skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've stopped being surprised at this genre of story showing up - on HN or elsewhere. This story basically serves to illustrate a couple of things about Paypal that are definitely salient, but haven't changed in years.

* Banks are still shitty and unwilling to actually compete, so Paypal has its market all to itself.

* Because Paypal does not fear disruption or competition, it is not worth their time to invest in good customer service. They know you're stuck.

This is pretty much the same as the stories about trying to get customer service from Google. There are no effective competitors - so, their accountants and shareholders say, who the fuck cares if customers complain? What are they going to do, go to someone else? Doing so would harm the customers more than it would harm the company that they are abandoning.

I use the phrase "not worth their time" even though it implies things about the employees of the company which are not true - I use it because it is true of the company itself as an entity. It's a corporation - it's a sociopath. So it is basically incapable of providing good customer service as long as the return on investment of good customer service is negative, epsilon, or invisible. The employees, as people, probably do want to provide good customer service! But when it comes down to the human, humane desires of a corporation's employees conflicting with the sociopathic requirements of the corporation itself, we only need a brief look at the history of commerce in America. Put your money on the corporation's interests winning every time.

PayPal (and Google) will keep giving customers the finger until the thought of customers leaving actually scares them.
totally agree - making the self-learning part offline and creating more and better (teachers would know exactly where a particular student is having problems understanding) interactions is the best part of his model.
The reason that paypal stays in business is not because they provide really great consumer support. The reason is that no one can operate at the scale they do and handle fraud at the level they can (and as you mentioned, international payments are extremely difficult). WePay may be a contender soon, but they aren't yet. There is really no easy way to do personal transactions, and certainly not at scale. This isn't a fight consumer support and a great product can win alone, you'd need serious talent and infrastructure both technology and business wise.
Why Everyone Is Talking About Node
In the article, Paypal's letter doesn't say you're not allowed to be an aggregator, just that you're not allowed to be an aggregator that lets merchants get around Paypal's acceptable use rules. Maybe Airbnb has assured Paypal that it does not let merchants circumvent these rules.
The first is technically true, though. There is very little new technology which would have to be developed to establish an outpost on the moon, it would just be ridiculously expensive to ship everything up there.
Note Taker HD version 5 -- a real productivity app on the iPad
I like the idea of transport transparency on the client, yet very much unlike the idea of writing JavaScript on the server.

I've never tried node.js but I'm very curious to know what it offers that, say, Twisted or .NET or any other framework with proper IO facilities doesn't.
Even better, turn on "click to enable". It's a blast not having Flash ever run unless I specifically allow it.
> paypal has a $400/day ATM limit.

A PayPal tech support person told me a trick to get around this limitation: get a second debit card.
I really wish that education looked more like Conrad's vision in:

Conrad Wolfram’s TED Talk: “Stop Teaching Calculating, Start Teaching Math”

From very early on, at least in my education, concepts and the reason 'why do this at all' was stripped from the curriculum. The other thing that I feel is lacking is confidence building, which to me is directly connected.

When solving a real life problem, the problem does not care about your GPA, rank, etc.

I have had well respected professors tell me about a hard problem they are working on, that I later solved with a google search...

Bringing together tools and concepts is very powerful. Solving real problems with them builds confidence and passion. Learning not to reinvent the wheel, even though you understand the concepts that would enable you to, is what allows us to cooperate and build to new heights.

Empowerment.
I took that sentence as meaning that the iPad 2 as a whole isn't a redesign, and that the user-visible changes were only to things that needed changing: speed, weight, thickness and cases, and not much else.
Less stealth, more vague. We're building a series prototypes to explore how to use social software to help people get stuff done. Useful networking?
Chrome's support for Arabic is crappy on Linux, so I use Firefox.

Another thing, Firefox4 allows you synthesize audio in Javascript, something that Chrome (AFAIK) can't do yet.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Audio_Data_API
Braintree is also great, and way more developer-friendly than Authorize.NET.
True enough -
Although some would contend that the annual Malay wargames are proof against (1), you're right. After all, isn't the joke, "The Singapore military only needs to operate for up to 7 days. Why 7 days? That's how long it takes the UN to respond!"

Singaporean culture and upbringing often results in two things, in my - somewhat limited - perspective:
- we're often raised by what we can do, not what we can't. Obedience is rather well taught.
- kind of stemming from the former - Singaporeans tend to be a bit more risk averse. Helps when you're trying to stem risky behavior - like crime and drugs. On the flip side, you don't get quite as much entrepreneurship.

Of course, these are merely observations. Feel free to correct me.

I'm currently living in Cleveland, Forbes' #1 worst city to live in. While I, personally, have a startup, I grew up in Rhode Island. I got motivation for the startup (freshbag - www.thefreshbag.com) from the local incubator (launchhouse). It's incredible what a good incubator environment will do to build buzz!

