skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Making sure I understand, is this 'irony'?

Alanis is a regional manager, overseeing several stores. Her office is located in a specific store. Alanis decices to institute a 'no smoking' policy on breaks for all stores, but not her own store (where her office is located - she loves to smoke cigarettes).

Corporate agrees and it becomes company policy. Impressed by Alanis's HR policy, they transfer her to an ailing store, where smoking is banned and she cannot undo corporate policy.
Angels are looking for a 10x return because startups are incredibly high risk, even aiming for a 10x return the average angel only gets back 2.5x, so it's really not worth their while to invest in low return startups.

(A talk about this here: http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/10/low-valuations-on-drag...)

If you're willing to give up significant percentage of equity (40-50%) you could probably raise $50k for a company that'll make 350k/year.

The other main alternative is by obtaining a bank loan, but this would have to be personally secured and you'd still be liable for the debt if the company failed.

If your company is going to be serving a few big customers as opposed to lots of small customers, another possibility would be to approach your customers for investment, as their interest will primarily in the product rather than the ROI.
There's an chapter in "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmann" about something similar. Students in Brazil achieved fantastic marks in exams, but were unable to translate memorized formulas to practical use.

The chapter is online here http://randomgraphs.blogspot.com/2009/06/feynman-on-educatio...
Though the investigation is still ongoing, Mr. Watkins said the responsible parties could face “serious charges” for their prank. “Childish pranks just don’t have a place anymore,” he said. “What may have been seen as cute and clever years ago really doesn’t get that kind of reaction today.”

The saddest thing I've read in a very long while. You don't think about it much day to day, but we've lost so very much. The terrorists didn't just win, but with our all too zealous aid, they frikkin' rocked the house.
During the signup process, if you skip adding an app there’s no way to come back. Update profile should include an option to add an app.
Yeah, but a level of sanity and enjoyment at the place you spend most your waking hours is often more important than the paycheck.
Statement by the ASF Board on our participation in the Java Community Process
These people are of course Indian students trying to download code.

The root problem is population. Only few elite colleges have phd/masters teachers. To get into these elite few the ratio of candidates appearing is 130 PER SEAT !!

Now even if you are a brilliant student, you are not guaranteed admission due to a certain 'balancing factor'. You need good marks in all subjects equally, not just the ones you are interested in. (I scored 4 times the cutoff in physics but still couldn't get into IIT, due to 2 marks lower in chem. I hated cramming inorganic salt colors.)
As a result even many brilliant students enter bad colleges with very bad teachers. Again the 'balancing factor' jumps in. The aim, it seems, is to keep the student busy (with useless things that mostly involve nothing more than microsoft office.) At the end of degree, you know nothing. (Nobody in my class could write a c program if you mentioned the word file handling).

Infosys hired 40% of my class and only one student was asked 1 technical question. 6 students were asked riddles. Rest 48 were just thrown through a basic HR.

In the pre-final year of college 'balancing factor' by the parents jump in. Students are mostly advised (family/peer pressure) to ride the 'MBA' wave. Nothing is knowledge driven. Everything is money driven.
Ask HN: Recurring billing for Indian Web App
Hi,

Does anybody know any recurring billing service like Chargify which support Indian Merchant Accounts? I have gone through almost all popular providers and they support gateways which require merchant account in US or Europe.

I am thinking of going with Freshbooks + PayPal addon. Are there any viable alternatives?
An example going the other way: Russian does not have an equivalent to "artist". There are words specifically for "painter", "singer" etc, but nothing generic. The closest is "творец" (tvorets) but it's closer to "creator" and calling yourself a "tvorets" would be very very pretentious, unlike calling yourself an artist.
I'm familiar with the general arguments you are presenting but they don't hold up in this situation. This case is clearcut. It is not some poor kid being beat down by the system. It is a computer criminal being sentenced to a punishment that fits his crimes. I suggest you read the references I cited above and take note of the wide array computer crime the defendant was involved in.

You're also exaggerating. The defendant does get to have the end of his twenties. He's going to be out of jail when he's 26.
Celebrity Tattoos
Celebrities have to be in the center of everything that is in vogue, it also goes for tattoos
Yes you are right. I have absolutely no recollection of tweaking this, but it seems it has been done. (I just checked a different, definitely unadulterated 10.3.x install, and it doesn't have the Finder quit menu item.) Thanks for correcting me.
This looks more like rear-projection video (note the starburst in the back of the stage) or Pepper's Ghost, although the scrim is too vertically oriented to be that.

Nothing here looks 3D, but of course these videos are very carefully shot and enhanced from all appearances.
What struck me about the article was how the author assumed that John (the 8-5 guy) would get a raise if he would only work longer hours. But it doesn't seem that John's employer told him that.

