skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I wanted to try a standing desk on the cheap. I checked out all the suggestions I could find, including various Ikea desks and custom builds from Ikea parts. I ended up using a $10.97 plastic 4-tier shelving unit from Wal-Mart.

It was just the right height, snapped together in 2 minutes, and the top shelf is just wide enough for my laptop and a glass of water. It stands right next to my normal desk so I can choose which I want to use.
I'm not sure that passion is something to ask for as much as it is something to look for.

Even making shitty wages, I can't hide my passion for my work. When I was 15, bagging groceries and helping people load up their cars, I couldn't restrain my passion for doing things well, and that was $6 an hour. If I'm getting paid something approaching a reasonable wage while working on my true creative passions of UI/UX? Forget about it — I'm on fire.

So I think it's worthwhile to look for people who have that energy. With the caveat that such energy has value and if you can't provide full-market cash compensation you need to make up for it with a cocktail of other benefits like flexibility, autonomy, work environment, equity, great employee-selected tools and indulgence/encouragement for people's specific ambitions.
These particular developers, though, were probably not world-class. Data this important simply should not be lost due to trouble with an EC2 instance; any data on an EC2 instance, even on EBS (though somewhat less so for EBS) should be considered liable to vanish at any moment.
So true. Finance attracts the most incompetent egomaniacs possible. I love getting lectures about how to design software from someone who has written:

if x == 0:
return "Monday";
elif x == 1:
return "Tuesday";
...

This should be a criminal offense.
Some (most?) of that 2.75% is going to other people. I know nothing about Square's internal infrastructure - but they are either paying ~3% to some other payment processor, or have become their own processor and are paying ~2% in interchange fees directly to the issuing bank. So, in the best case, Square is pulling in closer to ~0.75% => $30K/day in revenue.

To make matters worse, that 2% in interchange fees is an average across all credit card transactions. But most interchange agreements are "fixed fee + percent of transaction" and I suspect Square's average transaction is significantly smaller than the average credit card transaction. That would imply their cut is even smaller than the 0.75% that it would be otherwise.

On the plus side, at scale Square should be able to directly negotiate better interchange fees with issuing banks - but I'd be very surprised if they ever drop below 1% on average. It would be impressive (but possible, given Square's pull in the industry via Visa et al.), that they've already pulled off some agreement to that effect.
Can't believe no one on SE mentioned the Kinesis Ascent http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/solo-ascent-90_512x390.jp...
Anyone else have a problem with the clicking on the trackpad when waking from sleep? Sometimes when opening my air, the mouse is unable to click on anything - I can only move the cursor and right click. Closing and re-opening the lid will solve the problem, but it is pretty damn frustrating
The Future of Grocery Shopping?
Swindled by Nigerian? Apply for compensation now (meta-scam)
Lost photos from Germany as a Gist
الارض الطيبة 3 الحلقة 82 والاخيرة  
الارض الطيبة 3 الحلقة 82 والاخيرة
I might be alone here - but I would never use a CDN that isn't back by a company with a strong vested interest in preventing security breaches of their servers.

Consider that the community CDN is compromised - if that file gets replaced with a different JS file, you've now provided an attacker an XSS hole into _every_ page using the CDN.

I have a reasonable trust in Google to secure their own servers against such a compromising attack, but have no similar reason to put faith in smaller companies/services.
Depends a bit who you're selling to and what you're selling. Governments organisations have special data requirements that are difficult for a small startup to reliably promise, for example. Clients and big brands want reliable phone & tech support for at least a year, and need to know your tech can handle the scale they operate at. There again, you'll need to posture as larger and more stable than you are.

But just because you're at a disadvantage in these types of sales, I still wouldn't recommend misleading anyone, since it's inviting disaster -- I'd suggest choosing products/customers where small is okay.

One time purchases that don't rely on support, upgrades, or workflow changes are easiest for big customers to buy from startups. On the other hand, consumers enjoy supporting small businesses with small purchases, so I think it's always in you radvantage to be honest there.

