skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
For reference, here are the seven patents in question.

7,634,504 - Natural Language Installer Set Up for Controller (http://www.google.com/patents/US7634504) - The claims really are as broad as the title implies, claiming to cover any system that presents the user questions in natural language, allows the user to select among multiple choices, and then modifies the HVAC settings based on their response.

7,142,948 - Controller Interface with Dynamic Schedule Display (http://www.google.com/patents/US7142948) - Claims to cover any controller that can change temperature from one temperature to a second temperature, while displaying an ETA for reaching the second temperature.

7,584,899 - HVAC Controller (http://www.google.com/patents/US7584899) - Claims the idea of having a movable housing over a display that, when rotated, changes an HVAC-system parameter that is reflected on that display.

7,159,789 - Thermostat with Mechanical User Interface (http://www.google.com/patents/US7159789) - A rotatable selector with several selectable positions, and a potentiometer. For an HVAC system.

7,159,790 - Thermostat with Offset Drive (http://www.google.com/patents/US7159790) - Some more rotatable-selector inventions, involving linking mechanical position and electrical signals.

7,476,988 - Power Stealing Control Devices (http://www.google.com/patents/US7476988) - Something to do with switching between primary and secondary power sources. My EE is too rusty to figure out exactly what this one is claiming without spending more time than I'd like on it.

6,975,958 - Profile Based Method for Deriving a Temperature Setpoint Using a 'Delta' Based On Cross-Indexing a Received Price-Point Level Signal (http://www.google.com/patents/US6975958) - Claim 1 is even broader than the title, claiming to have invented and patented the idea of adjusting an HVAC system's setpoints based on communicating with a remote host.

They strongly have the flavor of taking some standard control method (rotating knobs attached to potentiometers, 1950s-style feedback control & rate prediction), tacking on "for an HVAC system", and deeming the result, which applies standard control techniques in the obvious way to the domain, an "invention".
I wish it allowed you enter an hourly wage, since that's what I make.

I could annualize it but I don't actually work full time so that wouldn't be accurate.
Cubes are used more because they are cheaper than building thousands of offices more than they are used because they are flexibly reconfigured.

Individual offices are great for privacy and noise control - especially if one makes a lot of calls.

Shared offices in my experience are fine - you sound like you have some social issues, no offense.

The only things I would worry about sharing an office with another are hygiene and if the other person is a "lights-on" worker when I am a "lights-off" worker.

I shared an office with this developer in 1999 named Srini. We were both lights-off workers. I was IT, he was development - so it worked well.

The only issue was that he was rather comical to look at - so whenever we would have lengthy conversations, I would giggle as he was talking, which annoyed him because he would be talking about something serious and I would be laughing. He would ask me what I was laughing at and I would always have to say "nothing, your comments just reminded me of something else that I thought was funny."

I had to avoid looking at him as he talked for this reason.
Upside to Dyslexia
"an apology and pardon would slightly clear the name of the Crown."

I think is is the same reason that they declined to issue the pardon. The ministers didn't feel it was appropriate to try and retroactively whitewash the actions of the crown and that it should continue to bear a stain for those actions.
Why I Turned Down My Investment Banking Offer to Launch a Startup
Why The Series B is the “Sucker Round” – ROBGO.ORG
Interesting, I think its a nice reminder that the same old emails are boring to most users
Software Engineering vs. Computer Science
"A lot of people have the opinion that banking does not produce "value", and that it is addicted to government money, while running them into the ground financially."

There, I've correct that for you :)
Thats what is so confusing about hollywood - they want to kill piracy and at the same time kill/supress netflix.

They are an outdated model.
I'm not a fan of patents at all, but at the very least we should make having a product in the market as an absolute minimum for defending it. No product in market === no patent for you.
This is likely extremely naive: But would requiring a patent-filer to demonstrate a working implementation help mitigate this sort of thing? From what I can tell, Honeywell at least had the foresight to know where the tech was heading, but seemingly exerted no actual effort in getting there. Maybe I'm wrong about that - but this pattern seems to be true for patent trolls, at least.

If that's the case, they're basically building an artificial moat. So what now? Does Honeywell sue Nest out of existence? Require Nest license their patent? What are some likely goals and motives? What happens now?

There's a big difference between saying we WANT to go the moon, versus we WENT to the moon, or even we CAN go to the moon.
Revolutionizing The Information Supply Chain – The Apple Story (Part One)
This is the sort of patent suit that I find revolting, and I suspect I'm not alone on HN in feeling that way.

But does anyone else see a continuum between this and the dustup over the 5-word already-derivative "stay focused & keep shipping" poster last week?

