skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Outrageous success - genius or hard work ? Malcolm Gladwell analyses.
An extract from Malcolm Gladwell's forthcoming new book, "Outliers: The Story Of Success". Looks at Bill Gates, Mozart, Rockefeller and the Beatles.
"Just start writing" is a fiction thing.

The nonfiction equivalent is "just start writing index cards."
This comes down to negotiation theory. Is it better to make the first offer, or wait for the other person to make the first offer? I used to think "The first person to mention a number loses", but after taking a negotiations class and applying some of the concepts, I learned the power of anchoring the negotiation by mentioning the first number. After the first number is mentioned, you are now negotiating around that range. This has proven to be very effective for me.
Yahoo Layoffs Set for December 10 (And, No, Jerry Yang Is Not Leaving Too)
Obama Names FCC Transition Team
Record Labels to Sue Vuze, Limewire and SourceForge
I've just finished writing a book that will be published by O'Reilly next year. I'd echo your comments:

1. Write an outline. This is boring, but vital. If you don't do this you won't realize that extent of the task you are taking on. By writing an outline you are convincing yourself and a publisher that you can actually write a book.

2. Do some other writing first. For example, I wrote extensively for different magazines. This is both good practice and gives you sample writing to show to a publisher.

3. "Phone a friend" Do your best to find someone you know who can introduce you either to a publisher or to an agent. This also applies to getting VC funding, it's best to find some way in via someone your know (or someone someone you know knows) than just trying to cold call.

4. If you do get a contract track carefully your progress (I used a spreadsheet) so that you stay on target.

5. Do not get hung up on the right tools to use. I've written plenty of stuff in a text buffer in emacs, or in Word, or using a specialist XML editor. Your publisher may actually ask you to use a specific tool, and the reality is that the tool is the least important part of the process. Figuring out what to write, and then writing the sentences is hard. (I'm not joking about the last part)

6. Read your work aloud. After I'd written a section I would read aloud what I'd written to see how it flowed. And I'd modify, read aloud, modify, read aloud until it seemed smooth.
http://www.siport.com/ : SiPort is a fabless semiconductor company, incorporated in 2004, that received its first round of funding in 2005.

Sounds like they design ASICs for portable devices (audio, video decoders). Or perhaps "designed".

http://www.siport.com/management.htm : The system cannot find the file specified.

How morbidly apt.
Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect
I wonder if this will get more hackers to shower regularly...
How to get and format date in a bat file
Sooner or later everyone needs to mess up with some batch Voodoo
He doesn't 'make' $100k - that is the turnover. He will have expenses to cover out of this. I still think its a great story and is inspirational to people thinking about starting but don't confuse profit with revenue
Actually he asked for public comments, at the bottom of Peldi's post it says post advice in the comments.
Oh my god...
Misconceptions about testing (and what we should do about them)
Your first point seems entirely unrelated to the hypothetical situation.

With regards to identifying the traffic, that may be a valid concern and I cannot claim the knowledge to argue with you about it.

However, assuming the ISP were to discover some practical way to identify the traffic, it stands to reason that they could profit from reducing their bandwidth.
CohesiveFT VPN-Cubed: Not Your Dad's Encrypted Tunnel
They existed in a very primitive time when it was believed that gods were responsible for everybody. Mathematicians believed that what they did, they did for the gods. The belief system was very devout and, it it was still around today, fanatic.
Just because you can't touch something, doesn't mean it isn't real. Just because you do not understand something, doesn't mean it is made up.
The Decline and Fall of Agile
I use PowerShell for over a year. Console2 makes a pretty nice wrapper for it as well, giving you multiple tabs and cut/paste.
If you're interested in a decent shell on Win, you should check out PowerShell. I develop Python/Djanog on XP, and I live in PowerShell and iPython.
I always thought this kind of thing was always done by uneducated postal workers and the like. Pretty disheartening to see a fellow engineer act so stupidly.

Time to reconsider getting a concealed weapons permit I guess. Condolences to Agarwal and Pugh's (and anon woman's) families.
Bust finally reaches technology industry
Is this what the 80s recession felt like?
Google voice search available on iPhone now
* Distractions are minimized, including noise

* The body is engaged in a monotonous, mundane, or repetitive activity, freeing the mind to think about other things

* The environment is changed

Another activity that fits these requirements is running. It also has the added benefit of physical exercise.
Agreed. Works simply & beautifully. No firewall problems (works indirectly if it has to, directly if it can).

(It's just VNC with a nice native wrapper (both Mac and Win) that makes it painless for all involved.)
> Should we take a bet on that? I say that with no extra framework coming up that utilizes clojure, clojure will forever remain a small niche product.

I'm not sure how Clojure will play out but remember it's only a few years old. You could have said the same thing about Ruby in 1997.
it was bound to happen eventually. Isn't TC's tracking of layoffs now up to something like 60K people in the last 2 weeks?

