skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>Nothing in the article actually shows that the Hedgehog concept is bad or wasn't a factor in these companies' success. It's little more than a glib, cocktail-party sized nugget of contrarianism with no real substance. That's why I dismissed it as FUD.

And nothing in Jim Collin's book shows it was a factor in their success, he just claims it is because all the companies he analyzed allegedly fit into his rubric. Does he research if failed companies did not fit into it equally well? Or perhaps other competitors in the same industry? If all you are doing is retrospectively identifying success, well great, but that isn't terribly hard to do. If all you are doing is cherry picking examples or worse, simply grouping already successful companies and then deciding that their success must be due to some common trait(s) they all share, then you also aren't providing any real insight in my opinion.

As others have pointed out his theories are vague to the point of uselessness. Do only what you can you be 'best in the world' at? Really? Best in the world? Well by that metric there really only should be one company in every single industry, since clearly we can't have multiple 'best in the worlds'.

All he is engaging in is book length common sense "Do what you are good at, don't do what you aren't good at, don't waste money on ill-conceived ideas". Trite sayings that are not really anything anyone would argue against but also don't give a lot of amazing insight.

Maybe I am just too dense to get his brilliance, but I have never seen anything amazing from his writing, which was why I originally responded to someone that appeared to be implying that he was apparently the diviner of the one true path to success.
I agree with this article, however, it overlooks one huge aspect; porn has been popular long before America became fat and obsessed with the "I want it now" massive $1 cheeseburgers.
If nobody tried to be the best, there wouldn't be anything good.

Porsche may not be "the best" sports car overall as that is a very subjective metric. Though for sure, they make an exceptional car. For various definitions of 'reasonable', the 911 is the most performant car in at its price point (or at least, generally is, these things wax and wane).

The key isn't whether they are the best sports car, but whether or not they're succeeding at being the best at ... something. That something may not be as broad as 'best sports car', but may be much more narrow. Twitter isn't "the best website" in the world, but it might be the best way to transmit short messages to a broad list of friends. Similarly, Dropbox might do very poorly in a "best system backup" utility, but might win competitions involving ease of use, or in being convenient enough that its users actually bother (which is better than most backup providers.)

The companies that try to be all things to all people are few and far between, and us, as entrepreneurs, are thankful for them because all it means is we have to beat them in one small segment and they acquire us. ;-)
It was a big enough deal that Apple was sued, and gave away free replacements.

http://consumerist.com/2011/11/apple-replaces-frayed-magsafe...
Craigslist is going all Ajaxy At last
Wow, incredibly addicting. I don't think it is something I would play around with every day, but I spent about an hour trying out different combinations.
The maneuver you describe is equivalent to incorporating in Delaware (or Nevada, I suppose). You can compound your wealth in the low-tax environment, but you will pay taxes when you try to transfer it to yourself.

Just like Apple, in this case. Under the current legal regime, they have successfully deferred taxes, not evaded them. It's the same way I carefully evade sales taxes by saving some of my money instead of spending every paycheck.
What is the HTML5 alternative? I didn't think there was any accepted standard for this stuff yet.
I charge my devices overnight.

I have a smoke alarm installed in the same room, an RCD on the socket and they sit on a solid granite surface!

A few years ago I used to race radio controlled cars - the cells on them taught me a few lessons about how damn dangerous chemical cells are.
I assure you if I would paint something, it wouldn't be very beautiful either. Does that show that paintings are not art?

I didn't say painting aren't art. I say that beautiful things are not art. That being said, beautiful is a spectrum. So in my view, something could be art if it is slightly beautiful or done with some slight skills.

However, the ultimate test is whether or not it would be mistaken as trash.
IBM 1959 Job Post
MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)
To be fair, Hollywood wasn't established just to avoid a few patent laws. It was also a more ideal location for filming due to the sunny weather. They didn't have indoor lighting powerful enough for film at the time. Edison's first studio was a rotating building that followed the movement of the sun across the sky.

Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Company partners also hired gangsters to destroy the unlicensed studies and beat up the actors and directors in New York and Chicago.
I don't feel any ill will for Apple. Companies are always going to try and do what is best for them and that makes sense. What is crazy is why the idea of a flat tax has never gained more traction. I understand that there are some potential issues with a flat tax, but at the very least it simplifies things and levels the playing field.
Most animals see amateur porn among their conspecifics every day and frankly don't give a damn.

And most animals would see a Miró and pee on it. I don't see how is that helpful in determining whether porn is beneficial or not.
You do look glum! What you need is a gramme of soma.
I will say I got a nasty zap off a fake Lenovo charger a couple of years ago. The mains power cable had fallen slightly out, resulting in the earth pin not contacting. The device had a short between neutral and ground thanks to piss poor design and construction.

Man that stung like fuck.
wow, this page sets 20 cookies, loads 16 external javascripts, and has a 280kB image file in the banner. Just to deliver 7 paragraphs of text.
If I live off of my savings, and generate no taxable income, am I also immoral for driving on roads? What if I work part-time, but pay less in taxes than the average person? Once you have a theory that it's morally wrong for people not to pay taxes given that they benefit from the government, you run into the problem that the most effective tax avoidance scheme, by far, is to not have anything taxable.

Oddly enough, New York has implemented an effective Henry George-esque tax system: to merely exist in the city, you have to live in fairly pricey real estate, and the taxes your landlord pays are effectively passed through to you by market rents. Other places have much cheaper real estate, so they don't have the same dynamic.
Ok, so I have a point to make. I don't quite understand how, whenever porn is discussed, all the HN community gets very rational about it and we start discussing it as if it was a normal product. It is absolutely not. It is not what human beings are and it degrades women (And increasingly, trends in porn change only in one way: How they degrade women). It is also dull, and repetitive, despite their sad attempts to innovate; there is a finite number of sexual positions, and you can only go past that once you establish the fact that women will choose to degrade themselves and go with it, which the makers (men, always) happily decide its the case.
So yes, as a hacker, there things to learn from the porn industry (scaling, traffic analysis..),but its effect on society and its subjugation of half of said society far outweigh those few technological insights.
Afaik, incorporation in Delaware isn't usually tax-related; most Delaware corporations don't actually book their income in Delaware, but are registered there because of favorable corporate law and a business-friendly civil trial system.

You're right on the deferral/transfer with regards to international income (e.g. income Apple books in Ireland and later uses to pay for something in Cupertino), but I don't believe Apple ever pays California income taxes on the income it books in Reno, even if it immediately turns around and uses that income to pay Cupertino salaries. There's no state-to-state equivalent of repatriating income.
The value of your stock is the net present value of the future dividends you should expect. If you put a billion dollars in cash on a rocket and launch it into space, the value of that billion dollars is not one billion. It's near zero, depending on the odds and cost of recovering the currency.
Very nice! I doubt my old MacBook pro can tolerate much more in minecraft, sad to say.
There's a great opportunity for startups and really anyone with computers to start encouraging/teaching kids how to program. Would love to see companies dedicating one day a week (say Friday or Saturday's) to invite kids out to learn programming. Actual professionals who make a living doing it that can give pointers and guide them toward success.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3604278.stm - "A bag of rubbish that was part of a Tate Britain work of art has been accidentally thrown away by a cleaner."

Thought I'd share that. :)
"Some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post - for support rather than for illumination."
Show HN: Bloggy - Add a Jekyll blog to your rails app in seconds
You said it degrade women, but you don't explain how.
There are a few job sites cropping up trying to tackle this but aren't fully scaled yet so I guess time will tell whether or not they end up being effective. The issue is, like dating sites, they're not going to be perfect solutions.
All he is engaging in is book length common sense "Do what you are good at, don't do what you aren't good at, don't waste money on ill-conceived ideas". Trite sayings that are not really anything anyone would argue against but also don't give a lot of amazing insight.

