skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't know of any such entity, but I've had the same idea for a couple of years now. The biggest problem I can see is convincing businesses to deal with an intermediary. Sports and entertainment are used to dealing with agents instead of the talent. Given that most H.R. departments won't or can't even deal intelligently with the folks they are trying to hire, I doubt they would respond well to dealing with an agent.

That said, it would definitely be worth a cut to have an agent out there drumming up new business on my terms (specific technology, working conditions, etc) instead of forcing me to do that.
> and he's working his butt off for that spike.

Yeah, the Things A Week series still blows my mind: writing and recording a song per week for a year? That's both dedication and productivity, especially since most of them don't even suck.
In the US, how is "adopting the wrong corporate form" a terrible mistake? Your realistic choices are LLC, S, and C corporation, and the only thing you're likely to do wrong here is spend the extra time, money, and heartache setting up a C.

You should engage a lawyer for transactional work like contract review, of course. But I don't read this article as an argument for not having contracts reviewed. Rather, it's an argument for keeping your legal overhead transactional, rather than integrating a lawyer into the early planning stages of your business.

I think your comment is a bit hyperbolic.
>I'm one of those people that, whenever they hear about economic problems, always thinks individuals are responsible. I want to know, am I wrong?

Yes. And no. Economic problems arise because of a complex interactions between individuals and institutions. Both share responsibility -- while individuals should never go into a debt that they will likely struggle to repay, institutions shouldn't make it possible, or even easy.

>Nowhere does it say you need a house with a spare bedroom and a bathroom for each person. You aren't entitled to a car, let alone two. It isn't some birthright that you go on vacation or buy a flat screen through credit.

No, it doesn't.

But consider: many people are financially illiterate -- they don't understand just how long it'll take to pay off revolving debt when they are paying interest + 1%, they don't know how to save money, and so on.

And when the credit card company says "don't worry 'bout it, we will give you a year same as cash", they're not going to read the fine print that says if the payment is late even one day the APR resets to 30%.

And when the mortgage company tells them that "housing prices always go up, so you just get the ARM now and refinance later!" they aren't going to think what happens when the bubble bursts.

Now, those people must share some of the blame, not only for what happens to them but what they do to everyone else. But at the same time, we need to ask two important questions:

1. How do we get people to stop living paycheck to paycheck and on easy credit, and start learning to save money, read the fine print, and understand finances?

2. How do we get institutions to provide a more critical evaluation of a persons finances before they offer them a huge loan, both in bad times and in good?
Amazon Enters Daily Deals Space with AmazonLocal Powered by LivingSocial
In America, regulation just kills this kind of entrepreneurship
Like many things, the quality and value of your education is not only a function of the institution you attend, but also of your goals, drive, and temperament.

If your goal is to simply obtain a degree so that you can get a job with your credential, then school might do little to further your useful education.

If your goal is to learn how to solve problems, to learn to think critically, to gain fundamental understanding of difficult concepts, to grapple with how much is not known, and to meet like-minded people, then a university can be a great setting to achieve these goals, with the resulting credential simply acting as a by-product of your education.

School is a tool, just like everything else. It's all what you make of it.
Judging from the Symbian phone I'm typing this on, Nokia is actually incapable of writing a decent phone os. The hardware is great (after four years the corners of the case have a few scratches from falling out of a shirt pocket on the concrete pavement several times and the chome color on the D-pad is mostly gone) but the software, ah, how to say it, less so. The browser randomly reorders all bookmarks every time you open the mail client, sometime the phone will stay offline after you have left cell coverage in the wrong moment and ever so often you have to use the hardware garbage collect button (the one with the circle with the small vertical bar within) if you want to keep using it. I'm mostly using third party software now (opera mini for the web and mutt in a putty session for mail).

So in a way it is fitting that they go with Microsoft, Microsoft has a reputation of being a better hardware than software manufacturer, too (at least for keyboards and mice, which cannot RROD).
"Asterisk"
I keep hearing that companies are looking for these kind of hybrid designers/developers, but I'm one of those people and struggle to find a job that allows that freedom. In fact, I recently moved to SF thinking it would be easier to find that kind of role at startups. I happen to be in the job market right now, so shoot me a message if you need someone that can wear many hats.
They probably cashed out early with part of that round like Groupon and Living Social.
"The Right To Read"[1] was written as a warning, not a how-to guide.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Full transcript here: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fos...
Show HN: Yearlongfan - Side project for supporting the returning Winnipeg Jets
Public sector teachers make more than private sector teachers.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_075.asp
It's worth noting that Bytemark started out as and was for a very long time a Xen shop.
Nestio launches free iphone app
It's just having a strong negotiating position.

