skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
From his biography ("The Snowball"):

"He did the bookkeeping himself and prepared his own tax returns. With its numbers, accuracy, and the measuring of results, the recordkeeping aspect of the job pleased him."

[...]

"Warren was still handling all the money and doing all the clerical work himself: filing the tax returns,..."

[...]

"'Bill started trying to convince me to get a computer. I said, I don’t know what it’s going to do for me. I don’t care how my stock portfolio is doing every five minutes. And I can do my income taxes in my head.'"

Seems like indeed he is doing them himself (his personal tax bill; to do it for Berkshire, they surely have hired help)
I don't really see where that contradicts what he wrote... could you explain what you mean?
Official announcement from Google, written by Larry Page:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/supercharging-android...

He mentions patents specifically as one of the reasons for the acquisition.

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."
I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, MeeGo will not get a boost.
> Simply put, I don't trust the government with that money.

The only logical conclusion there would be moving out to a different country that offers equal or better living standards because the longer you stay, the more money you give to that government you do not trust.
Personally, I prefer a text editor, but I recognize that is not the solution for everyone.
It's well and good to tell people to "think!" instead of following dogma, but what if you are too inexperienced to think clearly about the issue? Ideological purity makes sense if you face something overwhelmingly complex and don't really know the best way to handle it. By following a set of strict rules, you gain an illusion of control that helps you move forward. It is cargo cult, it is the golden hammer, it is the silver bullet, but it keeps appearing for a reason.

I think we should recognize ideological purity for what it is: an aid to help inexperienced programmers keep their sanity.

The big problem is that this purity is too often labelled Best Practices, and people are given no incentives (or even permission) to break free from it.
Going along with the thread that was started here.

When I play a video game, it's the game I want to play at the time I want to play it and with the goal that I picked for that session.

If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me. The goal is to review the game rather than go for whatever I might want out of the game.

The reality of our lives force us to do things which don't always align with what we really want to do. That's when I procrastinate.
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2886342
So now Google has blessed a hardware manufacturer as the official Android manufacturer, and despite Google's insistence that Android is open, I don't think we've seen the Honeycomb source code yet. How long until Google no longer offers the Android source at all?

Samsung, HTC and the others are probably not very happy about this and will likely move them to start pushing their Windows Phone 7 handsets a bit harder than overly relying on Android.
From Reuters a few weeks back:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/21/us-motorola-idUKTRE...

"Billionaire investor Carl Icahn urged Motorola to shop around its patent portfolio to cash in on interest in wireless technology from companies like Google Inc and Apple Inc."
Kinda like Java all over again, isn't it.
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My take on this is that a lot of smartphone users don't really care that much about apps beyond the core features that come with their phones. These people are happy with Android phones because the Android email & web apps are as good as, if not better than, their iOS equivalents. If you look at Apple's app store sales its really games that are driving their volume and I think a lot of people just aren't that interested in mobile games.

So I won't be surprised if Android continues to develop market share but never becomes quite the same app ecosystem.
I don't know, but I would assume so. I think most people try to pay the minimum tax they are required to, and I guess that includes Mr Buffet.

However, that's not the point. He's not saying "I want to personally pay more tax", he's saying "Why are people like me not being required to pay the same percentage tax as middle-income earners"?
I'd say this was probably plan b, for if their previous patent purchase didn't happen.

The problem with Google, or any software company buying a hardware company is that generally the street values hardware at a lower multiple so this has the chance to pull down google's market cap.

We'll see how the market reacts to this during today's trading.
It is worth noting this is the handset manufacturing part of Motorola.

Google's first foray into consumer electronics? That's big news. Phones and tablets. They are now competing directly in Apple's space.

Full control over the handset stack? (Did Samsung really push back that much on newer "GooglePhone" design?) Or access to patents? It's not really clear. However they do buy themselves a worldwide R&D facility.
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Yup, they do. 24500 of them, according to the press release they sent out when they split off from the rest of Motorola.
Yeah, sometimes you can't just think your way out of it.

