skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The FDIC is insolvent. There was never a substantial fund; insurance premiums were simply deposited at the treasury.

If a few more large banks fail the treasury will have to come up with the money to cover. Odds are low that the usual customers for treasury debt will want to help (China, et al), so the Treasury will have to collude with the Fed to print up the money to cover. Which means inflation.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in the event of bank failure you have no legal guarantees of a timely refund from the FDIC. They may take many months to reimburse you.

In any case, there are much safer ways to store your money than at a bank. Directly own equities, such as GLD and currency ETFs. Directly own treasury bills and notes. If your brokerage goes under, or even if the ETF management goes under, you still own the underlying assets outright, regardless of any $100K cut-off.
Ask HN: What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem?
If you had a guaranteed, lifetime stream of steady income - say $100k a year, inflation adjusted - what would you do with your life? Would you still work? On what? Spend all day hacking on projects you loved? Do a startup? What kind of startup? Write a novel? Read on the beach?

Related questions have been asked on YC, but I don't think this one has, and I'm quite curious to find out what people will say.

Here are some things I might do:

1) create a series of educational games to teach math and science, based on the idea that math is actually additively fun to learn if you do it right ( example: sudoku).

2) Do another startup ( not sure exactly what the field would be, probably something software or web related )

3) Do research work in robotics, computer vision or AI.

4) Start a political party based on the idea that instead of changing specific politicians we need to alter the constitution to change the incentives by which our leaders make decisions.

5) Write books about history and/or economics

6) Start a city

How about you?
Seems to work fine in Chrome too.
It's just irrational.
I've based my entire life around playing with stuff, more or less. I barely graduated high school because by junior/senior year it had become more difficult to get away with never opening a book to study for a test while paying little attention in class as well. In college this was largely the same, but I managed to learn a few study habits. I still don't recall an iota of what I learned via mechanical study, though. But I always aced the programming courses and could probably still write a few lines of x86 Assembly if my life depended on it.

I vehemently refused to learn standard study habits necessary to excel in school, but it wasn't because of sheer laziness or something, I just knew that such a habit was by and large useless to actual learning. Now, what was the atomic mass of hydrogen again...
I haven't done this, but I actually think it's a good idea to have $1K in fives hidden somewhere. If the power goes out for a week in a region that would be a great thing to have.
Will the real Slim Shady please "startup"
I ask because they are the only ones who (in my personal experience) try to justify 8-digit salaries.
I think an economic downturn is only going to temporarily suppress our ideals and actually make them stronger. There would be no reason for us to jump ship for greener pastures when the economy comes around again. I don't think maturity is the same as making peace with your dreams, it should only strengthen your determination.
Stallman is wacko for being an idealist and sticking to his principles?
At HN, miraculously, it might just be.
Cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (Part 2)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316068
This only works out if there is WAGE inflation. It is very possible for inflation to run rampant while nominal wage growth trails far behind. This is probably the most likely scenario. Have fun paying off your devalued debts with an income of $0, because you're unemployed.

In the intermediate term, asset deflation will probably be the dominant force, even if consumer staples continue to inflate somewhat. The very high general inflation is in store for later.
Startups: And Some More Accounting Tips : East Coast Blogging
Pretty much. Most influential wackos tend to be single minded about some ideological point. Sometimes that gets them a peace prize, other times it involves invading neighboring countries. ;-)

I've talked to him. It's amusing. And inspiring. And a little frustrating. At least as of a couple years ago he'd still interrupt you every single time you said "Linux" to stick a "GNU" in there.
Well, that's certainly not an evil thing to fight for. Go Google!
I think it's fairly telling about how bad our situation is when we start comparing our options versus what the Chinese would do... and we use the Chinese option as the POSITIVE side of the argument.
Critical rails-core discussion: program naked?
Don't panic.

