skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Incidentally, what is the theory behind awarding the punitive damages to the plaintiff? I could understand giving the plaintiff a fraction of the punitive damages in order to provide an incentive to the plaintiff (and their counsel) to pursue, but isn't it crazy to give them all of it? Should the state keep it (like a ticket) or, better, use it where possible to compensate the unknown victims that punitive damages are supposed to help protect?
Google Instant could kill Black-Hat SEO
This is the message the french court is giving: "As long as you make money, risk taking is ok. If you screw up, it's your fault. You pay everything back."
I'm not entirely sure why DHH assumes that this email was not, in fact, sent via "some shady Russians"...
I am convinced there are still many ways for recruiting to be fixed by disruptive startups

I couldn't agree more. I've been actively trying to tackle this problem, so far without success, for a while now.
How did they express their models before the BPMN tools?
Small correction -- no Hulu unless you were invited to the beta and are paying $10/month.
I think you're belittling their work.

The Nobel Prize wasn't just for the method of extracting graphene, it was for 'groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene'. This includes extracting, identifying and characterizing the material.

Interesting to note, by the way, that the real innovation was in being able to identify (and characterize) the material - the same extraction method was used by another team.

To me, this is the essence of science - observing a phenomena (in this case - a material) and understanding it.

Equating Experimental Physics 'engineering' is a little to 'Sheldonistic' for me.
I am from France and have friends working at Societe Generale. For those interested in the case, the big question is not why Kerviel was condemned to pay a fine he will clearly never pay but why his boss and execs from the bank were never bothered. How could they say that they ignored a few single very risky fraudulent trades had generated the bulk of the billions in profits they made during two years prior to the blow up of the affair?!
If you're serious about being in business I would recommend you get a referral to an actual lawyer, from a friend or business acquaintance you trust. The "cheapest and the quickest" doesn't usually match up with "won't cause problems later." If you're still in the information gathering phase, I recommend checking out http://startuplawyer.com as it has a lot of great info.
I think its gonna take some time for this approach to standardize across browsers.
Right now, Chrome is offering installable apps solely to allow developers to charge and to allow users instant access to webapps.
IE9 beta is doing somewhat the same by having users instant access through pinning webapps onto the taskbar.
Safari and Firefox will definitely have some solutions that are likewise.
At the very core, your webapp will still be accessible through a url. And if you would like to extend your reach, why not make it as an installable app for Chrome, which just requires some extra manifest files.
Unless you want that app to totally be at the client side? I hope i am not interpreting it wrongly.
How are you liking it? Don't you prefer to do development yourself? What's the hardest thing about the job? Would you recommend it to other developers?
couchappspora is shooting for ostatus/SWAT0 compatibility. I just started a separate project to work towards implementing ostatus in commonjs http://github.com/maxogden/ostatus-js
[quote]I also need a partner who is well versed in more that just programming, but is willing to wear multiple hats (i.e. marketing, customer support, developing, design, etc.).[/quote]

So what exactly are you contributing? The idea? An idea and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. (meaning the idea is worth basically nothing)

Seriously what do you bring to the table here? Why would someone want to be the programmer, marketer, CS rep, designer, etc -- in other words do all the work -- for less than all the profit?
Sounds good.. I've recently had the same idea myself and am considering doing something with it. I've just moved house though so I need to get that sorted out in the next couple of weeks but then get on with it.
This is very interesting. Are you considering doing it yelp/groupon style, with a representative in each city? I'd be willing to be my local (san diego) rep, as I'm looking into getting more involved in my local dev community (and this seems like a great way to do that)
The numbers in this article, and in the WSJ article aren't very clear.

40% of the merchants say they wouldn't do it again.
66% said they were profitable. This means some of these profitable merchants would not do it again.
32% said they were not profitable. We don't now how many of these would not do it again.

Of course, their is no information regarding the actual businesses themselves. A suffering business using GroupOn probably has a good chance of suffering afterwards. Advertising, whether through radio, GroupOn, or other sources, isn't a magic bullet.
This was from an another HN thread (HN Contractors) - https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJE...

I've been contacted for work through it.
I would argue that avoiding vendor lock out is a major reason Open Software exists: with an OS database, nobody can tell you that you can no longer use the DB software unless you pay the proper licensing and maintenance fees.

You'll be locked into a particular database vendor anyway: it's no harder to migrate away from MySQL that it would be to migrate away from DB2. It just so happens that the open source "vendors" don't charge licensing fees, and if things go way off the rails (community implosion, commercial "takeover" of the primary contributors, etc), at least you'll have access to the source so you can run your app on it for as long as it makes sense to do so.
Sorry, meant to add: if you're interested in discussing something like this, please contact me via the email in my profile. Thanks!
For another "great" example of this, see Microsoft BizSpark: http://www.bizspark.com/Pages/home.aspx
Most of the complaints from the 40% that are saying "never again" seem to have very little (if anything) to do with Groupon specifically, but rather the entire idea of advertising on a group deal/bargain site:

Poor tips, too many customers, angry customers (due to lack of product or wait time) are all potential side effects of a Groupon deal. The author of the study, Utpal Dholakia said it was almost a given:

“Because the Groupon customer base is made up of deal-seekers and bargain shoppers, they might not tip as well as an average customer or be willing to purchase beyond the deal.”