Should we be upset about this and not that?
Why did it take 30 years to dig 4km?
Is This the End of Wall Street As They Knew It?
The footer would better if centered or placed inside the 940 grid (rather than stick to the left with 0 margin) - IMO.
I think it looks good, but to grow you need to do two things, get people to sign up, and then get people to invite others to sign up.

Think about what it is you can offer to encourage people to invite others.

But apart from that I like the way it looks.
Translating my side project into 5 other languages using oDesk
> RBS’s actions are all the more unforgivable given that the bank is now mostly owned by taxpayers

Taxpayers didn't bail out RBS because of a deeply felt desire to help British businesses with banking facilities, but because it was deemed at the time that allowing it to crash would hurt the taxpayer more than the cost of the bailout.

The only priority for the government in RBS is to shed any and all unnecessary risk from its balance sheet and sell its shares as soon as possible.

I don't envy Smarkets' situation, but insisting that RBS behaves in a certain way different from this is effectively throwing good money after bad.
I hope you can keep out the script kiddies - I just saw one of these:

I'm a <script>alert('lulz')</script>, and I currently make $40,000 in <script>alert('lulz')</script>.
I'm ONLY interested in jobs as a <script>alert('lulz')</script> that pay at least $120,000 in <script>alert('lulz')</script>.
True, it also states the person has no loyalty to their current employer if it means an extra $10k a year. This could be a red flag for some, or an opportunity. I am not in the programming business, so wonder what the turnover rate is at tech firms.
Remember, they have to be able to beat the cost of printing at home with printing + shipping + retailing, and any other middle-man involved.

And they also have to beat the cost of instant gratification vs shopping/ordering and the time that involves.

3D printing is great because it cuts out so many people I have to deal with, either directly or indirectly.
Excellent article, articulate, well written, I completely agree with the content. I see this every time I interview for a new contract or FT position. Now I focus on Java, JEE (or J2EE) or lighter stacks like Tomcat + Spring or GWT. I do the data tier including SQL as well. That's all I have time for. Sometimes I get out to the front, JSP, JSF, GWT, basic JSP + jQuery for AJAX but that's it. Sometimes I do rich client apps using SWT, some AWT and rarely Swing. Then too I write Java console apps for system level work on occasion.

I need a vacation.
I'm glad that you posted this. As someone who has a 3D printing startup (CloudFab), we can see that the space is very over hyped right now. 3D printing is an awesome thing, but it's not the panacea that some are making it.

The ink jet printer democratized printing yes, but we still use massive equipment to produce books and newspapers efficiently. Few things are as commodity as computer chips / servers - and really even those aren't really. Engineering is about optimizing for a problem - one-offs are one problem, and mass production is another. There are companies like SinterMask trying to make production grade 3D printing, and the machines are huge in order to do this. Also, no one is mentioning that there are significant materials science issues that come up in making actually consumer products. Apple has set the bar so far that regular mass production hasn't caught up - let alone these new technologies.
You should ask this on Quora.
Total Annual Building Energy Consumption for New York City
Best Buy leaks possible Apple iTV details; 42-inch display, $1,499 price tag
5,000 APIs: Facebook, Google and Twitter Are Changing the Web
This is quite obvious in Europe. This financial crisis has spawned a surge in interest in stronger government regulation of gambling throughout Europe. A couple of years ago there was little to no interest.
Me too. I was very unhappy with the way the mouse felt on OS X. I even considered switching. Then I found SteerMouse, and now I'm a happy camper. Highly recommended.
Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?
I think you misread this. It does not bind the same instance of the handler to each element. Each element gets its own copy of this handler, hence the waste of memory.
This sample is definitely worth clicking through to see the mechanics of the proposal.

I think the intersection of pricing and proposals is pretty compelling. A lot of the background advice is interesting, but so hard to convey through reading.

But being able to craft proposals, and then have a system help manage the workflow around their progress sounds worth a try. I wonder how it would integrate with businesses where they may be using multiple vendors and have competing proposals.
Good luck my man! I wish you the best.

P.S. that's an amazing domain name. Do you think they might wanna buy it from you?

P.P.S. Maybe you could teach a few classes on video a la Khan to show your expertise and belief in their mission/etc? Maybe you could even tutor... I could see you teaching a 1-on-1 class for a boy named boyce about 'How To Go To Class'. It would be a moneymaker!
I'm not exactly sure why it's not simply iPhone vs Android. It's not like "HTC" and "Samsung" often have apps that will work on one but not the other. At first I didn't even realize that you did have Android apps, because "Motorola" can be older java-based phones, "Nokia" can be a black and white flip-phone... Not exactly obvious at first glance.

