skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No, 2.4% is just a relative return. In your example, the absolute return is -17.6% so the hedge fund managers won't gain anything beyond the 2% or so administration fee.

This is not a success for them or for their clients (and that is the point of HN post title!). Arguably the defining feature of hedge funds is the expectation (or claim) of positive returns independently of market conditions. In other words, they usually do target absolute returns.
Otherwise there would be little basis for charging 2% of assets plus 20% of profits.

By the way, the zero sum game thing or, equivalently, average return of 0%, only makes sense if:
a) compared to the average market return
AND
b) you consider all the "players", not only hedge funds.
Isn't hiring based on a "salt test," uh, dogma?
You're absolutely right. In an ideal world software developers could do their art for the shear appreciation of it. But for practical reasons, we need money and other resources to do that. It only makes sense to convince others how valuable the craft is to them so that we are empowered to do it.

If smart engineers would just look at it as simply another problem to be solved -- people hacking -- we'd be set.
Startup news: Word-of-mouth social platform launched in Boston
Amazon's EC2 Comes Out Of Beta - Now Supports Windows
Yes, it's really an ingenious marketing scheme on Joel's part.
Ask HN: Buying a new desktop
I am planning to buy a desktop computer to supplement my macbook - which is my primary machine for nearly 10 months now.
I'm primarily looking for a bigger screen, an ergonomic keyboard and better seating posture that comes with a working on a desktop.

I'm new to the US. So, I'm not sure how to go about buying an economical, hacker friendly (works with Ubuntu to start with) desktop. I have done PC assembly before, so I'm open to the idea of assembling one for myself. However, I would rather have the peace of mind of a branded PC for a few more bucks.

Your recommendations?
The term "hedge fund" is a leftover from times when it wasn't a catch-all for investment firms for qualified investors. As the other kind of firms had their ups and downs, hedge funds expanded into their space. By now htey are so well established many firms that aren't technically hedge funds (because they do so many other things and may not do any hedging at all) are called hedge funds.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund#History:

Sociologist, author, and financial journalist Alfred W. Jones is credited with the creation of the first hedge fund in 1949.[2] Jones believed that price movements of an individual asset could be seen as having a component due to the overall market and a component due to the performance of the asset itself. In order to neutralise the effect of overall market movement he balanced his portfolio by buying assets whose price he expected to rise and selling short assets he expected to fall. He saw that price movements due to the overall market would be cancelled out because if the overall market rose the loss on shorted assets would be cancelled by the additional gain on assets bought and vice-versa. Because the effect is to 'hedge' that part of the risk due to overall market movements this became known as a hedge fund.
Out-of-Band security release for Windows
As a way of funneling public money to one's supporters, starting a war is much more work than the usual peacetime appropriations route. For defense contractors, an arms race is just as good as an actual war.
Mercantilism and War

So, there was this economic theory called mercantilism. Basically, it said that the wealth of the world is a fixed value (cannot be created nor destroyed) and that a country's wealth was measured by the amount of gold it controlled. Now, people on this site should instantly say, "but startups are increasing the wealth of the world all the time." Yes. Mercantilism was just flat out wrong, but it did influence a lot of international politics for a while.

So, if you believe mercantile economics to be correct:
* Spending money on war isn't actually wasting wealth since wealth cannot be destroyed.
* The only way for you to gain more wealth is to take it from someone else (another country).
* The only risk in war is that you might loose. Baring loosing the war, you have gained wealth. There cannot be a situation where both sides loose wealth.
* Gold is f'in magic!

So, if you can't make wealth, you should set your sights on taking it from someone else. The problem is that mercantile economics is flat out false and that it's often easier to create wealth than to steal it.

To put it in math terms:

Mercantalism = Profits stolen.
Modern Economics = Profits stolen - cost to wage the war.

