skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If your goal is saving money, that's true.

However, much of Groupon's appeal is the incentive to try new restaurants or do new things. The sushi place around the corner may be good, but you're probably not going to remember your nth visit.
Doing something for 10 years doesn't make the work you did over those 10 years right.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...

Google, Yahoo, AOL, and several other major web companies all recommend Progressive Enhancement. But sure, you know better.
I had a similar experience during the presidential debates. When McCain pointed at Obama and called him "that one," I quickly made a CafePress t-shirt and began pointing to it using #thatone as a hashtag on Twitter.

Shirt sales began before the debate had even ended.

I ended up selling 118 t-shirts, nearly all of them sold within 3 days of the debate.

Loren, would you mind sharing your sales totals?
Groupon was silly not to accept Google's $6bn offer. The profit margin that justified that valuation is sure to drop over time, as their business model is easily replicable. Does that mean Groupon or that business model is going to go away? Of course not. It does mean, however, that $6bn was probably the high-water mark for the valuation a company like this can achieve.

The biggest threat is not from the consumer side - who wouldn't love 50-75% off deals? - but from the business side. Rumor has it that business are losing anywhere from 75-90% on these coupons. Businesses will accept a loss leader now and again, but there are two threats here:

1) Competitors will offer businesses better deals by taking less as a middleman fee, hurting Groupon's profit margin

2) There will be few repeat customers on the business side, as Groupon purchasers don't actually return to the businesses based on the initial discounted deal

Both threats are serious.
Gartner: Android OS Sales Trumps iOS And RIM, Grew 888 Percent In 2010
Why is he in a US prison then?
Well, I wish these ambitions that people have for the web -- like providing entrepreneurs and engineers a way to deliver apps without relying on Microsoft or another platform owner and like providing designers and artists a medium for artistic expression -- did not make writing and reading simple text documents a confusing experience that can go wrong in dozens of ways.

And does anyone besides me find it ironic that the term 'thin client' is sometimes applied to this hairball over ever-increasing complexity we call the web browser?
HTML5 pushState/replaceState is the "correct" way to do this for compliant browsers, though... right?
Definitely. It's not like they're a huge company with significant market shares outside of the US, and they most definitely don't have tens of thousands of engineers with years of experience building phones. They should just go back to being a paper mill.
Very true, but I'm terrified of these Facebook features :)
Like I said - as a benchmark. I'm an engineer, I believe in numbers, feedback, and comparison.
That's an unfortunate side-effect of the Mac app store. It's too bad, because functional demos was one of the nice things about the Mac software ecosystem.

I hope demos are a feature they're working on.
> Taking on a fiduciary duty of loyalty and confidence, and then breaching it... that's serious.

Lets imagine it's not about tax fraud, but, say, murder. You are a psychiatrist and your patient proves you he has murdered someone and states he intends to murder someone else.

What is more important? Your duty towards your patient or your duty towards society?
There's a simple solution to the tax problem: charge a flat tax rate on gains on "secret" assets, levied by the financial institutions to which they have been entrusted. Many countries do this (I'm fairly sure Switzerland is among them) [1]. A problem only arises when the home country gets greedy and wants a piece of that tax pie. I'm sure you could come up with some system by which the destination of the money is estimated and the aggregate taxes paid to that country, but that's probably not seen as enough.

[1] Austria uses a system like this - capital gains are flat-taxed at 25% unless you choose to declare them together with other income, falling under income tax (you'd be pretty stupid to do this considering the lowest income tax rate here is 36.5%, but that's another matter). This frequently causes the OECD and the US (the only country to tax its non-resident citizens, as far as I know) exert pressure on Austria (and Switzerland) to try to get them to drop banking confidentiality; they've had some success lately, privacy has been somewhat eroded.
Back of the envelope calculation: 200+ shirts (over half in the first day) in a few days, ~$9 profit per shirt. Should be an interesting trip to the post office.

