skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Its different than a private LiveJournal or something like that because you feel like LJ gets enough money/advertising/traffic from the community and the users that they don't even care on the content.

Writing down my personal thoughts in a place where only "private" personal thoughts are stored in the cloud is very counter-intuitive.
The selling point is "you'll actually do it because I'll send you a dynamic email" and the incredibly styled web interface.

But after they get 1,000,000 free users - how are they going to make money? The only thing they have that someone without a web-app does is a bunch of personal information and thoughts.

Just seems weird to me. Cool concept though.
You're picking [1] to the exclusion of Warren's own numbers. Per Warren's numbers, the increase in house size was essentially restricted to one additional room. Certainly not the 60% increase in size you posit.

The cost increase in housing was non-uniform, and the largest increases in cost were driven by houses in good school districts and we're talking tens of thousands of dollars across school catchment areas in the same metro.

Thus the increases in house prices were disproportionately leveled on families with school-age children.
How much beta-testing have you done? I'd work with a free plan at first, simply because the value of your first 10-100 customers isn't the money they bring in; it's the information you learn about your own product.

On the other hand, this is an easily reversible decision either way, but starting paid-only is probably easier to change. In the worst case that nobody notices you, you can always add in a free account in a few weeks.
I agree with the article, and I have to admit I think Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) is a brilliant man. If you check into his thoughts on programming you will find some very interesting arguments. His talk on state and identity: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hic... is awesome, and I can not recommend highly enough.

If you want motivation for learning a lisp (Clojure is one) check out http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html if you have not already done so. An awesome essay to re-read if you have not done so in a while.

Edit: Fixed Link (thanks atuladhar)
Oh my. Some of those comments are comedy gold.

That said - I'm a bit dubious of the TechCruch Peanut Gallery's role in the departure. Surely Skype did their reference homework before hiring the guy...
It's a great idea, except Google funds 1/2 the squatted domains and browsers.
Nice! 2 questions:

1. Are the keyboard shortcuts documented anywhere?
2. Is there a way to reorder the issues in the main view?
Ah, this one. Say you have a sample group with the size of 10000 people (all randomly picked). The prevalence of autism is calculated to be around 1% of an typical population. This would mean that the group consists of about 100 people who are autistic. The accuracy of this test is 90%, and thus this would yield a positive result of about 90 people who really have autism, and about 1000 people who don't.
You know, I really want to like Clojure, but so far I'm finding it a bit of a slog, for the following reasons:

1. stack traces are very hard to decipher

2. ubiquitous laziness can lead to some really subtle bugs

3. the syntax can be extremely obtuse, moreso than other lisps

4. the basic ADT is just a keyed map, which provides a lot of flexibility but also can make data modeling very opaque, even compared to other dynamic languages

5. immutable and recursive as a default takes a lot of getting used to. things I could dash out in minutes in ruby take me hours sometimes

6. other languages have caught up enough that Lisp macros are not as game changing as they might have been ten years ago

I embarked on a project recently to explore machine learning algorithms, implementing them in both Scala and Clojure at the same time. I expected this to be an easy win for Clojure but, to my surprise, I'm much more productive in Scala, my code has fewer bugs, and I can refactor it much more aggressively. I realize that this isn't an either/or thing and it may be entirely my shortcomings at play here, but my instinct is that although Clojure is a superb lisp, it's still a lisp, and it's going to be a niche that most programmers won't choose to occupy.
Ouch! We're desparately trying to get people from the blog over the product, and we've been testing several tactics, and I'm fairly certain this isn't the one that will stay :)
Self-sufficiency is good for the soul. I would suspect that whether he admits it or not, your brother feels some guilt to atill be mooching off the folks at age 26. This is not good psychologically.

Parents don't have to push the kids out of the house they day after high-school graduation, like a fledgling from the nest, but fully covering rent, food, utilities (did they also pay for his degree?) is in the long run not doing your brother any favors -- it is just delaying the lessons he'll have to learn the hard way later about personal finances, choices, and responsibility.
I just started a blog called 30startups. I started it so that I could post reviews and announcements of startups that have recieved funding or that are just launching. It's only about a month old right now but i'm starting to see an increase in traffic. If you have a startup that you would like me to post about on my blog, I would be more than happy to, just click on "submit a startup" at the top of the page and fill out the form. It gives you guys and your startups more exposure and it gives me some great content to write about.

I don't mean for this to be spam to promote my site, I just want to let you guys know that I'm more than happy to blog about your startups

-Dave
http://www.30startups.com
We've taken a policy problem out of the realm of personal virtue.

I'm glad that your brother is now able to live a more rewarding life without having to degrade himself or wonder where his next meal is coming from.

