skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is certainly part of it. The powered landing will give them precision control to touch down right on the launchpad instead of having to pick up the assets at sea, saving lots of time and money. But it also allows for a module to land on the Moon or Mars. Mars has an atmosphere, but only with about 1% the density of Earth's, so for vessels with this scale of mass, parachutes aren't much use, besides the issue once again of being able to position your landing spot precisely. Supposedly at every design step where it's applicable Elon has opted to make everything as ready for Mars as possible.
Ig Nobel Prizes, aka Silly science prizes
I don't understand how you're having a problem with this. Looking at a good year (I chose 2005) we had $2.1 trillion in federal revenue (http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2005USbn_12b...)

If we managed to increase that by 40% that would generate an extra $840 billion per year.

(Keep in mind that's massively generous because that would mean a 40% increase in everyone's taxes not just the top earners)

The total debt right now is $14.7 trillion. Even the most conservative CBO estimates had us adding $700 billion per year to the debt (usdebtclock.org) and those were very conservative estimates.

So your 40% increase doesn't even deal with the deficit. Much less the debt or the unfunded liabilities.

And that's assuming you could get that. My original point was people will subvert the tax code when tax rates get high enough to justify accountants and lawyers to do so. That's why a 90% tax rate didn't produce dramatically more revenue per capita.
I mostly agree. If we're talking about employees, California is a Right-To-Work state, so an employment contract is effectively bupkis. In my experience, this is very beneficial for both companies and employees.

Things get stickier if money has changed hands. In that case, you've probably got grounds for a civil suit at the very least, but beyond that, you take your licks and keep on going, which is what it sounds like the author has done.

Cofounders aren't just employees, though. They're also shareholders, as well as nominally members of the board. That confers a different set of legal responsibilities. I'm not a lawyer, though, so I'm not sure if being a corporate officer puts you in a different position regarding employment contracts than just being an employee.

Overall, I think we would agree that Ted's actions were highly unprofessional.

Once you've signed a contract, you're committed.

If you're going to bail, bail before ink hits paper. If you aren't sure about working with someone, make your reservations clear from the get-go.
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I'm reminded of http://twitter.com/#!/devops_borat - minus the extraneous words.
Peter Norvig: A Look Back at a 1966 Scientific American Article
Erlang came out in 1986, and was used in production systems shortly thereafter. The world really is just catching up to the state of the art of the early 80s.

Ryan is right. Most of the software we use is crap. That's because Worse is Better.
It would be ironic if the "just solve the fucking problem, damn the details" attitude espoused in this post is the reason everything is so fucking complicated.

(I honestly am not trying to imply that that is the case; I'm just musing.)
The 'signed papers' is where the douche-baggery starts. If you're not going to commit, keep ink away from paper. Period.
Don't forget node.js -- "Node is fucked too. I am also one of these people adding needless complexity."
Yep, generics, my bad.
Great post, and I'd add one thing:

> This sounds like a quote by Herbert Hoover.

The current approach by Ben Bernanke of printing money is a reaction to the Great Depression, in which the money supply contracted. There seems to be little attention paid to the Hoover phase before it, in which many institutions failed. This purged many of the weak institution, and probably more than a few not-so-weak ones.

Purging weak institutions before making cheap money available to the banks would have been a helluva lot more sensible than the Great Giveaway that occurred.
It does mean that their lies can be tagged back against them.

A name, a "real name" has a certain irrevocability to it.
It turns out that basically every grocery store in the country is a no-fee ATM for withdrawals.
I was hoping someone had a text version. This form is like a video: I could read all of that in about 30 seconds, probably, versus clicking through for one sentence at a time over 10 minutes. I don't need 40 drawings of smiley faces to understand this.
I special case games because I play them on consoles and therefore have compartmentalized them as appliance functions, and not the massively complex pieces of software that they are.

The list of software that I actively despise, however, is finite, but unbounded.
Not true. If you have investors and two cofounders, both cofounders will have less than 50% even with an even split. And a cofounder coming on after a lot of work has been done doesn't deserve a full equity split.
Thank you for your answer.

I understand I have to talk to a professional. Asking on a place like HN however, allow me to be better prepared when I eventually do so.
No, 25% makes you a sucker -- as much risk as the true founder but 66% less reward and 0 real control. (Obviously assuming 2 founders. If 4 founders then my point doesn't apply.)
Important Note: This is based on StatCounter, which is definitely not indicative of the overall web. Something like Net Applications gives a much more accurate picture and shows Chrome at 15.51% at Firefox at about 22.57%: http://www.webmasterworld.com/r.cgi?f=145&d=4368971&...

