skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Played bass guitar for 8 years, and also have done a ton of audio recording and engineering - recording bands live and in the studio, wore a bunch of different hats on film and video projects, and did audio for some high-profile art installations.

It's not my day job, but music is my main serious hobby outside of work, and particularly with the music recording I've recorded literally in the 100's of bands over the last decade or so.
Great advice. A friend was in a similar situation. I started suggesting he go frugal on everything. When you are running out of gas 5-7 months will happen in a jiffy. Ensure you have more run way like get the 5-7 to 10-12 at least and then either do one of these:

a) Leave everything and bet on getting funds

b) Ditch funds and bet on execution to start breaking even on operations.
My ipod touch does this also. Read the second half of this article (the linked site references Skyhook):
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081022-google-gears-e...
Thank you for this.

I think that the field of game theory, and as the most simplistic example, the prisoner's dilemma, shows that libertarianism, as defined by the idea that individuals acting in their own self-interest will create the greatest common benefit, is flawed. Specifically, this will limit the benefit of each individual as well as the aggregate.

Individuals acting in their own self-interests categorically do not arrive at optimal solutions for themselves or for the whole society. It's a complete joke, mathematically provable, and thus ridiculous that it's still being argued. We need coordinators. All forms of government have been imperfect at achieving perfect coordination, which has inspired libertarians and objectivists and etc., but that doesn't invalidate the coordinators' work. Instead, a meaningful endeavor would be to improve the scientific rigor and quality of the policy-based coordination. This is what my research as an undergraduate was based around...

Libertarian, I invite you to go start an investment bank and act in your own unfettered best interest. I'd be hard pressed to see you not end up in a similar situation to investors in any of the past bubbles and collapses.
Yeah the bulkyness is an issue. I noticed that the Pre is shorter than the the iphone, but it's quite a bit thicker. I really like how thin the iphone is and would even like it thinner like the ipod touch.
US and Canada only. http://loki.com/support/coverage-map
It tried to install something without even telling me what it was. I'll pass.
Good advice. Live on bare minimum. Soon you would realize life isn't all that bad with half the expenses. At the same time, if you do enjoy spending or in other words for many these days getting frugal makes you feel inferior, insecure, might give a sense of failure in that case I would advice you get these feelings out first by speaking it out to someone as to why this is necessary and why this is good.

List down your expenses today, sit down and cut out everything that is not necessary. Scale down everything that can. And it doesn't matter if you don't sit in the Starbucks cafe or if your friends find you odd when you don't buy a fancy meal when you go out.

For rent see if you can pack it in a home office, or on a sharing basis.

Get all of these done in a month, if it gets dragged the feeling as i mentioned before gets too bad and pulls your spirit down as you would keep thinking of every penny.

Once you are lean, just put a expense plan and a plan for the company for the expected run way. Go crazy on execution. Good luck!
I think it's just a giant directory of MAC addresses & locations. If you used a wired connection (and disable your wireless), Loki can't find you because it needs to find a nearby wireless access point that it knows the location of.

Here (http://skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/wps.php) is what the iPhone uses to do geolocation.

Edit: it doesn't seem to work in Chrome.
This same problem used to plague notepad.exe - it mistakes the text for unicode and processes 16 bits at a time instead of 8.
That's why it's necessary to have an AT teacher for a while, to help you develop awareness of your posture, etc.
It found me exactly and I'm in the UK.
the Ubuntu UI is certainly better than Windows, and also imho easier to adapt to than OS X for Windows users who have had enough...
How much time did you spend in Europe to get the idea that the health care systems are good?

Having lived there for 25+ years and now 10+ in the US I can discern no difference. Both systems are broken with a capital F.

I consider myself a libertarian so I would love to see a simple health care option e.g. provides low level emergency care, low level preventative measures.

So you get a busted bone set, colds/infections treated, child birth and pre/post natal, annual check up etc.

But major stuff is not covered e.g. you have a heart attack you're on your own, you need a lifetime of expensive drugs no chance, hip replacement nope.

The idea being that costs are minimized and a clear directive can be written. Like all things you want better treatment you need to put your hand in your pocket.
oh yeah, also made this whilst in hs with a friend.

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00828/

so i guess i dabbled in electronic music for a bit too :)
What about the visa? My experience is that cheap countries get incredibly expensive if you need broadband and a reasonably secure neighbourhood. Or are you talking about living in a hotel on a tourist visa? That only works for 3 to 6 months and I'm not sure it's possible continue working for a NY startup whilst in Thailand.
i like your "limbs" idea. of course programmers get frightened by 'finishing' in ryanwaggoner's context. we know what it's like to want perfect.

i'm only just learning how to slice and chop my projects into pieces... find what i hav to do as bare minimum to make the software 'useful' and put the big black period there.

work in very small iterations - 2 week-mini projects. set good but minimum goals. have a "later list" so you can stop coding that next great idea u think of.