It sounds to me like Nokia doesn't want to be "just another Android phone maker". They want to differentiate, and to do that they want Google to do more for them than their other partners (like Microsoft ended up doing). Google has little incentive to do that; Android is already a market success and doesn't need Nokia to make it one. From their perspective, the code is all up on the public repo, and Nokia can take it and release phones whenever they want without even asking.

So what exactly is arrogant or over-confident about Google not seeing a need to bend over backwards for Nokia?
Chicken Scheme 4.7.0 released
i guess its better to put all your energy and ficus on one platform - they've amazing h/w capability now the only thing needed is to innovate with the strong collaboration with someone who has deep pocket,strength and speed .. so MS fits the bill perfectly ...

Also by the time Nokia settles down with restructuring and market gaining, it wont be surprising if MEEGO also succeeds (even a little bit as Intel's power wont let it die easily) then Nokia will be the first one to join-in ... MEEGO by the way has very strong vision and it is the only platform that can threaten Apple and Google put together ...
Highlight A Global Problem With Your Global Warming Essay
Students assigned the writing of a global warming essay will have a myriad of topics to choose from. The main element here is to select a narrowed topic which is interesting and that has sufficient information to write the essay on. This is the key to writing a successful global warming essay.
Lazy option: Print to PDF. I've only ever done it from web pages so far, it's good if don't want html (there was a good reason at the time, forgotten).
Question: if your money is getting predictably more valuable, why would you want to spend it? Answer: marginally speaking, you wouldn't.

This argument never made any sense to me. You can't eat money, watch it for entertainment ... etc. You might be more inclined to save money that you would otherwise have spent carelessly to avoid its loss of value, but how is this a bad thing? Wouldn't our economy be stronger if the effort we spent was on making things people actually want / need instead of making things people kinda want because their money is burning a hole in their pocket?
In my experience, email, text chat, and video chat/screen sharing is pretty much the same as having the guy next to me.
Money supply need not be infinite. Prices will adjust as demand for the unit arises. Essentially, you are doing the same as "creating" more units, without eroding peoples real savings.

The entire system could thrive on one bitcoin.
Perhaps I'm missing something (I've never lived in lawsuit happy US), but I've relied on basic human decency all my life and it has turned out fine for me.

I think there is a time for lawyers, but it's not when you are building your first prototype. You just can't afford to throw money at problems that don't exist yet.
> Oh really? Public employees are far more likely to have pensions than the rest of us. Public employees earn significantly more too and have greater job security.
We blame them because they have a huge effect on who gets elected, which directly affects how much we have to pay for them.

So you're saying public employees are one of the few segments of the US population who have enough input on how they're compensated (via electoral control of their bosses). If private-sector workers are unable to negotiate comparable compensation for their work, then maybe we should blame labor practices in the private sector. Unionized industries aside, compensation is almost entirely at the discretion of the employer. Isn't that a little screwed up? Again, what I am saying here is that the solution to "hey, those public employees have a better deal" is not "take it away from them", because nobody wins in that case. Instead, demand the same deal from your employer. It really wouldn't hurt their bottom line that much.

> What's your method for determining whether children are learning? We tried trusting teachers and schools - that didn't work.

I will admit that I don't have a real answer to this. But I am a fairly recent graduate of the public education system (finished high school in 2006) and I can tell you that 90% of my graduating class managed to pass the tests but were still complete idiots who couldn't think for themselves. (Sadly, I could say this about at least a few of my fellow UC Berkeley 2010 graduates as well.)

Mandating testing gets you graduates who are good at passing tests. Tests are not the real world.

> The US govt collects about as much in taxes per person as the "high tax/high services" countries. (The US actually collects significantly more per person than Canada.) Yet, we don't get the services. More money can't solve that problem.

Okay, then how do we solve it? For one, we could stop spending a trillion dollars per year on our military. Beyond that, we could probably eliminate a lot of bureaucracy. My high school had a principal and three assistant principals for 900 students. Probably a little unnecessary.

Teachers are not the ones to penalize here, dammit. When I have kids, I damn well want their teachers to be well-paid and happy with their jobs. Forty hours per week for thirteen years is a huge amount of time, and there's a lot that can be done to screw up a kid in that time.
"A new scheme we uncover today allows anyone to setup a honeypot and make hundreds of thousands of dollars from naive file-sharers."

If this was the result then it would be a Good Thing. Whether you agree with the laws or not, file sharing stuff you don't have a right to have a copy of is, in fact, illegal. And if these troll type lawyers create enough noise in the space and scare off (or educate) all of the naive file sharers then it will make the interwebs a better place.

