skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It was called the MSPT or Mining Super Profits Tax.

Super Profits is a Marxist term (don't know if Marx coined it, or it just became part of the canon) to reflect anything above a 'reasonable' rate of return. In this case it was set at the government bond rate. Which makes you question why any rational investor would invest money into a highly risky mining venture when they coudl get the same returns from government bonds. I suspect they thought they could kick off a nasty class war - which people seem to have forgotten now that Swan was muzzled by Gillard and Rudd deposed. But at the time Swan and Rudd were talking about 'evil foreign rich miners'. But it backfired with some good PR from the mining companies, and a higher level of awareness among the Australian people when someone is being deliberately obtuse.

It was sleight of hand to link super profits tax with superannuation. In reality the two have nothing to do with each other because employers pay for employee superannuation out of their bottom line. The only superannuation the government pays is for public service employees. The reason they did a poor job in selling it was because if you actually looked at the details, the tax and the superannuation actually had nothing to do with each other. Lindsay Tanner actually quoted as much before changing his tune to the party line.

>slow the party down.

Imagine how much you would be upset if they decided to start taxing you extra because they thought you were doing too well. It's the ultimate definition of unfair. The miners struggled for decades - have a period of prosperity and are whacked with extra taxes. That is not only unfair, it raises sovereign risk and ultimately reduces foreign investment. You don't improve the economy by knobbling your best performer.
Anyone have an idea how big this market is? Seems like the market for unused gift cards for which the owner cares enough to transfer the credit, and cares about waiting a few days, would be pretty small.
Asteroids Passing Near Earth Wednesday
What is it about HG you prefer? Git and HG seem pretty comparable as far as features go but github seems to have all the momentum.
Funny, for me it's the opposite. I've taken to kind of _enjoying_ folding laundry since I started working on AppStoreHQ. It's the mindless release that I need every once in a while.
Thank you, my experience has been same, and I could have not said this better.

I'd like to add that anyone in this position should do exactly what you and I did, and quit. Time is valuable. Leave them to find out the error of their ways by themselves if they're unwilling to listen. They'll think you're wrong. You'll think they're wrong. Fine. Let the free market work it out.

I now work as a contracter elsewhere, solving more worthy and interesting problems, and with wonderful coworkers. Our methodology adapts as required to the problems we are trying to solve. We're incredibly productive and love our jobs, because we think about the product we're trying to create and not about following arbitrary rules in lockstep.

The way to overcome incompetence isn't to fight it but leapfrog it entirely.
The strange story of how and when a Google researcher disclosed an IE bug
I probably should have put massage in there. I don't get massages regularly, but man do I ever feel better when I do. Good suggestion.
Barack Obama is a master at grabbing and keeping his audience's attention to the fact that the two are not the only one who can not afford to pay for the cost of the project is to develop a new generation of protein database search pro tab by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus lyrics are property and copyright of the article is that I have no idea what to do.
Terrible name. Like the idea of photos, but when I click on them I want to see a recipe so I can make it. What about copyright? I see some of the recipes are taken from iphone apps or books. Are you liable if someone posts a recipe straight from a source that is legally protected?
For me, spending time with my kids (ages: 0, 2, 4) produces a similar results as exercise and meditation do for Alex:

- "combats stress"
- "always feel calmer than when I started"
- "feel like I’ve got my head screwed on straight"
- "makes my work time more productive"

YMMV, but this is what works for me.
If acne really has an evolutionary role then I would expect that pubescent members of traditional tribes should also experience it.

However, I cannot recall seeing any pictures of tribe members where anyone appeared to have acne. That may have more to do with the photographers'/publisher's preferences but it's definitely a question I'll put to my anthropology friends.
I saw that report. If it was Cassendra's fault than the database would have been fired, not the VP of engineering. Digg was great, now it's not, AND it's broken all the time.
Great post but arrgh, use this to read it: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
I lived in a 3-bedroom place with two friends near OSU for $238/month for about two years before someone I went to school with gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. She owned a house on the other side of town but had to move back to where we grew up for a couple years, so she told me I could stay there for the cost of property tax and insurance (it's in the Hilltop, and she just wanted tenants she could trust). A friend and I lived here for a year (paying $125 each!), but he just moved out.