So yeah, just say "iPhone" "iPad" and "Android". Hell, remove the drop-down and make it a logo that you select instead, that should be even easier.
IMHO, this tool is of course not perfect, because it takes lots of variables to truly compare the two car listings, but it saves you time for grouping all the similar listings just using three major variables (year, mileage, price) deterministically, which you won't normally be able to spot with bare eyes when the results are displayed traditionally with a bunch of pages + thousands of listings to browse through.
i'm suprised using something like mod_rewrite to transform the query parameters into something that rails could cache was not mentioned. it's a cheap way to use the url structure you want after the fact. the next update the app can then use the new structure and the mod_rewrite rules will be there to support the old api until almost everyone has upgraded to the new app. this allows one to switch an api to being more restful in a graceful way.
You used to be able to get rid of this (or at least dramatically reduce it) by turning off "ignore accidental input". Sadly, 10.7 doesn't appear to have an equivalent, at least in the UI.

Changing that option changed a lot. I loved it. But 10.7 is a bit better at managing it than it used to be, or it feels that way to me, so I don't mind as much as I did.
We should pass the 'Protect Everyone from Nefarious Internet Sites' act.
Nest is an interesting piece of hardware.

They have over 100 people, and if rumours are true have quite significant backing. Which is particularly interesting as it's hard to see on the surface where their margins come from on a device most could consider as novel and expensive.

Though there are potentially gains to be had from a smarter thermostat, the headline figures in their white papers will most likely never be realised in the real world. Most reviews and bloggers seem to get caught up in focusing on the simple heating and cooling experience.

The company on makes sense once you look at it in the context of the larger market. The silent but important features are zigbee integration (current unused), and excessive processing power. We are just on the cusp of huge smart-grid rollouts in many western countries. British gas in the UK has decided on the zigbee standard and are starting to roll out over 1000 new meters a day; with government backing for an £11bn rollout to 27 million households by 2019.

In light of these rollouts, the energy companies will be looking to capitalize on their investment (which will be mostly funded by the consumer, via higher bills). The hardest part is figuring out what the consumer face of the smart grid should look like. Expensive 'home hubs' and touch screens are a red herring - the future is distributed (every household members phone etc), yet you still need a link between the rather 'dumb but integrated' meters, and devices in the house.

In my opinion nest's game plan is to become that link. Your thermostat controls around 50% of the energy usage in your house. Eventually it has the potential to control 100%. With smart GPS integration into your phones it becomes realistic to have houses that react silently to it's various inhabitants patterns and blend those needs with the energy grids demand levels; now this is a valuable proposition. If you're an energy company absorbing several billion because of government pressure, suddenly the hardware cost of a nest doesn't seem so bad, especially if it can be offset or laid off over time.

edit; footnote - All figures are rough (off the top of my head)
There are many many many more time where "doing what you love" is incorrect than times where following math is incorrect. The more we focus on math and mathematical relationships between different variables, the more accurate we get.

Do not listen to detractors IF YOU HAVE EVIDENCE SUPPORTING YOUR CAUSE, but do not blindly pursue something because of an unsupportable "gut" feeling
I'm betting that any start-up company that comes out with a truly usable home robot in US will go out of business within its first year of operation. If a tiny thermostat can infringe on 7 patents, imagine how many patents will 'infringed' upon by a fully functional robot. If the same environment that we have now existed in 1970's I doubt if apple-2 would have been released.
I don't think its shameful. I don't think any nudity is shameful. Yet, I when I'm in situations with any kind of nudity, my instinct isn't to grab my camera and post to Facebook.
> Right. So wisdom teeth, cancer and age-related poor vision are all AWESOME, let's leave those in too.

There is a difference between a malfunction and a trait. A malfunction happens to some people, but always a minority. All of the things you mention are malfunctions.

Aging happens to all of us. It is a trait. At this point, I'm sounding like a broken record, but there is a mountain of evidence that suggests our lifespan is highly selected for by evolution. Please look up the Red Queen.
Exactly what I was thinking when I read this. If their users had been parents 40+, I'm willing to bet they'd have a slightly different reaction.
True. It's kind of like saying you're a builder - it could be building anything from building construction to engineering aircraft.
I've tried the initial Windows 8 developer preview, and I have to say it has been a jarring experience to switch back and forth between Metro and the "Windows Classic" desktop. The visual experience of Metro vs the Win7 style is so different that it feels slapdash and disjointed. This Windows 8 was just the initial developer preview though. I'm sure the next CTP will be worlds better - and I'm sure it Win8/Metro will be sweet on tablets.

There was a mega post at the build windows blog justifying (rationalizing?) their decisions. It's interesting reading to slog through. They've certainly put a lot of resources onto this decision, and it feels like the future of Windows based desktop PC's is in the balance. It feels like a really risky bet.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/11/reflecting-on-...

