skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I read American Gods for the first time after downloading it, and then I bought it.
> I wonder, why don't large corporations join forces and lobby the government and congress for changes in patent rules and laws?

The story I usually hear is that there are two main groups of companies that are lobbying for changes to the patent law, but because of the different nature of their industries they have diverging goals for patent reform and have not been able to reach a compromise (thus the legislature is also unable to reach a compromise). On the one side are the consumer electronics and software companies, and on the other are the pharma and biotech companies.
The fact that this is so tightly regulated is directly responsible for the well-known shortage of physicians (especially primary care) in the US.

Here's some data about how the supply of doctors is constrained by law:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ...

(http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-hav...)

For the last 30 years, only 16,000 new doctors are let through each year, and this is very carefully regulated to keep guild members rich. There's nothing wrong with people getting rich, so long as they don't use the government to secure and maintain their monopoly. This is why state licensing should be abolished.

Unfortunately, it's been this way since the Middle Ages. Does it have to be this way? Not if you decide that people should be free to choose for themselves which expert they should seek medical help from, and what qualifications they require. If you own your own body (and I say you do), this is your right to decide.
try loqizeme.com :)

yeah, we wanted to come up with a fantasy-name but that also had some kind of "location"-ring to it.

also, we're all non-native English speakers... I guess that helps when you try to come up with a word that doesn't exist in English language...
Twitter's Stone: no IPO or funding talks
50 Years of Making Fuzz, The Sound That Defines Rock 'n Roll
> created:	13 hours ago

Welcome!
Displaying data from MySQL table using PHP
thanks! we'll look into that!
You can see the HTML 4.01 definitions at http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.3

The complex parsing algorithm wasn't spelled out in excruciating detail, as it is in HTML5; much of it was implied, and left for the parser developers to figure out.

Strictly, the HTML, HEAD, and (BODY|FRAMESET) elements are required, in a valid document, but the tags delimiting them are optional. That way, code which manipulates the DOM can always count on a HEAD element being present, and CSS specifiers can use 'body' as a root, even if the tags themselves are missing from the source HTML file.

The first actual required tag in an HTML 4 document is <title>, as far as I know. Every HTML document has to have one, and it needs to be opened and closed explicitly. If it's the first thing in the document, it implies an <html><head> before it, and if body content comes after it, that will imply </head><body> as well.

You could put a <meta> tag anywhere before the first body content, and it would still be part of the implied HEAD element. As long as it doesn't come after the (explicit or implicit) </head> tag, it shouldn't cause the document to fail validation.

And no, none of this is valid XHTML. XHTML is always strict, and all opening and closing (or self-closing) tags must be present in the source file.
Free Ebook - Web Application Security for Dummies
thebigsecurity.com
Summary: Measure productivity as the time you spend working minus the time you spend working on stuff that's not useful.

This definition of productivity doesn't even have the right units (time belongs in the denominator, not the numerator), and the analysis in the blog is muddled (why exactly does it matter whether or not I count lunch as 'non-value-added' since I'm going to subtract it anyway?)
The Most Gratuitous Product Placements in Film
"This works perfect for consumers, but not so good for the companies...."

The movie industry is thriving and they've been hit pretty hard by sharing.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/piracy-once-...
Thanks und Dankeschön!!

It's all thanks to our great CTO http://philipefatio.com/
This would seemingly be akin to Apple releasing iMovie for Windows/Linux... unless they happen to sell content/services with it or use it as a base for their devices (ie, iTunes), I don't see how this move will do anything but dilute their platform.
Startup Lets You Rent Fine Art, Netflix-Style
My issue is you restated his analogy changing the legal categories and the subjects and then disproved your interpretation. Patent law and copyright law are not the same and math's relation to software is not the same as the relation of individual words to a book.

His argument is weak, but you are attacking something else.
Twitter Was Act One
Interactive Map: Metropolitan Areas and the Next Economy
I'm curious if specs in mobile devices have become less important when the device is only supposed to do more or less what it's advertised to doand what the user bought it to do, and not much else. Apple advertises all the apps that work on the iOS line of devices, but these apps are (should be) designed to fit "inside the box" of functionality on the device. Android seems to take a different philosophical approach where users are the big deciders in what is good and appropriate for them on their devices. In the face of advertising versatility, specs do become a bigger issue...especially when you compete with multiple devices on the same platform...like PCs. Apple devices don't have the spec issue, except where it's relevant to show difference between generations of devices. At least that's my two cents. I think both platforms put forth their design philosophies pretty well, and both are respectable options for users. Why people fight over what's better so much is a source of both hilarity and sadness for me.
Yup. I, for one, refuse to use BBM on my iPhone, as it would be condoning their treatment of Kik.
Who is Winning the U.S. Smartphone Battle?
You're conflating the right of control of exploitation with copyright, which is a legal creation to protect that right.

