skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
SMS will be fine, more popular than ever even. SMS advertising/marketing to VZW customers may have some trouble, which I'm not mad about.
World Bank Under Cyber Siege in 'Unprecedented Crisis'
ebay has shifted their focus away from online auctions into an online marketplace format. they've admitted it themselves, and their sellers are angry at it. if you don't call that struggling in their primary market, i don't know what is.

i never said that the company was about to go under, or anything, but their shift in focus and strategy is an indication that their auction model is failing and that they need support from elsewhere.

there's room for usurping the online auction house power.
I was hoping to read that "kills the SMS market" meant finally one of the carriers destroyed the market in the sense that it was now free and all other carriers would have to follow suit. :(
All You Zombies— The most craziest of the time travel paradoxes
I'm pretty sure sequoia doesn't have internships. Or, at least, they're not easy to get.
It should be good for them.

IIRC Nassim Nicholas Taleb speaks of VC startups as good "Black Swans" {in contrast to the bad Black Swans visiting the mortgage market, stock exchanges, and financial investing in general today). He also compares bankers (who wear suits and ties) with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and concludes that investment in the entrepreneur is safer. Aside: Taleb says not to trust any expert who wears a suit and tie. It sounds funny but he wasn't joking.

It's a good time to read "The Black Swan": it will help people re-align their investments and make better future judgements in their work and play.
This article has some speculation as to the motives for its relative stability lately:

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...
Salsa: A .NET Bridge for Haskell
Yeh I should have mentioned the times I've used SQLite was early in development, or one time when I created a script which would pump tons of data into the database in threads, which resulted in errors and missing data. I'm sure I could have added better error exceptions and keep retrying, but if you translate that to a multi-user app, thats just not going to cut it. A quick change to MySQL fixed it. :)

I do like SQLite, just not for anything where you cant control the writes per second, or need it to be high.
Motivation = Decision before Action — ‘How do I Get in Shape?’–Excercise Hacks for Entrepreneurs
Obama to eliminate all cap gains taxes for VCs and entrepreneurs
I was just watching Obama live in Ohio and he said he was going to put forward a bill to eliminate all capital gains taxes for anyone investing in startups. This essentially means that entrepreneurs and venture capitalists will pay no taxes at all. This is craziness, what's going on here.
It seems to turn every man into Orlando Bloom.
I can see this one better. I have FireFox 3.0.1
Headline is incorrect. The article says Warren Buffet is the richest _American_ - not the richest man in the world. Second, a post like this has little to nothing to do with Hacker News.
Supposedly one of (Sequoia partner) Doug Lenone's slides was "If the product is ready, cut the number of engineers."

That’s going to make it tough for to get and keep engineers. When hiring, there will be increased resistance to four year vesting and one year cliffs, especially when a product is close to "ready". The engineers that they have will be more likely to leave a 3/4 to "ready"product for another company/product that is only 1/4 to "ready".

“Cut engineers when ready" makes sense only for companies only have one product and it’s "done" at some point. Companies that work that way shouldn’t employ engineers - they should contract out.
No? Are we Brits feeling bullish?
i am not an expert, but i would guess that it would be temporary to stimulate the new business area of the economy.
Martti Ahtisaari: 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner
It isn't about better vs worse. It's about the right tool for a job.

For example, if you needed to store key => value pairs, how would you do that? If you use an array (array[0] = ('key', value')), you would have to iterate over the entire array to find the key you're looking for (Order n), but if you use a hash table, you can do key look-ups in constant time (Order 1).

MySQL's different storage engines provide similar opportunities to use different ways of storing data for different ends. MyISAM has amazingly fast read speeds, but is really poor under write conditions. Sounds like a crappy storage engine, right? Well, what if you have a table of zip codes and their geo-coordinates? How often are you going to be writing new data to that table? Every couple months in a batch update? So, if you put your postal codes in a MyISAM table you can take advantage of high read rates and ignore the fact that MyISAM is terrible for writes since you don't really write to the table.
It's also "politics"...
Seems fair enough to me. Entrepreneurs and VCs are major wealth creators. It doesn't make too much sense to stifle nascent wealth with blanket taxation rules.
Not crazy, and not exactly his idea (but might be a good one)

Just like 'McCain's idea' of buying up bad mortgages and re-negotiating new values/payments ... Hillary proposed it months ago.

