skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While it's not my primary means of communications, my Facebook account gets near 0 spam (both literal spam and "mailing lists which are fairly boring but every now and again I should check") which means that while I made everything else in my smartphone just give a little "pop" sound, Facebook messages (and SMSs) actually make a "pring-pring" (more noticeable) sound -- if my Facebook mailbox has something in it, there's a high likelihood it's a real person, needing something real from me (and there's a high likelihood that I want to give them that, since I actually know them...)

My point: It's actually rational to assume FB messages are more valuable, and given people who do that, it's equally rational to send them messages on FB :)
very true, and it's shocking how little most founders (or for that matter executives at large companies) have studied strategy. as well as business strategy (Porter, the "balanced scorecard", strategy maps) there are also a lot of insights from political and military strategy.
I've never written a cover letter. All my jobs (apart from one) have been through personal contacts. They only even wanted my CV to file with HR.
It will delay the problem for another 10, maybe 20, years but it will not solve the problem.
Plants vs. Zombies is quite possibly the best game on the iPhone, hands down.
Check out Smashing Magazine http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

Their posts are usually really informative and provide a lot of jumping off points and design analysis. They have a book out as well that I've only thumbed through a bit, but looked really well done.
Moving Differently: Behavior Driven Moving
If people understood the simple difference between strategy and tactic.

Hm. Is it okay to write that, then not go on to describe the difference?
Can somebody explain to me why fcnfhdn got -3 points here? it's his/her opinion about the article's look which to me is his/her prerogative. it is feedback to the writer about one of the aesthetic element of the piece so it is relevant to the discussion. I'm puzzled at this seemingly random negativity. thanks.
>> you think you've got an okay grasp of a subject, you're probably in the 90th percentile somewhere.

You may be in the 90th percentile if you have an okay grasp of the subject. However, way more than 10% think they have an okay grasp of any subject (probably more than 90%).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
"80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver."
I have never been to Colorado. I mostly snowboard at Mammoth, but I moved to the east coast. I really only eat the nachos because that's the easiest thing to get at the lodge...
I never heard a Spaniard referring to São Paulo as San Pablo.
Personally, I find that my #1x60 Wiha can tackle just about anything. What it can't do, a drill with a replaceable #2 bit does.
The New Sharing Economy
My guess is Calacanis gets lots of notifications and he probably just missed it.

The group creator controls when the group is made public, and given Facebook's track record, you should probably assume anything you write in Facebook (except private messages) may eventually be public. Also I believe you can be "force joined" to non-private groups.
There are plenty of people that make their own spirits/beer/moonshine, even though other substances are available. In some areas of the US, there is a thriving, illicit moonshine trade, yet there are liquor stores abound. Some people prefer moonshine.

right you are never going to kill it completely but the point is the moonshiner are in no way mainstream there are far more drug dealers than moonshiners, with one in virtually ever neighborhood in America. The point is, there will be people who prefer it and will go to any length to get it and by making a weaker safer legal alternative reduces the economically viability of producing moonshine, Heroin et. al.

Also, the US did outlaw liquor (18th amendment), and many people went through much hassle.

Beer was also prohibited which is exactly my argument, if you are going to make it illegally, you are going to make the hard stuff that requires less logistics to transport and has a better rate of return. American consumption of liquor skyrocketed in comparison to beer during the prohibition years and it was the only years in America that it did so. Many speakeasy sold liquor and mixed drinks exclusively. If liquor where outlawed and only beer remained, the consumption of liquor wold drop further due to the alternative being available.

Not that I am advocating the abolition on liquor. Just highlighting that we have clear historical reference that prohibition creates a preference for the strongest formula available. And the availability of a safer alternative reduces the economic viability of more potent products.
What can Diaspora learn about security from Microsoft?
Um, my point was that the .ly domain regulations include that you must follow Libyan law, so technically even the domain regulations are not explicitly stated because Libyan law seems hard to track down.
The firefighting fee was $75. Wouldn't it have been more "economical" to accept what he offered to pay, on the spot, and save the man's house? Instead of teaching him a lesson? He was willing to pay thousands.

I mean, I am all for free market, but libertarians are pushing the limits of common sense just to maintain intellectual consistency. Isn't there a room for "late fee", or "environmental damage", or just good ole "bad PR" in their model?
One Billion Dollars Wait… I Mean One Billion Files
I do like the content of MDC, but it can be frustrating at times, as it seems to have broken links (links that go to pages which have had their content merged into a different page).

Or apparently, on the Processing XML with E4X page, there are errors in the page: /content/body/div[2]/pre[1]/@function, reference to undefined name 'syntax': line 1, column 1 where every code sample should be.

