skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Normally the employer handles income tax. Employees receive a lower paycheck because taxes have already been taken out, but unless they made a bunch of money from other sources, their income tax should be very low or even non-existant, such that they get money back from the government.

Freelancers on the other hand have to take taxes out of their income themselves, so what starts out looking like high pay is actually less than it looks. The danger in freelancing is forgetting about taxes and living right up to the extent of your means.
Ask HN: which projects are great showcases for their languages?
It's commonly said that the best way to improve as a programmer is to read great code. I recently thought about this while searching for really elegant JavaScript, which I find is a pretty tough job since the language written in some many ways. What I really want is something like Beautiful Code, but more up to date and more focused on elegant usage of the host language. To get started, here's what I like:

- Java: XOM (http://www.xom.nu/designprinciples.xhtml)

- Scheme: anything from Essentials of Programming Languages (http://www.cs.indiana.edu/eopl/)

- C++: I like QT (http://qt.gitorious.org/qt/qt/commits/master-stable), but I'm interested in others

I'd really like to see stunning examples of:

- JavaScript(!)

- Python

- Ruby

- Perl (just kidding)
Ryan - thank you. This is very well written and provides a good picture of what it takes to freelance.

It seems to me that you really want to have to work for yourself to do this. A decent programming job with benefits for someone of your experience is easily $120 - $150k. Assuming you can bill $100/hr and work 2000 hrs/yr, it beats that, but not by much, and frankly seems like a lot more work. So the motivation to freelance isn't a monetary one. Would you agree?
A sidenote to 'keep raising your rates'. At some point, for some sort of work, you really will be pricing yourself out of that market. I've had people express that concern to me "I'll never get the job if I quote that much!", etc.

My response years ago was to adjust the price down some (and I did it myself) and sometimes you'd get the job.

My advice now, typically, is ... don't go for that type of work. Don't bid on that project. If what you're bidding on is commoditized to the point where anyone can do it for 5x less than you want to charge, find another type of skill to enhance and sell that.

This approach isn't for everyone, obviously, but I'm finding it works. This might just be a variation of "go where the competition isn't"?
'Nature's big bang' riddle solved
It is definitely essential. It is one of the first things I install when setting up a new computer.
I'm not an American, but in most countries, employers pay tax for employees that employees don't see on their paychecks. In effect, it's income tax whose value is hidden for political purposes: employees only see the headline salary and the headline income tax, but in reality, the cost to the employer is usually more than the headline rate, even without the value of benefits etc.
I think the author meant better in the sense of morally superior, not happy.
Hey! Looks great so far. I noticed a bug when I was clicking through movies: http://imgur.com/SX3TM.jpg

Also, it might be nice if you could click on the "next" movie without having to move your mouse cursor a little bit to get the "I've seen this" button to appear. This is on Chrome that has this behavior.
How often does that actually happen? I can't think of any examples.

Most start-ups hardly live full 4 year vesting period either failing or being acquired.
I use gandi and am quite happy with their UI. BUT don't, DONT open 2 domain zone in 2 tabs to edit them. Gandi don't support that : you will end up making modifications for domain 1 while thinking you are modifying domain 2 !!
Oh no, please don't rip off Will Ferrell. He's God - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVu8jfhcO9k
I would argue that if you're a happier person, you are a better person.

I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly happy assholes out there.
It's not just that. If that was it, it would just be a case of paying now vs paying later.

I'm simplifying here, but there's something called FICA, which is about 15.2% of your pay. Typically employees have 7.6% withheld, and employers chip in the other 7.6%. It's effectively never paid or counted to the employee in the first place. Someone earning 100k at an employer would see $7600 paid in FICA. A self-employed person has to pay $15200 on the same $100k income (but half of that tax is deductible for other tax calculations - it gets convoluted!)

So... self-employed people are paying 'more' , but the net effect of what the gov't get is the same. You just don't see some of that money as a typically w2 employee.
I like science fiction but it's felt for a while that I've read everything good. Recently, I've found myself reading a lot of historical fiction (anti-science fiction?). The two genres are quite similar in that they both examine how humans behave in weird or unfamiliar settings. For example, Russia in Tolstoy's time feels more different to me than an awful lot of science fiction.

Vargas Llosa's "The War of the End of the World" is set in the wilds of 19th century Brazil, and it's brilliant. It's one of my favourite novels. I found "The Time of the Hero" fascinating but I can't remember if I enjoyed it. It's about hazing rituals in Peruvian military school. I tried to read "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," which is set in more modern times, but I didn't get very far.
lvh.me domain is pointed to 127.0.0.1 so you can use subdomains if you're connected to the internet.
In the first article, the author mentioned how unfairly your technical skills will be evaluated, based on the UI of your portfolio apps/sites.
How do you feed yourself for 50 cents a day with anything approaching a balanced diet? You'd have to be incredible frugal to make one nutritious meal for 50 cents, let alone three. I know beans and rice are cheap, especially in bulk, but if that's all you eat then your health will surely suffer.
I tend to use Delicious for "this is interesting" type stuff, especially stuff I want to share. I use my browser's bookmarks for stuff that is only important to me: work-related stuff, bill stuff, etc. Having cross-browser syncing for built-in bookmarks in addition to my Delicious bookmarks has been great. I'm hopefull they can live on and pledged my support.