So yeah, what I'm paying now is abnormally low, but with a roommate or two, $250/month is not at all uncommon.
I think he's conflating "astroturfing" with "trolling".

Astroturfing has come to mean paid advocacy in the guise of grass-roots advocacy, in hopes of the advocacy assuming the crediblity of mere enthusiastic advocacy.

Trolling used to mean posting blatantly, fabulously wrong information in the hopes of getting some smarty-pants know-it-all to refute the wrong information in such a way as to reveal the smarty-pants' own personality flaws.
I can understand that Digg needs more people than Reddit (even though their traffic numbers are about the same) but TEN TIMES more people? That's just not sensible. I'm sure Digg can make a nice profit without further growth if they just got rid of about half their staff.
I'd love to hear her advice if she gets back to you on this.
New Linux and Qt based 10" tablet - developer program with possible freebies
I'm guessing this part:

* Any redistribution, in whole or in part, must retain full licensing functionality, without any attempt to change, obscure or in other ways circumvent its intent.

That would imply that you have to keep the binary blobs, and that you wouldn't be allowed to reverse engineer them (say, if the E-text editor guy goes out of business).
I'm usually wary of this topic, since it's both overplayed and has a very poor signal-to-noise ratio, but Jolie's posts are what it should be like — high on facts, low on melodrama, and coming to an actual, pragmatic conclusion.
I meant to compare the end result, not just the wording - apologies if I did not express it clearly.

I think I found a way to put it differently: in one case it is the user that lets the company collect the data, in the other case it is the company that lets the user collect the data.

To make the data equivalently useful, I would want to make it the most complete - so asymptotically I would get the same data set collected in both cases. But if this all is done with my consent, I would feel more in control about it - even if "yes to all" is more efficient for me.
The 5 Best Programs for Entrepreneurship
>I’m usually at a stoplight or stuck in motionless traffic when I actually use my phone’s virtual keyboard. That factor might make might my behavior slightly less risky, but it doesn’t make it any less stupid.

Really? I would say it makes it a lot less risky, and a lot less stupid.
SCM preference is very much a religious debate, and I don't really want to start one... but my instinct would be to say the interface is a lot more intuitive than git. Also, it's what I know. I worked on Mercurial as part of a school-sponsered thing similar to GSOC, so my competency is pretty high with hg, while git tends to get me in trouble and generally scares me. I know I could probably learn my way out of this, but it's the honest answer.
The article says peak is 17k req/sec ... (I'm impressed)
It looks like it's being bombed!
"To get the most performance out of the PCs of the day, I believe he had the register itself more or less directly read and write transaction data from disk."

I don't buy this excuse. It just sounds like bad code to me.
Results May Vary
Agree partially. Statistical inference is at the heart of language acquisition but language processing is far more complex. Semantics always existed though. Long before we built computers, and long before we found out that computer programs and the hardware running them were somewhat limited in their ability to process language as fast and cleverly as our brains do. I look forward to the day this happens.
In the meantime, I believe that the very nonsense that this nifty scribe puts out reminds us of how limited the automation of language still is.
Yes, I have just replied to the sister comment - I think this is precisely what makes the difference in perception.
Are those hyphenation algorithms really that hard to implement?

Yes: see (for example) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hz-program .

