skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hmm, I enjoy hearing all the praise heap onto us (Germany) latetly. There was a time when Germany was called the sick, fat old man of Europe, too inflexible and and stubborn to able to adjust to a changing environment.

I'm sure once the growth lessens the tone will change again - I'll enjoy it as long as it lasts.
Very interesting concept providing those update emails contain full content of the message, comment etc?
The question is if those startups are willing to pay in relation to the hours they want (and I don't think one should keep this relation at a linear scale)
Not everywhere. My university is in a state with no tuition.
Hold on a minute, are you slating Dell for not patenting something that is indeed trivial, or for not using your idea in their products? Because the former should be applauded.
yes i did that. and have restarted and restored a few times. i still get the mysterious temporary freezes. i've read the Apple forums discussions, my impression is that all of the "fixes" reported by endusers (except rolling back to 3.3) are just lucky happenstance and/or the person in question didn't test it long enough afterward so was still in honeymoon period. thanks for suggestion though! (we should def not continue this thread since off-topic)
Well, it is true for at least some of the states.
For the other ones (I'm in Baden-Württemberg), it's usually 500 Euros + 1xx Euros of fees per semester.
Also: I recently read an article (sorry, no link) about student loans in Germany. Apparently, there are about 20-30 banks that offer "student loans". Only 3-4 actually offer something that is limited to students and apparently most of the banks want to move away from keeping those "special" deals arround
The "return" keyword in Haskell was poorly-chosen, it already has too much meaning in the imperative world associated with it. "inject" or "insert" or even "save" would have been much better.
This guy has lots of facts wrong - makes you wonder about his accuracy in research:

- no federally mandated six weeks of vacation time (though 4-5 weeks are the norm, even in private sector)

- University tuition has been introduced recently (though still low, but will rise as obvious source of gov revenue)

- Free nursing care / child care for a small percentage of toddlers only

- No labor minister of that name (he is undersecretary)
etc.
Timing the Linux -j(cpu+1) Myth
3 Benefits of Regular Exercise
Maybe not so much in this specific instance, but Germany's economic and political structure (decentralisation of power and money) was a direct result of the occupation by the Allies, who wanted to avoid a strong central government. America was hugely influential in 1945-70.
Which growth are you referring to? Growth has overall been dismal at best.
I'll think of one later
What are your "swiss army knife" one-liners on Unix?
Yes - we do that.
Max Levchin, PayPal and Slide Co-founder Becomes a Google VP of Engineering
This is not only your impression. Look for example at this Wikpedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equ...
"power users" — the affected gits that fancy themselves knowledgable because they aren't afraid to click through dialog boxes and wizards, install inane themes, randomly strip files and kill services as 'optimizations', and copy-paste inept blocks of sudo-ridden shell from linkbait tutorials. Lifehacker readers.

Apple managed to almost completely marginalize them with the introduction of the App Store (nobody's writing jailbreak apps), but Google's been courting them aggressively from day one.

In decades past they'd have been bickering over their choice of microcomputer platform on BBSes, from the Apple II and C64 to the Amiga and BeOS. Now they have the real-time internet and the companies they partisanly prostitute themselves for are the largest in their sectors with market caps from 80-220 billion dollars.
Four weeks are federally mandated.
Android Hardware Comparison (Google Spreadsheet)
2.2% economic growth in the last quarter; higher than anything since reunification.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/13/german-econom...
If you're not paying NI then surely your dental is also covered?
.NET mostly - just looked at your site so I doubt that lines up but you have nice looking work :)
Sure, but labour laws in Germany are closely related to those of other Northern European countries, such as the Scandinavian ones. Like them or not, the labour movement in the form of the unions and the Social Democratic parties fought long and hard for them. To claim that we have the Americans to thank for them is really rather absurd.
Precisely my thought. People take a specific literal quote and use it as an attempt to refute his main argument - but you have to refute the statistics instead.

One argument was that the adventurous sailor would be subsumed by the cobbler or tavernkeeper in the mating game. True, but he wouldn't be subsumed by the beggar, now would he?

Another argument is to find a counterexample. "There were female scientists. Good female scientists. Your claim is now disproven!". Except for the fact that the claim is statistical and you just picked an outlier.
There are a couple of main claims, which are quite objective:

Are males more extremely distributed than females? Is the minimum wage pertubing the mean wage (yes, it is - but significantly?) Is the absolute grade scale pertubing the results (yes, but by how much?) If all three are confirmed, you could say the societys obsession with the mean is what causes all the trouble.