It does vary a lot by geographic region. Europe shows higher Firefox numbers. And, if I recall correctly, Firefox is number one in a few countries (Germany, Russia).
Reid's Python Quiz
My aunt had nearly the same thing happen to her--it left her with no visible scars (at least none that she told me about), but blind in one eye.

The reason medical professionals recommend parents let their children catch chickenpox is because it the symptoms get worse the older you are. In your later years it can even be life-threatening. Never underestimate the chickenpox!
Is it because there are so many programmers?

Doesn't he hate that a 50,000 LOC VM linked to C++ libraries is more popular than a 8,000(?) LOC language that solves the same problems and more?

It doesn't matter for most end users but it sucks to be the one to deal with V8's GC, lack of continuations, design by committee language, etc. But there are more bodies in his corner, dealing with that complexity.
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Imagine your ISP is some guy that goes wherever you go and sees whatever you see and hears whatever you hear and so on.

Now imagine that the guy is willing to share that information with others due to court order or a nominal fee.

Your analogy works if you imagine the privacy issue is other internet users seeing what you are doing while they are going about doing whatever it is they are doing.

Unless you have a direct connection to the Internet that does not go through a third party everything you do on the Internet is open to the possibility of being tracked. You use a gateway to get to the Internet and you are not the gatekeeper.
What’s contained in a boarding pass barcode?
I don't use debit. Pay off the credit every month. Get rewards points for it. Just no reason to use an additional separate card.
I've been tempted to write rants like this before. Ryan's point seems particularly centered around Unix, which makes sense. My experience of trying to get stuff done in Unix has taught me that it is a really powerful, extremely well-thought-out way to waste my fucking time.

All of it. Down the fucking toilet, and for stuff I don't give a shit about. Every single goddamn thing I try to accomplish while setting up a server involves a minimum of 1 hour of googling and tinkering. Installing PHP? Did you install it the right way? Did you install the special packages that make it secure and not mastadon slow? You want to create a daemon process? Hope you found the right guide! Setting up a mail sever? Kill yourself.

For some people, this is not the case. They have spent multiple decades breathing in the Unix environment, and are quite good at guessing how the other guy probably designed his system. And they don't mind spending the majority of their productive hours tinkering with this stuff. But I don't have time. I don't care. I don't have time to read your 20-page manual/treatise on a utility that doesn't explain how to actually use the thing until page 17. I don't want to figure out why your project doesn't build on my machine because I'm missing some library that you need even though I have it installed but some bash variable isn't set and blah blah blah blah.

The problem with Unix is that it doesn't have a concept of a user. It was not designed that way. It was designed for the people who programmed it. Other pieces were designed for the people who programmed them. If you are using a piece that you built, then you are a user. Otherwise you are a troublesome interloper, and the system is simply waiting in a corner, wishing you would go away.

And yet...we put up with it. Because there isn't a better option. Because it's our job. Because we'd rather just bull through and get things done than spend an infinite amount of time fixing something that isn't fixable. Life sucks, but NodeJS is pretty cool.
There is a transfer of wealth here simply because the person who gets the name had the knowledge to get the name. (As Zuckerberg said to the Winklevi). And knowledge it took.

It's not something anyone I knew did. I didn't get the idea from anyone or even read about anyone doing this type of thing. It was totally organic.

And it wasn't something my sister or her uncle had either the knowledge or the skills to do. I knew perl and shell scripting and had worked with Unix for some time. (Back before the Internet with 1 or two books on a machine that costs $40,000 that I paid for in 1980's dollars. Meaning $40,000 in 1985 for an AT&T 3b2-400 back when that was simply not done at a company that size at that time.) My point being that I didn't just wake up in the morning and buy a pack of gum and make money.

It's not like patent trolls because there are many possible names that someone can use for their business. And if they have a trademark for a particular term then this is a non issue because there are procedures for getting that domain name (UDRP and other legal procedures). Which by the way are slanted against domainers. (And domainers know this by the way and take it into account in their dealings if they are smart.)
So after toying with it for a couple of hours, here's what I've seen:

I think if the method is named 'Async' (such as GetReplyAsync() *) , you can call it asynchronously with the new await in C#, and using Task<T> as the return type. Only methods that are lableled async implement the new 'await'.

Some of the old .NET methods had 2 API's - synchronous & asyncrhonous. Some of the synchronous implementations, as pointed out in your link, have been deprecated.

A few of the async methods I have seen (which do not have Async in the title), only accept the old IAsync/callback and do not work with await. Presumably, they do not implement the new C#5 style of async yet. Hopefully, they will at some point, because I'm a big fan of how clean & readable async C# can be now.