..and after you 'finish' each mini project. hav a beer.

i loved this article.
There's an article discussing this topic on ajaxian.com featuring another jQuery solution: http://ajaxian.com/archives/pegs-automate-display-fixed
An ideal programming language for absolute beginners is the one that doesn’t force them to worry about underlying computing structure(e.g. memory management). Instead the language should teach the fundamental principles of programming (like control statements and the concept of subroutine) in a simple environment that is free of complexities. I would recommend either Karel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_(programming_language)) or Alice (http://www.alice.org/).
That is neither good nor accurate advice.
Are you fearful of crashing and burning financially or just uncomfortable with the uncertainty of the situation? (or both)
The startup scene is certainly uncertain at the moment - then again, uncertainty is its defining experience anyhow. Learn to live with uncertainty - balance your work life with things you know you enjoy and that are always there.
Ditto. Spooky. Makes me consider switching off the WiFi and connecting purely via cable.
For an average person I would think JavaScript would be the most useful language, but for a 13 year old? It really depends on what he is interested in. For example maybe he would enjoy programming Lego robots? Or creating his own Flash games?
I hadn't played a musical instrument in 10 years, but last month I picked up a keyboard and began teaching myself piano. I really enjoy it.
I don't understand, sorry.
What We Learned By Watching The Crunchies
So far, I've only seen this brilliant "business model" applied to electronic toys for geeks...
Geoff Arnold's first application 40 years ago
> This "standing charge" varies a lot. It's negligible in the UK ($15 per month)

Do you have a reference for the "standing charge" in the UK? I've never heard of it.
It's hard because he is writing a framework. Since he's not solving a real problem, he doesn't know when it's done or not.
Trombone and baritone
On the other hand, there /is/ enough variance in human intelligence (or at least human capability) for huge disparities in wealth even in social democratic societies. How much more pronounced must this difference be in a libertarian society?
Aside from the obvious advice to keep your expenses as low as possible, I think you might consider a change in attitude. You are playing a game with a positive expected value, but the rules of the game are such that payoffs are very large and very rare (if you've read The Black Swan, think Extremistan). Unfortunately, the game of "paying my rent check" and "eating on a daily basis" follows a different set of rules. You've been allowed the privilege of taking a risk due to your savings; once they are gone you will be playing a different game. When that time comes you may just decide that "some business guy's lame vision" is a decent alternative to being hungry on the streets coding Haskell. The choice is up to you.

Also, stop feeling scared and terrified (your words). These emotions are not helping you in any way.
Does all of the "great" Web technology only come out of California? Absolutely not. I am going to have a lot more on this topic early next week.

I read PG's "Hackers and Painters" recently and I think he already answered this question with his analogy with regard to renaissance painters - and personally I think he (Paul) is right.

Take a step back from tech and lets talk about movies for a second. Arguably the centers for film-making in the world is LA/Hollywood and more recently India (bollywood).

That's about it, many countries produce films, but they're not as prevalent as those 2.
You could have mentioned what your startup was. Free publicity. Also, people here might provide some input about whether the odds of getting funding really are 90-95% for your type of startup.

I strongly recommend spending part of your time (one or two days a week) looking for a job to hedge your bets.
Can somebody who understands Libertarianism help me with the following thought experiment?

Suppose Libland is a libertarian state. The occupants of Libland stay alive by eating Food. Xia is another state. For whatever reason, they don't like Libland, and for whatever reason, they can produce Food much more cheaply than Libland.

Xia starts flooding the Libland market with cheap Food, so that it's is uneconomic for anyone in Libland to produce Food, and the Food industry disappears.

Suddenly Xia cuts of Libland's food supply, and invades several days later. Libland has no means of producing food in short order, and they cannot buy it from anyone else for some reason (for example Xia is the only other state, or it would take too long to open trading routes with other states).

How does Libertarianism cope with this situation?

[edit: please don't treat me as stupid or a troll. I genuinely want to understand libertarianism, and extreme counter-examples are a method of understanding that I find very helpful]
Finding contract work is not so much work, especially if you are willing to code in Java. Personally I dread the day when I will have to do so again, but it is better as starving. Plus, 3 to 4 months can pay for the whole year.

Just check the typical sites, I had good experiences with jobserve.co.uk (they don't only cover the UK - but I am in Europe/Germany).

iPhone contracting seems to be quite popular atm, too. If you already have a Mac, might be worth looking into. Personally I still shun the investment of getting a Mac+iPod touch.
But more searches requires more servers in the first place.
But then why is it that Europeans fly to the US for cutting-edge (no pun intended) surgical methods that aren't available here?

