skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Libertarianism by itself is flawed because many corporations will establish monopolies or duopolies, stop innovating, raise prices, and call it a day.

Whereas with big government, they'll never ever hire lobbyists to ask for bailouts, subsidies and protectionist legislation...
Cool, ARM are so much nicer to work with than Intel. Really well designed CPUs.
If you don't present your criticism tactfully, then it'll be bad for you.

Withholding your criticism, however, will just turn you into a mostly worthless zero-contributor.

Don't dump criticism - dump tactlessness.

Here's a simple trick: Instead of saying "You're wrong, because X Y Z" (which is also my natural tendency, as you can see from these posts!) try using the formula: "I see what you're saying. A B C (rephrase what they just said). Hmm. What about X? Does that have any impact?" and let them get to Y and Z themselves.

Just using that phrasing will help you tremendously. Of course there are other even more subtle ways to do it, but this works for most situations, and once you get started down this path, you'll figure them out.
So in terms of startups, what sort of business should pick Haskell to absolutely crush the competition, which is using things like Java or Ruby? What kinds of real world tasks can Haskell do, right now, so much better than other languages that it's a significant advantage?
Interesting, but I would like to point out that there is also the "rhetoric question" which I think predates the PC movement.
Criticism is not the problem. How you say it, is.

Firstly, recognise that what you're about to hammer on is someone's child. Respect that, and respect the effort that's gone into it. Recognise that it's not perfect, and they will know it's not perfect, but also that it (probably) has merit.

Recognise that the person who made this thing is (probably) not an idiot. They are, however, almost certainly not an expert in everything. But neither are you. Your criticism is intended to help.

Make an effort to find that which is worth praising. Observe that other aspects need work/attention/deletion, but there will be things that are good. Be genuine in your praise of that which deserves it - there will be something.

Express optinions as opinions. "That sucks" is an opinion that is most likely not shared by everyone. "Linked lists can be slow" is a fact, but it's easier to hear that when it's accompanied by "... but fast enough sometimes, and can be replaced by better data structures when necessary."

Above all, remember that you are expressing opinions to a person who has feelings, who has invested effort, and who has been brave enough to invite criticism. When it's well intentioned and well expressed, opinions from others are incredibly valuable. When badly expressed, opinions can be of large negative value.

Strive to be of positive value.
this sort of thing is known as argument ad hominem.
I would just like to point out that Enron pushed for deregulation and always blamed government regulation of the market for the huge price rise that followed the deregulation, even though it was made on purpose by their corporation. Check out this documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the..., it's nice to learn from history. I agree that government regulation can be as dangerous as out of control police force, but libertarians (similar to communists) are completely oblivious (sometimes on purpose) of how absurd their idealistic word is and lack basic understanding of human nature. It's better to have an open, accountable, public police force than nothing at all.
Ask HN: About Cloudant
Are these guys http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=423997 the same guys from the Summer '07 funding cycle who had the truly wonderful idea of making a "GoZilla for the Router" product?
Was it really that secret?
... and it's not a good thing for hedge funds playing with billions to apparently not know about the laws of the market they are investing in:-)
> what counts as a 'right'

Freedom from coercion, baby. Simple as that.

For a more thorough discussion, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
There's nothing like attacking something you are oblivious to.

I think I have a new maxim for the internet: Never have so many people said so much about that which they knew so little about.

(And yes, I count myself in that)
If Google used some non-Apple library in Picasa that included x86-specific code, then they can't make a universal binary until that library gets ported to the PowerPC. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary
> However, I would rather live under a Scandinavian-like government [...] We all agree on the goals: [...] prosperity, etc.

Yes, I've totally cut up your point, and I'll take this over Somalia any day. But Scandinavian government (Denmark in this case) couldn't care less about prosperity. Right out of college, you're in the top tax bracket, paying 63% on everything above $64.000 annual income (and just under 50% on everything below). Buying a car? 180% registration tax, and slap 25% sales tax on top of that.

But yeah, we've got worse schools than Portugal and free mediocre healthcare, but most importantly: we have high economic equality.

So no, unfortunately we don't agree on the goals.
If we agree on the goals we can try Social Policy Bonds (http://socialgoals.com/).
I've poked through FEC data (lots is available free online via FTP) and seen releases indicating when an individual owns mroe than 5% of a public company. I understand that to be the reporting threshold but could be wrong.

