skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I really don't understand why the victim would say that it is not possible to contact people before the transaction, because as a user of AirBNB I have talked to hosts before and exchanged details about who I am, including full name, location, age, etc. The hosts had enough information to look me up on FB, find and read my blog, my HN posts, and whatever else they felt like looking up about me on the internet.

It is completely possible to vet your guests before accepting them. Now granted I do agree that it would be very kind for AirBNB to compensate her for the damages she suffered, but I do not feel like AirBNB should be held responsible as if they caused this to happen, because they certainly didn't prevent her from looking up this rogue guest before accepting the transaction.
Good point. I don't doubt that some form of what was described plays a role, but it's interesting that such a obvious (in retrospect ;) ) point was apparently not considered.

So now I'm wondering why this is only obvious once mentioned, and to what degree this sort of market/real-world ignorance features in various decisions about stating a business. You often don't know what you don't know, so how does one avoid these sorts of blinders?

One answer: try stuff where you can fail fast and (hopefully) cheap.
This is a very cynical view and hasn't been my experience.
Game theory is a well worn chapter in the internal "best-practices" conversion voodoo guide.

EG - The OPTIMAL variant for conversion rate is actually at least TWO variants.

This isn't perfectly in line with the gas-station example (variants aren't dissipated, they're stacked) but it follows the same logic.

Damn hard to test and balance with off the shelf tools, but if you're at scale this is a truth.
What Congress considers patent reform and what you, and many on this site, consider patent reform hold to two distinct philosophies.
Using logical fallacies[1] to complain, and then claiming that those remarks were merely "observations" is a hallmark of egos.

[1] http://www.fallacyfiles.org/guiltbya.html
Why I Invest in Blogs more than the others
For a similar (and email provider-agnostic) result, check out http://followup.cc - it runs my life, and is the first service in which I've outgrown the free tier and been excited to pay for more access to.
Hahaha, I briefly dated an HR person for bridgewater. She were very serious about culture first, skill second. They had a very strong bias towards certain Ivy League schools and certain personality traits. She gave me a long lecture when I was staffing up a project, told me looking for specific types of programmers was all wrong, I needed to find what makes great programmers and go out and recruit them even if they had never programmed. Too bad I had 6 months, not 30 years.

Edit: Is that the same Holden Karnofsky who was caught astroturfing MetaFilter for GiveWell.com? If so, he is a pretty well known guy, not some rank and file nobody.
Dremel: Interactive Analysis of Web-Scale Datasets
One easy thing they could do is put a folder in everybody's dropboxes called "my website" or something, where people can simply start dropping files in and have db basically "just work" as a site publisher.

I know it sort of does this now, but I've heard many problems about it when the traffic starts to scale. Presumably you'd need some serious engineers talent to solve that issue.

Imagine no more fussing with ftp clients or publishing tools to get a site up and running, just copy files into a folder. With a little fiddling and some simple rules it might even be possible to support modernish web frameworks behind the scenes...and db just assembles it and "makes it work".
Engineers at Google are not hired for specific projects. You're appraised as a good engineer, therefore we want you at Google. If you're not happy doing what you're doing, we'd like to find something you will be happy doing. But that doesn't mean you can just chop and change projects at will. It's considered pretty uncool to just quit a project abruptly without making the appropriate arrangements first. You've got to leave your work in a good state so that your teammates and successors can pick up where you left off.

I don't know anything about Steve's situation, but I would assume he did these things.
I have to agree. A good proportion of people would giggle at that.
So we shouldn't arrest people when they commit a crime because others are committing the same crime? Or because they're doing it in a high-profile manner?

I'm not sure what your point is here.
I'm reminded of the Boston Legal episode where the defendant kills his mother and they argue that he's not a danger to society because he only had one mother and is therefore not going to repeat his crime.

More seriously, I'm not sure if I should interpret your statement to mean that white collar criminals are dangerous or that they should never go to jail.
I can't imagine leaving my house for a week, to rent it out to complete strangers, with all of my possessions in it. I'd be afraid they'd rifle through m belongings and perhaps steal some, or even something like this would happen. Maybe they'll copy the keys and come back and rob the place three weeks later. How would one be sure? All in all, being an AiBnB host is a questionable enterprise.
of course that is happening. Even worse is that the people examining the patents are not best and under qualified to review software patents.
ITC Rules Max OS X Violates S3/HTC Patents, Clears iOS
1. That it positively did include works that weren't in the public domain. There doesn't seem to be any indication that this is the case.

It's stated in the Wired article that "much of what Swartz is accused of downloading from JSTOR is copyrighted".

