skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I used it for a while (and I still have accounts with them). It's pretty good, though it's composer can't create rich text/HTML email. (You can still read and view rich text/HTML email).
Joe Soap who donated might not be monitoring, but the media are. Diaspora was mentioned on the New York Times IIRC. They are going to want to do a follow up, even if it's "Facebook 'killer' is a dud"
The good news is that you are at the bottom and things can only get better...if you're focus is tight, your execution even tighter, and you zero-out the emotion of not wanting to fail and look at where you are as dispassionately as you can.

I've had to shut-down two start-up's--the lead developer lost his mind on the first (1996) and the money ran dry on the other (2003). In each case, I went and got a job. It sucked working for some numb-nuts with a limp handshake, but needed the money. And I had two puppies and a girlfriend trying to get out of college on the first blow-up, which was no fun. Luck of the draw. I'm launching my third literally this week.

Unlike the previous occasions, I'm better educated. And I'm a lot less emotional. This is business.
I have a standard that stipulates the following--if v 1.0 is over 1/3 late, you're probably throwing good money after bad, so time to ask where the execution bottle necks are. At 2/3 late, time to "come to Jesus" on your start-up and start asking some very tough questions, like how did this get so borked and how can it be rescued. And at 100% over-run, don't think about it, just bail because you've screwed something up so bad that no amount of talk or analysis is going to rescue you. Get a job, build back up your finances and your marriage, and look for another opportunity.

And reflect on why you are in a start-up. Are you trying to change the world or have a cool work-place?

Start-up's are not for everyone, and certainly should be pursued carefully by those married and with financial obligations.

If you're putting your family through hell, you have to ask yourself how long is reasonable to do that. Ruining the finances of your family, or worst case getting turfed out of your home, is unacceptable. And when you have kids, it's no longer about your dreams and desires--it's about providing. You had your chance, it's gone, so suck it up and get ready to do what our own Fathers did--work for the Man and hope for the next generation.

I know that sounds harsh. But I've been on the other other side and watching your home get yanked away is not something your children should ever, ever experience.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry
fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz,

The best minds of all generations always suffer!
You can't succeed with crappy software or programmers? Funny, I can think of a certain OS that wasn't at all very stellar compared to alternatives at the time yet nevertheless went on to dominate...

Which OS are you talking about? Windows? MS-DOS and Windows had some of the best programmers of the time working on them. Bill Gates himself is renowned for his programming skills. Microsoft interviews practically set the standard for uber-difficult interviews that filter out all but the best programmers.

Linux? What, because Linus Torvalds (who wrote the kernel) and Richard M Stallman (who wrote emacs) aren't good enough for you?

Mac OS X? Ok, that one, I don't know the names of any stellar programmers on there, but somehow I doubt that's the one you were referring to (and the fact that they keep quiet doesn't mean there aren't some awesome hackers working on OS X).
But isn't life all about living happily?
>> Two words: furnished apartment.

Speaking as someone who went the other route (unfurnished, buy stuff), I wish I'd tried this. If you're going to be paying the money for a nice place anyway, it's probably worth going furnished.
That works in a contractor/freelancer setting. I think the article is talking about hiring for your company that develops its own products.
> While this seems already doomed, I do hope it has some
> success, because if it does it may open the possibility
> of Linux pads to come.

There are android pads (archos and al) available, and they've been available for quite a while. I don't see how windows could help linux; actually it's the other way around (remember the netbook debacle).
Amen. Has the zune been sold out of US? I never actually saw even one.
Not true of countries that have bilateral tax treaties with the US exempting a higher amount than ~$90k, as for example many Western European countries do.

I doubt the United Arab Emirates has this arrangement... just saying.
I respect Sagan enormously. His works have had a huge impact on who I am as a person. Nevertheless, there's no need to deify him, I think that's the last thing he would have wanted. That being said, I think he would probably not have made a good president.

Even so, his contribution to humanity was tremendous, we are very much diminished by his absence.
The grandparent should remember you don't have to hang any old art on the walls. It's really cheap to get your holidays photos blown up on to canvas these days, and the cheap-ish cameras are certainly up to it.
The latest travelweekly magazine ( 05 aug 2010 ) 
Travelweekly magazine digital edition
> The downside is that I never get much sleep, my girlfriend hates it, almost everyone I know says that I should quit my startup and get married like a normal person

Be careful in your long term thinking with your girlfriend. I've seen a lot of guys work like crazy while their girlfriend doesn't like it, and the guy thinks, "Well, if this pays off she'll understand." In my experience - not true.

