skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There are several conditions:

- The applicant must be unemployed (he or she can’t switch directly from a job to self-employment). If the applicant quit her or his job they must wait twelve weeks before applying.

- The applicant must still be able to receive unemployment benefits for at least ninety days at the start of the self employment.

- The planned activity must be independent and full-time (at least 15h a week, other part time jobs are permitted).

- Receiving a grant again is only possible two years after the last grant ended. Anyone older than 65 won’t receive a grant.

- A “competent person or organization” has to confirm that the business plan is sound (e.g. lawyers, tax accountants, corporate consultants, the chamber of commerce, professional associations, incubators, …).

- The applicant has to demonstrate her or his personal qualification to the unemployment agency. If the agency doubts the qualification they may require additional training.

The list was adopted from the respective article in the German Wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gründungszuschuss
Cash accounting in my experience is a much "better" way to cook the books than accrual accounting. You can easily and unintentionally screw yourself if you're collecting cash up front for a product which involves future costs.

The only system I have found to work is accrual combined with customer prepayment (to eliminate credit risk; or just be very good at receivables management, which not everyone is) and aggressive cashflow management. The biggest problems with accrual go away if you don't have to worry about customer payment risk or accidentally running out of cash in the short term.

You can lie to yourself (and others) with numbers with either kind of accounting, but it's harder to accidentally kill yourself with a conservative system.
I have friends working on this. I'll ask.
It's still good to be able to recognize when you're trying to swim up a waterfall rather than just upstream though.
> I'm sorry to say it, but unfortunately for us all Marx is beginning to become more and more relevant, again ...

No, it's not. Marx's ideas is that there's a violent takeover of all property by everyone, and then the state controls everything. He theorized that after some time of this violent control by the revolutionaries, the need for the control would naturally dissipate and we'd live in a harmonious utopia.

This has now been tried, and didn't go like he predicted. In fact, it produced much worse outcomes for just about everyone involved, but especially the most skilled and industrious people.

If Google's deal is bad, save some of that large paycheck for a year or two, and then quit and take a go of it on your own. You can do that because you're free. Under Marxist systems, you're not free to disagree with the people.

You gotta be careful talking about Marx in rosy tones without noting how vastly terrible every implementation has been in real life. The banner of Marxism has done more harm in the last 100 years than just about anything else. It out-competes fascism by a drastic margin, which is really saying something.
OTP has to be one of the poorest chosen acronyms in the computing industry. It has been used as 'One Time Pad' for decades.
Yesterday and Today
You want developers to support Opera because you... like it? As another commenter already said, if opera doesn't even equate to a 1% of your users, you'd be a fool to spend money trying to support a browser most of your users don't even use.

That being said, Opera is a nice browser and has gotten better and better with time. I of course encourage projects that can and should to support opera, but there are plenty of reasons not to support it and in most of those cases they're right not to do so.
Unity on Fedora? Possibly
GOOGLE buys New York city block for 1.8 Billion
Mens Timberland 6 Inch Dark Blue Maple Leaf Boots
Webandrank Company
Never invest in a startup where the parking lot is full of Porsches and Ferraris... and don't ask me how I know.
Note that these California-style policies are also common, almost word for word, everywhere I've worked in Canada. (BC, Ontario, Quebec)
Along the lines of the company's business. Google is a software company in many markets. They can make a reasonable case that any software is along the lines of the company's business. They probably wouldn't win all of them, but it's sufficiently gray that the courts would have to get involved to figure out precisely where the line is, and no employee (or employer, for that matter) wants a lawsuit.

I have friends that work in publishing and journalism, and they have similar problems with their blogs. Their employers don't own any software that they write on their free time, but personal blogs are a gray-enough area that most stick to writing on their employers' official blogs.

Same reason that the DragonLance series is Copyright TSR. Tracy and Laura Hickman dreamed it up on the way to a job interview there, and then the plot and characters were developed while they were employed by the company.

As far as owning ideas - technically, yes, to the extent that those ideas are "reduced to practice". A company can't own what's in your head. But if you write it down, it's technically Copyright (c) 2010, Your Employer.
Not really. WePay is far from a PayPal replacement. Processing credit cards for groups doesn't make a PayPal replacement.
The only book that covers OTP in depth. Cesarini and Armstrong one are equally essential for learning Erlang programming.
For the ridiculous slavery analogy. You've got a top Google legal person here explaining his thought process clearly and in honest, not-just-PC terms, and you're waving your arms around. I don't necessarily disagree with your points, but it's bad for discussion.

