skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You should have been in the class - what an eye-opener. Venture Capitalists are really the repeat players in the industry, and it shows. Every concern is covered. Granted, I'm not saying everything in an agreement is tilted completely in a VC's favor, but they definitely have their interests addressed and contingency plans in place. An entrepreneur has to figure out what his/her interests are and what to do about them, all the while asking for money and trying to close the deal.
...I'm still working on my startup...

Great. That's what we all should be doing. Let us know as soon as you have something to show us. I'm not sure why you're posting this before then.
Hows about my new job:

$0 salary. In fact you spend money to work. Its a privilege.
You can't quit.

You can't act on your frustrations or the government might intervene.

You have to deal with a lot of shit.

Its always noisy.

You need to get a second job. Usually the second job is a vacation from your first job.

The only time you can go on vacation is when you get someone to take over for you at your expense.

There are no sick days, if you are sick you have to come up with creative ways to do the job and not get anyone at work sick. Also you have to work.

Sometimes you get the job. Sometimes the job is given to you, you can't reject. The government ensures that you take the job whether you like it or not.

You might be offered the position multiple times. See previous point.

There is an eventual payoff... But it is not guaranteed.

The only real up side is looking for the job is REALLY fun.
The World's Largest Science Projects
Why It's OK to 'Steal' Wi-Fi
The author is using a Mythical Man-Month idea about how fast people can solve problems and applying it to computer programs and algorithms. Sorry, but that doesn't wash. You can't automatically analyze the basic blocks and dataflow of a human researcher's brain, but compilers can do this to programs.

What's been missing is a high-level approach to parallelism. This is exactly where Apple has a core competency: software tools. I think they stand a good chance of producing something useful. It won't be universally applicable, but it doesn't need to be. If it will be useful in making parallelism easier, then this will be a meaningful success.
Semantics. I change my odds by 1.8% in the naive assumption that these numbers are applicable to myself at face value. If you like these odds I would like to sell you some lottery tickets.

Your thinking is fundamentally flawed. 1.8 people out of 100 are prevented from dying, and not for free: there are side effects and financial costs. How many died in year six as opposed to year five is also unclear. We're talking about drugs they want to keep people on for the rest of their lives.

The cumulative arithmetic of how many escaped cardiovascular "events" and death cannot be computed clearly from the numbers presented, as you seem to allude.
One in three IT staff snoops on colleagues
Your Site Has Down Votes, I looked at it, it does.
Anthropological methods to study how people use their phones
Nice reference. I'll bet you most people (myself included) now assume that disagreeing with someone is not the point of downvoting them. Personally, I downvote when I think something is inappropriate or doesn't add to the discussion (i.e. "me too" responses). Considering that PG indicates that a downvote is okay for disagreement, but that his post is from about four months ago, I wonder if there even exists a "standard" for downvoting behavior now. I've been visiting the site for awhile but only created an account a few months ago, so I didn't pay too much attention to this before I joined; I haven't been actively participating long enough to know how downvoting behavior has changed over time. Is there a new or updated guideline for downvoting?

Either way, as I've mentioned before, guidelines are just that: you can't force someone to not downvote inappropriately. It's just the nature of this sort of community. I think if people focussed more on not posting things that are out of line that get hella-downvoted instead of worrying about whether they have hit four digits of positive karma, things might be a little more laid back and people wouldn't stress so much. Either way, as long as there is karma, people will bitch about it one way or another ;-)

(Note: not dissing four-digit karma. If you have that much, you've earned it. Just saying that maybe people worry a bit too much about getting positive karma instead of avoiding negative karma.)
His first comment is now -19 and his other two were -3 before I came in here. Why all the pile-on downvoting for no real reason, people? Are those comments really worth -19?
I'm intrigued by this. Lua on LuaJIT has very good performance. (Some 60X faster than Ruby 1.8)
Key words are ER and Critical Care. That stuff works great and makes progress all the time. It's also somewhat irrelevant to the bulk of medical practice and health care costs, which pertain to chronic conditions and lifestyle disease.
I agree that the cost is not free. The point being is that these medications do do something. They aren't sugar pills.

You're first assertion was that these medications don't actually do anything. I simply am pointing out they do do something.

It comes at a cost of $$, possible side effects, sure. But if you are arguing that point, then you have to concede that if the price is low enough or the side effects are low enough, then it's worth it.

If it's not personally worth it to you to take the statin because you have side effects from it... that's fine. don't take it. But you can't use it as a blanket to say all medications don't do anything, just because you had a bad experience with one or don't agree with the cost/benefit analysis.
It is called karma bombing and it just proves the point.