Jason Cohen's post on this is good and he's far more knowledgable than I: http://blog.asmartbear.com/convert-shortcomings-into-advanta...
> Xcode has a different level of abstraction, but the result is that Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs. But yes, it's pretty darn good.

Don't you feel like you're ignoring some very important variables by saying that? For example: Cocoa vs Windows Forms, Cocoa vs WPF, etc?
The Clunky PC That Started It All
Google Translate is heuristics-based, and can occasionally produce strange results. For instance, when translating Irish-language text, it will sometimes translate Baile Ath Cliath (Irish for Dublin, the capital of Ireland) to London, the capital of the UK.

This is likely because its corpus for Irish is made up largely of Irish government documents (all Irish govt documents are translated into Irish, but Irish isn't used by many people and there's not all that much else written in it), and these documents are rather similar to British civil service documents.
Ask HN: What other sites do you regular?
I regularly visit Reddit and MetaFilter, in addition to scouring the pages of HackerNews.

What sites other than HackerNews do you frequent? These can be blogs, media aggregators, or anything really.
Farmville is a good example of the kind of drudgery which robots should relieve us from.

I thought this was going to be a joke but, just like WoW and EVE mining, I see that it is actually happening: http://farmvillebot.net/ http://www.femfarmville.com/
What I'm saying is that high frequency market makers are only need in very small numbers (if even that). When 2/3 of a market's volume is HFT position shuffling, you're not "improving liquidity" in a way that's meaningful or useful to anyone.
I too am on an E3 but my employer (and their lawyers, more specifically) dealt with it all the paperwork on their end. All I had to do was provide them with copies of my degrees and so forth, get a packet of paperwork from them (including the LCA certification), make an appointment with the local consulate and then go. I got my passport back (with visa) the next day.

What I am curious about is:

- How many startups know about the E3?

- How many would be willing to go through what seems like a lot less hassle of sponsoring an E3 (vs the far greater hassle of an H1B)?

- How much less hassle is it really?
From the article: "And if you are careful enough to save money (for example living at home saves about 3K a month when all is said and done) and not increase your expenses too much (no need to get a Porsche when a BMW or VW suffices), it’s not hard to save 200K by the time you turn 24."

Uhh, sure? 200K at 24, in savings?

So that's about 250K pre-tax. Say you graduate high school at 18, find a magical job that gives a high school grad $42,000 a year, and spend /not one cent/ for six years, maybe... (or extrapolate outwards).

Or maybe you go to college. Graduate, let's say, age 21... In this economy, how many college graduates walk out of school into an $85,000/year job and no living expenses...

Never underestimate the value of a silver spoon in your mouth... and never underestimate the power of denial about just how silver your spoon is.
You're right - I should've done that.

I need a few 100 MB, CGI capabilities (Python and Perl), no frameworks, unlimited emails, moderate bandwidth (http and ftp).

Support should be enough to help get setup, etc, but not a lot of hand-holding. Good metrics would be useful too.

But it's too late to ask here. I'll come back in a few days and make a more comprehensive question.

Thanks.
Jake Davis named as suspected hacker Topiary by UK police
No speed for you!
Awesome guide. Thanks for passing this along.
Withholding requirement? 
I started an LLC in NY with LegalZoom back in January and have not been paying much attention to the "WITHHOLDING REQUIREMENTS". I don't have employees and I'm not getting paid, do I need to file this?
I don't think that standing is better or healthier than sitting while working. As a matter of fact I think it's even worse - you get to stand in one place 8 hours five times a week, how can that do any good? It's totally unnatural.
Show HN: Monster Coloring Book, my first App just launched. What do you think?
4 of the top 5 of the "upper crust" are web companies. What's a non-web guy to do? Any jobs in other fields around there? (e.g., robotics, embedded, audio..)
This is extremely similar in content to Elliot Engle's book /A Light History of the English Language/ and a lecture he gave semi-regularly at NC State when I was a student there.

http://www.amazon.com/Light-History-English-Language-Expande...?
Although you might start making money soon it can take more than one year to be able to consistently go above the $3k per month. Also, in the beginning you might need to put some money in the business like buying new computers, new cellphone, costs of creating a company...
Last but not least you should have an emergency fund for unexpected events and to able to find a job again if in need.

