skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The number one language tool for me these days is parallel texts. I grab ebooks in my target language, along with their english translations, and I use some open-source software called "hunalign" to create a sentence-aligned text.

Hunalign is an amazing little piece of software that will figure out which sentences correspond to which other ones in the second text, independent of language. It uses some neat algorithms to find the correspondences using sentence length, and then builds a partial dictionary and rematches.

At the end, I get a two-column version of the book, with one language on each side, with sentences matching in each row. As I read in my target language, I can just glance over to the equivalent English on the other side in order to get the meaning.

Reading is the fastest way I've found to really get an intuitive sense for the language's grammar and to learn tons of words. And the whole process goes much faster with parallel texts. I learned fluent German through reading, and now I'm working my way through Dutch. I started Dutch in January, and used parallel texts to read through the Harry Potter series while listening to the Dutch audiobook versions of them...now I feel quite ready to jump into non-parallel Dutch novels.

More info available on my parallel text process coming soon on my blog: http://languagefixation.wordpress.com/
Cameras aren't cameras anymore, they're just another sensor input. Do you want to scan a barcode or QR code? Do you want to scan a document? And then translate it? Do you want Augmented Reality games that let you fly a little spaceship around the room and shoot your friends? The plunging cost of camera chips means they'll be increasingly ubiquitous. I wouldn't rule out one on your toothbrush.
We use PayPal Adaptive Payments. It's far from perfect: all paying customers must have a PayPal account and (in Europe) payments can be set up only for a year in advance. The term "preapproval" is also likely to frighten some customers.

Adaptive Payments was chosen as the standard recurring billing API doesn't allow us to automatically manage subscriptions, which becomes an issue if you have multiple plans. However, we had to implement billing scheduling ourselves. PayPal was for us the only option which didn't require us to store CC information on our servers.
Apple releases iPhone, from the well-thats-not-very-exciting dept.

...

No 3G, no MMS, no video calling, shitty camera & bluetooth. Lame.
I consciously prefer serving it myself rather than google because if it's a first time visitor, he will be requesting other static files as well from the site, so having a cached copy of jquery leads to minimal loading time differences (although it does save on bandwidth).

However if there isn't a cached copy of google's jquery there is the overhead of a dns query and new http connection to google.

This compared to the already open keepalive from my static server increases load time dramatically.

First impressions count, and you have few vital seconds to make a good one.
I've created a Collaborative Task Manager, http://managewith.us which allows remote members of a team to manage a list of tasks, seeing updates in real-time (a bit like Etherpad).

There's a free version, but I'd be happy to give your readers a discount on the Pro and Enterprise packages (they are relatively affordable anyway).

If you're interested drop me an email, which is info@ the domain above :-)

Andy
Suggested Term Paper Topics for Research Proposals
A good topic is vital for a well written research paper proposal. Coming up with interesting term paper topics for research proposals can be a challenging task. However, with knowledge and practice, students will be able to find good topics.
Most of the tablets assume a hardware keyboard is going to be used for long form text entry. I think even the iPad is less fascist about this than it has been in the past.
You really see offices full of workers staring at tablet PCs, trains & planes full of road warriors bashing out long reports on touchscreens?

The home market may primarily shift to tablets; I'm not convinced by that and I think there's still a problem with the use case for content creators on tablets which includes an awful lot of school children. But the market I absolutely can't see abandoning PCs as we see them now and moving to handheld touchscreens is the office market and that's far from insignificant.
David Beazley Hacks Vintage SuperBoard II with Python & ZeroMQ [video]
I tried, no I really really tried hard (one hour of googleing is a long time in google time), but I can't. I have to use MatLab for control systems course I am taking. The problem is at college I submit my code as a matlab file and the control toolbox in octave is not syntax compatible with matlab control toolbox. So I guess octave lost to my university site licence.
Nice concept - would be good to have a footer link to the instructions when in edit mode.

For me, being able to use markdown or similar would be a big plus.
Site seems to have slowed for me too now. Especially the front page. Gzip would probably help with the bandwidth issue but I don't think that's at fault.

I wonder if pg would accept a yc news written in python/redis :)
Ask HN: How much should we charge for a bespoke version of our site?
Hi,

I have created an alias account due to the confidentiality of the request. We previously launched to HN and got great feedback from the community.

We run a site and have been approached by an organisation that employs around 30,000 people. They want their own, branded, bespoke version of our site and want us to do it for them.

We are one coder and one designer.

It will take us 14 days (full time) to satisfy the request - how much is a fair sum to charge for a one off fee?

Should we be offering to support it going forward (we have full time jobs) and if so how much should we charge for this?

Should we be charging them a monthly fee for using our technology as well as a one off fee?

If they ask us to host it I presume we should be asking for a hosting fee as well?

