skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In my experience that is not true. There is a huge expat Russian population outside Boston, many of whom live in their own bubble of language and culture. The same goes for American expats living in Russia.
Agreed. I kept imagining someone asking this guy to write a factorial function in a job interview, and then he puts this up on the whiteboard, as they watch dumfounded. That'd teach them alright.
the problem is that most property owners aren't tech savvy. Most of them don't even have a webpage.

And I'm not talking about the 1-2 unit owners...I'm talking about multi building companies with $600K in yearly revenue who haven't even bothered to setup a 1 page site with their phone # and hours of operation.

If you are going to take on this market, you are going to need a direct on the ground sales team.
Great question. IANAL, so don't know. Maybe try asking it on Volokh's blog?
What's with the '$get_social()' on the bottom right of the page?

I'm guessing it's not meant to be like that.
none :( Am I the only one ?
Interesting side effect of the helpful features in browsers are apparently sending DNS requests to unsuspecting parties.

The owner of www.go can't be all that happy with the flood of requests!
If I were you I would strongly reconsider your pricing....you're underpricing by quite a lot.

The last place I was in, the company my landlord used for online rent collection charged 1.50 per transaction...to the tenant. That's in addition to whatever fixed monthly fee the landlord was paying.
Egypt Blocks Facebook, Google - Anon Targets Egypt Govt
For some reason I object to this on principle, even though it clearly is a good idea. I want GMail to learn dammit, and do The Right Thing.
Only about 40% of WooThemes' revenue is subscription-based, yet that hasn't stopped us from adding continuous value to once-off purchasers / customers either. IMHO it's not just subscription-based businesses that has the opportunity of "never stopping to add value".

Another note is that when we release an update to a product, all existing users of that products gets the new version free of charge. That's immense value. We're updating products that are 3+ years old without asking our existing users for one extra dollar.
The design is sick. Wonderfully balance color scheme, beautiful call-to action buttons (I clicked "see pricing" a few times just because I was compelled to), and I love that it's iPad and iPhone compatible out of the gate. These are my initial impressions, I didn't dive too much into the content. But looks great on the surface!
This looks great!

Do you have any thoughts on lower tiers? I have 1 rental unit. On the one hand, $9/month is pretty low; on the other hand, paying the same as someone with 15 units is psychologically painful =). If it was like $20/unit/year for 1-4 units, that'd be pretty cool.
In that case, you might have a bright future in affiliate marketing ahead of you.
The phone looks like it has a mirror built in :)

EDIT: Reminder to self - don't try to be funny.
Kozmo.. er WebVan... Grocery Delivery is making a comeback
I'd be happy if only I had the opportunity to buy apps, period. I can only access apps that are free AND not US-only (so no Amazon Kindle for Android app). While I understand that there may be some considerations I'm not aware of, my iphone-owning friends seem perfectly happy and content to buy iphone apps. So if Apple can do it, why can't Google? (I'm in Panama, by the way).
:)

Expect a follow-up to this post detailing some ideas & potential strategies for adding continuous value to existing users.
you would think this is the case, and yes, an on the ground sales team will be helpful in addition to our affiliate program and partnerships, but these days are starting to phase out. These people are starting to realize they can't operate their companies the same way they did 10 years ago, and as the younger generation steps up the ladder in these companies, it's getting more attention.
Clickable links:

* Open-source projects: http://www.documentcloud.org/opensource

* Public search: http://www.documentcloud.org/public/#search/

* Just annotated docs: http://www.documentcloud.org/public/#search/filter%3A%20anno...

* Deepwater Horizon Spill Docs: http://www.documentcloud.org/public/#search/deepwater%20hori...
Regarding the social CAPTCHA: I hope they use some heuristics to gather who is really my friend and who is a "friend-me-once-and-never-talked-to-me" connection. There are a number of faces they could show that I wouldn't be able to put a name to.