Remember, in the US legal system, companies are people. And the legal system is reluctant to create laws restricting only corporate behavior.
Photos To Pop Art | Andy Warhol Pop Art | Pop Art Lichstyle | Retro Pop Art
andy warhol and pop art, andy warhol pop art, custom pop art, customized pop art, lichstyle pop art, photo into pop art, photo to pop art, photos into pop art, photos to pop art
Not before "investing". Before speculating on the shares of companies in the region. The investors are only the people who purchase the stock as sold from the company - and those people have nothing to lose by this affair.
s/type/typo/

That's exactly what I deserve for being pedantic.
No, they really do want Windows. They want to use the same desktop software that businesses in the first-world do.

They see people pushing alternatives at them as paternalistic shits at best.
That story almost certainly comes from an old book, I read it a long time ago.
Sometimes they add layers (and introduce features in the process), sometimes they tighten layers and optimize. People hate the releases that add layers (95, 2000, Vista) when they're introduced, and then like the releases that tighten them (98, XP, 7), not realizing that both parts of the cycle must exist. People also take a while to notice features, thus attributing the features that were actually added in the disliked ancestor to its descendant.
Sharing and creating HTML and CSS templates
OpenID died last year. Anyone still hoping that OpenID will gain any traction is hopelessly shortsighted.

Facebook will make money, that is the least problem. Facebook connect is going to evolve to merge with MySpace, WindowsLive, StudiVZ, Xiaonei identities. People no longer identify themselves by their email addresses, they do so by their social networking account, and he's right there.

And people don't like changing their social network, they are too entrenched. Americans like to think that Facebook is so dominant, but lots of people like Hi5 and cannot imagine using anything else, because their friends are all there.

There will come a system where people can sign-in anywhere using their personal page. But such systems come slowly because of all the competing interests each pulling another way.
There is a difference between criticising something so that it (and other things like it) can be improved, and criticising something as a means of tearing something (or someone) down.

Good criticism means saying what is good about something as well as what is bad.
All we know at this point is that these computers will almost definitely be running Linux - these chips just can't provide enough CPU power to run any Windows operating system, including netbook standard XP.

I thought the reason was that Windows doesn't run on ARM.
It's not the critic that needs fixing, it's the person who takes criticism to heart, and doesn't learn from it.

Criticism is vital feedback IMHO.
Wii Sports surpasses Super Mario Bros. as best selling game ever
Brain Hayes on the Zune Bug
libertarians only acknowledge negative rights; you can't do X to me. There is no such thing as a positive right; you must give X to me.
Girard does refere to Nietzsche and Freud - but has an entirely different theory about the mechanism of the conflict.
Learning C/C++ Step-By-Step
Prediction 4: In the end of 2010, Facebook loses too much money and no VC wants to back them anymore. They have more than 20,000 workers. Finally, they need bailout from the government.

This prediction is made on the previous 3 predictions made by mdasen.
I bet she is. It's kind of sad when people have to resort to disinformation to sell their stuff.
"Greenspan and friends were all major libertarians,
and even Greenspan said he was full of shit."
Oh well, at least that line made it worth reading.
Dictionary Attacks 101
Your wife has some associated bias. I totally agree with them, you can increase your revenue like 5 times if you just made that clearer.

But I guess you have some point since I'm guessing that the Edu website gets noticed not because of Web search but word of mouth of teachers. And probably the teachers who spread this website to other teachers have well explained the product's features enough already.

But If you just upgrade the clarity of your site. The web searcher won't get trouble and know your site's purpose immediately.
As a normal user, how would I notice any difference?
The thing for me is, I don't just distrust the government, I distrust large organizations in general (government, fortune 500 companies, religions), I find that they are fairly inefficient. I am not interested in replacing one inefficient system (government) with another inefficient system (corporations). I don't want a corporatist society at all, I do want a strong rule of law.

I would welcome a world where we have an efficient market, not only of companies but of governments. There is a market for governments now, but it has very high transaction costs (moving to another country is expensive and dificult, often requiring years of residency to establish yourself as a citizen). One way to make for a more efficient market for government in america would be to have a less powerful federal government, note I didn't say "and more powerful state governments", at the state level you can break it down to counties and then cities. Ideally you could have (and actually do now) a world where people choose the government they want (not so much by voting but by moving). Voting by moving sends a much more powerful message than voting at a booth.

Here's the thing, if we had a small government, there would be no point in lobbying (rent seeking) because having the government's favor wouldn't get you much. Campaign finance reform attacks the wrong side of the problem, like using insecticide around your garbage can instead of taking out trash to get rid of flies.

Notice also that zed asked for a strong rule of law. We don't have that. The result of a bank becoming insolvent is not known, sometimes they will get a bailout, sometimes they won't. Many of the regulations for financial industries wouldn't be necessary if the companies thought they would be held accountable for their actions, they didn't think they would be held accountable, and they weren't, so given that set of rules they played the game properly.