The two are close, but not synonymous. Take photographs: the exclusive first-use of a photograph is a big thing. If you publish my picture without my permission, my right of control is gone.

I can use copyright laws and the courts to try and get economic redress for that, but nonetheless I no longer have the ability to decide where and when that picture is first published; the ability was stolen from me.
Broke Town, U.S.A.
The fact is, sub-prime market is where banks make most of their money, not the prime market. These loans have ridiculous fees ($2000 in fee for $3000 car) in addition to high interest rates to bypass state usury laws. Banks don't really care, they get these fees and sell the loans to investors.

I am hoping to make some change in this market. I am working on a start up that would help those with limited credit, like Gen Y, get car loans at better than bank rates. More when I have a decent beta page ready, which should be soon :-) But would be interested to learn if those just starting their careers (18-24 yrs) are facing problem getting car loans at reasonable interest rates.
totally agree with you! and thanks for the feedback!!
Our CTO http://philipefatio.com/ appreciates it!
> where they could become useful in the first month or two

Actually, it often takes experienced coders several weeks to become truly useful to a team. I've heard a consulting manager say that only after 6 months do they charge the full amount for their people.
Bill Gates Promotes Professor’s Online Course at TED
You can take a glance at this thread:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=...
There is something kind of funny about a quote going from "quite small" to "quite smooth" (referencing sales numbers - as in "the numbers have been quite smooth").

It reminds me of a kid cursing in front of his mother and then twisting the sounds to create another word after he realized it, if that makes any sense.
Sending Email using gmail Account with C Sharp
thebigsecurity.com
Rawat Schools and Colleges
Rawat public school is the top school of jaipur, rajasthan. We have a best group of teachers who teach students very well and we also provide graduate courses like b.tech, bstc, post nursing and girls pg colleges.
I don't think it's a MongoDB fault, it is simply true with everything that is serving data bigger than available memory.
Of course there is also no solution to the problem as the disk is slower... unless your working set still fits you are going to pay the added latency.
Agreed downtime occurs in every system. Also, the most important function of a datacenter is to keep your application/service up and working properly. Use a third party service to be the first to know when it's down. (disclaimer: I am a founder of Rigor.com, and we provide this type of service.)
It's already included with their BlackBerrys, so the integration is seamless for everyone, tech-savvy or not. BlackBerry users just have to share their IDs, no installation required is a very nice feature. As you know, blackberry owners are not really big app installers [1].
As some guy would say : "It just works".

[1]: http://moconews.net/article/419-average-number-of-apps-downl...
HN by far. Facebook doesn't offer me anything interesting except the convenience of not having people ask "when are you going to get a Facebook account?" (answer, 2004 when it didn't suck).
How the Internet is Making Us Less Creative
Completely agree. I'm not exactly an apple fanboy, but I do love my iPad, and there isn't yet a competitor's device I'd want to replace it with (although I'm hoping BlackBerry's will change that).

If he had come out and given all the ways that the iPad 2 is better than the iPad, I'd have been impressed. But spending half the time criticising competitors just came across as the kind of tacky tactic that really shouldn't be needed unless you're trying to catch up to them - not if you're trying to prevent them from catching up to you.

Oh, and that's just for the attacking competitors. Going even further than that, and attacking them with incorrect spin, way too far.
A libertarian on the Real News
The documentary "Good Copy, Bad Copy" (a must-watch, by the way) has a segment on the Brazilian phenomenon called "Tecno Brega". You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo2sv3jjJi8

Basically, the musicians give out free CDs of their music, and make money on live concerts. They treat the free music as advertising.

This is true, if you look at it: the experience of listening to a live music concert is totally different from that of listening to it on a pair of cans. The social aspect of sharing a live event has a lot of value on its own; if the musicians can monetize it well, it's a good revenue stream. There's no reason why the 100-year old technique of "frozen music" be the only way to earn a living.
Hanlon's razor is something I live my life by.
http://apps.facebook.com/unrestrictedstatus/
Startup Quote: Marc Benioff, co-founder, Salesforce
Theres obviously a lot of work to be done before we get there, but a world where you can have all the powerful features of dynamic runtimes/languages without sacrificing efficiency would certainly be welcome.

We'll see how my own experiments work out. If anyone would like to chat about the idea, feel free to send an email to my username at gmail.
I think the download requirement should be at least 18.
Bonnaroo Using RFID Wristbands
You never want to be completely alone at what you do. Competition is good for everyone.

- Marc Benioff (@Benioff)

http://startupquote.com/post/3621642982
I thought so too. Actually that might have been more entertaining.

Instead I was left with a "Okay so whadiya gonna do about it?" feeling.
People criticizing this for not being a replacement clearly miss the point. Their ARE alternatives and all users DO hate Bb but administrators choose it anyway... This can't hurt!
What are the PIN and PUK?
> Having to plug crap in and out is not a very good experience though.