Oh and davidw is right, politics as usual.
That's actually the only startup there that I might actually use. While that's not a barometer for success, it is a sign that it's solving an actual problem.

Needless to say, that video had my bullshit alarm firing all throughout it.
I'm a web designer, startup founder and Hacker News ...uh addict.

Drop me an email and I can probably help you out.
> It couldn't happen again precisely because policymakers know this history. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson remembers the mistakes of Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary.

Andrew Mellon remembered the mistakes of 1873....
Oh, hell! Don't ruin the story with a page of spoilers, folks.

It's a really nifty one to read.
Celtic and irish wedding rings and bands
At RingsFromIreland.com all our rings are bonafide Irish. Every ring we sell, be it made from heavy-weight Sterling silver, 14 karat or 18 karat White or Yellow gold,or Platinum bears the world-famous hallmark of the Assays Office at Dublin Castle.
It's important to get some research done. I'm not on the same scale of your project but I noticed my "market" was in dire need of something stable and easy to use. There was already existing ones but they lacked true usefulness and caged most users in

Without looking around and seeing what options are out there and what really frustrates users (In my case, browsing forums for that info.) then I would have never known how to go about building my app.
This has been part of his tax plan since at least last year. It is pretty vague however (see section II on page 3 of his tax plan http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/taxes/Factsheet_Tax_Plan_FINA...), for example he doesn't define what a "startup" is (e.g. does Bill Gates have to pay tax on his Microsoft stock?). In any case, it's not a new, off-the-cuff, erratic policy proposal.
See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=195959
Why would it want to come out? Why would it think in terms of "in" and "out" if it has no experience in the physical world where concepts like "in" and "out" are rooted?
I love Consolas at work but for Linux a great alternative is Inconsolata .. especially if you enable the smooth rendering
> The problem is that it is not necessarily harmful to them, but harmful to others (and encourages behavior to that effect.)

It's only harmful to others who decide to make the same mistake. It's useful to (different) others who observe and conclude "wow, that's dumb in 3D".

Someone else doing something different is a free (to you) learning opportunity. If it works, you can copy. If it doesn't work, you can avoid.

There are CEOs who are worth $240M/year in specific circumstances. Laws are unlikely to make the right call but the market will, rewarding folks who get it right and punishing those who get it wrong. What can be better than that?
Seems like nice guys. I'm sure they'll pick some good founders and probably help a few to succeed. But really, what the hell is up with the khaki pants and button-downs? Seriously, these are still software/internet startups.
I wonder to what extent this will put a dent in Twitter.
How is that crazy? Entrepreneurs are the ones that drive America forward. By encouraging investment it will make the country better and may very well rejuvenate the economy.
Except that all taxpayers are wealth creators, and this would just mean screwing the rest of 'em to benefit a small bunch.
Then alcohol is legalised, so the market (Mafia) turns towards narcotic drugs...
> Sarbanes-Oxley dodging Hedge Funds

Hedge funds aren't in trouble because US regulators couldn't make them buy dumb loan packages and the like. That's why the hedge funds have money to buy the good assets that are now on sale.

However, I don't know why foreign buyers bought those things, so I'll just note that they often tell the US how much smarter they are....
Insightful. "Fighting the last war" is one of the more popular ways for generals to utterly fail.
I'd love to order this one, but amazon.co.uk only seem to have it bundled with 5 other books, second hand, for the neat price of £170.

I see from wikipedia I can get the full text for free from online, but when I'm reading books, I prefer to have a proper book, and I'm not that keen on printing out a shitload of pages.

