skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So does getexceptional.com (from the RoR world). I ended up writing an adapter for pylons (pylons-exceptional) because an API for this kind of stuff means one less thing to deploy and worry about.
Cool Placemats
Sadly, it only enables them to troll even more.
Not really asking as much as clarifying.

"Baggage fees aren't deductible on a corporation's income tax return." This makes it sound like I can't deduct it as a travel expense.
I'm actually not so sure. At least for me, the problem has always been that it's so hard to switch carriers because of handset lock-in and the different radio bands/technologies the different carriers are using.

Seems to me that if ATT buys Tmob, and maybe Vzn buys Sprint, it'll be a duopoly, but at least they'll both be converging on the LTE standard, which would theoretically make it easier to switch between the two with a single handset, making them actually compete on price/coverage/speed/service, etc.
That story is a perfect example of how to hack PR for startups: do a few stunts like these, word will spread. That's hacking.

Spending $1M on banner ads is not hacking.
Ah, but we actually do. Especially when a commit comes from someone new or someone who doesn't normally commit to that part of the code. In order to sneak a malicious commit through, you would need to hijack the account of a user that normally commits to the part of the code you want to modify. On top of that, you probably want to find someone who has recently become less active since otherwise they would see a commit with their name on it and catch it right away. And finally, you would need to make it non-obvious so someone wouldn't be able to tell anything was amiss with a casual glance. It would be an interesting experiment.
The argument that there is some steady march toward tyranny and erosion in our freedoms would make sense if it weren't for the fact that these programs have existed in one form or another since WWII (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)).

Furthermore, when, exactly, were the good ol' days, those days from which we are presumably descending into tyranny, when we (all, not just white folk) were truly "free"?
Do you really think it's a regulation issue? This is essentially the corporatist end game dream scenario. What major corporation would ever willingly sacrifice growth, market share & profit for the sustainability of a fair market & the wellbeing of the consumer?
GitHub now has view modes for image diffs.
There's only one clear answer: go there, surround yourself with the language, get a partner who speaks the language, have sex in the language!
Lets look at these patents.

Remote retrieval and display management of electronic document with incorporated images -- this patent actually falls in the ballpark that it might be reasonable. It was granted in 1998 and filed in 1996. I don't know if there was prior art on this.

Loading status in a hypermedia browser having a limited available display area -- This is called a splash screen. Sure its a mobile device and getting data from the network rather than disk, but same concept. This shouldn't have passed the obviousness test.

System provided child window controls -- This one was filed in 1994, prior to the launch of Win95. This seems borderline, but in 1994 this might have been innovative.

Selection handles in editing electronic documents -- This one seems like maybe the only realy legit patent if limited to just text. But I think it has been well-established for graphsics. The odd thing is they didn't use this for Windows Mobile through 6.5.

Method and apparatus for capturing and rendering annotations for non-modifiable electronic content -- This one doesn't pass the non-obviousness test to me. I can't think of another way to do what they described. A little disappointing since Thacker is on the patent.

One problem with patents is that it's hard to really get back to the mental state of 17 years ago, when at least one of these patents was filed. At the very least I do think that the current bar of "clear and convincing" may be too high, since I think that makes it very difficult for BN to put together a strong case unless they can just outright find prior art.
Funny, once I have the assumptions written down, I've found it's pretty easy to test them. For instance, I looked into a "turbo tax for personal bankruptcy" idea, and one assumption was "people considering bankruptcy have an internet connection". That was easy to test - when I talked to my target market, I just asked them about their internet connection. Turns out that's their lifeline to the world and they would never give it up - I got the impression they'd practically starve before turning off their internet connection.
I applied to Jumpstart Foundry in Nashville, seems like a pretty awesome experience similar to YC.
I actually kind of like it - true "ugliness" can just as elusive as beauty or elegance. See this interesting book - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/Finnerty-t.ht...
Contrast looking for Exceptional Ruby hacker (remote)
It is a tremendous feeling to get to the break-even point and with it the realization that you can now work on your startup full-time for as long as you want.
A Rule of Thumb: Pricing Should Be Simple
That's a very good point, thanks.
Why you can('t) recruit a technical cofounder
I see the bits about your house, person, papers and effects, but which part covers a datacenter?
Don't forget that AT&T owns the line based U-verse service as well.
Are Cross-Platform Mobile App Frameworks Right for Your Business?
"When someone asked "Who was that guy, in that movie? You know, the guy?", you didn't look up imdb.com on your smartphone while everyone watches you type on a tiny screen, you said "dunno" and moved on with your life."

I specifically remember my godfather running around the house in his underwear yelling "I have shit for brains!" when being proven wrong about a movie after 20 minutes of arguing back and forth.