--

That still means that war can be profitable, but it severely decreases the likelihood. What makes it unprofitable is the value of human life. Yes, human life has a value. That value is not static. For example, I have a pretty awesome life (by historical standards). I have awesome American healthcare, a job that doesn't hurt me physically or emotionally, etc. You get the point. If I had lived 500 years ago, my life would not have been worth as much because it would have sucked more.

It's not that it should be worth less. Everyones' lives should have equal value. But that isn't the case. In fact, the actions that people take show that they value themselves differently. For example, if I expected to die of a plague, I would probably act very differently - taking way more risks with my life because it's cheap; it's going to be gone soon with little fanfare.

We should, as a matter of policy, treat everyone equally.

So how does that impact war? Well, as the average value of human life increases, the cost of war goes up in a very intangible way. 500 years ago, we would just let soldiers die. Today, even a small number (by historical standards) of casualties is cause for anger. Why? Human life is worth more than it used to be. It also means that a lower percentage of the population is probably willing to risk their lives. It also means that we spend a ton more money on protective things. "Well, that thing by the road could be a bomb. Let's use the $50,000 robot to see if it gets blown to bits."

This is a good thing! At least I think it is. But if you're into war, it kinda makes it undoable. 500 years ago, letting a soldier die didn't cost you anything and, in fact, many generals would send their highest-paid soldiers on the riskiest missions so that they would die and stop costing them salary money. Today, we would rather sacrifice lots of money than let that soldier die. That's awesome, but expensive when your business is war.
The 1910s saw loads of books published detailing empirically how war between great powers could never make economic sense, so it would never happen again. The Franco-Prussian war certainly didn't get anyone ahead. Then August 1914 happened.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
Microsoft to rush out emergency Windows patch
Promoting a website is the same as promoting any other product:

1) Identify your target market
2) Find a distribution channel
3) Pursue your target market

Many startups go the TechCrunch route, but unless your target market is Silicon Valley technologists it's probably not a smart move. Put another way, not all customers are created equal.

When I was first launching Appaholic (now Adonomics) I posted aggressively in the Facebook developer forums. Beyond that I pursued SEO.

Most startup people I know think a bit about (1), very little about (2), and jump right into (3). Be methodical and data-oriented, instead.
TextMate, DTerm, MacFusion, Quicksilver, Jumpcut

Life without DTerm... why, it seems absurd!
I'd argue that peacetime appropriations and a true arms race are separated by an order of magnitude. And now that Russia's gone and China's at least a decade out, a straightforward war's the only game in town.
wars will be at two ends of the inverted bell curve - insurgencies/occupations, and total wars with nuclear weapons. gone is the war that most generals cling to - forces fighting protracted battles in well-defined theaters.

indeed historian max hastings suggests that the lessons of ww2 - that a large conventional battle can lead to a decisive victory for a clearly defined "side" is a model that has miseducated our leaders for decades...it was a one-time event
It is a clever test, albeit a bit deceptive.
> the biggest cause of war in the last 200 years has been power struggles between politicians

Putting it this way ignores the very real popular backing the politicians have usually had. The zeitgeist swings towards militarism and then the politicians follow their cue, not the other way around. It's deep in human nature.

Wars usually happen in the context of declining living standards. When peoples perceive a shrinking pie they suddenly become very willing to explore military options.
Ask HN: Need a host with some balls, offshore maybe?
I'm posting under a different name for various reasons but I'm a regular contributor here.

So, my host is a pussy. I have a site doing a good amount of traffic - 2mm uniques, 8mm pages/month, heavy data and growing - but we're having some legal issues right now. I can't really get into it but suffice it to say we're being bullied by a major public company and our host is flipping out. No, we're most certainly not doing anything illegal and no, this doesn't involve the music/entertainment industry. ;)

So we need a new host - right away. Ideally, I think we might be looking to go offshore because that will at least give our oppressor(s) one less avenue through which they can attack us. At the same time, this is scary to me. We do a lot of data and we can't afford to be slowed down or, god forbid, drop offline for any period of time.