Any advice you can give us would be much appreciated. We can't tell you the business involved I am afraid due to confidentiality reasons.

Thanks again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect#The_Osborne_Myth
1.) Is a limitation of Google's crawlable Ajax proposal. That would probably not have occurred with a proper standards body. What sequence of events would have to happen to have that as an inbound URL? I sense some previous JavaScript would have to have failed to allow that scenario.

2.) The site is already paying this price by redirecting _escaped_fragment_ URLs, and the old clean style urls. All inbound links will have this problem, so you're only shifting some of the burden through this door instead of the others.
How long does it last? I assume the prints "grow back", but what time does it take?
Remember the Milk
Nokia mulls Microsoft partnership: report Windows Phone 7 not that popular
Google VP Labels Nokia and Microsoft “Turkeys”
The end of the PC era is always announced. But don't see how I can do my daily work on a Ipad. I need a laptop or PC.
Split testing your copywriting
Nerd saves entire BBC archive for $3.99
Blogs report iPad 3 before iPad 2 is released. Will this hurt iPad 2 sales?
Loved the "I do it for the hugs afterwards" line.
I would guess that such groups are being manipulated by exceptionally smart people for specific ends, some significant fraction of the time.
I've used Netbilling's recurring payment API before (patched support into ActiveMerchant a while back), but now I'm using Recurly with a PayPal gateway.
I hate everything that is marketed as OO, and I hate CSS, now I don't know whether these two should cancel each other out or not...
A major selling point for me is not only organising papers but the ability to annotate papers with full text search for your notes - something available with the mendeley app on the iPad. If no other reader includes this ability soon I know a lot of academics planning on getting an iPad v1 once v2 is launched.
Free Online Brunei Newspapers
The spreedly FAQ implies that you need a merchant account.

"How does Spreedly pay me?

Spreedly never touches your customers' money - it goes straight into your merchant account."

is this not the case?
Bill Gates, but he would probably be hiding brass knuckles or a knife.
Right. In the future, voice and/or TV will no longer be able to subsidize home broadband. Likewise, voice and SMS will no longer be able to subsidize mobile data (there's a thread on the front page right now related to AT&T Wireless feeling the heat in this regard).
Ah, but the #! is probably just using JS to access a well-defined API - the same API which anyone else can access in completely uncluttered, machine-readable form.

So perhaps the solution is for every #! page to have a meta tag pointing to the canonical API resource which it is drawing data from. Bingo, semantic web!
Implying that the 0.1% have never been caught?
So, it helps geeks relate with a larger part of mankind. That has to be something good, right? With a couple years of practice, they may even start enjoying reality shows...
Because programmers don't ask for more money often enough.

Seriously.

Here's the three minute version of doing it:

1. Work hard on tangible stuff, document and claim credit for doing it, and notify people with what benefit the work provides. This sounds maybe stupidly obvious, but a lot of non-technical people don't understand the value in something. So, "Upgraded XYZ so our website loads faster, which is proven to make customers more likely to buy according to ZYX paper" - I know, what a waste of time, right? Wrong! It's going to make you a lot of money. Tell people what you did.

2. Before you go to ask for more money, prepare a BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement) - if they say no, what will you do? You need to know this. Having other offers is obviously good. Savings are good. You don't even have to mention your BATNA, but you need a Plan B. Most people don't make one of these, so if their first attempt doesn't go swimmingly, they're in trouble.

3. Go in and stress how much more you'd like to do going forwards. This is huge. Do not mention what you've done in the past, except in the context of how it proves how much more you can do going forwards. So go in and say, "Hi boss, as I mentioned in all my various weekly reports, I've been learning new stuff and kicking massive ass. [that was step one] Recently I've picked up some new skills, and I've been getting recruited for a bunch of projects [step 2], but I really like working here. Actually, I think I can deliver even more value here, if I take on new responsibilities. I'd like to train a successor to gradually take over my current role, while I do ABC-stimulating-enjoyable-task that will bring the business new money. I don't even want to be compensated much more for it - I'm going to be bringing in lots more value/assets/sales/cash/whatever, but a moderately small raise is enough for me because I like working here so much." Then lay out what you're asking for.

Business people learn how to do this. You're leaving lots of money on the table and not getting a chance to work on cooler stuff that you'd like to do if you don't do this.

1. Regularly update with the work you completed, and the benefit it provides.

2. Decide what you want, and what you'll do as Plan B if your current company won't give it to you.

3. Go stress that you'd be able to produce more value if you transition your role to a more highly paid and enjoyable one. Be friendly and complimentary. Whenever possible, try not to ask for more money for the same role from the same company - people hate price increases, so it's better to expand your role to something that's also more enjoyable and produces more in their eyes. If you want a raise for doing the same exact work, it's probably good to start looking outside the current company as well for other offers.
My http://startupdeathclock.com is great for cheering yourself up.

