skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"national ID of any sort"

In the US it's not possible to catch a flight across the country or obtain a loan without providing your SSN. And the SSN was originally, extra-explicitly, not allowed to be used for anything but administering social security benefits.
I'm in my middle 50s myself, been programming for 30 years.

I like the story about the worm farming. It'd be appealing, except there's a slightly creepy feel to it when you're this close to senior citizenship. :)
What You Should Do for Business Continuity
Ask HN: How to maintain motivation through project completion?
New dev here. Once I see a clear path to a solution, I lose interest and find it difficult to “wrap things up”. This leaves me juggling multiple unfinished projects and results in wasted effort.

People who’ve outgrown similar issues — can you share what helped you? Thank you in advance.
In general, I'm in agreement with this thesis, but it ignores consumer protection. What entity should handle consumer protection in respect to fintechs? Should it fall under state and local laws? Then, what if Jonny in California (which has strong protections) takes a loan from Fintech X in South Dakota. Can Jonny apply California regulations to his loan, placing a cap on interest that he has to pay Fintech X? Can Fintech X take Jonny's house that he signed over as collateral, ignoring California's regulations?

Financial regulation is a giant headache here and in many of the countries we've worked in. Looser regulation should be beneficial to most consumers. But what about consumers or businesses that sign themselves into bad deals or get purposefully taken advantage of? Which is really the heart of a lot of politics, how much do we protect people from their own poor choices.
11. When your donation is taken by force through taxes
:)

I forgot to file one year (still paid the $800 on time) and got hit with a $500 fine that there was no way around.

That LLC made -$1300 that year.
It matters more than you think. No one expected Google to open source all their apps. Android has plenty of open source apps.
Even if those "people" are foreign governments peddling divisive propaganda. The founders are truly smiling down on our unrelenting commitment to free speech. /s
Yep, and the renewal takes about 5 minutes online.

North Dakota charges $100 then $25 for each annual report. Odd, ND is more expensive.
Names with stories: The story behind LuggageHero.com
I knew a facilities director who found out when people changed staff at one of the facilities he managed they wound up getting swindled by this crazy contract the locksmiths had the organization signed up with. The problem was keys were being copied and proliferated and accountability of who accessed which rooms and buildings in the complex was no longer manageable. The solved that problem but took an a host of other costs with key replacements and who owned the master key set. From what I remember the locksmith company owned the masters and charged a crazy amount for key copies. I forget the details exactly but I remember the sentiment of the director being that the contract was heavily biased in favor of the locksmith company.
iPhones are still selling very well. The Apple Watch has been a massive success. People subscribe to various services. Apple identified that people owning a Watch for fitness reasons may also be interested in a fitness subscription integrated with their Watch. In a pandemic, the demand for such service may be higher. End of story.

I don't see what the problem is, honestly.
> they will get their $800 regardless

California law is convoluted and Californian courts slow. That makes doing almost everything with a California LLC more expensive than with a Delaware LLC.

The only reason to form a California entity is if you’re doing business with the state.
> This is part of the general attitude that rights and freedoms don't matter if a machine violates them. When you walk out of a store post purchase and the security alarm goes off you have zero obligation to disclose what is now your property to the loss prevention experts. But somehow it's acceptable to assume you're a criminal because a machine said so.

IMO this is much more applicable to Uber's share of the responsibility for this incident.
If that is the worse decision you have ever made, you have lived a great life
? it says so right here

> Affiliate revenue

> DuckDuckGo is part of the affiliate programs of the eCommerce websites Amazon and eBay. -When you visit those sites through DuckDuckGo, including when using !bangs, and subsequently make a purchase, we receive a small commission.

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/ad...
Precisely why I said it’s complicated. Just make sure your lawyer tells you if you’re doing everything you need to.
I will be counting how fast this will be flagged/dead/dupe. Starting from the time it has been posted.

EDIT: Marked as [dupe] without a link to an original? Close enough though in 2 hours.
The US is a convenient parasite. Uplift their domestic population, throw in India and all of Africa and China can bear to lose 370 million consumers.
Does that mean that Linux needs to have Gnome to be considered an OS?
Seems a bit subjective. How do you know that they will become poor if not for your action?

If you need to do this over and over again, and we're talking about just that, it seems like giving to the poor is a pretty good algorithm.
Just added one to a project of mine[0] (just a YouTube browser using the RSS thing YouTube does). Hope it catches on!

[0] - https://github.com/devenblake/ytfeed.py
I'm surprised. I've had two in Florida and both had annual report fees ~ $150.

But if you don't pay your LLC just goes defunct. Making it a mandatory fee you can't escape kind of flies in the face of the whole point of an llc
Civilised societies are democratic ones, does the populace, in general, agree with your concept of the social contract?

