skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I started playing banjo 8 months ago. It's pretty much been my only hobby since then. Though, I think the upstairs neighbors may have moved out as a result. I still haven't found a way to practice that's fruitful, and yet isn't way to loud for everyone else. Mutes just aren't fun.
We stayed in Chaing Mai for about a month, had broadband access. The people we were staying with were renting a large house for about $400 a month. You can take a weekend trip to Cambodia or Vietnam and get a renewed visa when you come back. Or travel around SE Asia in general. You can do that indefinitely and it's quite cheap, even in relatively urban areas. Definitely cheaper than NYC(!)
Signs of Peace
Reply-all e-mail storm hits State Department
That's a good point. I do think that when advice is very detailed and specific, it's more likely to be accurate. When people are fooling themselves, or trying to fool their audience, with this kind of thing, they usually speak in generalities. It's too much mental hard work to make up something very specific, like "You should use vim or something like it", followed by detailed reasons why that's a good idea; that, to me, has the ring of something Doctorow has thought about a good deal. I'm _not_, of course, speaking of 'specifics' like the "20 minute" number he talks about; it's a detail, sure, but one that is very easy to make up.
If the residents of Libland sense that they might be attacked, they would obviously keep food reserves or start buying only home-grown food in order to support their own industry.
Err, the government does.

Perhaps you ought to go to Wikipedia and look up the difference between Libertarianism and Anarchy?
If you want to know about libertarianism, then listen to Free Talk Live's podcast.
Ask HN: Taking on Too Many Projects?
Hey guys,

So I'm one of those people who loves to join a great project or be involved in what I think will be a success.

But I already have a full time job and a part time blogging job, in addition to trying tofinish a major project (a fiction novel). A few weeks ago, I joined up with another start-up as a contractor for web-related work, and my work's been adequate, but nowhere near what I could do if I had full bandwidth. I find myself dragging my feet because, perhaps I'm just working too much.

When is a project one too many? Should I be more focused ona few specific things, or are there things you do to make sure you put 100% in all of your projects?

- Ben
But if the backupsets themselves are encrypted?

One of the neat features of RMAN in Oracle 11g is it can stream AES256 encrypted backups directly into Amazon S3 as easily as it can do tape. Online-backup is a prime-time technology now.
It's not in their interest to do that individually, but only as a matter of domestic policy.
A "newbieish" perspective can sometimes help even the best professionals in whatever industry to become more aware of flaws or improvements that they may have become to accustomed with to notice.
If you are paying $1000 (with roommates) to $2000 (1BR or studio) in rent, saving a few bucks by changing your diet won't make much difference.

By the way, aren't programmers in hedge funds supposed to make $200k-$500k a year after bonuses and before taxes?
I would be very surprised if Java didn't endure as long as COBOL. Certainly Java people are going to be able to find jobs easily for at least the next decade.

I was thinking the other day, sometime next year I'm going to be able to legitimately claim 15 years professional Java experience. Damn, I'm old.
"Investing in risky stocks that destabilize the economy creating a panic that loses millions of jobs and causes enough chaos in my personal life: that's ok"

How can investing in stocks destabilize the economy? If I invest my money in stocks that aren't worth it, then I will lose my money but noone else.
If my investment temporarily causes stocks to rise, and people therefore buy (hoping it goes higher), then it's obviously their fault and they too will lose their money.
But if you don't invest in stocks, how can you be affected? The only way for this to happen is when government intervenes and takes money from taxpayers to bailout organizations that took too big risks.
It is amazing to me that Goldman Sachs didn't see this coming. They were selling a commodity product, had zero barriers to entry in their industry and were fundamentally in a business that Blizzard was prohibiting. They has huge risks of competition undercutting them (it happened), Blizzard breaking their backs (it happened) and even, if Blizzard would ever potentially permit this, why wouldn't it get into the business itself just selling the goodies from inventory?
Standing charge in the UK? Not sure where you get that idea - treatment with the National Health Service is free.
I've heard photoshop runs on wine.
Of course it is. If there's a huge uncontrollable risk, people will insure themselves against it. If people know that they might be attacked and don't have enough food, they will hoard some.
My experience of Linux these days, under Ubuntu, is that it's no more quirky than Windows or OS X. You're probably blind to many of OS X's deficiencies because you've become used to all but the most intrusive of them.

Problems that you personally have with it are no doubt vexing, but I've had stuff just as annoying with Windows and OS X.

My feeling is that Linux is finally there with Ubuntu. Yes, it lacks some core software, but on the other hand it has some unique features (ease of installation of free software packages particularly) that at last give it the chance for some competitive traction.

I used OS X for a few months a couple of years back and came away hating it (in fact I sold the iBook and replaced it with a Thinkpad running Windows for a perceived performance gain at a lower price). Not all users are equivalent.
Foreign policy is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Libertarianism.