Compare it to the solution where there's a recommendation system that helps everybody involved: the ones downvoting the posts will form one cluster, the ones upvoting them will be in another. People that like stories like that will see more, people that do not will be spared from them.
Josh Waitzkin, the subject of "Searching for Bobby Fischer" wrote a book called "Art of Learning". In there, he describes one method he was taught to increase the amount of time he can sustain his focus -- interval training.

He was first taught this technique at a high-end athletic training center. They put him on an exercise machine and had him go all out for a few minutes. Then they had him relax and recover -- and the trainers timed it, so he only relaxed for say, 45 seconds. Precisely at the end of 45 seconds, they put him back on the exercise machine again. Over time, his heart rate did not spike up as high, and the amount of time he needed to recover started shortening.

Lest you think this applies to only physical tasks, and not mental tasks, according to the book, Waitzkin was able to successfully apply this during the intense national and international chess tournements he participated in. He takes short mini-breaks, so while it looks like he is able to sustain his focus for long periods of time, that's an illusion.

This idea of recovery time for getting things done isn't a new one. I've always thought I had to go all out, indefinitely. I always exhaust myself and couldn't energize myself to get more done. My bet is that people who appear to be productive all the time are the ones skilled at taking these short mini-breaks.
It is working, sorry for misunderstanding, link in the profile.
I agree about their being a good correlation between homeschooling and entrepreneurship. It might be that homeschooling encourages independence and initiative, or it might just be that the public school system is designed to produce good employees.

I'm the oldest in a family of 6 - all home schooled. My brother and I both have an entrepreneurial streak in us (my brother sold candy at the Jr. High near our house after school to raise money for his X-Box fund. He raised enough to buy it at 11, with no help from parents. He even bought the candy on his own).

However my other brother is leaving for the Air Force Academy in a few days - he wants to end up in politics somewhere. To me it seems like the military and political careers are opposite to entrepreneurship. I guess we're not all the same.
I just kinda got used to it. I essentially realized that karma has no real money value anyway, and my self-esteem isn't dependent on the approval of strangers. So I just kinda comment and whatever happens happens. I really don't pay much attention to it.

I have thicker skin than most though.
> I simply am pointing out they do do something.

Personally, I'd say 1.8% over five years is nothing, and as I mentioned I've seen the abstract read closer to 0% or -X%. Think of it as 0.36% per year. Expect big lawsuits next decade about the side effects.

> you have to concede that if the price is low enough or the side effects are low enough, then it's worth it.

Not quite so simple, because there are lifestyle treatments that do work and are generally not pursued. The drug options are pursued at the opportunity cost of much more efficacious, much simpler, much less profitable options.
Yup. Bullying is one of the worst features of the abysmal society which exists inside schools.

Plus the piece doesn't go very far in describing the micromanagement (that would give away the punchline). What kind of boss tries to control what you eat and what clothes you wear? Who demands you raise your hand before you can go to the toilet?

More fundamentally, the job wasn't chosen and there was no interview. In other words, it's slavery.

We don't see it because we were slaves ourselves for 12 years and therefore we feel it must be right. Otherwise we'd be forced to conclude that lives are being borrowed without permission.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, i really appreciate it.

Spreading the word is one of the things I'm trying to work out now. Good point about the public url ... it should be easy to use and remember.

Images can already be added to documents and templates. If a template has an image field, the user can just click it to change to another one. I've created a bunch of custom border, background and decoration images so that there is already some for users to choose from.

I provided the PDF download so that documents could be printed easier than through a browser, with higher quality. I hope that people will care because it does provide a benefit to them ... but perhaps I could say it in a better way on the front page
Maybe it shouldn't be possible to vote anything below -5.

edit: i posted this in feature requests thread
And please don't forget about the next huge market for web apps: the enterprise. For every consumer using a Web 2.0 site, there are a hundred at work in their cubicles. But their employers will never use ad supported apps for 2 reasons: they don't want their employees reading ads on company time and they'd rather pay someone to hold responsible. These are fiduciary issues that all the ads in the world cannot overcome.
The downvotes on our site serve totally different purpose. They do not censor - they cluster. They let you find people that share your values. Same with upvotes, also there's no karma to gain or lose.
make it so comments can't be modded below -5 (or -10). there's no value after that.
Cool. I didn't see the link in the post, so I never thought of checking your profile. Edit your original post (if it's not too late) and add that link. Thanks.
Pregnancy Weekly
Pregnancy weekly guide based on week by week changes
Again, I believe you simply don't understand percentages, or statistics.

