skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I reliably put in four or five 50+ hour weeks per year (especially if I'm at a new startup), but I've learned through hard experience that it's unbelievably counterproductive to do that for longer than a week or two at a time. My personal life and ability to stay awake, much less think/code clearly, suffer otherwise.

Of course, if work is sufficiently interesting then I end up spending what free time I have thinking about it, which can make my work time incredibly productive, obviating the need to be "working" too much to begin with.

But most importantly: YMMV.
Patent Trolls do not make or sell any products so it would not be possible to counter sue them.
This is encouraging. Want to know what a truly sick economy looks like? One where the top 1% inherited their assets/incomes. Ignoring the huge selection effects in talking about the top .1% of winners in the financial markets is silly.
I already knew the about the vast disparity in the top 1% of earners, but I did not know how difficult it is to retire comfortably. A 30-year retirement is quite a luxury.
Unfortunately the trend seems to be the replacement of one with the other. What I am suggesting, one major for each, is exactly the opposite of either/or.
I'm cool with the OS X behavior because I have an icon on the finder toolbar that spawns a new shell in the directory the finder window is showing.
Tax avoidance.

(The marginal rate of tax on capital gains is generally much lower than the marginal rate of tax on an equivalent earned income. The investment professionals who strike it big do so by engineering their income to arrive in the shape of capital. Tax it as income and suddenly a whole lot more tax revenue shows up ... and the Gini coefficient in the society in question drops a little bit.)
I only regret that I have but one upvote to give to this comment.
Brad Smith: Microsoft Asked Google to Bid Jointly on Patents
The idea that it is possible for those that earn vast quantities of money more than your "standard joe" to pay _less_ tax on that considerably larger cash pile.

The line about lobbying for a new corporate exemption on "repatriating" cash from either tax havens or anywhere else abroad at the pitiful tax rate of 5.75% compared to the base 10% that someone that works at a diner has to pay illustrates the issue rather well.
Why I Don't Want to Start a Startup
I'm assuming it's increasing the long term capital gains tax rate. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_United..., the short term rate is as arjunnarayan suggested, barring any differences in exemptions between capital gains and income tax rates.
40 at day job, 40+ on consulting projects. Finding it harder to keep up the pace and want to reshuffle to find time for my own projects. Hard to get off that consulting gravy train though.
Seriously though...

Xmonad is entirely unlike Gnome, KDE, XFCE et al. And thank goodness because I don't like 'desktops', overlapping windows and what not. Xmonad and its brethren wms give me what I want out of a GUI.
Just curious, does this site have a public API? The kickstarter project suggests there is one, but I can't find it on the site.
I've started taking a long walk (like 7 miles or more) at least once a week. Often, part of it is with company and we talk and then part of it is alone and I think. My recollection is there are some historical figures (writers or what not) who walked a lot as a means to promote thinking. (And I think Ben Franklin was infamous for his long bathes which were a place he apparently did a lot of thinking.)

I have also read that "cool"/unique/brilliant ideas very often are the result of cross-pollination of unusual sets of interests. In other words, if you have two or more interests that don't typically go together, this tends to lead to new insights/approaches that no one else could come up with. So if you are feeling stuck, maybe you should seek out a new hobby/interest, something that seems counter-intuitive to your normal interests if at all possible. My sons have been gradually dragging me into gaming. I was a full-time mom for a long time. I like my kids. They know me well and know how to frame things to make a game sound do-able and appealing to me. They also do a lot of hand-holding. (I used to think video games were the work of the devil or some such. I was not thrilled that my sons were so into games. Now they are corrupting me. This will likely lead to great things. :-P)

Best of luck.
Reminds me of the Citigroup reports on plutonomy that was allegedly leaked. The reports give an interesting, and to some degree offensive, look into the mindset of the plutocrats -- that is, the richest of the rich

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/810028/101001citigroup-plutonomy-rep...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/810028/101001citigroup-plutonomy-rep...
A lower rate of tax, not less tax.
Conan
Conan
through telepathy barely surviving in the wilderness
FWIW, I usually have between 10 and 30 tabs opened simultaneously and I'm usually pushing 1G ever since 4.0 rolled out. I may cycle 100-200 over a few hours and then have to restart to reclaim memory (only 4G).