On the other hand, I'm sad that as a society, we seem intent on removing opportunities for personal virtue. In some ways, I can no longer be as virtuous as I might like: I have less money to give because it's been taxed away from me to give to others; or I've got less time to give, because my time is dedicated to earning that money that is being taken from me.

I have no evidence to support this, but I sometimes wonder if the fact that so much of virtue is taken away from us, that we're not in the habit of being virtuous, and that in turn makes it more difficult for us to make bigger overtures. Just a thought...

This applies in the negative sense as well. Because the law compels me to morality (e.g., in the kinds of things I say in public, refraining from hate speech), I don't have the opportunity to be virtuous of my own free will. Since I must behave this way due to the law, rather than my innate goodness, can I still consider myself virtuous?
I use the X1 search program to make my life a lot easier. At my office we have to use Outlook, X1 makes using email like having your own local copy of Gmail.

Doesn't really help with huge volumes of email, but it does help when you have to find that email you were sent last week along with 7000 other emails.
I was diagnosed with ADHD, and while these criteria might have led to the testing, the actual testing was relatively scientific. There was a several hour battery of tests where my scores were compared against average. Most of the tests were relatively boring, like a computer screen would show letters, and you were supposed to hit the space bar for every character except Xs. People with ADHD performance at that task degrades much more quickly over time vs people without. There were also tests where people would employ different memory strategies to do them, and people with ADHD tend to use particularly poor ones. The doctor would read a list of 12 words, and you were supposed to recite it back. Then he'd tell you what words you missed, and you'd try to say the whole list again. Most people can get the whole list in 3-4 tries.

They also did an IQ test and the scores on all the ADHD tests were compared to what would be expected for my IQ. I performed at sub tenth percentile on many memory tasks, but my IQ was substantially hire than tenth percentile.
how about collecting a credit card, and advertising that you won't charge them for a month?

this way they get 1 month free, and you get to add customers into the funnel.
link that actually lets you download the pdf
http://downloads.businessofsoftware.org/dontjustrollthedice....
In all honesty, if you don't have a free plan, you will never get my business. There are way too many apps that I love to fully support financially.

Especially for a business app. My product <shamelessplug>http://userping.com</shamelessplug>; is my first bootstrapped company, and while I'd love to be profitable enough to fully support all the great apps I've come to depend on, right now we're broke, so I have to choose between using your app or paying for another month of hosting. Pretty simple decision.

So, my vote is always for a free option. I think you should feel free to really lock it down and restrict the offerings because anyone who can't afford to pay for a service probably doesn't need 200 user accounts. They probably only need one or two, which should theoretically not cost you very much.

That's my $0.02. I very rarely even try services with a 30-day free trial. I'd hate to get hooked on something that is going to rape my tight budget.
It's not an apples to apples comparison.

Prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86), the interest on all personal loans (including credit card debt) was deductible. TRA86 eliminated that broad deduction, but created the narrower home mortgage interest deduction under the theory that it would encourage home ownership.[1]

Basicly housing has been subsidized relative to other purchaces. EX: A 55" TV included with a new home costs a lot less than one paid for with credit cards.
Ask HN: I have always wondered...
The point of this thread is for you to ask HN what you have always wondered.

I'll start. I have always wondered why are there no real life chat rooms. Like, when I am bored I can go to a chat room online, and talk to complete strangers. I have always wondered why isn't there a room or area in every community where everyone can go and it is actually acceptable to speak to a random stranger and you can make friends, etc.

What have you always wondered?
But it's also true that it's people like her that are the reason for behemoth SUVs.

You have some interesting speculation here but no evidence at all.

Growing up my family had a station wagon and a regular sedan. They had comparable gas mileage IIRC. I think station wagons were driven out of the market (heh) in part because people felt safer and more powerful in SUVs and when you're driving your family around, safety matters. I certainly knew a lot of people who got SUVs for hauling the family around specifically because the high altitude made them feel invincible and they assumed that the extra weight would help in crashes against smaller vehicles.
Mark Shuttleworth discusses Unity
Isn't that what we used to call a web browser plugin?
The founder's thesis mentions that they use a linearizer in their analog circuit, but all that does is give the same precision over the entire logical value range from 0 to 1 (by that I mean the same amount of voltage swing equals the same amount of "logic value change" anywhere in the range).

I suppose they could use a "non-linearizer" to put more of the precision near 0 and 1, but it would come at the expense of precision in the middle. The less voltage swing is involved, the more susceptible you are to noise from various sources.
In fact, young military personnel are known for falling prey to seductive (but financially disastrous) credit-card and other financing offers. Just one recent example: http://www.valentinelegal.com/consumerlawblog/2010/07/14/mil...
The only thing I have to add to this discussion is that not having a free plan puts more pressure on your marketing pages.