A really good H&J algorithm is doing a significant amount of work. It has to think about things like successive hyphens (which get distracting quickly), rivers (the unpleasant vertical lines of whitespace that appear especially in over-spaced text), and so on. This involves lots of backtracking and image processing, and it fires every time the layout changes. It’s all possible to do in a browser someday, but it’s not trivial.
Never said I supported it. If my comment came across that way, I apologize.
Prize goes to RyanMcGreal: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659802
Gruber is so predictable

RyanMcGreal 4 days ago

Next week on Daring Fireball: *Why Ping is much smarter than you think and will prove the naysayers wrong.*

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659802
> best to bank as much now while the price is good

Possibly true but on the other hand who's to say the price won't go up further in the future? If we are going to consider the possibility of major price drops then shouldn't we model the impact on the economy? Would it make even more sense to make sure we aren't too reliant on that income and that we put some money aside for this eventuality?

> Unemployment is 5% because of the mining, not despite the mining.

I think that this is because the income from mining has allowed additional consumption and that consumption has supported employment.

> There's plenty of room for both. Australia can lead the world in minerals, and mineral extraction technology.

This sounds a pretty bland to me. Like the classic quite from a 'versatile' band "we play both types of music - Country AND Western". A vibrant modern economy requires a lot more than one sector. Beside that it doesn't take advantage of us being a modern westernized English-speaking nation. I've no doubt that China and India can produce highly skilled engineers and they will tend to want to use their own companies in new mining areas such as Africa. But when it comes to developing and designing information products for a western market they at a huge disadvantage.
How YouTube Just Saved The Internet
Last week, when rumors broke that YouTube might finally become profitable, most of the response was actually pretty snarky.
Tea puts me to sleep. I can drink the most caffeinated tea on the market, and I'll be nodding off in an hour. It's a real pain because I have difficulty digesting coffee, and I'm looking for alternatives. Appreciate any suggestions.
Has anyone ever used the waterfall model in any other capacity than to blame it?
I agree - I think it's better for more advanced students who can recognize a bad translation. Also, I got much better results when I increased the minimum word size, so only more obscure words get translated (a lousy measure of popularity I know, but it helped)
I'm guessing this is for an individual, and not a family (since family size isn't even defined)

So with that, I think 75k is definitely enough to live a happy life - at least when you're young and only supporting yourself. Say you live in Chicago or New York, here's how I see it breaking down:

10k in taxes

20-25k for monthly rent, bills, and expenses (sure that's not a Lakeshore drive 40th floor apartment, but still nothing shabby).

10k for food (I'm being really generous here)

That's pretty much everything you need to survive, and survive comfortably. So that's still, what, 35k in free spending money? Of course it's not too difficult to spend 35k, but the point is that it's a lot of money for free spending. Some save, some buy nice cars and things, most are usually somewhere in between. I still have a couple years till graduation, but if I'm making 70-75k after graduation, there's no way I'm complaining.

Beyond 75k, the happiness it brings definitely varies by person. If I had significantly more than 75k a year, the first thing I would think is "Now I have some money to do something I really want". I'm talking about startups, which I think becomes a lot more doable when you have some money to spend on an idea.

Also lets not forget the happiness more money can bring. I think the householder pulling 300k a year is going to feel a lot more relieved going home then someone else making 75k. Person 1 could be unemployed tomorrow, and still be okay. But Person 2, if they lose the job, could be in a lot of trouble trying to support kids and pay the mortgage. The stress Person 1 has is significant, and I don't think this study really considers that.
Rewriting the Formula Engine in Lotus Notes
Unless you need to legitimately initiate violence against others, it's not clear to me what "the government" brings to problem solving. A perpetual game of political whack-a-mole isn't my idea of progress.
I like driving a great deal and have thought about buying something serious but can't get over how radically ten reliability drops on cars that are much over $100k.

My favorite so far, though, is the GT-R. It drives like a video game. If I owned one I am sure I sure I would get in trouble, though.

There are some really great old cars out there that are not particularly expensive. I am looking around for an e30 or e36 m3...
If you want a weekly recap of HN check out my newsletter - http://www.hackernewsletter.com
Ahh, the joys of web page impermanence.
Yes, American politics is dumb.