I think your point about less and less substantiality is warranted. It is the first couple of paragraphs which has the most meat and is the most objective. It would be bad to dismiss them, if the latter parts are weaker. Yet, the weaker parts are the ones people will attack in an argument - they are the low-hanging-fruit. Especially if they have an agenda to be fulfilled in the gender wars. Though the more objective parts are the parts you should seek to refute.

I think the future will be even more interesting than now. In the most developed parts of the world, women surpasses men in higher education. Note that this fits the presumption: males have a more extreme ability distribution. This will have a great impact. There will be less well-educated men for the well-educated women. And this is a first in the history (of Europe). It will be interesting to see how that one plays out.
Do startups really need these hours? Or do they only think they need them? It's not the hours that count, it's the output.

For example, I can work 60 or 80 hours a week instead of 40, but it doesn't really make a difference because the effective output will stay more or less the same. Without sufficient leisure time I'm just slower and I'll make errors when working.

In addition, with progressive systems it doesn't even make sense to work that much. 20 hours more a week reduces my leisure time to effectively zero. On the other hand, even if this additional hours were paid, the effective difference would be minimal, due to the high taxes I'd have to pay for them.
I like the shaking head 'no' you get from the password login box on Mac OS X because mistyping your password is a minor annoyance and that unexpected humanity takes the edge of it.
A tremendous amount of money rides on gender issues. Think just of all the academic programs instituted to address gender imbalances in STEM fields. Think of the expense of them continuing, forever, because they are trying to combat not transient mutable societal norms but Mother Nature. When public policy goes wrong, it's very expensive.
Well, it is more subtle than that, the distinction between wealth and money. For example, the Rothschilds cash fortune isn't comparable to the paper worth of someone like Gates. But arguably in any practical sense, the lifestyle they live, they're wealthier.

European ideas about wealth are less about cash and more about (inherited/inheritable) tangible assets and connections to people at a similar level.
Will MS Office 2010 be better than Office 2007?
With the MS Office 2010 released, it becomes a big and hot topic in both users and PC tech elites. More and more people are talking about whether MS Office 2010 is a worthwhile invention or enjoy undeserved fame？Well, let’s come into the discussion group and have a look.
Web based Vector editing
Practical test online booking and appointment confirmations changes
Booking confirmations for the practical tests will no longer be posted out to you. Those will be sent on the contact email address provided at the time of booking or changing the practical test online.
I made the switch after ~10 years of unbroken employment. The biggest feeling I had is explained in http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

There's absolutely no way I could do this without getting an office though. Well, an office isn't essential, but somewhere other than my home office is. There's just no way I can get myself into the right mindset to work at home on a consistent basis.
Sun fought the open sourcing of Java for a long time past when it made economic sense for them to do it so it's an odd example of going too far with open source.

Even now the booby traps they laid are being put into actual use and the end result could be a true open source fork which will be very good for the Java ecosystem, and less than optimal for Oracle.
Argument-mapping software would be particularly useful for controversial topics where it's hard to judge just based on the appearance.

For example, take cryonics. An 'outside view' would be that it's largely scorned, associated with nutcases, etc.; but its partisans make an 'inside view' of specific technical arguments and say the facts overcome the outside view.

A mapped out inside view would be easier to follow for non-technical folks, and at least make clear what technical points are disputed. (eg. if the cryobiologists' counter-arguments are basically 'yes, it's possible except for one small issue with synaptical vesicles', an outsider might think that's soluble issue and decide to believe in the whole thing)

Of course, so far I know of no one who has put together a useful argument map like this (and all applications seem to be in niches - like the CIA), which sort of suggests that perhaps it's not a good tool at all or is too heavy-weight or something.
My tuppence would be to attend events and meet people in person... as once you've established a credible relationship it's easier to convince a potential employer to give you a shot.

From their perspective it's about risk. Commercial experience de-risks you as a potential hire, but so does a relationship, even a new one.

If you make it to London get in touch with me and if I can help I will. My email is richard dot marr at empora dot com

Edit: another route would be to take part in open source projects with a strong contingent in London.
Nice - although swapping the X and Y would probably make it a bit more useful.
> - University tuition has been introduced recently (though still low, but will rise as obvious source of gov revenue)

In Spain (another socialist economy by the article standards) University tuition is something between 600-1000 EUR a year and has not risen for a good decade now (except for the inflation).
It appears to me, just because I've got my country/language set to US English.
It's interesting to see what Google doesn't give away. MapReduce gets all the press, but (AFAIK) it's only Hadoop (Yahoo) that's open source. Similarly the Linux distro they use on their internal machines and their rumoured custom highly-optimized kernel. BigTable is not open source. Google File System is not open source.

