skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Trouble is, there's hundreds or thousands of interesting people out there whose opinions on other matters would be interesting on this site. VCs, entrepreneurs, programmers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, et cetera. No doubt, every one of them has an opinion on politics. But I don't want to have to wade through them all.

What's Robert Scoble's opinion? What's Sergey Brin's opinion? What's Don Knuth's opinion? What's that xkcd guy's opinion? What's Paul Graham's opinion? What's that bald marketing guy whose name escapes me for the moment's opinion? What about Joel Spolsky? Or the auctomatic guys? Or the guy who wrote Python? Or the guy who wrote Rails? Or ... well, you get the idea.

I don't care about any of their opinions, and neither should you.
This is fantastic... what a find and what a sad sad day.
How do you figure he is a non-practicing Muslim?

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_barack_obama_muslim...

Obama is not responsible for the change in mainstream american views on race, but he is commendable for how he has (mostly not) approached race as a political topic in his campaign.
Open source as a strategic competitive weapon
MerbAuth - The Basics
The Ajax Universe
YHOO: 14.21 +0.86 (6.44%)
GOOG: 350.61 -16.33 (-4.45%)

Interesting.
I must say, the failure of Google to adequately communicate the reason behind an account suspension scares me. As someone who depends on Google just as much day to day, and even sets up Google for Business accounts for some of our customers, it worries me.
Isn't being the most important VC in New York City a bit like being the most important fashion designer in Tulsa?
I'm wondering if this willful distortion of logic is ever going to end. Look, here's what Cuban said:

...our amazing country once again reinvigorated the dream that any child in this country, no matter what circumstances they are born into, can grow up to be anything they want...

It seems that "no matter what circumstances" is intended to mean, among other things, "black", since that is what Cuban is talking about in the rest of the piece. Presumably, since Obama is not a scion of oil money or an Admiral's son, he also implies that "poor blacks" will start thinking that they can become anything they want.

I'm pretty sure that's what Cuban means. Now, if you state it as bluntly as possible, here's what you get:

"I believe that Obama will inspire poor, criminally-inclined inner city black people to straighten up, study, work hard, etc."

or

"Apparently Cuban's reasoning is that with a black President, suddenly inner-city wannabe gangsters will start writing Rails apps."

Now, that is NOT THE SAME AS SAYING "All black people are inner-city gangsters". That's a logical error, and your peers are upmodding you in celebration of your logical error, which pisses me off because that's how politics always works: Opinion trumps reason.

The OP is basically right. But we'll just have to see whether Cuban is.
My wife was once in a similar situation: gmail, blogs, contacts, everything was blocked. After one week they finally unblocked the account. It seems they have not enough staff to solve these issues.

Or maybe they are trying to get people scared, so they will start paying for Gmail and similar services just to have better support (http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=...)
Really? I'm considering moving back to Australia in order to start my company when the time comes.

I moved to the US because it had lower tax rates, but if that gets reversed then the US can say goodbye to my income.
Microsoft Offers Free Software to Startups
thanks for the comments everyone
Epic Web Traffic for Obama Victory
Gmail Backup Archives Your Email Account
What about the point of view that Obama won partially because of pro-black racism?

Both among blacks and whites, there were people who admitted voting for him because of his "race".

Now, I myself don't believe in this "race" concept that other people seem so obsessed with, but I still find that a disturbing thought -- just as disturbing as the thought that some people were voting against him for his "race".
You say it "can't be measured", but of course it can be. Say there are 10 million people in your demographic; then your vote makes your demographic 0.0001% bigger and shifts it correspondingly slightly towards your political position. That's not nothing, that's a small effect. In aggregate, it has a large effect, which corresponds exactly to the sum of the small effects.
I would recommend an India like system if your daughter is deficient in mathematics. Also, mathematics is unique in that it deals with absolutes. It starts with some axioms and places everything else on top with irrefutable proofs along the way. Its not for everybody (even though I would like to think that most people can enjoy the beauty of the subject). I also have several friends who are brilliant but run away from mathematics like it was the plague. There's nothing really wrong with this unless it affects their success in their own field/life/career etc..

