skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Why shouldn't a lender be a able to offer a contract that allows them to increase their fees when the borrower shows themselves to be a less than ideal credit risk at some point in the future?"

Same reason as the Mortgage Industry. The credit card issuers have been irresponsible to the point that the entire system is in danger of failing. They have lent so much money to so many people who can't afford to pay it back that it appears likely that there is going to be a huge cost to society, including those who have behaved responsibly.

In other words, we do not only have to protect consumers from their inherent irrationality. We have to protect society from the inherent irrationality of the financial industry as well. If this is not true, please explain to me how we would not be better off right now if there were regulations in place that could have prevented financial companies from taking on the amount of risk that resulted in the vaporization of Wall Street.
Woah... Be wary of that attitude for there lies the path to C++ hell. Like people say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
That's great validation, to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke:

> If an elderly but distinguished expert says that something will be successful he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it won't, he is very probably wrong.
In other words, qaw.q3@a
Step 4: ????

Step 5: Profit!

I'll show myself out...
Hmm, I hope spammers don't try to use this as a defense in court...
Free millionaire dating & vip club for successful rich wealthy men and beautiful girls
Hollywood, Drugs & MLM: the Shadow Side of Startup Culture
Widescreen is here to stay, I'm pretty sure.
I may actually try this. I think I'll pick up a timer after work.
Ah yes, I tried that for a while. Even wrote an article about it: http://www.inter-sections.net/2008/04/23/de-batching-or-how-...

It works well, but gets boring after a while... I've found it works best when you're drowning under a sea of small tasks.
you should post your email address in your profile
"In the short run, I think you are confusing the end of the artificially high good times substantially fueled by these people "screwing themselves" with an absolute reduction in relative purchasing power (or other measure of "goodness") for people who didn't participate."

The entire U.S. financial industry and the entire U.S. auto industry have, for all intents and purposes, been vaporized out of existence. To me, that seems a pretty high price to pay for "artificially high good times." Enough so that regulations that would have kept the good times from being quite so good in exchange for the down times not being disastrous, are more than a fair exchange.

Do you disagree?
Concede the point on bonds held to maturity; you're right.

Private student loans are variable interest rate loans, many at the whim of the providing company. (I'd agree that private student loans are much closer to evil than revolving credit, and that more education is due on both topics to consumers of both types of debt. But I'm still not in favor of restricting the availability of a financial product that might not be in any given consumer's best interest, so long as it is in the best interest of some consumer.) Govt-backed student loans are as you describe.

As to the over the edge "problem", that's a problem of the consumer's making+, and a creditor acting in their own best interest probably OUGHT to tighten credit for borrowers that it identifies, even on an acturial basis using information unrelated to the direct consumer<->creditor interaction, as being a higher risk.

+ - Debtors who are not in over their head generally don't face these problems.
Can you run an entire business using only free and open source solutions?
Until "Tallscreen" is released in 2015 or so.

Now get taller screens! Yes throw away all your existing screens, tall is in, wide is out! buy buy buy!
Could be Apple's way of addressing the recession. Give people a viable, lower cost option to continue moving from Windows to Mac. People who were willing to pay for a MacBook to move from Windows to Mac last year might be more price sensitive next year.
Disruptive Music-Making Technologies
We have disagreed quite strongly on some project management topics... :-) (particularly to do with the need or lack of need for "business analysis")

Happy hacking!
"I could no longer read an article about chinese mayors and give it any credence given Murdoch's ownership."

Is there evidence of inaccurate reporting at the WSJ, or are you just basing this on the fact that Murdoch also owns Fox News?
Only most good programmers know that they're never going to be paid what they're worth while working for a business major (or any non-programmer). And more and more of them are starting their own businesses and doing coding for themselves.

In fact, many non-programmers realize that they would rather have someone who does the same thing they do, be their boss. Hey, want to have a job that's quickly becoming obsolete? Switch to business major! Then you can get drunk most of the time too.
How Hadoop Map/Reduce works
My point is I am not in debt over my head in part because I am considered a low risk. My car loan is at 4.9% and my CC debt is at 9%. If my interest rate where to grow to 12+ on the car and 33% on my credit card I would have far less slack.

Edit: Ok, running the numbers it would not be that bad but I would become far more focused on having zero debt.
Legislator Drafting Bill to Outlaw Non-Compete Agreements in Massachusetts
> Without guns and bombs I think the conflict would have ended sooner. Well trained armed forces using bow and arrow are extremely effective to the point where untrained forces have little chance of winning. For a historical example consider what the mongol army did and how long it took. The reason why insurgency and non traditional warfare has become effective is how little training someone needs to use hit and run tactics and a gun.