The elimination of that ritual is a net benefit for society.
Google doesn't have all that many low-level employees. They are mostly only hiring engineers, who are likely get more money and perks than Apple's retail employees, or the people, who load trucks for Amazon.

It is also worth a lot more for Google to recruit the top employees than many other employers. Hence, they can spend more money on PR and perks to make themselves a more desirable employer. If Google spends 5% of their employment costs on perks, it will go a lot further than Walmart.
> do you ever wonder why there is no consumer hardware PGP telephone?

Not on the analogue phone. But you can easily get a TLS-enabled or ZRTP-enabled hardware or software VoIP phone. Many vpbx providers will also provide you with a vpn tunnel endpoint if you ask about it often enough.

Also, since the analogue phone PSTN interface is pretty trivial to handle, there are multitude of analogue encryption boxes which work as an adapter to the line. Plug & play. You could even use a pc to compress the voice on one side, encrypt, send over an established modem connection and decrypt on the other side.

You don't need the analogue phone itself to do that at all.
I'm curious why Microsoft just doesn't drop Trident, and replace it with Webkit. I'm sure it will bring them and endless amount of great publicity.

There should really be just one rendering engine. Dare to dream..
Agreed. It's on the todo list. :)
Your point 2 acknowledges that Nintendo has a different strategy than Sony and Microsoft, but you included them in the list of companies to be scared. Points 1 and 3 could also be used to explain why Nintendo has sold so many DS and Wiis.
Because I use Chrome, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere and more and all of these run without the slightest problem in Windows 7, and all of my past Ubuntu experiences have ended with someone suggesting I edit ~conf.something and removing the number 7.
That's unfair. I have no skin in this game. The example I gave originally addressed the establishment with no gift cards. Then I had to respond to the claim that Giftrocket is trying to replace gift cards, so I said I'd always pick a gift card if one were available, and if not, I'd give cash over paying a third party.

You'd use the service. I wouldn't. I argued why I don't see anyone using it. Don't write me off as an internet misanthrope trying to ruin everyone's fun.

edit: I'll be more constructive. I'd consider using this if it somehow felt like a gift card instead of a deposit to my paypal account.
Looks fine for me in Op11 on Kubuntu.
Does anyone make generic mobile hardware yet?
The concept seems to have paid off for personal computing.
I actually found that Google looked better from the inside than the outside...I was pretty ambivalent about applying at first, but started warming up to it after talking to people that worked there, and found I loved it once I actually started work. I suspect that this is largely because my past exposure had been through the Hacker News crowd, which tend to distrust anything that's big and secretive.

Past expectations form a big part of whether you like anything. I've read IAmAs from Xooglers who joined straight out of college and were bitterly disappointed when they found the cubes weren't lined with gold and you couldn't do absolutely anything you wanted. My own expectation was that I'd get lost in the big company morass, and found it wasn't like that either. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle...if you expect paradise, you'll be disappointed, but if you expect hell, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
> I wonder if using an NPAPI plugin would be easier? I know this would be tons easier as a Firefox extension.

I'm not so sure about that, when the NPAPI [1] hello world example [2] is 224 lines of C just by itself.

By contrast, Shellac does everything that it does in 50 lines of Python and 120 lines of js. The extension is structured like any other web app -- some client side js calls a server side scripting language, which most people will be more comfortable messing with.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI

[2] http://git.webvm.net/?p=npsimple;a=blob;f=npsimple.c;h=205c7...
Hmm. In the spirit of even more unsolicited advice, I would say that it's also your attitude. Sorry to get all philosophical but there are certain things that you can control (say your emotions/thoughts/what you can do next) vs. things you can't control (other people's emotions/background).

Being social is about being independent of other people's positive and negative feedback about you. Suppose a stranger looks down or frowns when you try to tell them a joke or to get them to open up on a bus or something, your thinking could go either, "well, this sucks; people think I'm nerdy, unattractive, etc." or you could think, "well, it's alright; maybe she's just having a bad day or just being shy and really appreciated me; well, there's always next time!"

Kind of like debugging, "first you don't succeed, dust yourself up and try again!" (well, I guess it's more like re-compile and try again, doesn't have the same ring to it though).
The reason is certainly that Amazon intended the lending feature to be used between a person's small network of acquaintances. This means that the likelihood of being able to borrow every book you want should be pretty low. Lendle gamed this by expanding the set of people with which you share / borrow. At that scale, the feature probably reduced Amazon's sales more significantly than the intended usage.
Amazon must be counting their blessings there wasn't a way for people to borrow & lend physical books or else there's no way they could have built a business around selling them!
Contrast.ie is an amazing group of dudes, this is a serious opportunity for someone.
I own my own business, and have all the contracts I can handle. As my minister once said, we can have all the morals we can afford. And I can afford to be contrary.
This is Novell all over again.
They settle for a couple million, and microsoft "buys" Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of "stuff"
It is bribery to set a precedent; plain and simple.
Despicable stuff.
Or so they keep telling us anyway:

Does the pharmaceutical industry exaggerate their R&D costs?