It's under a CC license, so I am hoping that someone will make a better interface for the content some day.
While I've never been on Oprah, I have had my startup featured (~8 min. segment) on a show on the CBC (Canada's national broadcaster.)

Hardly a blip in load.

We had a few more emails than usual offering "advice," though.

That said, it sounds like a good excuse to take a good look at your caching, landing pages, and conversion funnel. And, if you are worried about needing to scale fast, consider something like chef for automating infrastructure setup, so that even if you don't need it for Oprah, it's work that you'll use when you do need to scale.
The problem with indulging RFC violations is that then you're married to whatever configuration is currently working. The future is uncertain, and if you someday run into a use case that breaks (several of which are mentioned in this article), or want to switch DNS providers, you'll find yourself constrained.
Reading this I think that, actually, he likes this film not because it is a brilliant topic or for the fact it is about Facebook - but because it is extremely well written and realistic.

I agree entirely with his gripe that such a thing is unusual for "big" modern films.

This actually might make me go and see it now :)
If you're a firefighter equipped to deal with disaster, you do your damn best to do your fucking job whenever the opportunity presents itself

It's easy to call on other people to risk life and limb. 'Cos it's their "job" right? Which they volunteered to do for the benefit of the community, of which this person had voluntarily opted out by not paying his fair share. Remember community implies obligations as well as benefits.
There have already been terrorist bombing attacks on high speed rail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_accidents

It turns out that high speed trains are a lot more robust than planes: the failure mode is usually "soft", i.e. the train comes to a halt safely and damage is confined to one carriage (unlike an airliner). To inflict mass casualties (e.g. 7/7, Madrid) attackers target either busy subway systems at rush hour (7/7) or busy transport terminals with lots of people (Madrid). It's worth noting that both 7/7 and the Madrid bombings involved large suicide teams and multiple bombs -- but killed fewer people than a typical airliner bombing.
The NY Times noted that audience reaction to The Social Network has been split very firmly by age:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/business/media/04carr.html

Basically, older folk think the thing is a hatchet job on Mark Zuckerberg, and that he comes across as a tragic figure. Younger folk seem to think of Zuck as a hero, who pulled off world-changing accomplishments despite rich idiots trying to bring him down.

I think the difference is not actually "old" and "young", but "technical" and "nontechnical". People who like technology and understand it (this does not include Aaron Sorkin) are awed by Zuck's accomplishments, while those who do not understand how hard it was instead focus on his personal failures. Adams, who is in his 50s but firmly understands technology, reinforces this view.
What's the point of using frid.ge when you have fb groups?
I want to do the same (not suck at it) so i started to look at web design communities a while ago. I found some interesting things that helped me be a little better:

- http://webtypography.net/ for typography basics

- http://uxmovement.com/ for general user experience advice

- http://uxmovement.com/resources/4-best-design-pattern-librar... (inspiration :) )

- http://alpha.patterntap.com/collections/Tabs (found recently about it).

- http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/25-classic-font...

Hope it helps.
Very interesting, especially the finding that online sharing predicts offline sharing. The authors of the article say that it's "largely because they are learning to trust each other online" although I haven't seen that in the data they've posted yet. Looking forward to the rest of the study. Thanks for sharing!
You can have a functional site with no design

I would disagree with this. Without design of some sort, you don't have an interface at all, and thus no functionality; all you have is inaccessible backend code. Regardless of whether there was intent to design or not, if there's a user interface, there's design.

I think that's actually where a lot of design failures happen: They start with the misconception that something was not a design process and thus didn't need design thinking. By the time design is brought into the picture, there are often underlying inflexibilities and assumptions about use patterns that have real effects on user experience, and the design process is working at too high a level to solve them.

Is design is more important than engineering? Neither good design nor good engineering can succeed without the other.
I'd advise branching out in the beginning. I learned too much Java in the beginning and wish I'd tried Python earlier. I also think that some languages (especially Lisp) will teach you things about other languages.
No the insurance was $75. See the difference? Everyone's small fee upfront is what purchased all the equipment. If you wait 'til after, then you've got nothing when you need it.

And a man who won't pay up $75, will he pay thousands once you've already put the fire out?
This is a good point. I'm not in the target audience for McDonalds either, but even if I were and I really really liked McDonalds, it wouldn't make it any healthier or more substantial. I would still be better off eating something else.
Very nice. That's a tool I was just about to need.
My circles and rectangles are a bit sloppy... Scratch that, I found the toolbox. Awesome.
Agree, but using the word "genius" is still a bit extreme, which is what I think incited that reaction.
I think the yield/harvest concept described here is one of the more useful models I've heard about in a while for thinking about fault-tolerance tradeoffs. My thanks to @codahale for the write-up, and particularly for the references.
Of course when my house was robbed the insurance companies went out of their way to avoid paying for...well.. anything. We had about $5000 in property stolen. We ended up getting a check for $2200 ($1000 deductible).

