skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In theory they should make sense if

* copycats would have significantly lower costs without
any offsetting disadvantages, and
* what's being patented would not be independently
re-discovered before the patent's expiration

In practice neither happens: copycats tend to be comparatively incompetent, and simultaneous inventions is more the rule than the exception.

I think the core disconnect is whether those two points are taken as true or false: you get the imagery of some lone heroic inventor being always crushed by some conglomerate that patents could save him from; a more accurate version would be a bunch of small businesses that keep doing cool things at more-or-less the same time which the conglomerates pick up on after a year or two, and nobody has the concept of going broke on legal fees arguing over who's allowed to do what.

> Yeah, these monopolies make sense if I have to set up a plant, or do years of research, but that's not true in software anymore.

The hard part of software is figuring out what to do, reimplementing a program is easy (thus the prevalence of programs that are "clones" of other programs). If patents actually worked, I think software would probably be a nearly-ideal example.
There would probably be room for multiple start-ups in this field if they worked quickly. Likely one per country with a few in the US too.
>military requires more endurance that women normally have.

my understanding (and experience) is that women tend to have better endurance than men. I remember a few years back I was running with a friend of mine, a girl who was probably 10" shorter than I am, who had a notably worse BMI than I did (at least, she did when we started running together. she improved significantly more than I did during the course of our efforts. Maybe she was just more motivated than I was?)

All along, I could out sprint her, but when it came to distance running, from day one, half way through the run she'd start leaving me in the dust. Oh man, it was so humiliating, getting left in the dust by a short fat girl. (It was good for both of us, I think, really;)

Now, if you loaded us both down with 100Lbs of equipment and had us do the same run? sure, I'd kick her ass. I don't think she could lift a pack of that size.

So yeah, men are nearly always stronger but that does not mean we have better endurance.
I just recently got dental insurance again and now I'm kind of wondering how I should choose my dentist.

I was going to a dental school for treatment which meant that I was being treated by students under the supervision of dentists. They don't have a financial incentive to find cavities and everything is checked by two dentists.

It's possible that they have an academic incentive to find cavities (more practice for example) but at least two dentists have to agree with their assessment before they continue.

Unfortunately they don't accept insurance and my insurance company is kind of a pain when it comes to out-of-network dentists.
"Would a database server located in TX but web pages served to customers from California be ok?"

No. The central point is a piece of your business is inside of Texas.

This appears to be somewhat moot, as it looks like there's some uncertainty as to interpretation, but generally, it doesn't matter what part of the business is in the state, just that any part is.
And uneducated people shouldn't read this at all.
I admit that I went a bit overboard with the complaints about users, as seen in the out of context quote ;) This was mostly to accentuate that the few folks doing anything about D were (and still are) being ignored or actively bashed by the people in charge.
It could save other readers the time of loading a link that isn't going to work? I thought it was contributing in that sense.

He was -3 when I commented originally.
Maybe they forgot to pay their taxes.
Super-Soaker inventor may have solar-powered fuel cell breakthrough
I cannot help but wonder what portion of the 95% domination Novell contributes. I cannot help but suspect this is a case of a tiny nobody pretending he's best buds with the 800-lb gorilla that doesn't even know he's there.

I mean, sure, it adds to 95%- but who's to say Novell isn't only 3% by itself?
Here are previous submissions so people can catch up on earlier discussions:

+ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841068

+ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=927714 <- This one has some comments worth reading.
I think it should probably company policy at a financial institution not to allow someone in a different control on a handheld device to access the servers.
Turn on no procrast in your account settings.
This article was talking about sales tax, which is unfortunately non-zero in Texas.
Telling a poster their link is a 404 can contribute positively by prompting them to find an alternate URL. Otherwise, how would they know?
Linq.js - alternative to underscore.js
82%! Wow! Sensationalism at its finest.

This title takes advantage of the fact that human beings are bad at processing percentages and most aren't familiar with Bayes Theorem.