Zed alludes to a couple of concepts. I think the efficiency that he is referring to is better thought of as maximizing utility.

No one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

A state where the above is true is known as a pareto optimal state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency

Sorry if this was rambling, just my thoughts.
But, if Twitter opens up a bit we all win! Ultimately, laconi.ca is attempting to be a distributed, open Twitter. Any more openness in Twitter will help make that happen, because laconi.ca can take advantage of new API methods to build abstractions for it's own distributed service protocol.
Situationally dependent.

If you ask for my opinion, you're going to generally get pretty direct feedback. Over the years I've managed to find the right balance (mostly) between tactfulness and directness. I don't generally sugar-coat things, nor do I like when people try to "phrase" their criticism TO me.

For the last ~11 years I've been working with various startup or turnaround companies. You don't often have time to make sure that everyone leaves every meeting with their feelings and emotions fully intact. But that also doesn't mean that you can or should be a flaming asshole either.

I do not believe that my critical assessment of things has ever hurt a relationship that I would have wanted to maintain. I have had situations where the person receiving the criticism was incapable of handling any negative feedback. But in those cases, that individual usually ends up with a stack of imagined enemies and has zero future value to me anyway.
Alternatives to sharding
SharePoint 3.0 hosting in extranet mode makes it extremely easy to open up hosted SharePoint web sites for external access. Building extranet in SharePoint hosting sites offers more enhanced support for authenticated third party users in dispersed communities.

Building extranets in SharePoint hosting sites with WSS 3.0, using internet protocols creates a private network to securely share information on operations or, any other level with pre-approved users. These users include vendors, partners, suppliers, customers and other businesses. This B2B environment is kept in complete isolation from other internet users. Extranet in a SharePoint hosting site may be viewed as part of the company internet which has been extended to other users. Basically it is intranet mapped onto the public domain.

Hosted SharePoint web sites making use of extranet SharePoint WSS solutions allow business managers to share information in an extended business environment. Security is in place to ensure security information and compliance standards are met. Localized IT staff is able to manage extranet users even if these scale into the thousands. A new layer of security has been integrated into SharePoint 3.0 hosting, and this has improved the level of protection of hosted SharePoint web sites. Stringent security is required by extranet and SharePoint WSS is able to provide this.

Building extranets in SharePoint hosting Sites expands authentication choices and provides a central point for group management, and extranet users which span into multiple SharePoint operations. Building extranets in hosted SharePoint sites securely extends communication, document management and collaboration beyond the boundaries of the organization, and will improve operations with suppliers, distributors, partners and customers alike.

Adrian Gates (Adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent (http://apps4rent.com/sharepoint.html); which offers premium hosted Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint Hosting Services and Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services.
Are you using Linux, where fsync() syncs the entire filesystem rather than a single file?

SQLite (interoduced in FF3 for settings) calls fsync lots, hence tends to suck a bit on Linux. That's Linux's fault, not Firefox's.

Was FF2 preferences slow?
You can write XULRunner apps in python by adding this extension: http://pyxpcomext.mozdev.org/
No, they just inherited the name. It's an entirely different team.
If the VM - the most critical part of the platform - is proprietary, then the platform isn't largely Open Source.
This is Hacker News, you are free to do that. It inspires us actually.

This is why I go back to Hacker News everytime. I list the reasons again:
1) Because bunch of smart guys hang over here.
2) There's just so much to learn especially on starting a startup, this is one topic that I love because it teaches us something.
3) Because of PG.

And I think this topic teaches everyone of us something worth posting here in HN.
I've just spent £97 to buy a replacement battery for my MBP which became useless after about 200 cycles, so 1000 cycles with 8 hours battery life instead of 2 hours for a similar cost in swapping battery seems like a fair deal. So long as the swapping of the battery can be done over the counter whilst I wait.
What most people do not see is that libertarianism is against big corporations as well as big govrnment. In fact bigcos can not exist without government support. Reducing government and allowing the market to work should result in smaller, not larger organizations, a dinosaurs to mammals transition.
In this age of massive botnets, I don't see the point of grouping the requests by IP address, as he suggests: the attacker will just use his 500000 different machines to attack a single account.

So you should probably keep track of the username or account ID that the request is being made for, and rate limit on that.
Google actually did just that. They didn't engage any marketing activities on their early days.
From the article, "this chip will have the capability to power machines with up to 8 hours of battery life, with a display as large as 8.9 inches". We can finally hope for a long lasting laptop without having to weigh 4kgs (or 9 lbs).
I find that a lot of people can't tell the difference between what's meant to be constructive criticism and an insult.
Some (such as myself) also believe it legitimate for the government to provide public goods: goods which are nonrivalrous and nonexcludible.