People have different temperaments, and if she dislikes risk or wants a more regular amount of time and affection, that's unlikely to change and money doesn't fix the problems there. The best couples for entrepreneurship are ones where both guy and girl are excited by the process of working hard, striving for the impossible, putting in long hours, and can handle the emotional burden and strife that comes with that. If your girlfriend doesn't have the temperament and you do, money likely won't solve that later.
"I dunno, no one made them set out the promises they chose to make, that was their own decision."

Some people have a lot of problems dealing with peer pressure, and are willing to make promises because they think that's what people expect of them, not necessarily because they're convinced they can actually deliver.

Sure, they could have chosen not to make those promises, but you have to put it into context.
>> It's a life hack.

No, it's unethical and cheap.
Is this because riding a motorcycle is more dangerous or because people who like driving fast and taking risks are more likely to have a motorcycle than people who aren't?

Ie, if you ride a motorcycle sensibly, is it really that much more dangerous than driving a car sensibly? I suspect it is always going to be higher because you've got less protection when you do crash, but still, it can't be that much higher...
Anything for Chrome on Linux?
Ways to Make Money on Twitter
oh, kinda like one of those ads: google pays $100/hour to stay at home mom for online work, no experience required.
I learnt from the original edition of Learning Python. I saw a recent edition recently and couldn't believe how thick it had become! :)
You're right, it's not hard. However I have a challenge: Find me a website that says exactly that, comes up first in Google, and is promoted by other Rails sites.
"If any group of people should be able to give a company like Wakemate some slack, it's HN."

I'm really surprised by a lot of HN'ers reactions on this Wakemate thing indeed. What is it that makes many HN'ers so upset about this? What makes this so different than, for example, the Diaspora guys, who generally get sympathy from the HN community?
The best presidents were scientists and writers. Jefferson saw himself as a scientist before a politician...
That's the sensible approach most beginners take with ANY platform/software. Download the highest stable release and work with it.

Work with the cutting edge _later_.
EFF Review of Verizon and Google's Net Neutrality Proposal
Counterpoints:

* Correlation is not causation.

* Poor people may often remain poor because they are not rational. Charity may not be a rational activity. So perhaps what they were measuring was not selfishness, but rationality.

* Being born in a rich family is correlated with a better education, so the point made in the article's last paragraph may be incorrect.

* I'm (currently) poor, but I don't think much of most organised charitable activities, or to giving money to homeless people. I think most charities are an utter waste, and giving money to homeless people only gets them buying alcohol and cigarettes. I'll happily give my sandwich to a homeless person on the street though. My suggested figure for "% of salary to donate to charity" is 0%, and will remain 0% for the rest of my life. However, once rich (assuming I get there), I'd be quite happy to devote years of my life to helping people directly (which may involve leveraging financial resources, but not donating money to charities).

* Average figures tell us little. What was the distribution? Did 90% of rich people suggest 0% and 10% of them suggested 50%? How did they get to the 2.1% figure?

* What kind of social pressure was there when asking people how much they would donate (of their credits, or of their salary)? Social pressure is a huge influence. Here on HN, an open-minded, thoughtful environment, I explain my views on charities above (even though I know I'll get some passionate replies). Sitting in a circle of people I don't know, I might still express these views (because I'm like that..) but most people probably would be wiser and keep those views quiet.

* What kind of social pressure was there before? What kind of social pressure did they expect after? Did people give an answer to please the examiner?

A lot of holes in this article, I think. Surprising, coming from a quality publication like the Economist.
What sense does it make? If you rent apartment(s) for 10 years, you give money out and you have nothing afterwards. Mortgage, on other hand, is more investment: you will have something valuable after paying it back.

Is renting everything a new way to be cool?
Drawing Map Routes on IPhone using unofficial Google Maps Api
A web proxy might hide your IP address from the original website, however I guess that Google uses cookies to keep track of you. This means a web proxy won't help your privacy, since Google would still have a big record of you, what you buy, what you browse, who you are.
How long did it take with email?
Not always! I live in a space that is far more economical to rent. If I were to buy the space I am living in now, it would cost an extra X per month - and there is no guarantee the house I rent increasing in value. I take that extra X and invest it every month and get some decent compound interest off it and I am much better off in the long term.
Does anyone think we should have a slightly more bureaucratic approach to project and gem creation ?

For a rubyforge project, we do need to fill in a form. But gem creation can be done by anyone. There's no need to show some documentation, no need to justify why you've created yet another XYZ, or why its better that the alternatives.

Even rubyforge projects do not require any justification.
We've got to delete projects that have not released ANY code for X period (blank projects).

What of projects that do not have proper documentation (take wikipedia for instance, where badly written pages get flagged off).