Maybe you daughter just isn't very fond of arithmetic (what most high schools teach). An introductory book on some axiomatic branch of mathematics may be useful in that case.
Ask YC:  Which Javascript Book?
I have a good understanding of the basics of js and use it everyday on a current project. I am looking to expand and formalize my knowledge of it so I have been researching books.

I have mostly narrowed it down to Javascript: The Definitive Guide and Javascript: The Good Parts

What are your opinions on these two books or others?
Have you thought about trying google apps? The premier version gives you a phone number to call, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and they handle backups for you.
News Flash: Google Was Never Yahoo’s Friend
Too bad axod didn't see this about 7 days ago.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=354593
I have that set up, but how much of your email comes in to your @gmail.com address?

If you use gmail as your outgoing email, then the sent emails will have a Sender: header (and return-path) of your @gmail.com address, even if you set a role.

If you search gmail for 'to: you@gmail.com' you'll see how much mail is bypassing your domain.
2008 Election Maps
Rumor: Internal Yahoo memo suggests CEO Jerry Yang may be out
Just as a data point, I get those all the time. I get tons of legit e-mail for other people too - I don't get it! :)
I read Javascript: The Definitive Guide and found it a very insightful book. I really recommend it.

For Javascript: The Good Parts, I watched a video of the author on youtube, and the ideas seem very interesting. I didn't have an opportunity to read the book, though.
Sounds to me like you're optimizing the wrong thing here.

I moved from the UK to the Silicon Valley, because being here gives me a better chance of success as a tech entrepreneur.

Worrying about being taxed a few extra percentage points seems similar to founders fighting over equity: It just distracts you from doing what's necessary to succeed.
Obama doesn't make a single bit of difference being the president. However, all the people he chooses for his staff makes all the difference. It's like running a store, you might have an amazing manager running the place but if you've got a guy working the till who can't push a button then all the managerial magic is useless.

Obama might be human gold with a soft diamondy center, but unless he actually has people who can do what needs to be done then it's useless. I think it's highly illustrated by the McCain campaign that he didn't have subordinates capable of doing the job right because he looked as warn out and tired as Bush does currently. McCain looked physically flabbergasted by what he was asked, he'd have looked better just holding up the frigging piece of paper his speech writers gave him.
TWiki.net Kicks Out All TWiki Contributors
Equity is not the same as working income.

You can't tell founders to save every penny they can and scrimp as much as possible and then say a few points of lost income isn't important. Or rather, you can, but to me it seems an inconsistency.
I'm upgrading from a PB G4, too.
You've touched upon a large and complicated subject but here are couple things to get you started.

First off, you need to be very clear in your own mind about your venture vs. your consulting work.

Consulting is simple. There are three main reasons to form an LLC as a consultant: you can isolate yourself from liability; you can snag more work as some companies prefer to work corp-to-corp rather than with individuals; and finally, you can utilize various legal mechanisms (such as managing vs. passive partners for example) to minimize your tax liability.

It sounds like none of the above applies to you very much. It's too much hassle to sue someone in a foreign country, companies prefer corp-to-corp for reasons largely irrelevant to outsourced consultants (who for example cannot claim US unemployment benefits), there is not much legal maneuvering you can do with a one-person partnership, etc.

Your venture is a whole other beast. First, keep in mind that you need to foreign-qualify your LLC in every state where you do business. It's hard to know whether you will need to foreign-qualify since you did not provide much information as to the nature of your venture, but for example accepting orders in New York means you do business there and to foreign-qualify in NY will run you over $1,000 (and if you are transacting 100% virtually, I have a hard time understanding why you need a US-based LLC). Second, if you plan to raise capital or incentivize your talent via equity, it is much easier to do so with a corporation than with an LLC. Third, there are tax implications pertaining to drawing partner distributions vs. shareholder equity, etc.