Just curious - what kind of profits did you get for your Cafepress shirts and how much did you sell them for?
No. He simply harmonised his personal name and his domain name (plus a heavy metal umlaut for extra fun).
It's not part of emacs, I just wrote it as an example.
Since children under 13 are not allowed on Facebook it's a moot point regarding Obama's daughters.

And if they did get accounts, they'd be reported very quickly: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=underage
Loved the comment about it being a "switch." This is exactly what I found when I went to Turkey after 2 years of studying Turkish. I was in a program where we had a 4 hour class in the morning taught about 80% in Turkish. The first week or two was terrible. Then the "switch" flipped. I wasn't a fluent speaker and still missed words and phrases while listening, but all of a sudden I could follow the class, do the lessons correctly, and ask semi-intelligent questions. It's a great moment when you're learning a language.
Your privacy ends where the IRS' authority to tax you begins. Thank goodness.
Pretty basic article, but yes, Memcache is awesome. With a PHP/Memcache/Nginx stack I was able to make a massive traffic site work on the smallest-possible EC2 server. But there are two things that are even more important when running PHP: a good FastCGI server (such as PHP-FPM) and an opcode cache like APC. Without those two, the PHP CGI execution model would be pure insanity; not only would it restart the entire process for each request, it would also recompile every file. I think it's sad that those measures are not standard in every PHP environment, but then again they're not particularly difficult to configure...
Something like PBKDF2 is trivially implementable in pure python with the provided primitives. There's no excuse not to do it.
I clicked on this wondering what 'Burst Tech' was.

Title should say '... bubble is going [to] burst.'
I'm sure it isn't (and, my condolences; that must be awful for you and even worse for her) but ... would you rather she didn't have an oncologist at all? (That's what happens if you just get rid of the sixes and change nothing else.) Or that she had a seven, who's working 80-hour weeks and working like a six on account of exhaustion? (That's what happens if you geet rid of the sixes and expect everyone else to pick up the slack.) Or that she had a seven but someone else with similar problems got her six instead? (Actually, I bet you would prefer that, and I don't blame you, but it wouldn't be any improvement for society as a whole.)

Having everyone be more competent would be a wonderful thing, but that isn't something you can bring about just by firing all but the best.
Austin DWI Lawyer
Austin DWI Lawyer Kyle Lowe is an experienced DWI lawyer in Austin with a concentration in DWI defense, violent offenses and other criminal defense areas.
There is a North American equivalent: http://rdio.com
Clever Logos
> He suggests using real URLs - instead of "/#!5753509/hello-world-this-is-the-new-lifehacker" we would have "/5753509/hello-world-this-is-the-new-lifehacker". Sounds great, but what happens when you click to a new article, which is loaded with AJAX?

I would deliver the page with plain old HTML links to other pages. On page load I'd use JavaScript to see if the new pushState[1] API is available, and if so fetch the JS required to update the page dynamically and then update the link elements to do the AJAXy thing. Seems like it would degrade gracefully in old browsers and keep the URL current in new browsers.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Manipulating_the_browse...

edit: is sjs382 my doppelganger?! (or vice versa)
Sleep shirt | sleepshirt
history.pushState() and history.replaceState() are introduced in the html 5 spec, so not all browsers support it yet.
HN has a tendency to hate on a lot of things that are wildly successful.
>"I'm of the belief that the ability to keep your work, voluntary exchanges, and assets private contribute to a free society in the same way that attorney/client privilege, priest/community, and spousal privilege all exist."

The 19,000 US citizens were violating US tax law. Are you confident omerta for bankers is really a good idea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omertà
Do you actually know what the man's "pledged duty" was, that it was recognized by the applicable laws about privilege, and that he broke it?

All of the other privileged relationships you mentioned have limits:

- The attorney-client privilege does not apply to communication in pursuit of committing a new crime.

- Psychiatrists are under ethical and legal obligations to break confidence when a patient reveals an intent to harm themselves or others.