This is a very common criticism of business books, self-help books, and, hell, advice in general. And yet there are lots of companies and people who neglect to heed these trite sayings and fail because of it. Most people would probably be 10x better at life if they could internalize all of the "obvious" advice they've ever heard.

Maybe I am just too dense to get his brilliance, but I have never seen anything amazing from his writing, which was why I originally responded to someone that appeared to be implying that he was apparently the diviner of the one true path to success.

Fair enough. I viewed the person you responded to as claiming that (1) this bit of Suster's and Collins' advice is useful and (2) this post, like many other startup blog posts, recapitulates concepts covered in traditional business books. The article you linked to does nothing to support or refute either point, which is why I was dismissive of it.
Man, I haven't used xfce in a long time. Good to see they're still alive and kicking.
Project has already been taken down by creator, and all of the companies information is being deleted from the internet, yet they still managed to get nearly $5,000 in the few hours it was up, which is quite worrying.

Points of evidence

- God character art is from http://pgwebdesign.net/blog/35-mythological-art-masterpieces...

- Backgrounds are from http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211755 and http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/painting/ancient-temple-en...

- Poster consists of this icon; http://xooplate.com/templates/details/2443-ancient-warrior-s... on top of this texture; http://panzertm.deviantart.com/art/Old-Yellowed-Paper-125646...

- The sword reward pictures are from; http://www.knifecave.com/fantasy/store/products/Designer+Cus...

- The reward tier text and values are copied wholesale from The Banner Saga's kickstarter, with just a game name search & replace.

- The office photos; http://i.imgur.com/uTCBT.png are just crops from the Burton Design Group; http://i.imgur.com/XOFdi.jpg
Hey all,

I wrote this gem as an easy way to add a Jekyll blog to any existing rails application. No additional server configuration required since nginx, Apache and most other simply serve static pages.

It's still a little rough around the edges and I'm working to clean that up but all in all it just works.

I put a pretty informative Readme on github that should pretty much walk you through step by step how to get up and running.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or feedback. Email is in my HN profile
The major innovation was the scrolling: none of the previous touchscreen phones had smooth, natural, physics-based scrolling on a capacitive (e.g. finger, not fingernail) touchscreen. The home screen is a prettier version of the Palm OS one, and much of the UI is similar, although it feels a lot more natural with animations and without a desktop-style menu bar.
It's for recording videos I'd expect.

Although nobody wants to watch a video like that either.
Interesting. Very similar to another YC company, http://upverter.com though
It's interesting both because 9V killed the guy and because he had to try pretty hard (stabbing his thumbs) to achieve it. So, while dangerous, not nearly as dangerous as e.g. 110VAC.
New Smartphone App Will Let You Complain to the TSA
Let me keep in style with this article and TL;DR it for you: instant gratification is awesome, and it's easier than it's ever been.
I embrace this and look forward to a day when I can just go into dreamland in my mind while my body is controlled by a computer to do space mining that robots can't. Then I can spend more time doing exactly what I want.
There’s No Trick To Being Awesome
$120K as a startup employee? Damn, I live in a wrong country.
This indirectly brings up the point that it's hard to make the case for directly taxing corporations at all, aside from the fact that it's convenient. Ultimately, all corporations are owned by tax-paying people (or nonprofits). So why not tax their distributions as income? If I forgo working, and instead develop some skill that I could use to raise my income, nobody taxes me on the increase in notional wealth I have from being more skilled; I get taxed when I get paid in a form that I could use for consumption.

Meanwhile, corporations:

a) Get taxed on their profits

b) May pay lower notional levels, but only by paying people to game the rules

c) Get taxed on their dividends (essentially a 15% surtax on the 35% tax on their profits)

d) Also get taxed through capital gains--which is a change in the (un-inflation-adjusted) net present value of future dividends (which, remember, are taxed when they're earned, then taxed when they're paid).