I was thinking the same way you were until a year ago when I spoke to a colleague who has a Droid that got an OTA upgrade to Froyo (2.2)... what a clusterf*ck... he lost battery during the event, it torched his device, and he couldn't even re-flash the firmware, he had to take it into the Verizon store, where they simply replaced it.

All the settings and hacks he put it? Wiped. (Backup is optional in Android... my colleague hadn't done it).

This made me understand why Apple is so old-school when it comes to iPod/iPad sync and upgrades. It's not just the wireless bandwidth, it's about avoiding disastrous edge-cases that ruin customer experience.

A wired sync or upgrade can guarantee backups, power availability and reasonable bandwidth.
Under Non-Value-Added Work:

> Here are a few things that we do that are waste...

> Teasing apart code to understand how it works, especially when this effort is repeated whenever a team member confronts that code

I can't think of a circumstance where close inspection of the code is not a necessary step toward understanding it. The author does not seem to indicate that he means rewriting, but even if he does, there is typically value in that exercise in the form of greater understanding, continuous improvement, elegance of design, and re-readability of the code.

> Creating development infrastructure, tools, or automation that is only readily-understood by people who have had extensive experience with them

The reality of this matter is that running custom software, especially cloud software, is tightly bound to infrastructure and operations, and there are no absolute standards. There are popular tools--make, Maven, Jenkins, etc.--but they serve to implement a very specific process. Even on a full lifecycle stack like JavaEE that has specific parameters for deployment and management, it's really not the whole story.

I'd rather have a development infrastructure that I can rely on and risk it being a bit opaque than not have any.
You have failed to distinguish between economic and political power.

Economic power is earned justly (by offering better/more efficient/lower priced goods and services), and monopolies obtained and maintained this way are desirable. They lose market share only when company stops being virtuous.

Political power, on the other hand, is always wielded unjustly. An example of this is when someone tries to get the government to make a law that hurts their competitors, but leaves them unscathed. This happens all the time. (And it explains why we license professionals, and support food cartels, etc.) These kinds of laws are always sold to the public as measures designed to protect them, when in reality they are just there to keep GE and the like in power. Antitrust regulations fall on this side, too.

Entities with political power are protected by the government's (legitimate) monopoly on the use of force. If they're not virtuous, the govenment is there to maintain their unearned monopoly. Like any corruption, this harms living standards and progress.

So that's why you have to distinguish between the two cases. If you don't, you're implicitly advocating policies that punish the good for being the good. The political solution is to separate the state and economics, just like we separate the state and church.
I was looking forward to this article based on the title, but I found it short on substance. It boiled down to "Communicate" which is the generic advice for any management-style role.
And thankfully, good journalists will call them out on it. I'd argue that's an important function of journalism, even.
A small thought/question: How do "we own all your IP" employment agreements influence and affect the power/mobility of such people?

I'm not arguing that they are a factor. Just asking -- in part, as a thought exercise.
Incidentally, I think readability attempts to get the whole article onto one page via js.
IE9 doesn't support WebGL, but it does support 2D canvas (and it's accelerated, unlike e.g. Chrome, which only accelerates WebGL). 2D canvas is going to be around for a while.

Plus, WebGL is not easy to use. The 2D canvas is simple to get started with, and developer ergonomics is an important part of the uptake of any technology.
aside from matching /Chin/ the Chinese room has absolutely nothing to do with this approach. It is staffed by a single guy and it is critically important to the thought experiment that he does not understand Chinese.

It raises an alternate formulation: What if the operation of the room was crowdsourced? What if the individuals of the crowd could communicate and organize, or what if not? Would that change the properties of the thought experiment in any interesting ways?

Obviously, if the room included Chinese people the language would have to be different. We could call it the "English room" thought experiment.
Certainly - I don't understand how the AMA gets to enforce a monopoly cartel without the FTC breaking them up...

There should also not be one level of doctor. An MD does little to say if a doctor could perform brain surgery - that's already based on performance metrics (specialty, years working, etc,). You're telling me nurses can't diagnose most diseases a general physician does?

The Nurse Prac movement is great - I wonder how that's been regulated / affecting pay, service costs, etc.
Time Blindness, Someone With no Sense of Time
I wonder how much of the cat/woman attraction is fueled by the transmission from cat to woman of the toxoplasmosis parasite? There's been speculation that the "crazy cat lady" is really manifesting symptoms of toxoplasmosis: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09_10_catcoat.htm...
ESL was the real culprit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN_w0mcDayI
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty
Part of it involves surgery - which might be tricky to do incrementally.

It also doesn't sound as though he knows much about startup methodology or has the personality or desire to solve the bootstrapping problem. He's seems like a domain expert but not an entrepreneur.

