skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I believe universities will be back to being a haven for those who pursue knowledge for its own sake, and most professional-related credentials will no longer include a "degree."

One of the harbingers of this is the fact that a lot of employers started giving exams to the folks they hire. The 4.0 gpa start not being enough to prove to them that someone was educated enough to do the job (whoa!).

I can envision the day when passing some sort of qualifier will be accepted in lieu of a degree for most professions. How you come by the knowledge to pass that qualifier will be up to you.
The real questions are: 1) how much do open-plan offices save and 2) what is the increased rate of illness (ie, how much productivity is lost?). Anyone have any data?
The widget is also in the way on Opera 9.60.
Huh, a lot of those reasons came down to "crap software."

Word, we're all looking at you.

Yup.

As for the rest, yeah, two spaces. A period's often a single pixel with 4-8 grey antialiased dots around it.
webkit people can paste this into the address bar:

javascript:document.getElementById("sideposts").style.setProperty("display", "none");
That's a good point. Good branding and good execution could overcome that. There are a lot of successful sites out there that position themselves as the no-crap version of crappy sites that do very well.
Do that. (No pun intended.)
This allows a lone inventor to patent a device and then license plans to a large company to manufacture and sell the product.

I agree that this might help curtail patent trolls, but I am not sure this will help that much since the way patents are granted seems fundamentally broken. I think requiring someone to actually produce the invention is treating the symptom of patent trolls and not the cause. If the USPTO stopped granting patents when there is prior art or stopped granting patents that are "obvious" would help more.
Why Do People Become Entrepreneurs?
The ice on the roads creates a risk of the car going out of control. Unanticipated volatility in the market creates the risk of a bank being insolvent.

To manage the risk of your car going out of control, you choose a safe speed.

To manage the risk of a bank becoming insolvent, it chooses an amount of capital to keep in reserve.

I seriously doubt you take exception with any aspect of the analogy so far...

A speed limit sign suggests a speed that is safe to drive. However like any regulation it is only an imperfect estimate. Yet people seem to drive at that speed under adverse weather conditions completely irrationally.

A reserve requirement suggests an amount of reserve capital that is safe for operation of a bank. However like any regulation it is an imperfect estimate. Few banks carry reserves in excess of those set by the requirement.

These are completely identical scenarios. In each case, humans cluster around the regulation without exercising independent judgment. Drivers slide off of the road all the time, and a bit of recent price volatility sent many banks into insolvency.

Your example about the UK is noteworthy but I would argue that due to the dominance of US banks (and US regulations) in financial markets, UK banks are inclined to mirror US policies in order to remain competitive with US banks. Analogously, a Russian firm may adopt some US accounting practices if it wishes to attract investment from the US.

There are two factors: The first is the way that the bar is set by the regulation in the first place. T

he second is the grouping/incentive effect. If your competitor has too few reserves then you are at a disadvantage for not copying that behavior unless the economy crashes (such that your competitor goes out of business and you don't).
You are not alone. I think it is amazing to see newer technologies incorporated into HL7 systems.
Why Windows 7 should be a free upgrade
We shouldn't have blamed Rackspace. Even if it was their fault, it's our responsibility. Our customers pay us, not Rackspace. We learned from that and haven't blamed anyone but ourselves from that point on.
Most patents are never used in anger, so you should probably just ignore them. There are other existential business risks that are probably bigger than patents.
You're graduating a semester early - congrats! That is certainly some indication that you have the drive and motivation to reach your goals. As others here have said, the best way is to write programs. But you need to start somewhere and I would echo the suggestion of starting with python. I have heard Think Python is good and you can get it free here: http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html . You may feel you are parroting a lot at first without necessarily understanding what is going on, but gradually things will come into focus. When I first started, it was just by typing in programs in the BASIC language from the little tutorial manual that came with my computer. Each program would be followed by a little explanation of what each new line meant and after a while you start to be able to apply your knowledge to other things. Python is a "just right" language in that you can start simply but it has all the power you will probably need to get you as far as you want to go when you're ready. But if you find it's not working for you try something else. Some people pick up lisp right away - I still struggle with it (or at least people's explanations of it). Don't give up until you find something that works for you. I would also see what hacker groups are in your area or try and find some like-minded people to learn with - you may be able to find an intro course through a local college or community college if nothing else.
I found the way Clean deals with IO simpler to learn than Haskell's Monads. (But then, I learned Clean before I learned Haskell. They have a nice Jump-n-Run in their example directory.)