If you are going to talk about risk, why not attack a few probabilities on those scenarios, then we can talk about insurance.
How do Rees affect long term mutual fund returns
I've heard Arc'teryx is all the rage in SV? Is that true? Out here in the midwest the only person I've seen wearing it is a hipster doctor of mine.
Tourists on Tech’s Toll Roads
Can confirm; I had a laptop (Dell XPS 14) with a GT630m and Nouveau worked well enough that I never felt the need to install the proprietary drivers over 4 years of use.
Loneliness will be one of the big problem of this century.
Apple Watch Is a Private Road
> That said, I don’t think this gets Uber off the hook

There is exceptional negligence on their part. The fact that vehicle was just blithely travelling the posted speed limit, even at night, even though the speed violated it's assured clear ahead ability, is a damning point. The vehicle will operate unsafely in it's default configuration.
In theory, yes. In practice an attorney has to be intelligent enough to recognize the conflict of interest, and many of them aren't.
I am not a lawyer, but from the legal point of view, a handshake agreement is not a legal binding contract. An exchange is needed to make it binding, even if it's a small amount like a dollar.

At least, that's what I (mis-)remembered from a Contract Law 101 course taken long ago during my undergrad days.
This is our chance to innovate by introducing tiny trusts on the block chain.
> Either the music is public-domain or permissively licensed and you're fine, or it's not and you're probably not.

If only copyright were actually that simple. The music might be, and the performance not, or vice versa. Maybe the rights were assumed to be public domain, and then a company discovers the rights in their vault. Maybe the license is permissive, but one of the many people involved never agreed to it, and that means that it retroactively isn't licensed permissively.

All of the above have happened before.
Wait really? That’s both hilarious and disappointing
I don’t know if it’s just me or it’s the fact that I’m reading this on mobile on a small screen but I couldn’t stand the writing style. Curious to know if anyone else felt that way.
You may find that you are getting downvoted by people of all ideological persuasions because your post invites partisan bickering rather than furthering a dialog of curious discussion.
Delaware courts are very business friendly, so it usually makes sense to register there, even if it's more expensive than other states.
There's a noticeable difference between an in-person meeting and a call. Most people are a lot louder in the latter.
Sure, Ohio is nice because it has no fees and no reporting requirements for $99. But why stop there when you can go to Arizona and get the same deal for $50.

But seriously, if you want to cheat California, just leave and move to a more business-friendly state and do your business legally. It's 100% not worth it to operate illegally in California, especially for the registration of an entity that's intended to protect you legally.

Oh, also fun, don't forget to explicitly close out your CA business when you finally give up and move out. If you don't, they'll hunt you down for your $800/yr several years later with penalties and interest.
The Arrival of Java 15
I'm looking for almost this, except I don't want music, I would like the white noise of people in a public space where don't speak english. Any recommendations?
"drowned out in the noise" is not really a thing here.

Style is just another aspect of text it learns to model and predict. If there are style cues, it makes that part of the prediction and continues it; if there are no style cues, then it just starts somewhere, perhaps with some style common on average...

But if there's a decent amount of text clearly linked to a specific author or style, it will learn the quirks, the vocab, the topics, and so on. Shakespare, no problem, of course it can do Shakespeare pastiche - it can do Paul Graham pastiche, it can even do gwern pastiche! Read through the samples in https://www.gwern.net/GPT-3 and tell me again that everything is just "drowned out in the noise" and GPT-3 is unable to produce anything but a bland average style...
All the money in the world can't bring your dad back. I still think about mine and miss him every day.
I get your point, and agree. But I was saying the author (Park) allowed the quote from Milton (speaker of the "HTML5/supercomputer" quote) to run because he wasn't a domain expert in computers and software, rather that pushing him on it or not publishing that part.
I think it was funny and I liked it. Still didn’t read the whole thing though – maybe later, am not in shape right now. But did read quite a bit of it.
$25 in MT also.
PayPal Business Resource Center
> Most emacs users want to see the key mappings

I can say absolute certainty that more inveterate emacs users would rather see
a screenshot than a litany of keybindings.
> Milton Friedman

I found the problem.
> “You could drop me in the bush and I’d feel perfectly confident navigating my way out, looking at the sun and direction of rivers and figuring out where to go, but this! Hah!”

I mean not to call him out but this did happen and he didn't navigate his way out (although that says nothing about his confidence).

https://www.smh.com.au/national/tony-abbott-lost-in-the-outb...

