skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There's nothing innovative here. Even the UI is a copy of Twitter's: http://heello.com/noah
Groupon is a fundamentally bad business and I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot cattle prod.

Some say that we know they're not profitable but that's really not the point. By counting customer acquisition as an extraordinary expense they are implying that:

1. The value of that customer is AT LEAST as much the cost of acquisition; and

2. That cost also accounts for the natural loss of customers.

This is shady because (IMHO) daily deals customers have very little loyalty to the providers of those services, there is no natural barrier to prevent customers moving to LivingSocial or whomever and the high margin on deal split is transitory because increased competition will reduce what is really nothing more than the artificial scarcity introduced by Groupon's one deal a day (per market).

But none of that is why Groupon is a bad business (IMHO). Consider: Groupon offers a deal, people buy it and Groupon and the provider split those proceeds in some fashion. I believe--but don't know--that the provider has to wait for some large part of those proceeds too. Basically that delay is Groupon's cash flow.

So what's the best outcome for Groupon and the provider? One of two things:

1. The customer doesn't use that coupon. Groupon and the provider pocket the free money; or

2. The customer spends above the coupon or is a repeat customer such that the "marketing cost" (to the provider) of the Groupon offer is amortized over multiple visits and/or higher spend such that they make a profit.

In the case of (1), many providers really don't want customers to use coupons. There are plenty of anecdotes from people getting bad reactions when they tell a proprietor or a waiter or whatever that they're using a coupon, particularly in restaurants.

Worse, coupon users may be people who are prepared to pay full price anyway or the influx of coupon users may prevent full-paying customers from being able to use your service. The propaganda is that you can sell unused capacity. While true for some businesses I think you'll find that many people try to use Groupons in, say, restuarants at otherwise peak or busy times.

There are some success stories of (2) but plenty of failures too.

What isn't built into Groupon's financial statements is account risk. There is a strong argument that a failing business can make one last roll of the dice with a Groupon offer. If they fail, they were going under anyway.

I actually don't know if Google (disclaimer: I work for Google) tried to buy Groupon or not and if we did, at what price. The press reports Groupon turned down a $6 billion offer.

My personal opinion is that Google dodged a huge bullet if this is true.
The suggested purpose of knowing that information is not so that you can correct the situation, it's so that you don't look foolish by sending links to videos that your audience can't view.

Not showing the video in the YouTube interface is only a partial fix, and an unrelated one at that. The use case in consideration is tweeted YouTube links; it's not like YouTube can just switch to a new video because the one which you navigated to isn't available.
I wish more projects were run like HTML5 Boilerplate. Great job!
As a counter point, I left Detroit in 2005 and I've lived in Toronto and Portland. Not a day goes by that I wish I were still living in Detroit or its suburbs.

Metro Detroit has a lack of good public transit. Everything is spread out, making biking annoying to impossible. I don't even think that the drivers would know what to do if they saw a bike on the road other than: 1) attempt to run down the rider or 2) swerve wildly into other lanes of traffic.
Gulp - World's Largest Stop-Motion Animation Film From Nokia
This is right on. Ultimately it empowers everybody, since by the time funding is needed there is a far greater chance that there's traction.
Don't get me wrong, I think the DLR is a great piece of work. It's just limited in how much it can optimize dynamic dispatch since CLR itself can't dynamically optimize.

As far as tooling for building languages, DLR is pretty epic. It's too bad Microsoft decided to bail on dynamic language work.
Never been to DEF Con, but went to my 1st Adultcon (mildly nsfw)
We have a startup in the adult space, but have no background in the adult industry. The lean startup gurus preach the importance of understanding your customers and customer development. The adult industry is one of those places where it's difficult to understand customers because most people don't talk about the porn they buy or services they use. So we went to the Los Angeles Adultcon to see what we could learn. You'd think it'd be more crazy, but in fact it was kinda tame.
The email is off an SEO company. This is one of the many tactics which they use to boost their clients website rankings without making them look suspicious to the search engines.

Another method they use, is that they provide free content to web masters on the condition that the content contains a couple of links - some to the site they want to link to - and others to authority sites to make the content look authentic. They go as far as even paying the website owners to place the article on their website.
What happens after you submit your resume?
The page doesn't explain how the rioters are tech savvy.
Heello . . . Join the convesation  - thoughts?
I highly suggest that you give Fireworks a try. :)
FYI:

We have a startup in the adult space, but have no background in the adult industry. The lean startup gurus preach the importance of understanding your customers and customer development. The adult industry is one of those places where it's difficult to understand customers because most people don't talk about the porn they buy or services they use. So we went to the Los Angeles Adultcon to see what we could learn. You'd think it'd be more crazy, but in fact it was kinda tame.
Your comment on the sample is constructive and I agree with it ("the Kindle sample could use some actual meat"), but I don't find "The free preview on Amazon is HORRIBLE. The title page and the dedication page? UGH." to be conveying what you said or to be constructive.
This is just a newsgroup posting.

