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Hi. I work at DonorsChoose.org (as a programmer). Since I'm not an accountant I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here, unless it is to suggest that in some way DonorsChoose.org is misrepresenting its finances to the world --- which we absolutely do not do. All the financial reports I've ever seen are quite clear about where the money from donors goes, how much of it goes towards operating expenses and how much goes directly to the recipients of aid. In what way does making the operational expense donation optional affect anything having to do with reporting of these numbers?

The reason DonorsChoose makes operational expense donations optional is simply to give donors a choice. They can choose to donate all their money directly to the teachers and students, or they can choose to donate part of the money to fund overhead. If they choose the former, all of the money goes to purchase materials, and all DonorsChoose overhead is drawn down from our general fund (which is currently funded from private donations and corporate donors, etc.) If they choose the latter, a portion of their donation goes towards overhead. In fact, we only currently cover about 40% of our operating expenses from the optional donation; we rely on external donations to cover the rest, but our goal is to reach breakeven (and we are on course to do so, as I understand it).

There's no sense in which the "official" "% of donations used for operating expenses" figure is fudged at all. The optional donation is precisely as described, and it's simply to give the donor choice, pure and simple.
tomjen3,

That kind of thinking turns too easily into "Well, if my 1 act of kindness can't change enough, why start".

It all matters.
One issue with the sugar vs. HFCS argument presented in the article - I thought that HFCS was ~60% fructose vs. table sugar's pure sucrose (50/50 glucose/fructose)?

EDIT: Seems there are a few variants - 42% fructose, called HFCS 42, 55% (HFCS 55), and a whopping 90% fructose (HFCS 90) (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup )
>>I think this is the biggest incentive for the non-school movement, as well as the increase in other alternative [to governmental SOLs] programs. Those parents value an education for what it allows their children to contribute creatively, not just use the tools of others before them.

Apparently, you missed makerzine, maker faire, 3D printers, harry potter fanfiction, and hackaday.

You also did not get the memo that people are actually becoming smarter over time. It's the Flynn's Effect.

If you're going to whine about how the good old day are better, maybe you should show us some real evidence why this is actually so.
I've read my credit card agreements. It says that if you authorized a recurring charge before you cancel your account, and that charge shows up again, you are responsible for it. (If it's erroneous, you can dispute it, of course.)

The way to cancel services is to call up the provider and tell them you want to cancel. If they charge you after that, dispute it. If they won't close your account, sue them or write a letter to your state's attorneys general office.

Now ideally, there would be a way to cancel everything online... but that is apparently not good for business, and it's something that the government is going to have to mandate.

(Honestly, it surprises me how people manage their finances. Losing your credit card to avoid paying for things that auto-renew!? This reminds me of some hate mail I read that was directed at my employer; apparently this person kept a $0 balance in her checking account, bought a $5 sandwich everyday with her debit card, ate it, and then went to the bank and deposited exactly $5 in cash. Since overdraft fees were calculated overnight instead of intraday, she never paid overdraft fees. Then the algorithm changed, and she got charged the overdraft fees. This apparently was because the bank was evil, and not because it's stupid to go into debt to buy a sandwich when you are carrying the cash with you anyway. But I digress...)
Having done a 2 year stint at an ecommerce startup, I will have to say that there is not too much fun or goodness to be found in the work itself. In a solid but fundamentally boring business idea like this, there are two approaches I've seen work for employee retention: vastly overpay everyone (the "wall street" strategy) or create a weird corporate "FUN" atmosphere (the "zappos" strategy.)

As much as the zappos strategy freaks me out it probably works better in he long run than overpaying because the shrewd but overpaid programmer will simply stick it out a few years, amass a bunch of cash, and then bail to go back to school or start a startup or trek across the world or whatever more interesting thing they had plans on doing with he money. The weirdos who really like the nerf ball fights will stick around forever on average wages.

Also with big ecommerce operations there are a huge number of specialized non programming roles like "merch planner: womens' flats" who are stuck working for one of maybe 5 companies in the world so even a corny, but positive culture change is an HR win over a competitor.
As a result of that bottles of Coke with real sugar in it get a price premium and even if they might taste the same (depending on who you ask). People are willing to pay more for it because they "know" it is the "good stuff". Even if they don't really care there is something to ask people if they want a coke and then causally insert you have code with real sugar in it which makes it suddenly much better. What is rare is sought after.
Since day 1, I've been a fierce opponent of iTunes. Although there are now sort-of alternatives, it's one of my strong reasons for not wanting any Apple i* products.