Clean employs linear logic, that is you can only have one copy of the 'World' in your program. Look at the printing function as an example: It takes your old World and transforms it into a new World, that has something printed to the screen.

Of course such a view of the outside world is quite autistic. But it works as long as you manage to have only one World around in your program.

The IO Monad in Haskell could have been implemented with linear logic. (And in GHC it is, I think.)

More information at http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/monadsdeclare/mo...

The original papers are surprisingly accessible. I prefer them to the tutorials.
Develop menu ->Disable JavaScript.
My guess, based on the wording in the WSJ sentence I quoted, would also be for the latter (aggregated).
Great idea. Do they have wifi there? :)
I'm not American. But frankly, I don't know what it is you guys have with your constitution. It's part of the legal framework. It's OK. The US Constitution was a legal framework for operating a problematic place & it did that job quite well. But I have no idea why it keeps getting referred to as if it's some sort of ultimate moral authority. The Bill of Rights is also a good sort of a document. But I don't see why it is better then any other high level statement of morality.

Some parts of it seem outdated. The US isn't an ungovernable collection of states that need Federation only for dealing with other countries anymore. There is also nothing wrong with Federation if it works. Even if you decide to work at county level, that's fine. But as with anything, you end up risking income discrepancies & the consequences of this (migration, resentment, estrangement, etc.)

But anyway, that's a completely administrative issue. How you should form a Government (states//Federation, Republic, Kingdom) is one thing. Deciding what this government should do is a seperate issue.

If you are not opposed to Government provision of health/welfare (or as I prefer Government guarantee of these, but the de facto difference is quite small), I think you are pushing the definition of libertarian.
I think that the widget was originally offered as an ordinary widget, but the site owner placed it in that Gawd-Awful(tm) popup thingy.
Isn't it a litte high minded to blog about ways to communicate downtime when the last time you experienced some you blamed your suppliers who were actually blameless?
Awesome idea. Two criticisms, however:

You should get a privacy policy up asap. You're collecting and storing a lot of private information, so you should have a policy that dictates your stance.

Also, not having SMS support yet is a deal-breaker. I realize you're working on this but without this I can't use your system. As someone that doesn't have a smart phone I was excited to try your service but when I realize it was e-mail only, immediately lost interest.

Good luck with everything, and send and update to members when you have SMS support.
The Man Who Loved Tanks
Do you guys think this is a better approach than doing a full-fledged startup?
Reminds me of George Carlin's dissection of the language used on airplanes.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DagVklB4VHQ&feature=relat...

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjKciefHo38&feature=relat...
Report Finds Online Threats to Children Overblown
I don't think it is right to think of this as a economic bubble. Degrees are not a straight investment. It differs from place to place, of course. But on the whole, demand isn't that related to real or assumed future income effects.

Even when it is, it is also related to prestige, ideas about what it's like to be a lawyer/engineer/doctor & other things.
It's not unreasonable that the price will outweigh benefits & that people will pay to be a lawyer.

>>from a career perspective (not a personal or educational one, mind you),

I don't think you can isolate those two in the long run.

But all that said, the education world can be turned on it's head. There are more ways to learn things now & there are potentially much, much cheaper ways to provide education. Students subsidising research doesn't make much sense.