We had visual evidence for everything expensive. It was the little things, like fighting with them over whether or not those diamond earrings were actually diamonds. They turned the thing into a war of attrition. They figure that if they fight everything, you'll pick and choose your battles. Ultimately, saving them a lot of money.

They were right. Life's to short to bicker with those jag-offs.
nicely done! passing this on to my ui/uix friends right now.
Well one alternative might be to apologise to the fire-fighters, and agree to pay them a lot of money - way over the missed premiums - to put the fire out. This would help you, because you would otherwise lose way more money instead, and it would help them, because they could sidestep the claim that "if everybody did this...". You could even say that upfront payers get priority over one-off payers.
An analogy: a tactic is like a procedure, a strategy is like a program.
What, exactly, does the "free market" or "intellectual consistency" have to do with the firefighting policy of the governments of that city or the Alaskan city?
Part of good, early design is working with engineers to make solid, appropriate technical choices that will affect user experience.
"I would consider owning no tools and and getting other people to handle all your repair work to be a fine example of a certain type of minimalism."

Ah yes, good point, and I agree. I guess I was too fast in making a generalization on my own behavior re: the tasks for which one would use a screwdriver. I guess I own many tools because I'm frugal :)
Mark Zuckerberg is a genius.
Libertarians and the free market? Isn't this story about a government-run fire department?
I'm in Maryland and have been having a hard time finding a good local used bookstore. What's the name of it?
Evolving Images with JavaScript and canvas
This ignores the option of putting out the fire and charging more than the fee would ever have been over the life of the house. Pay the fee each year and we'll put out your house for free. Don't pay the fee, and we'll still put out your house if you want us to, but we'll charge 200 years worth of fees.
I do actually, more for the effect on credibility than for anything else. Just as users have "itchy back buttons," I think they also have "meh, this is the last straw, I'm going to try out the competition" moments.
I'm not convinced that online sharing has caused offline sharing, although there are examples of online communities such as couchsurfing that have brought online communities offline.

This seems like a case of correlation not equalling causation. These are probably the people that are more likely to be trusting and sharing both online and off.

That said, people have been sharing for millennia, so are we just now learning to trust each other, and is it because of the internet?
Isn't R an open source implementation of S? S was not invented in NZ.
I'm curious which sections of craigslist you look through. Web / Info design? Software / qa / db? Internet engineers?
I've seen a lot of coverage of Zuck as a "genius computer hacker", reinforced by the Hackers-style montage in the film which makes it look like what he did was really hard (oh no, he busted out emacs! He must be a genius!).

Actually, Facebook's core functionality, at least at small scale, is trivial. It's a database of people, with CRUD on top. All the really hard technical problems Facebook has solved -- and there were many, don't get me wrong -- have to do with scaling that system, and those problems were solved long after Zuck was no longer hands-on with the code every day.

That's not to say I don't think Zuck is really smart. What I think he's really smart at, though, is interface design and user experience. The film touches on this, noting that Facebook's exclusivity was key to its early popularity. However, the reason Facebook really trounced Friendster and MySpace was that it was a much, much better experience. Everything worked perfectly and each screen was carefully thought-out in terms of information density and placement.

Of course, Sorkin's narrative for the film is that Zuck is an aspie geek who built a website because he doesn't understand people, so the counter-evidence -- that Facebook's design is clearly built by somebody who understands people very well indeed -- has to be downplayed.
The one thing I really appreciated about the movie was the accuracy of the computer monitor shots and dialogue about servers/hacking. While pretty basic Apache config stuff, It's nice to see a respect for the technology.
Spaniards are less than 10% of the Spanish speaking population.
From the report..and where much of the ludicrousness surround HFT exists:

"Between 2:45:13 and 2:45:27, HFTs traded over 27,000 contracts, which accounted for about 49 percent of the total trading volume, while buying only about 200 additional contracts net... "

While buying only 200 additional contracts...HFT algo's pinging the market with orders never placed :D
I have nothing to add to this. One of the nice things about rye is that it's cheap (for now); avoid Old Overholt and you're going to do just fine.
College Essay for Writing
The essays written in college are more complex than that of high school writing. Therefore, students should be familiar with what makes them different and similar. The knowledge they gain will allow them to apply the right elements to their college essay writing.
Got Great Reviews on HN. Seeking Co-Founder.
I'm building an online faxing and electronic signature tool, called HelloFax.com. Hacker News gave us great reviews:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=hellofax&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I outsourced a lot of it and had a technical co-founder assist with the rest. But, my co-founder got busy with work. We parted on great terms and I'm continuing with the startup.