Ideally, MS would add a "Windows 7" mode that I can turn on and use my computer the way I've been accustomed to. I don't want to be learn more efficient with swipes/fewer clicks/etc - I've got a good thing going here. First thing I used to do with XP was switch it to the Windows Classic mode, so I'm probably not their target user.

FWIW, I also dropped Ubuntu post-Unity (running Debian now) and haven't looked back. This dog is too old to want to deal with learning any cheese moving tricks.
A Look at 3D Printing and Open Source
(below may include spoiler)

I thought the real lesson was "massively outperform the limits of your shitty resources beyond anyone's expectations, by thinking outside the box and concentrating on algorithms and data modeling; and still not succeed. Then if someone is impressed and offers you more personal compensation than you can imagine, to do the same thing but for them, while actually being given enough resources to actually have a chance with it, then you go and fucking do it."

The startup analogy is easy: if you are solely responsible for running a free service with a million users on $300/month hosting budget, and you almost do it by inventing amazing algorithms, but the service still lags and sucks, but is almost there, then when Amazon makes you an offer to come and do the same thing for them you fucking take it.
Absolutely none of that is correct.
Can you please add an option to allow "unlimited" miles from the given zip code. I'd like to see the results, country wide.

Also, adding support for Canada would be great :)
The "Poachees" listings should be searchable and sortable if they're to be of real value to would-be recruiters or hiring managers.
I just sent this through Honeywell's contact page and
I mean every word of it:

I'm in the market for a programmable thermostat for my house. I had been considering several units, including yours and one from Nest Labs.

Apparently you've decided that it's more important to batter competitors with the legal system than actually, you know, put your supposed patents to use building a thermostat that your potential customers actually want to buy. You seem to be under the impression that suing other companies over patents on obvious ideas will make your own products look more attractive.

It's clear that you're out of touch with your market. I don't know what unit I'm going to buy for my house, but I can promise you that it won't be a Honeywell thermostat.
Why give The Verge the traffic for summarizing Android Police's story?

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/02/06/the-secret-google-x-...
Windows 8 wants to tie you to an email address for your login. They have multiple screens that try to force you to setup a hotmail or live account. With all the social networks I wonder how many people use multiple email addresses.
This reads disturbingly like a Thomas Friedman editorial.
No plans right now to work on the buying side-- that's a whole separate issue. ;-) We're just trying to help the sellers (but in a way that ends up helping the buyers, too).
Hedge Fund profits flow mostly to Industry Insiders
Who are these brave souls that agreed to be strapped on a gurney with their head in a tight, cramped, noisy MRI machine while high on a hallucinogenic? No thanks.
edit: "... so it's not like they haven't had time to think about this application area [and bring a product to market already.]."

Further proof that Congress has failed to create a patent system that "promotes the Sciences and the useful Arts"
This is nice, but could you add an option to indicate that I only want to deal technically proficient people?

In fact, I would pay a few bucks up-front if you could somehow assure that I would only be put in contact with technical people that actually work for the company doing the hiring (no recruiters at all). And I'd pay to validate that I satisfy that requirement from the hiring side as well.
Employers don't have loyalty to their employees, so this is unsurprising. These are business relationships.
Get outside and away from computer for a few days. Then come back and go straight to work.
Not necessarily. For the season as a whole, you don't really care about individual contests -- you're just looking at beating the averages.

For a playoff, things are different... you're in a match-up against a single team that is better than the average team. I would argue that money and luck plays a much bigger role in the playoffs for a smaller team. If you're playing the Red Sox or Yankees, chances are that all of the key players qualify as "best talent", while your budget forced you to choose your investments more carefully or choose players with less-known ability.
Amazon in the Process of Launching a Retail Store
jQuery.map() jQuery.each() having their arguments has caused me more than a few WAT moments.

One way I solve the issue around overloaded apis is by not using them. I just pretend .click() and friends just don't exist.
I assumed it is by people who want to jump-start a new career path, eg: from developer to designer, or want to move to a different city.
I was under the impression that the situation was reversed. My Gentoo systems have been very stable because I take many of the masked package guidelines seriously (of course not all). Meanwhile you have Arch that changed the default python version to 3 back in October 2010 that hosed a lot of people's systems. Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1808840 and my favorite quote (there are so many great ones though) from the mess:

20:20 <dash> well that confirms my impression that arch was invented by a bunch of guys who thought gentoo was too stable and easy to use
> I also dropped Ubuntu post-Unity (running Debian now)

Why? If you're technical enough to run Debian, you're technical enough to run Ubuntu with Window Maker or some other non-Unity UI.