Edit: There's also bookmarklets. These are not a good fit for Delicious. Having these synced as well is wonderful.
It's North American Man/Boy Love Association, so NAMBLA. Don't you guys watch South Park?
From what I understood, the point of that bit of the article is that having less stuff (for the same functionality) often costs more, and he justifies it by the digitalization of his library and media library. Therefore if your only motivation was saving money, the author argues you'd be better off doing something other than reducing the amount of stuff you have.
5 ways to break the startup funk
Same topic but with more funny -

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2010/09/minimizing-windows-j...
POLL system source-code finaly revieled
Anybody want me to write up my notes for all the presentations? I've got a couple of hours to kill once I get to the airport.
I think you are arguing angels and needle heads. :-)

The best part with Perl is the CPAN. If you know what you do, for quite a few areas you are crazily productive. It makes good economic sense.

My point is -- the size of the default install is irrelevant, the win is when you install stuff from CPAN. It is arguably better if the default install is thin, because then people/organizations will have routines to install stuff from CPAN...

(Other good points with Perl is that the language is fun and that the social culture of nerds is wonderful. The main negative ones for Perl are the trolling ("PERL is dead") and the learning curve.)
>"Words are cheap."

Yes, I would have to agree.

Indeed, Balmer's use of the conditional, "if we do the right job," might signify he has made similar observations, and perhaps be taken as evidence that Balmer is not cut from the same cloth as some other CEO's.
You are not the only one. Only real friends are added to Facebook. Same thing with LinkedIn ... although I am a tad more lenient with that!
Directory please, because it makes the URLs nice and hackable. I can hit Cmd+L, right, alt-backspace to remove the 'blog' part of the URL instead of screwing around trying to select the subdomain (and dot!) to get back to your main site.

I hate this even more for sites like GitHub pages, which use http://name.github.com/project/ for the pages and http://github.com/name/project/ for the repo. Trying to rewrite the URL to get from one to the other is an exercise in fiddly copypasting.
I would also like to see an open source javascript web app written "the right way", I have a lot of javascript code, its getting nicer, but I still feel like I am missing something.

most large open source javascript is libraries and such, they are very different from applications

for erlang it seems anything that comes out of http://www.basho.com/ is a good showcase, mochi as well.
This is a very interesting article and maybe a perfect follow up on this post on Apple's design hegemony: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1762682

The truth is that design is as much for ease and comfort, as it is for differentiation and in that department, there is only one slot for the perfect web site, the rest of us have to stand out!
Microsoft patents 'to-do' list
I would argue that they are better than unhappy assholes.

As a corollary, the happier the assholes are, the better person/more agreeable they would be, and I have found that statement to be true.
I find it highly unlikely, given the sheer number of books printed nowadays, that we'd end up anywhere near scenario number 2.

Merchants could seize the opportunity here - if your store is full of resellers rather than the public, it's time to up YOUR game and start charging more for your used books.
That's a silly thing to say, not all women rally for women empowerment and not all women go about flaunting their female charm (whatever you may mean by that).

What I'm trying to get at - there's no point looking for contradictions in a group that doesn't abide by a single idealism. Now if the OP tells you that equal treatment is of the foremost importance to her, then feel free to rub the contradiction in her username in her face.
Completely agree. Benefit to me is freedom. Freedom to work where I want, when I want, on what I want, with the tools I want. I can't imagine going back to a job, but who knows. I'm always open to offers :)
Schedule your work, not your interruptions
On the other hand, in Canada you can put part of your mortgage paiement as deductible if you work from home (same thing with you computer, phone, etc). So that does lower your taxes compared with someone who work in a company. Is it the same in the US?
Become a better designer.
Hey HN. A lot of you have been able to see my designs. I'm currently creating a infoproduct that'll consist of a number of vidoes where I teach you how to master the skills I have.

It's literally a 2 week course and you'll improve your design skills. If you're not interested, don't send me an email at hajrice@gmail.com and I'll set you on for early access.

...oh and for those who are wondering, here's 3 samples of my work:

http://www.questionify.com/

http://i.imgur.com/wmu7Q.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/KRbNx.jpg
I would argue that they are better than unhappy assholes.