- The actual level of confidence communications with priests carry is variable between states.
And Nokia seems to be gambling like a startup. If the Atom based smartphone doesn't work out well, they may be wiped out of the smartphone market altogether. A MeeGo phone with a powerful ARM processor (OMPA4/Tegra2) may have been a safer bet.
spam. flagged
Ask HN: What kind of personal financial investment do you do?
I realize the general consensus around here may be that the best investment would be in yourself (have 25k? start a business!), but surely some people have "normal" investments, too. How do you hack it?

I don't think it'd be very beneficial to discuss specific stocks, funds, etc; but other than that it's a very open ended question.

Some thoughts (but post whatever),

* Do you have a 401k? IRA? Roth or not? Do you max them? Why or why not?

* Do you have an investment account that isn't a retirement account? Why or why not?

* Do you pick individual stocks? Do you have someone else? Do you use a managed mutual fund or ETF? Why or why not?

* Do you use passive index mutual funds? Bonds? CDs? Why or why not?

* And whatever else comes to mind...
Still not a versus. You can try to solve a crime expecting personal gain. For example, many detectives probably wouldn't work for free. They solve crimes w/ the expectation that they will be paid for their results as agreed to by some contract.
Brazil tried to move this into the banking system - all withdrawals were taxed. It was not very popular, but it was effective and devilishly hard to dodge.

OTOH, companies routinely exchange services and that kind of transaction is very hard to tax.
The Path Forward: Ruby 1.9.2
Three points -

1. He didn't report a specific crime, he dumped a bunch of data, some potentially criminal and some not.

2. The clients hadn't broken Swiss law, which is where he was employed and where he took his duty oaths.

3. Actually, your lawyer can't be compelled to testify against you even if you tell him you did commit murder. Swiss society believes that a man's relationship with his banker should be sacred. This guy agreed to that relationship in Switzerland. Then broke it.

I'm not even saying it's wrong. Just that it's worth thinking about, because it's not clear cut at all.
Lifeguard jobs for 15 year olds
Lifeguard certification is usually expired after 3 years so that you will have to take a re-certification course.
Also, most lifeguards have to get a first aid/CPR/AED or first aid/CPR course. They may be included in few of the lifeguard certification courses. Nevertheless, these certificates usually valid for 2 years.
I'm really sick of this Chicken-Little-the-sky-is-falling-I-want-to-have-published-the-"it-was-a-Bubble"-5-years-before-the-next-bubble type articles.

Mashable reported that Groupon had $800M in revenue last year when Google offered $6B for them. [1] Taking $1B in funding makes a bit more sense when you consider it's only 1 year's worth of revenue for them.

LinkedIn is profitable before their IPO [2]

Yelp made an estimated $50M last year, and if they play their daily deals program right, they have a chance to make a crap load more money. I'm wagering they are going to be quite profitable before they IPO. [3]

Facebook make $1.8B in advertising revenue alone this year. I'd be hard pressed to believe they aren't profitable. And, since they have heaps of personal data on 1/12th of the world's population, does anyone doubt that Facebook's first 1,000 employees are going to be able to take up sewing blankets made of $100 dollar bills after their IPO? [4]

Now, when growth oriented technology companies have significant revenue streams and/or are profitable, how exactly is it that we're in a bubble?

Nothing to see here, folks. Go back to building companies that print money.

ref:

[1] http://mashable.com/2010/12/07/groupon-800-million/

[2] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%...

[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/yelps-first-daily-deal-beats-...

[4] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/18/...
Well, you can say the same stuff about anything, really. You can say that, for example, the law is what makes the state possible, and creating and keeping wealth But this does not excuse a breach of attorney-client privilege. A lawyer who "blew the whistle" on a murderer would face severe penalties.

You can't just invoke the importance of the state here--you have to say why the situation is different for banking, but you only address this particular point with childish name-calling and complaints about injured feelings.
Contest for Experimental Crowd-Derived Combat-Support Vehicle
the only one "coupon" I ever bought was for a $20 Amazon Gift card for $10 on Living Social.

