skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Need some legal advice on debt collection
I was in the US for a number of years, international student. Had a baby and as a result of that got hit with a lot of health bills - that I am still paying although I went back to my home country.

I got promised a job when I graduated, but due to the recession - it didn't work out too well. I was able to work remotely, but that has since fallen through.

I had a car while I was up there and was making my payments consistently for a while - but after I moved and ran out of cash and income, I have decided to not pay it right now (mainly because I have to put my kid through school, etc.).

Now I am being notified by a debt collection attorney, and I have 35 days to reply in writing otherwise I will be liable for not just the outstanding debt, the interest and possibly the attorney fees of the company.

I no longer live in the US, and if I wanted to I could just walk away from it - but I believe in honoring my obligations (I have been doing that for my credit cards and hospital bills still outstanding).

What do I do? Do I contact the debt collection agency or do I get an attorney? I am kinda strapped for cash right now, so can't afford an attorney.

Once I get my cash and income situation taken care of, in the next few months, I would definitely be willing to settle it - but I don't want to just ignore it and then get hit with a big bill in a few years - or possible immigration issues.

I would prefer not to burn my bridges, and would like to go back to the US (if I need to) without having to look over my shoulder. So I would really like to get this taken care of.

Thoughts?
Same disappointment here. "We'll email you once the system's ready for you" I took as "We're now indexing. Once we get done indexing, we'll e-mail you and you'll be good to go!"

Indexing completed and I still waiting for that e-mail 5 hours later.
You could forward me your receipt from MagCloud and I will send you the digital version.

MagCloud doesn't share any data of the people who bought the magazine on their site so we couldn't do this automatically.
Google now indexes SVG
The marginal cost is a lot less for an ebook, though. Sure, the sunk costs are the same (actually writing the book), but the costs to produce, distribute and store the book are significantly less, so I'd expect a discount of a few dollars. And yes, also because I'm foregoing the ability to lend it out or resell it. Oh, also the technology is still pretty new, so I still don't think you're getting the same experience as with a copy of one of Knuth's books, or another well-made hardback.
Oh there's a few of us...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=528106
Yes, I think it was historio.us prompted the discussion.
HTC Desire here. I watched the flash video in the newteevee site, and it played well. But when I wanted to pause it I found I couldn't, as the UI relies on mouse hover! I have flash disabled on my phone as it kills webpage performance.
I don't see any need for an attorney-- just get in touch with the debt collection agency, and see if you can work out a payment plan-- some kind of "good faith" payment until you're in a position to make a settlement.

Of course, this would have been much easier for you if you had dealt with it earlier, before it got to the debt collection attorney. As as business owner who has to deal with past-due debts, I can tell you that we're almost always willing to work something out with the debtor prior to handing it over to a third party, but once it is in the third party's hands, they're in charge of the show, and they want to recover their costs, too.
If I recall correctly, the original is based on SICP 1st edition whereas the Berkeley lectures use the second edition. Another difference is that Berkeley's one has all the administrative stuff in it like tutorial arrangements and Brian Harvey asking if it was possible to pass the sheets around without reading it.
Awful. The article writer complains that Gmail bounced his mails after his subscription expired. However careful reading reveals that he was able to select automatic renewal when he subscribed for a given time and he just didn't do that.

As the subscription was only 5 dollars, I can only conclude the service was fully unimportant for him. And now he's all mad.
We have been asking AWS for this feature for many months now. CloudFront's minimum TTL of 1hr is not quick enough when you've got a problem with a cached file on a high-traffic site.

Great to see it finally released!
Yes, the link above links to an hp page with the following anchor text:
"[with memristors] both compute and memory functions could be conducted within the same chip".
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
bingo.
If they can delete my data on the instant -- then they quite possibly don't have backups. If they do have some form of semi offline backups - then not all of my data is deleted on the instant.

Not a worry so much as a harder problem that sometimes doesn't get considered.
KDE SC 4.5.1 Released
I don't understand why there's such a polarization regarding Flash vs. HTML5. A well-designed platform should take advantage of the technology that applies best for its intended market -- whether it's using a single technology or multiple technologies working harmoniously together.

As an example, we're working on CRM/Help Desk/CMS platform that uses a Flex/Air management interface in combination with mobile app versions and an HTML5-based customer frontend -- a decision we've made due to the complexities of the project and our intended market.
this has been tossed around, but the issue has not been journalists broadcasting over WiFi. Apple never provides WiFi. The issue was so many Myfi which clogged up the signals in the room. Whether Apple streams the video or not, there will still be the same number of Myfi's in the room.
Although it does also make me think of moblin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblin
Here's what your problem is:

One day, your software had a resource leak and was eating up too much of memory/file handles/etc... One of your developers tried restarting the system and like magic, it fixed it. After a few days of having to do this, he got tired and simply put the restart command into an hourly cron job or a script somewhere on the system.