How does a Libertarian system decide which roles (like researching the intentions of foreign states, and defending against them) a government should play, and which (like presumably researching the weather, and defending against natural disasters) it shouldn't?
I believe he's referring to National Insurance. But as far as I remember NI is the government pension scheme and not related to health insurance.

I can't remember if I had to show my NI card when going to the doctor when I was at university there.

Later on when I was working I normally paid for my own private doctors, due to my experience with the horrible NHS system during my student days.
Please don't post your Chicken Soup for the Hacker's Soul pablum to news.yc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance#Class_2 ?
My point is that unless the nation collectively hoards food for the military then it's not worth doing.

If they hoard individually it buys them a few more months of survival in dire circumstances. What's the point? They might as well spend their money to best enjoy their remaining time before invasion.
How can investing in stocks destabilize the economy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_bubble#Positive_feedback

-

But if you don't invest in stocks, how can you be affected?

Market shocks affect the entire economy (through expanding and contracting credit, etc.). If one does a cannonball into a pool, how can it affect anyone else in the pool?

http://images.google.com/images?q=pool+cannonball
And it's not in the government's interests to do it either, if it would cost votes.
I can second this. I go to one of the top CS schools in the country and people here are, in general, very cool. I didn't have the same experience as an undergrad, despite the fact that I still went to a pretty good school. If you can get into MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley etc, go for it.
Forget feature requests (2005)
Sounds to me like you're having some personal problems, like maybe your graphics card isn't supported. Spend some time at ubuntuforums.com & see if they can help.
I wrote in my post that it might lead more people to buy stocks, but that's entirely their fault.
I don't see how one rising stock might affect anyone who is not investing in the stock market. The cannonball analogy doesn't hold.
One of my favorite quotes is by H. Skovoroda:
"Merciful God for making the attainment of what is necessary easy, and for making everything that is hard to get unnecessary"
If everyone stockpiles individually for themselves and their families then you have a massive distributed cache that is more resilient that a centralized warehouse that can be bombed.

You seem to think the responsibilities of "the state", "the military" and "individuals" are distinct. They're not. Some individuals like to pretend they are, and rely on the government to do X (and some governments play the same game and rely on individuals to do Y) but reality will always eventually assert itself, whatever system of government you prefer.
Indeed, and I'd put similar points to anyone who proposed "true" direct democracy.
The self employed pay 2.4 pounds per week class 2 NI contributions + 8% class 4 NI contributions for earnings between 5700 and 43875 a year. So if you don't make a profit you pay 2.4 pounds pw which is around $15 per month.
You didn't talk of a military in your first post. Assuming that there exists a military paid for by taxes, than it would probably have its own food reserves.
If there is no government military, then private corporations would start offering protection services, which would probably also have food reserves.
But they won't stockpile individually, because it's in no one's individual interest to stockpile. (This is an example of the Prisoner's Dilemma).

I agree with you that "reality will always assert itself" but I'm having a hard time understanding how anyone things that Libertarianism can be that reality.
If I tell you there would be no food in a month, then you wouldn't stockpile some? I don't believe this.
I'm not trying to make a point about military. I'm trying to make a point about self-sufficiency at the state level.

The military may well have reserves, but if they are supplied by Xia, all bets are off once those reserves are depleted.

If Libland does not have the capacity to generate Food during a protracted war then it is vulnerable to external aggression. However, I don't see a way that a Libertarian state can ensure that sufficient Food production capacity is maintained in the presence of cheap Food available on the international market.

And the point is not food either. "Food" is an arbitrary good that people rely on to survive.
Well it depends on other factors, but that's not the point. In this situation:

* Firstly, who's to tell Liblanders that they risk invasion? It's not clear that Libertarianism supports the notion of foreign policy, diplomacy, espionage etc.

* Secondly, all the food in the country is coming from Xia. Once demand grows Xia realises that Libland has recognised the threat and invades immediately.
Yes as I said in the other post, the self employed pay class 2 and class 4 NI contributions: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nic/background-nic.htm

The rates are here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/nic.htm

If you earn below 5715 per year you only pay class 2 NI contributions, which is 2.4 pounds per week.

[edit] I forgot to mention that you can apply to be exempted from class 2 NI altogether. I didn't do that because 2.4 pounds per week seemed already very low to me.
Libertarians act in the interest of preserving freedom in the long term, not maximizing personal wealth in the short term. That's one of the key differences between Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists. A Libertarian might stand up and say, look, our neighbours our hostile, I really think we ought to stockpile food, and if people are convinced (because it's true) then they'll do it. But the government will not say "we need to stockpile food so we're introducing a stockpile tax". Do you see the difference?