I also hope they change the default privacy settings so that a person's friend list is hidden from unrelated viewers, otherwise a determined attacker could presumably browse your friends until they find the person in the CAPTCHA.
I've thought about doing something like this for a long while. Finally I had an apartment complex a couple years ago that allowed you to pay online (e-checks only), so maybe the industry is finally ready for this.

Expect a lot of resistance to landlords letting tenants pay with anything but e-checks, though. Think about adding something like automatically sending out emails to tenants to remind them to pay the rent (opt-in on first payment)?

Oh, and I think you might be underpricing yourself.
I don't believe it's legal to charge different prices to different people for exactly the same product. Changing the price (for everyone) is fine (you could even change the price 5 times a day), or adding a back scratcher and bumping the price by $500 is fine, but doing an AB test where you flip the price back and forth on the same thing isn't legal as far as I know. IANAL.
Sorry to be pedantic, but that's not really the definition of full-time.
This is the first time in a very long time that I've seen a landing page this awesome from such a hacker-centric place as HN. I agree!
Hollywood Bingo
Someone should make a site to keep track of all these programming language similes.
Word count is a medium-independent statistic that would be useful here, but strangely this is not provided for eBooks. Meanwhile, Amazon's physical books with the "Look Inside" feature come with a "Text Stats" link that provides the number of words, sentences, characters and more, e.g.:
http://www.amazon.com/Profiles-Courage-John-F-Kennedy/dp/sit...
If they support current Big Bang theory, they're all creationist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
There's no .go domain :-)
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that generally a legal threat letter is not covered by copyright at all. Copyright covers virtually all forms of creative expression, but most letters and certainly most cease and desist letters (which often follow a standard template) are not creative expressions by themselves.

I would also agree, again reiterating that I am not an expert, that even if they were covered under copyright the fair use argument could be enormously strong here, depending on the way and reason it was published. Given that there is no market for cease and desist letters the 2nd and 4th factor in the test under 17 U.S.C. 107 leans towards a fair use finding, and if its publication is for commentary or education (even better if noncommercial) then the 1st factor would also lean towards fair use. Only the the 3rd would lean against fair use since you would have to publish all or substantially all of the letter to be effective. But at least courts have found that use of an entire work can be fair use under the right contexts.

So, it certainly seems to me as a layman that there is no copyright concern in publishing and publicizing your average cease-and-desist letter.

[Edit to fix spelling]
> We're updating products that are 3+ years old without asking our existing users for one extra dollar.

Obviously, you're the expert here, but wouldn't you consider rolling that service into your subscription package and increasing the number of subscribers a bit.

I don't think any customer even expects you to give them free updates on stuff they bought more than 3 years ago, 'lifetime' free updates are really friendly but it sounds like money left on the floor.

Of course it's excellent PR, and if there is no potential upside to doing this differently then kudos to you for being so friendly to your customers.
Additionally, since the aforementioned demographics on property owners and management companies is accurate, you should consider alternative tactics.

What about modifying the initial workflow from the Tenants perspective and allow Tenants to make rent payments to Landloards who are not yet even on this site?

Seems like the easiest way to address your potential market (landlords) since there is certainly a huge demographic of renters who would like to use this service from the payment perspective. Changing the focus on the landing page to be directed at the Tenant -- as in PAY YOUR RENT NOW, and focusing on the benefits to the tenant as part of your conversion process.
We've considered a very small free plan, and will think more on that. As per the rent collection for these accounts, it doesn't become profitable for us at these smaller numbers, so this is why the $9 plan exists.
I really agree with some parts. If you expect to grow, you can at least make an effort to keep stuff extensible in the future. Right now, I work with old code every single day. With code written one day assuming that: tax will never change (did twice since then), tax code will never change (changed once), service provider will never change (another one was added, so we have to choose one at runtime based on many dynamic conditions), this modification is needed for only one reseller (file has 10+ lines of if reseller_id == ...).