Again I haven't explored C#5.0 thoroughly, these are just my first impressions.
Serious question: has anyone gotten anything out of these browser-based language playgrounds? I just don't think it's hard to download the real thing to try it, so I thought I'd ask if anyone has really been inspired by it.
This is a very intelligent reply, thanks. Yes, kindle is available everywhere, and that won’t stop any time soon. And I’m sure Amazon would be happy to subsidize other tablet manufacturers who make their content available.

However, If Amazon don’t become a major tablet player, they are at the mercy of the tablet manufacturers. Terms could change at the drop of a hat. Amazon could wind up bidding for access.

If Amazon become a major player, they can sleep at night. They don’t have to worry about Apple demanding 30% or Samsung going into the content business and cutting Kindle out. They can farm their customers for profiling data that they themselves will use to sell more products.

Kindle everywhere is a no-brainer strategy, but it can’t be the only strategy, otherwise Amazon will find itself squeezed. Far better to have Kindle everywhere while simultaneously taking market share away from the tablet manufacturers that are erstwhile platforms for Kindle.
Thanks for the details. Merchant account setup with intuit through recurly was very easy though, we had that setup within a few hours. At this point, sounds like stripe would be cheaper though (~50 paying customers at $40 a month).
Actually, since HIV infects the blood (white blood cells, specifically), it's a rather accurate measure of its effectiveness.
That is true.

Depends on how trustworthy we think security certificates are in the long run.
There's nothing special about getting "cash back" from a grocery store, there aren't any special fees associated with it. You're just buying cash from the store, it would be no different than if it had a stack of individually barcoded $20 bills on the shelf that they charged $20 each for.
Look at Iceland.
Marco.org redesigned.
Herbert Hoover is a bit more complicated than even your more nuanced take on him. He did come to a somewhat activist government in the second half of his term. Of course, his real but somewhat muted response to the Great Depression led FDR to attack him. But from the Right, using populist rhetoric about government debt and wasteful bureaucrats.

Hoover wasn't evil as you point out, but nor was he an ideologue who refused to choose the best policy because of prior beliefs. Believing that story line makes us blind to learning from his failings to better ourselves. To wit, his great vice wasn't lack of compassion or intellectual arrogance; it was simply a... lack of boldness.
> Bold regulation on banks and insurance companies is necessary.

What about bold regulation on the regulators and the politicians? You remember them - they thought that subprime mortgages were a good idea, that everyone should own a house, so any bank that wouldn't play ball didn't get to play.

You remember Fannie and Freddie - they lied about the fraction of the market that was subprime, so everyone's risk calculations were wrong.

> Often the laws are written by the industry they're intended to police (cf. health insurance).

Actually, they're always written by the relevant industry.

> That's a horrible strategy.

However, like gravity, it's how things are. Any plan that assumes otherwise is doomed.

> This sounds like a quote by Herbert Hoover. Contrary to history's view of him (which is intensely negative) he was a very intelligent and probably a good-hearted man. He, however, believed that there was absolutely nothing government could do to save the economy, and that letting the beginnings of the Great Depression go unchecked was the least evil action. He was wrong.

And, you're completely wrong. Hoover tried stimulus after stimulus; he dramatically increased spending. FDR actually campaigned against the spending and changed course upon taking office.

Both Hoover and FDR believed that the great depression was caused by excess production, so they both tried to restrict it. FDR didn't give up until it became apparent that an "arsenal of democracy" had to actually produce lots of stuff.

This "war on production" is now credited with putting the "Great" in "Great Depression", that is, with making it last as long as it did.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonge...
Rhino is slow, but it's freaking awesome if you need to write an algorithm that can run in the browser and on the server. Much much much nicer than having to maintain two implementations in two different languages.
For the voltages here any used ATX power supply will work.

Instead of this box you could just clip the appropriate wires for the same effect.

What I really want is a variable voltage supply easily made from any old ATX PSU. As an amateur that would be an invaluable tool.
Here is a list of online banks and credit unions you might want to consider:

Ally: http://Ally.com

INGDirect: http://INGDirect.com

Fidelity: http://personal.fidelity.com/accounts/aong/fcma_learn.shtml

Schwab: http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/checking

Everbank: https://www.everbank.com

Alliant FCU: http://www.alliantcreditunion.org

Incredible Bank: http://incrediblebank.com

Salem Five Direct: http://www.salemfivedirect.com

Bank of Internet: http://www.bankofinternet.com

PerkStreet: http://www.perkstreet.com

Personally, I'd go with Ally. Free ATM rebates. Competitive interest rates. Easy to set up automatic transfers to savings. Free ACH transfers. Remote deposit being rolled out now.

