skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Braintree actually doesn't work very well for recurring payments since you end up writing your own biller. They offer some sort of a subscription billing system, but since their API only works 1-day (Data-in, no data-out) so its damn near impossible to keep your system in synch with theirs.

Also, be careful with that peep-code PDF; their design isn't really the best so keep that in mind when reading through it and take their content merely as a suggestion. They couple their Orders with Transactions in a funky way.

Another thing, when dealing with BrainTree, be sure to pester them about how much the SecureVault costs. They came to us 6 months after we started using them and demanded that we pay $0.10-$0.15 anytime we touched a customer in the SecureVault. After a few back-and-forth's via email, they finally waived these fee's because they neglected to bring it up when we negotiated our rates.

In technical terms of payment gateway APIs, I liked Google Checkout's the best. They had a nice asynch RESTful XML API that made a lot of sense; although I didn't really like that fact that we had to send users through the Google Checkout screens. We had to move away from GCO because they didn't support recurring billing.

Has anybody used the Amazon Flexible Payment System?
This article has no more information than my high school freshman chemistry class demonstration of electrolysis. Arguably less, since at least my teacher told me what her catalyst was made of (platinum mesh).

Professor Daniel Nocera's lab site has some references that provide more detail:
http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/dgn/www/research/e_conversion.h...

Basically, it sounds like he's talking about efficient electrolytic catalysts. As a home owner, I have quite a few questions.

Some things we didn't get from this article:

1) A citation to a journal
2) the chemistry of his catalyst
3) The efficiency of the forward and reverse reactions with his catalyst or others.
4) Total solar power available per square foot in Earth's temperate zones, in each season.

These are just some of the first order questions that weren't addressed.

Also,

> within 10 years homes will no longer be powered using electricity-by-wire from a central source.

Perhaps, but please don't take me off the grid.

And, finally, why is it that MSM journalists are apparently the only ones who don't have to cite sources in their articles?
Sigh...here we go again. You do have to hand it to these people for doing a little bit of research and going as far as to set up a website for their "venture"
> Actually it left me a bit disappointed to find that it had been "designed"

I'm disappointed it was "designed" since it looks exactly like a home-brew logo.
> generated code

Not a problem: either the PHP generated is only safe for a particular version, or they can add parenthesis to distinguish the cases.

> to convert stuff to explicit true/false

I suppose. That would seem like a surprising use to me, and would merit an explanatory comment, but given that, it might be better to just explicitly cast ("(bool)$name"), which saves the comment, and only adds four characters over "!!$name".
Is it actually an attempt to impersonate pg qua pg, or just a random scam sent with a plausible-sounding combination of first and second names? Has it been targeted at founders, or is it just that founders are the only folks likely to forward the email back to pg?
"Mother of All Quantum Networks" Unveiled in Vienna
I bet the literate ones don't conduct the scam via spam.
Led Zeppelin Flashback | TechJaws
Humans lived for at least 250,000 years without HMOs. And I'm talking for Americans who are against public health care, which was who the question was addressed to.
Well all that proves is that the average person is an idiot. We knew that.
Somebody else's sickness has no effect on me in most cases. And in the ones in which it does, the CDC is there to help. Nobody would suggest that the government doesn't play an important role in protecting against epidemics, which is most analogous to your fire metaphor.

It's not up to the public to protect people from all of the bad things that can befall them. It's up to the public to ensure that people are not impeded when trying to help themselves.

Thus even most of us who are against public health care are in favor of reforms. Tort reforms, ending the perverse incentives.

Interestingly, most of our health problems in the U.S. seem to be due to political pressure caused by lobbying. Read In Defense of Food for a good review as to why our diet has shifted to where it is, and why it's almost certainly the problem. It illustrates that government cannot be counted on to ensure public health.
GMs problem is that they put all their eggs in that basket. They became an SUV company first, then followed by sporty cars. They completely ignored the compact, midsize segments and let those deteriorate until they produced nothing but crap. Which is how the japanese cars took over.