Making things flexible may not sound pretty at the start. But ending up changing 3 apparently completely separate systems to accomodate the fact that you changed the version of some software and the output format needs to be different (hey - why would we do immediate representation, output's not going to change).

It looks silly in the example, because it's a simple operation. Now substitute 'factorial()', for 'provision_customer_config()'. You WILL change the backend at some point. You WILL change the endpoint at some point. You WILL change the way the function works completely, but will have to retain the previous procedure for existing users. It's a when not an if question. There should be a saying similar to that about people doing backups: there are 2 types of programmers - those who write modular code and whose who will.
Yeah experienced developers building scalable "bullshit" like GMail et al, ITunes Store, Android, etc.
Startup Weekend COO breaks down costs of SW event
Ice-Cream for a Sweet Tooth
This ice-cream was eaten in front of a camera by one of the ''victims'' :)
You'd think. But the cheapest interface ICs only deal with the data lines. You have to go to extra effort to control the 5V line.

That's insane.

Clearly my problem is that I am insufficiently cynical. I'll just have to try harder.
You completely dismissed the parent, who is 100% correct. While you think these days are "starting to phase out" you are incorrect. Despite younger managers taking over, this is an industry where even younger people are not as tech savvy. Take your technical blinders off, step back, and look at the big picture. A 100% awesome tech experience is not going to matter when you don't have users.
1. Macros aren't unique to lisp.

Perl6 also has macros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_6#Macros) though they haven't been implemented in Rakudo yet. Also Ioke states that it has macros.

2. Metaprogramming's power ... The best example I know of is Io where pretty much anything other than commas and parentheses...

Touched on Io introspection/metaprogramming before on HN:

* http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1804599

* http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1810480
"but it is very trivial to rebuild by hand, even faster if you have scripted it"

trouble is, anything that is trivial by hand for you, after you've done it 20 times is tricky for Sys Admins to pick up. And if you script it, when an automated solution is already available, you could be using that time to build business logic, which I'm guessing the main point of most people's role here?
I think you're wrong. 12 oz of bud in a can is a different product than 12 oz in a bottle. 12 oz by the can is different than by the case. But if you line it all up and make everything else equal, and have a line of customers in front of your till, it's illegal to charge different prices to those customers in line.
This looks absolutely incredible - I would love it if you could get landlords to use it.

Unfortunately both of my previous two lacked even an email address. My job has a contact email for employment verification and I had to get a special phone number from HR for my landlord because they didn't use email. This company probably has two dozen properties around town (each with multiple units) and doesn't even have email. Sometimes its amazing when we step out of our tech field and see how normal people live and work.

That being said - if you could convince landlords to give you 20 minutes for a demo, I bet you could sell a lot of them on it. You would probably need a sales team for that though.
Neither Python nor Ruby encourages this behaviour. Classes are clean and mean.
Catching Students (and Teachers) Who Cheat In the 21st Century
The title of this HN submission doesn't match the title on the article. Dawkins doesn't seem to be arguing in favor of firing all creationist astronomers; rather, only those whose religious beliefs conflict with their astronomy work. Not all creationist views are identical.

[Edit: HN submission title has been revised. Thanks!]
YES, but there are SERIOUS issues to doing this with regards to payments. You essentially have to be a registered bank or approved status in order to aggregate payments in order to support this. It's very complicated, expensive, and there is tons of red tape. This is where we wanted to go from the start before addressing many of these concerns.
You're right, the application was (apparently) refused. I remember seeing it go by and thinking 'wow, that's a really neat TLD', but never heard from it afterwards. Now I know why :)

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/report/dubai1.html
I don't get it, could someone give a better explanation than Amazon did?
The commenters on Volokh Consipracy have a much higher proportion of informed opinions than the internet as a whole. I often disagree philosphically (they're very libertarian) but it's high-quality discussion.
Do you wear bloomers as well?
Ask HN: What kind of payment methods do devs like?
We have a webservice that is currently free but we're introducing paid components, which include additional API calls as well as data export functionality. We're thinking about pricing and I wanted to get some input from devs. What kind of pricing model is most appealing to you?