"And you can favor abortion and become president. (or can't you?)"

Generally, for Democrats, a presidential candidate have to characterize themselves as personally opposed to abortion, and fervently wishing for as few abortions as possible be performed, while regretfully conceding that it's best for everyone involved if the government doesn't prohibit it.

For Republicans, the candidate usually has to say they want to ban abortion, but there's no requirement to ever make any actual attempts to do so at any point once elected.

Either way, you want to talk about the issue just long enough to satisfy the fanatics on your side, but not much longer than that because no one wants to hear about abortion.
If anyone is in Jersey City, NJ we could do something similar. We have two apartments in which we operate 3 businesses and occasionally have borders staying here who also work in startups. Fast internet, multiple phone lines, lots of sun light and a sweet, huge, custom desk space. Drop me a line if you are in the neighborhood or living in JC and want a sweet place to work on your passion.
One more I'd add: Pick a time after which you will not check your email.

For me it's 10pm. Too many times I'd be winding down the day, getting ready for sleep, and decided (more like, was subconsciously compelled) to check my email one last time. Every so often, some nagging issue would come up that, in hindsight, definitely could have waited till the next morning, but once I started thinking about it, there was no way I could rest until it was resolved. This obviously cut into my sleep time (not good for the long term) and also often left me in an agitated state that made it harder to get good sleep.

Maybe it's 6pm, maybe it's 2am, but I recommend drawing the line somewhere, so that you can preserve the quality of your downtime.
Ah, very good, that's why I said, "perhaps they have" - thanks for the link.
Ask HN: Displaying a million images on a page, in a way that doesn't suck?
Well, CoolIris seems like a possibility...any other ideas?
Haha through flash. Enjoy performance tanking.
But, clearly, Apple created Ping to drive the sale of additional music — and I think that’s why Ping isn’t a standalone app — if it were, then clicking a “Buy” link in Ping would take you from the (hypothetical) Ping app to the iTunes app. Then you’d have to remember to switch back to Ping to get back to where you were.

I don't know how iPhone users live without a back button.

edit: really folks?
cOOL !
Thanks,
I'm thoroughly confused by the links in the post. Could you explain?

Stanford-GSB -> YCombinator

MIT-Sloan -> TechStars

Harvard-HBS -> Founder Institute

Berkley-Haas -> Seedcamp

Dartmouth-Tuck -> DreamIt Ventures

Since there doesn't seem to be any geographical relationship (apart from GSB/YC), I'm left to assume the post was meant to be entirely tongue-in-cheek. Am I missing something?
> It was called the MSPT or Mining Super Profits Tax.

Fair enough

> It's the ultimate definition of unfair.

When you are using a non-renewable resource then what is 'fair' has to be balanced with the changing value of that resource.

> You don't improve the economy by knobbling your best performer.

You need to measure their performance with regards to the inherent value of the asset. If we started selling huge tracts of our land to another country then you could also say that 'land selling' was the best performing part of our economy but that would not be accounting for the capital loss involved.
But surely flames still do shoot out?!
When it all gets to be too much, I like to go the Imperial Day Spa (on Geary & Fillmore) and just soak for a while. Then, the acupressure. Highly recommended.
GitHub Store
Well they do claim "sources" after all. They just don't name their sources or what they said exactly... does that mean that the conclusions aren't true?
I was up to about 4 cups of coffee a day and my sleep was suffering because of it. So I gave up coffee altogether and I now drink a lot of tea (mostly herbal, caffeine free). It was pretty painful for about two weeks, but I feel so much better now it's just crazy.
i cant fathom someone getting upset enough by techcrunch being well.. techcrunch to write a blog post no matter how short about it. techcrunch trades in rumor and gossip. don't want to get sucked in? block the site from your machine ( works for me ).
The original ATA reg defintions and command specs for LoseThos came from Linux. No code, just information.

I had floppy stuff from linux. Removed.

No GPL code left.