Of course this is not science, but I think most entrepreneurs (including me) are overoptimistic about the time it takes to reach certain goals.
My transition from sitting to standing took a little less than a month to get used to. I would recommend placing your desk next to a wall so you have something to lean on. It is a great way to prolong your standing time when starting the transition.

As for initial discomfort it was fairly minimal. In fact I soon began to appreciate the soreness as it allowed me to fall asleep faster as well as improving the quality of my sleep.
Ah, but if the people running the _exchanges_ are too incompetent to safeguard their wallets, as in this case, how bad will the average user be?
You're still stuck in the thinking that hackinthebochs is saying we have to get away from, just one level deeper.

If we have robots that can make widgets, how much longer from that until there are robots that are maintaining the other robots? Robots that are DESIGNING the next generation of robots?

The intelligence line which measures who can be replaced by automation is steadily rising and eventually (within our lifetimes, if you believe the singularity nutters -- I think they are wildly optimistic) it'll be higher than all of us. The riots will start a long time before then in either case.
Here's that plan laid out: Sell BTC for EUR; deposit EUR in a checking
account/savings account; receive a bank's interest on the EUR. As
customers demand the BTC in the amounts enumerated in BTC that you
still owe them (in great numbers after some announcement like the
above, or otherwise), buy BTC with EUR and sell it to the customers.
Pray continuously that you don't lose your shirt with these
conversions, particularly given that unexpected spikes in BTC demand
will come precisely at those times that you'll tend to lose out on a
conversion.

You might, extremely conservatively, sell BTC to people in exchange
for a promise of a greater amount of future BTC (i.e., you might lend
BTC out). Step 1 in that scheme: find anyone who will borrow BTC who
isn't either a lunatic (and therefore unlikely to be able to repay the
loan) or a thief. After subtracting lunatics and thieves, you're left
with people who will take some BTC, sell it for EUR, attempt to make
money, and then at a future date buy BTC for with any EUR they've
made. I.e., with people who will need to pray almost as hard and as
long and with as much chicken blood and magic circles as an exchange
that took your suggestion to get interest from a bank. Your
borrowers won't have to fear a sudden demand for the money, but
they'll still have to fear the BTC:EUR exchange rate.

Meanwhile, approximately 100% of BTC holders are speculating in the currency.
I like different keyboards, from the wireless Apple to the Model M. I use the Apple now because its small. Is there was a cheap Model M (not the 200$ happy hacking) around this size (no numpad etc) and wireless...
In Pics: 30 Extremely Dangerous Jobs in The World
Let us admit that each one of us at one point of time simply hate our jobs, gosh we feel so stuck and miscellaneous good reasons of our own we just want to quit. If you the one who has a ‘good’ job of sitting behind the desk, you should be glad about it and should genuinely be thankful to God for giving you the opportunity to earn without risking your life.
I am happy with Apple keyboards (both external and those they have on notebooks), but whenever someone starts a discussion about keyboards I show these: http://www.daskeyboard.com/ (check out the ultimate). Alas, never saw or tried one myself.
Favourite quote: "It's not hard to save 200k by the time you turn 24."

I'll continue reading for the technical insights, but honestly, this reflects a certain lack of perspective.
I own a DAS Keyboard Professional which has Cherry blue switches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_technology#Mechanical-...). I love the way it types and I love the sound it makes, but if you asked me how much more productive it made me then I'd answer zero percent. The only time I actually need to type a lot (and fast) is when I chat with co-workers about project-related questions.
I think I spent about $10 at home depot for this setup
http://bit.ly/o6vDEi
I'd strongly suspect that this guy is definitely in the upper middle, to begin with. "Why buy a Porsche when a BMW will do?", complaining about the duldrums of a six digit income... talking about being easily able to have quarter of a million in savings at age 24... etc, etc.
After seeing the Lion previews, I thought the 2d spaces would be a problem for me as well. However I was pleasantly surprised when I found that my keyboard shortcuts still worked (I use Cmd+# to switch to a space). Since this takes me directly to a space the animations is no worse than that in Snow Leopard.
In practice, when used to back a currency, gold is usually also inherently deflationary; mining of new gold generally cannot keep up with real economic growth.
Indeed they have! My facetious searches for "macbook harness" missed the obvious.