You drive faster on than the speed limit on the freeway you know what's at risk and if you get a ticket you know why you got it. I'm very much in favor of making sure that people know when they are on the wrong side of the current law and where the line is. Then I can talk to them about whether or not they will join me in bringing sanity to where the line is :-)
Apache server used to inject malware
I don't know much about going public but if (or when) they prove that Ceglia is lying it will reflect quite nicely on Facebook.
In most public transit systems I have had a pass on, they have the authority to fine you for trying to share a pass... That seems to be what this law is going for. Content providers currently only have the recourse of cutting you off, now they can fine.
> Bitcoins have no intrinsic value.

Gold has very little - it is used in jewelery, CDR coating, teeth and a few other industries -- but you can't live in it, nor can you eat it. Beans have more intrinsic value than gold of the same weight....

Yet, no one doubts gold as a currency.

The main, strike that, ONLY, relevant feature of a currency is the willingness of others to exchange stuff for it. At this point in time, bitcoin possesses this feature.
On windows 8 being just a skin
It really is time for copyright reform. It's stupid that a site like this (or like the YouTube of old) is essentially untouchable (under the DMCA) despite not even trying to prevent people from uploading copyrighted material; it's also stupid that some random pirate can get ordered to pay millions of dollars. Maybe a standard penalty of ~$10/infringement (scaled by cost of original), with minimal hassle, would be the way to go.
I just don't think that forcing code to read like English necessarily makes the code any more readable. Sure, if you read it out loud it comes out sounding somewhat like a sentence. That's cool and everything, but when I'm reading code to, you know, understand it... I want it to be succinct and completely unambiguous.

Here's a great example from Ruby: `unless is_allowed == false`

Reads like English? Check. Sane code? No way. As @heycarsten put it: http://twitter.com/#!/heycarsten/status/28042439329

So I'm suggesting that 'reads like English' isn't the goal you should be aiming for. It's sane, readable code. Sometimes that's English-like (`return x if y`) and other times it's code-like (`list.map( func )`).

Obviously there's room for personal preferences to color where you fall on this (and most other things) :)
Respect is the most important thing (whether or not deal goes thru) ... Nokia respected Google as one of the largest platform creator but in respond to that they didn't receive (i guess) the equal treatment as a largest phone maker (just because it is going thru bad phase) ...
This toolkit is extremely rampant on the net, loads in a trojan which is similar to Zeus.
Let me just clarify - not electronic signing.

A vendor sends a PDF they want you to 1) print out 2) fax back.

So, basically an app in which (in the InkScape sense) you can quickly scribble on, and save to PDF would be perfect.
Read This Before Installing Rails 3.1
The biggest problem I see with joining a startup after graduation is more often then not, Startups don't use any kind of best practices, as they just want to Get Things Done(tm).

It's not uncommon to run into a startup that doesn't use source control, code comments, have failover servers, or even have a dev/staging environment. There are some things that are best to get a good foundation for your career, and large companies provide these in droves.

That said, there are Startups that have their act together, and after college is probably the best time to take that risk.
Rails API documentation (clean, searchable, etc)
Completely disagree about needing devices. Apple only makes one [phone] device per year, but Apple is losing market share to Android every month. Having a single device might be a good formula for profitability or user experience, but it's not the road to an empire.

Compare to Android. It's not just about form factors. It's about hardware freshness. Android has had dual core, LTE, and double the ram for months. There are Android phones with 3D screens and 3D cameras. The iPhone 4 is looking long in the tooth. And the iPhone 4S will just be catching up to the Galaxy S 2.

If I had to point to one reason why Apple is trading at such a low multiple it's because Apple is making too few devices to maintain leadership. Apple's market share has peaked unless it starts acting very un-Apple.
Senators sound alarm over Patriot Act extension
If you know what languages/skills you are looking for... http://www.amazon.com read the reviews. Second only to an actual bookstore where I can flip through the books and see if they are actually any good. And if you are in the Silicon Valley Area - thats the place to check - the bookstores there have excellent programming sections.
Protect your FaceBook Wall: Research initiative
If you are any sort of serious coder then you recognize that being interrupted has a cost that is much greater than the time of the other task, and unless the site is down, you just IM, even if he's sitting nearby, because then he can answer in a few minutes when he's finished whatever tricky thing he was doing.
> The net transaction is $0 (an exchange of currency for T-bills of equal value)

That is only true if T-bills are generated slower than the rise of other money instruments. In the last few years, that has not been the case (and evidence for that is seen in the tanking dollar value compared to any other currency, including gold).
> Using criminal law to deal with it seems like a fairly over-the-top, dramatic step to take.

Indeed. A company is perfectly entitled to want each member of a family to buy their services, what they are not (morally) entitled to is to use coercion (in the form of laws backed by threats of violence) to get people to do so.

