skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I worked in technical support for 12 years. Yeah it's amazing how people treat other people over the phone or email.
Extremely informative chart on US federal spending:

http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/

Though the chart only contains * discretionary* spending, so it doesn't include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and a few other things.
hmmm ... kind of a long road to a small house.
Anders Hejlsberg gives an introduction in this video where he mentions F# as a reference for ideas at the very beginning:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Anders-Hejlsberg-Intr...
Couldn't help but remember a TV show from my childhood called Roc about a garbage man. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101184/

I couldn't remember any shows that centered around postal workers. Seinfeld had a regular character and a few episodes about the postal system (but then that show had an episode about almost everything). But it did make me think about "Get a Life" which starred an adult paperboy http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=76500&lid=7

Construction crews was the same, I could think of several shows off the top of my head that center around the "idea" but none that landed right on it. There's Arrested Development which centers around a land development company (but really isn't about that all that much). Home Improvement, which isn't actually about home improvement and is more about a guy who has a show about tools. You said "show" but I'm guessing you meant sitcom/drama based on context so that rules out Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, since that's really reality-vertising. No worries, I'm sure someone on HN will figure this one out.

A truly gifted writer could make a show about almost anything interesting

I totally agree, including a cop/doctor/lawyer show. :o) One of my favorites was "Ed" on NBC ... first season only, though (http://stuckeyville.com).
The basic unit test suite for Backbone is here:

http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/test/test.html

But I'm afraid to say that we don't actually test the JavaScript in the DocumentCloud workspace very much. It's something that I'd love to do more of, but almost all of the bugs that actually occur in production aren't things that unit tests would catch -- unexpected responses from remote Ajax calls, CSS glitches in IE, etc.

That said, having nice standalone models is a great start for testable code.
The problem is that it's completely off-topic, and, to people unfamiliar with the show, makes absolutely no sense.
Well, we're working on becoming a "known" party, which is why we're starting to engage people early. We appreciate open dialog.

Great pickup on the stamps. We've paid for and been approved by the services. For A/B testing the signup page, some users are directed to a service where we cannot link them. Our site hosts them properly.
I cannot express how thrilled I am to see Microsoft address this problem in their language, and to see them do it in such a well thought-out way.

In particular, I was kind of underwhelmed by the Task stuff they added in 4.0, because what I was expecting was something like this new await/async syntax - so now, seeing that they used the (comparatively primitive) Task infrastructure in order to build await/async, I feel bad for doubting them. So far on a cursory examination, these new features solve almost all my concurrency problems (at least, from the perspective of a compiler), and should let me throw out a ton of existing code that I've been maintaining. I basically wrote my own cooperative scheduler and infrastructure to do exactly this on top of the iterator features from C#2/3, and it's been a godsend, so it's going to be nice to have it in the compiler :)

In particular I'm pleased that instead of dictating that everyone use only cooperative threading or preemptive threading for concurrency, they're exposing both scheduling techniques with easy-to-use APIs that integrate well with each other. To me, this seems like a much better approach than picking a One True Concurrency Mechanism (like, for example, node did).
Customize The Ubuntu Main Menu
Highlighting the "real" cost is critical. If something like this existed, say at the point of sale, I imagine lots of people would think twice about charging it. Thanks for the comment.
Google, HP, eBay And Yahoo Fund Group Behind Pro-Death Penalty Attack Ads
I'm only embarrassed by the projects I never started.
Sergey Brin On "To Tell The Truth" from 2000
Thanks folks, much appreciated! :)
Apple Rocketed Past Microsoft In Revenue This Past Quarter By Over $4 Billion
Excerpt from Do More Faster:  Avoid Co-Founder Conflict
but the term 'Linux' is commonly used as a shorthand for GNU, X, GNOME, the Linux kernel and more.

I know, I use that shorthand myself. But only one of the components you mention (GNU) was created for the explicit reason that the article describes.

those of us that understand the difference know the author is talking about GNU

I'm not sure even the author actually realises he was talking about GNU. The "Linux or GNU/Linux (sorry Richard Stallman)" quote gave me the impression that he has heard of RMS's pedantry about the term GNU/Linux, but he doesn't understand why RMS is pedantic about it, or any of the other relevant history.

and those that don't think Linux is GNU anyway.

... which would seem to justify the comment, in itself. :)

BTW, _Why_ does this have more upvotes than WildUtah's comment?!? Their comment is far more to the point than my one.
Microsoft PDC10 attendees get free Windows Phone 7
My guess is that if you'd already heard of WePay before yesterday, you weren't the target audience for this publicity stunt.
A simple validation of ownership would be something like google uses for the google apps for domains: generate a unique id and ask them to create a file of that name on the domain. As a secondary check ask for something to be created in the dns records for the domain.
If you're ever in NYC, would love to grab a bite! Thanks for the offer!
Isn't an Injunction attack use to hack the court systems?
How many hits did you get for the past few days?