You'll need to try that much harder to make sure your homepage, tour, etc. are as simple and straight-forward to understand as possible, because people won't be making up for where your marketing pages are lacking by signing up and trying things out for themselves.
I guess what I'm now wondering is whether or not something requires a certain drag coefficient to, upon achieving trans-sonic speeds, create a shock wave in the air.

Obviously they probably didn't produce a shock wave at absurdly high altitudes, but were also probably falling at trans-sonic speeds.

What I was trying to mull over was for how long and at which point could something like that achieve enough drag to presumably both travel at trans-sonic speeds AND produce an audible shock wave as per an aircraft achieving the same speeds.

But that is also why I put in the disclaimer about high aerodynamic capability, because obviously the terminal velocity would be enough to surpass that pretty easily. I didn't know it would be Mach-3-easy, though.

Edit: That is pretty awesome though - traveling that fast would mean you wouldn't hear it coming...
I'm not even an experienced Android developer, but I just looked up CheckedTextView:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/Checke...

I see no indications that it's abstract, and I found a bunch of other abstract classes that clearly say "abstract" above the class name at the top of the page. Am I totally off base here?
JetBlue offers unlimited flights for 30 days for $499.00
A very good comment, thank you for adding your experience.

Financially moving home makes a lot of sense, if the parents are willing to shoulder the financial burden. Those parents are paying for the food and electricity the children are using. They are paying an opportunity cost on that room the children are using (they could have used it for their own purposes or even rented it out).

Granted, there is a certain economy of scale in living together, but you can get a similar effect by taking in roommates (I did that for part of college). If the parents were to insist on the children paying close to fair market value for that food, electricity, and rent then the kids would get some benefit, but it would be nowhere close the huge difference you are talking about.

[edited for spelling and grammar]
The Perils of Orthodox Programming
any hints on when android support is coming?
What about a startup is the most interesting?
Hey guys, I'm working on a startup for startups (intentionally vague at this point) and need your opinion

What are the most interesting bits of information about a startup?

KillerStartups asks 1) "Site.com in their own words" and 2) "Why site.com might be a killer".

Personally, I enjoy reading about the background of the founder(s). I'm also interested in knowing whether it is bootstrapped or funded.

What about you? It would really help me out if you could answer this question for me. Thanks!
This is getting way off topic, but...

> Yes I overdid it with the TB...but that's because I usually get it for 2 people.

Where do you live and who do you eat with? I can feed like 8 people for $20 at Taco Bell here in Columbus, OH
I’m not really sure why developers of fart apps are automatically off limits or embarrassing.
Maybe - but maybe not. People fall through the cracks. Dilbert is based on a little bit of reality...
OTOH the average lifespan of a WWII bomber crew was about 6 missions.
I have always wondered why are there no real life chat rooms.

You have no bars/pubs/clubs in your area?
I seriously wonder what the Oracle upper management thinks about the recent exodus of their (actually, Sun's) top talent. Do they even notice it? Do they consider it as a problem, or just "getting rid of them ballerinas"? Or maybe they think that they are easily replaceable?
Watch us crawl the news in realtime
Anecdotally, I know 4 or 5 couples who had kids and a mortgage before age 30 in the 2000's, probably two of them with only one income, the others with ~1.5 incomes. Not that your overall point is wrong, but depending on your location and education level it is completely financially feasible to purchase a home and afford kids on one income.
Bars. Networking events. Niche groups (ie. Rocking Climbing group, Java User Group, etc)

This reminds me of: http://mylifeisaverage.com/story/2282043
If your app is good enough to charge for any features at all, then you should probably just go ahead with paid plans with free trials. You can make it really cheap for early customers (and keep it cheap for life for them) and slowly increase the price for new customers - call it the cheapium model.

The value of initial users is finding out what's actually useful to them (what they would pay for) and any major bugs/issues in your product. But you have to be careful you are not listening to the wrong users (who never intend to buy anything from you).

You are selling to businesses, so you probably need to focus more on direct and ad-based selling rather than going "viral" among the wrong userbase.
The Problems With Google House Ads
very interesting how making an L-shape with the left hand somehow makes the imaginary space more concrete in the user's mind. You can really see and understand that the user percieves the interface as existing, moreso than if they were interacting in an unframed way. In other words, I think the L-shape is key to grounding users, it gives a rudimentary starting shape to the interface.