Protection from contagious disease falls into this category, for instance.
The World’s Most Obese Cats 
Just like humans, pets can become obese. Sometime health problems cause the obesity, sometimes it is simply just overeating. Sometimes the obesity itself causes health problems, and other times the pet can still live with little health complications. Regardless of the health risks of being obese, many pets around the world are very overweight.
Write the manual first
>First off, the unstated goal of most libertarian doctrine is basically the following:
>
> 1. Corporations are more “efficient” than the government because of the
> “natural selection” of our capitalist system.
> 2. Corporations are therefore better than the government at everything.
> 3. Corporations should be the government, or at least in control of it.
>

and
>> But that means that the only way to get government out of business is to get business into government.

>> There's already a lot of money in Libertarian think tanks; it comes from business. The explosion of dedicated Libertarian volunteerism necessary to transform the United States has yet to materialize, even though the Republican Party has harnessed an explosion of socially conservative volunteerism in the service of the same business interests that benefit from Washington's "Libertarian" bullshit factories. Money from business interests provides the only real political pressure pushing policy in a Libertarian direction.

Yes, the libertarian "movement" in USA is quite undefined. Very often statements by referents get out of the core of the concept. For example:

* Privatization of large public sectors, but not making a proper market and destroying regulation, therefore placing monopolies or oligopolies (e.g. Enron's abuse of pricing.)

* Keeping a systems of taxes and special bailouts or credit lines to large corporations that never reach small business or individuals.

* Keeping the system of immunity of owners of corporations for the behavior of the organization (something that appeared after Adam Smith, and is more aligned with his economic rivals.)

* The backers of US mainstream (alleged) Libertarians (save Ron Paul) are mostly backed by the US military-industrial complex, an industry completely against free market and almost exclusively based on tax-dollars supplied by a gigantic war-mongering government.

And the list goes on. I'm sure there are true good Libertarians but the masses seem to be enchanted , yet again, by large anti-free market interests.

IMHO, Libertarians shouldn't support any large organization as it would just replace government with similar flaws. And a true Libertarian can't be part of the Republican Party.
Just click 'flag' and move on.
I thought it was obvious that I was saying that third world governments (the ones paying for the machines) were demanding windows. It is doubtful that children who have never seen a computer have strong feelings about operating systems.

Can you explain who exactly is supposed to be employing the steak and strippers upon whom?
Minimum computer spec released for Windows 7
Ask HN: Using alternative keyboard layouts?
Just as a mind exercise, I spent a couple of hours learning to type with the Dvorak keyboard layout last night. After noticing my ZXCVQW shortcuts would be all over the place and not all that practical one-handed with a mouse, I gave the Colemak layout a shot for a few hours tonight (it retains those keys, plus punctuation, in the same place as QWERTY).

What I found really quite suprised me:

- It's way easier to re-train yourself than I thought it would be (faster, at least...it still requires a massive amount of concentration)

- QWERTY is beginning to feel horribly inefficient (I'd read before that your fingers do less walking with Dvorak but I never appreciated just how much more. It feels like even less movement with Colemak.)

What are your experiences with alternative layouts?
This is a good post, but your response to critic in the thread started by ErrantX should be read by everybody.
I'd be curious to know what you think about this alternative architecture:

http://mailinator.blogspot.com/2008/08/benchmarking-talkinat...

Paul Tyma claims handling 40000 chat messages per second on a quad core desktop system with it.
Would you do that just to "stick it to" some company you didn't like?

Yes.

It might be better to phrase it like, "I'm changing the world", though.
Constructive criticism at the ready; FIRE AT WILL!

I never had a problem with Vista, in fact I used it for nearly 3 years (or there abouts...from the early builds till earlier in the year), until I got a Mac in June. I dislike Windows now, I'll admit it, but I know from experience Vista wasn't that bad (just launch hiccups which taunted its reign), so as long as 7 is an improvement on a perfectly good OS, all is good. Not enough for me to even think about using it as my main OS, but thats just my preference of OS; its very childish to flame somebody because of their choice of OS when it doesn't affect you in any way at all.
Dude has just made up his own definition of a word in order to have something to rant about. What would you call it?
Not really: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=376670
As described I don't really see how the solution proposed handles DoS attacks any better than a lock out after x failed attempts.

The key to preventing DoS attacks is that the throttling is specific to a given host so that when the genuine user attempts to log on (presumably from a different host than the attacker) they can do so without any throttling.
Amusing quote from the first link:

"Porsche exhibiting their excellent cornering ability"