If you have the passion - perhaps you can start an incubator in Singapore near SMU (there's the LKY competition - 'near' being a relative term of affiliation. Good luck with getting real estate space there if you tried!), some of the polytechnic institutes, or NUS (although the latter has more competition). What do you think about that?

That being said, incubators take years to fully form. And you're a cat-herder, never able to really control everyone. On the flip side, you'll encourage a lot of awesome ideas. All the potential...
Khanacademy is neat but I find it odd that people on HN either aren't aware or dont care about other earlier sources such as :

- MIT's OCW
- USNW eLearning channel on Youtube (esp Richar Buckland)
- TIMMS (Germany, possibly the first of the video resources)
- UCBerkeley youtube channel
- Dr. Adrian Banner (Princeton)
- Harvard (esp Michael Sandel's lectures, amazing)

The above can be easily searched for and are hardly a comprehensive list as that would be large. Here is a website which is a sort of clearinghouse for video lectures: www.cosmolearning.com

A search of HN shows less attention given to these original sources than perhaps they deserve. In my opinion MIT OCW was the best known initiative till recent times and started this wave of online video learning.
BTW, I highly recommend Michael Sandel's lectures on ethics and politics, available on YouTube.
Uh, yes but why are thse 'lower'?

Well I know abut family but why psych?
Airbnb allows only one kind of "merchant"---the type who wants to offer living space for you.

This product on the other hand lets anyone offer "experiences". To put it lightly, you could have someone offer the "experience of sex" (illegal) or the "experience of touring the porn studios of the San Fernando Valley" (legal but against Paypal AUP).
No we aren't.

(I am an investor in both Weatherbill and Optimizely. Hmm.)
Anyone add up how many "fail points" the linux kernel gets? :-)
There are a LOT of ex-googles startups out there. Not a huge number of successful ones but they are around.
Why can't you use adhesive magnetic strips/tape on the outside of the iPad 1? Sure, it may be slightly unsightly, but it should be completely workable. Heck, the strip doesn't even have to be magnetic, it can be paramagnetic or such and just channel field between magnets on the cover hinge.
Web based Big Ass Text File (BATF)
helpful plug-
Check out http://FeeFighters.com. We compare the different processors for you and cut the BS fees and there are NO contracts/cancellation fees (we started out as a blog to help merchants understand how to not get ripped off). Like zavulon says, auth.net is a highly recommended gateway (and works with nearly all processors)
Any equivalent extension for Safari out there?
I have less than no sympathy for businesses with Paypal horror stories at this point. Paypal's reputation is very well known, especially in startup circles, and there are a ton of other services available that will handle payments for startups. There have been several HN threads about them, and it's not too hard to find those on searchyc.com.

If you're starting a business, and you're relying on Paypal to do it, then you're foolishly adding totally unnecessary risk to your business.
I've been agitating for my team to try a more lean/kanban approach to planning and executing our work. Nice to see a lot of my half-formed thoughts articulated so nicely ;)
Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up.
Chrome now beats every other major browser in the version number department.
At it's price point, the iPad 2 is almost impossible to beat. I'm not even sure why other tablet makers try, at least in this size range.

Apple doesn't, as of yet, make a smaller tablet, and that's where the competitors should focus. Like a B&N Android Nook 7" tablet for $199, wifi only - and this is probably totally feasible on their part.

But if you are trying to compete with 10" devices against the iPad, forget it.
There's a lot of talent in Singapore. Brilliant minds. Quality programmers.

They just need to get introduced to the startup culture...
I wonder if there is a reason he didn't show up. For example, perhaps he was incapable of demonstrating any exploit. It's not as simple as "it would have been compromised if the contestant showed up."
Khan Academy is miles better than any of those when it comes to design and ease of use, especially when it comes to presenting the material to elementary/middle school aged children. I certainly don't think a MIT lecture will appeal to 5th graders.
I don't doubt that the handoff is a risky part of the process. But that doesn't mean that we can't do a better job at figuring out how to make the handoff process better.
American Library Association task forces to take on ebook lending
You could also use: http://peri.me/Hack3rNews/
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What happens to shipping containers lost at sea?
I believe his method has a ton of potential. First saw Khan on This Week in Startups: http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/this-week-in-start... and was impressed to learn that Bill Gates invited him to talk. I think his method works for many people and could change the way many people learn.
I can't convey what a difference this would have made for me in my schooling career. I was constantly bored by teachers who were slowed by others in the class, and as a result I resorted to clowning or doodling, or programming my TI-86.
I wonder if there are actually magnets inside the iPad, or just bits of metal the case magnets stick too?