Online link for the lazy but interested: http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~mfedder/zombies.html
Since when were we under the impression it ever was?

I sure as hell know that I don't trust wireless; wired is bad enough. Tack on an open-ended medium to invite all of the fun guys onboard.
People here might also enjoy the film "Primer" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)
Brokers Hand on Their Faces Site
Or Backtype? My searches on press flip didn't have a lot of the stuff Google Alerts picked up.
Okay! That actually makes a lot of sense; I'd never thought of it that way. Thanks for the response!
Technically, I'm a non-hacker :).
Crazy in that it's a big shift. Crazier if it actually happens. I don't see anyone saying that it's a bad idea though.
Why young investors should "Stay the Course" and continue to invest
Elcomsoft is the same place where Dmitry Sclyarov worked when Adobe tried to put him in jail for breaking PDF "encryption": http://www.freesklyarov.org/
Agreed. Yudkowsky himself admits that the results are only anecdotal. The only people who can derive any sort of value are the participants.

He has said that the reason he doesn't release transcripts is so that naysayers won't say "I wouldn't have been convinced by that." -- which strikes me as a poor reason, because the naysayers are still saying that, even though they don't know what the argument was. The true effects of the secrecy are to preserve the air of mystery and allow the AI player to use a strategy more than once.
Try ultimate frisbee.
Behavior Driven Development of an API with Halcyon, Cucumber, and RSPec
Using subdomains with Django
Huh! I never read Heinlein - I thought he was a preetty bland writer stylistically. But that's a pretty excellent concept for a story.
I love how CNN and others run these pictures as if these "face palm" moments don't happen every single other day (even in good times)

FUD at it's best.
I talked to mine a little while after he got to college. I'd been there for a few weeks, and we'd been talking about how dull college was compared to the program we'd been at the summer before. (It was a very selective education-intensive month-long course, and I think we'd both describe it as one of those events that inspired us forward.) I asked him if he'd be up for trying to launch a web site business, and he said "absolutely." And, after talking about it for a while, we both agreed that if push came to shove, we'd both drop out rather than abandon the project, if it ever seemed like there'd be a foreseeable future to it. We'll hopefully be applying for this next summer.

I think you should try to get him excited with what you're doing, first things first. If he's passionate about it then he'll be that much easier to recruit.
Tech Players May Benefit from the Financial Crisis
also, http://sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com/
37 guys write great fiction but let's look at reality. Their pricing is cost prohibitive for truly small teams. If I were to use them as a "productivity suite" for, say, a one-two person team (the lowest possible pricing combo) it would set me back $804/year.

Given that an individual freelancer is the most common scenario as far as their potential users, they are probably severely limiting their sales by setting their pricing the way it currently is. Personally, I subscribe to their backpack service only. I would like to use their other services but the high price tag keeps me from doing so.

Or how about this from their Highrise website:

Basic plan - 6 users - $24

Solo plan - 1 user - $29

Does that "feel right" to you?
Also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=327427

While he is no longer playing, Yudkowsky offers to coordinate future AI box game pair-ups here:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/ais-and-gatekee.html
These are fun ideas. Of course, temporal paradoxes are a red herring I think. If one takes the Everett-Wheeler many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics seriously, there is no problem. If I go back in time and impregnate my own mother, this happens in an E-W parallel world, causing no paradox with respect to the world wherefrom I originated. The only "rule" I think is that whatever I do travelling back in time along parallel worlds is I musn't increase entropy "back in time" to the extent that the "net increase in entropy" across all worlds is negative. However, since time travel probably is an infrequent occurance, the entropic effect is likely negligible, so, basically there ends up being no way I can harm the laws of physics, etc. thru my time traveling. So in brief, to one and all I say, happy time travelling!! :-)
Another couple of quick questions: have you noticed notable improvements with your methodology? Or is it more of a keep in shape type thing? Could you email me whenever you have a chance. Thanks man.
Sounds like they only increased the speed of brute force attacks. Use a strong password and you'll be fine.