A company is morally entitled only to that revenue that people would willingly give it in the absence of force or fraud.
Also, don't ever ask lawyers if there's any liability in your interface. I once had a lawyer loving client who wanted to create a social site, he consulted with his lawyer and he came back to us asking that every single piece of the interface where you could share information should have a disclaimer.

So under every comment box, every I like it button, every photo upload there's a "I hereby grant permission to share my opinion with this site. View privacy policy".
The University of California and California State University are facing a one billion (yes, that's billion with a b) dollar cut from their EXISTING level of state funding. That is not a lie. That is education funding being slashed.

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Revised/BudgetSummary/HigherEd...
I love this quote: "It has always been about winning the lottery."

My three rules for becoming a rock star:

1) At least a little talent.
2) A willingness to do whatever it takes.
3) Being in the right place at the right time.

I think number 3 is often underestimated by HN types. If your business model depends on the attention of other people, then there's an inherent capriciousness to the public eye you can't fully mitigate.
Actually the post isn't about the effect of "lost" competition. It's about the difference between internally vs externally placed competition and how if you're driven largely by external competition, that will very likely eventually cap your creative potential.

That was the point of the post and the reason for the title.
He's talking about the amount of currency in circulation, not the aggregate transaction volume. And BitCoin cannot follow the Twitter graph, because the money supply growth is controlled algorithmically. You are incorrectly interpreting the graph (which, to be fair, is a bad analogy).
He tried to negotiate a deal with Google to run Android, but Google refused to give the world's biggest phonemaker any advantages over its smaller partners, meaning Nokia's corps of 11,600 engineers would have next to no ability to add their own innovations to Google's software. "It just didn't feel right," Elop says to the crowd. "We'd be just another company distributing Android..."

Sounds kind of fair of Google to not give Nokia special concessions their other Android partners don't get. Nokia could have used Android anyway, just without Maps and the Android market.
Then the cloners moved at warp speed. According to Wikipedia, the PC AT shipped in 1984. For nostalgia, I kept my copy of IBM Personal Computer Hardware Reference Library Technical Reference, Pub #1502494.

"This manual describes the various units of the IBM Personal Computer AT and how they interact. It also has information about the basic input/output system (BIOS) and about programming support.

The information in this publication is for reference, and is intended for hardware and program designers, programmers, engineers, and anyone else who needs to understand the design and operation of the IBM Personal Computer AT."

It includes the source listing of the PC AT BIOS, as well as complete interface pinouts, etc.

The colophon for this manual reads

First Edition (March 1984)

So what is your time line for IBM only publishing this manual after the PC AT was cloned?
"If you can't do some kind of code, at least learn HTML5, CSS and a little Javascript, and maybe some other server-side scripting languages"

But take 5 years of solid work/practice with this to actually know what your doing...
I think the point of the article is "In order to use your financial and legal counsel less, you're going to have to self-educate."

Note that the author says to use professional services less, but does not say to completely eliminate them. The more you can learn yourself, the less "research" your lawyer has to do, saving you money.
Having worked exclusively with Ruby for the last 14 months, and comparing things to the situation with Java or Python libraries, I completely agree with this. Working with Ruby gems is often very frustrating. Core libraries like Rubygems, Bundler, Rake and even Rails often cause an application to break when they are upgraded. Minor upgrades regularly cause breakage, where that would be a rare exception with Java or Python libraries. Major upgrades usually cause breakage, where others would strive for backwards compatibility from the start and often succeed. All the benefits I perceive Ruby to have, all the time I gain by progamming in Ruby, I lose to unnecessary library issues. I'm at the point where I advise others to seriously reconsider their choice when they intend to do a new project in Ruby.
From everything I've read kidney donation isn't that bad. As has been pointed out, most people don't have Kidney problems and having a single kidney doesn't increase your odds of having problems that much. If I could get $50k legally for donating a kidney, and if I could get a kidney for $50k in the unlikely event that something went wrong, I would certainly be willing to go through with it.
Pennsylvania's state budget is currently proposing a $1 billion cut to the education budget.

http://www.paschoolfunding.org/2011/05/2011-2012-budget-upda...

And this isn't about not getting increases--program funding is getting rolled back, and some program funding is getting cut entirely.
NSFW... Sorry forgot to add it to title...
Correct me with I'm wrong - but I think all DMCA notices have to be electronically signed by a human under penalty of perjury.

Whilst I think only one or two people have been convicted of sending false DMCA notices, the penalties are stiff enough to not let a program sign DMCA notices on my behalf.
From a web development perspective... I like designers who can code because they're going to know how difficult it is to make the thing they design. They'll also likely know what the tradeoffs that can be made for support in different browsers are.

Designers who can't code can still understand all these things, of course. But in my experience they're less likely to.