If you give our tax code enough credit, the 35% tax rate is a lower bound. If the government is willing to let you pay $X less in taxes for doing Y, they're saying that the benefit of Y exceeds the forgone tax income of $X. So if I get a $5K tax credit for installing solar panels, the amount of tax-equivalent benefit the government has derived from my behavior is at least $5K.

You could argue that the tax code is imperfect, and that action Y is not always worth $X. But then you're suggesting that we transfer money from a competent rule-follower to an incompetent rule-writer. If governing skill is constant across tax collection and other government behaviors, then exploiting tax loopholes is just in proportion to how exploitable they are--a government so screwed up that it can't manage to legally tax you for anything is a government that definitely shouldn't have its hands on your money.

Obviously, the government has other core competencies besides taxation. But corporate taxes are worth reconsidering. I'd much rather have dividends taxed as regular income--turning corporations into a pure savings vehicle. Taxing corporation-generated wealth four times--when it's generated, when it's calculated, when it's distributed, and when ownership is transferred--is at least three times too many.
Strictly evolutionarily, animals survive and evolve without porn. Porn is a reaction to our cultural practices from the past. If it weren't for porn, maybe our societies would be more open sex-wise.
Lion's fullscreen support is a security hazard as well. Leave something full screen, close your laptop, and come back to it hours later, and you can open up your laptop without it asking for a password.

Pretty sure that's not intended.
"Respectable". The very word makes me shudder. How many injustices have been committed in the name of keeping such appearances?

In any case, I don't see how porn being or not a respectable genre does in any way invalidate what I wrote.
I used to like Xfce in its old 4.2 days. It used to be the Cholesterol-Free Desktop Environment.

XFCE seems to turn into KDE 3 - start from design of the old Unix Common Desktop Environment and add an eclectic mix of features from all possible desktop interfaces while catering to users. Not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of people like it.

I find it a confusing mess now.
Good art is worthy of critical interpretation. There is some porn worthy of awards, but you don't often read critical reviews of doggie scenes.
In the press, it seems like Apple went from years of being unmentionable without the term "beleaguered" straight to being a manipulative, dominant monopolist. The company has certainly undergone a striking and highly unlikely reversal, and perhaps that's a reason for the tonally confused seas. "Beleaguered Apple Inc. now the most profitable company on Earth".
For what it's worth, the rubber band thing having a patent on it, I am not sure shipping it in Firefox is only about implementing it. I do know sometimes patches wait in bugzilla for legal approval, and I do know implementing native-like features often involve much more work than most people think.
It makes me a bit sad to see that people judge the entire browsing experience in term of how native it feels rather than how well standards are implemented and what actual features are provided (not the look of a scrollbar, which is a matter of taste and generates debates that don't interest me much).
There is some work in progress for more UI smoothness in firefox.
Using xul instead of native UI has its pros and cons, but reducing the dependencies between UI code and the OS-specific APIS enables Firefox to be available to many platforms which is valuable in my opinion.
It looks to me like people in general prefer to complain on blogs and comments rather than doing the same on bug trackers were it is actually useful and where one can get feedback from the guys that actually know about the stuff.
Yes but out in the wild, even with monkeys watching other monkeys, sex is a social activity; watching porn alone makes it a very non-social activity.

This discussion reminds me a bit of the "sugar/fructose" discussion the other day. Humans are built to crave sugary, high-calorie food. Modern society allows for an endless supply of sugar. Cue rampant obesity.

I think it's beneficial to question everything; to completely detach oneself from the hivemind. Just because everyone watches porn (or it provides short-term positive benefits) does not mean it's innately good, or could/should be consumed in endless quantities, or has no negative implications.
> These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. The author's point is that we are still waiting for that tangible progress that these information multipliers were expected to spore.