In my experience, if you've worked for a tech company for a number of years, and they haven't given you even a token raise in all that time, and they haven't explained why, or what you need to do to get a raise, then the issue is not your performance. It's that the company doesn't give raises.

If John is working for a company like that, then working 8-5 is perfectly rational. The company is sending the message that it doesn't care strongly about performance, so why assume greater performance will lead to greater pay?

Where I would criticize John is not looking for another job in the industry (and perhaps doing the night/weekend studying and projects that would help make that possible).
Thank you.

I use Multiple Monitors/UltraMon and the support for doing this with the mouse is lost (not sure if multiple monitors or b/c of Ultramon).

I guess I should have know there was a hot key.
Isn't there a YC funded company that does this? (but not with FB photos)
I think Asia already knows we can launch missiles from submarines.
There's an occasionally inappropriate photoshop meme for this phenomenon. "High Expectations Asian Father" plays on the achievement-oriented bootstrappers' world-view often ascribed to first-generation immigrant parents.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/high-expectations-asian-father
All part of our plan! Hehe. Well, hipmunk was chosen for slightly different reasons (but boy is it non-flight specific and mascot-able) http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/19/technology/hipmunk/
The other problem with using ICBM's to drop conventional bombs / kinetics weapon is that Russia might get a little 'antsy' when we are launching rockets at Afghanistan.
English is a pretty boring language ?
If we're comparing anecdotes, the smallest database I deal with on any given day is 50GB. Enterprise applications trap lots of data. I don't know that most of our queries are HDD bound, but a significant portion of them are.
We’ve priced the 37signals Suite aggressively. It’ll often be cheaper to purchase the whole four-app Suite than to purchase two products separately.

Interesting. I'd be interested to see the metrics that made them decide this is a good idea.
They really missed the boat by not naming her Jem.
Do I have the ability to create private classes? I might be interested in setting some up with friends, but we wouldn't want to make it public
I'd agree if this post were talking about anything beyond basic levels of recognition for minor tasks. It's not talking about significant recognition/awards, merely frequently feedback and "thanks" type stuff. Don't we all deserve the occasional thanks from our managers when we actually do stuff? (Needless question for me as I work for myself ;-))
From a botnet that he set up. It's actually worse than "hacking O'Reilly's site".
[The] short supply of developers in Silicon Valley - Quora
Speaking for myself at least I think that when I had a better opportunity I filled in reasons for leaving that made me feel more justified about my decision. You can extend the recognition reason pretty far if you're looking for reasons to dislike your current job.

For example: "I'm recognized on my team but what about the company at large"? or "Everyone at the company knows I'm great but our customers don't know me."
Not sure if recurly.com does daily, but they're a nimble outfit, so if they don't and see a need, they could do it quickly
9. prozvonit is to prank, in slang I've heard & used here in Australia.

bonus: tingo - "to borrow things from a friend's house, one by one, until there is nothing left" in Pascuense language of Easter Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Jacot_de_Boinod#Career
There is a difference between working on company projects in your free time and working on an opensource or personal project, or occasionally reading a programming book.

Whilst the second is likely to provide benefits to your employer, your primary motivator is for personal gain.
It depends on what you'll be doing. Go might be a better language for server stuff, but D has quite a large game creation community behind it.
My Guess:

- reduced processing fees

- reduce churn from people who see multiple 37s charges per month

- better revenue from customers who are ~ 75% toward plan level and want other services (most willing to upgrade).
I use the bare-bones version of the HTML5 Reset: http://html5reset.org/
A large amount of their customers must just use one app, seems like a good way to get them paying double whether they need it or not. Deals like these get people paying for things they don't need because of the perceived amount of extra value having the whole suite of products gives.
Why aren't they allowing new customers to take advantage of this? I wonder if it's for technical or business reasons.
Moving sand dunes make it very hard for vegetation to grow.
"If the vast majority of us are renters rather than owners, who has incentive to do any maintenance or improvement?"

This doesn't make sense. The remaining owners will still compete for renters. If my landlord does a bad job, I will find a better landlord. In fact, you can argue that concentrating ownership makes maintenance more efficient. My landlord has much more experience at plumbing, painting, installing appliances etc. than I ever would.
Is this really that different from Gorillaz? They are also cartoon personas that perform music.

If it gets to the point where an artificial intelligence composes and performs, then we will be in Gibson's Sprawl.
Yes, I think I even said 'you register your app later if needed' so I must have intended to add that link but forgotten.

I'll add when I get second, thanks for the feedback.
That's not what happened, but: why? Why is that disproportionately steep? Because it's so easy to do, it doesn't seem like it should be a crime?