Only to be used in the week after you close a round!
I can't propose a so biased implementation ;) A faster HN is already a big enough gift.
We keep the credit card numbers on file (yes, fully complying with PCI) and handle the recurring billing ourselves.
We use Braintree's vault, and we use ActiveMerchant to access it. We wrote all of the recurring/billing/invoicing logic ourselves. Beyond the initial implementation, we've done one sweeping overhaul of the logic to make some improvements and simplify things after learning a lot from the first pass.

We built it in late 2008, and either the companies that handled recurring stuff didn't exist when we were building it, or we weren't aware of the ones that did. Otherwise, it's unlikely that we would have gone down this route. However, now that we have it, it is pretty nice to have control over every detail of how it works.

When we made the enhancements, we briefly considered switching to a provider for handling it, but given our existing infrastructure, it was actually easier for us to improve our own instead of migrating to another provider.
PayPal Bingo
Right - but being able to use those apps doesn't require a paid subscription from Dropbox.
I agree about the effects of inflation, but why should things be plotted on a logarithmic scale?
Comparison of Iphone, Android, Phonegap and Titanium development
Which I pay for for the exact reason Instapaper users will pay a subscription for their service.
However, I've read that as a boss, you may not want to entertain giving raises for those that ask for it, even though you may think you're cultivating the go-getters. It ends up that people feel like only those that are rewarded are those that cozy up to you, and politics will ensue.

According to the article, when asked for a raise, the best thing is to say they have to wait for their review like everyone else, and that's when you'll take note of performances.
Interview with Linus Torvalds: looking back, looking forward
I assume the "merchant account" is a PayPal account in this case.
Remembering myself as a kid, being interested in something, and forbidden from doing so, was an instant "totally going to do that" impulse. I'd perceive such ban as a challenge, and would do my best to work around it. And I wouldn't say I was some exceptionally stubborn kid — I believe I was fairly average.
Freshbooks with Authorize.net as the payment gateway.
That's a hell of a catchy title.

How about "Twitter Finds Itself Between A Facebook And A Google, Deserves A Microsoft Fate But Will Finally Become Stronger Like Apple Did Or Face A Buyout Like Palm Has Been"?
Are you using the Payments API or just the "regular" Spreedly functionality?
amazing work. Now for the pokerbot...
This guy is clearly a dangerous moron. This kinda makes me feel better for being so cold about this whole affair in the other thread.

The terrifying thing is that there are still people in government who believe sentences like "specific techniques that can be used to target, collect, and exploit targets with laser focus and with 100 percent success" through social media.

I mean, who claims one hundred percent success at anything?

EDIT: Also, that coder hopefully shouldn't be buying any drinks for a while.
Dependency injection separates discovery from dependency. It's neither good nor bad but can be useful as well as abused beyond ad nauseum. End of story.
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2201213

No votes, no comments, no attention, no traction.
Across the Line – The Exodus of Charlie Wright 2010 English Movie Watch Online
CDNs make the download part much less of a problem.

And your server could easily send a fully rendered page on the first page load when it receives a full URL (one which was made by pushState and linked elsewhere) and still subsequently load pages via XHR. So it wouldn't have to parse any JS on first load -- subsequent loads would, but they'd be saving time from not downloading as much and not refreshing the entire page.
If it's based on how fun they are, then it's not random (unless fun is randomly distributed).
So if PayPal has issues with canceling subscriptions, has horrendous support, is clunky, and has higher fees, why do you still use it?
obvious symmetry to the Read-Eval-Print Loop.
Aren't we all being manipulated some fraction of the time?
Is there a Ruby gem of this?
I really like the website. There could be a bit more eye-catching elements on the front page, but besides that everything looks really clean.

But I have to agree - you should definately put up a section "What makes us different". When I was browsing around on your webpage all I thought was "What makes this different to Basecamp??"

So you don't necessarily make a comparison page, but highlight what you do better with your product than other project management software.
Ask HN: Are uncommon TLDs (.ly, .io) viable for average users?
It's difficult to see the world from someone else's perspective. Rather than conjecture, I'd be interested to see if someone had done the research to verify that domains ending in something else than .com, .net or .org (or the national ccTLD).

Heck, maybe .net and .org even confuses some users.
I've not read the book so I'm not sure how good it is. However, at times authors don't reply but they do include your name with acknowledgment so did you check the new edition?
But if that didn't happen, then I totally agree with your sentiment.
At least according to Americans :)

I get fingerprinted all the time and I'm not American. Maybe I just look shifty.
Neither curl nor wget follow the Google convention for handling hashbangs as suggested by the parent, so I'm not sure what you're getting at with this reply.
I like the site -> http://bobbuffone.pen.io/
How great entrepreneurs think
But as Tim says, the spec proposed by Google is only meant to fix some problems (can't be searched by search engines) caused by using this URL scheme. It isn't meant to be a one-guide-fits-all approach making AJAX content addressable.