What are the natural frequencies involved?

With the iPhone 3GS, did the glass on 100 out of 1,000 iPhones break and with the 4G, it is now 182 out of 1,000 iPhones that break?

Or...

With the iPhone 3GS, did the glass on 100 out of 1,000,000 iPhones break and with the 4G, it is now 182 out of 1,000,000 iPhones that break?

As you can plainly see, without natural frequencies, this is clearly sensationalist linkbait.
DragonEgg - Using LLVM as a GCC backend
You need your existing (real) password to change your password; e-mail is still possible to change. Probable attack vector is to do "lost password" link and then change it, but the same is applicable to anyone with a smartphone too (it just now applies to anyone with any phone hooked up to FB).
Interesting. My entire upgrade took 52 minutes, and only had two prompts. Two more than I'd like, but two compared to the 20 someodd I used to get is great.
Given that Silicon Valley was basically founded on government money, the cleantech boom is hardly surprising. I just wish that government research funding would go back to the ARPA model: throw money at the brightest people with the best ideas.
Somebody should fix news.arc to include Argentina as a contry with second-level domains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ar
The article is FUD. Java is too important to too many people to not be around any time soon. Also, there's a GPL'd release and IBM's Java.
Amazon has already demonstrated a willingness to develop and release kindle software on 'competing' platforms. Even the iPad, which some consider a direct challenger of the kindle.

Should Amazon decide to exit the hardware space, there would still be the kindle software for other platforms.

The difference between Amazon and Walmart is that Walmart's music service was far from their core business. Amazon's business is to sell things, especially books, online. That's why they don't limit their ebooks to the kindle device. They don't care if you're using an iPad or a Blackberry, so long as you're buying some of your books from Amazon.

Walmart's core business is to sell things in stores. I'm not sure what value an online music store really gives them, so I'm not surprised they killed it.
Putting aside one's opinion on Facebook's stance around privacy, I think Facebook is one of the sites with the best measures to insure integrity of the site, at least for a consumer site.

A few times, I was warned that someone tried to accessed my account from a different computer, and went through a multi-step process to prove that I was indeed me. And, though it was multiple steps, it wasn't too much of a hassle actually.

Another time, one of my friends' account was compromised by a scammer and I got the account shut down in a couple of hours.

Recent activity and global logout is pretty useful. I imagine Facebook will offer a two-factor authentication at some point down the road.
Forgive me if the answer to this is obvious (I skimmed the linked page), but how much Rails/general programming experience do I need to be able to follow this?
I think you're right!
I was very pleasantly surprised to see the Activity in my account a few days ago. I know Gmail got there first a long time ago but it's very nice to have.

Now if I ever use it... It is hard to get to. I find that I peek at my Gmail activity more with the link on the bottom.
Certainly not the most relaxing move. :)
That's why you have a team of patent lawyers spend a week taking the engineer's specs and extending it into a 50+ page document.
But someone still has to define what it means to have "part of your business" in a state. You own fixed property that's located there? One of your employees works from home and lives there? One of your employees worked 2 hours while waiting at an airport in that state? Someone rents something from you and takes it into that state? Your cloud provider keeps a backup facility in that state?

It seems like the definition of what it means for a business to have nexus in a state (so, what business counts as "interstate") is a perfect thing for the feds to handle.
oh!
I was always wondering what that stands for.

Thanks alot :)
good good good goooooooooooooood
Generate your own GAP logo
I think that the article was implying that it in some countries it is easier to hire better (more qualified and possibly more talented) women than men. Eg - in Korea there are a large number of women with advanced university degrees in relevant fields who have more trouble than men finding work.

