skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In the UK the term "indecent" is used instead of pornographic.

The Protection of Children Act 1978 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Children_Act_1978 ) says:

The Act defines an indecent photograph broadly without defining the term "indecent"

It is possible for pornography to be considered indecent and not indecent in multiple cases - just because of the opinion of the judge and/or jury (where relevant).

On a personal level, I would consider "pornographic" to be something that's intended or designed to arouse sexually (in either a normal or perverted individual). Regarding the Virgin Killer cover, it appears to be a simple nude - no worse than paintings or sculptures of cherubs, though certainly contentious in our panic-driven culture.
Joel's article is about scrapping your existing codebase and starting from scratch. The discussion here is about a new version of the Python interpreter which was made from the old one by means of a bunch of incremental changes, and which will require a bunch of incremental changes in old Python code to run the old code. How is Joel's article relevant here?
Native english speaker, but I've known Spanish long enough that sometimes I think in Spanish.
Google Adsense: Not Worth the Time, Not Worth the Effort
When I saw the pictures from inside Pixar, I wasn't too surprised, but.. this is awesome for a company like Zappos. We know they're progressive, but behind closed doors progressive companies are often anything but.

The Zappos offices seem only a foot step away from a surf shack - what a stimulating environment!
I find it cool they give away free books to their employees (4th picture). Just another example of how Zappos does things their own way.

Another cool site featuring office pictures from Apple, Adobe, Craigslist, etc...: http://www.officesnapshots.com/
Is Google hiding a new OS?
RIM started in 1984 and Cognos in 1969 [!], so I'm not sure what conclusion you can draw from their early histories.

Also, RIM "was financed by Canadian institutional and venture capital investors in 1995" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_in_Motion).
MLM is not scamming the customers, it's scamming the "sales agents" by promising them riches most of them won't get due to ponzi nature of the scheme.
$399 + $25 Android dev signup is still cheaper than eBay. :]
Cooks at Taco Bell and McDonald's in the US make US$5-$10 per hour‚ which is up to a max of maybe US$6000 per year. Emeril Lagasse got paid US$9 million in 2005, apparently. Wolfgang Puck makes quite a bit of money too. According to <http://www.chefschoolreview.com/blog/2006/07/do_chef_salarie..., which also has a list of top chef salaries, "The average non-celebrity executive chef can earn between $125,000 and $250,000 but, according to foodservice.com, the average annual salary is closer to $60,000." There are some guys I know here in Buenos Aires who run a restaurant in their house a couple of nights a week, charging US$50 a plate for up to 20 people. Even they are getting 10× or 20× the pay of an average restaurant cook, and they only work a couple of days a week!
I am a committee, chaired by a hedonist
Thought the same thing. We need to get out a lot more.
AskMarkets Launches Prediction Market For Crunchbase. Who’s Going To The DeadPool?
Years ago you could play Tetris (though I think it was called Shapetris for copyright reasons) for money at WorldWinner.com, whose GUI was in Flash or Shockwave or whatever. I was really, really good at Tetris. Though I'm out of practice now, I probably had at least half of Gladwell's 10k hours of practice under my belt.

So, on World Winner I would get sick scores in the giant multiplayer tournaments there and still have like 1/10th of the score of the leader. I'm nearly certain they were bots. I remember seeing world champion scores back in the day on Ninetendo, and they weren't even double my high scores, so 10x would seem to be humanly impossible. The scoring system was a little different, but not that much.

Worse yet than the blatant botting, they had a ranking system that always forced you to play against people of similar skill to yours, so even in the head to head matches I'd quickly find myself playing against people (or bots) who had at least my skill level. That plus the 20% rake insured that even being in the top 0.1% of Tetris players wouldn't make you profitable, even if there weren't bots, which there almost certainly were.
Very original, it managed to just burn an hour of my life that I'll never get back! Has anyone got past 2:5 yet? I for one couldn't...
Sorry if this is misleading. I read the article on paper and that was the pull-quote. I decided to use it because the real title 'The upside of a downturn' was not descriptive enough to me.
Whenever there is an argument over whether something should be refactored, dont call a meeting(if it happens now). Just email with pros and cons(to as much detail as possible in a digestable way). Its easier to get lost in a conversation, but with email I feel its easier to convince and once pros and cons are listed for each of them, there is really a no need for argument. Usually something will come out as an obvious solution. Just my 2c
"I fell in love with a female assassin" - Jason P. Howe, the Independent, Colombia
http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...