All those other coupons are almost always junk. The only reason it works, is that out of millions of people out there, there are a few for whom that one coupon was actually relevant.

So essentially you sign up for 364 days of worthless spam, to save $10 once a year
At the same time, wasteful thoigh it might be government spending presumably doesn't just go down a black hole. The working man receives a service or at least the fringe benefit of that money being circulated back into the economy.

Either way, any use is more beneficial to ordinary americans than having the rich horde billions of taxable dollars in offshore accounts.
The Three Functions of a Management Team
Generally, yes. I have a Mac App Store app that is just a wrapper for a WebView.
I think that a lot of people are very happy to be spammed in return for saving money.
100,000/m is ok (in the sense that, you could slap adsense on it and start making some revenue). 1 million is a lot (in the sense that, you could work fulltime on it perhaps to grow it further). More is great.

That's my personal benchmark/take.
Yet you consider "a lot" a valid label for a number?

Something is behind the term "a lot." Does it mean a lot better than you were doing before? A lot more than similar sites? A lot more than the average of all sites? "A lot" could mean any of these things, and until you know which one you mean, you can't possibly get a reasonable answer.
Transparent LCD Displays
The Joys of Running a Bug Bounty Program
Ask HN: good/easy auth system for desktop/browser/mobile apps
What are some of the modern options for auth systems? I'm building an API that gets accessed by web apps, desktop apps and browser native apps.

I don't really like the OAuth "go to the website to grant access" model, I'd rather have users just enter their credentials in the app (at least in our own apps) and be authenticated.

Any pointers to good examples welcome!
Inlu.st - new dating startup
More Crowdsourcing Predictions from the Leaders for 2011
Does anyone here use this and have a recommendation on platform? My preference is Linux, MaxOS and Windows (in that order). But if not all platforms work equally well, I may reconsider.
Where I went to school(in the US) the first two years of CS and CE where the same, except in the class that covered digital logic. Then the CEs had an accompanying lab where they had to wire stuff up and CS majors didn't. All of the physics, math, and programming background were the same. After that CEs degrees were more EE than CS.
Great Seth Godin Videos Regarding Technology, Internet and Culture
No issues with Paypal?
Remind HN: Hacker News Monthly Launchpad
Oh, right. Sorry, hadn't had my coffee yet.

I tried doing exactly that, but used (interactive "kKey: "), with lowercase k, and it didn't work.
Well, sorry to see you resort to argumentum ad hominem after I replied to each individual point that you made.
If you're launching this month (or any month really), this is a great place to get initial feedback.
btw - I rolled a fix in a couple days ago that makes the IE version detect spoofproof in virtual modes (using conditional comments rather than conditional compilation). That should resolve your issue above!
https://github.com/scottjehl/Respond/commit/2cc01ebb5403a02c...
Yeah, I know... as such, I placed it in quotes to indicate the vagueness of it all.

I'd expect replies to qualify their number for "a lot" with the context they're considering it in. There's a lot of different benchmarks, and I was interested in seeing what the HN crowd had in mind. Peter's comment is one such example :)
My google voice number is 786-J-Finnie... I really hate that I can't enter that on a vaild phone number on many websites! Since I specificially looked for that as a phone number, I haven't memorized the actual numers of JFINNIE, so I just put in a fake number.
I've been in the process of converting for several years. I certainly wouldn't claim to have "arrived" yet, but I think the process has been very good for me.

It seems trite to say, but I believe that it's all about doing it. The most useful thing I've found (and I do this not just with design, but with programming) is to find something I like, and then re-create it. I'll see a shot on dribbble (http://dribbble.com) and decide to create something similar from scratch, by playing around in Photoshop until I get it right (or close). If I get stumped, my last line of defense is to look up a tutorial on the look I'm trying to achieve.

I would never publish anything I've created through this method, but the act of purposeful creation gives me tools and techniques to use down the road.
I don't have any first hand experience with it but it looks like the Linux version is running through Wine, not a native port.