Also minimal government is not the same as weak government. A libertarian government wouldn't do much, but the things it would do (such as operating the courts) it would do with absolute authority. What we have now - in most of the Western world - is large, weak governments.
4. Super Solar flare
"Flinging meat around space" is a nice phrase I'll have to remember.
There's a lot of good advice here from other posters on living frugally which is all good stuff and I highly recommend you take what people have said on board about living cheaper. I'd like to make a comment about your situation as a whole.

You left your job in April, that's May through to January where you've had no salary. 8 months. You're looking at 'another 5-7 months' before funding in a recession. In effect, what you're saying is that you're looking at 12 months of unpaid work and wiping out your savings in the middle of an economic downturn in the hope that you'll find a business investor who has the cash to fund your deferred salaries, anyone elses deferred salaries (and if you're the only one then you need to change that) as well as investment moving forward.

In any economic climate what you're suggesting doesn't make sense to an investor, you need to either write that entire year's salary off or drastically change what you're doing. An investor is not there to fund salaries, especially backdated ones. If you want to move forward, you need to find a revenue stream. If you can't find a revenue stream but want to stay involved then you need to find a job and cut your involvement back.

The suggestion about Thailand makes a lot more sense than it first seems. Moving to somewhere that costs a lot less to live with your current 5-7months of new york money will give you a hefty safety net, you could take interesting projects on as and when and could possibly retain some involvement in the startup working from somewhere like Thailand, Morocco, Mexico or even the mid-west.

I hope it works out for you, if you are determined to keep at this project full time unpaid then you need to move out of NYC sooner rather than later. I would advise that you reconsider your level of involvement as this is not a profitable or revenue generating opportunity, which is what you need right now and over the coming year.
> (I bit the bullet and have instead decided to learn GIMP)

Don't do it. You're artificially constraining yourself with a tool less common, less powerful, less stable, less elegant. If you instead spend that time learning about color science, the benefit to your work (assuming you do any kind of art or design) will be much more significant.
Once Xia initiates the use of force the gloves are off basically. Libertarianism doesn't permit initiation of force but does permit an overwhelming and decisive response. Xia would find itself "liberated" in short order.
Installing Nginx With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Ubuntu 8.10
Ask HN: Online backup without forgot password functionality?
Does anyone know of an online backup service that does not have the typical "forgot password" functionality? (i.e. sending a new password to your email address)

I'd hate to see my files stolen if someone can hack into my email address. Email really is the weak link in our online security.

Instead, it should use some other methods of verification, be it cc verification, telephone verification, etc etc.

I guess you can call me a little paranoid :)
Please, tell me some of your secrets. I'm interested in cheap living/eating. :)
Chrome automatically downloaded something without even asking me. I am annoyed!
For example when you enter something in the search box but forget to switch language on your keyboard it will detect it and provide right results with 'did you mean..'.

Google has this feature, too. But they were late. Everybody already used Yandex at the moment.
Last I heard it costs some $20,000 per pound to send material up in a space shuttle. I think this would be beyond most people's commuting allowance!
On empty stomachs versus well feed soldiers? Who might be conscripted and organized?
I've had a solo band for a few years (http://werenotthecoolkids.com/music/index.php). I've been in several bands with friends. I play the guitar, drums and sing. Being a polymath is really important to me.
I want a Big Mac now.
The Space Shuttle is not LEO on the cheap. The Sea Dragon does a lot better (as low as $8.90/lb, in 1963 dollars).

http://www.dunnspace.com/leo_on_the_cheap.htm

http://neverworld.net/truax

http://neverworld.net/truax/Sea_Dragon_Concept_Volume_1.pdf

http://neverworld.net/truax/Sea_Dragon_Concept_Volume_3.pdf
A serial entrepreneur friend who's looking for funding on his 5th startup right now: """You pretty much have to have a working product, thrilled customers and a revenue stream right now for VC's to look at you."""

Getting funding has gotten pretty tough here in the Valley. I can only imagine that the funding scene is going to be a lot worse in New York.
> the chances are most of them will say 'Bicycling'

Interesting. I play piano ( http://www.youtube.com/user/anohana ), but back in college I also loved traveling by bicycle (carrying a tent, camping).

Looking around my colleagues, I have a guitar player, another piano player, a bass player, a drummer,... but I'd say players are not majority.
If I had to pick the most preposterous part of this article, and I really hate to have to, it would probably be the end when people are decried as "polluters" because they use Twitter. Even if we forget marginal cost (which the article seems to do nicely), it is still absolutely asinine to poo-poo people for using "all that energy" to post tweets when they could "conserve" it.

If I stopped doing Google queries it would actually end wasting a lot more energy than it saves. I'd have to do things like drive to the library, buy books, call people on the phone to ask them questions, or just use some other sort of electronic medium to gain access to the information, which would likely require more energy since Google is quite energy-efficient when it comes to getting me close to relevant data. Likely all of these would result in more overall energy usage and whatever new scary environmental issue that causes this week.