A lot of people are in big trouble if using anything you learned from GPL code is wrong. No way to purge that. I got propper specs for ATA protocol and fixed-up my ATA code, but no getting around the fact first implementation was learned from Linux.

What about all the people who learn how to program from GPL code!! That's everybody! None can program for a real company!

No wireless, just God.

God says...
thirsts firm sore seal brim furious knit idle suspected
tired pernicious killed pleasanter slothful thought Thee
keeping Guide threatenest augmented This shalt upper slept
Many whoso demanded bond Fame Hebrew emptinesses unexpectedly
Texts convenient loosen yieldeth breaking thirsteth licence
corrigible toment created duller unpleasantly worsted
questions
I must say I quite disagree too. I know a thing or two about Computational Linguistics and Statistical Inference is really a small potion of the corpus of work there. But the tool is funny and maybe useful nonetheless. Far from baked in my opinion though...
Funnily enough, the auto-completion censors profanity.
How does drinking water "flush [your body] out"? I often hear this by proponents of extra water drinking, and I'm intrigued as to what physiological benefit drinking too much water is supposed to allow.
Yes, I presume that's incoming 17k req/sec. Each incoming request can then lead to many database queries/memcached queries/etc. It would be more insightful if request/response sizes were also known.
Sorry, the stupid outnumber the rational. I once was brought up short by a woman on a cell phone driving 40 mph straddling the two left lanes of a freeway where the normal speed is 70-75. Since CA passed the no-cellphone and no texting laws, there seems to be less of this insanity. The fines are modest, but with court costs it can be several hundred dollars a pop.
How to Find Your Passion (great eBook)
It's not so easy to earn money clean dog poop where you're not in the US.
I chuckled, but - to be fair - Gruber's article hardly suggests that Ping is "smarter than you think" or that it will "prove the naysayers wrong".

In fact, I find the meekness of the article interesting. Maybe it's an acknowledgement of Ping's lack of current success that Gruber couldn't think of anything more exciting than "Here are some general ideas for why Ping might grow some day."
Clickable: http://www.scoopydoo.com
I'd go further than that. Leave work at work. Don't check work email out of the office. Don't take work home: stay late if you must.

This is harder to manage if "the office" is actually your home but it's important to make it work.

You can't really help where your brain wanders in your downtime, but there's no need to encourage it by doing work in your downtime.
That is because in the USA, the people grant the federal government it's powers; the federal government doesn't decide what those powers will be. At least in theory. So our government doesn't limit it's own powers, we do, usually by way of the courts. And when any part of that federal government grossly oversteps the powers we've granted it, some of us get quite upset about it.
I ride my bicycle just about everywhere: to the office, grocery store, restaurants, everywhere. It's a great way to get exercise and doesn't cut into your schedule all that much, because due to traffic lights you can often get to where you are going on a bike only slightly slower than in a car.

Also starting the day after my 7 mile commute is fantastic, my brain is rocking and ready.
Mercola is a hack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Mercola
He applied this CSS rule to all elements on the page: "letter-spacing:-0.1em !important;". This is why the page looks so cramped.

He also applied this to the body text: "font:140% 'Inconsolata', monospace;" I presume the site looks good in Inconsolata for those who have it installed.

This site is a good reminder to check your site on another computer. Also, make common font choices, or at least default to something specific that looks good.
Super Angels: Will These Guys Kill the Next Google?
It's more of a pain to support Blackberry. You need a dedicated server. With iOS you just turn on Activesync on your Exchange server, and give your users the DNS name and let them go to town.
Five Epic Flash Animations and Sites
Ha, I came to the comments just to see if anyone else felt the same way.

I just overrode letter-spacing in my browser's CSS debugger. Thanks for sharing that link.
This clearly isn't the heart of the article, but are transgendered people really underrepresented in tech? It's anecdotal, but I'd estimate that 90% of the transgendered people I've met have been in tech.