EDIT: To be fair, it's been a decade. Maybe he's worked on his orienteering skills since having that experience?
> since it is perceived as being closer to libertarian views because they pay some lip service to the idea of small government

I've always found that "libertarian is closer to Republican than Democrat" take from libertarians mildly exasperating. There's a case for it economically, but in terms of social policy Republicans have long been pretty damn supportive of the state restricting individual liberty, whether on a federal level (abortion, LGBT rights, etc.) or a state level (the myriad ways "states' rights" has been used as a cover for blatant discrimination). It's depressing that so many libertarians have decided, when push comes to shove, that higher taxes are worse than calculated bigotry -- and, as you note, increasingly conspiratorial nonsense.
It depends on whether you're for or an enemy of the EFF's type of libertarian politics which he definitely is and so am I. I'd even put Jaron Lanier in that camp too. His solution is just make everyone pay. But I guess in such situations you'd have to use your card and you'd also lose anonymity but then you'd have to pay for all your services and I think that's worse. I don't have gripes about the ad model at all, most people see ads as a nuisance anyway. Also if AI is driven by the big data it gets from the people, it's people that facilitate such trends and that's what I am more worried of.

People will weaponize that power vacuum and not everyone is an engineer that just wants to build something. There are people with nationalist interests, theocratic interests, religious interests, and profit interests all in the way of that and this will never change. It's why the internet was way better when it was just engineers and smart people. Also why America on paper looks awesome but in practice doesn't live up to the hype. It's why the freedom of thought Internet got us nothing more than the degeneration into fascist, theocratic, and communist trends. You may agree with the theory that anonymity, no government involvement of any kind at all, anarchist self organizing systems, etc outweighs the bad, but I don't. Not when the central argument for such thing is turned on it's head and totalitarianism is the "fight against the man" which in this case would be liberal democracy.
I read it on my phone and I love the writing style.

Different people are different.
Can you do this if you're not a US citizen?

I assume you'd need a US-based partner in the LLC.
That's exactly my point though. I'm an atheist, and I don't do good things out of a desire for "rewards in heaven", or rewards of any kind. I don't refrain from stealing because I'm afraid of hell or punishment. As you point out, they're done for the act itself.

This passage presents altruism as a tit-for-tat deal with God. Do good, and you'll get some of that back...later. I promise! It's almost tacky.
Fusion already has the advantage of being the safest energy source by a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

The "problem" with nuclear is the misconception and economic cost.
If you remind yourself to hit the email address in my profile after Fitness+ is released, I’ll let you know.
yes, it was cringey not only for that reason but also for its tone-deafness.

the dissonance comes from a company who's strategy has clearly shifted downmarket and into lower-price services since the peaking of iphone sales in 2015 but is composed of an overwhelming majority of decision makers and marketers too far removed from anything less than an upper(-middle) class existence. they're trying to sell a lifestyle they firmly believe is desirably luxurious to a broad group largely composed of people with starkly different lives and challenges (in a year that's clearly made those differences more readily apparent to all). they slap on a layer of feel-good, socially-conscious color over a monotonous, lululemoned lifestyle to push a decidedly limited-appeal product, and they can't even see the mismatch or disingenuousness of it.

you see the same blindered strategic mistake with news+, icloud, and even tv+, whereas apple music (which, along with ipod, saved apple from irrelevance) actually cut across class and race and appealed to a broad and diverse customer base, and without trying so hard to sell us on it.

besides the interesting socioeconomic angle, fitness+ is a clear indication that apple is losing touch with customers, a dangerous sign for their future.
That was the game that got me into video games. What a masterpiece.
How do you know what the Walton's and Koch's are doing with their wealth? Perhaps they are doing the same thing as Feeny but without the fanfare. I think they are. Are you singling them out because of political differences?
> a "Bayesian inference" spreadsheet like tool

http://probcomp.csail.mit.edu/software/bayesdb/
Gabriel Weinberg's book Traction is a good resource in this regard. It's what my co-founder and I used as part of our guiding principle in terms of our basic marketing plan at the very beginning of the business, before individual people were hired to do any marketing work.

I would recommend all technical founders read that book. If anything it gives you a good frame or reference you can use to interview people with...

If you are going to interview a potential head of marketing, they should be able to explain the same high level thinking that the book presents, in terms of testing 1 or 2 channels, focusing on those channels until they are maxed out, and then opening up or using other channels for the next phase of growth.

If a rough growth plan doesn't invoke the same concepts as the book I would be skeptical they really know how to grow/scale a startup business properly.

On top of that, early on you should have a list of all the potential channels that could work for your business, in order to understand from the beginning how far you could probably scale your business, in order to make sure the venture is worth the time and building the product isn't a waste. If based on the uniqueness of your product, idea, service, etc there aren't many traditional channels available (or you couldn't make them work somehow) then that should be a warning sign.
How to Increase Spotify Streams
Can't read the WSJ article linked, but

> For banking there is a reason for regulation, and it is precisely deposits. Deposits are open to runs.

I don't agree that this is the sole reason for banking regulation. For instance, Glass–Steagall was not a regulation designed to prevent "runs."
A valid contract requires consideration. That's one of the conditions I was referring to. A handshake and a deposit, for instance, could result in losing a lot more than just the deposit. However, not all consideration is monetary, which is why it helps to consult an expert.