Counterexample: it took Julius Caesar 7 years to conquer Gaul. Then there's the Hundred years War, fought over much the same terrain.

Some other modern examples: Iran-Iraq War: lasted 8 years, was a draw; 1991 Gulf War: lasted one month.

German invasions of France: 1970 - quick victory; 1914 - bogged down; 1940 - quick victory

I suspect the technology used during a war has little effect on its duration.
To be fair, Malbolge was originally intended to be a spin-off of C++ until it became sentient, overpowered its creator, and started an angry, mindless evolution.
I currently use a Mac Mini as a media center with a Panasonic projector. Its a little slow playing HD movies, so I am looking forward to better graphics support. I am concerned though that I might not be able to play iTunes movies via it if they have DRM crippled the display port.
Same with the restaurants actually, but at least got to eat in the process.
IPhone 3G successfully unlocked
Exactly. Show me one startup that had trouble scaling to meet demand, and I'll show you a hundred that built a scalable system that nobody wanted to use.
Trio of electric cars by Mercedes
First of all: IMO, the US auto industry woes have not one damn thing to do with credit boom/bust, and if anything, their run (the companies and the UAW) was extended by the credit freedom, but in any free market, if your costs are 1.5x your competitors and the desirability of their product is 1.5x yours, you're in for a world of hurt. (I own three American cars: one Jeep and two sixties Mustangs, and if I had to do it over again, I probably wouldn't have bought the Jeep.)

The US financial industry, I'd agree with you IF I thought we could effectively modulate without introducing deadweight losses for no net gain. (Historically, I don't think we have a good track record at this, in this or any other country.)

What do I mean by that? The minute you introduce legislation to try to modulate something, a substantial result of that is to take smart people and apply them to figuring out how to comply with and/or work within/around the new regulations. So instead of building something people want or that makes the world better/more efficient, they're instead working on regulatory compliance.

Then the most powerful institutions bid up the prices of the services of those people who are the very best at working around the regulation, or at lobbying for their activities to be exempted, and the cycle continues. If we could come up with a means to instanteously generate perfect regulation, I would indeed agree with your proposal. I'm not holding my breath for it...
I'm sure that paying a premium to borrow money once you are a credit risk would be considered "fair" by many. But, the example that you've posed is a straw man. Of course you'd charge a drug addict higher interest than the the US government.

The problem with credit card companies is that they loan the initial money at one price, and then adjust the price dependent on changing credit scores, insurance claims or whims.

And, a large percentage of a credit card companies, profit isn't in the initial interest rate. The profit is made in late fees, over limit fees and credit rate increases. So, they have a vested interest in the customer defaulting, being late in their payments or in going over their limit. And, when those fees are assessed, the customer generally has little recourse.
For your long-run personal wealth, do you think you would you be better or worse off focusing on having zero short-term debt?
Cache-oblivious data structures
We are having quite a funny argument, because it seems we both see the problem.

"One of the central tenants of relativity is that what reference frames we choose is irrelevant as long as we account for all the relativistic effects."

I think that applies only to inertial frames. At least in my version of SR that is so.

"your result is apparently dependent on which twin's reference frame you are using. That is a contradiction."

I know it is dependent. I don't see what's the contradiction. The earth twin has a special status - he is non-accelerating. His reference frame is therefore inertial. The other twin is accelerating. His reference frame is non-inertial.

Where is the problem here?
PowerShell ABCs - C is for CmdLet
It's funny that, having invented the Three Laws, Asimov wrote so many stories showing how easy they are to circumvent.
Hiding items will limit your users' ability to discover what they can do with your product. I would minimize hiding and instead de-emphasize unavailable features with explanations why they're not yet available.
I agree with you vastly more than I disagree, but will observe that if you manage your debt reasonably, you have the ultimate recourse when your CC company changes your terms: Fire them. Pay that debt off, possibly by borrowing from another company willing to extend you terms more to your liking.

I agree that people to whom no one will lend more money are at a great disadvantage. I don't see any way to fix that, as preventing CC companies from offering variable APR offers in the future will likely make things worse for marginal customers; it will just make the companies completely unwilling to extend them credit. Embargoing consumers who are already suffering doesn't help them in the short term.
> fixed: s/surround/repeat/g

you missed one ;)
OK. But "we spend all of our excess money rather than saving it like we should." was hard to parse the way you intended it.
Perhaps when you can find the time? ;p
Why do you need DVI-to-Mini DisplayPort?
Amateur iPhone / Web Game Developers Get a new Tool for Christmas - TouchLeagueSharp
True, but banks lend to each other at LIBOR which has remained stubbornly high. Only a few weeks ago some were offering 8% 1-year deposit accounts to get any cash they could get their hands on.
Throughout the entire article I kept thinking one thing: Earthclass Mail.
Syntax highlighted hex.
But you can use different fonts at almost no cost.
Makes those places sound a lot more attractive!
Is Buxfer Dead? (Answer: No)
Lilyturangan
My main problem is just getting started on a task, but once I get started I can usually follow through. What do people here do to get over that inertial bump?
Philosophy courses can help you argue a point better- that is, the logic side of philosophy. And if your going to take a class like this, you might as well take a full blown logic class, which is in essence a math class.