Come to think of it, I'm sure I've seen these before. Ex. http://www.amazon.com/Connect-A-Desk-Mobile-Laptop-Harness-D...

Doesn't seem like quite what I'm looking for, though. I built a quick mockup using cardboard and string, and although obviously the pro version has much more comfortable straps, I feel like it still places the laptop too low, while the strap around your shoulders encourages you to look down. Not good for posture— and moving the laptop up makes it uncomfortably close to the face.

What I really want is a harness that suspends the laptop at about the place I hold it up to use it, which is significantly higher and further from me than my waist— and ideally it should be supported from my waist rather than my shoulders.

I think this is actually a feasible thing to make— I'm going to play around with cardboard some more.

Edit: Okay, my second prototype consists of a board, about 8"x12", which sticks up from my waist the long way at about a 30˚ angle. A strap connects the far end of the board around my lower back, which holds the board up; the laptop sits away from me on the board, with the front end resting on the straps.

Pic for reference: http://imgur.com/OOf42

I'm typing this using it right now. The laptop ergonomics themselves are pretty nice, exactly the holding-the-laptop-but-type-with-both-hands feeling I was going for. The prototype apparatus is obviously way uncomfortable, though. A padded waist piece and strap would probably make it perfect, but I would still want to investigate the effect of the shear forces on my spine before using this full-time. (Proposal: Trade in the strap for a rigid structure, counterweight the back. Better proposal: Counterweight the back with extra battery for the laptop.)

Honestly, aside from more comfortable and adjustable pieces, this is pretty much what I want. So, uh... does anyone make something like that? :) (Another crucial feature would be a non-load-bearing safety strap that does go around my neck— I tested the harness pretty carefully before trusting the laptop to it, and it was sturdy as a rock, but it still feels flimsy.)
AFP link if you want to avoid the stupid at engadget ;)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jbxT7zuFK...
That's a good question. I don't think regulation really improves things though, it just adds another layer of obscurity and involuntary regulation (is there any other kind?) goes against my libertarian sensibilities.

As for the people who 'can least afford it', well they need to learn how to be paranoid, the sooner the better.

Reputation is, to me, the best way to ensure trust. Build a public reputation through transparency and actions. Of course this takes time, but in the end is better than than an external entity imposing regulations.
I'm doing the same and love it. I don't use it 8 hours a day, when I get tired I move over to a couch elsewhere in the office, or head out to a coffee shop.
There's a great quote:

Money is not a motivator. But lack of money is a demotivator.

(Unfortunately, I don't remember who said this. Anyone?)
Bring the servers back in the building .... for heating.
"... the user has a slow DNS which is a fairly common problem now days"

I would find this somewhat surprising given the increased use of hosted DNS providers for both authoritative and recursive. Can you point to any data that corroborates this (not saying it isn't true, just looking for hard data)?
Dell's done okay with a product line model I'd categorize as "Organized Confusion." I just looked at their site; in the years since I last bothered with them, they've added a fourth root category (Home, Small Biz, Large Enterprise /and/ Public Sector). Dive into any one of those and you'll see a nicely ordered and small set of machines, cheap and wimpy to fast and expensive.

But across Dell's lines, if you picked a machine from the Small Biz bucket and compared it to a machine in the Enterprise bucket, could you tell which was better?

Apple in the 90s was horribly confusing; no buckets. They just sort of barfed out a bunch of machines with not a lot of thought about customers. What would a business buy? A performa? A Quadra? What about that PowerPC thing?