I've seen it a thousand times. My consulting rate is $200 an hour. If this turns out to be the problem, I'll expect $6.67 in the mail from you. :-)
I went down this path. After 9 years as a valley engineer I started building companies. It's been a great run - 5 companies! And ive been lucky.

My advice - just do it.

You will find the right partners along the way, but even if you pull a partner in, -all- the founders should sell.
Combating availability bias
Yes, I do. Because I do value enjoyable or thought-provoking articles, but do not really care who wrote them. So whenever there is name-dropping involved, I get wary and usually avoid clicking because I fear it is "empty celebrity worship".
Sometimes this very advice is purposefully skewed to work against you. You are wise to question, contextualize and ignore.
I am really not a fan of all the defending RackSpace here. They pulled the plug unreasonably without proper notification.

If you're going to pull the plug or even thinking about it... email simply isn't going to cut it. You need someone to call the owner and make contact to explain what's going on or how to resolve it. I've had my servers compromised, I've had phishing content setup before, I have never had the plug pulled. I've had hosts contact me, give me appropriate amounts of time to handle it and some of them even offered to help secure my box or look into how it got compromised in the first place.
Yeah, BDD/TDD will also stop the necessity for "running the code all the time" like Gabriel espouses... what is better is to test the code all the time. Hit those green marks. Manual run-throughs of code paths is boring, to say the least.

This I guess is less applicable to the web dev/machine learning domains that Gabriel operates in.
Git User's Survey 2010
100 Prisoners, 100 lines of code
Hell yeah, can you spell "sycophantic". I can't, not unless I http://www.google.com/search?q=define:+sycophantic to make sure.
If you're abroad, there is essentially nothing they can do to collect from you. You want the pain minimizing steps?

Dear Collector:

I am writing you regarding account number #12345, in response to your letter bearing $SOME_IDENTIFYING_INFORMATION.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act says that you are not to contact any consumer who gives you written notice that they are inconvenienced by your contact. This letter constitutes your official notice under the FDCPA. You are statutorily permitted exactly one additional communication, delivered via the postal mail, indicating that you have received this instruction.

For your information, I have returned to $NATION. It is not economically feasible to resolve our differences via the legal process at present, but I will contact you again in a few months to discuss disposition of this matter.

Regards,

You

a few months pass

Dear Creditor:

I am writing you regarding debt #12345, continuing our discussion of $DATE. As you recall, I invoked the FDCPA protection against inconvenient contact, and you have since honored your legal obligations to not contact me.

I am prepared to extend you an offer to resolve this matter. As of your last letter, you indicated that I owed $5,400.00 and that you were going to charge interest and legal fees in addition. I am prepared to offer you $5,400.00, delivered immediately, in full satisfaction of this debt.

This is the best resolution your client will receive, and it avoids a costly legal battle which will be complicated by the international issues in this case. I urge you to accept it.

You have my permission to contact me once, via the postal mail, of your final disposition of this matter. If you accept, your acceptance should be in writing and include the language "We accept your offer of $5,400 in full satisfaction of all debts between $YOU and $CLIENT." I will send you a cashier's check via courier immediately, and that will conclude our dealings together.

If you do not accept, please note that the FDCPA prohibition against contacting me outside the above exemption still applies.

Regards,

---

You'll note that they have an option not discussed, which is to sue you. They will probably not do this, because suing someone outside the country very quickly becomes a six figure proposition even for the most trivial of matters.

As a foreign visitor, you may not be aware of how debt collection in the United States operates. Many Americans are similarly unaware. While they talk like bulldogs, their hands are very tied by consumer protection legislation, and short of suing you there is very vanishingly little they can do without your consent (well, report you to credit agencies). They have no channel to the American immigration authorities and if they intimate that they do, they just violated federal law in a very serious fashion.

My expertise on the laws regarding consumer finance and debt collection is not that of a lawyer (and owes itself to a funny story about the difficulty of disambiguating names in a database), this is not legal advice, yadda yadda.
Wikipedia has a nice section on the history of said memristor. Apparently, its discovery goes back to 1960 with work by Bernard Widrow (Professor Emeritus, Stanford). A few patents are coming out of this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor#Timeline_of_memristor...