What were the traffic sources?

You might be able to do more targeted advertising to bring in more users, although that would obviously cut into your meager earnings at this point.

Anyways, good on you for executing on an idea! Many people don't even get to that point.
The parents implies there is not even an absolute concept of wealth.
Might have been the straw that broke the camel's back ... it loads a couple hundred thumbnails since I haven't gotten around to paginating it / sorting that stuff out yet.
I tried looking for more details about how exactly the company helps eliminate debt. Certainly even more cautious at the idea of linking up my CC to a website.

If there were more details explaining the process, I think more cautious people (like me) would be willing to try it.
Are you interested in .NET? Would you be willing to move? (We're close to Heathrow Airport)

If so, email me at iolande@gmail.com - the company I work for is recruiting. Experience with .NET is less important to us than a demonstrable passion for solving problems and learning new technologies. Sounds like it might be a good fit :-)
Why does the Customer Service Engineer require a college degree when the Backend Engineer does not?
Sorry, where is that again ?
Is this looking just through a known list of exploits for popular packages/libraries, or is it doing something find holes in my application code?

I'd certainly be interested in the later, and even just hearing how you go about that.
Well, I guess if you wanted an outside validation of the effectiveness of the student's work, a C&D is probably not a bad objective measure.
That is the point of contention and why I said it is a difficult spot. We are taking a very pragmatic approach to growth but that means that for the time being, that we have to pull a lot of hours for a time to ensure that we are at a point to sustain another hire, when the numbers reflect a sustained volume then we can justify the hire. It also means that because we are growth oriented that we have to take the projects to grow. After we move through this critical point the reserve starts to stack up so that another employee is not such a risky venture. The issue is not only is it bad to burn a client, but it is also just as bad to burn a good developer with on again off again employment. So we want to ensure that once we pick one up that we keep them for the long haul. We have a great reputation as a development house from both clients and employees and we intend to keep it that way. We have to stack up the reserve to do so. The hope is to build the development house on contracts and then pivot into a product company once we have amassed a solid team. That will be the next difficult transition for us and we are already laying plans for the time when revenues and growth can sustain that transition of business models.
Will Google's Online Operating System Revolutionize the Computer?
Until recently I was looking at TDD as a necessary evil - yes, it saves your ass a lot of times, but writing tests doesn't feel fun nor very productive - I don't know if I can speak for others, but for myself there are two things that I like most in programming, 1st: creating cool, new features; 2nd: polishing/refactoring the code until it becomes a state of art.

And what I've found out not a long time ago is that TDD helps a lot with the 2nd point, but only (again, at least for me) if you aim for the 100% code coverage. Yes, I know it sounds silly, and pointless, and that code coverage doesn't mean that much, but anything lower than those 100% makes you too relaxed about quality of the code and leads to skipping the parts that are harder to test, and most often they are hard to test because they are badly written (bad architecture, bad API decisions, etc.).

When you go for a 100% CC you have to examine all those parts, and change the code so it actually can become testable, and it's often hard and requires making big changes in many places. It's challenging, but challenging means fun. And you learn a lot, but learning a lot is fun too. So, double win (triple, if you count easier bugspotting)!
This surely applies to 'dream entrepreneurship' as well.

> The more you're bombarded with messages promoting the [entrepreneurship] path to happiness, the more likely you are to ossify your view of the working world into normal boring jobs vs. [entrepreneurship]. Once you've made this division, you're much less likely to start investing the hard, unsexy, ongterm work into your current career needed to grow it into something deeply fulfilling.

I understand how out of place this sentiment seems in what is essentially a forum for entrepreneurship, but is it possible we've over-romanticized that lifestyle?
Naturally, it’s important to note that Microsoft still has a lead in profit — $5.41 billion to $4.31 billion — but that’s because one is mainly a software maker (huge margins), while the other is mainly a hardware maker (lower margins).

But comparing revenue between the two makes so much sense... What a misguided post.
Does Google permit telling how much are you earning with Adsense?
Another hidden benefit that they may or may not make use of - Apple can directly observe their users interfacing with their products. With websites and to a certain extent with software, usability data collection is a given. But for consumer products like iPods, iPhones and Macs, it's a little harder to come by. By having thousands of end users in dozens of stores around the world playing with their gear, it seems like a great opportunity for Apple to get direct feedback on user pain points.
None of those except perhaps welfare implies that the money is going to people less productive than yourself. Also, I'm sure many people on welfare would love to have a good job and be productive.
A false dichotomy. The choice isn't between living in a police state and running amok with your slingshot.