I completely agree that Libertarianism can't be retro-fitted onto any existing human society.
People will keep reserves big enough, so that they last long enough to rebuild their national food industry.
Or as I said earlier they might continue buying domestic products in order to keep that industry alive.
Even if most people neglect the risk, there will probably be individuals who keep operating food industries
(even at a loss) in hope that in the resulting war they might make huge profits.
It asks permission to load a signed applet. Signed applets have access to the full Java API, and can in theory do "rm -rf /". I let it do its thing (I'm young and naive) and it died with a NullPointerError (Java's segfault). 2009 and segfaults are still with us ...

Update: it worked on reload, pinpointed my location to a block. On second reload, their applet was automatically loaded, without any security check from FF. This kinda sucks.
Web Usability Blunders That Still Piss Me Off
There might be food insurance companies. They would have advertisements telling people of a probable military intervention by Xia
and recommend people to buy food insurance in order to be safe.
Regarding your second point: The realization that Xia might attack will probably not come suddenly but slowly. So people will
gradually begin investing in food insurance. It's unlikely that Xia turns from friend to enemy in a matter of days.
The same way we find out about anything. Companies like Reuters and CNN tell us while the CIA is still snoozing.

It is entirely clear that Libertarianism does support those things and one of the two roles of a Libertarian government is the physical security of the nation and its citizens.
I do see the difference, I just happen to fancy my chances better under the system where the government imposes a stockpile tax than the system which leaves it up to the market -- even more so when, as I've mentioned in other posts, it's not about stockpiling, but about maintaining self-sufficiency in the face of an alternative that is more "efficient" economically.

Regarding your second paragraph, and completely independently, how do you propose we reach a libertarian society from the position we are now?
You’ve Been Talking (or Pressing ‘Send’) in Your Sleep
I play guitar, compose and do recording engineering

This is my profile in a nice collaborative site.

http://www.kompoz.com/compose-collaborate/userName-elbicho/p...
HN shouldn't allow suspicious links that install shit in our computers without our consent (or disguised).

Fuck Loki!
OK, I'll grant you the existence of the media reporting from foreign countries (although I fail to see how the "What's Xia up to" branch of Reuters makes any money).

Now, a worthy chap sees a report about Xia on CNN and gets suspicious. How's he going to get enough money to mount a publicity campaign warning Libland citizens of the danger?
I'd like to be added to the mailing list ... tom /at/ karlo /dot/ org
OK, but if you're only staying for a month, the air fare is going to ruin your budget.
And how do Libertarians ensure that those they share a state with act "in the interest of preserving freedom in the long term, not maximizing personal wealth in the short term" in the particular cases where that may be non-rational?
I think he's confusing obsolete with mature. Java is far from the hot new thing, but it you want to do large scale stuff then you know it can do the job. And there is plenty of innovation happening in frameworks like Spring rather than the core language. It's once massive share of the job market is definitely dropping, but the jobs that remain are also some of the highest paid.
People will keep reserves big enough

How big are your food reserves that you have on hand right now? One year? Two years? Ten years?

http://a.abcnews.com/images/abc_doomsday_080812_mn.jpg

You don't tell your neighbors about it, do you? They might say, "Oh, I don't need to store any food. I'll just go over to cx01's house and eat his food."

What would your neighbors think if you told them in advance that they couldn't have any of your food, that you personally sacrificed for in the form of opportunity cost? Would they think that you're not very neighborly? When the National Guard comes around to collect all of your stored food so that it can be distributed equally among your neighbors, are you planning on handing it over peacefully?

http://proliberty.com/observer/20070917.htm

Paul James, 85, standing beside some 200 cases of Mountain House freeze dried food. Purchased and trucked all the way cross country from Oregon in 1975, this "mountain" of food was recently pulled down from where it was stored for 37 years. [...] The year was 1975. At that time many Americans were concerned that the Cold War with Russia could turn hot. People all over the country were building bomb shelters in their backyards and storing large quantities of food.

I was one of them. I didn’t build a shelter, but I did order $10,000 worth of Mountain House freeze dried food
Incidentally, when my company was looking for a project management & issue tracking solution, we looked very closely at Basecamp.

Then we noticed that their approach to life is "we know best what's good for you", which wasn't true in our case.

And then we started paying Fog Creek for FogBugz.

37signals' attitude was a factor in our decision -- so I'd advise people to take their ramblings with a grain of salt.
I'm not sure where you missed the fact that I can't play full-screen DVD's (both discs and iso's) in ubuntu (I would venture to say a very important feature for the desktop/consumer OS) without it playing back at around 10fps. If I boot into Windows on my other partition, I can playback multiple DVD's fluidly.

On the same machine.

Finally, I'm not an OS fanboy of any persuasion. In fact, I've only been using Mac's for the last two years (though I cut my teeth on them 15 years ago). I use all three platforms almost equally. Linux, Ubuntu in particular, is the weakest experience of them all. In fact, I would put even BeOS in front of Ubuntu in terms of consistency.