So my question is - does anyone have any recommendations for a stellar offshore host or even a local host with some marbles that won't retract into their stomachs every time they get a frivolous BS C&D? The Planet seems to be the go-to option here in the US. Any others?
Maybe its time for Google and others to step up and verify that the online advertising they are selling is being used for the correct purpose. ~ Which in turn will increase the price of the advertising which might have the effect of creating a even better solution ~ would "bait and switchers" be willing to pay "a lot" of money to run a bait and switch ad? Or maybe Google could add "Google Verified" to ad words to insure "clickers" that they were getting what expected to get...
The worth has almost nothing to do with the production costs. Linux is much more worth than 10.8 billion.
"Dim inty1,inty2,inty3 as Integer"

This will define only inty3 as integer. The other 2 variables will be variants.
Japan and Germany were economic basket cases at the start of WWII. They acted out of desperation and probably would have crumbled purely from macroeconomic problems without any outside intervention. Germany had bread riots in the weeks before rolling on Poland. Japan was being crushed by the costs of maintaining the empire they had already built.
Oh oops - good catch.
putting presentation inside HTML is definitely worse

I think of HTML like I do assembler it's something for computers to read. I write code that generates HTML, but I don't work at that level. Data, Presentation, Layout, and Binding are all separate parts of the code base.

PS: Some of our site was generating images that users clicked on we then mapped that click back to a location and sent a new image. We updated the Presentation code and it's now using Tables and nothing else changed.
sounds like you want a mini-dvi adapter, a big standalone screen, a usb keyboard and mouse, and a steelcase chair, not a desktop computer.

if you want processing power for web servers and databases, get a slice somewhere -- they're pretty affordable. don't buy an entirely new machine when you can get everything you asked for in the first paragraph for the macbook (and the sync hassles that come with two machines). you'd have to buy that stuff anyhow if you got a desktop, why not get it without the desktop?

my setup: three slices, a macbook, 25" 16:9 flatscreen LG in portrait mode. i use the mac keyboard, but have a really comfy chair. there's a file server in the kitchen, but it's left over from an old desktop and is not a speed demon -- it doesn't have any inputs or outputs connected save for ethernet.
Ugh. Sure it stops keyloggers, but it's awful for over-the-shoulder security. I hate it when banks use these things for password entry because then I have to get all paranoid about who is watching me just then.
http://www.reflected.net

They're very good. I have a dedicated server with them. They also host www.ytmnd.com, which has had a long history of copyright trouble.
No one here is trashing anyone. Maybe you misunderstood. I am also aware that there are real shortages, particularly when hardware requiring new manufacturing processes is involved. But the fact is that artificial shortages are a commonly used marketing tactic and that is the point the parent poster and I were trying to make. The article implies that the lack of lines and shortages is the result of a lack of interest. That may not necessarily be the case.

There are plenty of reasons why there isn't much hype around the G1 and you've pointed a couple of them out. I think it's also obvious that Android, and particularly the G1, were not marketed nearly as heavily as the iPhone. It also may be that the iPhone has achieved critical mass and people just aren't interested in the knock-offs that are coming out now.

Your statement about in-contract users having to pay an additional $220 is incorrect - at least it was a few weeks ago when I ordered mine. At the time I preordered I believe it was $199 for new customers. I was still in contract and mine came out to about $338 with some BS activation fee and sales tax. I did notice that the G1 is $179 now so that may have changed.
Dan Nye (LinkedIN CEO) did a brilliant thing a few months ago by painting his investors into a corner...

http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/10/dan-nye-is-a-modern-day-...
In an industrial design class I took this sort of methodology was heavily stressed using words like "divergent thinking" and "no-worry prototypes".

Generally, I believe that the super-specializing niche engineering that's popular today is best served by broadening your base rather than sharpening your technical skills to stand out in a field of pins.