Despite what the media say (their job is to tell doom stories, after all), it's not the end of the world as you know it.
If you don't know anything particular about finance, just follow your guts, keep your savings account and listen to the experts telling you to invest in whatever with a grain of salt.
Don't try to act differently. We're not always rational economic actors in the first place, and panic only makes things much worse. Simply follow the prices, as you would usually (e.g. if you see a bargain at the supermarket, go for it if it's something you would usually do).
In my experience, it's more peer-dependent. In practice, I barely interact professors, TAs, or "the department". All of my [school] learning has been through grinding through psets, projects, or intellectual discussions with friends.
Entrecard Owner Flip Flops on Community | TechJaws
It depends how you measure. Asset deflation (property, equities, etc) is a sure thing. Household expenses do not deflate. Despite all the talk of deflation in Japan over the 90s the cost of living continued to rise, and that was in an era of cheap commodities.

I think prices for all sorts of things will collapse, but your grocery bill will continue to rise.
Ask HN: What are some interesting projects you've worked on lately?
I have a meeting with the bosses shortly to discuss what projects I could work on that I find interesting and challenging.

I have a few ideas in mind, but I was hoping I could get more ideas from the crowd here.
Even with the current economic climate, I'd start a business today.
I've also heard their periods attract bears. Just something to look out for.

From the pictures to the actual article, I'd swear this was created in the 70s.
Warhammer Online Reaches 500k Signups in First Week | TechJaws
Thanks for the feedback. I'll make the tour multi-page. Strange that it doesn't work in Chrome but works fine in Safari. Sure wish I had a PC so I can debug in both Chrome and IE!
i'm working on a hardware project. its interesting to me since i've not touched hardware design or microcontroller programming since i graduated.
They're missing discrete math, probability, linear algebra, networks, security, distributed systems, user interface design, interacting with other computer scientists, and the labor of intensive problem sets and projects. And, oh yeah, any practical experience building anything whatsoever.
> there is enough excess nighttime generating capacity nationwide to charge 84 percent ...

This only means no new power plants. The current ones would have to step up production at night.

> it would still emit only two-thirds of the greenhouse gases released by a conventional car

2/3 isn't significantly different than 1 as far as I'm concerned. Especially when were talking about what goes into making the batteries.

Without clean grid electricity, electric cars are merely a feel-good way of outsourcing the problem.
Any chance Tamper Data catches an outbound request early enough you can actually rewrite the target URL, including target host?

Because I've wanted to make an extension that does that for a while, but haven't found in Mozilla docs the right hooks, and would love a working model.
Data Center Tour: Intel Ultra High-Density Retrofit
Also: canned goods, petrol, ammunition.
concurrency, networking - boost has both
Don't be an idiot. He said "while the fundamentals are sound..." as part of a warning on a possible downturn.

What do you want him to say? "The fundamentals are crap! Don't invest in USA!". There are several states in the country, right now, that are booming. If you don't think so, visit Austin and see how "depressed" it is.
75 Invites for Update Me
> Any time you hear that it is time to invest!

Your perceptions of the prevailing market psychology are distorted. Surveys show that retail investors have remained bullish. The general sentiment is extremely far from "never invest in stocks," which is what usually marks the bottom of a big recession.

Believe it or not, most homeowners continue to think they will see appreciation next year.

This recession has barely started and investors have barely even realized we are in a recession.
> Anyone know exactly how the FDIC thing works?

Usually, they arrange the sale of a bank to another financial institution over the weekend. When branches reopen on Monday, they're owned by a different company. Customers don't notice any difference except the logo on the statement.

The WaMu failure is a textbook example, except it happened on a Thursday instead of a Friday.

I believe that if the FDIC can't find a buyer, then it assumes the deposits itself and pays them out of its $45B slush fund (now somewhat depleted after IndyMac). Cash flows from ATMs as usual, but it's provided by the FDIC instead of the bank.
I'm a former Republican, and I used to say two things:
(1) it's none of our business whether a private citizen is earning $10 or $10,000,000;
(2) supply and demand produces, over the long run, an optimal distribution of resources, because a society's needs (i.e. for goods and services) and abilities (i.e. the ability to provide those goods and services) need to be matched in a way that reflects the actual priorities of that society.