You can't go wrong with any of the other banks either (ING and Schwab are great also), but Ally really has a nice offering.

Also, be careful when and where you use your debit card.

If someone gets a hold of your debit card info, they are accessing your cash directly. With a credit card, they are creating a future liability (no cash out of your account). Further, the consumer protections are not nearly as good on debit cards as they are for credit cards.

I talk about this at length here: http://www.seedlingfinance.com/443/why-i-always-use-a-credit...
As a long time (relative) Chrome user, I've recently switched back to FF. I need video ad blocking (ESPN for example). I'm sick and tired of watching a 30 second video ad, followed by 15 seconds of content. Chrome cannot block video ads do to the plugin being javascript. Firefox is native C code, so apparently it can.
While the shuttle was technically 'reusable', it required a lot more retooling between flights than simply putting more fuel in the tank. It was a _very_ complicated machine, and invariably needed to have various components and consumables replaced after every flight.
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No one seems to be adding: in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy
Total tax burden is a vague term. They could easily mean total Federal tax burden since they're comparing countries. This NY Times article pegs the total U.S. Federal tax burden at 20.7% which makes the numbers you quote seem dubious

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/how-much-americ...
The US has a wide range of ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity that throws off a lot of statistics when compared to other, relatively homogenous developed countries.
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Groupon Quietly Rolls Out E-Commerce Service
I don't care at all.

If google does something like that it wouldn't take long until someone forks Chrome.
He had me until the last paragraph... "if you spend time configuring your window manager or editor..."

If you don't take the time to configure your editor properly I do not want to collaborate with you on anything. Ever.
Supposedly at every design step where it's applicable Elon has opted to make everything as ready for Mars as possible.

Absolutely correct. I got that vibe from all employees I listened to yesterday. The underlying motivation of the company is: to go to and colonize Mars. Everything they do before then is to gain credibility, survive, and fund R&D toward reaching their ultimate goal.
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The iPhone is a miracle the size of a deck of cards. A lot of the standard apps are a joy to use. (The annoyances arise more from the business side than the nature of the software or the device itself.)

I'm not an iPad user but it makes a lot of people pretty happy.

Chrome is usually a pleasure to use. Firefox used to be that way, and they are starting to regain my trust again. I feel good about using Firebug as well.

Skype has some irritations, but for the most part it's still marvelous to open up a video chat to fucking Zanzibar whenever I feel like it.

vim is not always easy, but wow is it rock solid.

Upgrading Debian works very well for me at least, thanks to the miracle of apt-get. Debian itself, well, it's not winning usability awards, but still....
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Good old fashioned price discrimination? Why not try to sell a domain name to a struggling startup for $250 and the same domain name to a random BigCo for $2,000?
Ludumdare October challenge: Finish a game — Take it to market — Earn $1
One gentleman has done a writeup on creating a variable supply from an ATX.

http://hackaday.com/2010/12/09/atx-psu-turned-into-an-adjust...

It might be a good starting point for a kit which doesn't require a modification of the power supply itself.
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If we're going to do bailouts, we had better make sure the same misbehaviors can't happen again.

We've been bailing out too-big-to(should)-fail, crony corporations ever since Chrysler in 1979. And they die slow deaths regardless of how many taxpayer dollars line their executives' "golden parachutes". Let the strongest survive and the weakest find new careers. That's how you get "management changes".

[Hoover] believed that there was absolutely nothing government could do to save the economy, and that letting the beginnings of the Great Depression go unchecked was the least evil action. He was wrong.

Well, if he believed that, he had a funny way of showing it. Maybe he didn't intervene as much as FDR, but he was a lot closer to FDR than Coolidge:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/uoc--hps08190...
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2.9% and 7 days. if you are still using it, you are infant in this entire thing.
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I have a friend who knows some HTML and wants to start programming. I sent him this and the JavaScript variant (on HN recently) so he can see if either language looks less scary to him.

Personally, I love browser based language introductions. On OS X for example, many Rubyists will tell you to install brew or rvm or rbenv, then a more recent Ruby (1.9.2 or 1.9.3 or...), then TextMate or more stuff for vim, ...
To quote Douglas Crockford on JavaScript, "Lisp in C's Clothing"
I lie that, but I think the article implies that unequal societies encourage migration:

> unequal sharing of scarce resources created more incentive to migrate in search of additional resources.

In other words, societies where some have less encourage the lesser havers to move in search of better opportunities. So you are right, with the added benefit that even in other times, the lesser are encouraged to migrate and spread.
Before I learned a Lisp, I agreed with that statement. Now, I think nothing could be further from the truth.