Fasinating research, I'd love the opportunity to play with it. Obviously it's very early stages, but I wonder how long before we will realistically see stuff like this in production. 10 years? Sounds a lot but there's a lot of work to be done not only in terms of polishing the technology, but also in preparing the market for this kind of interface.
How A College Student Makes 6 Figures From His Dorm Room With A Facebook Game
You can read the motivation for this technology here: http://ceo.newsbasis.com/try-newscatcher-our-built-in-real-t...

It's built on rails, node.js, resque, and solr
Eclipse, XCode, iTunes, System Preferenes, et al beg to differ.
I think both sides need to be taken into account for full maturity.

Sounds like your brother is taking the easy route but planning for the future. Sounds like you are taking the hard route and learning a heck of a lot more.

Your brother will learn what you are now when he finally gets on his own (albeit up to 6-7 years in his own time after you did), and later you'll be more mature to plan better.

It doesn't need to be either-or. I juggled bills on my own without help from mommy and daddy and within 2 years me and my fiance have bought our own place. All while paying for rent, utilities, food, gas, student loans, car payments, back surgeries, multiple moves, etc.

It all comes down to focus, discipline, drive, and a large dose of humility along the way. Something not many 20-somethings admittedly display consistently.
Instead of selling domains, they could lease them, and auction off the new lease once the old lease has expired.

Most auctions would probably not be contested, and you had the same situation as before. But for the interesting domains, ICANN could thus capture the value of the domain.

Neither this or the current solution (what you describe) is preferable from the outside. It's just that different parties capture the values of the domains. (And if I were to make the rules, you can bet that I would ensure that I capture the value. Or at least some of it.)
Free plans will likely not give you all the benefits you think they will:
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/08/18/why-free-plans-dont-...
Best advice I've heard on fixed-length trials:

"[A] fixed-length trial discourages users from using your product - why invest time & effort in something that will disappear in 30 days[?]"
Cool, I will check it out. Seems to be a fine contribution to the thread!
Oh come on, even Zeldman's given it up and recognized that the 'XHTML' he'd been marketing was bullshit and that he'd never actually used XHTML.

I think Microsoft did a great mitzvah with the way they mercifully prevented it from ever actually being used — IE would offer to save it as a file if served as application/xhtml+xml, saving people from the fate of having compliant browsers refuse to render their documents over petty draconian bullshit. That period of about five years when everyone was super hyped about their 'XHTML' while actually using HTML was pretty annoying though.

Don't worry though, you can join the old XHTML fashionistas in trolling about accessibility instead.
If you read the second part of the slide, you'd have noticed muti-currency is coming on first half 2011.

http://www.1up.com/media/03/8/3/6/lg/370.jpg
The previous two generations have created a system wherein the young subsidize the old. They've placed expectations on the young (go to college, buy a house, etc.) that have led to inflated demand and therefore inflated costs, and they've positioned themselves to profit from it all. And then they get upset at the "kids" who either (1) choose not to dive headfirst into that system but instead to use their parents' built-in advantages to get ahead, or (2) get confused by the system and struggle to get started in it.
Sounds like a BtoB venture. Who are your target clients? If they're well funded/profitable/high end then all you need is the 30 day refund program. If they're bootstrapped start-ups who need to pinch every dime then a limited free account is necessary and then aim for the up-sell.

I struggled with this question myself as all the advice I got was for there to be a free account. You know what? I don't like free. It doesn't make sense in business. It may work with Youtube (ad sponsored and still loses a boatload of money but G has deep pockets) but we've seen many who tried free ended up going paid or free and limited (Hootsuite just recently). There may be nothing worse for your business than going paid and limiting what people had come to expect for free (seen this time and again).

Besides, people take advantage of free. They demand support and effort with nothing in return. If you fail to support them well you risk a bad rep. A bad rep will sink your business. However, if you are paid from the start, turn out a great product, and support your clients well, you'll earn a great rep which in turn builds your business.

Go with paid from the start and have a 30 day refund policy. That way people can try it all out, you can find out exactly what their needs are support-wise, and if any ask for the refund to leave you will know exactly why and can address those issues.

It's time to end "free".
No, aluminum production still costs the same as it has for more than a century. The cost of the Hall-Héroult electrolytic process dwarfs the cost of mining bauxite, so the easy access to the sand is irrelevant.

Perhaps the distinction between what you were taught and what the article says amounts to a distinction of denominators. Glass is much cheaper per kilogram (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Embodied_ener... says glass is 18–35MJ/kg, while aluminum is 227–342) but aluminum is cheaper per container, because the weight of the container is smaller by more than a factor of 10.

Also, recycling aluminum costs less than a tenth as much energy as smelting it afresh. This reduces the "embodied energy" of a kilogram of aluminum destined for recycling to the same ballpark as the "embodied energy" of a kilogram of glass.

However, washing out bottles and reusing them is cheaper still.