The saddest thing for sure was back in the day, when it was even less useful than it is today (but maybe less bloated) when it was hailed as the Greatest Thing Ever by my teenage cohort.

No, no, no! I yelled from the ramparts, but none would listen. When they would come visit, I would show them the psychedelic visualization power of WinAmp, its flexibility, and many other lovely tricks - to no avail!
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I discovered about 20 years ago that wheat products, and independently, yeast products (and especially bread which contains both) make me feel bad. Not throw-up bad or fever bad -- just bad, tired, puffed up.

I've tried to get a diagnosis to no avail. Celiac was ruled out by lab testing, and as a result doctors started suggesting it might be a psychological problem.

Me, I listen to my body.

And re "nonsensical faddish bullshit", that describes practically all accepted nutritional science these days. The "calories in - calories out" lacks any scientific basis, and is disproved in just about every experiment -- yet it is somehow considered true.

Personally, I consider this anecdotal theory just as valid as what your average nutritionist would tell you.

(References: Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories"; Roberts "What makes food fattening"; Cabanac)
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I had to read and re-read this post before I grasped what you're trying to say here. There is no "stuffing" of charges going on here, whatsoever. The donor's credit card is only charged once, for the entire amount of the donation, including optional operating expenses donation. If the donor donates to 10 proposals, it still results in only one credit card charge.

It just seems bizarre to me that, simply by looking at a screen shot of our checkout cart, that you'd make some bizarre assumption that DonorsChoose is doing what you describe. Come on, at least do some research before posting things like this.
That's not a problem to read, and it's really easy to recognize since everyone's been sent it at some point in their life.

For those having trouble:

bomb() {
bomb | bomb & # spawns two subprocesses, each running bomb
# on one end of a pipe, neither will die
# so long as the other exists
}
bomb # kick off the bomb
Sadly enough they didn't while the xenophobic party did...
Scooby Doo holds up surprisingly well. I watch the early 1970s episodes with my kids now, and they're as good as I remember them. The only thing that seems dated (art aside) is the music. The first few seasons all has a musical interlude that is very early 70s.
In Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories" he goes into why HFCS might be worse than table sugar because fructose is processed in the liver. (HFCS is 55/42 fructose/glucose but sugar is 50/50). But I agree that sugar is bad too.

55 vs 50 doesn't seem like a big enough difference to make HFCS significantly worse for you than sugar. I thought that the problem were the trace amounts of enzymatic and chemical conversion agents that are used to degrade cornstarch into HFCS.
I don't know about that, I mean most people don't know that AirTran is ValueJet
Or they're trying to fool the ignorant (or those who are quickly scanning the label for sugar) into thinking it's something other than plain ol' sugar? If they'd said "Cane sugar" I wouldn't have a problem with that.
Problem is, you can send mail to the US from outside of the US.

(Spam isn't about being relevant, it's about volume. Even if you can't actually buy the product being advertised, you still have to delete the mail. So while this is a little helpful, it's doesn't really make much difference in spam volume.)
Ask HN: Javascript code generation library?
I'm looking for a Javascript code generation library that is written in Javascript. I've used CodeModel in Java - https://codemodel.dev.java.net/ - and was hoping to find something similar (or better) for Javascript.

What I'm trying to do is create a visual programming environment where a user would drag and drop blocks to generate Javascript code. If anyone has used the LEGO Mindstorm IDE from a few years ago, I want to basically duplicate that but for Javascript.

I tried Googl'ing but the results are completely overwhelmed by SEO spam and things to generate buttons.

Edit: added an explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish.
Always remember that the Economist is written by 24-year-old grad students trying to sound like wise old men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymi...
If only the cornfields of the American midwest were suitable for growing sugar cane, we wouldn't have this problem.

Anyone with agricultural knowledge know what you could grow instead of corn in the cornbelt if the demand (and/or subsidies) for corn were to collapse substantially?
If anything, LinkedIn profiles will replace resume's.
My high school in the suburban south in the 1980s, people had gunracks in their trucks, often with guns on them. They couldn't come inside the building, but the guns in trucks were considered culturally untouchable at the time.
>The takeaway is: if you're only giving good customer service to the people who complain publicly, you're doing it wrong.

Speaking as a provider who has been in that situation before (e.g. losing a ticket, then responding to a public complaint) I agree completely. First off, 98% of your customers are not going to complain publicly. They are simply going to leave. And as I keep saying, the people who don't complain are the cash cows... the silent majority, from whom you get most of your money.