Wine is great but for 3D stuff (including games) I've found that its usually more trouble than its worth to get it configured right for my specific systems.
Congrats on your success, dude!
Sums it up pretty good.
Only thing is, memcached is kinda outdated, it's not safe, can put very easily your environment at risk in case of crash. For anybody starting to wander in the world of caching with PHP, i'd recommend Redis, much better, safer and on an other planet when it comes to features available.
> because it's not clear cut at all.

Certainly not. But tax evasion is an offense more serious than people usually think.
When the upside is you get $100M and the downside may be having to quit your job?
I think you're talking past each other. If you want to build a web-based spreadsheet application, you neither "progressively enhance" nor do you "gracefully degrade". Your browser is either a supported runtime or it's not.

Sure, if you're building a content site, you will want to have progressive enhancement, but if you're building a client-side application, SEO concerns and the other concerns of content-delivery sites are less relevant.
The people in question likely haven't had any formal education at all, they're self-taught.

I took CS, and my second class involved assembly (starting with JVM bytecode and then 8088) and my third was C++. CS majors know what integer overflow is.
Do you work as an employee, or as a contractor/consultant?
Bernoulli Effect and Reaction Lift
Are Compact Disc Digital Audio sales being counted as non-digital?
The page looks great, and I really like the way it tells the stories of how the founders met.
This is because of artificial limitations placed on browser apps by iOS.

Think about it, Facebook, one of the largest photo sharing WEBSITE has a native app. Why? Because you can't upload photos on iOS.

iPhone OS 2 comes out, native apps get a full SDK with supporting frameworks. The browser gets "touchStart" events.

Apple simply doesn't want people writing browser apps because they dont make money nor lock users in.
edit: is sjs382 my doppelganger?! (or vice versa)

Haha, not at all. Just my old university ID since "sjs" was taken here ;)
Please travel more instead of just reading. What you argue totally depends on the country.

Some of the 'poor' people here in Colombia work 3 hours a day, earn just the same money as someone who recently got a bachelor degree, and stay the rest of the day drinking beer and saving no money for tomorrow.

They also tend to have very big plasmas or LCD TVs and huge sound systems, while their houses are just bricks without any paint on them.

So, I live in a very rich country (you just can't imagine the delicious and cheap fruits here) but full of poor people.
Understanding basics of ANT build.xml
When I started out the two where the same, you had to do development to do design, the world has changed a good deal since then, I would say that the fields started their split after Photoshop was out, but up to PS 3 I remember designers writing their own plug-ins to do effects. I remember trading homemade plug-ins for Photoshop on BBS boards.

More to the point, I think you can learn the techniques and train the eye, but whether you can produce beauty with technique and an eye for design is subjective at best.

I personally am good enough to do commercial art for web apps but I won't be winning any fine art contests, I am fine with that because it is good enough for what I do. When I used to do simulation, I had a friend who was great at 3d art, when I would look at his work and compare it to our work (the rest of the teams) their was no comparison. He had a natural talent that none of us could achieve, to the rest we where good but he was better in a league of his own. He went on to work on the Polar Express and several other films, which in the 3D segment of design that is the major leagues.

The rest of the team (myself included) while good, would have never made it at that level. That being said, many enjoyed long careers in simulation and game development and where not affected by being the best 3D designer possible.
Test for the API and fall back to the hashbangs if it isn't available. Check out this example in an old browser and a modern one:

http://www.asual.com/jquery/address/samples/express/portfoli...
One small issue. Somebody wanted a refund (which is totally fine), but they stupidly filed an "unauthorized funds" dispute, basically implying that I hacked their account and stole the money. Paypal froze the funds temporarily, but I issued a refund and cleared it up right away.
I wonder how much the average Groupon user actually saves in a month/year. I just glanced through the last three month of groupon spam in my inbox and the only deal that I would be remotely interested in was $6 off at some pizza place I don't normally order from.
I prognosticate that inlu.st will have an easy time attracting at least one of the two sexes as users.

Now, which one will that be? Hmmm..