In other words the spec treats one of the symptoms, not the original problem.
Single page version: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2048138,00.html
I remember reading through these pages back when I learned about McCarthy, probably 10 years ago or so. I think he's a born optimist, like I'm a born pessimist. He fails to mention fresh water shortages around the world, too. And a couple of other huge pending problems of the sort. I'd like to see convincing information that we are not currently in overshoot...
This is excellent advice, having been someone in a very similar situation, I wish I had read this about a year ago.
You can do the same with standard address labels as anyone who has sent out a large mail-merge will know.
Park Equipment supplies
PARCS has been supplying high quality, innovative recreational products and services.You can select from our wide range of Commercial and Residential indoor playground equipment. For details please Visit our website.
Larger companies which use uncommon TLD's generally buy both the TLD specific domain (ie recur.ly) and its .COM version (ie recurly.com).
Twitter 'in early talks with potential buyers Facebook and Google'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R90QyIBJqrg
Does this mean the Mayans were off by 33 years?
Space heroes
Making Crash Bandicoot, by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin
Looks interesting. You should submit it on its own. In fact combined with The prof. Bartlett videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY) it makes quite a good usage of arithmetic to counter McCarthy point of view.
I could draw the stick people in SVG
HIPAA Penalty: Vermont AG and Health Net
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2201616
Startup pivot stories: How TokBox changed its business model
Why HP’s take on WebOS could be a very big deal
Unfortunately PayPal is pretty much the only option, if you're based in Europe and want to do recurring payments.

I agree with all the points above: the support is worst I've ever experienced, the user experience is horrible and hasn't improved over the years, and the recurring payments clearly don't belong to the product.
Not really impressed, yet. And here is why:

Zero points for coming out: Mr Elop was brought in by the board exactly with the goal of rescuing Nokia in mind. Looking from that angle the memo is a bit overdue.

Zero points for opening the letter with a metaphor - this is the way someone steering a major technologic corporation is expected to convey the direction - by projecting a vision.

Negative ten points for picking wrong metaphor. It broke down immediately. See for yourself: should Mr Elop's best employees take his advice literally and jump the burning platform? Followed with a change in behaviour meaning never again joining a severely fragmented bureaucracy ridden company? What was the lesson learned by the oil rig worker? What could he have done differently in the situation when he woke up on a burning platform in a middle of a sea?

I’d award one point for openly enumerating the challenges. But these are the symptoms of Nokia demise, he hasn't dug deep enough, the list is known at this point to every man and his dog.

Negative ten for the actual lack of a credible vision at this point. Let’s wait till the strategy comes out.
My read: The piece is based on Anonymous propaganda. Anonymous itself is actually an amorphous propaganda outfit. The primary purpose of their actions is to produce media. Anonymous achieves these ends in part by taking on opponents with good story value, but no consequential power. They also engage in actions against significant players, like credit card companies, but these actions are most effective in creating media while only resulting in momentary financial damage. Anon is a media entity, not a financial one.
Japanese company to sponsor first robot marathon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roach_motel perhaps?
How can you tell how closely coupled a codebase is when you're in the interview process and not yet an employee?

This is the real challenge. I don't think many companies, outside of perhaps small startups, will let you view their code - at your own perusal so you know they aren't just showing off the good stuff - to candidates.
Lawyers forced to continue file-sharing prosecution
Might this confuse search engines? For example bing seems to use click data from IE users clicking links in their ranking, so perhaps the whole site being one URL would confuse it. More alarmingly, when people link to your site they will link to site.com/#xyz by copying from the address bar. So search engines will think all links to your site are to the homepage.
Need to know about Phat pants and shuffle pants
Do you need Phat pants and shuffle pants to attend a party?? Shop at alternategear for eye catching collection of Phat pants and shuffle pants.
Personalised Jigsaw Puzzles Ireland
Personalised Jigsaw Puzzles Ireland - Vivid Stories provides unique handcrafted board or wooden jigsaw puzzles.
Reclining somewhere warm while drinking his FU money?
I find that in practice, it's a lot easier to do steps 1 and 2, then simply take one of those offers to work someplace else. Your value as a developer increases so fast early in your career that you'll literally double your market rate during the course of your first job after college.

There's simply no way that you can convey to a company that they need to pay you twice as much as they did when they hired you 3 years ago. They simply won't believe it. Sadly, the only way is to demonstrate it for them by actually accepting a job somewhere else for twice the money.

The key is to remember that you're in this game for yourself first. It's nice to work for a good company with a good environment and a fun team, but at the end of the day it's not worth leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table just to stay there.