EDIT: That said, at least for me, the main reason I need wireless encryption is to prevent neighbors from using it. It would be silly to rely on wireless encryption to safeguard sensitive network activity. That's what SSH, SSL, etc. are for.
The VC fundraising cycle has something to do with this, right? I mean, if I understand correctly, if you dropped a few million bucks into a VC fund back in 2005 to become a limited partner, that money is locked up until 2010 or so; if you notice storm clouds on the horizon in 2006, you can't just cash out. At that point the VCs just have to do the best that they can with the portfolio they have, and you have to trust that the VCs will do their job competently.
Netbooks will boost Linux adoption, claims SUSE Linux vendor
Folks need to stop using this as an opportunity to push socialism. The only problems with the market are distortion by legislation and refusal by regulators to force the liars into the light.
Agreed. But they have lots of secretaries. Lots of hot, smiling secretaries. I need to schedule another appointment soon.
Interview with RingCentral: how to appear like a huge company, even if you're just one guy
Poll: How many hours of sleep do you get each day?
After having experimented with polyphasic sleep in the past I am back to normal. I would like how many hours of sleep you actually get each day. For example I need (and usually get) around 9 to 10 hours of sleep each day, while my fiancée seems to be fine on 7,5 hours.
Sleep is for wimps.
7 to 8
8 to 9
9 to 10
more than 11
I am an a polyphasic schedule. (Please comment for details.)
http://sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com/
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001674/
Ah, I read By His Bootstraps when I was like 16. I devoured tons of Heinlein novels, and various short story anthologies. It amuses me when I see a new sci-fi film and they're making out like "We had to research our science fiction to make this original film" when in fact the short fiction is far more gratifying than watered-down movies.
It's not even a paradox. It's entirely consistent - but kind of boot-strapped.
How big a sacrifice is this? In order for capital gains to get taxed there have to be capital gains in the first place. That look like a long shot in the short to medium term.
What kind of ring did you give? :)
This has been a part of Obama's tax plan from the start, FWIW.
Ok.

(I was using an actual timer when I compared them.)
Grand Jury Hands Down Indictment in Palin Hacking
> why did we have to get to this point before getting such sober advice?

My guess is they feel it necessary to smack some sense into relentless optimists they've funded.

Remember, If you made similar points two years ago you were ridiculed to hell or laughed at ... by the relentless optimists. I remember posting some good analysis of the housing market a couple years ago and seeing it down-modded to oblivion. It was only after the bubble burst that the very same links were front page all over the place.
Email Management: Should it Be the Next Killer App in Document Management?
It's better than Google Alerts, to some extent. It's good if you really want to eliminate all the noise. "Flipping" a story does help make the stream more selective in what it reports to you.
Having lots of young, nubile women around is a primitive Homo sapiens dominance signal. Gartner group pulls out this sort of stuff for their junkets.
My personal "fun" exercise is martial arts. There's nothing quite so motivating as someone swinging a live machete at you, and even the more boring static stances feel rewarding when you've advanced enough to be able to tell how they're helping you put your sparring partner on his ass.
> I'm talking about the drought in 2008 ( as compared to 2007 )

SOX raised the cost but it takes time for folks to develop alternatives. Some companies could afford SOX in 07 or (more likely) couldn't afford to change strategy. The 08 candidates had an extra year to find an alternative to paying the SOX cost plus they were less able to afford it.
Yeah. That's what drew me in to Uncov in the first place: Ted's ability to actually understand the technology behind some startups that really did things piss-awful. I liked that somebody was pointing out how bad some of the code behind these things was. Meebo in particular.
Radio Mobile - Free RF Design Software 
Radio Mobile is a free RF design software that was originally created for amateur radio applications but can also be used for commercial radio systems design. It was developed and continuously being developed by Roger Coudé (VE2DBE), an amateur radio enthusiast.
Radio Mobile is a free RF design software that was originally created for amateur radio applications but can also be used for commercial radio systems design. It was developed and continuously being developed by Roger Coudé (VE2DBE), an amateur radio enthusiast.
Great question.