I guess that means a lot of blind people will have fewer opportunities.
How much of an Jobs/Apple hater do you have to be before you include Nook and Kindle in the tablet market to argue that the iPad share is actually close to 50?
Jon, this seems like a silly fight to pick.

Techmeme simply surfaces the hottest content from tech blogs that's getting linked/tweeted right now. It is descriptive, not editorial. If you notice that only 16% of women are being shown covering a story, then your takeaway should be "gosh, only 16% of women wrote interesting posts that are getting linked to on the web" rather than "gosh, techmeme is descriminating against women."

Techmeme just calls it like it sees it. It's awesome in that way.
Will Impact work in Android? And will it be able to play sounds and music soon? These are the only 2 reasons I haven't purchased yet, but it looks great.
Awesome teaser page ! Gives immediate feedback about what is to be expected.
No way - improper flower growing is a real danger from unlicensed florists! ;-)
From what I've heard MS currently gives WP7 licenses away and offers free support in development, testing, marketing.
> Should cause enough of a problem that they open it again.

Do you have any examples of negative publicity leading to paypal correcting their mistake? I've never seen anything like that in any of the stories about paypal freezing accounts, even the fairly high profile ones.
The barcode scanning is extremely flaky in my opinion, and in my experience will work on some devices and not on others.
No disrecpect to anyone invovled.

The gang over here is all hot to chip in their donations..... Is there consensus that this is definitely legitimate and that the money will really go to Peter?
Wow, thanks for the details! I'm definitely going to have to grab a copy and take some time to try out Impact, it looks like a ton of fun. It's pretty clear we're going to start seeing a lot of real games coming out in HTML + JS soon.

As for canvas, the way browsers are competing on improving speed these days I don't think slow rendering is something we'll have to worry about for much longer, and with IE9 almost out it will be possible to drop support older IE versions soon enough too. Fun times to come!
Well, there wasn't too much to talk about other than these lies. "We got the iPad2. Same hardware you saw at CES, same OS you saw last year. Have a good day everybody"
+1 for "Being Geek" - great read.

Anyone read either "Mind Hacks" or "Performance Mind Hacks?" Wondering if they're interesting/useful.
I don't like what's happening with IP -- meaning the draconian "enforcement" including especially ever-expanding ownership timeframes. But when I see this argument, I can't help thinking, "Not everyone is an extrovert." I think that goes for both listeners (viewers, etc.) and musicians.

I'm not trying to make a big counter-argument. Just this point.
RSS-ify Anything
That's fine, but the tone of this piece was surprise that Apple would use its own marketing event to make Apple look good. Calling them out on facts is good, but there's no need to tell me that Apple will selectively present features based on how good it sells.
Is there anyone else looking for a programming apprenticeship? I'd like to offer one.
I think Neal Gaiman is the only one calling it "The Gaiman Principle" ...
Ask HN: We built a site but got beaten to the launch by another site. What next?
Hi guys,

10 days ago my friend and I built a site - www.makeusdate.com. We saw the great coverage that breakup notifier had got and were discussing it 10 days ago.

I said to my friend that I really liked a girl called Molly, who was one of my Facebook friends, but that I was too scared to ask her for fear of rejection. At this point we had a lightbulb moment and thought we could build a site whereby a person could select the Facebook friends they would like to go on a date with and these people never have to find out. If however they used our site and liked you back then the two of you were sent an email telling each other you liked each other.

The idea was simple, the idea was great fun. I told my football team about it who loved it! A group of non techies, understanding and liking the idea meant we had to crack on and do it!

We discussed it, designed it, my friend slaved away and coded it and we were ready to launch by Saturday afternoon. However I woke to a text message from my brother 'Bad news, sorry mate - http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/25/crushnotifier/'.

We were devastated. We had been beaten to the idea by a matter of hours. Techcrunch had picked it up and so had a load of other sources.

We tried in vain to send these sources our site, our idea but we heard nothing back. Our site is different to Dan's in that you don't need to provide the email address of the person you crush, we also were focused on the date and planned on giving people good ideas for dates based on their shared interests.

I appreciate the idea is not for everyone and I know it met a pretty tough response on here. However we were proud of turning an idea into a site in 10 days and we really enjoyed doing it. We don't want to give up and we would love for people to use the site. The only way that will happen is if we can get the site and idea out there but in a completely unique way.

This is where you guys come in! We were hoping you could suggest untapped sources that we could pitch the site to, people we could tell who could get us some traffic. Basically we are looking for help in trying to get our site out there!

Thanks in advance for help you guys give us. Hopefully if we get the site out there and enough people use it, maybe Molly will sign up and like me back!
I'm surprised I don't see more startups pitching audio projects. Of course, maybe they are plenty, but I would have to be a musician to hear about them.
Review Gruburg's geolocation startup