The article also said the researchers were speculating that women made better decisions because they were traditionally in charge of household spending and therefor understood the consumer better.
Not that I don't know but for the other readers here, how would one get laid with Erlang or Haskell?
Better yet, avoid recruiters completely - especially right out of college.
Some ebooks from Amazon, using the azw format, have better typography, which is controlled by the publisher. It's almost like a scan of the source text. For example, there can be variation between instances of a character, as you see in some printed books. ("Against The Gods" exhibits this.)

The kindle 3's sans-serif looks nice, too. Somehow higher-res than the serif font.
I feel like that's basically what I said.
Haunted houses, and carbon monoxide
80% to 90% sounds massively better than x-ray.
Similar problem: Online ordering for takeout (like opentable for takeout). Getting all the large restaurant chains is one project. Getting the hoards of small, mom & pop, owner-operated restaurants is another project. It's a big challenge. Selling them. Supporting them. In many cases, for example, there's no fancy POS machine. Just a piece of paper. A "dumb" cash register.
Seven Reasons the Windows Phone 7 will dominate
Job sites here (Australia) and the software used by larger employers usually has the option of "write here," attach or both. It seems like attachment is recommended.
I thought you were saying that business owners would be reluctant to share their data,e.g., for privacy or competitive reasons, versus:

1. The difficulty and expense associated with calling and converting smaller retailers

2. The amount of effort required by smaller retailers to integrate with your system coupled with the fact that smaller retailers are technologically lazy and don't readily understand the benefits of integrating

The "easiest" way might be to replace their inventory systems yourself, for example. This is more-or-less what OpenTable did.
kya rey betaaa
kya hulchul hain
aur batao
teekh hain
masth hain
Standard practice here in the US is a full mouth x-ray about once every 12-18 months, because that's what insurance will pay for.

(and my dentist is the same way -- he'll sit down with an x-ray and sometimes photos as well, and go over "OK, this might be the beginning of a cavity, or it might just be a stain from drinking tea/coffee...")
Indian Government Websites. Suck big time. Try anyone of them
So now your Facebook account is only as secure as your phone; after all, a chain is only as a strong as the weakest link.
In 1996 I helped startup a branch of a company in Seoul. We had a number of help wanted ads for office staff that got a lukewarm response until we put the phrase "married women welcome to apply". Seemingly overnight we got very talented applicants who became the backbone of the office and of the company as we opened more offices in country.
mastha hainaaasasaffsfsfsfsfsfsffsf fsfsfsfsf sdfsf sfsfsfs
paagal saaley
There are several Tools for Desktop, Mobile and Web which suit your description. Just compare and use one of them.
Unless you have some inside information, it's hard to say if they were undercharging for their service. Without knowing what their overhead was like I don't think it's fair to say that the service was underpriced.

Why should they charge their customers some kind of fair margin over their costs? If they save a customer $2000 of development time/effort/risk and charge them $99 per month, what does it matter if their costs are $10, $100 or $1000? Knowing whether or not I'm getting $99 of value from them does not in any way depend on knowing anything about their costs (other than being sure that their costs are covered so I won't have an emergency on my hands when they go belly-up).

Just because they can charge a lot for something doesn't mean they should.

If that maximizes their profit, it kind of does, IMO. I think that far too many startups are underpricing their offering rather than overpricing.

Disclaimer: I'm not a customer of theirs and hadn't even heard of them until yesterday.
Finding directions (parking or public transportation from your current location) to events is another good application.

Also, I wish sites had a link to google maps from their directions page.
Every single item of data can be considered 'original content' (unless you plagiarized it from someone else). All those listings (or objects) represent the informational abstract of the actual item you have to sell.

This 'original content' is the life blood of Google (and all the other search engines). Google, and Bing to a smaller degree, are trying to organize these bits of 'original content'. The problem that arises is when a big boy (like Amazon, eBay, et al) wants to hijack your search (via paid advertising).

The key to making all this work, is to find a business model where every seller (not counting the drop shippers) has an equal footing to sell the wares they have for sale (physical or electronic).