As you can see, there are no quick answers and you need to provide much more detail about your plans. In any event, I really recommend that you get a preliminary 1-hour consult with a lawyer and an accountant. If you feel that you don't need to go that far at this stage, then you probably don't need an LLC either.

To your other questions, LLC paperwork could not be easier. Book keeping is easy too, you can use quickbooks online ($17/month) or clearcheckbook.com (donation). Have an accountant show you how to reconcile your bank account once per month, and you are all set.
Because unlike cigarettes nobody dies, and a company (thankfully) has the right to make money.
By this logic, no entrepreneur should apply to YC, since they take 6% of your company. I'm a little surprised to read on HN that entrepreneurs would consider tax rates as a deciding factor on where to locate an early stage venture.
I am using google apps - free version for now.
I'm not convinced the premium ver would be any better at support though. I've been calling the adwords support, as I spend a fair amount with adwords, and they are still "looking into it".
Well yes only selling stuff to the US is something that can really turn me of a site, even if their services later becomes available to the rest of us. This isn't the real world, so stop treating us as second rate citizens.
from the article "In this country you work harder to achieve your dreams and goals." exactly... !! respect.
You can't tell founders ... a few points of lost income isn't important.

I didn't say it wasn't important, just that it's nowhere near as important as being in the right location.
On your first point, that's why things like the super-short "did you know that XYZ could do this...?" type of demos work great. Of course, see e.g. Kathy Sierra's writings for how to balance.

Re: your email example... You're missing the issue of network effects.
Code your own election mashup with Google's JSON data
Ask HN: building a database middle layer to work of ODBC?
Ok, so here is the basic problem a friend and I are trying to tackle. We want to build a service that will appear to our customers as a MySQL or PostgreSQL but would in fact be an application layer. The application (perhaps coded in Python or Ruby) would take requests over ODBC such as inserts and select statements and give expect ODBC responses. Before we try and reinvent the wheel, are there any projects out there doing something like this currently? How would you go about it?
> then the sent emails will have a Sender: header (and return-path) of your @gmail.com address

You can setup alternate e-mail addresses in Gmail and tell it to reply with the one it was sent to. It's still sent off Gmail servers, but with the Sender changed (so you just setup your SPF to allow Gmail).

> even if you set a role.

What does this mean?
Perhaps the poster is looking to eventually move to the US with an L-1 visa (company transfer). I've certainly considered it.

It's one of only a few ways to make it into the US on a semi-permanent basis as a self employed person unless you're ridiculously famous or rich.
My Thoughts on Paralyzed Monkeys Controlling Their Bodies Through Tech
Obviously and rather sadly a big drawback of freemium services is lack of support. Before signing up for these services,you need to ask yourself a question: How long can I live without accessing my data?

If the answer is "Not very long" then you will have to crack open your wallet.
love my tool? seriously?
you are counting your chickens before they hatch. In this country we tax profit. Which means until your startup starts making you that 250K/yr in profit, you won't be affected one bit by any increases Obama makes. Actually you'll probably benefit during the early stage under Obama.

And its not like Australia has a super low tax rate, you'll still pay 30% in taxes. So ask yourself this, is the extra 5-10% in profit worth it to you to lose x% of your customers who don't want to do any business with a company outside United States?