What if doing hurtful things makes them happy?
It creates a new opportunity for the seller - those individual books were previously not available online. they were just sitting in a bookshop.
Finding these books, then placing them online, and handling the shipping to the buyer is certainly adding value.
When I read the announcement that they were closing, my first thought was "I would have paid money for this". I'm glad I may be able to if it means I'll get to keep using it.
"Also, all happiness may equal better but not all minimalism equals happiness."

I agree

"And, most of all, being happy does not mean you are a better person. What if hurting kittens makes you happy?"

Well you're right, but extreme outliers about kitten hurting aside... If something makes you happier, less worrisome, less irritable, and have less liabilities, (like the author is saying being minimalist does for him), then yes he's a better person than if he wasn't minimalist.
It depends on the type of thing you're trying to minimise. A low-cost lifestyle is not synonymous with a minimalist one, they are related goals but different on a practical level. Some kinds of minimalism can be very expensive.

Replacing your car with a bike and a set of walking shoes will save you a tonne of money. But it might incur more effort and planning. There'll be times when the weather is rough or the distance is too great or time is too short, when having a car would have been (more money but) much less hassle. Replacing all your books with a Kindle will probably cost you because you have to buy your books all over again (you'll probably wind up in the red even if you sell all your physical books second-hand). Does going to restaurants instead of keeping food at home count as "minimalism"?
Managing Rubies and Rails with RVM
Clickable:

http://www.questionify.com/

http://i.imgur.com/wmu7Q.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/KRbNx.jpg
You have a decimal-point problem. $150/30 is $5 a day; it's entirely possible to eat quite well on that.
Works for me in Chrome 6.0.472.63 on MacOS 10.6.4.
Why would you do that?

Just open your closet and throw out each thing unless you used it in the last week. Just throw it out now. Tomorrow is a euphemism for never. You can always buy or borrow if you need it later.

http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/stuff-minimization-framework
On the two semi-reliable, specific sources of income that were mentioned, can recycling and giving blood:

> But since most of the collecting was done after midnight and is arduous, I tired of the relationship and severed it. If I ever care to return to scavenging, I am assured an extra $1248 a year-my 40 percent share of the gross.

> ...began selling two pints of my plasma a week-the limit-for $6 a pint. This source could add $624 to my annual income. But I found the 90-minute sessions, luring which time I was affixed to a needle, utterly boring, and I stopped.

(Never mind that he would have had to stop giving blood for other reasons.)

In at least those two instances, he says quit the job because it was hard work or boring. (If you're going to point out that these aren't "real" jobs, then neither is running a startup.) The author also mentioned that there were other ways he could supplement his income, but deigned not to.

He comes to the conclusion, at the end of the 3rd paragraph from the end, that he could "still pass... into the sort of life I once took for granted, when all the institutions of upper middle-class life in the suburbs meant something", but that it was futile, just a wait for death; unsatisfactory. The sham that punk rock holds up: drive to work to pay for the nice car; so you can drive the nice car to work; to pay for the nice car. More eloquently coached perhaps, but I get the same sort of ennui from it as in the last paragraph - he admits to wanting to live it, without wanting to work for it.
No, I'm listening to too much Jon Stewart in fact, but it has nothing to do with where the things are headed. Read up on CNGI if really interested.
I think its pretty important for most people development setups to work offline
In some cultures - especially England - insults are a friendship overture. (Yes, it's stupid, but it's the way things are.) What that means, is that the optimal response is to insult back - laughing. not to ignore it and not to take umbrage.

No, I'm not saying that all bullies are 'just trying to make friends'. They're not, some of them are vicious shits. But if you live in such a culture, your kid needs to know about it or he will never make friends (I'm not sure if this applies to girls). It will seem like every other kid is out to get them.

Laughingly insulting back says 'I have respect for myself, and I am willing to be friends'.

I didn't learn this while I was a kid.
I think you miss the point a bit. If making a design look cheap takes away from basic usability, or reflects badly on the company's core competency (your example of the red marker cleaning lady), it's a miss of course. But consider more subtle touches that may seem random to the web site visitor, but make him feel that he's not dealing with a infallible behemoth of a company. I think that definitely can help in establishing some trust when selling something that's differentiated by low price and simplified features, and competing with big brand name alternatives.
I've never actually tried subcontracting a design myself, but my understanding is that it's pretty typical.

You still have the risk problem -- the designer might turn in terrible work, or might turn in great work that the customer thinks is terrible -- but I'm guessing that much of the risk is mitigated: image prototyping and UI sketching starts pretty early in the process and features lots of iterations, so you get early warning if something is going wrong; moreover, most web frameworks are designed around the assumption that design elements will change very frequently, because people have learned how much customers love to change the color of the bikeshed at the last minute. Oh, how they have learned.