Talk to businesses dealing with DDoS attacks sometime. They're tearing their hair out and losing real money because of some sociopath's vanity "attack". Why, exactly, are we supposed to look the other way?
Missile Caught on Tape Launching off of Los Angeles Coast
A missile was caught on tape launching off the Los Angeles coast yesterday, yet no one is saying why.
Android remains the only mobile OS still patterned after Microsoft’s 2002 vision
I'm pretty sure that argument should be reserved for possible war crimes and not frisking people.
Keepass + Dropbox works for me, too! I think I got the idea from Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5063176/how-to-use-dropbox-as-the-ulti...
I'm not sure he's saying you shouldn't save. You could leave a good amount of capital to your kids too without owning a house.
Hey

thanks for your comments. I agree completely.

I feel that having subtasks in a web-app is pretty novel, since I haven't found another app that uses this type of functionality - I kind of understand why now - it's a bit of a nightmare to code.

The video could definitely be snappier. In fact, I'm doing another version as I type.

Thanks for your feedback.

I still maintain that showing web apps on HN is something that can be improved upon, if we could just get a concise list, it would be fantastic. There wouldn't be so many submissions, since it takes a good deal of time and effort to submit an app :)

cheers

p.s. I also still use pen and paper, but I find nift.ie a very useful solution for myself personally in many cases.
It's a great way to increase the amount of money they're extracting from their best customers while simultaneously giving them an increased perception of value. Seriously, they're going to print money hats.
Interesting that Obama's trip abroad has been accompanied by so much saber rattling from our end.

Makes me wonder what they know and why all the chest thumping all of a sudden.
Ha ha They are MATLAB Crazy and polite.
When I have time I will write a longer and more thoughtful answer.
This still amazes me. Being able to detect, aim at and strike something flying at the speed of a rocket - with another rocket - in outer freaking space.

Even the patriot missiles back in the early 90's always awed me. I have trouble hitting a target in a consistent spot with a bullet from 100 yards.
I'm starting to think Gibson is writing the future.
Quantum computers should be much easier to build than previously thought
I accidentally upvoted you. There is the truth and there is falsity. None of our principles, including the one that says minimum wage security workers shouldn't be looking at us naked, mean anything if we can't look each other in the eyes and articulate them truthfully.

It is falsity that is allowing people to convince airport authorities that these machines make sense. If you want to get into the bullshitting arms race, know a priori that you will lose; those people are much better at it than you are, and they have more to gain or lose.
Today In JS, Episode Three: 10+ Awesome Links
Agreed - I would love to see it. The other requirement for this build was that it be resistance-controlled, so you can just throw whatever you want between the sensor leads.
Is there any interest in a Boston/Cambridge HN meetup sometime? It’d be great to chat with some of you fine folks and put faces to names.
While I agree with you about employees, I must point out that promoters of companies are the exception to this rule since this article is in the context of startups.

Once you own a part of the company (I don't mean tiny amounts like employee stock options, but are a full partner) then you damn well should work hard to create wealth. The founder of the company didn't bring you on board so you could work 40 hour weeks like any other employee while reserving the right to walk away a very wealthy person (to a far greater degree than a regular employee) should the business succeed.
WeGoLook: Product inspection service for long-distance buying
"While I do enjoy programming, I don't think software development is a good industry to have a career in. The market is so fragmented right now with different choices of programming languages and different technology requirements. And you are expected to be the expert on those technologies."

Exactly, and I suspect that many of the developers being "purged" are not those who aren't passionate, but those who happen to be too much of a generalist.

Today's job listings often ask for experience with libraries A, B, C, D and E. (It's not even about languages anymore; the "Python" jobs are really mostly for Django, and "Ruby" already meant "Rails".) They get literally hundreds of replies, so the chances of getting applications from people who actually do know all those libraries are fairly high. You just pick one of those who seems competent (maybe you'll let them do some of those puzzle questions that seem to be in vogue nowadays) and they can bring value to your project right away.

A generalist, on the other hand, loses out here, because they do not know all of these libraries (yet). It does not matter if they are competent and can learn these new things quickly; they aren't even considered.

So, you just learn these libraries, and next time you will have a better chance of getting the job, right? Yeah, except that the market is so fragmented, that the next job listing will require F, G, H, I and J. There are just too many of them to learn them all.

I'm getting the strong impression that getting a job nowadays is a matter of (1) luck, or (2) knowing the right people. Many companies like to pretend it's about passion, but other filters are applied first.
If you sign up as a new customer, can you then not upgrade to the suite?
I think renting stuff makes sense a lot of the time. If you have to over commit yourself so that you can buy, it definitely makes no sense at all. Property is still significantly over valued even though we've been in recession for a couple of years and the future isn't guaranteed to pick up in the next year.