Hopefully one day we'll have a repeatable, very high success method of letting people get work done when they consciously desire it.
You're right. Far too many sites depend on Javascript and Flash to function. In my opinion, sites that can't function without those are broken.
I'm not sure what you're on about, because there's no party representing the left either. The US Democrats are a fair way to the right of the conservative party here in Australia, yet in my discussions with americans there are a great many people who would be considered left-wing here in Aus. There appears to be no choice for the left in the US, so how "the left better understanding the working class" would change things, I'm not sure.
This is the beginning of the end for Android as an open platform. Google will have a financial incentive to release the best phones as Motorola devices. I would not want to be HTC today.

I like how Larry Page talks about IP in the blog post. After all of that talk about how patents were overpriced, Google comes out and spends more money than anyone on acquiring what is basically a terrible handset maker with a large IP portfolio. At the end of the day, Google does what's best for Google.
I hope google cares more about updating android for the motorola droid2. Maybe I will finally get 2.3 :D
... or Google takes a gun to the knife fight on patents - http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/231400...
This is probably going to make some of the other handset manufacturers (HTC, Sony-Ericsson, etc) complain about Motorola having an unfair advantage when it comes to implementing Android.

Wonder if any of them are about to regret basing their smartphone offerings on Android? The move ought to strengthen the competition among the handsets, though, as Google can now ship their "dream-version" of an Android-phone.
Well it's not like it's an unknown situation. It's more like going back to Symbian licensing situation a few years back.
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Supercharging Android with a bundle of patents
>despite Google's insistence that Android is open, I don't think we've seen the Honeycomb source code yet

The word "yet" is mildly disingenuous. No one is waiting for them to do that -- google said a while ago that it wouldn't happen, but that they would release the source to Ice Cream Sandwich.
That's not the least bit relevant. It's almost a category error.

Buffet's talking about setting the rules of the game, not about optimizing within the rules that have been set.
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Upload Speed: 51.97 mbps (6.5 MB/sec transfer rate)

The price? $20/month.
But I am not in USA.
Some posts get alot of comments on Y combinator, and people dont have time to read all of them. There needs to be rating system for posts or like button which shows the most famous comments on top first, then sorting through to the bottom. Just like the disqus plugin you see on many websites.
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More discussion can be found here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2886342
What I have always wondered: there has got to be a certain amount of money that by all normal standards HAS to be enough for a human being. If you are so rich, you can only have so many houses and cars and all sorts of other toys that you don't even need half of... then you want to leave something for your kids and their kids and generations to come, your relatives and family but still, that is considerably little. A few million go a LOOONG way.

So, after all the toys, investments and securing your offsprings, you are still left with a HUGE amount of money and assets which you will likely never make any use of anyway.

I know this goes against our ideals and system of capitalism but: if such a limit exists why not cut billionaires off above it and give the exceeding money directly to the government or charity?
First off, caps are not "virtually unheard of". Secondly Comcasts cap is 250GB/month. Who would use that in a few days? The biggest bandwidth eater I can think of is Netflix and a user would have to watch 108 movies in the best quality to reach that number.
Keeping Android open whilst treating their own phone manufacturing fairly will be a big challenge for Google. I hope they manage it. If done correctly the result should be a improvement in Android for all manufacturers, as the internal demands of Motorola will want to be heard, but cannot be prioritised.

I am still puzzled as to how Skype cost $8billion.

FYI Motorola Mobility had 24,500 patents when it was launched. http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Press-Releases/Motorola-Mobi...
Interestingly, this means the only manufacturer-neutral smartphone OS is now Windows Phone 7. iOS is on Apple, Android is on Motorola/Google, Blackberry on RIM, and webOS on HP/Palm. I wonder if this means we'll see an increase in WP7-based phones from HTC, Samsung, and LG...
Obesity is directly related to being poor in the US. Its cheaper to buy off the Dollar menu than fresh produce, etc. etc.
The comments about this being the end of android as open source are pretty reactionary.

C'mon folks. Remember the moat analogy? Search? MOOLA!
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I really do not understand why people in America elect judges. I find it perplexing. It is like electing a scientist, or a novel writer. Just weird.
Google has got to play the game until the rules of the game change. They need patents for protection. Yes, the patents are overpriced, but does Google have a choice?
It struck me today that C++ templates really provide a kind of static duck typing. The syntax is hideous but I really like this approach in principle. It's a bit like Scala's structural types - almost all of the flexibility of dynamic typing but with the benefits of static typing.
By the look of motorola solutions website, there's nothing that links the newly acquired company, at least directly, to the mobile phone hardware market.