I see no dichotomy between keeping a properly sized professional army, a militia, and an unorganized militia. The problem is that temptation of giving up responsibility entails giving up freedom and the issue of incentives.

I certainly do not like to see another Napoleon and Ceasar arising from the improper organization of military defense. Men like George Washington are rare in the history of the world.

But let's see what happens if we were to hijack each other's brands. Maybe we should take over the YCombinator trademark. After all, enforcing trademarks isn't directly concerned with national defense. In the name of limited government, it's OK to suggest affiliations with corporations by using their trademarks without their approval. Especially since we dyed-in-the-wool libertarians don't believe in negative externalities, and that businesses have the right to do whatever they want. Those other companies with their putative concerns about reputation and perception about their brands, trademarks and logos are third parties to the exercise of our God-given libertarian rights. I only hope my militia is stronger than their militia.

Much problem are there with the silliness of trademarks. However, I have little to say on this issue either way. I did studied patents and copyrights system and concluded to the best of my knowledge that they are not good public policy.

As I noted, libertarians hated the congestion on public roads. We certainly do believe in negative externalities. Does it not goes further to say that libertarians thought certain kind of regulations hurt the regular people and benefit corporations? There is such term called crony-capitalism, you see.

If a militia decided to invade a country for the sake of ransacking it, than the milita lost sight of its purpose.
There are some great ways of gaming the system, especially if you can segment your customers effectively.

If everyone knows your average spend, then you can sell bargains to cheapskates and enhanced experiences to show offs...
People really need to be convinced that leading a normal, humble lifestyle is just as good (or even better) that one based upon peer pressure 'keeping up with the gang' spending patterns. I could go on and on, but I'll leave it at that. Money can't buy you happiness, but being deep in debt will certainly bring heartache.
Fact: your info in great detail is available for about .20 for targeted marketing purposes. Thank you for the comment, we agree :)
37Signals Doubles Price for Basecamp
Humm.. interesting.. I can see where you are going with this... would love to share some ideas with you guys but I am in Toronto. Maybe next time...
I totally get that it was successful stunt that got them attention. Any attention is good attention and all that. That wasn't my point though.
Copying the concepts in a piece of code doesn't fall under the restrictions of copyright, so the license is irrelevant; there's no copying of the actual code involved here.
I figured out what they do by pressing on "documentation." Definitely not ideal, most website visitors will not want to click on a button called documentation.

But the documentation was clearly written. I figured out how it works after reading the first page.

One note to Embedly: the first example in your documentation includes a link to a blogging site that no longer exists. You might want to change that so your customers do not think your service is old or abandoned.
My solution so far has been to be a dork that women don't even want to talk to. >_<
I had a one night stand with Christine O'Donnell
Illumos gets a new logo, an orange bird
I'm going to guess that it was a fellow student.

I'm not sure about New York, but it costs more than $8.00 in court fees to file a small claims action where I live. While it's true that people don't always act rationally with money, this seems a little too odd to be real.
They have been freakishly coherent about building features on top of the old ones.
That's pretty ridiculous. I loaded it and immediately was surprised, who could have seen that coming! Google video is still active, wow!

(But also, that was fun to watch.)
Update: Jason Fried responds

Shortly after our post went live, 37signals founder Jason Fried left a comment, clarifying that they are toying with the design of the sign-up page, but that all of the old plans are still available.

"While we used to have four plans on the sign up chart, today we only have three," said Fried. "Same prices as before, just fewer plans displayed. A while back we used to have six plans to choose from, but we found that was ultimately confusing customers. So we went to five. Then we went to four. Now we're experimenting with three."

Fried echoed Hansson's earlier statement that the changes are purely experimental and that they may continue to alter the plans listed on their sign-up page, depending on their findings.
you just have to REALLY want it. if you want it badly enough you will figure out a way to make it work. launching a company while working another full time job will force you to work within constraints that will help you create a more profitable and more efficient company than if you had plenty of time and plenty of money. that's what worked for me, anyway.

@undrwd thank you for the shout out :)
First, thanks for the offer.

If you still have the bandwidth, can you please take a look at the home page of
http://caniafforditnow.com and offer an alternate design suggestion.
We got negative feedback about the colors and color combination, so simply your advise on some alternate
designs would be very helpful.

my email hrajagopal(at)yahoooooooo.com
but it took 12 hours to make a site that makes 250 a day

I'd really like to see the stats on that.

