of Code
Unethical is unethical.

Saying "I can't succeed with X ethically" is no excuse. Then you ditch X.
The NYC financial mindset has little to do with it. It's more useful to compare SV with Route 128. In the late 60's both seemed to be roughly equivalent: dominant technology schools, an educated population, and a strong hi-tech business base. But there was a strong cultural difference. If an engineer left HP, he would be encouraged, and often HP would be a customer. If you left DEC, you were a traitor. You were the enemy, never to repatriated. May your children burn in hell. In the end cooperation beat out secretiveness and destructive competitiveness.
It's vegans who avoid all animal products, vegetarians only avoid animal flesh.
Ask HN: is it possible to ignore Facebook?
Personally I still have no big interest to invest time into Facebook, in fact, I rather resent it. But I suppose the main market for whatever web app I could think about would be Facebook people (because almost everybody is on it). I worry about reinventing the wheel, that is, creating something that Facebook people already do all the time. Is there a way to keep somewhat up to date on what is happening on FB, without becoming involved myself?

Also, would it still make sense to just create nice services, even if what they offer can also be had on Facebook? Just hoping that there are enough people who don't like the FB way, for example?

Naturally, if I would launch a site now, I would also offer Facebook connect, likes and all that. It's more about understanding how people network these days (I prefer Twitter myself, or used to prefer it before their commercialization push).
RIAA Spent $64 Million On Threats Netting Just $1.4 Million
a) When I joined it seemed like a genuinely interesting and good place to work. I joined leaving somewhere worse; and at first it was a great place to work. I did not even think of asking "does this job offer telecommuting?", as I never telecommuted in the past. I had only been out of school for a year, and the company had a lot of cool things going for it, like beer Friday meetings and an office in the "hip" part of town.

b) I was trying to find another job. It just happened that I got fired before I could find one, this was also happening at the height of the recession and in my neck of the woods the opportunities were slim.

It worked out really well in the end. We had our first child that year, and I got to spend 3 months with my family before finding a much better paying job that had a healthier environment. Sometimes leaving one job is the only way to get a raise.
I always wondered: where is the list of things we (humans) forgotten/unlearned?
("edit": site looks back up now)
The Key-Value Wars of The Early 21st Century (CouchDB Spilled in My Riak)
The Golden State’s War on Itself
Something similar has happened to me before. I was sitting in the audience of a talk, and the speaker said something blatantly wrong about something I had worked on, so I asked them to clarify, and they responded with something like "they did such and such", which was also wrong, so I said something to the effect of "well, 'they' is 'me' and you're wrong because blah blah". They didn't have much to say after that.
Empty clicks with no intention of buying just make your site look like a bad source of leads. Not sure it's ideal as a way of "paying" somebody.
This certainly is an interesting idea. It seems to me though that all of your application logic is jammed into a single file at the presentation layer. This might suffice for very small apps, and that's fine if it is your goal. I can't imagine that you just define all of your logic in one file.

How would you go about reusing code?
Could you potentially separate out logic from your template?

I would also like to see how this could be done more unobtrusively. It would also be good to show what the output html looks like after it is compiled to html.
I think it sounds like a really cool idea and I would almost certainly use it if my friends were using it. That being said, I'm not going to associate my Facebook account with this app unless I'm a little more sure I'll actually use it. For me to make that decision, I need to see some examples.

In other words, consider linking to your profile (or a throw-away example profile) on the front page.
That's only a problem if the internet as a whole isn't fast enough, and the FCC is supposed to ensure that this never happens.
For more info, see entire book on this topic by AnnaLee Saxenian: http://books.google.com/books?id=gnh2Rb1rcMIC
Ask HN: Best API / tools for finding local attractions
Hi

Are there any decent tools / API's out there (paid or free) that will allow me to provide either a postcode/zip OR lat/lng and get back a list of local businesses / attractions.

I would like to say. Get me a list of all cinemas within 5 miles of xxxxxx.

Is there such a service?
The loan approach is not a bad one as you stated because it reduces your risk, which may be why they offered it to you. The figure you would like to get paid. The fact that you did the work at risk and have already taken risk, I would want ask for some above a hours * salary as the value of your contribution.

Do they know you are willing to use the hours you have already worked as an investment into the company? They may be thinking that you would not like this offer. Another spin is to do what they are offering, and determine the value each one brings to the table, but allow you the option to make an investment into the company using the loan you have already given the company.
Google actually runs the world's largest micropayment service. It solves all of the classical problems with micropayments, and will probably ensure that no sub-$1 micropayment service ever gets developed:

1) Payments are aggregated at macro-scales so that the service can efficiently run on top of the legacy payments infrastructure without leaking double-digit percentages in interchange fees.

2) End users are never prompted for credentials or to authorize a payment. They get a frictionless experience which feels exactly like clicking a regular link in their browser. In surveys, most don't understand they are not clicking a regular link in their browser, which is exactly the way Google likes it.

3) End users aren't actually charged money (they pay with attention), so there is no need to pay customer support drones to deal with disputes over 3 cent line-items, like there is if you e.g. have disputes between workers and clients on Amazon Turk.

4) Prices are computed by Google automatically in real time, which means vendors don't need to try to maintain revenue maximizing price points for Chilean visitors using Firefox to an article about dog washing.

5) Google's micropayment service solved the marketplace chicken-and-egg problem by Google using it on their own page first -- one of the most popular on the Internet, letting buyers sign up for Google, and then let other publishers use it on their pages and automatically tap into the buyers already signed up by Google.

This ridiculously successful service probably sucks all the life out of the market for sub-$1 micropayments. (I would never have expected $1 ~ $10 micropayments to work well, either, but Zynga et al have pretty decisively proven me wrong in the last few years.)
I wish my phone could be listening to me all the time, and search for things I say like "when was Mozart born". I'm not sure how it would get the answers back to me. Maybe an ear-piece?

I think that would be the ultimate mobile search.

Has anyone tried making an app like that? Can an app on the iPhone or Android access an ear-piece?
So you're looking for an algorithm that produces the optimal result heuristically, without making any false moves, instead of using the convenient lookup table that God has available to him? Sounds very NP to me.
Coffee can actually be an appetite suppressant. I don't think there's any reason to drop coffee for weight loss, but you'll probably want to reduce the added sugar and cream.
Even worse, on techcrunch it says that most of that is from interest income (they must have a lot of cash in the bank). Cash from operations for the same time period is only $1.4 million.
Not only that, but you also need to stay at healthy eating habits past the diet. If you're cutting so many calories it's makes it near impossible to keep at it, much less adjust back up to a maintenance level once weight goals are hit.
that's a good idea. do you think a screencast would help to convince you? that's one of the things i haven't got around in doing.
Java Video Game Programming: Game Logic
Absolutely!

You can declare something akin to a function, which takes arguments and emits HTML. Imagine e.g.

let taskTemplate = template(task) {
<div class="task">
<span class="title">task.title</span>
</div>
}

for (task in tasks) { taskTemplate(task) }

I'm not decided on syntax yet.

You can definitely separate out logic from template this way.

Fun outputs javascript, not HTML - the javascript then builds the DOM.