Anyway, I deleted my comment since I didn't want to get into an argument here, it's not that important to me. I don't even 100% disagree with you, but clean up the tone a little bit and less handwaving? That kind of thing is what makes people want to brush off criticism instead of responding, which is really bad for discussion. I think it's really cool that a person on the Google legal team is explaining their thinking here reasonably and clearly.
The only motivation for the advertisers to do the local discounts is so they can tap into your profile and market very targeted offers to you. Without the privacy intrusion and emailing, how would they do that?
SMSEO – Reasons behind its growing popularity
Great book on Erlang/OTP teaching from an OTP perspective. Must read if you're into Erlang at all.
None of that is related to cookiecaper's point though. Your project is obviously related to Google, used Google's resources and engineers, and was in response to a problem that Google had.

The point is that Google will claim copyright of everything that you do. If you write a game about chickens in your spare time, for example, then Google owns the copyright, despite not having had any input into it. I fail to see how that's fair or reasonable, and I'd be very interested to see what laws apply - I suspect that cdibona is trying to blow smoke up our collective asses.
سرعة الانترنت
I would do it; but my eye doctor says basically I'm stuck with either my current near-sightedness, or I could get Lasik and trade it for far-sightedness. Oh well. I don't mind wearing glasses, and being near-sighted means that I don't have to wear them when in front of the computer, which is about 18 hours a day.
Wikileaks Whirlwind Week - Recapped
Markov chains are a fun programming project. One of my early web projects was an independent reinvention of the Markov chain:

http://experimentgarden.blogspot.com/2009/11/software-tool-f...

This is what happens when you are a self taught programmer who learned mostly from basic coding primers rather than from the internet. I ended up independently reinventing a lot of code and algorithms, including a basic Markov chain implementation such as the one described here.
> Absolutely true. And if Calacanis meant people who are passionate enough about what they are working on to pull some late nighters when necessary, vs someone who punches the clock every day at 5pm and says "that's not in my job description", then he would find a lot more people in agreement.

Absolutely true: as a software engineer, I'm extremely lucky to work on something I'm passionate about. I am not sure if other professions get the same luxury. I'm more than willing to stay until up wee hours in the morning, debugging non-blocking socket code (like I did this Wednesday) whether in a startup or not, because I actually enjoy this (both the intrinsically satisfying work like designing and implementing a new algorithm and less "glorious" work like this: a sign of a healthy organization is one that rewards both).

The impression Jason gives off is he wants clock punchers who punch the clock out at midnight and give the appearance of being busy.
Statically loaded structure
did they mutate to include arsenic in their DNA
Julian Assange: Haskeller
The doctor did explain that I would most likely have dry eyes as well. Currently, my eyes do not get dry, but I did notice that I do rub my eyes quite frequently. I have been making a conscious effort to break that habit before the surgery and will definitely follow the doctor's instructions to the letter.

I am glad that they surgery was such a success for you. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Another HN discussion on this news: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962846

And more HN discussion and a excellent write up by PZ here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1963990

Also a write up by Bad Astronomy http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/02/na...

And the related XKCD: http://xkcd.com/829/
Probably because it involves exposing yourself to other cultures, going well outside your norms in many areas, and basically getting a huge amount of perspective. It's educational in many ways and considered valuable experience. That said, I wouldn't bother if you genuinely don't enjoy it (although personally, "man up" is a common mantra on my trips...)
Asking The Difficult Questions
Funny that it includes amazon payments..

Oh, and there's also wepay.com
When it comes to the use of the term "engineer" in the states, it's not about regulating the trade or determining what's "proper," it's about making sure that people who use a title have the minimum knowledge and qualifications implied by the title.
'And while this may sound hubristic, it reflects Zuckerberg’s belief that Facebook’s map of human relationships is among the most important developments in business history. “That, I think, is the strongest product element we have,” he said. “And [most] likely one of the strongest product elements that ever has existed."'

I've been coming to grips with that statement being true.
INCEPTION Maze Font
It's a font with 26 uppercase letters, inspired by the maze font used in promotional posters for the movie INCEPTION.
Almost of the work was done in Inkscape and FontForge; I plan to release the source if there is enough interest.

(Since I found out about Hacker News by having an early typography project of mine featured, it only seems appropriate that this should be my first submission. :-)
The title of this submission overstates his involvement somewhat. It looks like he posted to the Haskell mailing list a handful of times in early 2001, and his first apparent post does not prime any assumption he was a devoted enthusiast:

This is why all non S-exp like lanaguage are doomed to progressive
syntactic cancer as the useful parts of operator name space and syntax
space become progressively polluted and mutated by one fad after
another.

In any case, it's pretty cool to see a major public figure of significant worldwide importance making an insightful point about syntax space pollution.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=assange+site%3Ahaskell.org
I know they don't, but with the declining bee population and now this- whether or not you produce the core ingredient to your product, I'd hope you should show some interest in that ingredient continuing to exist.
Just throwing it out there that even though Lasik is relatively commonplace, there are still surgical risks associated with it.