I.e. marketing, ID design attitudes, learning to paint.
Don't let the title fool you. Arrested for "hacking" not "virtual murder".
Mint.com founder: "Design is crucial to conveying trust"
couldn't have been more aptly named. this is pretty funny, in a sad kinda way. we've all been there, kiddo. thanks for giving us a reason not to go back.
So when does someone cry 'But PG, it's not hacker news!'
Here is the actual project page:

CASCADES project: Cost-effective Outbreak Detection in Networks.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/blogs/
Make it so good that everyone talks about it.
I asked about Euro-based hosts here recently:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295949

That might help
Where does the current trend to pick on Romanians come from?
Jillian Tamaki Sketchbook: Idea Generation
Bummer. Not a YCombinator company, but in a startup and attempting to contribute to this community.

Hey Joel, any chance of a HN-karma-based lifting of the 2-person limit?

Say >1000 Karma and you can use more people?
You underestimate the military-industrial complex. All you need to drive appropriations is some form of fear. Iran or China or "terrorists" will do fine.

In some cases unsophisticated opponents are better. If eggheads argue your expensive missile-defense shield won't work, you can argue that it will against crappy missiles launched by Iran.
Yes, but let's add 1 year to the time line. Poland was quickly crushed and was adding a lot of resources to the German economy. [Edit: I don't know a lot of the details but I think Germany could have consolidated power in Poland and then stooped. I mean the ultimatum was one thing, but they had yet to start fighting and by giving up a little land or trying to stall etc they could have still gained land with little cost. The secret would have been for them to "stop" soon enough.] Germany would have probably failed much like the USSR and for similar reasons, but who knows.

Japan - I don't know much about their economy but having industrialized they had a significant advantages. Attacking China was probably a bad idea due to it's size, but there where plenty of local countries they could have absorbed with little difficulty.
Using Science To Trick Your Body Into Feeling Full - Protein Coated Fats
I bought my last rig from newegg - parts and then put it together. For my newest one, I went to Frys to buy an off-the-shelf box and was pleasantly surprised that I could get a very powerful machine for $800 or so.

Frys and Microcenter offer great choices in Dallas (where I am) and I'd assume elsewhere if you have 'em.
Solid of them to do that, but FogBugz is terrible. Our dev team found it to be tedious (4 developers).

We've switched to Pivotal Tracker (also in free beta) and find it much more suited to rapid development and "agile" practices. In particular, we find the predictive tools actually useful.
Cloud computing may be the ultimate form of globalization
Cobol job market heating up
Blackberry 7230 Unlocked
The BlackBerry 7230 features a crisp, high-resolution color screen. BlackBerry handheld is compact and lightweight with superior battery performance, making it ideal for mobile use. RIM is committed to delivering the best combined data and voice experience for mobile professionals.
Self-Control and the Prefrontal Cortex
How ridiculously easy to use is the G1? For example, how many clicks does it take to capture a photo and email it to a friend?

On my iPhone I count 6 clicks to get into the "To:" field in the email, and then 1 more click to Send.

And where is the G1's "display" appeal? As O'Reilly once said (when thinking about ringtones), people will pay more for display than consumption. For many (me not included?), the Apple logo on your phone is a personal exhibition of good taste. What does the G1 do for a person in this regard?
Used GM EV1 Electric Car Sold for $465k?
Outlawing short-selling on 900 big stocks is making it hard, to y'know, hedge..
So, really what your saying is that Joel is giving away his software so he can keep tabs on what YC Startups are doing? Suddenly, the idea seems more evil. :)
The title is chilling. A computer scientist creating algorithms that solve problems. Bet he is using one of those computer things too.
StickK − Change (of your habits) Starts Now
Marshmallow temptations: brain scans could yield vital lessons in self-control
Android is a step in the right direction for phone software, hopefully there will be more official devices sporting it.
War profiteering blows away peacetime defense systems. The post 2001 defense spending boom has dwarfed the cold war at minting billionaires. Vietnam also produced stupendous profits that were not matched by the 80s spending surge.
No source... lame.
TextMate!
I've never used FogBugz. Why would a hacker choose it over the usual open source stuff (Trac, bugzilla)?
I was going to list the usual suspects, but honestly, I don't think they are anything special. Yes, TextMate is cool, but I use MacVim. Quicksilver I use, but it's a glorified app launcher that has power features that I don't need. Spotlight (for me) would work just as well. Transmit is a cool FTP client, but it's just an FTP client.