The numbers were statistically significant, which means the differences were not likely related to random chance.

The statin prevented 1079 people from having a stroke, dying, or having a heart attack. It helped 10% of the people in a non-trivial way in this study.

(and lifestyle changes are typically pursued alongside these medical treatments. Certainly in these studies, of course your individual doctor's mileage may vary.)
It Gets Worse: Joshua Schachter Leaving Yahoo
What's your theory about why the enterprise market died? What will change that brings it back?
"Real" Online Bookstore - Start-up with amazing javascript
What's your theory about why the enterprise market died?

Not sure I understand what you're talking about. A little enlightenment please.
This is all great news.

Tech companies rarely suffer as result of too few executives. Tech companies are often damaged by too many and/or incompetent executives. Yahoo itself has been a classic example of that.

(The fact TC presents this as some sort of terrible news is just another reason to consider it a positive development.)
Dems Agree to Expand Domestic Spying, Grant Telecoms Amnesty
I assume they measured the temperature and atmospheric pressure at the rover and have done the calculations to make sure it's actually possible that this was frozen H20 that sublimed? NASA is pretty smart, right?

At least here on Earth I would expect that a solid white material that sublimed was C02. Of course Mars is very different temperature and atmosphere-wise.
Massive amounts of VC investment went into enterprise focused startups in the 1990's. It seems like there are far fewer enterprise software startups now (although it's very possible I'm mistaken). From the tidbits I've heard around, there was a lot of saturation and consolidation. The web has been here for a while now - why do you expect to see a reversal of this trend?
The Future of Email: From SMTP to XMPP
Email is dead! Long live email!

Email has long been the killer app of the internet. It has taken us to a world were everybody has an address and anybody can send an email to anybody else. Email works incredibly well.
its funny you mention youtube all the time and the article is about a bubble and you dont give even one example of the web apps you imply their business is a bubble.

The problem is doing something that people want, and not about temporary traction to a site, that can be converted into eyeballs for ads.

By the way linux is coded largely by unitesity students or people who work at large corporatins like nokia so your argument that its coded by people who code for free is actually based on an illusion many others have too.
"sliders"?... I must have missed something.
Mascara: ECMAScript4 to Classic JavaScript translator
I understand statistics just fine, asshole. You're saying I should bank with XYZ Bank because their savings account interest rate is 100% higher than my current bank! Or, .5% vs 1%. I'm saying the interest rates are .5% and 1% respectively.

As for the 10 out of 100 total winners claim, it looks fudged up to me on quickly scanning the abstract. I'd have to use a calculator and read the study. That cute little bit about a compliance adjustment smells like fudge. And, as I've said, there are other studies with other conclusions.
"millions of people pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for it after they get done with the free stuff."

The fact that many people pay for something does not make it worthwhile for you.
Sorry, I totally messed up this post, was too late to edit it. The link to the site in question is in my profile. Thanks.
You laugh. Check out the mission patch for the mars rover mission:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nasa_mer_marvin.jpg
But how many web 2.0 sites run ads? It seems only blogs or podcasts or videocasts run ads. I can only think of Youtube and that isn't really fit for use in the enterprise ;)
He should have mentioned:
"Its an open desk area where talking to other employees is highly discouraged"
"... I assume they measured the temperature and atmospheric pressure at the rover and have done the calculations to make sure it's actually possible that this was frozen H20 that sublimed? NASA is pretty smart, right? ..."

In the releases I've read there was no real direct evidence only observation that ...

""It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."" ~ http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/06_19_pr.php

So the headlines are a bit premature until they release an explanation of the measurements they are taking.
Why do scientific theories work? The inherent problem
BMI Chart
Body Mass Index Chart
Offline Advertising Still Rules
This is a very cool concept but as noted on the website itself: painfully (unusable) slow in ff3. I would seriously "peruse" a virtual bookshelf of rare programming books for hours.. well minutes. but still that is a LOT of time in 2008.
The ultimate offline advertising source is www.onlinenewspapers.com. It lists and links to nearly every newspaper in the United States and for those not in the US it does the same for other countries as well.
Twitter's failwhale is from iStockphoto
So You Think You Can Dance?: PET Scans Reveal Your Brain's Inner Choreography
That would definitely keep me from illegally downloading...
The obvious question being, has Matt, as a gambling type, figured out a way to place a wager on the bursting side of the bubble? Basically, like a short on Web 2.0.