Back in 2000, my dad had Lasik surgery. There was a complication (I don't recall what, exactly, offhand), and he ended up having to have a total of five surgeries by the time it was all "fixed." Oh, and he still ended up with contacts.

I wear glasses myself, and eventually hope I'll have enough confidence in a procedure to risk it. I'm not telling you not to do it, just be aware that this is a real surgery and involves risk just like any other.
Thank you so much for doing this. I've delayed getting one because of the cost of their "full" API. I'll definitely get one now!
The State Department seems to have mistargeted its restrictions concerning the documents disclosed by WikiLeaks. In particular, prohibiting members of the public (such as the SIPA students) from discussing the documents serves no purpose. Insofar as the documents have become generally available, the State Department is now powerless to prevent the spread of any damaging information contained in those materials.

By contrast, restrictions would make sense for current government employees. Because a significant fraction of those employees have access to materials whose secrecy is still intact, it is conceivable that discussion of the already-leaked materials could lead an employee to let slip additional classified information.
Well there used to be some experimental prototypes designed to facilitate inputs, but they never gained any traction. Now it's all standard US keyboards.

This is interesting, and it's a problem I've never really thought about. Can you say more about it?
Twitter has absolutely nothing to gain from canceling their account. The other big corporations like Amazon, I doubt they cared much but did it as some sort of marketing ploy:

"The govt is saying they're terrorists, and we're good widdle babies and we're gonna do everything right!".
Thank you. Just wish I hadn't been downvoted for my views earlier :)
because the code is BSD-licensed and it REALLY doesn't matter

But now you can never change the license again, even if an error of wording is discovered in the BSD license. You are stuck forever.
I've got a rule that "If it's not impossible, it's not worth doing." If most people think that what you're doing is impossible, you've got less competition.
That a "bad apple" got through was one problem. The other problem was that he appears to have had access to far to much information, and that adequate systems to prevent the download and removal of the information also failed.
I doubt the cherries they buy are grown in Brooklyn...
If your wife might be interested in writing beginner's tutorials for some HTML basics, please ask her to get in touch with me. Thanks and good luck with it!
I had Lasik (wavefront, both eyes) in Thailand in December 2005. I couldn't use a computer for a few hours (I set the fonts on my terminal to full-screen single-character beforehand). Next day, slightly blurry, day after, fine except for dry eyes and haloing at night. My original vision was maybe -2.25 and -3.5 with slight astigmatism; now it is perfect.

Over the next year or so, dry eyes went away (I was living in Iraq, so the dry eyes symptom may not have been as bad elsewhere).

Sometime between 2008 and now, halos at night are largely gone as well.

I actually like the way glasses look, but the practical issues with needing Rx goggles, face masks, etc. were annoying, and being able to wake up in the morning (or middle of the night) with perfect vision was a big factor for me.
Also, I only ever enjoy traveling by the second or third time I go to a place, when that horrible feeling of being lost, helpless, completely ignorant, and not belonging has subsided a bit.

In most of my friends who enjoy traveling I see a certain histeria, a mixing of their expectations with reality that is really uncomfortable to be around (like hearing "this is paradise" to a landscape that is really familiar; like "checkpointing" by taking pictures of landmarks and signs and trivial activities everybody does; like calling fast-food "wonderful" because it comes in a pretty plate from a waiter who doesn't speak your language; etc).
How Two College Entrepreneurs Handled Being Young And Inexperienced
This is a font with 26 uppercase letters, inspired by the maze font used in promotional posters for the movie INCEPTION.
Almost of the work was done in Inkscape and FontForge; I plan to release the source if there is enough interest.

(Since I found out about Hacker News by having an early typography project of mine featured, it only seems appropriate that this should be my first submission. :-)
I hope you like the book and checkout what else we are working on : erlware.org and erlangcamp.com
If I say in an email something unfavorable or slanderous about another company's CEO, and it gets out, then I must face the consequences.

The key difference here is that making honest assessments about the character of foreign government officials is part of the job description for diplomats.
I suspect there are "more anonymous" possibilities than the current implementations of these ideas.
Were you the founder / CEO of any the funded startups you were involved with? Not an ad hominem, just wondering where you're coming from.

I think the fundamental issue here though is that there are massive costs of having an under-performing head founder. Replaceability is a massive risk (bad replacement, moral, public image, learning periods, etc.) compared to what it costs to keep the original CEO happy and driving hard toward the dream - assuming they're good in that position in the first place.
In your case it makes sense; you wrote the library at work. Google paid you to sit in Google's building using Google's computers and networks to write the library. If they want to own it, it's not unreasonable at all.