It there _are_ magnets, I can see it getting annoying when the iPad starts collecting magnet-attracted crap.

This is a problem with magnetic tank bags on motorcycles, they pick up presumably iron/steel grit on the magnets, then you clip the magnets+grit onto your nicely glossy painted fuel tank, and scratch the crap out of it...
Had the San Francisco bus drop by as I was working at Gangplank in Phoenix today. Talked to some of the people and it sounds like an amazing experience. I will have to apply next year.
Google Before You Tweet is the new Think Before You Speak
On one hand, pay-for-play is repulsive because it allows deep pocketed promoters to promote bands ahead of others. Is this why it is repugnant?

Playing the devil's advocate here:

From a business sense, pay-for-play is like advertising, isn't it? It is a way of building an audience.

In the end, there are audiences that radio stations have built up, and pay-for-play may be cheaper than plastering the streets with posters, or paying promoters, or touring, which is just as expensive.

One equivalent in the search engine world is SEO vs PPC listings. Each has its cost. If you didn't know the people looking for a particular genre of music, but somebody did, and they did it as a business - i.e. quit their jobs, put in risk capital, why wouldn't you pay them for the information?
Apple's money generating machine is on a roll for sure. There's absolutely no reason why Apple couldn't have included most of those features in the initial iPad. I agree that the smart cover is completely genius (especially as a marketing scheme - and why doesn't anyone talk about protecting the rest of the iPad now? Somehow the screen is all of a sudden the only important thing?)

None of the new stuff is new technology. They're amazing at selling something that's good enough for a lot of uses and leaving a lot of space for improvement in the very near future. If they would've included cameras and the accelerometer in version 1, and perhaps made it a bit thinner, version 2 would've been significantly less interesting.
Chumby One for $49.99 (+$5 shipping)
Best Buy has some kind of buyback program. I don't know anything about it (like if it applies to Apple products) but they are advertising it.
Best Buy is kind of doing this with their "buy back" program. If Apple continues becoming more and more predictable in terms of product release dates and pricing, I could almost see a startup doing this on their own. You buy Apple upgrade insurance, and they guarantee that you can trade in your current product for a new one as soon as the new product is released.

The only problem is that there's way to much risk to do this unless you are Apple or have a direct relationship with Apple. Then again, maybe the float would cover the risk.
Yeah, the data from the students' interaction with the video could be sent back to the teachers and end up creating a comprehensive profile of each of the student's understanding on that particular topic. Then, in the classroom, the teacher would be able to walk from student to student (or form groups of students with similar strengths/weaknesses) and provide the help they needed based on their profiles. This help would be the help that relies on direct interaction between the teacher and student.
Great deal for a new chumby one.
I'm a big fan of OCW and other online resources, but they just move the traditional style into an online format. And I'm especially excited for the OCW scholar site to get more material (plus, I'm excited to go through their Physics courses, I was never satisfied with my physics classes). My favorite Harvard lecture series is the Science & Cooking Public Lectures (http://seas.harvard.edu/cooking).

But all those sites are evolutionary not revolutionary. They would never inspire the kind of use that Khan Academy has seen.

I think the one of key's to the Khan Academy system is the short 5-15 minute "lectures" that only teach a single concept at a time. That makes it more approachable and easier to go right to where you need to be; rather than a 50 minute lecture that covers a dozen different things at once.

Teaching it like a tutoring session may not seem like that big a change, but when you combine all the little differences from the traditional model it become something totally revolutionary.
I have a current model 11.6" Air purchased in January, and Xcode was pre-installed into /Developer.

This was a stock machine: walked into Apple Store to buy it. (No special factory config)

Compiling SBCL and a few items from MacPorts worked fine, so everything seems consistent with what I've seen on other Macs since 2005.
It's always the last place you look.
I don't think that would work, because it would be too expensive. People would balk. However what might kill, would be a subscription discount program a la Amazon Prime. Pay $99 a year for 10% off all purchases + other bonuses.
I'd call it
"Apple Fan Appreciation Program." Maybe they could introduce it via MobileMe.
As a kid I had ADHD, I found myself staying up all night programming and sleeping in my classes. The skills I leanred then have served me well but if the classroom was more engaging maybe I wouldn't have had such a difficult path.

I hope this spreads like wildfire.
This is great, but I wish there were some lessons on coding. Computer programming at some basic level at least should be required of all students - even if they don't make a career out of it, being able to work snippets of code will come in handy across all disciplines in the future - finance, medicine, media, or repairing that broken fridge in your e-home.
If anyone thinks they can set up online payment processing system that accepts payments from credit cards, debit cards, echecks, and direct debit transfers worldwide easier and with less hassle than paypal then they should do that. As it happens there are some very real niches where paypal has almost no significant competition.
That's an astute point. Never thought of that, but it's probably true.
> I don't see the download for their skimming app have they taken the app down? Probably a good idea, I doubt the credit card companies will appreciate them providing a skimming app regardless of what reading hardware it's using.