From Wikipedia:

Motorola Solution Corporate structure

The company is structured into two divisions:

Enterprise: Comprises communications offered to government enterprise
mobility business.
Motorola develops advanced data capture, wireless infrastructure, bar
code scanning, two-way radios and business pagers, wireless broadband
networks and RFID solutions to customers worldwide.

Government: Produces public safety and government products. Motorola
develops analog and digital two-way radio, voice and data communications
products and systems, Wireless LAN Securities and mobile computing,
among others.
I imagine it would be possible to run games on remote servers, so people don't have to spend a lot of money on an amazing computer.
From Larry's post: "This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences."

Edit: Interesting to see huge difference in rationality/understanding of those who read Larry's post versus the TC'd version of the story.
Google buys Motorola Mobility. GooMoto becomes Second Apple
Might be really good news for Microsoft on the day Windows Phone Mango RTM leaked.
good for Nokia, as it shows that Google now has the possibility to close down Android.
Well, there's Nokia for Win Phone 7 =)
It was Motorola Mobility, not Motorola Solutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility
Almost certainly. The only other thing I can think of would be that they want to get out of the OEM business and make phones internally, but they'd probably buy a better phone manufacturer in that case. Motorola is loss-making.
It's all about execution. It's not like it hasn't been in HTC/Samsung/Etc's best interest to release the best phones they could. Google showed as much with the Nexus line (same manufacturer, better handsets).
Isn't it questionable whether WP7 will be manufacturer-neutral? The level of cooperation between Nokia and Microsoft remains to be seen, but a possible outcome is that Nokia ends up looking like a subsidiary of Microsoft.
It doesn't help against Oracle though. If the OS goes what does it matter? Not that I think that will happen. More likely Google will be force to shell out some cash to Oracle.
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The syncing doesn't work for me when I open 2 browsers and share it to myself..? Does it just share the initial state (which worked great) or also updates?
Ask HN: Your thoughts on Google's purchase of Motorola?
I thought Motorola were dead and gone. Seems that they've been given a major lifeline here.
True, but it's not as though Microsoft bought Nokia. As crazy as that sounds, though, that would have been less crazy than Google's buying Motorola and how now they've suddenly become a mass-market hardware manufacturer. I really fear that things that Google has historically been bad at (support, etc) will come back to bite them hard.
1) grab the patents

2) sell the non-smartphone business to ZTE or Huawei

3) try to make (android) smartphones and fail the same as non-google motorola did, then realize it does not matter because of 1)

UPDATE: 4) sell the Motorola brand name to ZTE or Huawei
My guess is that bandwidth caps are only used when there is virtually no competition. Because in practice, most people will only saturate there connections for very small amounts of time. But it's a nice way of squeezing more money out of your customers.

I have had 20MBit downstream for at least six years and now 120MBit, with no bandwidth caps (The Netherlands). There is a lot of competition in this area, with at least a dozen DSL ISPs, plus cable.

Mobile internet is completely the opposite. We only have three major carriers. My previous phone subscription had no caps for mobile internet, my current subscription has an 1GB cap, and the caps are now being lowered. It's an oligopoly, so they can force caps down everyone's throats.
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Hopefully we'll get the level of polish of iOS on iPhones as well as the default bloat that's included on most Android phones.
And nobody has to change the rules if people play the game.
The "Western capitalist dogma" to which you refer applies to competitive situations. But cable and phone companies are not competitive in the U.S.A., they are monopolistic.

Read that section of a western economics text that explains monopolies for further enlightenment.
I have had several instances in my life where I dived into what were difficult things for me with gusto - for example when I was in school and was trying to write a program in C to calculate all the anagrams , I did not even have a computer but was up almost all night writing it on a piece of paper and rushed in the morning to a place with access to a computer to test my program on paper.That was just an example - I have had several such experiences.Almost makes me think maybe you just can't "trick' yourself into anything but just have to find something genuinely fun for you to do!As long as it is fun - it doesn't matter if it is hard or not!
I would be careful about jumping to that conclusion. Perhaps you would procrastinate just as much if you had been forced to do unpleasant chores. No way of knowing for sure.
It should share the updates too. If it doesn't work for you, could you please let me know which browsers you use (here, tweet to @awwapp or mail me)? Thanks!
I swore off buying another Motorola product ever again after it took them an absurdly long time to roll out 2.2 for the Milestone. 2.3 is nowhere in sight. Shockingly terrible support for a flagship product.

