skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I also live in a rent-controlled apartment in SF. I'm not sure what the particular policy in Boston is, but here they can increase the rent by 3%/year (I think) while I live there. After I leave, they can reset it to whatever they like.

So, in principle, if market rents increase a lot, the landlord has an incentive for me to leave. I think there's another side to this though: I've been a great tenant for a while and always pay on time -- if I leave, he runs the risk of getting a scammer who just won't pay and will take a year to evict.

Also, since I've locked in a nice rate, I have an incentive to stay and even make minor improvements (like clearing all the dead growth from the patio, etc.)

I think rent control probably is not a great idea in many places, but in SF it seems to work. My pet theory is that the boom-bust cycle here is much more severe and without rent control the city would have no stable population.
I really like the idea of having challenges that utilize real world examples of malware in a controlled environment. Hopefully this will help drive security and defensive technology to innovate faster - it's a tough battle.
Boy, don't you startup with me again. Y'hear?
This one will hopefully just put RapidSSL out of business.

I did not realize this until just now, but RapidSSL is owned by GeoTrust, which is owned by Verisign... so RapidSSL may not disappear in a puff of logic as one might hope.

Here's Verisign's report that they've discontinued MD5 and are offering free replacement certificates:

https://blogs.verisign.com/ssl-blog/2008/12/on_md5_vulnerabi...
Remember, CATO comments on more than rent control or TANF (nuclear indemnity)
Lua is used in many games for scripting, including one that I worked on. I think the "killer feature" for games is coroutines which allow many scripts to run in parallel and across frames, as wait functions can save the stack and later resume execution. Simple enough for non-programmers (level designers) to understand and build the occasional script.
Its an excellent question. Aside from the points already mentioned, the app store for the iPhone conveniently hooks into the payment scheme you have for the phone. No need to fool around with credit card numbers, trust issues, etc. (Basing this on the iTunes store would be a good idea with many of the same advantages.)
Universal prosperity just raises the prices across the board until some folks are "poor" again.
I've never bought into the "SEO-friendly" domain name concept.

Do "Google" "Ebay" "Yahoo" "Skype" "Flickr" etc really evoke images of what those sites are all about? Flickr comes close, but the misspelling would be kind of a nullifying effect.

There are plenty of sites like Paypal that have domain names that better indicate what they do. But still, I doubt anyone googles for "how do I pay my pal electronically".

Keep domain names short and at least sort-of pronounceable. The rest is content, marketing, value and luck.
Don't forget to mention that the only thing egg producers have to do to claim they are "free range" is put a tiny chicken door on the factory building.
Another negative prediction for online ad spending in 2009
Tesco is expert at tailoring their ranges to exactly the sorts of local customers. Most big chains try to standardise ranges across the entire company in search of non-existent efficiencies.

Tesco realises that what a shopper in the poor area of Belfast wants is quite different to a middle-class Glasgwegian, and it profits accordingly.
I started out in my own startup as an unpaid intern, but I'm quickly rising through the ranks!
Health care is no different than any other service. If you are able to increase the availability as well as lower the price it helps everyone. Including the poor.
"To evade various ridiculous NYC taxes (which make a lot of new construction unviable), you need to submit to rent control."

Agreeing to not displace people to cash in on temporary market swings seems like a better tax shelter than some others I've heard of.

"Sky high rents come from current demand. Rent control provides a disincentive to long term investments like new construction or major renovations to rental buildings."

This doesn't make any sense. Without the current rent-control laws, the incentive would be to keep the housing supply low and spike rental rates. New construction would still be difficult (because it's NYC), plus current owners would spend their political capital on preventing it from happening to keep their incomes up.

"Incidentally, neither of the 'things that bother you about the free market religion' are actually part of the free market ideology. 1) only applies to efficient markets (like the rental market, with many buyers and sellers, and good information) and 2) is closer to the Clinton/Bush/Dodd/Obama ideology that ownership is something to encourage."

Maybe I should be more clear, my fault. My first point has less to do with pricing efficiency than with the basic idea that certain things with value can be priced at all (a person's contribution to the appeal of a neighborhood, for instance). My second point was that there are other kinds of risk (living in a bad neighborhood for its cheap rent) that should be rewarded by society over ownership (the windfall that the owner of a slum stumbles into as the neighborhood appreciates in value).

"In some cases the people are completely unrelated."

Of course, I never implied otherwise. My next sentence after the one you quoted was that I wouldn't claim such a thing. As for Harlem, I was almost going to use that to illustrate my point. Prices there are a lot cheaper there right now than the location would suggest they should be, and (despite your experience) tons of people are starting to look that way. Assuming living in the city stays cool, do you really think it's going to be as cheap as it is today in five years? And everyone who's moving there right now, who are going to make it that super-desirable place to live? They'll be priced out (see: SoHo, parts of Brooklyn, Hell's Kitchen, etc., etc).