Similar usage with 3.x rarely exceeded 300MB and FF would remain open for weeks.
At my school our intro class was in Python, but an SICP class was required for majors. I think this was a pretty decent compromise, especially since many prospective majors placed out of the intro class anyway. I agree that SICP (really FP in general, though the consensus seems to be that SICP is the best way to teach it) is a necessary part of any serious CS curriculum, but I don't think it's necessarily a good place to start--especially if non-CS people are taking the intro class.
Are you using the tabs as bookmarks or a task list? Browser may withstand it, how can a human brain!
Class-action complaint against Kissmetrics and others for use of Flash LSO [pdf]
approx 11300miles for me, for last 4 years and loving it
re: Windows and OSX moving away from it - really? Apart from some exceptions on Win7 clicking an icon brings up a new instance. Exceptions like media player are...exceptions, and at the application's discretion. Unless I'm mis-understanding something you're saying.
I love Instagram but I hope they find a way to make money out of this.
I disagree with the title. You are breaking the web. Or you're not. Either way, it would have to be an odd definition of breaking the web if going from a standard paywall to your paywall changed the status of whether or not it's breaking the web.
I'm confused.

> 'one window' = 'one application' is a fallacy

> hate clicking on Terminal and having something new pop up when I might just be trying to bring that application back into focus

Aren't those conflicting statements? The latter only occurs when the former is not considered a fallacy, no?
I know a guy that is basically looking for an MS Stack solution to a problem he is having. He makes displays for fighter jets and he would like to know if these can solve them. The only problem is that it is all military spec stuff, ergo question.
Taking advantage of capital gains might be tax avoidance from a certain point of view, but it's also a useful for helping grow wealth and the economy in general.

Having large sums of private capital helps the economy-- how does it help it? By making it easy to borrow money, like the VC that so many HNers are seeking.
Let's not forget that they rated a dead version of Symbian:

"based on the governance model of the Symbian Foundation prior to the the platform's transition back to a closed model"

[the repeated "the" is in the article].
We seem to be in agreement that our wised truck driver should be the judge of whether or not it's safe to pass. My point is that, should he judge the speed of his peer (who he's stuck behind at 65MPH) to be intolerably low, he should not have the option to pass at a reasonable rate precluded by a bureaucrat who lacks his experience and detailed knowledge of the situation.

How fast? In Minnesota (where I'm from and also where the article was published) I can tell you offhand that a recent figure for the 85th percentile speed on rural freeways is 79MPH (that means three out of every 20 drivers are going even faster). Does the truck need to go that fast? Only if it's in the left lane while cars are present.
The ideal pattern only exists in laboratory settings. In all real-world scenarios I've encountered driving in 15 states the actual outcome is road rage.
My thoughts exactly - the problem the author is alleging isn't that these things exist, it's summarized in his last paragraph:

A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules.

In other words - the alleged problem is that you can't fix this tax stuff even if you wanted to because the people in control are the ones benefiting (and most other people aren't aware / don't care enough).

I'm not taking a position either way, just clarifying what the author is saying.
Winners announced for the 2011 Pwnie Awards
He was calling out notable exceptions...

| but it's infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn't acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries.
Code Complete 2nd edition -- Every good programming practice and why to use it.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs -- the book explains core computer science concepts, including abstraction, recursion, interpreters and metalinguistic abstraction, and teaches modular programming. Also what MIT used to use as their intro to CompSci textbook

Introduction to algorithms (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein) -- Explains various algorithms and their benefits/drawbacks

The Mythical Man-Month -- What project management for software looks like when done right (and wrong)

Head-First Design Patterns -- Head First series is a little goofy, but you will remember how an Observer pattern works after going through their goofy examples. Gang of Four's design pattern book will put you to sleep.
May the grace of nickb be with you.
I've always found SICP quite overrated (I'm saying this after reading it).

Given Python's learning curve, a much better curriculum would involve going through the codebase of a few well-chosen projects, sending in a few patches and perhaps writing a report on the high-level design of the piece of software or on how the project solves a particular problem (how does XYZ handle i18n? how does ABC stay stable even on a failing network?)
Being a plaintiff doesn't always mean you're the one suing. It could be an appeals court case where the positions are reversed. Also, you could sue an NPE in order to invalidate their patent(s), or to seek an injunction.
yeah. what I find interesting is that while most people seem to claim 40-50 hours, they don't appear to be working as much as people I know who track their hours (and don't count breaks) who have a difficult time reaching 40 hours a week.

I suspect most people inflate the number of hours spent working (or count things like hacker news as work.)
> > Some here have said "well if the job is hard, then quit it!" Wow. Do you think people don't do this? Do you think that changes the market equilibrium at all? It doesn't.

> If that were true, I'd have a very easy time hiring programmers and artists. Or are the laws of economics somehow different for truckers than for programmers?

So you think it takes the same skill set to be a programmer as it does to be a trucker? Or that the training to be a programmer is equivalent to the training to become a trucker?

