skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Great interpretation.

Of the 7 million, how many were 'productive' for companies that simply couldn't weather the storm?

Companies that are still around are reporting greater productivity, but it's a bit of a survivorship bias in these numbers, and to interpret them as "all those people were just dead weight" is too extreme.

Sure, some of them probably were, but entire industries simply shift away. We basically don't have travel agents any more. Decades ago it was a career. Today it's a minor niche. Does that mean that in 1980, travel agents were unproductive dead weight? Certainly not.

Technology advances and a big financial shakedown have given us the one-two punch, and I'm not sure we'll ever quite get back to where we were just a few years ago.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh the other day bitch about the May US 'job creation' figures - only 50k or so. He was bitching that he knows how to "get this country right again". It boiled down to "lower taxes on corporations, and reduce regulations".

1. I know plenty of small businesses, and I don't know anyone who's thinking "dang, if only taxes were lower, I'd go right out and hire a bunch of people". Generally, they're just nervous about the short term economy, and would prefer some cash on hand if taxes were reduced.

2. Sure, I'm for lower regulations. It seems like it might help the guy in the article if there were fewer safety regulations that didn't require $7k in training per employee. Fair enough. But I don't see this as something that's preventing people from hiring as much as not being able to find qualified workers, or being willing to invest in the training for those workers. Many are trapped by underwater mortgages, so more employers are forced to deal with the workforce immediately surrounding them.

More on Rush for a moment. Yes, capitalism is great, etc. But with the changes in tech we've been seeing the past couple decades, 'successful' companies require fewer people.

I'm going out on a limb here and will say that a company's market cap is an indicator of the value they provide the market. Ford's market cap is $54B, and they employ 164,000. Apple's market cap is $300B, and they employ 49,000. Google is $166B and they employ 26,000. Value created and delivered is far greater, and as more companies "tech up", lowered taxes and regulations will just not be a path to higher employment.

Yes, the economy may get "back on track", but fewer people will be riding those rails.
It'd be nice if they treated workers better especially if they have that knowledge/productivity rate.
I would estimate the number of Windows computers used for "everyday work" which have MS Acces on them is more like 15%. That is just in my personal experience though.
Shareaholic for Publishers Now Features "Automagic Translation"
It just went down for a minute or two around 9:15 EST?
Nine year old crack babies today are more literate than most of his learned advisors [...]

Lets not get too cocky.

Well, make up your mind. :)
This is heart warming.

I encourage anyone interested in this approach of government to watch the documentary, "us now" [1] [2].

[1] http://vodo.net/usnow

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_Now
Really, bitcoin isn't even a consideration until I can pay my bills with it.
For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation
I came upon this "petition" as i was looking for a search tool for a research-related app. Given the fact that most of the life sciences literature is behind paywalls, attempting to make your own search engine is very complicated and sometimes impossible. At best you can index abstracts and authors (and that's not easy). Google has the advantage of having been given access to almost all journals, and having the infrastructure ready. I hope they will remember their roots in research and come up with a small api for google scholar that research apps can utilize.
Right on. There are no secrets in Linux. You can drill all the way down and then some.
7 Secrets Of Low-Stress Internet Marketers
Yes somewhat and apt is a wrapper on top of dpkg ...

So on a Debian/Ubuntu or related system your common options are:

* dpkg

* apt-get and apt-cache

* aptitude

* synaptic

All the apt-based programs use the same /etc/apt/ files. There is a lot of overlap but specific reasons I might use one or the other.

I use aptitude to do global updates as in:

aptitude update && aptitude safe-upgrade

Apt-get has the most commandline options.

I have not figured out how to do the following two on aptitude - so just use apt-get:

"apt-get dist-upgrade"

"apt-get -f"

(which is not to say it doesnt - just havent found it in 'the fine manual')

Synaptic is fun to browse. almost like an android app store. I use it looking for a fun new game for my kid to play on my laptop, etc.

And dpkg is useful for local installs (dpkg -i) and also for dpkg-reconfigure when you have to change something in the config of an installed package.

I also deal with yum/rpm (which is a similar pairing as apt/dpkg). I first learned on Debian so I have a fondness for apt.

In my experience it is pretty stable and easy to use. When I read the OP I thought the 'actually this shows how cool apt or yum can be to use'.
When the news first hit that Lightsquared was going to operate on a piece of spectrum that interfered with GPS, they raised a calming hand and told us all, "Don't worry, we've got technology that will prevent any inteference." Here we are, months later, and the story is now, "However, those solutions would likely be expensive for both the company and GPS device makers and could take years to complete."

Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
I've never touched anything stronger than weed, and I haven't even been near that in a long time - but if an employer (new or current) asked me to take a drug test, unless they had a justifiable reason for believing I specifically was on drugs, then I'd refuse on principle.
I think a more realistic scenario, at least in the short/medium term (for relative values of "short" and "medium"), will be to limit human population to a sustainable level. It will be ugly, but I think in a few generations' time we'll see it happening, either by explicit means or evolutionary. I'm thinking pandemics brought on by overpopulation, and the evolution of diseases, not our evolution, although that too may bring some solutions albeit on a longer timeframe.
>Volatility is not a real big issue because we can quickly move bitcoin into USD.

... thanks to speculation.

If the market adjusts and people start heading for the exits, bitcoin will become highly illiquid.
Apple files motion to intervene in Lodsys case
yup testing around, bashing the server and fixing bugs... still beta but works quite good right now :)
Did you even read my comment or the article? My statement wasn't about Javascript being popular or whether I like it, but about the fact that ground work is important because everything else depends on it.
I feel like the message here isn't so much a failure to accept failure, but more of an early, total acceptance that they were failing and allowing that insight to stop them wasting more money, rather than holding on for dear life...
Embed.ly Locks up $450k, Streamlines Their API
When i try to join a game i always come back to the front page asking me for a name.

EDIT : ok works fine under chrome. Bugs with Firefox 4.0.1 under linux
In a way, Xerox PARC did get compensated for some of its ideas.
Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)

"The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple Macintosh, which was heavily inspired by PARC's work; Xerox was allowed to buy pre-IPO stock from Apple, in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product."

Yes, Xerox later did sue Apple but...

"The lawsuit was dismissed because the presiding judge ruled "that Xerox's complaints were inappropriate for a variety of legal reasons,""
There are lots of forces on a business that can mandate drug policies, especially when working with heavy equipment. Insurance companies can require it, as can federal and state regulations.
not a bad point
I believe that is why coupons say they are worth $0.0001

Guy wins free donuts and is issued a $237 tax bill.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Astros...
The actual title for the issue is »Please add Google Scholar to the API, including # of citations and BibTex reference.« Is there a reason to use a harsh, demanding tone in the submission title?
koopajah: I've heard about this issue before but dunno why this happens yet. Maybe some socket.io issues, I'll investigate later
The Open Source 3D Printer That Prints Itself-
The ultimate DIY project. A build-it-yourself, entirely open-source 3D printer for $800.
While not integrated into the OS, Homebrew is an excellent package manager on OS X.
The investors got more than 50% of their investment back; this doesn't happen very often with failures.

They are saying 'That was a failure.'

But there are lots of failures of lots of startups and as an investor you're betting on a few winnings among lots of loses. Investors may actually be happy with this outcome simply because it could have been a lot worse.
Ouch. They've apparently launched a satellite: http://spacefellowship.com/news/art23835/proton-successfully...

I wonder if it's the uplink, downlink, or both that's causing the interference. Anecdotal and probably coincidental: I live not too far from LightSquared's headquarters and my phone's GPS has had difficulty getting a lock the past few weeks.

I hope they work this out, because I'd probably be an end user of theirs. No wired internet access is currently available at my location.

Edit: Looks like it's the uplink from the base stations (http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/two-government-agences-s...)
Short Haircuts
short haircuts are all the rage this summer season as they can go from day to night, from the beach to the office in a flash. While styling cute short haircuts and seeking a look that is right for you, a stylist can be of great assistance.
In an ideal world what you say is true. Unfortunately, employers don't necessarily know what's the "wise" thing to do. Take the housing boom: from a contractor's point of view it was good business to build many times more houses than the historical aggregate demand. In reality those houses were completely unnecessary: short term gain, long term damage.

Same story for the dot-com (and probably the current) bubble. Employers are notoriously bad at accurately forecasting how many jobs they can actually sustain. And in a downturn it's easy to squeeze more productivity out of fewer employees because it's easier to retain overworked employees.
This video shows how it's done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaeO99SbgFc&feature=youtu...
PHP Hacking aka trying to push PHP internals forwards
It's a reference to this talk: http://blip.tv/clojure/hammock-driven-development-4475586
If the brain only had a couple of neurons, then it might make sense to pump up the transmitters between them to get a more intense response because you don't need very refined control. However there are 100 billion neurons in the brain, and are connected in very complicated ways.

Since there's evidence that cranking up the seratonin for _every_ neuron or suppressing the dopamine for _every_ neuron isn't healthy, it stands to reason that treating "mental illness" is more complicated than turning a water faucet on or off. Who knows exactly what causes it? It could be related to patterns of connection, i.e. neuron A is better off connected to neuron B at site C, but is connected strongly to neuron D at site E. And then comes the question of whether the neuron is sending weird patterns of action potentials. Or it could be the timing, speed or synchronization compared to other neurons is off. Or it could be poor overall health of each individual neuron. Or subtle brain damage. And the problem might be localized to just some neurons in one part of the brain, and not another, making treatment of the whole brain with drugs a messy approach. You see, there are no obvious answers right now, but there are plenty of alternate explanations besides global chemical imbalance. :)

EDIT: Also, you could think of mental illness as being psychological, and something that the brain can heal on its own, given the right environment.
> Build Your Own Back Pack Shop

Timbuk2 have a successful business offering customised messenger bags.
The search is not an internet based search. It is looking though the repositories that you have selected (cached on your system). If you don't have the right repos you will not find what you need.
Same issue for me with Chrome
I recently switched from the iPhone to Android, and every point he made I agree with -- except in reverse.