The paid version is very close to being finished. The e-signature tool is awesome. I showed it to a lot of people at TechCrunch Disrupt and they loved it. With some connections from Google Ventures, I'm able to get local fax numbers on demand, API access and wholesale rates. Normally you have to be a high volume company to get the rates and access that I'm getting.

So, what's left until paid launch:
1. Final setup of the Asterisk Fax Server
2. Completion of editor and signature tool (it's 75 percent done, not yet visible on the domain)
3. Billing system

It's a cash product. No pie in the sky here.

I'm hoping to find a developer in the Bay Area to help me out. We can do equity, labor swap, rev share or payment -- depending on the cost.

If you're interested, know someone, or have any advice on finding a co-founder, please let me know.

Thanks HN!
V8 Benchmark Suite Updated
Employers pay half of payroll taxes for their employees. Freelancers pay the full amount, around 15% for social security and medicare.

Obviously that means employers offer lower salaries since they care about the total cost to them not the actual salary amount. So it's not really a bad deal for free lancers, just the amount you get paid has to be/sound higher to make things equivalent.
I know that people are still up in arms over the Alabama/Tennessee/wherever firefighters that sat and let a house burn because of this, but I honestly don't see a problem with this. For most places, firefighting is a part of taxation. These people have $75 less in taxes, and $75 more as a "optional" insurance policy.

And to all the people saying "Well pay them when they show up", do you drive around without insurance until you crash, and then go to an insurance company with your monthly payment in hand and say "Pretend I've been paying this all along, now go fix my car"? Do you skimp on health insurance payments until you're in the hospital and expect to only have to pay the cost of a month's worth of health insurance? I'm really not seeing why there's such a disconnect here.

And yet, these are the same people that have a problem with the "omg terrible communist" idea of a national health care system. Sheesh.
Breaking Point: Who Cracks Under Pressure?
Browser bookmarks w/ folders never mapped to delicious w/ tags. We tried.
Thanks for the feedback. We will be adding the social features in the next update.
The difference is that any engineer can build an interface, even if it sucks, but the reverse is not true.
If statements? Case statements? Arrays and pointers? If you want minimalism, pickup a functional language and go pointfree.
How is the concept of ranking websites based on links a laughable idea? We already knew search would be worth billions at that point and the methodology of ranking sites during the bubble was awful.
WHY DOES Your CHILD FEAR? | Healthmad
It's not just about a single non-paying member. It's unfair to the paying houses around him to have a charred building next to theirs. It would depreciate their property values worse than anything. Not to mention the unsightly view, odors and mess.

Since they're able to constitute these drastic "watch it burn" policies by fiat, why not have a policy entitling the fire department to your car, luxury items, a portion of your income or some of your property if and only if they save your house when you're without policy?

If you have seen drunks and problem gamblers, you would know that not all people are equally responsible. It would be better for society, as a whole, if fees were taken from them in small portions, and put to service when and where they're needed.
Or you could just pay the fee and pretend it's a tax.
I got a 2401 on Chromium 7.0.544.0/Ubuntu 10.04.
An excellent question, as a practical manner. Mind, there are ways people can be compelled to pay, within various limits.

Some search-and-rescue services (I believe in Norway, for one set of examples) have a nominal, voluntary fee that hikers and skiers can opt to pay or not. If payers need rescue, they don't have to pay anything beyond that original fee. If non-payers get rescued, they get a big bill for search helicopter fuel, labor, etc. spent in looking for them.

Something like that seems sensible to me - if the guy had said, "Yes, please put out my house, I'm aware you'll bill me,", maybe signing a waiver or whatever to prevent problems with the firefighters' insurance company, then the firefighters could try to save his house and then the city could bill him, then sue him or garnish his wages, etc. if he refused to pay.
Planetonline.net out of business?
represent years of hard work

Facebook has only been around for 6 years. The first investment of a half million dollars was made 6 months after the site had launched. I'm not diminishing Zuckerberg's insight or hard work but anything that takes off that fast involves a lot of luck.
Michael Milken: Toward a New American Century
Tactics are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked in a bigger overall plan of action.

The right strategy makes tactics work better. The right strategy puts less pressure on executing your tactics perfectly.
What kind of asshole do you have to be to refuse to pay $6.25 a month and then expect to free ride on a service the rest of the neighborhood paid for?
I've found that sometimes passing in a function/function pointer as a parameter makes this a lot cleaner.
Option B: important information has been lost in your skimming of a two sentence summary of a ten minute description of a multiple-month battle about tax treatment and expectation management regarding a generous equity grant.