I am not a lawyer, either. Just an engineer with the minimum legal training required for licensure, which is basically, "know when you should ask for help."
> The engineers probably were right to disable that, if the false positive rate was too high.

This isn't a binary. They can also choose to stop the public test of a vehicle they can't adequately control.
The contact form on Abbott's website 403ing is impressively on-brand.
Ask HN: Is code review necessary when working with a 3rd party agency?
I'm trying to decide if I need to find someone to review the code for the application a 3rd party agency is building.

If the 3rd party is going to help with iterations of the product, do I still need someone to review the code?
Not really. It convinces a lot of people to reuse, and use alternative methods.
Holy crud, South Dakota is $150 with $50 annual fee. I am stunned Minnesota is the cheapest option of the four states.
As this blog bluntly points out, deposits are subject to runs when used for lending and reserve requirements must be met. If you don’t lend against deposits, runs are of no consequence (hold deposits in a Treasuries money market fund, implicitly guaranteed by the Fed and the Treasury, no different then a brokerage core account). If you want to lend, originate it, securitize it, and sell it on the bond market (last point the blog makes about FinTech doing most mortgage origination volume now). The Fed is working on providing instant payment infra, which minimizes the need for domestic wires and Zelle (bank consortium instant payment platform) long term.

One of the most annoying issues I have with the Fed and the OCC are the denial of charters for narrow banks to prevent competition against legacy banks. I am very pro consumer finance regulation but very anti regulatory capture enabling regulation. You can, in a very straightforward way, protect consumers from predatory financial business practices while supporting financial innovation (which, at this point, is cannibalization of inefficient banking goliaths and necessary evolutionary pressure).

Most definitely, remove the chains from innovators and let them build more efficient platforms for their customers on open protocols and existing derisked primitives.
Why keep shipping bottles around? Leave them where they are. Ship the liquid in tanker trucks and fill the bottles at the destination.
Thanks for sharing, this makes me want to move the book up my list of to-reads. As a side-note, I’m blown away to learn that Judea Pearl is the father of Daniel Pearl — can’t imagine the amount of composure it must take to continue to operate at the highest levels in his field after experiencing grief of that nature.
tax what you want less of.
I have a California LLC and wish I didn't. It has been nothing but an albatross around my neck. I am almost certain I will shut it down at the end of this year.

Look, if you're reading articles like this one, don't do it. Just don't do it. Get competent legal and accounting advice first.

I formed my LLC four years ago when an interesting contracting project came my way. I'd worked as a 1099/Schedule C contractor in the past, but this client wanted me to have an LLC. OK, no big deal.

Then it turned out they also required the LLC to be taxed as an S Corp. No big deal there either, it's a simple IRS form to make that election.

Now guess what? You have to start filing 1120S corporate taxes plus the California equivalent. All the LLC/S Corp income flows right through onto your personal tax return, but you also get to get to file 940 and 941 payroll tax forms and the state equivalents.

And whether your LLC is taxed as an S Corp or not, you have to pay the $800/year California minimum tax on it. Yes, even though the LLC/S Corp really has no net income of its own (as it all flows into your personal tax return), you will owe that $800/year. Even if you create your LLC in another state.

Do not try to do this yourself. You will get it wrong and will pay many thousands of dollars in penalties as I have.

I finally realized I would be much better off just working for another company and letting them deal with all these headaches. They have an entire team to deal with it! If I had a time machine, I would have stuck with regular employment instead of thinking of myself as an independent business.

Forget about the fabled "corporate veil". If the IRS and FTB decide they want their money, they are going to get it.

If you do think this still sounds like a good idea, you must use a payroll service to pay yourself. After my initial fiasco of trying to do it myself, I started using Gusto [1] and they are pretty great.

For filing the LLC itself, I used SunDoc Filings [2] and they are really good too. They helped me on very short notice when I made a mistake on my LLC filing that would have caused it to be rejected.

But really, think twice, or a dozen times, before you open this can of worms.

Sorry for all the italics. :-) But this is something where I have some painful experience, and if I can help steer people away from it I hope it will be helpful.

[1] https://gusto.com/

[2] https://www.sundocumentfilings.com/
That's not really correct - you just have to promise to exchange something. If you and I shake on a deal to buy your car for $100, that can certainly be legally binding if we intended it to be so.

Usually, though, handshake deals mean "these are the commercial terms, let's go draw up the contract", which isn't legally binding. In many places, though, they're respected by convention and protected by reputation.
You honestly can see the difference when a company gives a crap. For example, look at SpiceWorks in the ticket software area. Their directions are clear and easy. Heck, they have VM images.
If you own the LLC but don't take a salary, do you still have to pay the fee?
Is it an old proverb? Never heard of any culture that considered human beings to be made of stars. It is fascinating because now we know that we literally are made of stars.