With odds like that, it'll be impossible to find a new job...add on top of that the crappy stock market that wiped out people's savings, the downturn in the economy that slashed new job opportunities and many people simply won't be able to survive(hell this guy had a mortgage payment on top of everything else).

So they turn to blaming the guy who made their life miserable. And that would be the guy in charge, who yanked the ground from under their feet.
Unhappy people watch TV, happy people read/socialize
Techcrunch asks, is Obama ready to be a two-way president?
Your Favorite NP-Complete Cheat
Who Would You Finance? Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn?
The planning styles of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are compared.

Entrepreneurs are implored to write a Huck Finn Business Plan.
Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World
What will you do with the concealed weapon? Shoot his bullet in mid-air?
How To Get My Job
It surely is well written, but distilled to its essence, here it is: Our banks collapsed and our credit cards stopped working. Bad banks!

So there's no real subsistence crisis yet? I wish there was about how the people who were hit the hardest were coping, but then again I remember that Iceland's population is less than half that of Boston and wonder how much more press coverage they are getting relative to their population size.
Now why a population of 320,000 would elect to face these coming hardships by hunkering down and not moving to a more diversified and larger economy, that is fascinating and the author does speak about the cultural roots responsible for that attitude.
Get ZoneAlarm Pro Free | TechJaws
Can any one tell me what the tool he used to launch emacs was?
I've read that way the number is stated also affects the range. For example, 100 has a large negotiating range than 90, and 90 larger than 92.

I haven't had a change to use this yet, though....
I think it's the placebo effect. That's why I carry a homeopathic concealed weapon: a small vial of water with some floating specs of rust in it.
I haven't thought about that, but it definitely makes sense. Do you have a source on that?
Once try too hard to have a creative pause deliberately with what ever magic/shower formula you came upon it will evaporate. In the wise words of olbermann "Good night and good luck"
bold tags: just say no
I wrote a novel last year. For fiction, it helps to just start writing. It's much easier to revise what you've got than it is to start writing anew, so when you have time, just write. Get your ideas out. Once you have a lot, then you can begin to revise: get rid of what isn't absolutely necessary, make sure all of your sentences gleam. Revision isn't always fun, but it's much easier to get in a revising mood than it is to get in a writing mood

If you're writing nonfiction, I'd guess that you'd start by researching whatever you're writing about. George Carlin once said that as an older man, he could make logical connections in topics he could never talk about before, because his knowledge was more comprehensive. Same with nonfiction: the more you know, the more ambitious your writing can be. (Same for fiction, of course, but with nonfiction you're more often writing about a specific topic.)

In both cases, outlines help a lot, but it's possible to work without them. It depends on what you want to write, and how you go about writing it.
It's the tide.

Digital corporation: very profitable minicomputer business... until workstations were good enough.

Sun microsystems: very profitable workstation business... until microcomputers were good enough.

It's hard for a business to get back to where it was, when the very basis of its success is washed away. See "the innovator's dilemma" (actually inspired by the Digital story). You're right though, that Apple has done it... seemingly by shifting its weight to a different aspect of its business (consumer design) that was present all along. IBM has also done it (from cash registers, to mainframes, to minicomputes, to microcomputers, to today) - however, it seems now to be consulting-based (like Accenture), which is a different kind of business altogether, from IBM's traditional office automation products, but which was always present (like Apple).
Maybe prevent the deaths of two or more people? Is this really so far-fetched?
You are 80% less likely to die from a meteor landing on your head...
I was looking for a complete unit. Open EEG assumes you build it yourself with their schematics.
> strong correlation between wealth and freedom and gay rights

The upper classes carry themselves on with bourgeois family traditions whatever the legal environment. They don't personally see the disastrous consequences of family breakdown because their families remain whole, so they don't give a second thought to liberalizing laws. In poorer areas, the breakdown of family values is a real pressing issue. People see the social catastrophe around them and recognize the further threats.

Wealthier areas are more socially liberal because it's personally irrelevant to them. The areas are wealthy usually because of strongly bourgeois family traditions. Poorer areas are usually more socially fragile.
Did you notice all the references to Argentina in the comments for that post?
...and that's why I picked Django over Ruby On Rails.
My favorite NP-Complete Cheat: using A* heuristic search to find a solution in the graph of possible Rubik's cube configurations.
How to get Free Slots in Casinos?
rubbish, it's not available now at all.
Ha! I think I found some! correct google term "personal EEG". For example: https://www.transparentcorp.com/products/eeg/pendant.php
When I'm working on something difficult, I stay at home, and often average 3 or 4 showers a day.
Because:

(a) HR's job is to hire you for the lowest possible price.

(b) By telling them your previous salary, you've conceded a great deal of information about what your negotiating floor is.