It's stated in JSTOR's statement that "The downloaded content included more than 4 million articles, book reviews, and other content from our publisher partners' academic journals and other publications". (Elsewhere the size of the total JSTOR library is said to be over 6 million.)

The indictment states that downloads included "approximately 4.8 million articles, a major portion of the total archive in which JSTOR had invested. Of these, approximately 1.7 million were made available by independent publishers for purchase through JSTOR's Publisher Sales Service."

2. That Swartz intended to distribute content downloaded from JSTOR not in the public domain.

I'll grant that the absence of detail on this claim in the indictment makes it very debatable. However, it's hard to fit any explanation about his intentions to the facts as we know them without making major assumptions about information we don't have.

For instance, many people assume the downloading was for legitimate research. Not unreasonable on the face of it (given, as you say, credentials and history) but then, why does a Harvard research fellow need to covertly access JSTOR from MIT? And not just access, but download two thirds of it? There may be an entirely legitimate answer to that, but if so, it can't be gleaned from the information we currently have available.
PyPy can talk to MySQL with PyMySQL
You answered the question wrong. They asked how you did handle a situation. They didn't ask how you would handle it. Asking for actual experiences rather than hypotheticals is the point of behavioral interviewing.
Well, that might be what it's for, but that's not how it works. The Funded doesn't have the data. It's full of random meaningless flattery ("Great firm!") or random complaints ("Partners were fiddling with their blackberries during my pitch.") It has very little useful data and this is an industry where nobody wants to burn what could turn out to be an important bridge.
OK, so, once again the SD meetup rockets to the front page of HN, then accrues no further votes. Not surprising, clearly they are coordinating their voting.

This brings to light the issue that other meetups (I run the LA one) don't put the effort into coordinating votes like SD does. I'm not sure what the solution here is, but I don't like the status quo.
I'll email people more granular times tomorrow based on today's general results. This was a super-low effort sign up to gauge interest. :)
I'm guessing this isn't really a message for HN; it's a message for ASSHOLE VC -- "I saw what you did, and you won't be in any of my deals in the future."

Or alternatively, it's a message for founders -- "I'm the kind of guy who doesn't do deals with folks like ASSHOLE VC."
Getting the power plant up and running was the hard part, let me tell you!
Why It's Hard to Replicate Silicon Valley's Successes Abroad
There's nothing wrong with police skepticism or discussing libertarianism. Calling cops dumb and fat and saying you can avoid arrest by running faster... ehmm... what the hell passes for intelligent discussion on here now?
Well, they had to. So this means they did what was expected and Apple can move to the next step, but Lodsys is showing real savvy as a litigator, meaning that they didn't hire inexperienced people. They must have a well funded company backing them, probably similar to SCO's relationship with Microsoft. Personally, I don't see any other reason a company with no products, no market and no history could exist except as a proxy for pursuing the market interests of a shadow player. Even if all the companies being sued pay .57% of gross per infringement, how else could Lodsys get the capital needed for the overhead of all the lawyers needed to file and pursue these cases simultaneously.

On a side note, does anyone have a business model for a "Troll-Bait" company?
True Blood Season 4 Episode 6 
True Blood Season 4 Episode 6
China “leaks” aircraft carrier program
I expect that most universities have a core curriculum that requires CS majors to take other science courses. Make those courses genetics and biochemistry and a CS undergraduate can probably get into a 2-year masters program for bioinformatics.
I read that one, it was a bunch of anecdotes and hearsay. There wasn't much substantive there.
I'm personally a big fan of http://www.boomeranggmail.com/
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Ask HN: Full Time Job + Startup. HOW??
I've been working on a startup ever since January and things were moving rather quickly through the school year. But ever since starting with a paying internship, things have been in a stall. I can't get any serious work done.
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The Potential of Big Data
Otherwise submitters compete to make attention-getting titles, and you end up with the frontpage of reddit.

That sounds like an excellent matter to leave in the hands of the users who vote for/against stories.
Disagree. After watching the video, he talks about the project, mentions quitting "that job", and then the speech is over. Not that any of it really matters - but the statement in the video is confusing.
Facebook for Business woos small merchants
"Just because Y Combinator funded it doesn’t mean it’s magical."

It doesn't? jk. But seriously, if you mention airbnb to an average person, say anyone in my family on the east coast they haven't heard of it. So, airbnb isn't even big enough to have the problems craigslist has had with scams...but, this is just the start.

Once airbnb gets bigger there will be more of these stories. Someone will build up a rating by renting a few low priced places and then just completely rob a more expensive place.

I guess they should have seen this coming but now it's time to accept they are getting big enough where the common criminal will look to exploit the service. "You mean I just rent a few places and then some rich person will give me the keys to their place and I can take whatever I want? Awesome!"