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/21/does-the-pharmaceuti.ht...
The lesson in this is that building projects that depend on third-party data is dangerous; there needs to be some sort of guarantee of access to the data before you commit to the project. Building the project and then pointing fingers at the data provider after your api access is revoked does nothing to relieve the frustration of your users.
Hitler or Stalin?
I don't believe can be considered open and fair competition until the US outlaws selling cell phones which are carrier locked and all providers are required to offer fair discounts for unsubsidized/no-contract customers.

Even then, you'll have 2 options, both of which suck.
You best try those on before leaving. GAP (and Banana Republic, and Old Navy, and probably all similar, but unrelated retailers) change their suppliers on a regular basis. I've found huge differences in fit between two same-style pairs of jeans in the same store, on the same day. One was made in Sri Lanka, the other in Thailand. The variance in the cut and thickness of their tees is even more significant.
I've done similar things with women's clothing. Gap/Old Navy are by far one of the most 'generous' with the concept of ease, especially in what they consider to be plus sizes (anything over a 12, from what I can tell). Any good tailor will put an inch or so of ease into a garment. It is as the term implies, a bit of room to keep your garment from tearing when you move around. What's even more interesting is how women's sizes are scaled. Between the smaller sizes, the measurements go up half an inch to an inch. When you get to the larger sizes, where the waist is above 28", the delta between the sizes can be as much as four inches. To wit, if you are small, then you get more choice in how much ease you prefer. If you are larger, you get either too tight or too loose.

So it doesn't surprise me that there's "vanity sizing" in men's trousers. Not even a little bit. This, too, makes for a tough call when it comes to getting dressed. Camel toe or saggy butt? Hm.

(eta: sorry for devolving this discussion into a rant on ready to wear clothing)
If you zoom all the way in, you can see that they're pretty likely to be 3d-rendered (look at the slight breaks in the curve of the orange wall around http://j.map.baidu.com/nA2e for example), not hand drawn like pixel art. Nevertheless, an amazing amount of work.
Webvan3.0: Greenling's Vision For Future of Grocery Shopping | Food+Tech Connect
How fab.com gained 20,000 pre-launch signups in 10 days 
How fab.com gained 20,000 pre-launch signups in 10 days (without any TC or HN stories)

We studied launchrock and other such viral invite engines, but decided to build our own.

We built a simple landing page at http://fab.com which contains pretty imagery of the types of products that will be on our site, with only 1 simple sentence explaining what we'll do, and only 1 call to action: request an invite.

Once user requests an invite, we introduce them to our viral invite process for "priority access." Priority Access (first allowed in once we open the doors) is based on number of friends invited, PLUS we created 4 levels of priority access, rewarding people who invite more friends with actual cash credits towards future use of the site.

We built in simple shares for Twitter and Facebook, as well as gmail, ymail, AOL, hotmail, bulk invites.

We started off with our own employees' contacts and then purchased a small amount of highly targeted FB ads to people in our target demo.

We A/B tested several variants of the site, including placement of open boxes for users to enter email addresses manually vs. prompting them to invite from their address books and FB/twitter (address books far outperformed).

FYI. So far, more than 20k people have signed up pre-launch and of the thousands they've invited by email, 16k have yet to signup.

FYI 2. More than 2000 signups have invited more than 5 people each.

FYI 3. So far the top sources of new users are:
1. User-to-user email invites
2. Facebook Shares
3. Twitter tweets

FB and Twitter are just about even though in terms of resulting in signups.
> Remote retrieval and display management of electronic document with incorporated images -- this patent actually falls in the ballpark that it might be reasonable. It was granted in 1998 and filed in 1996. I don't know if there was prior art on this.

How about this:

> Portable Document Format (PDF) is an open standard for document exchange. The file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 is used for representing documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system.[2] Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout 2D document that includes the text, fonts, images, and 2D vector graphics which compose the documents.
Perhaps you'd like to also display the Google Page Rank, or something to that effect, like the shares of the domain.
Digg CEO: Digg has never been profitable
That sounds like it would be trivial to overcome with a little bit of hackery.
This seems to be happening over and over again. Two years ago, everyone wanted to be a platform, now all that embracing open API stuff has turned to shit.