I mean honestly for me, GM can come out with an Ferrari looking honda accord competitor, that is more reliable, has more features and costs 40% less...and I STILL will go and buy a accord.

Why? Because the last and only GM vehicle my family owned was a piece of crap that fell apart with only 70K miles on the clock and cost us 4K in repairs before we sold it.

While the 7 Hondas we owned combined only cost us a total of $600 in repairs. And that $600 was our own fault because we missed replacing the timing belt on time per maintenance schedule.

You only get once to make a good impression.
Please add document.search-input.focus();
Last one looks fine to me.
Customer experience review: Crutchfield.com
If you were SJ, what would you buy with it?

Buying back shares is a waste at this time and SJ doesn't like buybacks. Some people see Apple buying Adobe. ADBE's market cap is around $12B but to me a big negative is the amount of overlap between their software suites... lots of value will be wasted but on the other hand, Apple would have a virtual monopoly on digital content production. If I were SJ, I'd go after Yahoo. It's now around $17B and would offer Apple more room to grow and would also give Google some things to think about as they're now going after Apple's mobile slice.
What's up with Google Maps Sucking...
Did Google switch data providers for their maps or something? Lately the directions it's been giving me have really been off compared to what I've come to expect. I thought they used to use Navteq but now it looks like they switched to TeleAtlas and they frequently don't have the addresses I'm looking for. Any one else experience this or am I just imagining it?
Are Strategic Investors More Important in a Downturn Economy?
Every syntax quirk that requires the code generator to do something (e.g. add more parentheses) makes code generation harder.
Ask YC: Virtual Phone System for my Startup
I'm launching my company and need a virtual phone system. At the start, I just need a local # that people can call and leave voicemail on. I'd like the voicemail messages to forward to my email address.

Eventually I'll need more PBX type features like call forwarding, extensions, fax, toll-free, etc...

What do people here use?

There's a lot of options out there. GotVMail seems most professional, but there's also Innoport, Ringcentral, etc...so what does Hacker News recommend?

P.S. Bonus points for companies with local Canadian numbers.
With "disruptive innovations", what the market often cares about is 'good enough', and if the improvement curve of Ubuntu puts it on track to supersede that, that's all that's needed. I don't think Ubuntu will ever be "better" than MacOS (well, except for the fact that Ubuntu does focus follows mouse like God intended [it's in the old testament, I think], but I guess I'm in the minority there). But for that matter, neither is Windows, and it seems to have a slight numerical advantage. I think we're seeing the leading edge of Ubuntu with the netbooks.

Here's a graph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation#The_theor...
As I always say (without attribution), "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
"Unlimited" is clearly misleading, as "only" 751,296,000 TWh of energy are absorbed by the Earth every year, which means it cannot be more than that. So unless basically mathematics has changed on me, that's not "unlimited". Say "a lot" or make up some number that doesn't exist, but don't say something that people who don't know any better will believe. Flagged as offensive to intelligent life.
Ask N.YC: Are there alternatives to Braintree's remote credit card storage?
I am building an app that requires recurring billing at somewhat unpredictable intervals. So, I need to find a service that securely stores credit card data.

Braintree offers such a service, but they require $100k per month volume. Do any of you know of an alternative?
billingcircle.com ?
ariasystems.com ?
Terrorists are beyond being able to look up a valid address on the internet. It's way too difficult for them. Once they work out how to do that, we're all in big trouble.

Just like at the moment, they haven't been able to figure out how to separate a large bottle of explosive liquid, and put it in lots of little bottles which are then allowed through security.
Umm, shouldn't the link to the company be set up as rel="nofollow"? Having an inbound link from paulgraham.com has got to boost your pagerank massively.

EDIT: oops, I missed the

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP">

tag, which will hopefully take care of it, although I'm not sure about its placement inside a HTML comment. Will that work?
Awesome :) Glad it's being used by people... You never know if people will use it, or prefer to use some HyperMicroBloggingLocationAwareWidget ;)
It seems pretty unlikely to me that they would view an object over weeks and never even bother to pick up a still camera with a better zoom. Also, other people in the footage (like the fisherman) don't seem to be acting like anything's weird.