I mean it's terrible, but I think we can all imagine it's possible someone using airbnb to rent a room in their home getting killed by the renter.
And issuing a warrant based on an IP address is roughly akin to issuing a warrant to search a random person on a bus, because someone who may have committed a crime is known to be on the bus.

I'm simply uncomfortable with the level of the bar on probable cause with regard to IP addresses, given how little information an IP address actually provides, even when government has cooperation of the ISP to identify users of that IP during the actions in question.

I'm also uncomfortable with the history of how computer seizures have been handled, and how little respect is shown in such cases. Given that seizing computers is not the same as searching a home; once a search of your home is over, it's over. With alleged computer crimes someone's business could be destroyed by the time the computers and data are returned. And, historically, it has occasionally required a lawsuit to get the computers and data returned (and the data may have been tampered with or destroyed).
There are quite a few free options out there. Here are a few:

http://mediaelementjs.com/

http://www.projekktor.com/

http://dev.mennerich.name/showroom/html5_video/
Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years For Stealing $36 million
I found this very glib, while we may mock insurance for certain things there are professionals in that industry.

If an insurance company specialising in unconventional insurance don't think they can make money out of a premium, that does actually say something pretty insightful about the risk you're taking.
Consumers’ option psychology for tablet PC
Tablet PC perhaps functions are the same, but when you face the option, you still begin hesitate. 7 inch tablet PC or 10 inch one, you maybe wanna a bigger screen for a good vision effects, but same time you also think the 7 inch is more convenient for carries. Should to buy a cheap android tablet PC or iPad? The consumers almost have like this similar psychology which difficult to make option.
i can't speak to the differences between the .js objects, but the difference between the two platforms is in how you interact with your projects.

vvvv is realtime, using WIMP driven interactive patch design. it's more analogous to pd or max msp. objects receive inheritance from other objects by connecting them to each other with the mouse. it's better than max because it's tightly coupled to direct x, which, for my intents and purposes, is as close to the hardware as i need to get. the changes you make show up as soon as you make them.

processing is compiled and is typed in using the keyboard. all of that messy inheritance stuff is done in code.

to me the difference is the difference between engineering a balsa model of a plane from plans (processing), and using legos to fool around with different modules to see what works.

to me it's an important difference in computer graphics because the visual results sometimes come out different from what you'd expect, and it's the images and not the result you're basing your effectiveness on.
> No, the worst-case scenario would be that guest copies keys, returns, and rapes and kills the owner/occupant.

The keys problem is fairly easy. I don't have keys. I enter a 4 digit number to enter my house. Just install something like that and change the passcode when the guest leaves.
Anyone else think of the Price is Right when he's explaining the optimal position?
I must admit that I have not used it for a long time - since just after it launched. I remember there was some decent feedback on there, especially with regard to separating out the better partners from the also-rans (I used some of the advice wrt angel funds). There was also a lot of gossip. The star rating system seemed about right.

Based on what you are saying, it is very different now - which is a shame. It can only be as good as the data entered, and you would hope that entrepreneurs would not be afraid to post criticism, especially since you can remove finer details and remain anonymous.
Git onto Google Code
Ha, clearly you've never been robbed. Even if they know who the perp is, there is very little chance you will receive your items back unless they catch him down the street running with it.
Chainsaw chain
Ebay had the same kind of customer nightmare cases in their early days and still are in business today.

The following news from March 09, 2001

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/09/business/3-men-are-charged...
‎
NPR Planet Money did a similar story a little while ago: "Why Clusters Of Like Businesses Thrive." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1213048...
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The declarative binding is similar to Knockout.js: http://knockoutjs.com/
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Demand Media Stock Crashes as Lockup Ends (& Company Sues Critical Blogger)
I'm pretty low on the Google totem pole and I managed to get off a project that wanted me dearly because it didn't interest me.
Hm, i just rewatched it and you are right. When I watched it the first I took it to mean that project, but it was confusing.
You seem to have misread my analogy.

I'm talking about US headquartered companies like Visa and MasterCard processing transactions for UK customers of UK (and Irish) online gambling companies; I do know about this, not least because I have an account on paddypower.com funded from major credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard.

The analogy is with insurance companies dealing with a business which is not legal in some states. That should not stop them dealing with the business in states where it is legal.
It's tough. Best advice I've heard, and which works for me when I can apply it, is to pick a set time of day and religiously devote it to your start-up.

I know some comic artists with day jobs, and pretty much every one of them gets up way early and gets drawing before going off to work. If they try to leave it until later life just butts in and it never happens.

Part of this is realizing that you'll have to do without certain things. You will not be able to watch every movie, every TV show, every spots event, etc. you might like to because there just isn't time. (And if not entertainment, then other things.)