One of the patent awardees, Blaise Motett, seems to have a different view of HP's memristor, namely that their sr is not actually one.
http://www.slideshare.net/blaisemouttet/mythical-memristor
The Most Convenient Flashlight:Hi-tech No Battery 5 LED Dynamo Light Torch
What do you think of a most convenient flashlight?Portable?Ultra bright?Long lifetime?No need battery?Solar powered is good,but there is a more advanced one.
A flashlight that can generate power by just pressing the button with your fingers
Cool and stylish design, guide your way in the dark
Perfect for outdoors use, simply keep it in you car, RV, boat and with your emergency kit
High tech, ultra-bright LED, operation life up to 100,000 hours, never need replace
High intensity and durable lifetime 5 LED
High impact plastic handle
Handy switch point for easier operation
30 seconds press=15 minutes of light
60 seconds press=25 minutes of light

http://www.b2c-support.com/hitech-no-battery-5-led-dynamo-flashlight-light-torch-p-38.html
Agreed, I immediately saw my sawdust after reading this article...
What if I can't properly squat? How can I overcome this? I've tried doing different squat stretch's but I just can't seem to squat..I'm always on my tippy toes.
Agreed. He's also clearly not asking for a free solution to his homework, but to hire someone to fix the problem as freelance contract, via his last paragraph.
Congratulations to Tom, Fenn and Andrew on AV3. Great to see an offering like this coming out of Melbourne's startup ecosystem!
As a satisfied Tarsnap customer I'm glad you did!
Indentation communicates most of what parenthesis do and therefore are mostly redundant as far as the (human) reader is concerned. Having them all bunched up at the end of the line is the most efficient way to (not have to) handle them. We can't get rid of them of course because although they aren't providing much benefit to the reader they are essential to the compiler/interpreter.
May be technology can help a bit here? I think the issue in this case was more about the granularity of "takedown". If there was some kind of an API contract between the infrastructure provider and the application service provider - an API that lets you shutdown a single subdomain, an email service and so on, the situation would be more tolerable.
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HackerMonthly is down for me. This is not the first time it's happened, it happened when the last issue came out, and flipped between being available and being unavailable every few hours.

downforeveryoneorjustme.com says it's a problem only for me, but since it keeps going back and forth without me doing anything, and every other site works perfectly, I'm not sure what I can do.

Just thought I'd let you know. If anyone else has the same problem, please say so so I won't feel so alone :)
Vision of Humanity
Thanks, I didn't knew that, It seems to be like Android model, where they open source it few weeks after public disclosure of features.
I have talked to td waterhouse private investment people and were going to be setting up a deal. Going to look for startup lawyers on linkedin in my area.
I consider each day that I don't apply to YC an instance of ignoring pg.
A few people actually told me that. We are planning to move to Linode this month and hopefully that helps.
The Fatal Choice (Who killed Prolog - part 2)
Here in Asia, you most always find both western and squat toilet in houses, hotels and public toilets.

In public toilets squat toilets are still more hygienic to use than sitting on the western toilet seats.

Moreover if the flush doesn't work, which usually would be the case, you can always pour a bucket of water.
How to implement non-blocking Google AdSense on your site
Data-scraped for your pleasure. (And because there are full page ads every five clicks.) I love these things; grain of salt and all that :)

29: Las Vegas
28: Rome +
27: Bogotá
26: Kyoto
25: Toronto
24: Chicago
23: Amsterdam + (More commonly know as Hamster Jam)
22: Montreal
21: Shanghai
20: Istanbul
19: Beirut
18: Lisbon
17: Berlin +
16: Sao Paolo
15: Barcelona +
14: Tel Aviv
13: Hong Kong
12: Los Angeles +
11: Paris +
10: San Francisco +
09: Sydney
08: Buenos Aires
07: Miami +
06: Cape Town
05: London +
04: Madrid +
03: Tokyo
02: Melbourne
01: New York City + (This was a misprint for Dublin obviously)

I put a little plus alongside the cities I've lived in or visited. I would love to visit them all someday except the places in Oz (who wants to visit a former penal colony?) Thanks, I'll be here all week. Seriously though, out of this list the city I'd love to visit for an extended period is Tokyo - then next would be Singapore which is not on the list.
How about we wait til tomorrow?
Ghd hair
Ghd hair
The print version is worth just for its prank potential. I look forward to having it out on my desk during lectures. Already I get interesting looks when I am browsing Hacker News during my b-school classes. Now with a magazine with that name...I hope my classmates don't call the cops.
I am Joe's complete and utter lack of surprise :)
ASK HN:What do you think about inserting affiliate link into free desktop app
Hi I have small desktop music application that is downloaded few hundred times each month
Its small utility that handles mp3 files, I thinking about inserting small affiliate link (Amazon)
Do you think its good idea? Some one has experience with such thing?
Cool freeware tool for monitoring video card memory usage (pc Only)
It would be nice if it understands continents.
For example from Amsterdam to South America late december.
Amazing they made it this far with that terrible name. I googled my best attempt to spell it from memory (5 seconds after reading a whole article that mentioned the name a dozen times), and their site didn't show up anywhere in the results.