Finally, I've done a shit load of hardcore UI desktop development over the last dozen years, so I have a sensitivity to it, I guess. Linux is just not there.

I have gripes about OSX, but at least when I drag a window it doesn't turn black, or it can resize the window in real time. All of the native apps have the same consistent UI elements. Basic fundamental shit.
Can you find any examples where libertarianism has failed, instead of saying that people have failed libertarianism?

If not, it's a religion rather than a political philosophy.
I don't see any god up here.- Yuri Gagarin (in orbit, 1961)
> And anyway, what do you expect libertarians to say about it? Either one can say that Government is the answer, or isn't.

Ah, we've pinpointed the nonsense! I'll leave you with some words from Milton Friedman on the New Deal:

> The other part of the new deal policy was relief and recovery … providing relief for the unemployed, providing jobs for the unemployed, and motivating the economy to expand … an expansive monetary policy. Those parts of the New Deal I did support. (…) Because it was a very exceptional circumstance. We'd gotten into an extraordinarily difficult situation, unprecedented in the nation's history. You had millions of people out of work. Something had to be done; it was intolerable. And it was a case in which, unlike most cases, the short run deserved to dominate.

With the point being, sometimes government is necessary and sometimes it's not. It's not an all-or-nothing endeavour.
My arguments should be understood in the context of tome's posts, not regarding my current situation.

Personally I don't keep reserves because there's no risk of war (at least I think so). If there was war and I had
reserves, then libertarian ethics would allow me to defend my reserves (with force).
This is a pretty common dell laptop. If we're talking about prime time, and I have to ask on forums for help with something basic like this, then is it really ready for prime time?

I don't hate ubuntu, I just hate when people say it's ready for prime time when it's most certainly not. Ready for netbooks? Sure. But not for a full-on windows laptop replacement. No way.
Something that I haven't seen mentioned: deferred pay is a huge problem in startups. Essentially, the founders are asking you to take venture risk with your salary, but they're not compensating you for that risk (I'm assuming they're not paying you 30% interest on that deferred amount.)

Letting them defer your pay actually encourages them to wait as long as possible before raising a new round of funding, because the money you're lending them is far cheaper (financially) than the money they would get from an investor. Meanwhile, the longer employees work, ringing up deferred comp, the more desperate they get to have the company succeed in raising its next round.

It's a really, really bad combination.

I think the rule has to be, if you're an employee, you should expect to get paid like an employee (i.e. now.) If you are taking risk like a founder, you should get equitized like one, not simply "repaid" your deferred comp. Put another way: you're basically investing that deferred comp in the business, but you're not getting paid for taking that very large risk with your money.
"When is a project one too many?"

when you feel the other projects you do are suffering because of the latest project you just took on. you don't want, for one reason or another, one project to ruin some/all of the others. in your case, this sounds like what might be happening.
If you have 6 one month projects, you could either deliver all at the end of six months, or concentrate on one at a time. The total work is the same, but the average delivery is earlier. And you alleviate the risk of never actually delivering anything.

Your job you probably need to keep. Can you split up the novel, the contracting etc into projects & features and tasks - deliverables - in those? Rather than spending a few hours on one, then a few hours on another, just focus on one project or feature at a time and keep going till you deliver it.
i play guitar
like baidu in china for example. I suspect that countries with different alphabet than latin have their own little googles which they use with more success than google.
The context of Tome's posts is that the war risk is secret. Why would another nation think that it had a good chance of successfully invading a nation that was prepared for such an invasion? Did Germany decide to invade France because the former figured the latter new well in advance of, and was well prepared for, the invasion plans?

The nation that does not prepare for war, is at risk for war. If you personally do not have any food stored, and you and I live in the same nation, it puts me personally at risk of war.
If war risk is secret then a government won't help and that's what we're debating about.
They can't. That's the flaw. You basically have to start again with a bunch of Libertarians who raise their kids Libertarian (this is the easy bit) without it descending into a cult (this is the hard part).

The problem with retrofitting it is unless you already have the no-coercion culture and infrastructure in place, too many people acting in their personal short-term self-interest find coercion easier. Which doesn't mean mugging people in the street; it's as mild as "my vote for your handouts of their money".
I am the lead singer in a Kiss tribute band. Everybody with low self esteem should try singing in a metal band.

We don't use guitars, but have good tuba and violin players. I also play keyboard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7DgpSddLiU
I think this may be validation of Microsoft's approach with the .NET platform since one its core conclusions seems to be that Cocoa is too closely coupled to Objective-C to make alternative dynamic languages attractive as they don't "fit together nicely". The other line of discussion it goes down is whether or not Objective-C is the best option, but that's always going to end up being a matter of taste.