The scary part of subcontracting is when you subcontract something tricky and coding-intensive, like the entire event-planning module, or the video-sharing module. Then maybe you end up a week away from launch with two weeks of programming left to do. Or maybe your subcon delivers something that looks superficially correct, but which falls over dead during load testing when it sees more than one query at a time, and now you have to rearchitect it under deadline...
The stock market as a single, very big piece of multithreaded software
The Failure to Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age
Because the way above is more natural.
Aldi in The Netherlands uses metal shelving, some of it even wire shelving. The place looks like a dump, but the quality of the food and items is generally really good and the price is really low.
And then you have a kid.
This looks useful. Well done!

One strange thing I noticed is that when I search for something, say javascript, there are lots of results but the page automatically jumps all the way down to the sign up form. Why don't you let me see the results first? If you want me to sign up, you could have a link next to each result saying something like "Don't miss out on more good books like this. Sign up now for weekly updates." If your suggestions are any good, I would love to sign up anyway. Please don't force me to.
We don't spend too much time talking or thinking about it in my house, but we do periodically clean/throw out old junk that piles in closets & the garage.

I agree with his point regarding being sanctimonious about it though. We don't brag to anybody, or even talk about it much. Its just a matter of doing something we know makes us feel better and thats about it.

However, over time it does save you money, because if you have to move or change your surroundings, you only need enough room for your body and not your stuff.

We're moving to a new house that is only marginally larger than our current house because we're planning a larger family (it also is a higher quality house too)... not because we need more space for stuff. Its nice to only consider your living space from the perspective of what you do in it, and not have to also worry about how all of your stuff goes into it too.
If you're a developer saying no is appreciated. If you're in management say no diplomatically.
That doesn't say anything about whether making them happy in other ways reduces their assholishness. It might do. (Perhaps they have a certain happiness setpoint, and if they're not made happy enough by other things then they'll achieve it by being assholes.) Or it might not. (Perhaps they associate happiness with assholishness, and an increase in either provokes an increase in the other.)
The length of time of vesting is not as important as protecting the rest of the team if one of the founders walks away two weeks later with a significant portion of the company. If a one year or six month vesting period makes sense, why not? But having no vesting can be very risky.
Instead of creating easily warezable infoproducts, create scalable services.

For an example see how Aaron Wall turned his SEO Book into a platform (forum, tools).
Yes. You can also deduct health insurance premiums, equipment, meals with clients, driving, travel for work, etc.
I like the principle of "making things more difficult" in exercise. It's a major principle of training in martial arts: you spend a lot of time training to do things in ways that are a little more difficult than when you really do them so that you find it easier when you really need to do it.
Similar boat here - second time round freelancing (3 years). I'll never say never, but haven't had a job offer yet close to the challenge/interest/financial level I'm after. So... I'm open too, but most companies don't seem open to offering what I want :)
Sorry Facebook, Google Already Had A Patent On Location-Based Social Networks
Ask HN: Brilliant team, good product, terrible market. Need new market
My 2 co-founders and i have been running our startup (angel funded) for about 3 years. We've released 4 products, and none of them have stuck with users. Our present one has around 5000 users in 3 months, not brilliant.

We've decided we need to stop. Take a week off, and do something entirely new. Our previous products were all in the same space-ish.

We're struggling to come up with a market/product to develop in. We're all technical, and one of us is a designer. We can create anything and sell it and win, but we have been working so much in our current space we can't think of a relevant problem to solve.

Any ideas how to fix this? We've not burnt out, just a bit tunnel vision on the current space - and we don't have the resources to take a month off to relax. We'd love someone to just say "x product sucks, make it better" - we've raised funding and understand passion etc, but the first step of a product is actually the hardest, when you have a product resonating with a small market everything falls into place.

tl;dr - tunnel vision team needs new product for new market, ideally b2c of something cool.
Pg's old website (also made with Viaweb)
Purely for aesthetic reasons.

Instead of:

builder.person do |b|
b.name("Jim")
b.phone("555-1234")
end

You could write it like this:

builder.tag!('person') do |b|
b.tag!('name', "Jim")
b.tag!('phone', "555-1234")
end
About the blood donation, I wonder if you end up having to eat more or something like that, to compensate for the blood loss?

In any case, both jobs don't sound as if they had made a big difference to his well-being.
Ok, leave sociopaths aside: Arguing makes some people happy. ;)
Is there something else I need to do to stop getting email notifications other than unchecking "Email notifications to: my@email" and clicking Save?

I continue to get several emails about new replies to posts I've commented on.
I've posted a follow up article. You're a Bad Manager. Embrace It. http://agile.dzone.com/articles/youre-bad-manager-embrace-it

I'd appreciate any help spreading the word. I'm involved with much more of the technical sites than the managerial ones.
Wowwwwww! Hats off to you sir. I cannot believe how good the translation is.

Do you mind talking about how you are doing the translation?