- Flat monthly fee (all you can eat)

- Fixed fee per action / API call (pay as you go)

- Credit system, like on istockphoto.com (for example, API calls cost 1 credit, data export costs 5 credits, you buy credits in increments of 10)

Any other suggestions (other than free!) are appreciated.
I have been following astrophysicist Hugh Ross for some time. For a very intelligent exploration of creationist ideas (that very decidedly do not accept that the earth is only 10,000 years old) check out Reasons To Believe:

http://www.reasons.org/
we won't get entire market saturation over night, no. So, yes, you are right, there are technical hurdles, but we believe that the market is large enough right now, at it's current state to support this company. Our competitors agree, and our traction thus far hasn't proved any different. This is something we will address as we grow, but for now, we are pleased with our traction.
It might not seem so insightful, but it's something a lot of people forget and don't do. I'm building my current start up around this idea, but I see plenty of people who don't.
This may be a chance missed.

What we've seen though is that our subscription-based business is growing faster, which means that the 3-old product that gets updated makes the subscription plans more lucrative. So we're seeing a bunch of existing users upgrade to a subscription and new users prefer a subscription over an individual product.
Introducing TEDBooks
I just forwarded it to my manager, it would not surprise me if i'm not the only one doing the advertising for them.
The cynic in me would say that Linux pirate less because there's nothing to pirate >:) but I do agree with your overall assessment.
Since we're playing code golf, here's q/kdb+:

factorial:{prd 1+til x}
This social captcha is the stupidest idea ever. When I was travelling, I got locked out of facebook so many times and was unable to get back in because I could not figure out who my friends are.

People tag themselves wrongly. A lot of my friends are people from when I was young - I don't know how they look anymore.

And in Africa for example, you are often using Satellite connections, so depending on the internet Cafe, you log in from Israel, then Kenya, then South Africa, all in one day. And you get locked out each time.

Practically, it's very, very retarded.
Add NFC-like functionality to the browser
This is one of the reasons i decided to work on one myself. Make it cheaper because it is a vital part of developing a website or starting an online business. Poplytics would offer a choice of survey box or a feedback tab.
What advantages do you find in OCaml over Haskell?
No, I'm saying that ten years is a long time for Perl 5 to be under the shadow of an anointed successor which has yet to show up --- something which is a real problem now for the Python folks even though they're going through a smaller change which was better managed in every respect.
I would change the "Few Goodies" wording on the Take the Tour page; it feels like there's very few goodies. "Highlights" or even "A Few Goodies" works better.
Application Shortcuts for Chrome (on Mac): Time's up, Google
Last year Google said of Application Shortcuts for Chrome, "We're working on this feature and it should be out later this year"

It's now almost February of 2011 and there have been no updates from Google.

I'm tired of using Fluid or hacky ways of getting some of this functionality. It's so great on the PC version, when can we have it for OS X?

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=4d7f71953c36bb7b
RentMonitor beat you to the punch. What would you say the advantages of choosing RentPost over RentMonitor are?
Do you have any idea how deeply flawed your reasoning is?

By the same reasoning, if a schizophrenic claims the sky is blue and we all agree with him, that makes us schizophrenic too.
I'd be interested to know what kind of Customer Development went on here. How many discussions took place with potential users and what were the problems they pointed out that RentPost is now solving?
for the large operations with massive numbers of properties that where people are old school that make the decisions, this is absolutely the case. There are a large number of 200 and less companies and owners that are quite tech savvy and absolutely willing to adopt, at least from everything we have seen so far.
Formation of an entity, whether a corporation, partnership, or LLC, is usually driven by three concerns:

1) liability protection;
2) tax compliance and structuring; and
3) establishment of ownership.