If people want to help please donate to a neutral charity: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
Nice link. I think you missed my point. The climate is going to change, humans cannot at this stage of our evolution and sophistication, prevent it from changing.

We're dumping CO2 and our farm animals are dumping methane into the atmosphere. Check. And we can do lots of things which will change how much CO2 and how much methane we dump into the atmosphere. Check.

Here's the sticky bit: If we could leave the planet, en-masse right now with all our farm animals and remove ourselves from the equation completely, the climate is still going to change from what its like today to something different.

We know that to be true because there is lots of evidence that it was different before we arrived on the scene, both hotter and colder. We are beginning to see several different studies that some of those previous periods changed quite rapidly. We know those changes had zero anthropogenic contribution. Based on that argument I make my claim that whether or not we are on the planet the climate will change.

We don't know all of the factors that cause the balance in the system to become unbalanced. As this MIT observation has shown, yet again, that our current best guesses about what the balance is in that system are incorrect (but that is good science, we'll keep putting together the pieces to develop that understanding) Based on that evidence I make the claim that we don't know enough of the factors which affect how climate changes to accurately predict any outcome of any action we might make.

I am unaware of any chain of reasoning based on actual science that supports either the conclusion that humans can "control" the Earth's climate, or a conclusion that any action we might take now will stop climate change from happening.

The flawed reasoning that some people put forward is "Humans are the proximate cause of climate change if we stop doing things that affect the climate, the change will stop." However, as we are not the only cause of climate change (which is shown by the fact that the climate has changed without our help) and the fact that we do not have a model which accurately accounts for all the factors (we keep finding new things where reality and the model differ, this MIT observation is yet another example), impeaches this line of reasoning.
Is there a way to access this information when browsing? An extension, perhaps?

I'm an embedded developer, so please forgive my ignorance if this is a foolish question.
you should all be ashamed of the groan-inducing apologetica in these comments. in particular: timmyd is an idiot
A great trick I didn't know about was the 0 register. I've lost tracked of the number of times I've copied some text, and then deleted something by mistake not realizing I'd overwritten the default register. I could still have pasted what I wanted with "0p, though.
Moreover, any scientist could tell you that the left-right spectrum itself is a hideously handicapped model of political values.

Left/Right spectrum - absolutely. That's why modern spectrum is 2-dimensional, and I totally for expanding it into 3rd and further dimensions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum#Other_multi-...

That doesn't mean that we can't more or less precisely place one or the other political force onto it.

This is not "real" science of course, more kind of art, but if we conform to the rules of the game ("liberal democracy" it is called), then I think by polling large enough pool of political scientists/commentators/pundits/whatever-you-wanna-call-them we can arrive at pretty good consensus of where to place one party or the other at each moment in time, wouldn't you agree?

now to your questions:

1. What are the ideas of "real" members of the Left that Obama and the other Democrats are failing to represent?

the link to the article by J.K.Galbraith I gave above perfectly answers it, I think:

Whether your prime interest is housing, health care, peace, justice, jobs or climate change, if you are an activist in America you have known for a long time that this President is not your friend.

2. Since Obama and the Democrats clearly are in opposition to the American Right, what are those ideas that they (the DEMs) are fighting for in opposition to the Right?

Well, I'm actually not even so sure anymore that Obama is in clear opposition to "American Right" whatever that may be. I don't recall any issue during his presidency where he has stood his ground and haven't bowed to pressure from GOP, do you? Guantanamo, Afganistan, Healthcare, Bush Tax Cuts extensions and now Debt Ceiling deal. Not one of those went by unmodified by Tea Partiers, even when Democrats had supermajority.

So I clearly side with commentators who called Obama centrist right from inauguration. I mean, who even calls Obama leftist besides Tea Partiers?
I think the reason a lot of grads from the state of MI don't live in Detroit is there is nothing attracting them to do so. When I graduated from MSU (2005) I knew more people from MSU and U of M moving to Chicago than Detroit to work. If Detroit were anything like Chicago or any other big city you would find a lot of U of M, MSU, CMU, WMU, OU, etc grads going to live and work in the city.
I meant it only in the superficial sense, that the call of len() is called as len(foo), not foo.len().

I guess this is another example of why using the term "object-oriented" at all can be unhelpful, as it may mean so many different things to different people depending on the particular situation.
this makes me soooooo very happy.
That hardly seems worth posting as an article. I don't think you're clickfarming, but this is pure linkbait. Also. Ratigan's shouting doesn't make him any more persuasive. I'm really tired of this staged debate passing itself off as TV news.
I disagree with your logic here. To my mind, there are many sources that are absolutely not worth wasting any time on who may nevertheless say true things from time to time. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a source that tells only lies.