"It is likely men, women and children will wear shoes for the foreseeable future."
I think is is a perfect example to explain how our brain stores memories and information (images, ideas, concepts, new things, etc). I'm not bilingual (I only speak English) but from reading everyone's comments on this page a clear pattern emerged:

To your brain, language is just another piece of information, normally used for expressing ideas, concepts, or new things you have learned. If you learn about a new thing while you're living in a country speaking the native language, your brain stores it together with the associated language, which you will later use to express that thing, even if you're expressing it after you've somewhat forgotten the language it was learned in.

This very clearly explains why most programmers will "think" in English when they're programming -- the majority of documentation and code is written in English and when they learn programming concepts, the concepts are stored in the brain along with the English language used to express it.

Our brain is constantly looking for relationships. I notice whenever I play a game on the computer, I instantly feel hungry -- even if I just ate. My brain associates "eating" with the activity "gaming" and tells my body it's hungry. In the exact same way, the brain stores the associated language with the new concept or thing when it is being learned. Taming and controlling this functionality of the human brain is very powerful and I think it's the basis of all habits and addiction. (I say "I think" because I have absolutely no formal education on this topic.)

This entire subject fascinates me as I have always wondered why learning a new language seemed so difficult to me. I often catch myself reading aloud in my head and quickly realize how much it's slowing me down. When I switch to "absorbing" the words instead of repeating them in my head, my reading speed instantly increases two-fold.

I'm going to write a post on my blog compiling and summarizing all the ideas and discussion on this page, so feel free to look for it on raamdev.com if you're interested.
Apple Computer: The (Very) Early Years
not much different than communication law in the United States really
"9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status"

I suspect differing in socioeconomic status would cause other differences too
Another interesting development is primary care for cash, or "direct primary care". Somewhere between retail health clinics at the low end and concierge medicine at the high end, these are doctors you subscribe with for something on the order of $50 a month for a personal relationship with a primary care doctor.

Because of the compensation model, they've embraced conveniences like e-mail, phone calls and text messaging for communication, as well as once-common house calls.

They're also able to better-compensate their doctors and provide longer, more immediate appointments because they don't have nearly the overhead of an insurance-financed medical practice. This could help stem the tide of doctors leaving primary care practice (http://www.entrepreneurialmd.com/index/2008/11/18/angry-prim...), a trend which does not bode well for the future state of preventative medical care.

It's a very early trend, but I'm looking forward to seeing it develop. I currently know of Qliance (http://qliance.com/) in Seattle and Hello Health (http://hellohealth.com/) in Brooklyn. For more, you can check out videos from each organizations' founder: Dr. Garrison Bliss (http://www.tvw.org/media/mediaplayer.cfm?evid=2008030136C...) and Dr. Jay Parkinson (http://vimeo.com/2082073)
When I talked to T-mobile, they said that in order for them to sell me the phone without contract (this was also $399) they would still need to have data plan added to my ongoing account. They said the phone will simply not operate without the data plan. This seems to support a recent report on excessive G1 roaming bill overseas, even though when the user did not even use the internet. I guess the G1 phone is pinging incessantly.

Anyways, this new Android G1 sale is great. But, my question is, can I use this phone with an on-demand data access. Or would it be restricted to use 3G, and without a data plan I would not be able to access Internet outside of wi-fi?

T-mobile's data plan is $35 a month. Very expensive...
People who are fluent in a foreign language actually learn to think in that language as well. They switch back and forth between modes of thought. This is why they can rattle off phrases in the language rather than speak it in the very broken manner that the less fortunate (myself included) would.
Brewster Kahle builds a free digital library (vid)
this is what you get for going macro kernel. in a micro kernel you'd just hook the debugger to the driver process.
I like how the explanation is automatically deprivation and no consideration is even given to the possibility of heritability.
A generally good article, but the last section, which discussed online medical records, was a bit vague. First, the author doesn't distinguish between enterprise health information systems (which doctors/hospitals use internally to create and maintain health records), and personal health records (such as Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health, which let patients aggregate their health information from different institutions). Although these two spaces are highly complementary (since health data will be interchanged between the two), they are different applications with different business models. Think of it as the difference between the software that Bank of America uses internally to manage its customer accounts, and a personal finance app like Quicken Online.