Ebay? Etsy? Kickstarter? Hipmunk? Netflix? Amazon?

When it comes to commerce and trade, the internet has definitely had a real, tangible effect on our societies. The above examples are just some services that make it easier and cheaper to connect buyers and sellers, and that have rationalized delivery-chains which in turn led to massively cheaper prices for end consumers.

Finding things to buy has never been easier.
Finding buyers for your stuff has never been easier.
Finding the globally cheapest price for stuff has never been easier.
Looks like you don't watch porn lately.
I have only used XFCE since 4.6 so you could be right. XFCE 4.8 is still way less of a mess than GNOME and KDE 3. Configuring and using XFCE was very straightforward.
Well, the neutral wire is connected to earth. Grounding is important for metal cases, but when your case is an insulator (plastic), it's less important. If the hot wire comes loose and touches the plastic case, it's not going to harm you, which is what grounding protects against.
It sounds like you’re judging the extreme negatives of pornography while ignoring its positive aspects. I can hardly blame you—the negatives are very visible—but I think such a subtle topic requires a more measured approach.

Most pornography is not degrading to anybody—it’s merely people seeking to make money or have a good time—and a considerable portion of it doesn’t even involve women. To say nothing of the female viewers of porn.

Most pornography does not trivialise intimacy, and there are vast amounts of erotic fiction and pornography with legitimate, deep characters with whom the audience is meant to be emotionally involved. In addition, not all intimacy in real life is deep: people often have “meaningless” sex even within the context of a relationship. If you’ll pardon the wording, it’s okay if a happy couple feels less like “making love” and more like “fucking”. And this is both natural and healthy.

As for toxicity to children and families, I’m baffled as to how knowledge of sexuality could be at all detrimental to the welfare of a child or family structure. Most children find sexual topics boring or revolting anyway, and I strongly doubt that pornography alone is sufficient to tear a family apart. Of course, pornography of children is another matter entirely.

But junk food for the mind? Absolutely! Porn is not necessary—I used to watch porn mainly when I was bored and lonely, and by avoiding things that bore me and keeping myself in the company of others, there is much less of a reason for me to seek it out.

Still, I don’t see the need to spurn it outright—people watch porn every day and it doesn’t hurt anybody.
How I flopped on HN and had a nano hit on Reddit
God says...
I_am_not_amused manufacturing Senegal liberal Czech_Republic
Namibia mine joy you_do_it rip_off heathen that's_all_folks
hollywood far_out_man Malaysia place heaven Great_Britain
Iran Guadeloupe Serbia Poland Watch_this beep_beep I'm_thrilled
write_hymns that's_no_fun South_Korea Indonesia Finland
rubbish Tonga couldn't_be_better ice_cream what_a_mess
dang_it England Brazil what_do_you_expect Yawn food thats_just_wrong
dang_it whazza_matter_for_you service_sector tree_hugger
thank_you_very_much humility potentially I'll_be_back
Romania let's_roll dang_it BBC
Keep calm and carry on; everything is obviously fine.
I doubt it makes much difference once jQuery's loaded the first time, but I'll have a play around with it when I have a minute. There's some lag currently while it searches the page and replaces attributes, but it's fast enough for my needs.
The "proper elements" seem to change every two or three of years. For people getting real work done, especially if there's a lot of legacy markup involved, it can be very challenging to stay up-to-date with what the talking heads have decided is the "proper" way of doing things.

Just look at the <b> tag. 10 years ago, we used it frequently. Five years ago, we were told NEVER to use it, and to use CSS instead. These days we're told it's okay to use again, because now under HTML5 it has new semantic meaning. Five years from now, by the time people have used it throughout their markup again, the attitude will change and it'll once more be verboten.
What do you have against jquery?
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But do you think they first looked for the sunniest places in US where to move it, or did they look for an area where patents didn't apply, and then look for a sunny place there?