This led to the finding that restaurants had the hardest time with Groupon deals, where service business such as spas and salons fared better. The 32% that said they didn’t make a profit from the program reported that customers rarely bought more than the coupon deal and few returned to the business at a later date.

It shouldn't be shocking to retailers that offering deep discounts on a popular discount site is appealing mostly to people that only buy discounted goods, but it seems that it is surprising to some.
Why Right Aligned Buttons Work Better for Users on Long Forms
Yeah, he's working in the wrong country.
Here in the land of the free, when they screw up we pay everything back.
I'd be interesting in knowing how this was caught. I was under the impression that this sort of thing goes on pretty often. I certainly don't assign a particularly high credibility to anonymous online rave reviews.
Wow! I had this very same idea after reading about rapidSMS. Seemed stupid to devote an entire web framework like Django to the solution. Sweet. Looking for contributors?
US Sorry to Have Inoculated Syphilis to Guatemalans in The Name of Science
AT&T 'Speed Dating' With App Firms; Partnering with Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins
Terms of Service, done right.
Reply with an outrageous salary that would actually encourage you to switch jobs. For example, say that you're looking for IC positions with a minimum base of $250k (and that all of your friends are in that same compensation bracket).

In my experience, that works well. As does, "I have N years left of graduate school and will not consider other opportunities until that is complete."
There is but I haven't looked too deeply into it yet but you can get a list of packages installed.

I haven't quite gotten to building an app for making it easy to recommend apps yet but it's next on my list;)

Another important component to this would be to ask the user which apps they actually recommend as opposed to which ones they downloaded, used once and then just left on their phone.
Prayer itself is a form of meditation, it's not at all just minor traditions.
I've replied in the above thread.
You think I trust "DSwiss.com", the "Swiss bank for information assets", founded in 2006, more than I trust the largest technology company in the world --- and presumably one of the top 10 spenders on software security worldwide?

Sorry, no, I don't. Maybe you can name one person I'd have heard of who has assessed any piece of their source code?
That is a splendid list.

I'll add:

"Sandman" by Neil Gaiman. Also a graphic novel, but this series literally reinvented comics to me, and to many other readers.

"Lunar Park" by Bret Easton Ellis. Probably the safest introduction to Ellis if you aren't looking for a rampant gore-fest. Spooky, creepy, chilling, but also insightful, confounding and enlightening.

"Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger. Mostly recommending as it fits into the above list, but I feel like it was missing. I personally felt it was overhyped, but I'm the odd man out, as everybody I've ever talked to considers it profound.
Great advice I think you are on to something there...

One way to look at this problem is to create a "Best Of" app list and keep it really clean.

I'll look into that ;)
Did somebody solved C1000K (or C1M) problem?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1755575

Is maximum number of connections that you can reach on largest EC2 instance is the same as on physical server?
Be very careful making conclusions such as "HN thinks it's a good idea". Even discounting groupthink, there's a more powerful (related) selection bias effect. People who respond positively to an opinion are more likely to comment. With a small sample size you're completely at the whim of these two effects.

That said, some of the specific advice might be useful. In particular, edw519's point that you should ensure that you collect customer information to continue the relationship is likely pretty wise.
Groupon may be the one to bring them customers, and you're right, it's the merchant's responsibility to convert the incoming people to customers. However, Groupon should find a way to help with this. Because if they don't, merchants will continue to blame Groupon for the failures. If this continues to happen, Groupon will fail.
Here are Tips and Guidelines on How to Make a Research Paper
Simply making a research paper does not ensure that it is of high quality. Making a research paper of high quality requires perseverance and dedication to the task as well as interest. With the right tips and guidelines you too will be able to submit a paper of high quality.
I could sacrifice my ethics just a bit and use a canon camera with a 5MP sensor and CHDK for 1/10th the price. No ethernet though.
Generally, the key term in most types of meditation is "mindfulness", not "mindlessness"-- the object is not at all to "shut off the mind", but rather, to watch the mind.
There should be a QR-COde for easy download!!!
Does anyone here have feet in both camps? I'd like to read that person's opinion.
Comment on dit "scapegoat" en Français?
How serious can you be about starting up if you make this much a production about naming it? Call it "Hardik Systems" and move on.
Speaking of career moves, this made it through GMail's spam detector this morning:

Hello Raghu,

Based on your resume, we are pleased to offer you the position of Mail Order Shipment Inspector( MOS Inspector) in our company.
Your duties will include receipt and registration of packages, submission of detailed reports to our management and
shipment of packages to end customers with postal labels we will send you.
Depending on the number of packages you process, the monthly pay would be in the range of USD 1,500 - 2,500
Not sure if you are still looking for a job but let us know if so, so that I could get back to you with more details.
Also, please add my address into your address book to prevent my
messages from filtering into your junk mail folder.