- Memorable
- Spellable
- Readable over a phone

It's really not rocket science.
This is far more important than people driving Priuses. Making a tiny slice of the gas use / CO2 emissions pie smaller has a very small maximum benefit (switching from a Corolla to a Prius is noise in comparison to the 18 wheeler driving next to you on the highway), to get serious results you need to target the big slices. Now that we're starting to get the technology to do so perhaps we'll see some sizable improvements in the near future.
The Pentagon was built with extra bathrooms due to racial segregation laws
Purchased! $3 is fair.
I wouldn't recommend to blindly change his setup. This is the sysadmin equivalent of changing lines of code almost randomly to fix a bug.

When there is a problem the very first step is to find out what's happening. Apache is rock solid software so there must be something in his setup or software that isn't right.

My line of action would be:

- check the logs(apache and system ones), looking for errors or limits reached.
- if no clue, try to reproduce it, same os, software versions. Make scripts to simulate the load.
- strace the processes when they lockup (dtrace 'em in Solaris).
- get a coredump(kill -SIGABRT), compile apache and their module with symbols (-g CFLAG), an gdb it.

I'm not a sysadmin anymore, but that's what I would have done when I was one.
Thought the same thing here. Usually the process needed to find the cheapest flight is rather convoluted when you have few date constraints: 1-choose a date/2-[wait a lot]/3-check price/back to 1. But with this... easily accessible data via graph/table, 4-5 clicks and you are done.
I think I understand now why every other flight search engine has little "to" and "from" boxes. I got the "couldn't parse this" screen four times in a row trying to get from my house in Northern England to Kalymnos, Greece.

It finally gave me results when I tried "manchester to kos", with the minor problem that all the results started in Boston, 3000 miles from my house.

I like the idea. At the moment though the execution is simply not there.
We've actually just recently added that exact feature (though we're short on South American inventory at the moment): http://adioso.com/nl/amsterdam-to-north-america

Looks like we need to tighten up our geo-constraints a little, not quite sure how Istanbul snuck in there :)
I lived in Turkey for a while and almost every house has one normal toilet and one old school toilets (hole in the floor) which hasn't got a place to sit so you have to squat.

AFAIK also muslims prefer squating over sitting as it's the suggested practice, also they don't pee standing up (I think this is due to health reasons as well but can be about being clean,not sure).

I always prefer squating over sitting however when you get old generally you need to sit as squatting is literally requires effort, many elderly people sits due to this.

I can't imagine squating in a normal sit toilet, that's just dangerous.
I don't get it... If they are electric, how do they charge them back up?
That was just my point - it comes naturally to Westerners because they are not used to squatting. South Asians can execute either stance equally naturally.

I've seen people go from standing to squatting position (not in a toilet) and they don't go through an intermediate ball-of-foot-squatting phase.
Great to hear! Reading PG got me convinced I can't run a successful startup on my own. I was gonna try doing it anyway, but I would've been expecting to fail from the start.
Ignoring Paul Graham is a bad idea because PG is extremely sharp, reasonable, and has a keen grasp of where his expertise lies. If he says something I disagree with, I'll happily engage in a discussion until we've laid out all our facts and ideas and found an optimal path. Provided a reasonable argument, PG will readily take your word. If you can't provide a reasonable argument to contradict PG, well, that's a good sign that you at least need to think about the problem some more.

I co-founded a games studio. Paul doesn't have experience in the games space. The "worst" outcome of a meeting with PG has been that he's given me an important new perspective, even if he isn't able to come up with specific prescriptive advice. His ideas and perspectives are hugely valuable. Not once has he stepped on our toes.

The key here is that startups receive tons of conflicting advice from all angles and discovering how to process this advice is crucial. Paul trusts that founders can decide for themselves whether his advice is, at face-value, good.
I just bought and downloaded the digital edition. Great issue. Thanks for the hard work to make that possible! Extra bonus: Lisp code included!
I think it's likely due to telecommuting because as far as I've seen telecommuting can do this to you. Unfortunately opening up an office is not something I want to do due to financial overhead and geographical limitations.
Sometimes you can find concurrency bugs by reading logs during concurrent execution, along with a lot of sanity checks that throw exceptions when things go wrong. You can also just look really hard at the code and simulate in your head what might go wrong.

IMHO, the hardest bugs are the ones where you have too much data and/or running through the test case takes a very long amount of time. Usually the best way to chip away at these is to try and speed up the test phase by mocking things or to just do a good old stare at the code until the bug shows up. It's a cut once, measure twice approach except with time. You can either run the test again, or you can stare at the code for twice as long and not have the run the test multiple times.
Me? I'm a strategist
Well, that's better, but she still could have read her link. It's pretty clear the feature she's describing doesn't have anything to do with TSP.

What feature does, btw? Did you solve P?=NP? ;)