I've often griped about codeforpeople.com where there's no summary for what all those gems are for. You have to download each one and check the docs inside!
This has many of the hallmarks of what Jack Shafer at Slate calls 'Bogus Trend of the Week' stories. He's tracked a few dozen over the years -

http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=3944&da=&qt=%22...
Unless they sell some sort of Sheeva plug with everything already installed (with configuration and automatic updates). That could be easier than Facebook.

And they wouldn't need the critical mass: the plug computer could come with a blog engine, bittorrent (client and tracker), a mail server for the family… It could be the Eben Moglen's freedom box that inspired them to start Diaspora in the first place.
I agree with Bruce Sterling. Buy an expensive bed and office chair (you spend most of your time in those and you only have one body). Then only keep stuff that's

- Extremely beautiful.

- Have an extraordinary emotional value to you. We're talking the watch in Pulp Fiction type of items.

- Highly practical.

Throw away everything else.
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There is Edit with Emacs extension - https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ljobjlafonikaiip...
And if you're in a really creative mood you can play around with coloured paper.
The Diaspora guys, so far, haven't taken pre-orders and then had a half-year delay.

But the thing most people are annoyed with were the lack of updates. Delays are o.k. if you know there is progress. Except we didn't know for a long, long time.

They are doing much better right now, and I'm still as excited to get my Wakemate :)
If I get a paper with request for comments in a personal mail from an author, I would definitely ask permission before forwarding. Not doing so is just rude.
To put a finer point on it, pre OS X the Mac OS was an engineering disaster. It's fundamentals were more on par with Win 3.1, let alone Windows 9x or NT or Unix. Without OS X it's questionable whether Apple would have had the capability to keep up with the industry.
Something I use, along a similar line: www.evoscan.com

Don't mind the wall of text website: I think it appeals to the revheads or something. The software is really quite clever (it can monitor and display variables from the ecu, along with allowing you to tinker with the software).
I'm interested in what aspects of Sagan you perceive as not being suitable for political leadership?

Not that I want to imply that I think he was suitable (I've never really considered that particular option) - but I do view with dismay what is typically seen as being required to be an effective politician and it is perhaps interesting to consider the alternatives.
I've got the Vimperator. It lets you use VIM inside Firefox. It will even open textareas inside VIM (Ctrl+i).

Downside: Ctrl+i doesn't work on the Mac. Anyway, it makes my working for the man a little less disgusting.
Yeah, that question is a bit hard to answer, especially down to the granularity of an individual coder, when you're on a 3 year ship cycle and there are 2,000 other devs contributing to the project as well.
Be happier, find or borrow everything.
> walk and talk of it and can walk and talk then as far as i'm concerned, its a duck because that is what a duck was expected to do.

This doesn't even parse.

Duck-typing is the idea that an object's type at a particular time is made up of the set of fields and methods it has _at that time_. I suppose that doesn't strictly require updating, but it would be a pretty lame duck with it.

Polymorphism w/o inheritance is a fine description. How do you think that can be accomplished without dynamic updating?
To be published, a paper must be peer-reviewed. If you are not in academia, you have no "peers". So your first step ought to be to find some.
I find your site hilarious. http://livgiv.com/
its a rough version 0. A much improved version 1 is being put up tomorrow. I'll be the last one laughing. :)
Confirmed: HOPA Dry Erase Girl Is A Hoax, Identity Revealed
Any thoughts on TapWorthy?
Buying isn't always better than renting especially when you take into account interest payments, maintenance, closing and selling costs, taxes etc. So basically if the house doesn't increase in value enough to cover these costs than you are better off renting.

Check out this cool calculator for some more details:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...
I mostly work for banks and sometimes do military contracts. My last contract was with northrop grumman in SD and before that BOFA in charlotte. I saved appox. 36k a year.
why are you dropping google? e.g. would Yahoo be acceptable if their client was feature-rich enough? or do you need something hosted in your garage... or at prq.se?
... and previously discussed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1588727

Do you think flooding his comments section with questions about whether he'll give attribution will have any effect?

Probably not.
What magnitude of X are we talking about? Where I live (Central Europe), the difference is really small.
New brain scan to diagnose autism
Heroku | Backlog too deep

The application currently has too many requests
in its backlog.
I agree with the in general 0% donation, unless of course I was actually involved directly as you mention in using the charitable funds. I just don't trust a random charity or even empathise with many of the charitable plights plastered in front of us with advertising (which is a questionable use of donations). I think I would in general have to have a personal involvement to consider giving.
If you get a mortgage, you have to pay rent on money instead of paying rent on housing. And then you have to pay for the housing on top of that. And then invest your spare time maintaining a house, which is a better hobby than TV but not for everyone. If you take all that time and money and commitment and invest it in something other than a house, then you can probably rent an apartment and still come out just as rich in the long run.