So when the author talks about VCs investing heavily in stealth challengers to Microsoft and Google, I'm not sure what he's referring to. The main reason Microsoft and Google are moving slowly is that the adoption of personal health records requires a lot of infrastructural changes: affiliations with hospitals/insurers/medical device makers/employers, adoption of standards for the exchange of medical information, and overcoming concerns over privacy and security. As a result, even if these startups emerge in 2009 with technology or business models that beat Google/Microsoft, I think it would realistically take at least a couple of years for them to gain traction. I would love to be proven wrong, though.
Or perhaps putting it in words makes you feel confident enough about the conceptualization to proceed with action. I often find myself doing far too much "planning" and "checking for possible errors/pitfalls" before taking action on something I have conceptualized (probably in part due to the perfectionist in me).
Does anyone know if there is anything open-source that is comparative to Rosetta Stone? I would like to learn Spanish and also brush up on my Italian a bit. I mention Rosetta Stone because I hear that it's the best language learning tool out there but I'm open to other learning systems as well.
Interesting.. I wonder if there is a viable alternative or major improvement to shoes in general. We haven't had too much innovation in that area, or at least I can't think of many.
What is it with these offices that look like some sort of nursery school? Nobody has adult tastes?
Well yeah; if you modify the OS, compile it and load it on your phone, you can't expect Google (or any other company) to support it for free.
BlackBerry PhoneGap Progress Report
Lots of new PhoneGap JavaScript APIs implemented for the BlackBerry. Geo, maps, telephony, SMS, vibration and more.
Best way to find a Software Developer for a startup
Brief Background: We are a brand-new startup and currently at an early stage of development. We are already working with several clients on an innovative solution that fits their needs. We are looking to hire a lead software developer who is passionate about technology and entrepreneurship. We'll give an equity stake in the company as compensation.

What do you guys think are some effective ways to find a great developer? What are the most important qualities of a good software developer?
Made in Ibiza
Great article. TweetDeck is certainly the best tool for managing community imo.
1. Unless refactoring existing code makes new code easier to write, or fixes existing but broken functionality. The design of least resistance may not be obvious the first time a section of code is written, and patching around the design is bound to result in less rapid progress on features than just refactoring immediately to save time and pain later. Not all time spent writing new code is time well spent, unless there is a line-of-code performance metric that needs to be gamed in order to appear productive.

2. Experience can be a bad thing, depending on how one relies on it. It depends on whether tone relies on rote memorization and verbatim application of things learned by experience, or whether one spends time analyzing what one has learned to understand when what was learned is applicable. It is quite possible that BigCanOfTuna's complaint is legit, that his boss writes code that requires a lot of additional work and attention. Or it could be he is refactoring because of trivial stylistic things, or just to refactor. I don't know, but I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt until he provides reason for me to believe he's just wasting time and trying to get his boss's hackles up.

3. And ultimately, you sometimes have to ask whether loyalty to your boss or the success of the company is more important, because these are not always mutually achievable goals. I may be reading too much into this, but you seem to be advocating a monochromatic, obey or leave, line of thinking.

At BigCo, it wouldn't be disastrous if you followed bad direction from a boss. You would be trading an insignificant amount of financial damage for political stability and security. I would still have a hard time doing this and would probably be quite demoralized at an employer that demanded it, but I can at least understand others aligning their priorities this way.

At a startup, unwavering loyalty to one's boss can potentially do much more damage, and deciding between financial success and political security isn't so easy, when forced to pick one or the other. The decision can
become even harder when one has bought into the vision of the company, and doesn't view what they do as just a job to pay the bills; they might not be prepared to leave just to avoid a struggle. This may sound hopelessly idealistic; so be it.

Ultimately I don't know what BigCanOfTuna's workplace and boss are like, what his priorities and goals are, and whether his complaints are legit. I do think he deserves more than a cursory dismissal as just another whiny kid who has to get his way.
>the company used a proprietary programming language and involved lots of domain specific knowledge

FogBugz developer?
Indeed. But it is, after all, the UC Berkeley News, so I don't think we could realistically expect anything different.
You will if you ever need to maintain or expand it for any reason, and the person you might otherwise call on to do so is unavailable.
IIRC, MLMs are only illegal if they pay commissions based on recruitment of other members.

If an MLM pays commissions on product sales (either directly or through your recruits), then it's perfectly legal.
Easy tutorial on setting up Amazon CouldFront with S3
It looks lively, but it also looks like they stuffed every single fun and lively object they could find inside their doors.

Maybe it's just the pictures but their office seems really visually crowded:

http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...

http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...
A common combination is to give some useful part of the subscription away for free (especially if this has little cost for you) and promote it. Getting traction for a free service is usually easier. Then charge something for more functionality. There's much to be said for high volume, low conversion models. If only 0.5% of your users convert to paid, but your free product is so good that you have a huge community, it's clearly worth it. An example might be AVG. Whatever you think of their virus scanner, the business model is working well.
Steven Pinker pretty convincingly demolished S-W (for me) in "The Stuff of Thought". He argues that there is an abstract linguistic framework upon which the concepts in a language are built, things like content-locatives, container-locatives, causatives, and much more. Recommended book.
Wish apple had this sort of program for devs in their iphone program.
They point you to the TMobile site to get more details about the hardware, so I think it is safe to say it is the same phone.