Now, I'm not saying you should ignore public complaints... that would be bad business. Respond publicly and solve the problem, or at least give a refund. But you must treat the complainers like canaries. for every valid complaint (and yeah, you will get invalid complaints... respond to those too, and offer a refund, but it's okay to say "I'm sorry my service does not meet your needs." - you can't be all things to all people.) you need to review your processes, and figure out why the complaint wasn't resolved through normal channels.
Can you clarify what he means by get on committees in the quote "Tattoo this list somewhere you won’t forget to look. (1) Publish academic papers. (2) Go to conferences. (3) Get on committees"? I'm (hopefully) quite near the end of my PhD and have no idea what the committees part is supposed to mean.
And IE9 is really "(e)® Windows® Internet Explorer9". Can't forget those registered trademark symbols.
The real protest is setting up a distributed infrastructure for sharing high-quality files for free that these organizations want $30 and your first born child for. Of course, that war has already been won so I guess 4chan has just decided to kick them while they're down for the fun of it.

I approve.
Robb Wolf has been writing about nutrition and doing nutrition seminars for many years now. Many people have recommended and advocated for the high quality articles and podcasts he has written and put out there. So, it is completely understandable that anyone who has preordered the book (myself included, should get it tomorrow) will read and review it to help boost sales of the book (and the message it contains).

Besides, this is not a "this food is bad" diet scheme at all. This book is just the first, updated, all in one place, quality description of what paleo means.
I started the paleo diet about 6 months ago. In that time I lost about 18kg of fat easier than any other diet I have ever been on. My blood lipids (I was about to start statins for cholesterol) have all improved dramatically in this time, to the point where my doctor is now incredibly interested in the topic. My psoriasis and eczema have all cleaned up dramatically. The crossfit gym I go to has seen massive improvements in lifting etc once people went paleo. And I am finally off the Prozac for anxiety. Needless to say, for the population of n=1, this experiment worked wonders. I know a lot of people won’t take this anecdotal evidence, but if you jump into any of the many paleo forums, you will hear stories like this all the time. If you want a serious easy to follow, health improvement, I highly suggest this diet.

For more resources on the topic I suggest a few books.

http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/ - Primal Body Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas – Lots of science.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ - Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson – Lot more accessible. Give it to your parents etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/14000... - Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes – Very long, but explains where the American Dietary guidelines came from and why they are wrong. (Cliffs notes: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba... )

Some excellent blogs/websites:

http://www.paleonu.com/

http://freetheanimal.com/

http://www.westonaprice.org/

http://www.paleoz.com/
Incidentally, there are several buffer overflow errors in the exploit code.
I don't think this makes the point that 500k/yr isn't rich but it does make the point that people's expenses will grow to fit their income. I've known several people in this pay bracket and I've often found their standard of living isn't all that much better than mine. They have a 60" TV instead of my 42" and a BMW instead of my Chevy but their still watching the same shows and stuck in the same traffic.
The article does not claim that at all. In fact, it says:

Here is a short list of the problems associated with leaky gut and the autoimmune response
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I really do believe that the Mexican Coke is a large contributing factor. I can taste a substantial difference between the two, and have gone out of my way to avoid corn syrup since.
ITunes vs. Amazon as Survey Incentive
No way I would want to share my searches with my friends. Far too many personal and private details there; it would be a mess to try to sync up what I might want shared with whom.
"many entrepreneurs would tell you that even considering the possibility of failure undermines your chances of success."

Although I'm overly optimistic about my own company just like every other entrepreneur, you can't be naive and think you'll never face failure knowing you have a 10% chance of success. Starting a company is all about failing, pivoting, and moving past it. So I'd say that you have to expect failure along the way and be ready to overcome it.
No, I actually read Dune myself. I thought it was a book about political intrigue, crazy sci-fi and guerilla warfare, great stuff to a 9 year old. I was told later that it was in fact about US foreign policy with regards to the middle east.
True but the info is out there if people wanted to know.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Airlines). Also, presumably after the name change ValueJet cleaned up their act and stopped crashing planes otherwise the new name would quickly be ruined too. With HFCS, its not like the name change buys them time to change or improve the product, its the same stuff and -- rightly or wrongly -- people now think that it is bad for you.
Seems like Disney was ahead of the curve: this "corporate wacky fun" employment atmosphere used to be a trademark of theirs. They still do it, but it's no longer the only place like that.

I'd be curious if there's any direct link/borrowing, or if it's an independent invention.
Isn't it a bit dangerous to assume that Mad Men accurately reflects workplace culture from the 60s?
Yup, works now.
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The last two places I worked did this kind of thing. The most recent (not to be too hard on them; I did love them, but forced fun is as depressing as the article says,= even at the best companies) had a few bizarre practices. The worst, which I discovered on my first Friday, was a surprise round of questions, one from each employee, to the newest hire. A corporate truth-or-dare ambush, without the option of dares.