Religious studies could help you understand religious people better. Psychology however, would be a far more direct way to understand religious people, as well as many other phenomenons of the human mind.

As for the courses being more fun than CS, I would certainly disagree. Of course, this is entirely subjective- and I can see why someone who disagrees with that would choose CS. I cannot however, understand why someone who finds CS boring would major in it.
This says nothing. Some founders are fakers. Some investors are driven mainly by the desire to make money. Some startup ideas are stupid. You could say the same things about practically any industry.
What has Earthclass Mail been up to?
You'd need a huge bankroll to get started. Financial startups aren't as easy as a social media web 2.0 site.

Look at prosper.com. Regulatory costs are astronomical. Between state and federal auditors and Sarbanes-Oxley and CRA, etc, you'll have your hands full.

Also, why would investor capital flow to you? You'd make a lower return with no upside of lower defaults, etc.

But yes go ahead. Start a low rate credit card company. I might sign up for your card!
No. Ashwin quit but Shashank is still working on it. The company is doing reasonably well, actually.
Thanks to the link to 'Tcl the Misunderstood' here last week, I've spent a very interesting week re-appraising Tcl and how I might use it. There's no way I'm going to grok lisp, but Tcl is offering more lisp-like facilities than most other languages.
Why Threads Are A Bad Idea (for most purposes) [pdf]
Hey MaysonL! Thanks for the kind thought :-)
What do I care about dumb people?
If you have a lump sum to invest then waiting to invest it to use "cost dollar averaging" is not really a great idea.

However, if you compare your rate of returns over 30 years with the best and worst possible lump sum investments vs your rate of return from consistent inflation adjusted investing over 30 years the peaks and overall risk is far lower and the average expected return is higher.

No approach can consistently beat the market investing lots of money over the long term. But some R/W profiles are better for small investors looking for a safe retirement than others. I would suggest most people start young and aim for a 98% chance to hit 90% of their inflation adjusted salary at 65. Getting there sooner is great, but not getting their at all is really bad so trying to time the market is not helping your odds.
How do you play a "financial apocalypse"?

You'd have to know the exact market timing or shorting costs would eat you up.
Though credit cards can be replaced by less dangerous debit cards for most of their functions.
This has to be one of the worst ideas ever. And for the SEC to approve something like this illustrates our regulatory problem. For the love of god people, don't we have enough financial train wrecks already?

Will the US taxpayer be called upon to bail out the Facebook investor? What is wrong with you people?
Hmm, Germany invaded France in 1970? I never heard of that.
Can Africa Trade Its Way to Peace?
Massachusetts is already hostile to noncompete agreements; they have a "blue pencil" standard that allows judges to rewrite noncompetes instead of requiring the original agreement to be enforced verbatim, and noncompetes in MA have to be specific to the work the employee was doing.

Like I said last time when this subject came up, consider whether this development is a great thing; there's unlikely to be a federal ban on noncompetes, which means other jurisdictions may be nominally more attractive for sales and knowledge businesses because they're legally favorable to business owners.
Pay Raises Seen Taking a Hit
um...not buying it is rational. if buying insurance was positive sum then how would insurance companies make money?
That'd be a Xerox computer then.
And K and perhaps unlambda.
Get Along Without a Pinkie? It’s Tougher Than You Might Think
I saw that a few days back.

Ashwin has gone to facebook, Amit to Google, Shashank is still at it: http://tinyurl.com/5s6upy
More importantly, you'd have to cover lobbying costs for 5 or 6 years just to break into the tight oligopoly.
I disagree. The name doesn't really matter (and I'm a brand guy). All that matters is that people find the content useful.

If they don't, we're sunk. That being said, it was a quick build. If it turns out to be a bust, I can live with that. :-)
Edit for clarity: My CC debt is at 9% which is a little more than investing in the stock market on average, but I am trying to build up better credit so it seems like a good idea to keep money in the market and take a little hit vs. paying off my CC debt.