Heritage's data come from a Dept of Ag study. This seems like an excellent example of why we should try to cite original authors instead of intermediaries.

I honestly didn't mean to do anything trollish. And what's with "quality" in scare quotes?
No Charges For Jason Chen In iPhone 4 Leak Case
This is Bad Recruiting
Yeah, but probably not HR.
Congrats. I would say charge $0.99 (or whatever you want), and see how the sales go.

You can always open-source it later, if the sales don't pan out the way you wanted.
we started our business in 2007 and have seemingly grown without issue despite tough times in our economy. it wasn't intentional that we started when the economy was going down, just a coincidence. it has worked out pretty well so far..
Hmm, interesting. Here's the link that you can access the contest:

http://blog.getsocialize.com/2011/2500-prize-for-fastest-sdk...
Mobiquity released a statement on TC confirming no affiliation with Starbucks.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks-conspira...
Touche.

Commenting is indeed a time sink.

I'll try to do it less. Thanks.
Here are two relevant posts from a startup that migrated from CouchDB to MongoDB:

http://seancoates.com/blogs/gimme-bar-no-longer-on-couchdb

http://seancoates.com/blogs/gimme-bar-on-mongodb
- How do delete without clobbering the "clipboard" register:

Delete to the "black hole register", "_". For example:

"_dd

- How to enter the solution to a quick math equation while in insert mode:

Use the "expression register", "=". You can even use variables. For example:

^r=5325*30<ENTER>

- How to edit a macro once you've recorded it:

Paste, edit, and re-yank its register. For example, hitting "qq" will record to register "q". If you want to edit it, you can do "qp, make your changes, then visually select it and do "qy.

- How to access prior contents in the clipboard:

Use registers 0 - 9. For example, "0p will paste whatever was in the clipboard register before you yanked whatever's in there now.

BONUS ROUND:

- In command mode, how to insert the word currently under the cursor:

^r^w

(That's Ctrl-r, Ctrl-w)

- Insert a register's literal contents:
For example, if you have a ^m (newline) character in the a register, but you want to input the ^m character instead of an actual newline while in insert mode:

^r^ra

- Insert the full path of the filename currently under the cursor:

^r^f

(This only works if it's in your 'path' variable, like with gf.)
I think the key is that there are crappy puzzles (and coding a blog system is not a "puzzle") and there are decent puzzles. I've been giving applicants a simple word search puzzle for over five years and it has been great at differentiating candidates.

The biggest plus for me as the hiring manager is that it allows me to be much more confident in taking flyers on people without that picture perfect resume.
Of course I have a huge advantage being a programmer, but these days being able to conduct a web search is a required life skill. Kids can't even get out of high school these days without knowing how.

The only real tech thing was the apt-get install command. No big deal: the less tech savvy linux user would use a GUI front-end, like kpackagekit. It's as easy to install something as in the app store. They could have even skipped step 1 and just searched kpackagekit for "interior home design".
(Users on other OSes can just click the download button)
morequaintance.com

withregard.com ($1200 on godaddy)

incrowdly.com

Confero.us (I own this)
Ask HN: What role does ethics, morals, honor etc play in Web 2.0?
The story of Facebook, Zangya, and other Web 2.0 companies is well know among us. Some of these companies are on shaky ground when it comes to things like privacy, deceit, etc. However, no matter how you put it, these companies are in the top and making a ton of money and the general public uses these sites like crazy.

They provide a "free" service with a hidden cost but to my surprise, it looks like none of the users care about any of that.

What do you guys think the role of ethics, morals, fairness, honor, honesty, and all that play in the future of the social web? Do you guys think it's alright to completely ignore the rule of ethics and do what some of the big names companies have done in order to gain user share?

Obviously, they aren't being punished when they do so by their users, so does it make it alright?
User comments don't belong in documentation.
I agree, puzzles are interesting and actually show you how the person thinks. What they had me do sounded like getting free work done.
And:

In [1]: import json

In [2]: json.dumps??
Type: function
Base Class: <type 'function'>
String Form:<function dumps at 0x101f0bc08>
Namespace: Interactive
File: /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.2/lib/python2.7/json/__init__.py
Definition: json.dumps(obj, skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True, check_circular=True, allow_nan=True, cls=None, indent=None, separators=None, encoding='utf-8', default=None, **kw)
Source:
def dumps(obj, skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True, check_circular=True,
allow_nan=True, cls=None, indent=None, separators=None,
encoding='utf-8', default=None, **kw):
""" [snip (excellent) docstring] """
# cached encoder
if (not skipkeys and ensure_ascii and
check_circular and allow_nan and
cls is None and indent is None and separators is None and
encoding == 'utf-8' and default is None and not kw):
return _default_encoder.encode(obj)
#snip rest of func
Comments, Item 8: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
He was talking about small sites, in which case a deploy script, etc. is probably more trouble than it's worth.
The part about setting up a governmental bank to lend directly to business seems relevant. And the part about congress being bought reminds me of the patent discussions here.