It's hard -- probably impossible -- to justify Wall Street compensation packages on supply-and-demand grounds. In the 70s, CEOs earned about 30 times the earnings of their workers. By 2007, they earned 344 times the average pay of their workers.

CEOs do not provide 10 times the value they produced in the 70s. They are not 10 times more scarce. Corporations are not 10 times more profitable. They are not 10 times more prosperous by any measure -- if they were, they would offer 10 times more compensation, on average, to everyone at their company.

So if I were still a Republican, I'd probably say something like this: banks like Bear Stearns were irrational, and they should pay the consequences. The fewer bad banks we have, the better it is for all of us in the long run.

I don't know how many Republicans would agree with that last bit. Truth be told, most of them aren't even pro-free-trade. They're just anti-socialist. Anything that sounds like socialism sends them running for the hills. "Supply and demand" are useful to them only as a cudgel with which to attack the socialist view.

And this sort of justification is trumpeted only by the educated, Wall-Street-Journal-reading elite of the Republican party. Their popular support base in rural areas couldn't care less about economic issues.
Why not? (Apart from the fact that most people tend to move their pillows around during the night...)

It's not the perfect response to every crisis, but it can't hurt. If one day you can't get your money out of the bank, for whatever reason, you have enough to pay for your immediate needs for a while. And it's only a thousand, so at most you're missing out on fifty bucks a year in interest.

NB. Not that I'm doing it myself, but I already have my money split across two different countries anyway.
Yeah, my sister stocked up on $20s before Hurricane Ike, and it saved her butt. Houston is only now getting power back, so everything was cash-only for a week or so.

Also - pasta salad is apparently a lifesaver. It serves like 10, can be eaten cold, and doesn't go bad all that easily.
Kodak EasyShare M893 IS Digital Camera
Kodak EasyShare M893 IS Digital Camera Provides great image quality and advanced features in an ultra-compact and affordable package. The camera provides a resolution of 8.1 megapixels, which allows you to print clear.
I agree, but lay off the name-calling.
> And no, electric cars aren’t the answer either; the power to run them has to come from somewhere. The best case is that people will charge them off the grid at night. This will require power plants to be burning just as much additional fuel as if the cars themselves were doing it, perhaps more given transmission losses.

It has to be said. This guy is simply lazy, and did not do the research necessary to have informed opinions.

Here are the facts I gathered in about 5 minutes. (Its pretty sloppy research, but hey-- I'm just posting a comment!)

1) Electric grid transmission efficiency: ~90%

http://www.energetics.com/gridworks/grid.html

2) Internal Combustion Engine Efficiency: ~20%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Ener...

3) Power Plant Efficiency: ~33%

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/26/electricity-generation-e...

4) Battery Efficiency: ~80%

http://xtronics.com/reference/batterap.htm

33 * .9 * .8 = 23.76

23.76 > 20
You can change any header or content to be sent, including the host header. Is this what you need?
As Al Gore put it in his movie, all those things add up... 1/3 here, 25% there, 15% over there, another 1/3 of what's left from here, etc...

1/3 is quite a lot in that respect.
Judge: Microsoft documentation unfit for US consumption
Glam Media Acquires German Countpart Codex Media?
Search less, understand more: Evri goes live
Got an iPhone? Please take our iPhone satisfaction survey. Thanks
Top 10 Takeaways from Web 2.0 Expo in NY
> so the Treasury will have to collude with the Fed to print up the money to cover. Which means inflation.