Also, if you rent apartments for 10 years you can spend 10 years moving around to follow opportunities. If you pay a mortgage for 10 years, you can look forward to spending the next 20 paying the same mortgage, and unless you want to pay for housing twice, living in the same place. Standard mortgages are 30 years! That's maybe half of your adult life you have to spend paying interest. That's a level of commitment comparable to having a damn kid, except instead of a living and thinking person it's a material possession.
The Medical Characteristics of the Orthomyxovirus (Influenza) Family
I've been using eLance.com to source VAs for the last 5 years. Went through the full cycle (trying to do it as cheaply as possible and getting burned.. to now paying a reasonable rate for a US based VA who I can pick up the phone, speak with and understand well) Great success with one VA who I hired on a as a remote sales assistant after working with her for 1 year.

Tips:
1. If you are paying less than $10 an hour, only assign operational/procedural tasks. The incentives in this range are to demonstrate they can "work quickly" so that you keep assigning work. Quality suffers

2. Expect to pay $500 to $1000 and between 10 and 20 hours of your time "trying out" a VA.

3. Create a wiki with lists of commonly asked questions / answers / information. Have the VA update this with any question that you ask so that you are only asked questions once. This becomes enormously valuable!

4. Ask and give feedback reguarly (what can your VA be doing better, and what can you do better in your business) I've been really suprised by how much insight someone actually dealing with customers email every day has. I changed an entire product line because of this.

5. Do not, under any circumstance, have a VA do fulfilment for you. Pay a profesional fulfilment service to do it.
Oh, this is bad. You should rethink, maybe try something totally different. When you have the killer idea, it is still time to restart. Didn't you think about it, when YC did a review and decided against your project?

Anyway kudos for keeping trying and good luck.
Java development 2.0: Introducing Kilim
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You've replied to 3 people in this thread. Telling one person to "Dude, drop the puppy" and me that quitting is ridiculous. Why'd you ask the question Dude? Are you just interested in publicity, or do you need serious advice or discussion? Too scared to ask your wife?

Your profile: "http://____.com to be notified of our launch in the next month or so"

I'll pass.
Bringing Fun back to the Desktop
Using parallax to create 3D effect images
What are you saying about "flooding his comments section with questions about whether he'll give attribution"?

I made one comment in the linked history. Still not authorized in disqus. If you are talking about this comment, you are the owner of the web?

I made one comment here. How is one comment flooding? If it is, please stop flooding my comments with yours.
Perhaps they don't see it as a "platform expansion device" rather they see it as an iPod - just a music player. And the music player market is very tough unless you're Apple.
Myth: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/07/16/renting-vs-buyi...

Now, home prices have fallen a bit since that article was written, but you really need to examine all the costs that go into home ownership (including mortgage interest), and see if it really gives you a net positive. For a lot of people it may not.
I am guessing it's because motorcycles are capable of going faster, accelerating quicker, so people go faster on them and tend to drive more aggressively.
I'd say, at the same speeds, a motorcyclist is much more likely to be injured than a driver. In one case, the car is the crumple zone, in the other the motorcyclist's body is the crumple zone.
Exactly. Don't think of eBay and Craigslist as being in the buying and selling business -- think of them as being in the storage business. Store your unused stuff there and buy it back if/when you need it again.

And the best part is, you don't even have to pay rent to the storage company!
The Nexus One launch and seemed ghetto and not something I would have expected from Google.
Yeah, I was confused. I'm a product guy, so math isn't my strongest point. It looks like combining Md5 + size + Sha1 should be enough to get a almost unique file id. Thank you all for the replies.
"prove that if"

Actually it doesn't prove that. There might be countless apps with all the features you mention that are not successful.
Interesting ...
I am sometimes at my desk and working on the design of my app for quite a long time without using the computer...

HiveDesk would consider I am not working if I am 5 minutes idle, right? have you considered an additional periodic webcam screenshot ?
It says I already have it, even though I haven't updated for a few weeks, and I'm pretty sure Youtube still sucks on my Mac.
Given equal sensibility, a car is safer than a motorcycle. A car can take getting hit by a drunk driver or wildlife (they fucking jump out of nowhere), a motorcycle can't. I follow the writings of one particular rock drummer who travels extensively by motorcycle, especially on tour, and he wrote--referencing another prominent motorcyclist, who wrote for motorcycling magazines and was at the time recently killed by a deer collision--that the one danger a skilled motorcyclist can never fully mitigate is wildlife. Deer kill plenty of people in cars, too, but you have a better chance surviving having a deer jump on top of your car as opposed to your motorcycle.

(I read once that deer kill more people in North America than any other animal.)