I bought one and asked for overnight shipping. So you can wait a few days and as me :)
The reason people use jQuery is because the default mechanism for accessing elements is longwinded and ugly. It's the exact same reason people use xml.etree.ElementTree over the W3C-style xml.dom.minidom in Python's standard library. Assuming that people want rid of it completely because they want a better interface is a rather bold assumption, especially when you consider the flexibility using the DOM provides.
It takes one to know one. I'd find somebody technical to do your hiring for you.
And be caused by other differences as well.
Interesting idea, very unique, and even though I use fedora and osx I would rock one.
Apple: Your hurting you're image lol
Not true in the United States; we've had an alternate minimum income for quite a while.
I am in the process of implementing Authorize.Net CIM for http://statzen.com.

We are a subscription based service so I think it makes sense.
Ask YC: Review my Website, Being Served from My Laptop Right Now - dev.trailbehind.com
The ratio between amount of users in my startup and twitter mentions of it is way over 1000:1.

Twitter is very far from mainstream.

The search/RSS advice is solid though - creating an RSS feed for search reults on your company name in both twitter and google is just plain common sense right there. Any ideas for other places where I need to create an RSS feed?
This is going to be big. It may be as big as Google. It may be bigger.

Quick summary: Everything on the web becomes programmable, mashupable, combinable, commentable (with whatever kind of comments/attributes/properties any and every user wants) and searchable ditto.

Somebody fund this guy!
It'd be nice to hint about what you're offering before having to enter a zip.
Heh, no. Probably shouldn't mention the specific company...it was a Boston-area firm that's big in the medical billing software space.
>>which got an ok from the SEC to increase their leverage.

Agreed. But it isn't "deregulation" to give only the 5 largest investment banks (which were systemically important) an exemption to leverage rules governing all other banks -- that's regulatory corruption.

Also, the private i-banks levered up to 30-1, but fannie and freddie went to 130-1 (they may be actually be more leveraged now that they are under government control). And the Federal Reserve is levered over 55-1 today.
When does it ask for a zip code?
Depends on the focus and audience, I guess.

I have a Ruby blog with about 18000 subscribers and about 400 choose to subscribe via Twitter. Hardly a great percentage, but not bad. Another has 3600 subscribers and 400ish Twitter followers too which is much stronger.

I also have a new iPhone blog with about 1500 subscribers so far, but 250 extra on Twitter - so.. a very vocal audience is there if you're willing to engage.
Google's Invisibility Cloak
Regardless of the myriad of positive and negative comments they've received, they've made it into the NYT and their names are on the record. Not a bad result for them overall since at least we all know who they are now ;-)
From what I understand, Einstein taught himself to. Is it the same with Grandin?
I wonder if there are two programmers in the world who can agree on the best way to solve a problem.
(solution. figure it out yourself, or you'll be sorry!)

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"So a startup with 3 founders would need closer to $15,000/month of revenue."

This depends on where you live. I'm just starting a project with one partner -- we are both entering forties and have two kids each -- and even with another employee we plan to live comfortably while burning under $10k.
Fire hazard, much?
Shoes used to be made out of wood. Now they have ones with a miniature finger operated air pump. That's progress!
Hello all,

A while back I got frustrated with the folders full of disorganized bookmarks I'd accumulated. After some thought about how to solve it I built an app that's working well for me. I'm soliciting feedback to see what I can do to make it work well for other people.

clipng is based on the following ideas:

- I'm usually only interested in part of a page (a particular insightful piece, code snippet, recipe, etc)
- If I could collect the good parts all in one place then I could tag them and make them searchable.

To implement this I made the following:

- A bookmarklet that, when clicked, collects the current selection and some information about the current page (I call it a "clipping")
- A site that handles tagging and indexing for your clippings (I used App Engine)

Enjoy,

-Choong
Ask HN: Blogs focused on smart software design
I read plenty of blogs on coding and running businesses, but don't know many that focus on making good design decisions. I mean things a product/program manager would do, like:

- Coming up with creative solutions to design problems

- Creating good usability/user experience (e.g. Usability Post, http://www.usabilitypost.com/)

- Scalable, extensible design or architecture (I see this a lot in discussions of standards and programming languages)

Does anyone know of blogs focused on smart design? (It doesn't even need to be focused exclusively on software; good/bad design can be spotted in all kinds of technology.)
I'm sure the weekly standard isn't too popular here but they ran a great cover story called "The Infantilization of Corporate America," that was pretty funny and it speaks to your comment:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/00...