Thank you,
Victoria Premo
He's right that open-source vs. commercial is orthogonal to the attributes you should really be assessing. Lumping in MySQL with PostgreSQL just because they're both free is a disservice to PostgreSQL.

The author goes out of his way to differentiate Oracle from DB2, but paints all open-source databases as toys. Really, you think I'm not going to notice that there's a significant tier, that most companies probably fall into, between a 50 MB database and a 50 TB database that PostgreSQL can handle beautifully?
On a related note, the Whole Foods CEO got caught in 2007 anonymously disparaging his business rival, Wild Oats Market, on Yahoo message boards. Apparently it was a violation of Regulation FD, which bans selective disclosure of information: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/vindu/2007/07/11/whole-deceptio...
Well, item 1 is really a simple thing. I'd just start it as a bookmark, then I'm sure you can find a wrapper that will allow you to push a bookmark into the start menu. Really shouldn't be hard.

For item 2, that depends on your product. Your statement, "without giving away too much information," makes me think you're overvaluing your idea. I'd be happy to offer more advice on 2, but without knowing the product and target market, it's tough to estimate how important it is. For someone who spends a lot of time on the plane, it's vitally important. For someone like me, working in the office all day, with wired internet, not that important.
It is amazing how much information certain people have on the Internet regarding themselves. A simple IP check could have done the trick, provided that it could be cross referenced with orders. So if the individual shopped from home, they know his IP address - then posted a review, and continued posting more reviews... there you go :)

Sometimes reviews are pretty good to let you know what is going on with the particular product/service. It's a hit and miss though in most cases.
Google Asks Court to Toss Oracle’s Android Lawsuit
I'm not working on it myself (yet), but I'm really excited about Ruboto, which is a project to allow you to build Android applications in Ruby. I recently saw a presentation about it at JRubyConf this past weekend and have been playing with it since.

http://ruboto.org/
Literature Thesis about Deconstructionist
Writing a literature thesis is no easy task. However, if a deconstructionist approach is taken to the writing of the thesis, the task may not seem so monumental. If the basic components to writing a literature thesis are kept in mind the task may be easier.
Android Whammy: New countries + local currency display + "Update All" for all
True story: while managing a decently sized development org at MSFT, I used to regularly get contacted by the technical recruiters for the contracting agencies telling me I was oddly perfectly qualified to do some entry-level work!

Of course, this may be a successful recruiting approach, as the hourly net pay for the entry-level contractors frequently worked out to more than the salary pay for mid-level folks, due to all of the overtime. No benefits, but if you're in a situation with a spouse with a decent comp. package, it could certainly be an alternative.
Wolfenstein 3D… in 1K of JavaScript
So I don't suppose anyone knows what the outcome was? Did he get an interview at least?

Post-GOOG Edit: http://twitter.com/#!/onyxfish says, "Happy you all are enjoying it--even more happy it got me the job!"
Why Google is on Crack: Slowing Down Costs $900 Million
Sounds more like an agent, in the sports/entertainment sense. There might just be a market there. Let the masses of mediocre/average programmers dink around with mediocre/average recruiters, while the quality ones have someone who actually cares focused on them.

The biggest issue is that an "agent" would need to not just maintain relationships with quality job candidates, but also quality employers. If all you're offering me is a crappy internal dev job doing .NET or Java for a health care giant, why should I work with you over any of the dice/careerbuilder/monster cattle calls?
Hipmunk Closes Hyper-Competitive Angel Round, Sans The Usual Suspects
Zappos and retargeting
He's happily working there now. http://twitter.com/onyxfish/status/26467188200 shows:

"For those reading my cover letter via @brianboyer's twitstorm: Happy you all are enjoying it--even more happy it got me the job!"
Well if you want riots, of course it needs to be overnight. Wasn't there some adage with regards to boiling a frog concerning this?
What fragmentation?
That's just extra spice on top. I fucking hate it when people I don't know assumes it okay to make up a nickname for me.
they ran a massive campaign in the parisian subway a couple of months ago
... and if time is money you can also pay a consulting company a few hundred bucks to assess your hardware config and crank out a postgresql.conf that will run great. It's likely you'd have to do the same thing for DB2.