On android I have three different contact lists all with different UI and features. For example: in the phone app my features are "Search" and "Add to Speed Dial", in the texting app my options are "Search" and "Display Group", in the Contacts app I have a bunch of options(the only one of the contact lists that can add new contacts). I must physically close out my phone app in order to add a contact, and thats just silly.

The android notifications are annoying because they don't work well. Right now my mail has 5 notifications and no unread messages, as soon as I open the mail app the notifications disappear and then reappear a few minutes later. Not only that, but I probably have at least 20 other notifications since every app adds its own notifications. Sure I could go and set up each app individually to not have notifications, but I'd prefer if things just worked.

I'm pretty impartial to the back button, I was used to having it in the UI and after switching I didn't like the android's way of doing things. After months of using the android I now think this is purely a matter of personal preference.
I think there is a trick to this. If the local event you're developing your product around is actually specific to one location, I would say it's probably a bad idea. For example, I'm in the DC area (for now) and I would consider it to be a bad idea to make a "Lincoln Memorial-centric App" because people can only see the Lincoln Memorial if they are in DC and thus I immediately limit my market to those who live nearby and those who visit. On the other hand, an app meant to socialize something like eating is probably a better idea because while eating is a local event, it happens everywhere. A good example for these "hybrid-local/global" companies would be grubwith.us or geo-caching services.
Hope this was clear. Not much time to write :)
It's like the Locate in Handcent, but you're basically "rounding-off" to the nearest "landmark"?
An individual's principles are just the same as a company's policies. You might feel better about yourself refusing a drug test but you might miss out on an otherwise good job. It may not be a problem for a small company but a larger company that has to hire lots of manual labor, where drugs and alcohol are definitely a problem, cannot treat you differently so they have to insist on the drug test.

Current employers insisting on a drug test is definitely more problematic, though, if there's no reason to suspect a problem it seems unreasonable to insist.
They have to work out how many Tridents they could have bought for each part of the project.
I find it a little bit strange that they didn't realize their solution didn't work before lauching and getting funding.

A business idea, or a consumer product can fail or succeed depending on many parameters. But a spam filter is a technical part. There are metrics that can clearly tell you whether it works or not.
Oh and Node.js!

I'm also coming from Perl and what I always liked is the huge variety of modules on CPAN. JSAN has been around for a while, but only recently both Node.js (npm) and JSAN had a nice growth.
As I understand Theravada, it's about observing what is happening rather than stopping or nullifying; so thought -> observe -> repeat is quite appropriate for it.
Geek Transportation Systems
A barebones install might not have ruby or python. When I install it as a server I try to reduce the packages to a minimum and build up from there. I usually try to a network install as well (for Ubuntu or CentOS).

I would rather put on whatever I want later.

A default Ubuntu install I think has Python on board. Not as sure about Ruby.
I would suspect that it's because the primary mission of the NHS is to provide jobs for bureaucrats, any healthcare we happen to get is just a side effect. Same with the MoD and submarines.
No, I don't own an iPad - but I do own 2 laptops, 2 desktops, one Android and one iPhone - have Google Apps installed on my domain, and it has been the single most useful online service I ever used.

Email, Contacts, Calendar, Docs and Pictures are all available and in sync on every piece of equipment I have.

And of course Apple's products are working a lot better on the iPad and I'm pretty sure customers will be pleased with iCloud, but to sing it as if it is the second coming of Christ is really stretching it.
Does it really matter who the scapegoat is? At all? A few short years ago we had scary arab terrorists, I think they're still a bigger scapegoat than anon.

Anonymous doesn't change anything as far as excuses. If they're looking for an excuse to crack down, they can always make up an Emmanuel Goldstein.
From a purely economic standpoint, is it always in someone's interest to be fraudulent? You might get away with $x if fraudulent and 3 x $x if not. If you're selling rice and cookies at a supermarket and a mafia boss wants to buy them, what are you going to do, turn him away?
I hope for your sake that yo are not letting it get that much behind on security updates.

I recommend that you do at least this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticSecurityUpdates

The idea that Linux does not need to be updated is a dangerous one.
While this is somewhat interesting, it seems like this would be difficult for 'normal' people. For nerds it seems like they would want more control than this appears to offer on the surface. Honestly, I didn't even know .tel existed until I read your comment, so obviously this is based on a somewhat superficial first impression.