Two very basic rules of salary negotiation, which process could not be further from market research:

* Don't name a number first (whatever number you give is the highest number that will occur during negotiation, even if their range went higher).

* Don't give up your "invoice price" --- the cost for them to move from your previous job without you taking a pay cut, or, worse, if you're unemployed, the price at which you'll think they're still doing you a favor.
HTC P3470 SMARTPHONE (UNLOCKED)
HTC P3470 has a superb touch-screen doesn’t mean its given up hope of incorporating buttons into the interface. In fact there are an assortment of buttons that will facilitate your call making experience. You have got a computer with 200 Mhz and 128 MB RAM.
I don't disagree that HR's job is to hire you for the lowest possible price. However, I see the information you concede as largely irrelevant if you are knowledgeable about the state of the market. As in stocks, past prices don't matter, only what someone else will pay right now.
Fastcompany writer complains about sexism on Digg. Digg bans 20-30 users for hate speech.
I'm tired of this. People have been "reporting" that this has already happened (or is going to happen in the near future/Friday night). Unfortunately, no update has come and no official Google Announcement has arrived. It looks like somebody got bad information and everyone in the blogosphere jumped on it.
Two bad things that can happen to you if you give up your salary history, even if both parties are rational:

(1) You can convince HR that it's not worth negotiating with you because your salary demands will end up too high.

(2) You can convince HR that it's worth lowballing you and then waiting you out as long as possible because your salary history demonstrates your negotiating floor is much lower than you think it is.

It's that simple. Of course, you don't have to take a crappy offer, but part of the point of salary negotiation is not to get crappy offers.
It's also completely useless for the police to carry weapons. After all, the best we can possibly hope for is that they might shoot someone's bullet in mid air.

Therefore, I propose we stop giving weapons to the police as a cost saving measure.
Perhaps this is one of the situations where "build one to throw away" is good advice. Once you've spent four weeks writing a sketchy book-length ramble on your subject of choice, you'll have a much better idea of the size of the task ahead of you, and plenty of ideas on how a much better book on the same subject would be arranged and written.

Then, don't start rewriting your manuscript. Burn it and start all over again.

I've never written a book, but I plan to eventually, and this is the approach I plan to take.
I think this clearly shows education doesn't have too much to do with mental health. People with a lot of education can be just as sad and disheartened as anyone else. Layoffs aren't a happy time for anyone, but for someone who was already in a bad place it looks like it can be a tipping point.
bubbles?
I generally take long showers (sometimes 45mins+), and this is exactly why. I just stand there in the water and think. Some people think it's weird, but there's no better time to design software or work over a problem you're having.
I checked out TeamViewer and really liked it. Simple, worked on all of my computers, and I like the idea of being able to buy a "license" instead of having to fork over a monthly service fee. But TeamViewer can't connect multiple people so I can't use it for presentations. Not for presentations involving more than one other person anyway.

This is still a possibility for support.
"VNC with a wrapper" worries me. I've had problems getting VNC working across corporate firewalls.
British police don't usually have guns, and I always felt safer for it when I lived there, fwiw.
AskHN: What browser and browser plugins do you use?
I was wondering what everyone else is using?
Yes, except for the feathered hair and skinny ties.
One of my friends (maybe he'll reply to this) gave his high school class president graduation speech about how he does his best thinking on the toilet.
Bicycling works better for me--smoother, less painful. The tricky part is pulling out a notepad and writing something down while dodging cars and jumping curbs.
normal use: safari with flash 10

web dev: firefox with firebug, live HTTP headers, web developer, tamper data
This is one of my favorite books. I always like how Twain depicted Huck as "everye man" - common sense always wins out in the end.
When I left finance, I hid my pay for the opposite reason of most people. I knew that most tech companies wouldn't match the absurd compensation I'd earned at a hedge fund, so there was no point in divulging it.

I'd never say, though, that I refuse to divulge pay based on a company policy. That makes the position seem weak. "I'm not telling you, because I'm not allowed." I'd make it clear that I'm not divulging it because I don't want to, and any company that wouldn't respect that desire on my part is a place where I wouldn't want to work.
You're first point strikes me as incredibly jaded. That may be the case at poorly run companies, but hasn't been my experience. As in most business relationships, the goal is not to screw the other party. The goal is to arrive at a win-win, where both sides can be happy.

Let's look at what I can expect if I screw someone over with the lowest possible salary:

* An employee who can justify doing the bare minimum it takes to get the job done, because after all, he's being paid the bare minimum

* Low morale. Can I not expect the individual to bitch about how poorly the company treats its employees?

* High turnover / no loyalty. How much money am I going to waste bringing people up to speed, only to see them hop to the next job as soon as possible? How can I expect to retain valuable employees when I don't treat them as valuable from the start?