Not in this case. If the Fed prints up money to cover a failed bank, it's only replacing the dollars that were destroyed when the bank went under. (When a bank fails and nobody buys it, the money in deposits doesn't flow to a different party: instead, it just vanishes.) The net effect on the money supply is zero.
Inflation-protected bonds (like TIPS or I-Bonds) are a much better inflation hedge than foreign currencies. Real estate and stocks also make great inflation hedges over the long term, though maybe not the short term.
McCain Decides to Participate in Debate
I have a related question. Do you guys think it is a good time to invest in real estate. I live in Southern CA, so property is pretty expensive as it is. Right now, I'm looking at places for approx. $300k that were approx. $500k two years ago. Given that fact that interest rates are not bad either (5.5-7%), it does not seem like a bad time (given that I will have no problems making the payments). This would be my first home purchase, so I'm pretty new at this stuff.
Imagine our fortune if we were to engineer a non-vomiting dog! Also, cats. No more hair balls. Growing up around no less than 2 dogs and a cat throughout my entire adolescence gives me a desire for this tech. It would also make a good Founder story!
The New York Times Archives + Amazon Web Services = TimesMachine
Quite true. However, the end result would still be inflationary because of the effects on the dollar and foreign capital flows.
Another alternative to look at is Live HTTP Headers:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829
Why not? I'm curious about other people's opinion on the piece. Why not post my own too then?
It can probably be as good as academe, but never as good as experience. Most of the benefit from business school is the network anyway, not the book learning.
How to protect against inflation:

1. Don't stick (too much) cash under a mattress. Avoid long-term bonds (which get killed by inflation).

2. Gold is a great inflation hedge, but is a terrible long-term investment. Other commodities are similar.

3. TIPS (e.g. VISPX) make excellent inflation hedges AND long-term investments.

4. Short-term investments, like money market funds, short-term bonds, and short-term CDs, also generally do well. If people expect 4% inflation, these investments need to pay more than 4% in order to get people's money.

5. Stocks and real estate protect against inflation over long time periods (5-10 years), but not over short periods.
My thoughts: http://blog.9assets.com/post/51250904/the-sleep-test-lessons...

I recommend that you don't panic and ride it out. But if you can't, then permanently decrease your risk exposure (not just for this downturn).
You can find a good guideline on Sequoia's site:

http://www.sequoiacap.com/ideas/
Brendan eich on JS JIT in IE, JScript
I would use it to pay back the loan from which it came.
Bullocks.

Acting like Fishman was appointed CEO just because he was a friend of the board is completely false.

He was preivously the CEO of two other banks: Sovereign Bank and Independence Community Bank. He has 25+ years experience as a senior executive in banking.
Except, usually when the bottom comes, the dividend yield is very high. During the bottom in 1932 the dividend yield was 13%. During the bottom in the early 1980's it was around 6%. The historical average dividend yield is ~4%. But right now it's still under 2%. That's pretty scary.
Inanity at EmTech -- Web 2.0 and bad restaurants
"This only means no new power plants. The current ones would have to step up production at night."

I realize that. However, also realize that wind power is running at peak production during the night, which is when people would be charging their cars. Also realize the 2/3 number was for if 100% of the power was coming from coal, which it obviously wouldn't be.
Find a prominent Dem who has advisors who have turned down an 8 digit salary. (Obama has at least two who took at least 8 digits from Fannie/Freddie.)

Never confuse publicity with policy.
both orib and steveplace have good suggestions that I'd like to expand on.

For study notes, I think an Amazon affiliate model would probably work best. Ebay would be tempting (i.e. potentially cheaper) but likely to throw up less relevant results.

As for packaging up and selling to schools - great, but even greater would be to provide schools with their own hosted version instead. They set up a CNAME off their domain pointed at a hosted version and students can work within their own schools. This would also work for colleges.
Honestly, I don't see why the compensation a private company gives it's CEO is an issue of morality.
Bret on Social Games: Starting a Games Company in a Recession
Guns & gold. You want enough gold to bribe your way out of the country, and enough guns to ensure that the relevant people take the bribe.

Hyperinflation almost always leads to political unrest, rioting, the fall of the current political regime, and usually war. There's no defense against that: somebody will break into your house, kill you, and take everything you own anyway. So if you honestly believe hyperinflation is going to occur, get the hell out of dodge and quit worrying about your finances.