Amazon is not an equal opportunity listing agent. They play one seller against another in order to generate as much revenue as possible.
Everything sparks - it's not unique to american plugs. In the UK the contact is just deeper so you can't see it. If anything UK plugs spark more because the voltage is higher.

And sparks are not the cause of many house fires, you just made that up. The sparks are harmless, and I've never seen a plug with erosion on it. Just because you can do it doesn't mean it actually happens.
The missing mono-version-check in the bundle was fixed in an update about 30mins ago
Learning Python is from O'Reilly. If you go to their website, they'll sell you a DRM-free .mobi ebook that is compatible with the kindle.

You'll pay quite a bit more, though. $39.99 for the ebook, compared to $54.99 for print.
otp is great stuff, but it's a long way from becoming mainstream if it's kept hidden and difficult to use. first hurdle is getting people to understand why they would want to use it.

on an unrelated note, is anyone tackling comment spam by ignorant humans that's not relevant to the article? just look at the comments on the blog post to see what i mean.
Yup, you're sexist.

Anecdotal, but fairly true in my experience; when I did water polo in high school, it was coed. We didn't have many women interested in putting in the effort to land on the varsity team, probably for social reasons, but the handful that did were terrifying. I would rather have gone up against any two other people on the team than play polo with one of the women, because as it turns out there are certain things that guys just won't do to each other.
As an investor: What's the point of doing a convertible note?
I am talking about the convertible notes used recently by the latest batch of YC companies.<p>Is it just to get in the deal?<p>Do convertible notes actually pay the coupon on them, or does it just accrue and convert to equity?<p>If so, what is the downside protection to the investor if the company goes bust? Can they call the bond/note in a bankruptcy?
Diminished Reality - Remove items from a live video stream
I don't get it as much for iPhone, but I like the iPad's concept of distraction-free single-purpose focus apps.

It punishes procrastination/"zapping" more. This doesn't apply as much to consumption compared to production, unless you're reading articles or books.
I really have to agree. It's not my server. They are letting me use their server and store some files on it, but in no way do I believe that I would have a nexus in Texas.

Under these conditions, anyone with a Gmail account would have to pay taxes where ever their email is stored by Google.
See http://www.DailyPlatform.com. White label daily deal platform, expressly built for media companies.
Aaron Sorkin responds to critcism of The Social Network's portrayal of women
You are in Washington D.C.? Come join us next Monday at the D.C HN meetup.

http://www.meetup.com/JoinHNDC/

I am only here briefly, will be going back to Australia and would love to catch up with as many metro-folks as possible :-)
Leftronic (YC S10) looking for Lead Web Developer
Clockspot.com
I don't know the full details of this, but I'm not too worried. I doubt they will let you change your email/main password using the one time password.
Thanks for that.

Advice is great, but I can rarely get much from it without examples. Even reading "expert advice" on job sites and such is usually pretty flat. Saying "formal but not too stiff" means very little without an explanation.
Safari Extension to enable Incognito mode for Google and Facebook
Now that I'm contracting and have to pay for dental care out of pocket, I've been thinking that the next time I go to a dentist, I'm going to tell them up front that I am only there to see them for cleaning and x-rays, and that I will be taking their results to another dentist for drilling and filling.

This interview just reaffirms my total lack of trust. It's like going to an auto mechanic. Setting aside notions of customer loyalty and karma, and what would happen if word ever got out, the auto mechanic maximizes their revenue by screwing over their customer.

"Well, of course they're trying to screw you. What do you think? That's what they do. They can make up anything. Nobody knows. 'By the way, you need a new Johnson rod in there.' 'Oh, a Johnson rod. Yeah, well, you better put one of those on.'"

http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheFusilliJerry.htm
"The details are not details, they make the product."
Interesting Treehotel in Sweden
This very unusual hotel is called Treehotel.
If this was about four years from now, I would be all over it. I've been toying with the idea of someday expatriating to the Netherlands.
Google Instant Hits Mac Chromium, Full Chrome Feature Soon
Part of the equal footing in my mind is location. I want things locally, and it isn't just big box stores near me. The closest stores in fact are tiny, and that is likely the case for most people that don't live directly beside a Target or Walmart. You are correct in that Amazon breaks things a bit.
The high end core 7's are up to 6 cores now.
Counter example: Grace Hopper. That would be Rear-Admiral Grace Hopper to you.