I see the additional tax rate under Obama as an investment. I lose a little bit off the top, but I'll get more than compensated by my users actually having money to spend.
LG KM380 BLACK Unlocked
LG Electronics has started to launch multimedia handsets especially designed for music lovers on the mobile phone market. The fact didn't go unnoticed by more experienced mobile phones manufacturers (Nokia, Sony Ericsson), which are delivering the best music phones.
Edsger Dijkstra - Discipline in Thought
Is this the new corporate speak? Because it seems remarkably lucid, am I missing something?
This is interesting, as I am just in the process of installing twiki. Might have to consider something else. Any suggestions for a package to handle Wiki + FAQ + Forums (at a minimum)?
We won't know for two years.
Reading between the lines, does this mean: We are scared that pursuing this "legal battle" might open up a can of worms we'd rather keep under the covers?
It's on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-4afdMalVA
I use delicious to do something like this, tagging good stuff with "wonder". I often check it out when working out on the treadmill in the morning:

http://delicious.com/nielsen/wonder
We just spend more time avoiding (read: NOT evading) them.
Call it affirmative action. There isn't a problem with so-called "reverse racism" when it is being used to repair centuries of injustice.
The incredible shrinking Internet
Reg, as usual, is making Ruby do some pretty exotic gymnastics, but more than the language extensions themselves, I just really want to read To Mock a Mockingbird now.
Microsoft haters, Mac daddies, and Linux Lovers
Being bost companies have denied it already and the circumstances around it all (not to mention the fact that Microsoft and Yahoo reaching a deal from supposedly dead talks in less than 24 hours at ~$19 a share? c'mon!) lead me to believe this truly is a rumor...

but would Jerry really be missed? I mean he did make nearly everyone at Yahoo soil themselves when he sends them an e-mail that 10% of them are fired but nobody knows who, and then tells them, more or less, "have a happy weekend" smile and wink.
I really think Adobe should start doing the same now, why don't they understand most of its users can't afford $700 softwares.
Cloud Computing Tools For Managing Amazon, Google Services
Well it does become abandonware, but that hardly matters - it is still illegal to copy it although I don't think Microsoft is going to complain too much.
Shore up the legal and public-relations status of civil unions against any possible oncoming attacks.
Professors’ Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not
Books for Entrepreneurs: Agile Software Development
I wonder who got the better end of THAT deal...
With regards to unions, the government refused to back the GM-Chrysler loans to build "fuel efficient cars".

With regards to Wall St., AIG has received almost $123 billion in government-backed loans. If anything, it seems like the non-union, free market insurance industry is failing, bloated, and stagnant.
He says he is a paying customer.
Are those the batteries still in the trunk in the 2nd pic from the bottom?
I don't see how "trickle down" has "stretched the socio-economic fabric". I don't want to live in a country with 70%+ top marginal tax rates. That borders on evil. I wouldn't want to live in a country that never had Reagonomics, and neither would a lot of business owners that currently employ our citizens.
Michael Crichton has passed away
You and the contributers still have access to the source code, so it is probably not time to panic yet.
My first thought was "man I wonder if there is a motor or battery packs I could salvage!?"
Google Search Appliance: Free Download
Technologizer's TechDecision '08: The Results
You've got citations to back up your fears, don' you? I've love to see the horrible, horrible unintended consequence of seatbelt laws.
Aren't you stating that poor and black also imply criminally-inclined? That is where the logical error is, as far as I can tell. I'm not trying to be snide. I honestly don't see how criminally-inclined or 'wannabe-gangsters' follows from "no matter what circumstances they are born into".
You've been paying taxes all your life, and that, in essence, is not socialism. Its called Progressive taxation. Many states in the US have their state income tax set up this way (the more you make, they more they take. In state that do not tax that way, they often tax you based off property ownership.) and they are not socialist.

I'm also not concerned what it will do for innovation (whatever that means) because historically the economy and stock market do better under Democrats than under Republicans. George W. Bush has yet to create one single net job, and he has a mere 75 days to do.
Microsoft giving free software to startups
Pratt '07 here...where's your contact info?
I favor NN regulation. I agree that it does not consist of specific technical requirements. It is more like (but not exactly like) free speech: Once you've agreed that it's desirable, you still have lots of arguments about how to apply it.