It really seems like a page that is a canonical reference for each person is a good idea, I just think this misses the point for most of the population. Solutions like facebook or even about.me are easier for a large number of people to utilize. Obviously there are problems with portability and privacy when relying on a closed 3rd party, but this more open solution is too convoluted for those that aren't technically inclined.
He is probably downvoted because of the somewhat condescending tone.

As for your question, I normally use PlainText. I type in something on my phone and when I turn on my computer later, dropbox announces that transfer.txt has been updated which is a perfect reminder. This works fine except when I am offline (I travel a lot and often don't have data). Now, I could turn on PlainText when I get back, to synchronize data but I often forget to do this.

This solution would work for me -- although texting to the US is probably going to be a bit expensive..
This reminded me of the story of One Thousand and One Nights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights#Syn...), where the new bride starts (but doesn't end) a story every night... ensuring the king doesn't execute her in the morning.

I think it's a great idea to do on purpose, but at the same time, it's making me less worried about actually leaving that bug outstanding when I leave the office. That is to say, I will try and take advantage of the outstanding bug, rather than worry myself about it....
KVM best practices from IBM
Not officially, anyway.

And that may be even worse when it comes to a potential "crackdown": if it is just one group of hackers running amok, putting them down solves the problem, or at least the public discourse can pretend so. But if we come to have two, three, four, or even more groups on the loose, then there is an "epidemic" that will "require" a broader, more draconian response.
Now there are at least two redditors in this thread.
Search only titles, then order by points/date.
The Poisson Distribution and it's Calculation
The majority of Africa's land area and population are in the Northern Hemisphere.
I checked out Rework on Amazon and saw some really mixed reviews, now im not sure about getting it. What do you like about it, and do you suggest anything else?
I figuratively want to kiss you for this.
Eh, I've never actually heard anybody ask for something in the context of "could not have asked for". And you can always ask for something better if you're willing to go to figurative lengths. Still not really defensible, though, and I wish I could edit it now that I'm being downvoted strictly on the form of my content rather than the content itself.
Kind of, but the receiver does not need to click on a http-link to understand the location.

So like Locate in Handcent, but Gecko SMS also works

- when texting to your mother/grandpa/non-techie friend with old dumbphone

- in places like Balikpapan, Indonesia, with zero Google map data coverage.

Handcent Locate can also optionally add an address (created from Google street data), which may work well if the data is there. However landmarks are designed to be well known spots, whereas addresses are often cryptic.
It's part of the SoC -- it's an Adreno 220 GPU that's based on the mobile GPU technology that Qualcomm bought from AMD/ATI. It uses shared RAM with the system.
Many apps that are sub $20 would probably benefit from a similar lift. I'm not sure it would work on a $500 business app. But who knows...
Think your customers are stupid?
OK fair enough, I don't have anything more substantial than a wild-assed guess to back up my 90% claim. I'd still say that an mdb file is closer to the everyday experience of the average Windows user than an sqlite file is. And even if they're equally difficult to open, the 'openness' of the sqlite data format is still of no importance whatsoever to the average user, which is the original claim I was opposing.
A funny thing happens to me and not by choice - whenever I'm searching for something on Android's Marketplace, I tend to look at paid apps first whenever I have a specific need and know what I want, even though I'm a cheap bastard. Unfortunately many paid apps that I tried to buy are not available in my country and I don't know why devs feel the need to limit their apps to a certain geographic area, while keeping free apps unlimited.

The reason being that most free apps on Android's Marketplace (and even on iTunes) are weekend hacks - unusable interface, breaking on updates / unmaintained or filled with spam or limitations. It's the return of shareware - and whenever I can't find something suitable I tend to say "fuck it, I'll just do something by myself", instead of waisting time with all the crap out there. And I did - I created my own phone calls / SMS blocker.
Among the fleet of current interplanetary spacecraft, I think Dawn is perhaps the most interesting. It will be the first spacecraft to enter orbit around a planet(oid) and then fly to a second one to enter orbit there. I just can't wait to see how it turns out.
Ask HN: 3 days that my ad has been 'under review' on adwords
I've been waiting 3 days.

Getting a little suspicious because it's quite a unique idea in the local deals space. Someone there might be forwarding it to the local deals team so they can clone it. lol

Has anyone else had this experience?
I mean the second, that they and by extension the rest of the US establishment is simply not going to allow any civillian technology to interfere with GPS.

Realise that's not entirely clear in the original post...
GitHubs Repo Transfers
There was a really excellent HBR article on pricing some years ago.

Still relevant.
Money-Shredding Alarm Clock Is Completely Unforgiving
The Sofa guys are super talented and I wish Koen and his team all the best on this new and exciting venture! Congrats to Facebook on acquiring such an outstanding team! :-)
Apple Ups Ante in Lodsys Lawsuit