Not all job markets are equal. Artists are valued by the quality of their work almost completely. Truckers - as long as they meet minimum legal safety standards - are valued by the quantity of their work. Big difference.
Jan. 14, 1853: Is this the earliest mention of "computer" in the New York Times?
i like to hit the delete key by 'accident' all the time.
Check out QuantNet (http://www.quantnet.com), Wilmott (as SkyMarshal linked below) and Nuclear Phynance (http://www.nuclearphynance.com/). AFAIK, they're the most active forums for quants and usually don't mind answering questions for beginners/students.
I can't say much about "Dive into Python", since I've not read it.
Its particularly strange because he himself has linked to the NPR story: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/07/25/when-patents-att...

It would seem like someone who links to that (and apparently agrees with it), would not say something like "But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?"
Your cat-picture-project is saving the world, thank you
Those percentages don't mean much out of context. Was the curriculum less stringent back then (I.e. graduating people that shouldn't have been able to)?
Creating An Effective Blog Post For SEO In 7 Steps
Point taken; sensational headline is sensational.

ASI is a respectable library, certainly. It's been around for a long time, and it does everything you could possibly conceive of. Problem is, for most people, it does too much, and as a result, doesn't do anything particularly well.

AFNetworking does 2 things really well: API requests and image loading. 80% of the time, this is all that's necessary. For when it isn't, AFNetworking is small, understandable, and encapsulates most information in familiar Foundation classes (eg. NSURLRequest), which makes it much easier to extend than ASI.

It's a ways off from having the maturity of ASI, but I see a lot of promise in AFNetworking's design, and I'll do what it takes to keep improving it. Keep a look out for a blog post and better documentation in the coming weeks.
Google needs to drop the “but we are the good guys” argument because they simply can't sustain it.

"Don't be evil" is sounding at best schizophrenic and at worst hypocritical.

I'd much rather hear: “Look, we love open source software and we'll use it and contribute to it in every possible way, as long as it doesn't interfere with our business strategy”.

That would be honest and not that bad in fact.
You should try the 7 Taskbar Tweaker : http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-v2-0 (with video demo)

It aloud you to reorder the tasks in any order, for example:

[Chrome] [Notepad] [Chrome] [Word] [Exel] [Chrome] [Chrome] [Notepad]

I am using an old version with "Grouping\Don´tGroup" enabled. But the new version can create custom groups, that seams to be better.

P.S.: And if you miss the blinking network indicator in the systemtray, you can use the Network Activity Indicator: http://www.itsamples.com/network-activity-indicator.html
Yeah, I'm well-aware of that, too. But it was too tempting to do a NextStep-style vestigial prefix (Gowalla was previously named Alamofire, hence AF). Fingers crossed that Apple doesn't release "Apple Framework" anytime soon.
I think most people that have a 9-5 and do a small amount of after-hours contracting, or regularly stay a little bit late to finish something up will be voting 40-50. That's how I voted, even though if you subtract slacking time and lunch, I probably clock in under 40 hours most weeks.

This would seem likely to encompass the majority of HN's readership, startup crowd aside.
Another client with a net worth in the $10M range is the ex-wife of a managing director of a major investment bank, while another was able to amass $12M after taxes by her early thirties from stock options as a high level programmer in a successful IT company. The picture is clear; entry into the top 0.5% and, particularly, the top 0.1% is usually the result of some association with the financial industry and its creations. I find it questionable as to whether the majority in this group actually adds value or simply diverts value from the US economy and business into its pockets and the pockets of the uber-wealthy who hire them.

This paragraph ruffled my feathers quite a bit. It's overreaching to say that a programmer who managed to make out like a bandit when their company hit it big is just "diverting value from the US economy". That scenario is quite a bit different than, say, profiting off of elaborate financial engineering.

And of course large amounts of money have "ties" to the financial industry. What the heck else are you going to do with the money? Equating a programmer who happened to strike it rich during an IPO (presumably) with an investment banker as both being tied to the financial services industry is ridiculous.
> Because there'd be a financial incentive to kill patent holders?

To be fair, a) people don't kill copyright holders before Disney got a hold of the legislation (or did they?) and b) I imagine the legal ramifications would outweigh, at least largely in part, the benefits of assassination.
If a non-US citizen works at a diner in a tax haven or anywhere else abroad, and brings money into the US, they typically pay 0% tax (to the US) on that money.

This is the analogous situation to non-US corporations (possibly owned by US corps) leaving profits overseas.
I still find myself using /emphasis/ in places, despite nothing I can think of actually supporting it. I can't remember where it originated, possibly usenet.
Skype Now Supports The Open Source VP8 Video Codec
You probably should have been a little more granular around the 40 hour mark. Perhaps 35-45?
Before Use the Nintendo wii controller need warm-up in advance
Playing video games need to warm-up exercises in advance, this argument I believe many people have heard of. Remember the Wii sold just shortly after, a lot of players that appeared the next day after the use the Nintendo wii controller to play game the body aches and other physical reactions, and a new statement "Wii elbow (tennis elbow another term)" came into being.
This is such a pressing concern that someone registered a domain for it:
http://begthequestion.info/
I'm not sure how many people living outside of the US would actually consider it to be the 'greatest country on Earth'. I certainly don't want to live there...