Instead, how about:
- Awaken: alarm clocks can be beautiful.
- Coversutra: awesome and functional iTunes controller.
- Screenflow: Probably the closest (functionality-wise) screencasting client to Camtasia Studio on Windows.
- Simple Comic: an bare but perfect (for me) comic/ebook reader that just works.
What is needed is a paradigm shift in marketing thinking. As it stands companies are willing to throw banners on everything despite the poor return on investment because they are running with the "saturate user eyeballs" strategy. The web as it stands is the equivalent of watching a movie and every car looks like a nascar with logos all over it.

we need to get back to genuine sponsorships. where companies are "proud to sponsor" a site because the content is awesome and engaging. instead of 20 sponsors take 2 or 3 and work together to create a user experience that both pushes the content and drives the brand. instead of slapping huge banners and deceptive text ads get classy and work the branding into the navigation interface.

i feel that when really good sites start getting these unique and exclusive sponsorships and the companies stop paying for saturation, we'll start to see a more evolved experience. and i'm damn sure the users will have more respect for the companies that run like this.
The Cloud Is Shaping Up. Amazon Beefs Up EC2, Bechtolsheim Shifts His Attention To Arista
NY council likely to extend term limit for Bloomberg
Buy a refurb 20" iMac.

I'm working on mine right now, and it really is one of the nicest machines I've ever used.
Perhaps the company that quoted him really was Romanian?!?
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And those who don't understand history are doomed to be killed by it.

History, the way I see it, seems to indicate that there will be another World War, and it will be brutal beyond compare. It is just a matter of time.
ABC Development
Host offshore, but put heavy assets on AWS S3? I don't have an answer on the host, but thought this idea might help, since offshore hosts can be slower for US access. Amazon might be pussies too, I don't know; but this might buy you time.
Well, that's a relief, I was worried that I was going to get in trouble for virtual streaking.
Thanks. lot of good points.

Apart from the points you mentioned, I think not having to sell a much depreciated desktop when I leave US is an advantage.
Um, "git add", "git push", etc. work fine. I think the hyphenated versions are deprecated anyway.
I visited a local Best buy and did not feel their machines were a good bargain. I'll try the local Frys. Thanks!
I don't get what the difference is between "machine learning" and plain-old constraint solving. From looking at the abstract of his paper, he's solving an NP-Complete problem using a new approximation algorithm. So, the real contributions of his work are 1) mapping his particular sensor network problem to the NP-Complete complexity class, and 2) an improved approximation algorithm. The newspaper article seems astounded that multiple (real-world) problems can be mapped to the same algorithm.
yeah having a co-founder acts as a "vote of confidence". it's a useful filtering tool that allows investors to cull out a large portion of ideas that the creators weren't able to convince anyone else to support. i'm sure a portion of the ideas were indeed good marketable ideas, but the amount of fat that gets trimmed by this tactic is just too good to pass up.

like say if (hypothetically) Y-comb had 10,000 applications and you could easily work the number down to 6000 to read by cutting the single founders out, then it'd be a good idea to do so. maybe after reading through 6000 ideas you might have some left over energy to skim the others for something that might stand out...
Yes and no. If I am not allowed to short IBM, I can get around it. I simply short the Dow and go long the other Dow components (that is, excluding IBM). The transaction costs are not that large. Mostly, it's just a stupid rule that can be easily traded around.
You're generally correct, but you're conflating different parties. Contractors in war time are very different than the companies that build war tech. Haliburton makes money by managing thousands of people in Iraq. Boeing makes money in building a new plane. The latter is easy to get money for in peace time.
huzzah a stephenson mention :D

that gets a free upvote from me
Amazon.com's feel-good free shipping comes at a cost