My guess is that the Gen Yers will be most affected.

Here is my reasoning based on my moms family. She has 12 siblings.(No TV:) The stage is the Mexican crisis from 1976 to 1994. The older siblings had already achieved something when the crisis started and they fared ok, some even did very well. However, the younger siblings have always struggled. They entered the workforce just when the crisis started. And they were never able to do ok, even after the crisis ended. By that time they were in their late 40s.
It's deflation - everything is going down in price except the dollar.
I had to talk to a coworker who had this excellent idea, but either didn't realize it or didn't know how to "sell" it. So I told her, "this idea is great because of X and Y, and I want to help you develop it". She thought about it and agreed with me. So here we are trying to carry it forward!

I think you have to consider if your project is good enough for your friend to drop his work and come help you. And then consider if you can actually find the words that make him feel like that. But focus on enthusiasm and above all, honesty :)
This is stupid for two reasons:

(1) They're cracking pre-shared keys, which is the least secure mode of deployment for WPA2; they can "crack" it because it's essentially password-protected. Modern wireless security use crypto-strong keys derived from secure authentication. That's not how home wireless networks get deployed, but it is how corporate wireless networks are set up.

(2) Nobody who cares about security relies on WEP or WPA; they use 802.11 to set up an insecure last-mile to VPN through. Nobody has broken any popular VPN protocol in the last 5 years.
Social Media ABC's - S is for Smartmob
> I was just watching Obama live in Ohio and he said he was going to put forward a bill to eliminate all capital gains taxes for anyone investing in startups.

Remember that the "qualified investor" rules keep most of us out of a lot of startup investments.
Currency prices aren't affected by recession as much as they are by interest rates. The ECB has held really high interest rates through the past few years (which probably wasn't a good economic policy looking back). So, if you buy Euros and deposit them in a European bank, you get higher interest than if you buy dollars and hold them in an American bank. That increases the demand for Euros and when you increase the demand for something, the price goes up.

Recently, most central banks (including the European Central Bank) coordinated a rate cut to prevent the economy from collapsing even more than it already has. That means that European banks won't be offering such high interest as they used to and it means that the demand for Euros falls.

So, it's not the economy so much as a change in interest rate policy at the European Central Bank. The high price of Euros over the past few years wasn't a vote of confidence in the European economy as much as it was the high interest rates you could get in European bank accounts (when compared to American bank accounts).
Uhm. LOLcats anyone?
Try here:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1186838200

Just USD 7.35. It's a secondhand book, published in 1959!
When Companies Don't Fear Customer Support, Everybody Wins
> But I believe [the recession] will be longer and worse in the US than in many other places.

Why?
I get as many hours of sleep as I need. I don't try to keep to any particular schedule: When I'm tired, I go to sleep; and when I'm not tired any more, I wake up. Some days I sleep 5 hours; some days I sleep 11 hours; some days I sleep for two or more multiple-hour periods. I probably average about 8-9 hours.

Occasionally I need to be awake at a specified time (e.g., every Thursday evening, for rehearsals of an orchestra I'm playing with), but this very rarely interferes with my sleep non-schedule.
Excellent and oft-overlooked point. Yudkowsky's recent advice that a 'strong' effort leads to mediocre results, and that to actually progress you must strive as your life were at stake, fits fitness perfectly. Once you've picked off the low-hanging fruit by starting a regular exercise routine, you'll only get in really good shape by putting in a life-or-death effort.
Seriously? An article on how to download and install a deb package is HN-worthy?

I was really hoping there'd be something in this article to explain how to fix the bizzare issue I have with CoC, where when I click on the title bar, it jumps from my left monitor to my right monitor and the one where it won't let me maximize.
Memeorandum Colors: Visualizing Political Bias with Greasemonkey
Fun project I helped out on. I did the mathematical side.