Even Google recognizes that there actually is business value in "commodity" code, and I'd argue that their open source efforts are intended at least in part to distract from this.
In principle I agree. On the other hand, if he has a positive cashflow from the property it doesn't really matter what its price on the open market is.
Thought Provoking Graffiti
Take a look some great graffits. Some of them are brilliant. Don’t you think so?
And the Cintiq is a screen as well, so plenty of screen space there.

Here's the sound effect program he was using, btw:

http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
8) Economic inequality
...
If your business model bets on increasing economic inequality, good for you.

i'm very curious what this means. what are some examples of start-ups that make this bet? the only thing that comes to mind is private security and gated community development.
Facebook says it owns "book", suing startups using [generic]book.tld
Vintage Tokyo Subway Manner Posters
I didn't make it - just found it while researching compass availability on Android handsets
Unfortunately, canvas is ridiculously slow in FF3 in general. It's depressing... I built an isometric game in javascript+canvas, paid people to draw neat pixel graphics, but eventually dropped the project because of the performance. In Chrome it was reasonable, but in firefox I rarely got above 10 FPS.

(it wasn't the only reason I dropped the project)
Guess my irony didn't show. Compared to the US and Asia and even EU-growth, Germany has not performed ahead of the pack at all, growth-wise. It has trailed behind US growth for years.
Correct, but he's at least a bit wrong in both directions. I was surprised to read people in Tupelo are three times wealthier than people in Hamburg; Tupelo might have a higher GDP, but certainly not three times.

Maybe he was trying to be polemic?

I still agree with the sentiment of the article. European societies sacrifice a bit of growth potential and individual freedom to get better living conditions for all. I think that's a wise move, and going over the board into the opposite direction, as America sometimes feels, has the potential to truly damage society as a whole.
Norway is an interesting example - one of the highest per capita GDP figures but unusual in that the distribution of incomes is very narrow e.g.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspon...
Well, put that way, it sounds like I'm asking for a lot.

Medium-term, at least. I'm not exactly certain what "social learning context" means. Online. Tool, I don't care so much. I care more about connecting with people. If a tool facilitates that, then sure.
http://groups.google.com/group/simplenote-api
The Management Myth (2006)
Most of management theory is inane, writes our correspondent, the founder of a consulting firm. If you want to succeed in business, don’t get an M.B.A. Study philosophy instead
By Matthew Stewart
They do not use their endowment for public benefit, they use it for their own benefit, like other elite, private universities, and get tax exemptions for doing so: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043995/

The scientific research they do is privatized; they hold the patents and license it off to others.

And if they can't afford Manhattan, they should have do what everyone else has to when in that situation: move somewhere less expensive. Eminent domain on their behalf is welfare for the rich.
I think a key takeaway from this is that while there may be fewer motivated/ambitious women in business or skilled work, the women who ARE motivated/ambitious are equally as capable as motivated/ambitious men and should be given the same mentoring and opportunities (probably their biggest disadvantage right now).
MPEGLA will not ever charge H264 royalties for free internet video - due to VP8?
It was only after someone told me about "Inspector Sands" that I noticed how often it's used. Based on my anecdotal evidence, it totally makes sense to use all these codewords, otherwise half the stations in London would be closed on a daily basis :)
I'm in Germany and I can see it, but it's just not working. I can dial but allways get the message that my call could not be completet (tried to call US, Canada and Germany). My fault, Googles fault or does it show up without working on purpose?
Aren't both important?

Large companies are like anchors for a society, providing stability (relatively, of course) to large populations in a society AND to lots of small companies that can exist to support the activities of those larger companies and the lives of those working in the larger companies.

Small companies, of course, create jobs and economic activity of their own - that's important. Also the small company of today is often the large company of tomorrow, It did be important for that conveyor belt of large company creation be kept running.

Which company in the fortune 500 did not start off as a small company in the past?
But the Dutch, French, Scandinavian, and others aren't, and the those systems is very comparable to that of Germany. Many of the ideas originate from far before WWII, and had a strong presence (and development) in Europe since events such as the French revolution.

It's America-centrism to think that all welfare and modernism is brought to the world by the USA. One typical anecdote a former exchange student told me, that some high school kids in the USA believed (this was at the end of the nineties) that European countries do not have their own radio channels ;). Go educate yourself, the average Western-European citizen has more luxury, more free time, and better health-care than the average citizen of the United States (I know, I have visited the US often).