I had a hunch and looked up where this was supposedly taken -- a place called Yeni Kent, Turkey, I think. And there's a very oddly-shaped building called Ataturk Stadium, located on a hill, just across the bay. I don't know for sure but this might explain some of the footage.

http://www.ataturkolimpiyatstadi.net/

http://flickr.com/photos/andyjap-lfc/1524723070/

From some angles, there wouldn't be any other lights, so it would appear to float in darkness:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76712000@N00/17491854/in/set-40...
>Is it actually an attempt to impersonate pg qua pg, or just a random scam sent with a plausible-sounding combination of first and second names?

The same thought crossed my mind. Believe it or not, I used to know someone named Paul Graham BEFORE I ever heard of pg... :p
Guido van Rossum responds to Bruce Eckel: Why explicit self has to stay
I have to disagree with the OP. I think that valuations are going to decline with the bad economy.

1. Most pre-funding startup founders and employees are working for deferred cash and equity, which means that they need to subsist on savings or parental generosity for living expenses, health insurance, etc. Those sources are likely to dry up for some people, which increases the urgency of the funding problem.

2. It's going to get harder for a lot of startups to become "ramen profitable", to use Paul Graham's terminology.

Valuations will decline because VCs have more leverage, and therefore can get away with weaker offers.
Not exclusively tech-related, but this is one of my favorites: http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa?bigi...
Does Timing the Market Work? (a brief analysis of market timing tactics since 1871)
I would like for my OS to handle my files for me, much as package management systems handle my executable programs for me. I would like to a "pictures" section that includes all the pictures on my computer, regardless of where they are located.

Ubuntu freed me from having dozens of installer files on my desktop. However, I still get dozens of images, documents, and videos strewn all over it. Ubuntu: help me manage my life and I will love you more.
It was a little tangential, and making 100-year predictions about global warming probably set off someone's troll-o-meter (wasn't me). Don't worry about 0 or -1; it's usually just a gentle reminder to be polite in these discussions.

(Note: nothing annoys people more than commenting on moderation instead of the main article.)
How to use Google Reverse Geocoding from Ruby
What ever happened to those Steorn dudes?
You could just setup your own Asterix server and have all the features you can ever need...
I got one by snail mail a while back. It wasn't much better.
why are these things always so far fetched? If you are going to use Paul Graham name, why not use YCombinator as your company?
Mirrors fucked us up
"Can't call method "read" on an undefined value at /www/sites/typeface/lib/TypefaceJS.pm line 36."

(this upon attempting to convert a font to test it)
It used to have my bio on the about page. They seem to have taken that out.
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: What Tim O'Reilly Gets Wrong About the Cloud
I really keep hoping that embedded fonts carry on. The many workarounds I've seen all have a lot of downsides. Embedding fonts could fix all that immediately.

And it's about time. I'm sick of seeing Georgia on every single web page I visit.
I don't know what's more sad than this:

Wanting to see the video, or the fact that my iPhone still doesn't have flash. Cmon Jobs! What were you thinking!
Many merchant service gateway providers offer recurring billing services and APIs. I haven't used it yet, but I'm pretty sure Authorize.net has this capability (I remember getting mail about it a few years ago). I'm not endorsing Authorize.net, but I suspect you can find many merchant gateways that offer this kind of thing.
http://www.openusability.org/
Agreed. I have had three Honda and Toyota vehicles. My last one had 350,000 miles on it - all handled well, were gas misers, always looked good, never gave me any problems, and were easy to maintain myself.

GM/Ford make, frankly, excrement. I really cannot believe people buy their goods. They are uneconomical, break down constantly, reflect zero innovation....and the companies themselves have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

And then there is the Jeep I once owned. I spent all my free time fixing every conceivable part on it - they all seemed to break as soon as it was out of the driveway. The body started rusting out immediately, the engine began consuming great quantities of oil at 25,000 miles....even the SPARE TIRE carrier on it was so flimsy it broke off, not offroad, but driving through my neighborhood streets.