"As far as who "deserves" to live on some place, it's a wash. So lets not favor any particular group over the other."

I disagree, let's favor the particular group that was already there, that's already established the place as their home.

"As far as emotional appeals go, I'm not casting any group of people as assholes."

Really? I've got some rental agencies to introduce you to.
The idea of a market for citizen journalism has been around since the early 80s.

Maybe this time it'll do better than some of the earlier attempts.

Looking at other examples of citizen writing/editing, I'd say it will be a race to the bottom: staged and doctored videos and pictures, companies and organizations staging stories instead of PR releases, etc.

But it's definitely a feel-good kinda biz and story.
Yeah, but some silicone sister (with a manager, mister) told me I got what it takes.
I worked on the checkouts in a Tesco one summer. The number of times I must have said "Have you got a clubcard?" — you're supposed to always ask the customer if they haven't already produced one. I think it's to get people who don't have one to get one just to shut up the assistant.
Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity
In that case, we need

overflow: auto;
Large Form iPod Touch To Launch in Fall ‘09
I hate the idea of starting up. It sounds like a lame egotistical cliche. I'd rather make stuff people might want to pay for that also helps me increase my technical aptitude, channel my creativity, practice self-control, develop a track record, learn by doing, and allow my users to be an important part of each iteration.
I'd suggest browsers, via an update, stop accepting certificates using known vulnerable hashing routines.
Good friends of mine are getting married downtown in a victorian/steampunk themed wedding. A lot of the guests will be dressed in costume and we'll doing a massive pub crawl afterward.
Verisign/RapidSSL Responds To Certificate Vulnerability
(Thanks to gojomo for finding this).

Gotta admit, a solid response.
There's always going to be a cutoff point, though, where people are unprofitable. Introducing some market oriented reforms might improve things, but you simply can't get around the fact that in a purely profit-oriented system, some people are not worth the money it would cost to save their lives or reduce their suffering.

There are plenty of products where the market drives prices down, but doesn't make them free or available to everyone, and in most cases that's just fine. Some people and some societies take the view that in some way or another, things like food, shelter, and yes, at least basic health care ought to be available to everyone, even if it is not profitable. That's "social engineering".
Is it ad hominem if I don't want to take guitar lessons from someone who can't play guitar?
This article might be better described as Healthy Ingredients for Under $1

That said the list is pretty good but the message is simple if you actually take time to think about what you eat and prepare your own food you can eat much better for less.
Right, let's please avoid the same story in triplicate ;)
Health is very different from other services, profit should not be the goal. Business does not attempt to help people, but to maximize profit, which does not necessarily mean increasing availability or lowering prices at all. It might be more profitable to dump the lower income people and jack up the prices on those who can afford it.

Unlike other industries, getting service is often a literal life or death issue, you have to pay or you might die; morally this makes health care very different from other industries.
I think it's there but doesn't work with FF3.
Personally, I don't really do it for the money or making it big. I do it because it's fun, a learning experience and exciting. And I think a lot of other developers feel the same way as I.

And really, why settle with the mediocre? Aim for the stars and at some point switch direction for the closest moon if the journey becomes too long. Aiming for the closest moon might be a good strategy in some circumstances, but if one has the capacity to aim for the stars then why not do it?
I'd bet that smuggling is a tiny trickle compared to what the market could provide with many commodities (wheat, cotton, corn, stuff like that, not diamonds and rhino horns), meaning that the market is not effectively routing around it at all.
Immigration: I don't think you really disagree with Cato. Arguing that immigration restrictions should be eliminated does not necessarily entail that one believes the restrictions should be lifted all at once.

Rent Control: Rent control causes higher prices for everyone except those who happen to have a rent-controlled apartment, because it discourages improvement of existing properties and discourages building new properties. It also encourages over-buying. Someone may pay $2000/month for a 3 bedroom apartment that has been rent controlled since the 1970s, but only use 1 of the bedrooms. That person could find a 1BR apartment within budget w/o rent control, and someone (maybe 3 room-mates paying $1500 each) could share the 3BR place. Overall this is a more efficient distribution of resources, the benefit of which occurs immediately. I don't really feel sorry for someone getting a huge apartment for way below market price.

Interest Rates: I'm not sure I understand what you mean, since interest rates vary based on unpredictable Fed action and unpredictable market forces all the time. Banks (lenders) hedge against this by buying/selling instruments to even out their Fed risk and by buying insurance to hedge against many of the other risks.