We'll see how quickly Google can transform them. Android could really use a line of official devices that are consistently updated like iOS devices.
This will indeed be a challenge: keeping the interests of their own cell phone division and third party hardware makers. Might be just another "HTC Sense" type skin added to Android...
I'm honestly not sure how much HTC cares about Motorola.

They're a competitor, yeah, but I doubt Googorola will be pumping out huge volumes of phones for every segment of the non-dumbphone market like HTC does, and HTC still pumps out Windows phones, too. I doubt they'll be shy about picking up another OS if a good one comes along, either.

I think HTC worries a lot more about Apple+iOS than they do about Motorola+Android. And they have an established friendly relationship with Google, I don't see that suddenly vanishing. It's not like they threw a fit when Google went to Samsung for the next Nexus phone.
If this is purely a patent hunt then fine.

If Google hope to get better vertical integration it's my guess they are in for a surprise.

On the surface these acquisitions always sound like they are a good idea. Combine X strenght with Y strenght.

In reality you have two very strong cultures that have to work together. That's simply not going to happen.

Vertical integration is not just a question of having the skill all the way down to manufacturing. It's even more about being able to carry a design vision all the way trough.

Anyone who worked in or with a large organization know how plausible that is.
I wonder how many patents were transferred to the new company. Motorola certainly has a lot and MSFT and Apple have been overpaying lately...
I think that just goes to show how silly making comparisons based on a few isolated numbers can be.
Guess it won't happen now, Google just bought Motorolla for (about) the same price they could have bought RIM: http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/breaking-google-buys-motoro...
I procrastinate because I can get away with it. Any solution for me is derived entirely from that.
> why would writers get so distracted by using an editor with more features and vastly more editing power.

Because most of the features are useless for writers who only want to write prose where formatting doesn't matter that much (or will be done by people who specialize in that.

As far as "editing power" goes, I don't write much prose (I keep telling myself I should submit an article every once in a while to warrant my press passes) but I am quite sure I don't use much more than what WordStar gave me 25 years ago.
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I think your analysis is close to home, but with one huge caveat: it really only applies solidly to the white working class, which is these days only about half the working class (though it depends on how you define "working class"). The black and hispanic working classes, which are a large portion of the country, are strongly organized within the Democratic Party, though the hispanic working class is a bit more split.

There are plenty of disconnects between them and the white middle-class wing of the party as well, especially around issues like gay marriage and separation of church/state, which tend to be seen as "rich white liberal" issues. But I think it's a bit more complicated than simple conservatism, and it's often more than balanced by significant left-leaning sentiment on economic issues. There is, for example, huge support for social safety nets, welfare systems, socialized healthcare, etc., among the non-white working class. If you put single-payer healthcare to a referendum in black working-class neighborhoods in Atlanta or Brooklyn, it'd pass by lopsided majorities. So I think the left wing of the Democratic party is fairly well in tune with that portion of their concerns, but most of the party is arguably out of touch by not being left enough on economics, promoting more of a middle-class, centrist liberalism that's roughly ok with the economic status quo and not very interested in major social-justice initiatives.

There's also no real cultural understanding between the GOP and this segment of the working class: a good showing for a Republican is 10% of the black vote, almost all of it coming from the wealthier portion (i.e., they only connect on class issues). But I agree that the Democratic connection is not great, either, especially if you take the national party; they're often seen as economic-centrist social liberals, less bad than the GOP but not really willing to fight for the working class on economics (or at least not succeeding at doing so).
http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Press-Releases/Motorola-Mobi...

http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/01/did-motorola-just-hint...

~24,500 (~17000 Granted and ~7000 Pending)
> almost all of the flexibility of dynamic typing but with the benefits of static typing.

Just wait until you try Haskell's type inference. :)
Now, that explains the recent agressive hiring. I was wondering what they were up to.
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I don't think Google is interested in making profits with hardware sales. It is still about getting Google search into as many hands as possible (and collecting lots of data).
Looking through the comments on each of the two HN stories about this, should probably give you an idea of what people on HN think of the purchase. :)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2886342

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2886347
In that scenario, you have a moral and legal obligation to report the crime. So you meet that obligation by giving the appropriate authorities the information they need, then leave.