The Toyota 4WD pickup I still have will probably outlast me and any grandchildren I ever have.
Do Big Shiny Download Buttons Work?
Get Skype. There is voicemail, it's cheap and you can setup numbers in multiple countries.
I was about to respond that they had moved my house about 40 miles---that's where it was when I first noticed this problem two weeks or so ago---but when I just went to maps to confirm before posting I discovered that I now no longer exist at all. So, not just you.
The only distinction between a TV and a monitor these days is the video input and integrated speakers. I have my TV hooked up to a Mac Mini so I can do all my Hulu, Youtube and home movie watching on a decent sized screen.
Is Apple Ready to Take a Bite of Silicon Valley?
I'm pretty sure the founders did this one themselves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Google1998.png

The design seems to have been an iterative process of trying to modernize that, that ended up not being too far from the original concept-wise.
you have to wonder. if these poorly written engrish 419 scams have been successful enough to warrant the flood of them as well as all the media attention, how much damage could one do setting up a truly legitimate sounding one?
The analysis has now been updated to include dividends, and posted on my blog:
http://saffell.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/does-timing-the-mark...
Indian startup thinks that the right software can make phones a financial lifeline
It is a really good logo. I mean, it's up there with CocaCola and Nike, imo. I had always thought it must have been done by a professional, or at least, someone very very talented. It's just a little too perfect.

Seeing the iterations was really interesting. Sometimes you have to go through a few complex versions before realizing that simpler is better.
Apparently the users agree...

http://www.gnome-look.org/index.php?xsortmode=down&page=...
That is true only in the sense that Nikon is a luxury consumer brand that people pay a premium for. I'd argue that Apple is a "creative professional" brand and leverages that to appeal to consumers too. If Nikon only made digicams, no matter how good they were, if they took their eye off the photojournalists, the consumers would lose interest.
In fact, Amazon seems perfectly comfortable with companies like RightScale selling on top of them.

Just because Amazon has nothing to fear from their customers doesn't mean the reverse is true - Amazon just announced they are starting to add the kind of monitoring and management features to EC2 which RightScale provides, making EC2 more attractive and forcing RightScale to do more to differentiate themselves.
The phrase "stealth blimps" keeps getting kicked around from time to time. But then nothing ever comes of it.

We're overdue for whatever the next generation recon platform is.
Paul Graham wants you to invest in investments to take care of your futua so he don't have to shoot ya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzUr-xA_buY
The

def self.foo(arg): ...

variant GvR mentions reminds me of one of the many ways you can implement OO-style in Lua:

function object.method(arg) ... end
Some tips for startups on cost reduction
Guiltware
Split an article over 8 goddamn pages each with popup adverts and slow loading times = I can't be bother to read it. Way to go wired... You might get more page views and ad impressions in the short term, but you'll certainly get less readers in the longer term.
Small Companies That Act Big
Control systems for helicopters are developed by soulless clock-punching factory workers, marching to the slow beat of enormous, impenetrable bureaucracies under the iron fist of stifling, heavyweight processes. Inquisitive engineers need not apply.
Sooooo ... has a date/time/loc been set? Isn't there some YC startup that will let us plan this?
Is it just me, or was this just ripped off from Wikipedia?
I should have mentioned that we're also using a modified version of the saas rails kit for our recurring billing. Works well for us (we've got over 300 subscribers last time I checked, adding about 2 a day).

http://railskits.com/
Amazon may not intend it, but their cloud does have some lock-in.

There's data locality lock-in: If your data is at Amazon, it's cheaper to operate on it there. (Likewise if you want to operate on someone else's data, but I haven't seen this case.) This is pretty fundamental to data centers, so I wouldn't blame Amazon for it. OTOH, they're not taking steps to fix it, either.