American Auto Industry: What makes you think there would be a chaotic "all at once" situation? That is part of the fearmongering on the part of the firms seeking rents (and the politicians they have bought). Recall how Dubya told everyone that if the US didn't invade Iraq there was an "imminent threat to US national security"? The automakers used that exact strategy to obtain a bailout.

Stability is an interesting concept. It's the essence of "conservatism", wanting to preserve the status quo. Marx warned about this in his manifesto. Anyone who has managed to get a leg up will fight to preserve it at the expense of productive change.

In today's world, this includes the people who thought they were investment geniuses because the value of their home increased 40% the year after they bought it, it includes the overpaid workers who convince themselves that a hard working person immigrating to the US is somehow unamerican, it also includes the politicians who enjoy the huge donations they have been getting from the financial services industry and don't want to see endangered.

So if you put aside the "I want to keep my small advantage at all cost" conservatism, and you do away with the Bush-style fearmongering about imminent threats to "stability", what you find is that the world really isn't all that scary, and often times the meddling that is done to try to prevent "instability" actually does far more harm than good. The Iraq war is a case in point.

Note that "stability in the middle east" is the motto of those who want to go and turn it upside down with bombs and nation building! The same applies to domestic policy.
I've said this before–I think a blog/podcast/print magazine spotlighting these "untold millions" would be (a) extremely beneficial to entrepreneurs and (b) possibly a viable publishing endeavor.

I know it's not their core competency, but why couldn't 37s write about them once a month? Or perhaps sponsor such an endeavor ...
I started a company in Chicago and moved to the Bay Area. the differences are almost exactly what was described in the article. I jumped from a fairly large and prestigious company to start the company and people automatically were incredulous that I would quit. There is no area like the Bay Area for starting company in terms of emotional well being and having fellow entrepreneurs in the same boat.
How does opposing the automotive bailout and the financial bailout constitute being a shill for big business? I'd say it's quite the opposite!
SSL Certificates Browser Compatibility List
All the arguments for this change just makes me think: why did they have the service in the first place?
Search for "inferior good".
"This doesn't make any sense. Without the current rent-control laws, the incentive would be to keep the housing supply low and spike rental rates."

Only if there were a monopolistic housing provider. Absent rent control, the incentive for any individual housing supplier would be to build more houses and cash in.

By your logic, dell should (in the absence of computer-price control laws) cut back on computer production to spike prices. Of course, that's ridiculous; HP, Asus, Everex and others will pick up the slack and Dell will lose money.

As for other landlords engaging in rent seeking, that's a problem, but a separate one.

"My second point was that there are other kinds of risk (living in a bad neighborhood for its cheap rent) that should be rewarded by society over ownership (the windfall that the owner of a slum stumbles into as the neighborhood appreciates in value)."

Living in a bad neighborhood is rewarded; the reward is cheap rent.

"Prices there are a lot cheaper there right now than the location would suggest they should be, and (despite your experience) tons of people are starting to look that way."

Prices are a lot cheaper than they should be precisely because newcomers don't want to live near Harlem natives. High prices elsewhere are driving people here, but the locals are not helping things. As an example of the issues, several of my female visitors have been hassled on their way home. So if you argue for subsidizing hip locals who make a neighborhood attractive, do you also want to penalize disagreeable locals? If not, why not?
The most annoying Americanisms
The best lesson to draw is that Iceland is still there. Their national bank, their currency, and their financial sector failed in the most dramatic way possible.

Most people still have their jobs. There are no breadlines. The world didn't end. Everything is more or less OK in Iceland. It's not a pretty picture, but no one could expect it to be so.
For me, it conflicts with Number 5 too much. How do you decide what counts as "not taking shortcuts" versus what is a luxury you can't yet afford?
Thanks for the diligence guys. I pinged the original author of the article. He says:

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/01/no-titles-exc...

"They do have the handful of titles required as a public company... CEO, CFO, and the like. As of last January when we visited, that was it. Presumably they also have to "title" job postings so people know roughly what skills they're asking for!"
Their defense of the tobacco industry has always been centered around the rights of the individual. Just because Phillip Morris pays a few dollars to keep the institute running does not mean Cato's arguments are unfounded. All think tanks have financial backing from some faction or another, and (surprise!) it's usually the people who agree with the think tank's point of view.

Just because a think tank accepts money does not make their arguments wrong. As an individual, it's up to you to research both sides and decide on which makes the more compelling case.
Well that's done it!

I think that poker is definitely a good training for many things, but personally feel it is most relevant for investing.
The possible universe of outcomes becomes massive when you get into the area of running a business compared with the set of poker outcomes.