This, BTW, is why I don't think hyperinflation will occur. Since it always leads to the toppling of the entrenched power elite, and the entrenched power elite tends to do anything in their power to stay in power, they'll make sure it doesn't happen. Looking at history, every instance of hyperinflation I could find resulted from one of two conditions:

1. There was a large standing army who hadn't been paid in a while and was getting antsy. Or, alternatively, a large rebel group that forcibly appropriated resources from the citizenry and was getting antsy. (Rome 476, Spain 1588, U.S. 1789, Confederate U.S 1865, Hungary 1946, ROC 1949, USSR 1992, Ukraine 1993)

2. There is a large foreign debt, denominated in foreign currency, that the nation can't pay back. (Weimar Germany 1921, Argentina 1989, Argentina 2001.)

In both of these cases, the government is going to fall anyway. If you don't pay the army, they have guns, they come in, and they oust you. If you don't pay your foreign creditors, they have guns, they come in, and they oust you. Printing money is a way to buy time; it never works in the long run, but between dying now and dying later, most elites would rather die later.

The U.S. is not in either of these situations, though the rise of private security forces (Blackstone) is worrying, as is their addiction to debt. If the U.S. doesn't get its spending habits under control, it's just a matter of time before it starts borrowing in RMB or Yen, and then an ordinary garden-variety inflation isn't enough to erase its debt.
Well said. My wife and child have some special needs as well. There's more than one way for developers to be on the hook, if they care about their families.
I was going to say that C++ does at least make the compiler implementor's job easy (as it shifts the burden of complexity onto the application programmer), but then I started to think about what's involved in actually parsing C++, and decided that, hey, maybe it's no picnic for the compiler writers either...
Only if these percentages are in series. Since we're talking about the same power plants, it seems that 1/3 is all we get.

Checking the study in question (first hit for 'study "Electric Power Research Institute" "Natural Resources Defense Council"'), it seems they did _not_ take into account the production and maintenance costs of each type of vehicle.

I'm skeptical of technologies that promise incremental conservation through massive consumption of other resources (battery material).
A Legend Never To Be Solved
Man charged in 'warez' piracy sentenced to probation
OK for who? It's not OK for the bank of the shareholders - they lost everything! The customers don't really care.

So OK for who?
When I just want to see the requests sent to a website, this works fine for me:

tcpdump host thedomain -A -s10000 | grep -Eo "(GET|POST).*$"

More info here:

http://en.gibney.org/capture_webtraffic/
Sorry to sound like a complete amateur, but what can sound programming achieve?

Is it more than just sequencing samples or transforming input with code? Can it create samples? If so, is there any decent documentation on this for the beginner?
... rather than complain, I decided to do something about it and ...

Now this is an example I will try to follow.
Thanks for the feedback. Opening up directly to routes may be more confusing to the first time visitor in its current incarnation. A redesigned routes page may suit the purpose of an entry page better.
You are very very badly informed!

The bailout will mean a 100% loss for all the "rich" people. It's the "poor" that will win - they borrowed money, and don't have to pay it back.
If this is the most patronizing thing a woman in IT hears, they should consider themselves lucky. I've seen worse comments on HN.
When I get the time/money, I'm making an "oh-shit" bag, with my clothes, passport, cash, and other things.
Pigeon regurgitation is active though. They do it on purpose to feed a chick.
And not to mention shared-memory parallelism. Multicore anyone? Ever heard of it?

Going the 10-books-will-do-route will also make sure that you won't get exposed to specialized fields such as embedded and real-time systems, machine learning, computational geometry, bio informatics, etc.

A degree is also about knowing that certain fields exist; you don't necessarily need to have studied everything. You can read up on them when you need specialized knowledge, but if you've never heard of some obscure field because your "ten books" didn't mention it, then you are screwed.

At a good university you will be exposed to a much wider variety of topics than any (reasonably sized) set of books will do.
This post captures something of what I mean when I use the word "hacking:" joyful playful exploration.
Some credit unions are having issues as well.