And as with a principle such as free speech, the best way to explore its topology and applications is to look at examples. Your example of preventing an ISP from slowing down another company's VOIP traffic is a great one. Paradigmatic, even. NN, in my view, can be seen as a generalization from that example. I'd also want to exclude ISPs from deciding that, say, VOIP traffic gets priority over WoW traffic, because I don't want ISPs deciding what the Net is for. Rather than having to detect similar such slowdowns and then petitioning the FCC for redress in each specific case, I'd like to see the FCC adopt (through legislative mandate) a _general_ principle that ISPs are not allowed to prioritize packets (with some set of hard-to-work-out and ever-arguable exceptions). That would leave room for ISPs to offer plans whereby users can specify which types of traffic and/or which sites _they_ want to receive priority (for the last mile, at least), and would certainly leave room for ISPs to offer tiered service.

My interest in NN is not theoretical, if only because I don't know enough -- and I greatly appreciate shimon's link and post. My motivation is exactly what shimon expresses in his third paragraph: The economic reality is that the large ISPs have a structural and just about unavoidable interest in treating the Internet as a way to give preferential treatment to their own content and services. For that reason, I'd rather have exactly the sort of structural separation that shimon mentions, in which case we wouldn't need NN regulation. This is a position shared by Yochai Benkler, Susan Crawford, and David Isenberg, to name three highly competent, reasonable, informed proponents.

As for shimon's claim that NN is all "vague and inactionable invective," well, there are lots of highly technical, reasonable, and smart people who are talking exactly about actionable specifics, along with more than occasional invective. Tim Wu, Harold Feld, and David Reed spring to mind.
Have you any enemies at Google? This just sounds absurd!
This seems like a no brainer for any startup since they give you a free MSDN Premium subscription, which means you get a copy of MS Office, Exchange and Dynamics.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite with MSDN Premium is usually $10,939.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/subscriptionsc...

That is a lot of software.

Kudos to Microsoft.
I actually didn't know at first, since I found it on another site. Then a reader points it out to me and I have added the proper reference. It is a great piece of artwork.

http://www.patrickmoberg.com/
"Google Search Appliance virtual edition is a developer platform designed for the enterprise development community to build and test applications that use the Google Search Appliance."

This is just a free download for developers who want to write applications for the Search Appliance. It's one-step up from a free SDK.
It is an online community site for networking professionals who share their first hand experience with both open source and commercial monitoring tools. Most people have gotten over the initial bias and seems to like the name. It is memorable, at least.
unfortunately..yes.
I liked Colin Powells take on that one:

"I'm also troubled by not what senator McCain says, but what members of the party say - and it is permitted to be said - such things as "you know that Obama is a muslim". The correct answer is that he's not a muslim, he's a christian, he's always been a christian. But the reallyright answer is: what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a muslim in this country? The answer is no. That is not America. Is there something wrong with some 7 year old muslim american kid believing he or she can be president?"
How to develop your customers like you develop your product
I would go farther and say that it's quite a bit worse than "nothing special". It's a no-value added filter that sits atop SimplyHired.com. Much like those spam sites that harvest google adwords, its sole purpose is to kidnap traffic.

Recycling the same tired content over and over does nothing but pollute search space. And to your point @bluelu you'd think they would at least bother to configure the site to serve from both site.com and www.site.com but I guess that's too much effort for the ultimately lazy.
You have a good question, and I don't have an answer to it that fully satisfies me. I also find the idea of making race a deciding factor in one's voting choices disturbing. I won't deny that some individuals will have voted along those lines, either for or against a candidate. Despite that, I still find it heartening that a solid candidate from a long-marginalized group can have such success in today's political climate.

I feel like I can finally start believing that we as a nation are overcoming the old and poisonous biases that were alive and well in my grandparents' time.
Gladwell is the king of deep-sounding anecdotes. I always feel dumber after reading him.
Thoughts on PDC
People slag on him for his more recent work and speeches, but at least for me, his books really made me interested in the science presented in them. Even stuff like Timeline, which piqued my curiosity in everything it talked about.