1 - Whether the first factor is a major concern for you is going to depend on where you live and work, where your customers reside, and the nature of your business. Compared to a trucking company, manufacturer, or other brick-n-mortar business, the need for liability protection is likely to be less if the primary product is a web service. Of course, if your ebook is titled "how to build a rail gun in your back yard with toothpicks and electricity" you might want a little more liability protection :)

2 - Tax advantages are very individualized decisions and you'd probably want to consult an accounting or tax professional in your area to determine how this affects you. But in general, if you plan to start out small this will be a less important consideration.

3 - Establishment of ownership is crucial when you have more than one founder. But if this is just you, the concern about structuring ownership is reduced.

Ultimately, it's a personal decision as to whether the benefits of having a formal structure are worth the cost in time and money to have one prepared. But if any of the factors listed above are important to your business, then you'll want to at least consult an attorney and weigh your options.
Facebook Kills CAPTCHA - Introduces Social Login / Verification
This looks great. I think you have a great looking and useful product here. It could take awhile to catch on, but I think you have something.
Amazing! I run a coworking space for entrepreneurs in Brooklyn, which means every month I'm running around gathering up a dozen or so checks from tenants--so this the most exciting tool I've seen in a long time.

Thanks, oojacoboo. You're a lifesaver!
Desi Girls Desi Girls – World Great Pc Wallpapers of the World
We charge $1 per transaction, and have thought about 1.50, but we like the solid $1 number. We'll play that out and see how it works for a while.

As per the pricing for the software, we know it's cheap and will be considering price hikes in the near future. We wanted to come out of the gate swinging and get some traction.
With gc enabled, [autoreleasePool drain] asks the gc to run (IIRC), with gc disabled, it releases everything currently owned by the pool. Even on the Mac, you may still want to build your app without gc for performance reasons, and Apple gives you that option.

I'm sure we'll see gc on iOS devices eventually, but it's probably too memory hungry to be practical on the phone right now.
Yeah, I think that's a fair way to start thinking about them. But Lisp macros, to extend your example, are more like if you could generate the SQL using SQL. Which sounds like a totally horrible thing actually. :) But with Lisp it makes much more sense because lisp programs are lists. If SQL programs were tables, then it'd be a better fit...
I think you're missing the point. These are more than short stories:

1. They fall somewhere between a blog post and book. If you have 50 - 100 pages to write on something you either have to turn it into 50 blog posts or 300 page book. The focus here is on length appropriate works.

3. These are non-fiction (at least most of them) works that tend to be by amateur experts. What that means is that they are amateur writers writing on topics they are experts in. This allows my dad to write an Amazon Kindle Single on Vietnam or Economic Development and publish it. This is a huge win for amateur experts!

3. This is just the start, and I expect we'll see a lot of people moving in this direction, particularly people with huge followings. Imagine if someone with 100,000+ reach can sell 5,000 of these every 2 or 3 months.
that makes me :)
I think it's just a clever way to show their Twitter, Facebook, etc.
The Beauty of Car Window Clings
Car window clings are definitely immaculate stickers. That is why sticker printing companies offer you cheap car window clings.In short, they are very proficient and cost effective signs for enhancing your corporate image.
Want to improve my market purchase rates? Get Sprint to remove the giant upsell button right in the middle of the Epic's voicemail app.
Interesting that he was the man behind the Red Sox 2005 draft -- it would be fun to get a look at the stats and analysis he compiled for that. Michael Bowden came right out of high school so I wonder how the difference in stat keeping and obtaining at the high school level affected what he had to come up with.

(anecdote: We went to the same high school but didn't play together. He was on the freshman team when I was a senior on varsity. Stats were usually done by a volunteer student and only kept on paper.)
Google Docs and LaTeX
the change is going to be made... I thought it was cheeky... but people don't get it, it's a FAIL, I realize ;)