However, the thing with renting is the price goes up. Most years.
The thing with buying - assuming you're on a repayment mortgage, is that one day IT WILL BE FREE :) Yours!

That's the attraction of buying to me, as otherwise when you get to 65 you'll still be paying significant rent. Which means you need to save more for your pension. (I'd be interested to see the maths on the how much more?)

Anyways just my 2p.
Things Meg Whitman Could Have Bought with $175 Million
From the linked page:

> Other Python libraries exist which attempt to do similar things, of course; PyCells and Cellulose are two. However, only the Trellis supports fully circular rules (like the temperature conversion example above), and intra-pulse write conflict detection. The Trellis also uses less memory for each cell (rule/value object), and offers many other features that either PyCells or Cellulose lack.

I believe PJE was the mentor for PyCells and Trellis is PJE's take on the problem. I was following PyCells from its announcement since it seemed useful and if PJE isn't the mentor, he was heavily consulted.
I think it's called "saber-rattling".
No, all classes are public right now. Would you want the entire class to be completely hidden from others, or can it be publicly viewable and require an invitation to join and participate?
By example: Continuation-passing style in JavaScript
If I rob someone of $10k I'm going to jail.
If I use a botnet to take their site offline, resulting in a loss of revenue or donations of $10k, I should also go to jail.

Just because it is easy or common doesn't make it any less of a crime.
Prozvonit's equivalent in English is a "bat-call." A bat-call can also be used to notify the other person of something (not necessarily to prompt a call back). As in, "When I get to your house, come outside when I give you a bat-call"
If Y Combinator.com were a country, it would be larger than Djibouti
Curious wording: "Can I sign up for the Suite if I don't already own a 37signals product?
Currently the 37signals Suite is only available for people who already own Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire accounts."

If you pay to use a webapp, do you "own" it? Maybe they're trying to make 37signals' "apps" seem more like App store apps.
My favorite is the Russian word Pochemuchka, which means "One who asks lots of questions." The literal translation is more like "Little Why-er".
First, the "there are 250K words in English" statement is kind of wrong, it's probably much higher, e.g. OED states on their web page (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/93) that "If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million." English undoubtedly is the world's richest language in the sense of having the largest vocabulary.

As for the "they have a word for it and we don't" thing: The examples given are delightful, also see the book "They Have a Word for It" for other interesting examples. I can give more examples from my native language, "kismet" "ayip" that are untranslatable. But look at that first word, kismet: you've probably seen it used, albeit rarely, in magazines, etc. (putting aside the wireless sniffer, of course, of that name). This is the power of English, it voracious appetite for word adoption.

Ask yourself this: How many of those language listed in the article have a thesaurus, and is they have how thick it would be. Many languages are lexically shallow, i.e. there is usually one word for many concepts, with few synonym sets.
I'm more of the mindset that if I have children that they shouldn't expect to receive any type of inheritance. Sure they might end up receiving but just not to rely on it.

In turn I don't expect to receive anything from my parents, would much rather they enjoy what they have earned.
> Some people would like nothing better than shoe horn every Indian student into "them stupid Indian" and feel smug.

I don't like it very much either, because in real life I have to pay the price for the stereotyping. However, stereotyping is a perfectly normal thing for humans to do, and I strongly recommend that we DO NOT make people feel guilty for it, especially in cases where it'd be quite warranted. This doesn't mean that we are all free to stereotype - it just means that we should not expect extremely unnatural behavior from others.

Indians I'm sure don't have any qualms exploiting any positive stereotypes associated with us. I suggest we own the negative stereotypes as well.
Make Something People Hate
We can make computer controlled, real-time holographic displays now? That seems like bigger news than a rockstar.

Isn't that the holy grail of 3D displays?
"people who already own Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire accounts."

You own the account. although it can be taken away from you like anything in life.
HTML5 window.postMessage
Searchyc is ok, but I wish there was a better display of the links. We won't always know what to search for, and may miss some amazing links after they are lost in the mix.
I imagine it's more common to be underutilized or misapplied. Humans tend to grow and change much faster than their corporate job descriptions can keep up with. There's always a mismatch, it's just a question of whether or not the key players acknowledge it - and of how much indulgence is afforded to the employee in terms of personal growth that may not perfectly align with current business objectives.
Thanks!

Thats really awesome. That certainly makes it fit better with the rest of clojure than clojure.contrib.dataflow does. I'll probably end up using your library, it looks really good. Thanks for sharing.
encrypt the USB drive's partition?