I wrote an "ebook" two years ago about how to learn investing through the medium of online Texas Holdem poker.
I didn't release it at the time because of all the controversy about online gambling and US laws.
But now I think it's time has come.
I might have saved some people some money if I had have released it back then before the boom started busting.
The method is called Texas Holdem Investing.
And seeing that this guy will release a book of a similar type I might as well join the party.

Wish me luck!
I agree with you, but it's not that black and white. Insurance companies are usually the ones paying, not the individual. As such, they have a lot of control over the price (especially in the case of medicare). While it might be life or death for the individual, it's not for the insurance company.
Did Digg Really Improve Their Ad Targeting?
Managing Director.

Hay it's fun handing out business cards and seeing double takes - there has to be some reward to working for nothing at the moment. I must admit it felt a bit silly at first, but I preferred it to CEO, Managing Director has a solidity to it I like, which counteracts the nebulousness of IT/Web stuff a bit. Owner / Chief Architect were others I tossed up. MD seemed to be the best.
"We've done our research so you don't have to." -- and then we took the giant flipping table and crammed it behind a 3x5 inch frame so you have to pan about like a ouija board even though you are using an LCD the size of a picture window.
Have you been playing too much Left4Dead?! :-) I know I have.
Same here - 4 weeks in Thailand and I saw a Tesco on a Southern island. I'm from the UK so it was a surprise.
Well I suppose the goodness of the revenues needs to be weighed against the stupidity of the costs.
Just addressing the on-topic portion of your comment (not that the rest wouldn't be worth commenting on, just not enough time or energy) - I really don't understand your criticism of rent control.

"It causes higher prices for everyone not under rent-control."

Yes, but that's almost the whole point of rent control - people aren't being displaced by the folks bidding up the price of all the other apartments to absurd levels. The article makes it sound like without rent control everything stabilizes into this beautiful bell curve with housing for everyone, but it doesn't actually provide any evidence for this (other than showing less populated and geographically confined cities without rent control).

"Discourages improvement of existing properties"

Because the properties are certainly more important than the people living in them, right? I mean, our goal as a society should be as many improved properties as possible.

"Discourages building new properties"

This one baffles me: new properties aren't subject to rent-control in the vast majority of cases. It seems like rent-control is almost a direct stimulus to build new properties.

"I don't really feel sorry for someone getting a huge apartment for way below market price."

What about feeling sorry for someone who has made their home somewhere for 20+ years and is now getting shoved out because they made a tv show that was set in the neighborhood and a bunch of young overpaid professionals want to play cool for a couple of years?
Should you have an epidural or natural childbirth? - by Wendy Stanley - Helium
The question for both of you is how did you get the rent controlled apartment? I bet it wasn't through craigslist. Everybody I know in the city who lives under rent control (which, admittedly, is not very many) found their places through friends.

Not that it's a bad thing, but it supports the idea that you have to be "connected" to get a place. Maybe not a lawyer or a judge, but having been around the city helps.
Cute girl at party: "So what do you do?"

Vlad: "I make stuff people might want to pay for that also helps me increase my technical aptitude, channel my creativity, practice self-control, develop a track record, learn by doing, and allow my users to be an important part of each iteration."

long pause

Cute girl: "Cool. Well, I'll see you around."
Great article. It really surprises me how many people are building products that rely on the "get huge then make money from advertising" model. Personally I couldn't imagine investing years on a project without a reasonable expectation of getting paying customers.

Giving a (web) service away and having no reliable way to turn users into paying customers is a losing game.

A product that I think is great, but which confuses me is Weebly. They have some excellent technology and offer a really awesome service, but their numbers are terrible. 1Million users and 1% paying customers! What other industry has 1% of customers supporting 99% of the rest?

I would rather have 1000 paying customers than 1Million eyeballs that are just there for the ride.
"I've been working on this website that ..."

Easier for people to wrap their heads around.
I'm living the dream ;-)

(more like jumped off the corporate cliff into the scary, vast unknown)
The site requires cookies enabled to view. Guess I'll never visit them for having such a stupid policy.
I'm in the Bay Area, but really I find the "I have a startup" only has the desired affect on similarly afflicted individuals.

If I say the same thing to my relatives, no matter where they live, I get the same blank stares.

I personally think it's not "where" but "who".
The answer this guy is looking for is that both are bad for the environment and he should feel and extreme amount of guilt for causing a global environmental catastrophe. The solution of course is to get an AppleTV and rent your movies off iTunes.
Gawker media still shrinking: selling one blog, another one the block
I guess you didn't actually read the post. I said: except for pollution.