It's a poorly run business that screws over it's employees, customers, and / or partners just because it can. I like to think most good business people recognize that that sort of approach does not yield the best results over the long term.

Frankly, I have no concerns about revealing salary requirements or providing salary history. If a company doesn't treat me fairly during negotiations that's a huge signal that it's not the sort of company I want to work for.
I remember reading that as well. Here is what Google turned up:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119410422/abstrac...

EDIT: information wants to be free etc.
http://drop.io/precision_of_the_anchor_etc
It's to do with brain chemistry, say psychiatrists. It can affect anyone, even well-off civil servants.

But losing your job is not a chemical imbalance, it's something real.That's harder to treat (I personally think psychiatric drugs should not be used when the problem is real).
The Greek's understanding of the after-life was nothing like that of modern Christians. They feared death pretty strongly (except for the stoics.)

It was said: "Better to be a pauper among the living than a king among the dead."
U.S. colleges scour China for top students
I write a small Mac shareware program. Perhaps the suggestion isn't aimed at me, but if I open sourced the whole thing, one person with enough knowledge could compile it and distribute to everyone else for free. I have little doubt that sales would be hit very hard.

Web apps might be a bit more suited to it once they have momentum and users. If Facebook released its source code (security issues aside), it wouldn't make a difference to them -- people join and use Facebook because all of their friends use it, and that's got nothing to do with the source code.
it seems that the five why's would work better when asked by a consultant who was brought in by management than by employees from the lowest rung of an organizational chart.

however, myself being one of those at the bottom, I definitely like stirring things up in the bigco where i'm currently employed.

I really try to get along with everyone and see each side of a story. that said, there are times when people can be unreasonable and I figure I can't please all people all of the time.

I believe my colleagues and even upper management understand where i'm coming from when I tend to disrupt their plans a bit. my manager even reminds the execs who I am saying, "that's just the way tom is". I haven't figured out if this is a good or bad thing as of yet - good. I guess.

I think the people I work with value my opinion and I understand that once my voice has been heard there's nothing really more I can do that moment to push my ideas and get them implemented with management's blessing. sometimes, some things still go forward without their approval but this is not the norm with me.

I take the oportunity whenever it avails itself to remind them of my ideas, gently nudging them in my direction. I follow up with research i've done which makes it's way into their inboxes.
from what I can tell, a little persuasion and a lot of repetition has it's advantages.

one thing is for sure. there is definitely a give and take in any dealings with people. I guess one must be prepared to lose a battle which can lighten the initial blow of rejection. just don't think the war (your cause) is lost due to one conversation across a conference room table.

I guess if the five why's don't work you can use the one big bye.

i really like discussing the personality of bigco management and simply wanted some more input than just 'beware'.

thanks.
More appropriate is the "law of extremely large numbers". The vast majority of people will not resort to homicide over a layoff, but 1 in 500,000 might, so when you have a few million layoffs, bad news like this occurs.

I think people are more freaked out about the economy than is necessarily reasonable. It's very bad, but it's not like the entire technology sector is in a hiring freeze. There are still good jobs available; it's just harder to find them. I actually think that this upcoming decade-long crisis will be good, in the long run, both for technology people and average Americans, because the bloat and parasitism of the corporate/managerial/financial class has essentially starved the real economy and those who work within it, and this crisis stands to bring about their demise.
If you knew that everyone else had the potential of carrying a concealed weapon, would you be at likely to shoot someone else?

In my state, Florida, it's relatively easy to secure the paperwork to carry concealed, and it tends to be a strong deterrant here.
Book Review - The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books
10 Years ago I was an uneducated postal worker

I can't remember having the urge of shooting my bosses or workmates
I would bet that these sorts of workplace homicides would decrease by 50-90 percent if our country did one thing right: implemented universal healthcare. I've been through layoffs, and the healthcare mess is the scariest thing about losing a job. Food and living expenses can be brought down, but healthcare premiums are ridiculous and inflexible.
There's real momentum behind data portability and that's likely to help all standards. However, I was very disappointed, when we were implementing FOAF, to find that the FOAF validator is broken. I took that as a sign that people had moved on to other standards (XFN+hcard).
Thank for the info.

I guess a lot of stuff from a couple thousand years ago are unreliable. cough bible cough
I guess I deserved that...heh.

My WordPress cache plugin got disabled in one of the many upgrades. Instead of serving 400 requests per second my server was serving less than 1.

Man, WordPress performance sucks...
He follows up here: http://wdr1.com/blog/2008/06/22/scribd-the-followup/
If you knew that everyone else had the potential of carrying a concealed weapon

...then I would probably never leave my house.
Why Obama should fill his Cabinet with geniuses
It makes me sad. Because the saddest news makes biggest headlines. And I hate this when people love disasters.
I'd rather hear the success stories.
Don't miss the punchline that is the first three comments.