So Dell's been careful to keep choices relatively few. (Once you choose a "chassis you can customize the heck out of it, but you're pretty much limited to components they stuff into sockets when they build the machine, and some colored plastic).

There are markets where more than a couple of choices will /kill/ you. Game consoles and other platforms (phones), for instance. Making developers worry about a zillion platforms will murder an app market and expose you to competition to folks who might have crappier hardware, but a more consistent story.
Apart from what was said about the chances that the terms of use would not stand in court - it is also possible that the lawsuit is just a racket operation, it is a pain for airbnb regardless of the verdict and EJ could count on a settlement even without having a real case. I am not saying that she is doing it - this is only a comment on possible strategies.
In the stackexchange thread someone pointed out that no num-pad means a shorter distance to the mouse. I really like the idea of that (I used a wireless no-numpad apple keyboard for awhile) but I also really like the functionality of the num pad. What's a good compromise?
This is a better guide, IMO.

http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=START+HERE+--+The+Gee...
> If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing.

This tactic works only until the employee knows a sufficient number of people that have been screwed out of their equity. Usually, that takes some time and experience.

In a related note, ever notice that most passionate employees are younger?
Google+ Faces Hurdles on its Ascent
I have to find some early adopters then.
Love that you can hold option while resizing to change the size from the opposite ends. Very handy.
Something of a false mutual-exclusion. Due to the massive influx of cheap computing hardware in the late 90s, There are 17-22 year old people who have been programming and studying math & CS for 10 years.

10 years is a lot of experience.
A professional working at 50% of his capacity will often trump a junior working at 50% of his capacity.

Edit:
I Don't know why I can't reply to the replies of this post.

What I meant to infer is that the parent to my post may have seen 'professionals' perform better than he would have expected them given their pay.

What I tried to reply is that this level of performance may still be the professional working at only 50% of capacity.

I was assuming that the amount the professional was being paid was relative to what that company would be paying everyone else. Which would lead me to conclude everyone was probably working at 50%.

Maybe that was a bit of a stretch on my behalf though :)
I have read EJ's two posts, two posts here - yours and one by Brian Chesky - and three related posts at TechCrunch including Arrington's response to this post (have you even read it?). I'm not a regular reader of any of these publications or their authors. As an observer without a horse in this race, I don't see where Arrington has done anything wrong. Your second-hand accusation of trying to strong-arm your spokesman for details seems one-sided and self-interested, while his response seems plausible and verifiable.

Whatever the truth of this PERSONAL conflict, which by the way is peripheral and inconsequential (except for negative consequences) to the issue of the crisis at Airbnb, you're not doing your professional self or the company any favors by continuing along this line of commentary. Emotions are influencing your behavior in areas where rationality would better suit your situation. Better to quit taking things personally and focus on taking care of the business at hand.
If the market supports it.
Movie a Day: July 30 &quot;Growing Op&quot;
What do you gain from these lies?

What do you risk if you are exposed?
I'd argue that it is a major update when you consider the security features and a whole new paradigm for saving files. To me is seems like the beginning of a bright future.
Good, stringent mentors (esp., good, rigorous code reviews) are key.

Theoretically, depending on which language you choose, you should be able to rewrite a bit of code until there is literally not a single character that you could improve to make it clearer or more efficient.

It's good practice to do this -- eventually it becomes habitual. However, that doesn't save one from other people's code.

But yeah, there are certain virtuous cycles that work to your advantage if you take the extra time to try to improve even the most basic code (save one line here; make one idiom clearer, etc.) -- cascades over time...
I think you meant to say junior working at 100% of his capacity; 50% to 50% makes no sense.
I use a Logitech G110 gaming keyboard. The keys are pretty small and took a bit to get used to, but it seems nice and responsive.

That being said, I don't think it's worth spending a bunch of time fretting over which keyboard you have. Just write some damn code.

Edit: I mean of course unless you have carpal tunnel or RSI or some other problem that requires a special keyboard