Every time someone tells me that they spent (small amount of hours) on a website that (makes more than $1 a day) they are exaggerating to the extreme by not including advertising, hosting, domain expenses and maintenance time.
Iterative Recursion, Not Recursive Iteration
F&S on Europe’s Military Helicopter Market: 2006-2015
If you believe the statistic, and I don't anyway, having something installed doesn't mean it works properly, ala the Mac and Linux users in this thread.
Poetic, but not particularly informative.
I took a quick look but couldn't figure it out either. I have good success posting stuff to stackoverflow.com when I'm stumped. Maybe you can submit the URL and somebody over there can help figure it out.

No problem and good luck with your site!
I wonder how they calculate wealth and if they've ever tried to track which direction most people move on the wealth scale.
I think the premise (looking for marriage) puts a lot of guys off. Even though marriage is exactly what I'm looking for, I steer clear of eHarmony because I'm afraid of what kind of women it might attract. I have a friend who got married to a woman he met on eHarmony, and he seems happy. Still, I have this horrible fear of meeting a woman who has marriage tunnel vision and through sheer determination makes it work somehow even though it shouldn't.

I know it's a stereotype of the marriage-obsessed woman, but my only concrete model for this fear is a woman I know whose husband feigned a lot of interests and personal characteristics that he dropped within a month of getting married, not to mention that he suddenly started nagging her to change a bunch of things about herself that he never seemed to mind before. So it's a fear I would expect women to have, too. It surprises me that anyone is on eHarmony at all!
According to the site, Groupon will take 30% if the deal is promoted (which seems to include email/Facebook/Twitter advertising) and 10% if not. It's not entirely clear if you can pick any deal to be promoted (after approval by them), or if that option will be throttled somewhat.
Interesting. Even though I fully subscribe to the minimalist notion, I would have opened notepad and at least entered valid HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Hello page</title>
<p>Hello world</p>

Thanks for sharing that viewpoint. I never thought of it that way. (Perhaps freelancing has made me forget good habits.)
The problem with this is, at least from my perspective, is i hate people that pussyfoot around, if you want something, please just come out and say so.

A lot of the people that want to "build a relationship" are extremely annoying because of this, i dont want to build a relationship with you, if you just get down to doing something then a relationship just happens naturally.
"In other words, the reason why some people see their work as a calling might have little to do with the work itself, and a lot to do with how the person approaches the work. "

For all of my working life I've had the tremendous benefit of changing jobs completely every two years or so while staying employed by the same organization.

I've had jobs that I've loved, and jobs that I've hated. I approach most jobs with the same positive attitude (at least to start). The jobs I've loved have related to what I'd consider my calling. If I could do those jobs or similar for the rest of my life I'd be very happy.

So I'd suggest trying to find those kind of jobs that make you feel like that and stick with it.
Prank with a Рenis Tattoo
you're going to die sometime, so i think following your dream while you're alive is a worthwhile pursuit.
Colour trademark
This sounds an awful lot like a solicitation. That's not what HN is for.

If you're offering free advice on how to sell various types of products ("product" by itself is incredibly vague) then offer a free phone call, etc.. If you'd like to show off what you've been able to do, then submit a blog post with an interesting/unusual story that people will want to read.

But... aren't you just pitching your services here? Don't do that.
Mozilla stomps IE (1997)
I sort of agree. I see the potential for video chatting, and think it's going to take off in a big way. That said, given the typical lifetime of a smartphone (ie. 2-3 years), I don't see a front-facing camera as a priority right now (despite the fact my aging Motorola and SE phones have them...). In a couple years, when (or if) video calling takes off, then it'll be a priority.
Symbian: A Lesson on the Wrong Way to Use Open Source
correct me if i'm wrong, but I thought "the Dell Guy" that comes is a 3rd party company? They'll come to your office and fix your machine, but I'm not sure that guy is a Dell employee...
You have to believe those Apple stores are there for far more than just looking pretty and selling nice toys. They are evaluating their users for sure.
So you've decided to give up programming, then? Because otherwise, it's not.
Yep. I went to a non-ivy league college but nonetheless I didn't know how to communicate with working class people either until I did a working class job following graduation.
Well. What he's just saying is that Apple is getting a feedback and listenning to it.
So when I brought my 1 year mac and refused to pay 1000 euro to fix it. I guess the next customer won't have the same issue. COOL.
The iPhone4 camera oversaturates and has problems with the white balance. The N8 camera is the leader of the pack right now.
I really like that Eric Lippert dropped this little nugget on us as the end of a long and nerdy blog series :-)

I would love to shadow that compiler team for a week or two, and get to sit in on some of those discussions.