I'm unsure about her cooking, but 2/3 ain't too bad.
In don't know if this is typical, but I've never gotten a toothache before it was time for a root canal.
Flood-proof road destroyed in deluge
I was under the impression that this problem had been solved, when I lived in Boston. Foodler and a few others seemed to make this possible with almost every place that had carry out. I put in (roughly) that I want pizza, that delivers near me, at 1am... and it found it.

When I moved to Columbus, Ohio I found that the penetration of these things really hasn't hit as strong nationally. There are some, but not every place does it.
Startup Mixology Conference October 28th in Chicago
But even that is a private organization not representing the state of Texas. It would be nice to see an official statement and not 2nd hand unwritten statement on something so important.
Specifically: SuperFetch, first seen in Vista:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I/O_technologies#...
Is that a safer bet than blackjack, or are you defining blackjack as "a game of skill"?

(I know it's a smaller house edge than roulette by some way, but not too familiar with craps)
We might have something interesting for you, product development role in Bangalore. Didn't see an email address on your profile. You can reach me at nc at appspark.us if you'd like to know more.
Pros and Cons of Creating a Contract Marriage with a Time Frame
Profound, but needs more profanity to compete with @shitmydadsays
This patent includes a bunch of specific optimizations that appear to be the result of some real work on GPU encoding.
> - Don't show "That email address was not found" when someone tries to recover a password. You are giving out too much info, which can be used maliciously.

Does this really matter if a site only allows 1 registered user per email address? I can farm this information by trying to sign up a new account.
I think that you'd be surprised at the sheer number of applicants a very basic programming challenge can weed out. The company that I work at has a simple test to parse a csv file and a surprising amount of people who appear to be good candidates bomb it.
The company I work for is trying to come up with a solution of it's own...

We're working on tagging our products with RFID. That way, we can show the inventory of the products online for consumers to see. Not only that, we can help our retail partners keep our product in stock.

It's at no cost to the retailer and relatively simple.

Walmart has been trying to get a similar system implemented for years (they're currently testing their latest iteration on denim - all denim is tagged supposedly).

We do not sell to Walmart, we're in a very different channel.
i dont like
No, I meant for all of those reasons, not any one. I'm sure there would be a wide variety of reasons a business wouldn't want to publish data. You're right to draw them out into separate worries.
How to Keep Facebook Groups from Taking Over Your Life
New Freelancer: Payment Terms
I am a web dev with almost 8 years experience and recently started freelancing on the side. I have had my first client for about a month now, just doing some maintenance on a single site.

I recently conducted a review on the code base for the site and came up with about 50-60 hours of enhancements. We originally agreed to work on an hourly basis and the expectation of about 5 hours of work per month. They agreed to pay me at the end of each month and they also thought some project work would come up.

Today, they agreed to the enhancements I recommended. They want all the work completed as one deliverable, but are proposing that they pay for three line items as monthly maintenance (they are roughly 5 hours each) over the course of the next three months. All other items are to be paid as they are completed.

Is this scenario considered standard practice? I have yet to receive payment for the first invoice, due on the 15th. I am a bit uncomfortable delivering without being paid for a month or two at a time. Advice is greatly appreciated!
Suing entrepreneurs for using the word entrepreneur in their company names
Natural Menopause Cures
DON’T PAUSE is a natural menopause treatment product for women who want to overcome their menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, sleep disorders, digestive disorders and weight gain, changes in skin tone and texture and other symptoms associated with menopause.