An enterprise RDBMS is a huge decision, a platform a business is built on. At this point in time, chaining a business I'm part of to an expensive commercial database product which offers no substantive benefits and is subject to the whims of product VPs doesn't seem like the best business decision.
Given the fact that reviews make or breaks products, companies now have great incentives in playing the reviews game. I have seen so many crappy products being praise by crazy reviews with generic theme like "I bought it for my son, my husband and he loves it". High profile catch like this will make it harder for companies to just spin their way trough crappy products.
It's (mostly) already been done — Apple called it the Cocoa-Java bridge:
http://cocoadevcentral.com/articles/000024.php

It became officially deprecated about five years ago, but quite a few important apps used it, Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) being one of them.
Sorry, I replied once already but I've decided I want another go.

> It's about privacy, control over your own data, etc. This audience cares a lot about that

I don't share your impression of this audience. It seems to me this audience largely thinks access to other people's data is awesome, can't wait to make money off it, and thinks dissenters are awkward, time-wasting Luddites. That's a rather broad and unflattering characterization, but it represents my general impression better than "This audience cares a lot about privacy". Nobody should take this personally btw - clearly some people here genuinely care a lot. I'm part of this audience too.
I love recruitment, I honestly do. Primarily because of the money I make!

I loved working as a developer but there was a distinct lack of social and professional interaction that eventually led to me looking at other options.

It was satisfying completing a difficult project and seeing it implemented but I get infinitely more satisfaction from finding someone their perfect job as well as landing a juicy commission payment for the privilege of doing so!

Hardest part: The sales aspect. It is still a very sales orientated career and it can be difficult to not come across as the 'cheesy salesman' and hammer home the point that I am a developer by trade but a recruiter by choice.

I don't know if I would recommend it to other developers. It's quite hard to get established in the industry and start earning enough money to realise the potential of the career.
I am not familiar with either of those books, but a great book on practical meditation is the Silva Mind Control Method.

He comes at it from a completely practical place, no spirituality at all involved. It is very powerful and easy to use his methods.

I also came here to say that this guy obviously had no instruction on meditation before he started.

Meditation is hard especially if you have a noisy mind. However, meditation is not about turning off your mind, necessarily, though there is something to that as well.

I think most people on HN however would prefer/benefit from what I would call 'active' meditation which basically involved 'getting control' of your mind (being able to hold a specific thought for a dozen or so seconds at a time is near impossible for anyone not trained) and using that control to fast-forward learning processes, shedding bad habits, etc.
Sixty Symbols has already a video out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ZBkpWqrzg
Anyone interested in working on a Groupon-like platform that let's merchants sell their own vouchers on their site (or be licensed to smaller chambers of commerce / newspapers)?

I've been messing with one (in Rails) and I can get approval to be a 3rd party payment aggregator (we already do this with one of our products).
Customer outrage as a marketing strategy in the app store.
I'm thinking of marketing my upcoming DropZap 2 game using customer outrage.

In particular, I could order the countries where DropZap 2 will be released based on how good they are as places to live. I could use official and highly respected ranking(s) to do this.

I could then release DropZap 2 in the app store to a new country every week based on this ranking.

In a way, this would imitate the initial exclusiveness of Facebook.

Would this be a good idea? Would it get much attention?
No, because he knows the recruiter will have no idea what that means. She's just reading words off a page.
Correct. Doesn't negate what I said, or what was quoted.
He used his own Amazon account and his real name was visible on the Amazon Wishlist. And, even more funny, his wife did the same thing. Here's the original blog entry (in German, scroll down for some screenshots):

http://gutjahr.biz/blog/2010/10/wedepp/
>It could be something as benign as upvoting only thoughtful comments here on HN instead of funny ones like on reddit/fark/digg that could bring about a long-lasting effect on the future of open discussion on the Internet.

I don't know; the highest voted comment I've had on Hacker News was one that was funny. By an order of magnitude.

What's wrong with humor, anyway? On reddit, it's easy enough to close an entire thread you don't find interesting to see what else was voted up.
Hacker Makeover: How We Gave Our Developer Some Style
Lovely post! I love the coined word "micro opportunities"! It is also well aligned with the philosophy of trying and being close to as many opportunities as you can so you increase your chances of being "lucky". Something that I need to constantly working on :)
Or maybe you want to loop through a set of files and perform a set of operations on them.

If you did start putting clever code into Ant files, they'd get so huge they'd be unmanageable. It's really really easy to just write your own Ant plugins in Java.

Then your build files are very straightforward and readable, and just look like a set of simple file operations and method calls.

Then Ant becomes really powerful - you can even write some plugins that take a web server out of service using telnet to Cisco LocalDirector, SCP a deployment build across and all sorts of other clever stuff.

Plugin example:

public class MyTask extends Task {

private String param1;
private String param2;

public void execute() throws BuildException {
// do something
}
}

Then in the XML:

<myTask param1="..." param2="..." />