If so, I might want in. You know, to hedge my bets...
Good concept. Navigation is slow though. You have to keep going back up to the corner and down to books. Having automatic side scrolling would make it incredibly easier.
One problem, I saw, is that the decision makers are never really the end-users. You have sales teams specifically selling to C-level executives. There's a disconnect, especially in traditional companies not involved in tech.
brilliant resignation letter! . . . though I think he forgot to mention the part where yahoo paid him $35MM for his sheet-tin skills, something that probably made it a little easier for him to be able to write a resignation letter like that and not worry about it getting out.
That's a tough one. It's hard with none of it being publicly traded. To my knowledge none of the betting markets have contracts based on comscore data or the like, though that might be a great startup idea.
Pizza Hut Shows How NOT to do Paid Search
I have followed this technique to the letter several times when I need to get away from the computer and flesh things out more succinctly. It really does work wonders, because it keeps you moving along instead of getting hung up on some minor detail.
Mankind’s inner chimpanzee refuses to let go. This matters to everything from economics to law
I'm not sure the premise makes sense. Why try to mimic the thing that bookstores are already good at (physical presence, browsing books)?

It's a neat demo, but I'm not sure why I'd use this over Amazon, even if it was really smooth.
Five billion iTunes songs sold. One looming problem: AmazonMP3 is better
Especially accurate comment in context of the recent resignation later (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/funny_pages_20/2008/06/stewa...).
I'm sorry, I don't follow... was this comment meant for a different article?
Cna yuo raed tihs?
cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.

tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

--
Anyone found any research papers or articles on this readability phenomenon?
Not that funny if you realize that schools are institutions for indoctrination and for imposing obedience.
Try to explain to someone in a bar (outside of San Francisco) or at your family reunion that there’s an operating system that’s better than Windows for many purposes, and that it’s made largely by volunteers who donate their time to the project, largely for nothing more than the pleasure of doing so.

Whether or not that would go over in a bar would depend on the kind of bar it is, but you'll get a pretty obvious answer if you ask the people at a church how it could be possible that there’s an organization that’s better than a corporation for many purposes, and that it’s made largely by volunteers who donate their time largely for nothing more than the pleasure of doing so.
Allen Downey (the author of Think Python) was one of my CS professors at Olin College, and he always had a great and simple way to get his ideas across. Also check out his book on Synchronization for a fun look at the world of mutexes, etc.

There's a great story in how he ended up writing the Python book. He had already written "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" but completely in Java. At some point someone interested in Python decided to rewrite his book (which is released under the GNU Free Documentation License) and use Python instead. Downey actually re-read this version of the book in order to learn Python, and now teaches a popular Python course.

Can you imagine reading your own words to learn something you don't already know? That's pretty amazing stuff!
Five Obsolete Storage Formats
"fiduciary issues"?

Does that word mean something in business speak besides the normal definitions (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fiduciary)?

I usually can pick up on business speak, but I don't see what you mean now.

In any event, my favorite business-speak word is "rationalizing" used a euphemism for mass layoffs.
Maybe this is a super-tricky anti-takeover poison pill. Everyone leaves, so Icahn and Microsoft go away. Then they slowly and secretly come back.

(Not likely, but for the sake of search and portal competition, we can hope.)
There are some young approaches to solving this problem. One I just discovered today is Qliance, a low-cost version of boutique care, dubbed "direct primary care."

No insurance needed or accepted (thus no coding or paperwork), ~$50 a month, same or next-day appointments, 24hr access to care, they take their own xrays for free and dispense their own medicine at cost, &c.

Aside from making workloads managable (800 patients instead of 2-3000), the really interesting part is how this does away with the perverse incentives of insurance payments (which reward procedures rather than health, and which turns primary care into 10 minute referral-fests, rather than actual care), as well as sets up other good incentives, which reward the doctors for keeping the patient healthy (healthy patients don't need to spend a bunch of time in your office) and so on. His talk is really interesting: http://health.scribemedia.org/2008/01/21/garrison-bliss-pion...
How about a link to the actual research?
How is it going to prevent spammers from sending athentication requests as spam?

(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
Economy of scale isn't total bullshit. A factory can make specific widget vastly cheaper than a craftsman.
This is a dumb idea. Restricting what is quickly becoming one of the necessities of modern life and learning is a retarded way of dealing with enforcing copyright. People in the know will start using services such as relakks and other ssl vpns to hide their ip's. This is going to deter only superficially.

Way to make a country retarded!