Look, I am all about conservation of pretty much everything. I don't leave the water running when I brush my teeth and I turn the light off when I leave a room. I do this not because I feel like it helps the environment, but because there's just no sense in wasting energy or resources when I don't need to. Google, on the other hand, directly saves me an incalculable amount of energy and resources, not to mention time.

We're at a point where unsubstantiated worry about global warming causes people to do things under the guise of conservation which, when all the calculations are made, end up actually using more energy and consuming more resources than the thing they stopped doing.
Sounds like an excellent topic for a blog post - very hacker related, I would think.
I think you underestimate weightlessness and the possibilities moving and floating in 3 dimensions brings. Space sports could be very different from sports today.

What is the grand canyon other than a pretty view?

With no gravity, aging in space is a different proposition.

Insurance against nuclear and meteor catastrophe on earth is worthwhile, if only as a backup copy of civilization.

Once people start living in space, cultures will fragment and evolve in ways they never have before. Colonies will have their own recipes, foods, traditions, etc. We bring the "there" with us, or create it "there."
Precisely. My point is that once the situation I described has been arrived at, there's no hope for Libland.

Therefore, I presume, Libertarianism has a way to prevent the situation arising in the first place. What is it?
i second the newlisp :D

then js+jquery with firebug console as repl
Now you're just being ridiculous. What country wouldn't have food reserves? Even tinned food in supermarkets, let alone military stockpiles.

Unless Xia managed to perfectly conceal its dislike for its neighbour, that is. Perhaps they had MAGIC UNICORNS to help?
http://www.groceryoutlets.com
Why would anyone in Libland be interested in the motives of its neighbour? Foreign policy and intelligence is normally the realm of a government. Who performs that role in Libland, and what is their incentive to do so?
Is Java obsolete?
So Xia fights Libland until its food reserves are depleted.
I think that even in US, the search engine that would ignore the rest of the world for the benefit of the average American (and with links to search Google, Yahoo! if the user wants) has this potential.
The Linux desktop also needs better fonts and better antialiasing. I can't think of a good way to describe it, but the fonts I see in GNOME are kind of fat and frumpy-looking. With the weak antialiasing, the whole picture looks hard on the eyes (this is in Ububtu 8.04 and FC10).
You know, one of the points people like to make about the recent financial crisis is about the financial services industry sucked into lots of talented people who could/should otherwise have been doctors, scientists, teachers, engineers and so on. But what about all the talented people who also could have been but instead are working on another cool-but-useless Web 2.0 startup? Isn't the social cost of that at least as high?
I don't the university's role as "the place to meet smart people" diminishing anytime soon. Where else is there? IRC?
Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. - Oscar Wilde

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. - Steve Jobs

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. - Mark Twain

If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to? - Bette Midler

"Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe."
What country wouldn't have food reserves?

The United States does not have food reserves (other than grain stored in grain elevators, which grain Tome implied Libland would instead be importing just-in-time). Here is what the United States has to look forward to in a national disaster:

http://www.google.com/search?q=you+will+survive+nuclear

You are a survivor. Doomsday has occurred and you are a survivor. While you are waiting for the spouse and kids to get home maybe you should do something practical. Like go down to the supermarket and lay in a bit of an extra stock.

You may notice that the little corner store has closed. If he has believed the rumor, he wants to save his stock. And besides, your money may not be worth anything tomorrow. You thought you had seen rapid inflation before but this is like from zero to a million in sixty seconds.

At the supermarket, if you are early enough, you will find pandemonium. If not, you will find practically nothing. Maybe a large bag of dog food (take it) and some cans of floor wax (forget it). The rest of the stuff was all in those carts that you met come flying up the walk as you came running down.

There won't be any girls at the cash registers, (they have done their shopping and gone). Besides, the cash registers aren't working anyhow, with no power. It may have taken the hired manager a little longer to figure out that he should grab what he can and head home to his family, but he has probably gone now. The only cops you will see are the one's grabbing stuff themselves.
My advice would be "finish it and make sure it work".
It is in fact very easy to beat.

You don't have to control your hartbeat, you have to overreact to control questions (performing heavy mental calculations combined with holding your breath 2 seconds will do the trick!), so your (normal) response to the important questions will be less severe in comparison.

If your response to control question is stronger than your response to relevant questions, you pass the test. It that simple.
How to send a personal email
5. Ultima http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ultima_(Spell)
Like or hate the food, McDonald's is a great company with a great brand. A few years ago I read "McDonald's - Behind The Arches" by John Love and realized how agile they are. Ideas for new products are bubbling up from everywhere, and McDonald's seems focused on honing their product and throwing out old habits when they no longer work.