It's a sacrifice, it's work, it's hard. If you can, try to arrange your project so that you hit useful, appreciable milestones fairly often. Divide your goals into small, manageable tasks. If you can see progress you'll find more motivation to continue.

And give regular updates here on HN so we can cheer you on.
Yeah, you are right
Not that common.

Most companies like to think that they don't have any "bad" projects; if they did, they would cancel them. And, they're afraid that employees will confuse "hard" projects with "bad" projects, and try to flee the hard projects, which are often business-critical.

Google is smart enough to realize that employees can often identify bad (and good) projects before the management does, and lets them vote with their feet.
Awesome work! A lot of people have written about the need for something like this (including me http://bit.ly/nngbKc). Hopefully GOOG is listening. Kudos, and thanks for releasing it.
That, and highway off-ramps.
Matchup.me - What to do with it...
I own www.MATCHUP.ME and have been contemplating what to do with it...

One idea was to have it match you up with things across the web you were looking for at a certain price range, etc - but for everything... Sort of like carwoo.com - but not niched.

1) You enter your info, what your looking for
2) Companies will send you bids without getting your real info (ratings will be aggregate from the large sites that already have ratings)

Free for users
*Companies have to pay to be able to send users leads

So, effectively a lead gen site for everything.

Anyone have better ideas that they're willing to share?
Just looking for a good brainstorming dump.

THANKS GUYS!
Agreed, it should be generalized so that games can run fullscreen without having to go futz through the menu.
I'm in the same boat. Graduated last year, started on my project 3 months ago, and I've barely just got a working prototype up now.

You just have to bite the bullet... work 9 to 5. Then get home, and work some more. Then work weekends.

I've tried several strategies to get myself to be more productive

- block reddit and HN (didn't last long).

- block out all external distractions;use headphones, loud music of choice. For music, try to stick to ambient stuff (classical, techno, things without lyrics). I find that songs with lyrics distracts my train of thought as well.

- have a good environment to work. If you're comfortable you'll fall into the zone a lot easier. Although, if you want to change it up a little, try and find a local coworking meetup group.

- anytime you are not working, be thinking of your business. Your startup has to be your life and soul if you want to go all the way. e.g. when you're showering, sitting on the toilet, commuting, walking or having lunch, before you sleep. On the way home you should be thinking about what you want to accomplish tonight, and aim towards that as soon as you get back.

- talk to people about it. If you're talking to people and they're not convinced, that means: a) your idea sucks and you're deluding yourself, b) your idea may have potential, but you are not confident about it enough to be able to convince other people, or c) your idea is great, but other people don't see it <-- this rarely ever happens. But ultimately, by talking to people, you face objections. Objections are the number 1 crucial factor in selling; you cannot sell someone a product if they don't tell you what they're worried about. So talking to people lets you build up a portfolio of objections that you can counter with solutions, and you'll grow more confident with your idea. More confidence = more enthusiasm and productivity.

Sure your work is going to take a hit... but if you're already working on being self-sufficient, I doubt your job is the last thing you're worried about. (Here I am writing Access VBAs, and Excel macros...)
I might get some backlash for this, but while you can apply for some bioinformatics jobs with a MS, PhD is the norm not the exception for biology-related fields. Without a PhD, you won't get very far career-wise.
I'm not trying to be crass, I really don't know: what does he mean by Google is "forcing governments to be more open, forcing corporations to play more fairly"? I'm racking my head on how this could be true as I would really like it to believe it.
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I read it like one of the commenters in the article - "get lawyers that work for you".

As a founder you should question the relationship between the VCs and any counsel you hire.
Show HN: Test your solution to TopCoder problems locally
I still don't get why people don't see that Google+ is like Facebook for companies, partners, consultants, clients, "and such". It's in fact invaluable in that sense. We use a Cicle for our startup which with Hangout basically replaces Skype. The thing is that we later plant to have a circle for devs, and a circle for managment, etc - and I'm sure this applies to any company size. How much would say IKEA cut their infrasturcture and communication costs if they had "a corporate twitter (between people, or machines, or both - like a collective intelligence), a support page for customers out, an interaction capabilities with new or existing teams/customers/subgroups" all in one system? Do the math. Google had enough credibility for a huge company as H&M to replace their old systems with Google Apps. It's not a Facebook killer, it's a business enhancer.
TextOnly - Android Browser for just reading text from articles
Amusingly, your HN alias sounds like some sort of pharmaceutical product. ;)
the approach i use gives the "same" image, even when pixel sizes and numbers change.
I'd recommend you read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

wherein Joel Spolsky was reviewed by Bill Gates. It is pretty clear the man had serious technical chops.