Not sure if this is just a troll actually. If so, good job I guess.
Wonder why they single out Kiss, you can bet anything they're doing the entire ad industry is doing too.
Take a good look at the Forbes 400. The vast majority of them are entrepreneurs and though a sizeable number made their money from the financial industry it's no where near a majority - not even close.

http://www.forbes.com/wealth/forbes-400/list
Why "Coupon Code" Should Not be a Field on Your Payment Form
What planet are you from? This guy's mega-rich clients are mostly from "financial services, real estate and government contracting".

All of those things are either indirectly or directly subsidized by the US taxpayer. So the public is borrowing money and these folks are capitalizing it. And the Republicans claim to not be in favor of redistribution of wealth!

The bizarre thing is that if you looked at an analysis like this 25, 50, 100, 150 years ago, the picture would be different. The robber barons of the past built things, employed people. Investment bankers lobby for regulation to drum up business, and gouge people for their services, whatever they are.
So you think it takes the same skill set to be a programmer as it does to be a trucker?

No, I think the laws of supply and demand apply equally well to trucking and programming. If sufficiently many truckers quit supply will go down and price will go up.

Artists are valued by the quality of their work almost completely.

Not necessarily, once it meets minimum quality standards. Many artists merely create a large amount of fairly interchangeable art that agrees with a style guide.
Andriod is offered under Apache License, Version 2.0[1]. Which is a part of Open Source Inititive[2]and part of their mission statement is "an end to predatory vendor lock-in."

Reading Apache 2[3] it looks like "an end to predatory vendor lock-in" is acheived by making it possible for anyone to use the source including Microsoft and Apple. If the land can be used by anyone it is hard for me to think of it as a land grab.

[1] http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html

[2] http://www.opensource.org/

[3] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
been using non-project for a while. One of my favorite sites for basic objects.
With apologies to XKCD...

http://i.imgur.com/EB5K9.png
No, I had it right. I've actually been in that situation -- a car trying to pass me across a double line into oncoming traffic -- and IIRC my reaction was to brake hard. Not necessarily a better reaction.
I recently switched to Xmonad and I must say that I really enjoy it.
I will be there! Coming from Chicago. @rachelbaker on Twitter
Who knew that 'Live fast, love hard, die Young' would also be a fiscally responsible lifestyle!
> It's weird to me that Gruber claims, like he did in a recent episode of his podcast with Dan Benjamin, that he's not anti-Google. I mean, why deny something that's so self-evident?

Because he's not really anti-Google, he's just pro-Apple (read Apple fanboy).
Things aren't great. I'm not saying that. I'm not an apologist for the pretend free-market. I'm just saying this isn't the doom and gloom the original author or the vast majority of readers will probably think. WHat do you think 99% of human history looks like anyway? It looks like a boot stomping on a human face. Decrying the winners of the financial game, rigged though it is, as villains is just laughable compared to anything except rich white people problems.
Agreed on breaking - hadn't thought of that approach. I'm used to 'continue/break' from PHP, so reworking the iteration loops to check if the loop should run is annoying. :/ Maybe I'll try your exceptional approach too.
I also block them, because I find almost all to be far too visually distracting, and removing them leaves more space for content, allowing me to bump up the font size for readability. I don't think I've ever been tempted to buy something from a web-ad (or sponsored link) to the best of my knowledge.

I do occasionally feel guilty about using it on sites which I enjoy, and know are ad-supported, but not strongly enough to endure it directly.

I'm waiting for someone to actually build a successful cross-site subscription system (ideally along the lines of dynamic pricing, based on your usage of a site, and what the statistical value of the ads you don't see, would have been)

Having to individually manage subscriptions for each of a dozen different interesting sites (and they're just the ones that even offer a subscription at all) is too much extra work.
I have to agree, when I see coupon field I know there's a discount I'm not getting so I go and look for it.
A lesson in blindly trusting start ups as a service.
I don't think he was calling out exceptions. The paragraph intersperses people working in finance (or their ex-wives) with people not working in finance and draws no distinction between them.

"One client runs a division of a major international investment bank..."

In fact, one particular sentence lists both financial wealth and non-financial wealth:

"Another client with a net worth in the $10M range is the ex-wife of a managing director of a major investment bank, while another was able to amass $12M after taxes by her early thirties from stock options as a high level programmer in a successful IT company."

But maybe noahth is right, and the article is just poorly edited.