What is unreasonable is that if you did it at home, with no Google resources, that they would still ask you to assign them ownership.

(I, fortunately, don't have this problem. Part of the official open-sourcing process involves deleting any reference to our company, even in the copyright, so that nobody sues them if it breaks. Example internal app that was open-sourced: http://openefs.org/)
Definitely agree with these points. I will make it more clear that these would be optional things that the company put on rather than mandatory corporate events. I would hate those.
IT:

- Increasing success of Android

- New FB feature of being able to split up who your messages go to by groups, massive profit for Facebook.

My Domain:

- A lot of move in fashion towards more sustainability, the biggest changes will be in five years though, not one:

- I've written about it at changingclothing.recojeans.com, more specifically changingclothing.recojeans.com/eco-friendly-clothing/
Agreed. I haven't thought the numbers through properly at all. Essentially I just like the idea of helping our employees out more than your average company by trying to get them into a strong financial position. I will need to do a lot more research into this area.
I had the procedure done almost 10 years ago and it has been a pretty positive experience for me. The biggest negative impact has been dry eyes similar to what lockem mentioned. I can't go without eye drops (just generic Visine) in the morning. Also - my night vision has suffered. Be sure to check whether or not you would suffer from these "halos". In low light, bright points of light appear to have a fuzzy halo around them. I really hate driving at night now due to that.

Other than that, it was a good choice for me. The coolest thing was that the doctor purposely over-corrected my vision, so for the first several months I could see clearly at a ridiculous range. In a few months everything normalized and I still have better than 20/20 vision at this point.

One last thing - invest in a nice pair of shades before the procedure if you decide to go through with it.
When I was a wee lad, probably 1980 or so, I was a regular at a market testing group for video games. It was usually just whatever new game was coming soon, but once it was a headband that you wore, with electrodes. It would control your Atari 2600 "by thought". I remember playing River Raider with it at the testing, you could go left and right and fire.

I don't think it actually read your brain activity, I think it was more muscle control dressed up, but it sorta worked.

Edit-
Link to some info on the device. It did in fact work by muscle activity.
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2600/mindlink...
I understand what you're saying, but what will we consider an "engineer" to be, in the case of programmers?

A "programmer" can be someone who picked up PHP in their spare time, and may have a degree in art history, for all anyone knows. It can also be someone with a solid background in CS, with a degree to boot. Both of them can get jobs as "programmers" (though in this case, probably very different wage scales) if they are good enough to get hired.
Very good point. Need to work on the numbers more carefully but I hope you agree with the intention. Section 4 is definitely the least carefully thought out but probably the most well-intentioned. Right now Happy feels a bit like a commune as lots of students come to our Tiki House and enjoy our parties and help with the project. I guess I'd just love to maintain that vibe if at all possible.
If you've studied the rise of the department store, John Wanamaker and Macies, I think you'll find Groupon is following a pretty great and old formula of style and group buying dynamics. The idea it's based on, people getting excited about good deals that are trendy, is solid.
The Ninety Dollar Shareware CD-ROM
Thanks mkramlich. I am just putting a few ideas out there for criticism to see if they could work so that when I have the revenues to support them I can make it happen.
They have a claim that they can waive. Everywhere I've worked except Doubleclick (bought by Google, incidentally), has done this.
>if you have a unix-based server...

Trademark violation! Look out! Wikileaks is in trouble now!
I agree with you, but I think your terminology is inexact when you say:

"The money is being absorbed by the wars and the trade deficits."

Wars do not absorb money, they absorb wealth -- money is paid to make a bullet, and after the bullet is shot the money remains to decrease the value of all money, and the bullet is gone.

Trade deficits can move accumulated wealth (or money) around, but they also don't absorb it; a foreign country might absorb money, if they decide to stockpile it.
"Now my body says, 'You can't do this boy' But my pride says, 'Oh, yes you can'."

-- Toby Keith, As Good As I Once Was. 2005.
The program is not designed to create profitable businesses, it's designed to get the unemployed doing small scale businesses that will support them and make then un-unemployed.

The article makes it sound like the government is investing in startups - that's not really the case.

However, a positive thing I find is that this is second or third iteration of a similar concept that Germany has been trying, and each iteration is fixing the practical problems from the previous.

This system would not work in any way in the U.S, because there is no alternative social system. In Germany, you can choose this route, but you can choose other routes that get you also government money if you are unemployed. So there is no pressure to select this method - unless you want to start a business.

If something like this were introduced in the U.S, seeing as there is no social system or an alternative way to get money if you're broke, everyone would flood this system trying to cart off as much money as they could.

Such a system can only work when there are several other social safety nets - otherwise the system would be heavily scammed.