I imagine that part of the problem was that they were distributing an iPhone app binary along with their in-house enterprise distribution provisioning certificate to the public, which I imagine Apple isn't happy about.
I'm happy with your design choices, actually. However, I do wish that clicking through to the comments was easier - giving the link a larger hit area, for example.
cool, I'll check it out!
Connect.me Opens up for Invitations, Reserve your Name now
unfortunately, that means it's probably too unsuccessful to make any money.
That doesn't sound like a good enough reason, why not just use HTTPOnly cookies to prevent that?
From the article:

"- 13 x 10 % => 130 "

That was a silly mistake in the README. I just fixed it, thanks for pointing it out.
You're right about the inconsistency, it seems an older version of chrome would be the target. I think this rule was unannounced though, or maybe even made up in the last 24 hours as google and apple pushed updates. So understandable I think, or at least I made the same mistake :/
Oh yeah, its been fun. The learning curve can be pretty daunting at times but that's what its all about.
I think having fun is an important part of it, so it seems like you enjoy this process of learning as thats definitely a good sign. Do keep us posted on your progress! Looking forward to sharing experiences :)
No one competes if no one has a working sploit. You have to sign up months in advance.
I'd be curious to know how many of those ex-Googler startups were founded by xooglers that were first-100 employees. Any "startup mafia" would seem to be made up mostly from people in that group.
This man is certainly one of my heroes. I love this part from the FAQ on the Khan Academy:

What topics do you plan to cover?

My goal is to cover everything. Yes, everything!
... My goal really is to keep making videos until the day I die
(which will hopefully not be for at least another 50 or 60
years). Should give me time to make several tens
of thousands of videos in pretty much every subject."
Nice to see another person take the leap! Us wannabe hackers gotta stick together :) Good luck on your own endeavour as well! My initial blog was actually on tumblr as well but it was annoying that you had to get a plugin for comments so I jumped to wordpress. Something you might want to consider if you plan on blogging and interacting with visitors.
That looks like an interesting paper. I'll save it so I can read it later.
Not sure exactly what this company/service will do, but I read about it a few times today on various sites and twitter. Anyone have any info or background about connect.me?
Lecturers were necessary in the middle ages because of a shortage of books - so there weren't enough copies to go around.
The teaching profession does occasionally take a while to catch up.

This isn't exactly revolutionary - we have been doing it for centuries we call them tutorials.
It could just be that I'm indiscriminate, but I love creating a new system out of nothing, and I love cleaning up gnarly old legacy code.

The only programming problems I find demoralizing, (and the ones I think the grandparent was equating with "Chris" work) are updates or bugfixes in gnarly old legacy code, without having time allocated to give it the refactoring it needs. It's the feeling that the code in question is never going to be important enough to fix properly, and your name is going to be in the logs adding those two lines in the middle of a 400 line function.
Review roundup: Apple's iPad 2 is best tablet yet, but cameras disappoint
FWIW, Safari 5.0.3 was used for the competition.

Besides, if most competitors arrive at the competition with carefully-researched exploits available to use, I'm not sure this sort of last-minute patching would make much difference, even if it was intentional.
There not really version but iteration cycles.
all i see when i look at that domain is this face:

O.o
Unfortunately, most of these payment handlers only allow US companies to use their services. I'm in Canada, and I've been trying to find said services, and every one that I've found using searchyc only accepts US companies. Some of them say that international services is "in the works" or "available sometime in the future", but business cannot wait.
In 1967, the US signed the Outer Space Treaty. Article IV states that the "establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications… …on celestial bodies shall be forbidden".

http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/space1.html
Assuming you actually are John Gruber, welcome to the discussion. I was wondering if you would ever sign up for an account and respond to comments here.
Keeps telling me nickname is too short (at least 3 characters) and won't let me sign up. Anyone has the same problem?
There are two features of Apple laptops that, for me, close any price gap. Both features are aimed at improving usability: the large, flush, glass trackpad and the command key.

The command key is so wonderfully consistent and logical across the vast majority of apps that I can't believe Google didn't clone it in ChromeOS - it's a design decision that'll haunt them for years.

Long term macbook users trying to use a PC laptop is like trying to sleep in a crib after years of sleeping on a king size bed.
Don't underestimate how excited people get about their toys. :)

Me, I'm waiting hat in hand for the Asus Eee Note. Executive summary in SAT Analogy format:

iPad : Eee Note :: flat-screen TV : chalkboard