I was caught off-guard and somewhat upset at being put on the spot, so I answered each question either as literally as possible or with a meandering, humorous story about wanting to punch out Michael Eisner. I was initially the only one not having shadenfreude-fueled "fun", but possibly the only one having fun by the end, to my later regret. (I admit, it was somewhat childish.) I heard that my answers were the reason it was more or less discontinued, so it was a minor victory if a moral loss.

We habitually stopped working around 4 on Fridays to drink beer on the roof. This, too, could have been lots of fun if it were optional, and often was anyway. But if you enjoy your job (or just want to finish this one module so I don't have to do it Monday, dammit), this sort of concentration-break is annoying at best. Eventually, I realized it couldn't possibly be a firing offense to work instead of drinking, so I did when I could get away with it.

Not long after the new VP of Engineering arrived, the partying and beers often became Powerpoint presentations about the company's Bold New Direction and ice cream sandwiches, complete with a pep-rally furor, prolonged on-cue applause of the type that made one feel as if the first to quit clapping would be executed, and the occasional singling out of teams that were behind deadlines, with the death-march resuming after the meetings.

Off-topic epilogue, don't read: I hear the death march has stopped (three or four months total; I didn't participate on weekends, or care if I got fired at that point, which I did immediately in the purge after the Great Rewrite launched) and people are back to a sort of normal schedule. I guess forced fun is a good indicator of attempts to freeze or create company culture, maybe even the canary in the mineshaft, warning you that the company's culture is approaching dangerous toxicity. I still love most of my old colleagues and most of the management, which is part of the reason I stuck around long enough to get fired.
Get yourself a first-year nursing textbook on nutrition instead.

Any particular books you recommend?
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I had no idea Knuth was published in Mad Magazine
For those of us not familiar with CodeModel it would be more useful if we had an idea of what you're trying to do?

Are you looking to generate code because you want to write a DSL (or full language) and have it spit out valid JavaScript? Jison (http://zaach.github.com/jison/) does that.

If you're looking for code generation just because you're coming from Java and think you need to generate code because everything is so complex and that simple tasks require 5+ classes, each implementing more interfaces than that, and… well, you're in luck. JavaScript is much simpler than that. Welcome to modern languages. :-)
$18k a month in revenue with 15% takehome is only $2700 a month.

For a couple.

On the Lower East Side.

The problem was not people with laptops.

It was a business without a pro forma.
In the anti-sugar video by Donald Lustig, pediatric endocrinologist, that's been posted here a million times, he says HFCS is no worse than sugar - they're both terrible for you in the quantities people consume these days. This makes sense because they're chemically essentially the same thing (sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose, whereas HFCS is mix of glucose and fructose monosaccharides in proportions that may slightly skew towards fructose or glucose depending on the formulation. The disaccharides of sucrose are broken up in the body anyway, so in the end there's no clinically significant difference. Lustig didn't think the difference was important).

If there's anything misleading going on here, it's that people think that "real" sugar is OK. I guess it'll give you natural diabetes.

Obligatory link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
I think it's Reddit and Slashdot where I saw the the first three times.
Check out the success stories at the http://www.marksdailyapple.com forums . The site also has hundreds of articles on everything about the diet and lifestyle.
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I get skeptical every time someone brings out a list of "chemicals" that are supposedly all around us— without mentioning their concentrations, of course, or the threshold dose for observable effects in humans.

But maybe I shouldn't be expecting better from pop science?
It's not black/white but they're generally classed as vegetables, and they don't have the nutritional problems of bona fide legumes.
There's also one called Ctrl-Tab that does the same, and also allows you to alt-Q (or is it Ctrl-Q) to give you thumbnails of all open tabs, then switch to tab by name (Emacs iswitchb style).
Really? And they haven't sued Gamestop yet?
The only one I use that hasn't been mentioned here yet is Venkman (JavaScript Debugger) for FireFox.
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Okay, by the time I got to the end it was looking like a belt buckle or a soda pop top.
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Which is why the message in The Paleo Soltuion makes sense: "Eat real food". Any food that has an ingredients list likely also contains sugar, salt, and/or ingredients with names that you cannot pronounce.

I think you also have to take a bit of a longer term picture. How you feel immediately afterwards is important, but days, weeks are important too. I would advise people to read this book, and give it a try for 30 days. If, after 30 days you decided to start eating your grains again, you might find like I did that inflammation becomes quite noticeable (such as achy joints).