Not that the last 3 months suggests the idea is without risk but it's not enough money that I really care. However, if I had less in the way of assets an my rate where to spike I would quickly start caring.
Indeed. The undrln doesn't like that. ;-)
The hundred year war was a single war in name only.
What I'm saying was that if it was clearly identifiable that a country was responsible for an attack (ex. country declares war on Israel, fires nuke), then they deserve to be ruined.

It's not that I'm advocating going around tossing nukes at the home country of a single terrorist or group, I was just addressing the specific issue where we're so worried about X or Y country acquiring nuclear weapons. If that country would ever use them as part of a declared war on our allies, then they'd deserve what came to them.

But as I (and Dan above noted), the real issue is if individuals sneak these weapons around and cause mass destruction - who deserves the response to that atrocity?
This is more dotting the i's and crossing the t's rather than actual news. He hasn't been active in Tcl development since he sold his dot com years ago.

I guess what's interesting about Tcl in that way is that it's not a benevolent dictatorship like the other scripting languages are... or at least I think of them as such. How are Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua, etc... run in terms of decision making these days?
"Should the ability of search engines to index something determine whether or not you do it?"

If your goal is to make money then yes it should if organic search traffic is a big piece of your marketing puzzle. It's not the cart before the horse if your intention is to run a business on the internet.

I've been a big part of a few successful businesses that depended on SEO. Without it they would not have succeeded.
you are welcome ;)
And I for one welcome our new insect overlords
Agreed--that pisses me off too. That being said, this is only a problem with RSS readers. The site itself links directly to the post.

We are going to fix the RSS component, but chose to hold off on that until we saw how the uptake was. So far it looks promising. Nearly 7,000 uniques on the first day.

As for the clicking twice, there's no ulterior motive there. It’s just a limitation of Drigg that we're going to have to hack around.
Undrin does help you regain control of your bladder. Undrln has more to do with virility. (Totally different thing.)
They can't afford a design shop. They all make their sites themselves. Sometimes founders who are good at web design help other startups. Bryan Kennedy (Likebetter) and Devin Hunt (Fuzzwich) both helped me with News.YC.

I've never written about how to design a startup site, but I might one day.
If programming languages were religions
Generally you're right. To know what will be helpful for debugging you have to know what will go wrong, and if you know what will go wrong you may as well fix it now instead of after it affects a user. Also, in any sufficiently stable system errors become very hard to reproduce so you may not have the luxury of reproducing the error before finding the root cause of the problem.

Large log files don't scare me for I have The Shield of Grep, and The Sword of Awk.

The only issue I've seen with logging everything is that some file systems have troubles with files larger than 2gigs, and changing file systems may not be an option. Depending on how quickly you rotate your logs you can hit that limit and stop logging messages or cause errors elsewhere. With a log rotation period of 1 hour I've hit this limit, and it's rather annoying.
thomasmallen > Proportional results on a faster machine...

What makes you think an old Pentium 4 machine is faster than a quadcore Q6600?
I suppose. The top area is intended to afford fly-out ads at some point. I'm sure that makes you shudder, but I'd be pretty happy if we could eek a couple of bucks out of it. (Heaven knows we're good at making neat things that don't generate any cash.)

As for the email/password thing, we're just trying to manage the spam component. Communities like this can easily get run-over, without introducing a few little obstacles.
Sweeping IE Security Hole
No single fortress would have lasted 8 years of constant fighting while being surrounded. Having a fortress increases the cost of conflict but unless support shows up they don't really help over the long term. Because, the enemy can wait for you to starve while they bring in new supply's.

Clearly we would have lost more people and it would have taken longer to overthrow the government but as individual technology improves the ability for an insurgency to last as an effective fighting force increases.
Asus Eee PC 1002HA have been introduced
Jesus motherfucking christ... How could I have missed this:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/apple-adds-copy.html
This makes me want to throw my MBP across the room.
To be honest, I don't think it's really a social site. It's far too basic for that. Mostly, it's a place for me (specifically me) to start the day. I love the HN format and visit it every day. That being said, I wanted more content related to design/marketing, given that it's what I do a lot of.

I felt that if I wanted something like this, my peers might also. (So far that theory seems to be holding, but who knows if it will be compelling in a week's time.)
An organic directory for Twitter
No, Buxfer is far from dead. Ashwin had to quit for some personal reasons, nothing related to the company.

So don't worry, Buxfer is very much alive and doing well :)
My girlfriend has wanted to install it since seeing me running Frozen Bubble.

Realistically, if users cared about all of the things you mentioned, they would care about a lot of other things as well, areas in which Ubuntu is quite strong. Package management is far easier in Ubuntu than in Windows, for example.
Actually, debit cards are significantly more dangerous (when talking about external events, not accountability).

The amount of liability you have + paperwork in the event of fraud is exponential compared to credit cards.