Basically, the idea seems to be that once you've used your API ecosystem to grow to a certain size, you can fuck over the developers that allowed you to get to that point by building on top of your platform and by attracting users to it or keeping them engaged. The only way to get around this is to become so big that the platform can't shut you down (Zynga, Twitpic).

Twitter says, stop building clients, build in these verticals. Who is going to stop them from going after the most profitable verticals tomorrow once developers have proved that there's money to be made there? As a developer, why the hell would I want to deal with this?

Open API's seem to be the antithesis of the profit motive, or atleast, that's how it seems to be. Sad.
I assert that, in principle, any labor performed by humans may be replaced by equivalent labor performed by machines, and that as technology advances, the fraction which may be cost-effectively replaced will increase, most likely going to 1 shortly after the invention of strong AI.

I also assert that the total amount of labor which a finite population can productively make use of at once is finite.

It follows that if technology continues to advance, there will reach a point at which less human labor is can be productively made use of than is available.

Under a capitalist system, people who don't own the means of production must exchange their labor for anything they need. Therefor, this set of facts would predict that continued technological advancement within a purely capitalist system would eventually lead to starvation amid plenty once human labor becomes close to valueless. Rather than halting the progress of technological advancement, replacing the capitalism with either collective ownership of the means of production or a sort of vestigial capitalism with massive entitlement programs at or before that point seems like the way to go to me.
I realize that I'm an outlier, but to give you another perspective, I'm someone who shops online almost exclusively using communities like Superfuture.com and Stylezeitgeist.com to find new stuff. The site isn't for me but I'd still like to check it out just to see what surfaces for me once I answer the questions :D
I haven't been keeping up with all the latest HTML developments, but watching the font change in front of my eyes as the page loaded made me wonder if I was having a stroke for awhile.

Also, what's with the huge copyright on the bottom?
Oh, yes it does sound like that. I meant it in the context of avoiding paying taxes on revenue. Sorry about that.
I think it is ok to include ff4 considering it will be released tomorrow.
Good luck and have even more sign ups.
Firefox 4 actually does support the "accept" attribute on Windows and Linux... just not (yet) on Mac OS X.
I was also quite disappointed when I faced the same problem, had to use the live CD to backup my files, and reinstall the entire operating system from scratch on a random weekday when I should have spent those couple hours working.

Aside from that, though, my productivity on Ubuntu is much better than Windows. Workspaces, Gnome Do, the Rhythmbox integration, the ease of installing applications, and centralized updates make the occasional pains and "free" pricetag a great deal. But it's still not at all ready for "prime time" unless the hardware configuration has been thoroughly tested -- the computer I used was one I configured from scratch.
Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'
When Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to hire Steve Jobs
I am completely, completely lost. I thought "about:blank" was just a completely empty page with nothing to render?
Call them on the phone and ask them to read you their cert fingerprint. Or use this: http://www.networknotary.org/firefox.html
Get Ready for the "Real Web"
The part of the patent that is interesting is that they optimize downloading of the electronic document by first ignoring the background image (if there is one). And if there are embedded images in the document they first download those that would be visible on the screen. And it also creates additional connections to the server to download other resources in the document in the background on these additional connections.

AFAIK, PDF doesn't specify these things. And to be clear the patent isn't about a file format. It's about the method one uses to retrieve and display the document.
Focus more on what your customers want than what your competitors are doing. It is possible to get into a race with your competitors to implement features that your customers don't care about.

In growing markets, you can both be acquiring customers, and have different niches. If customers are switching from your competitor to you or from you to your competitor, it can be more contentious. Other times, the same people may use both products for different needs. Also, you may have shared needs with your competitors, politically or other wise. Further, if both your customers are switching from an older solution, your real competitor is the old company.
I buy online alot as well. In addition to liberal return policies, many retailers (ala blackbirdballard.com) will post individual measurements of each dimension of a piece. For jackets, you can measure one of your existing jackets or your body to see how it compares.
Don't get me wrong.. I'm as cynical as the next guy about the patent system.. but I do think the merits of the lucid arguments for it ought to be considered in a re-think. If you're spending loads of money on research to make an idea possible, and that idea is easily copied in a way that undercuts your ability to profit.. then I guess I get that. I just think you ought to have to _prove_ it.

Effectively, this would come pretty close to eliminating software patents altogether... but presumably wouldn't hurt the abilities of biotech, pharma, medical devices and the like where (I assume) the research dollars are often very real.
If the author owns the code, it's very easy for him to quit without incurring any losses and might simultaneously destroy the company. It's better that the company own the code and license it to the author as needed for other projects. I would imagine the author would have considerable equity - so it should not be such a big deal.
Determined hackers will probably find a way to outwit pretty much anything. What they need to be doing is making it so that the path of least resistance is the 'legal' one for the 95% of people who generally don't want to fiddle with things.