There's also a type of "accidental" lock-in because Amazon doesn't use standards like OVF. They don't seem to be in any rush to fix this.
Upvoted for literary quality.
I got to level 9.
Once a $500B market cap giant, microsoft is now below $200B

Glory days in the past
- File open dialog doesn't have a edit field for me to type a file name

Cmd-Shift-G (same shortcut as in the Finder)
There are two reasons why i don't mind 'self'. The first one is that python was my first language, so i didn't know anything else. I didn't find it strange, as a person with a different background might. The second reason is that i don't do that much OOP any way, so i don't get frustrated with having to type self all the time. But when i do actually write OO code, i can see how self might annoy someone writing classes and methods all day.
Do you love your Guns? Yeah! God? Yeah! The Government? Fuck Yeah!
MySpace Launches Profile 2.0 With Drag And Drop Interface
The Money Lies in Filters
I dunno what the next generation recon platform is, but I doubt it flies at night while lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree.

(Of course, aliens probably wouldn't do that either: they'd be a lot more subtle or a lot less subtle.)
That sounds reasonable to me, it does seem darker in the British usage.

Also - in US English, you could call someone an "ass" - its not really that bad an insult, like you said, more about their behaviour at a point in time. There is also the donkey meaning (ass) which makes it less insulting then it would otherwise be.
I guess my point is that I wish it only made semantic changes and not syntactic change, or that I could easily turn off the odd syntax.
I see where Bruce is coming from.

But I quite like self: it's an explicit reminder every time you write OOP in Python about the idea of classes & instances.

Incidentally I'm one of those annoying people that often will use this instead of self (because I find it more readable.. at work I am famed for my efforts of trying to write code in "english" :D).

Self is also useful when your passing the class around. It's easy to see where it is heading all the time.

It will be nice to see the "you forgot self, you fool" error made explicit. When you switch languages a couple of times a day it can be easy to forget :) (PHP to Python switch is the hardest!)
"They completely ignored the compact, midsize segments and let those deteriorate until they produced nothing but crap."

Every time I see a Chevy Aveo hatchback on the road, I throw up a little in my mouth.
Ah gotcha! That is wha tI was thinking of thanks.

@IsaacSchlueter: I know what you mean (it's one of those logos that just "describes" the brand without any support).
I would naively expect every single expression to be surrounded by parenthesis by default, implemented in the lowest level writeExpression() function or whatever. But I've never written a translator, so...
nods

Additionally, solar thermal is probably a more efficient way to store energy, though this might be a more efficient way to produce hydrogen, which is more portable.
Google gets better as more people use... the internet. Yahoo also gets better as more people use the internet, but if Google has superior algorithms, there would be a spread in the pace of improvement. It is no coincidence practically everything Google has as a direct or side effect increased internet usage.
Ask YC: Reconstruction of Data from a Chart or Graph
I have here several charts of driving cycles. These are standard plots derived from real traffic data, of velocity versus time. Unfortunately I cannot find the data anywhere. So I hatched a plan: maybe there's software that will reconstruct data from a graph or chart? Does anyone know?

If not, I'll just write it myself and open source it. It seems like a generally useful thing in engineering and science. It deserves an application (maybe even a web application).

A picture of the drivecycle is here: http://einfall.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/reconstruction-of-data-from-a-chart-or-graph/
University researchers developing cancer-fighting beer
Sometimes people have to blog about stuff in the manual just so people RTFM. I guess this post takes a snippet from the massive Big O wiki page and puts it in programmer's faces in a much lower dose. More people should be aware of these formal methodologies, whatever gets it in front of people.
Why is this so popular? There are more interesting ways to integrate physics in a classic game, like this one: http://www.referencegames.com/
But then we wouldn't have cool new words like "Contactus"
Are random people getting these emails, or YC applicants? If the latter, how are they obtaining applicants email addresses?
"Here are some wacky ideas for companies that Apple could buy ... General Motors ($3B), in case Jobs wants to reinvent the car."

Kind of fun to think about what an Apple-made car would be like.
The combination of the name and the investing in entrepreneurs premise seems like too much of a coincidence.