Edit: ignoring his presentation, do you disagree with what he says?
Splitline districtings of all 50 states + DC + PR
The problem with Android is you really have no clue what to expect with different devices. Your phone seems to work well however mine reboots several times a day and commonly has a dead battery by 2PM. I'm sure if I went and bought some other phone it would have a different set of issues or maybe it would work fine. Who knows? You also have no way of knowing what future software updates are going to do. Apparently my phone (Droid X) was great on 2.2 and all the problems started when they pushed 2.3 to these phones. (they also randomly decided to change the entire UI on the 2.3 update with no warning) This is my third and last Android device.
I'm on a 24", so I can't speak from experience. It sounds like you maybe just needed to sit further away from the monitor though (some desks obviously wouldn't permit this).
You can also use "2p to paste the second to last deletion.
How America criminalised poverty
Maybe you need to go find help at TheRapist.com
What I said and the sentence you quoted have the same content. Mine was just a nicer way of saying it.
The guy who attempts to refute an apparently correct study by putting the word "research" in scare quotes doesn't get to complain about other people's quotation marks, but for what it's worth, I'm a local protein guy.

Next time someone who does not share your exact political beliefs (or your orthodoxy in ensuring that his/her tertiary sources have unimpeachable credentials), I suggest you actually read what they're saying and come back with facts. The reality is that in a community of professionals, you're unlikely to find yourself conversing solely with people who agree with your worldview.

The irony is, I probably do agree with your politics, but I find the way you handled this particular wrinkle of the discussion so repellant that I've been driven somewhat apey.
Apple is now the world's most valuable company
I just use a few aliased beep sequences so I can have an audio notification. I never have much need for more than a few at a time, so I've only written three such aliased beep tunes. Well, four really, I always have a special keyboard shortcut set to immediately run the one named "little_melody". By pressing down... well you get the idea.
I'm lost at what you're saying. It clearly states revenue per subscriber has dropped off a cliff to $9.
That's a good thing. You want to bypass HR.
Internet Visitors Genius WordPress Plug-In Review | Create The Future
1. What makes this different from Twitter?

2. I'm tired of invites to 'join the conversation'. I have yet to have a good conversation with a large crowd of random strangers; otherwise rush hour on the subway would be an intellectual feast. Robinson's law: As the number of participants in a conversation increases, the collective IQ asymptotically approaches that of the dumbest participant. Markets function because people have to act by making specific trades and other participants must try to infer what reason lay behind the behavior. The more participants in a market talk to each other, the higher the likelihood that they will fall victim to a collective delusion.
What used to drive me especially nuts about MSDN documentation (when I used to write C#) is that they seem to change the URL scheme every year or so, just so that every reference to anything breaks every single time you try to look at it.

I mean, just look at that first URL!
While I think it's great to stay in the rhythm of things and really get your interview skills down pat, to me the idea of applying for a job when you don't need one is a bit arrogant and selfish. In the grand scheme of things you took a potential interview and maybe a job away from someone else who might have really needed it. It's great that people want to help themselves but doing the right thing and being nice can go a long way--if you really want to brush up on your interviewing or just not lose touch of the corporate game there are a lot of career centers out there just itching to give you tips and encouragement. I'm not taking away from your message about companies and their hiring practices in general but don't forget about what really matters.
I enjoy reading Eric Ries' posts but I cannot help but be cynical about this, "Remember: in the long run, the surest way to be successful is to create more value than you capture. Remember: the truly great entrepreneurs didn't get in this to make money, but to change the world." I guess his company IMVU created value (in terms of money) but I don't see how an online social entertainment destination where members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create and play games with their friends creates social value or changes the world.
frankly with the status of the current stock market, I don't see Groupon actually doing an IPO.

I mean today, the market tanked another 519 points. Everyone is busy taking their money out, not putting it in. And groupon doesn't exactly have the reputation as being a high quality IPO
Apple and Samsung: Coopetition at its finest?
Yep. And compared to Rails, something like mod_php is just so much faster and less resource hungry, it hurts. I use both regularly in production, and scaling the PHP side is almost trivial compared to the rails side.
True enough, but Twitter et al are global; my followers may or may not be able to see a video in a particular territory.