The primary advantage of the US is that it is far easier to set up a company, and make it really big. If you make it, you will be rich and wealthy. If you fail, you will hit rock bottom. It is a consequence of the system, wages, taxing, etc.
I don't think (programmatically) drawing everything is a good idea. Sprites have been used in computer graphics since time immemorial because they're easy to implement, maintain, change and can offer performance improvements as well.

Just imagine the hassle you have to go through if you want to change a programmatically rendered sprite as opposed to opening it in an image editor and simply changing it there.
UP Polytechnic Result 2010
Nike SB Dunks Hi Oceanic Airlines Lost
It would be very creepy to have Carmack standing behind you all the time.
very nice! the only thing missing is adjusting the values with the keyboard cursor like in photoshop. Arrow-up: 1% more, Arrow-Shift-Up: 10% more
Written by Al Gore, then?
Certainly not, the high degree of decentralisation in Germany predates post-WWII by at least a century. [1]

Before it was unified in 1870, Germany was made of a number of small independent kingdoms, loosely associated through the Holy Roman Empire until 1806, then through the German Confederation from 1815 until the unification under Prussia's dominance in 1870 [2].

This late unification (in comparison with France or England for example, which already had an embryo of a unified central state as early as the XIIIth century [3]) explains the non-centralised nature of the German state and economy.
The Allies had very little to do with it.

1: http://countrystudies.us/germany/151.htm

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire#Modern_period

3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_France#Saint_Louis
this is not retirement, this is good and old fashined work: investigating investment options. i.e. you network, look for best deals, best people, less risk, better roi, etc. etc.
I'm pretty sure that in "The Road To Wigan Pier" Orwell makes an observation about the effect on the British population of having a significant proportion of the youngest and healthiest men killed in the the Great War.
Since giving up my previous work as a small business manager/co-owner, I've struggled greatly with this. I go through periods of great productivity, but especially while traveling, it's easy to do nothing for days.

I hate schedules, but the structure is valuable.
They did. It's visible, but toned down just enough that I can fall asleep without having to cover it.
> Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men

Anyone know where that conclusion originates? It's kind of hard to google - I keep finding myself back at Roy Baumeister.
If your only motivation is profit, ... there are still good reasons ...

It wouldn't not make sense for google to be developing top of the line web frameworks and open source them either; More better websites means more people would go on the internet and thus more google searches.

I think another reason you might open source software is so that the community around your product flourishes and uses your product even more.
Smaller class sizes weren't an anomaly, larger class sizes were. Going through school the sizes increased from 18, then 20, then 30 when I graduated. My brother (2 years behind me) was at 35 and in demand classes (Math, English, and ESOL) were pushing 40.

It doesn't matter how much technology you through at the problem, teaching 40 kids is unsustainable. Teachers burn out, students lose focus, and it only takes 1 bad student to ruin class cohesion.
You ask the impossible. Why do you ask the impossible? Because you assume that the user has web based email. In my case, my email is mutt in a text mode xterm. A browser based mailto link will be useless.
the first sentence of the article:

"""

MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as “Internet Broadcast AVC Video”) during the entire life of this License.

"""

so i guess this means ad-supported for-profit services will also be able to use MPEG-LA ip for free. great news!
Yeah it's true but it can also be hard to then get the work done you intended. Sometimes I take the day very easy or get distracted, then people around me come home and relax after a days work and I get suckered into relaxing then to.
You sound like someone who most folk would welcome on board. Don't worry about limited experience so early, I know that's easy to say, but it really won't matter in the near future when you have moved on.

Remember that to recruiters you are the product, not the customer. Adjust your behaviour and thinking accordingly. There are some great recruitment folk out there, but there are far more sales-droids. Don't let them define you or your career.

Nothing is going to change until you change it. So, ...

I'd attend some local tech meet-ups, and start talking to folk. Try to get involved in anything that vaguely interests you that involves the local network.

Scan the job adds, determine the companies, then try approaching them directly. Email might work, but best would be to call them and try to get in front of the appropriate folk.

But don't worry too much about experience. Folk will see that you are starting out and set their expectations accordingly. If you've learned one bunch of tech, chances are that you can learn another. That's what we do throughout our careers, after all.
I've just started working on my own and I feel the same way when people ask me to do things. However, I have found that taking a forced break from problems helps me to come up with better solutions to them.

I think its important to not get too stressed when you have to do something else.
At least some of the week I find needs to be spent working from somewhere other than a home office, or bedroom in my case at the moment. I find to if you can go somewhere where people are working hard around you it is a motivator to stay on track.
Why the hell does you divides the world between Apple haters and Apple fans?
Google Holds 64.2% of all Search in the U.S.