I once worked out that for a year of full time study, I was only getting about 5-10 hours of dedicated lecturer/tutor time. That includes some classes with low enrolment & some with massive enrolment & doesn't include preparation or marking.
I'm actually launching a hosting review site right now (tonight) so it's interesting this came up. I've found this is very much the case across all hosting review sites.

I decided to shift focus towards working with hosts (any host) that want to be included in the directory, whether they had an affiliate program or not.

Of course if a host happens to have an affiliate program, I see no reason to not use it as long as your transparent with your users.

Plus it keeps the site free of regular banner advertising.
"The real problem is that we don't have effective screens for employees. What is an hour-long interview going to tell you? Little. And you're going to have to do many of them."

A friend of mine who is a dentist told me that he was looking to hire a new assistant, and that the usual procedure is to have them do a working interview. That is, they work a day in their intended position.

I would find it hard to suggest a programmer do such an interview, but when you compare it to doing a dozen interviews over two or three days, for an hour or so each, in more contrived circumstances...
Yes! There are often great revenue opportunities serving less sexy markets - you've still got to make something people want! (Or require by law ;))
Payola and affiliate programs and such are not particular news.

Industry analysts and consulting houses can have similar profit motives for their recommendations and implementations over the years, too.

There was a bogus application that showed how shady some of the software award sites can be, too: http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards...

Even grocery and department stores can have financial considerations around product placement and the location and quantity of shelf space for a product that is made available within the store.

When in doubt (and when you can), always follow the money.
Thanks for pointing this out. We might have missed a step on the home page. We do have SMS support. You can find it on the account page/identities.
Hey Jasber, we do have SMS support and Email, IM, etc. Just go to your account page and add a Mobile Phone identity.
(This is a side account.)

that won't help your credibility!
I did the crappy logo for the #1 hosting company on that site when I was a young Padawan. Think I'm going to go take a shower now.
Definitely! (I just realized that gzipping your files before downloading via the web probably does not change the data on the wire --- as most browsers and http servers support gzip encryption transparently.)
Did you reach the 100 yet? It said that it would email me a password, but I'm still waiting.
Because then he'll just create a different account.

As it is, he's happy spamming this site, and we're happy not seeing it. Everyone wins.
How about redirecting the first URL to the second? Updating the fragment part via JavaScript shouldn't hit the server so that wouldn't be affected by the redirect. If you did get into a situation where it inadvertantly redirects then you could just check the referrer to prevent that.
I know, but I don't feel comfortable giving out all the details to the public. If anyone contacts me, I'd be more than happy to share everything they need to know.
People still use WebObjects everyday too (I used to be one of them), but not very many. I'd say WebObjects is basically on the scrap heap.
Thanks guys. I must have missed that. After I couldn't get SMS working I headed to the FAQ where it said you were still working on it.

I think I just need to read a little more carefully :).
Many jobs here, there are.
what shared host would you recommend?
You're always able to evaluate an experiment to a full-fledged startup.

And, however odd it sounds, very frequently I'm much more effective when I know that no one counts on me, and I'm free to experiment. It gives a little competentive edge as well.
Not a good example. Netflix would have chosen Flash probably if it wasn't for a special deal with Microsoft. They traded something in exchange for choosing an inferior solution (inferior in that it requires a download).
While I agree with David's sentiment, the more info the better . . . it sometimes may be appropriate to have a stock answer when the event doesn't really generate real emotion.
http://status.37signals.com/
"21:20 - 21:40AM CDT DECEMBER 22 (3:20 - 3:40 GMT DECEMBER 23), 2008
Connection problems were experienced to Basecamp and Highrise due to a misbehaving web server. We apologize for the inconvenience."
Keep your Web 2.0 community happy - Derek Powazek
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=432737
How to dress like the Twitter founders
I see a certain dichotomy when it comes to the times when things go wrong: from an provider's point of view, downtime is an inconvenience because they now have to deal with an angry client, but from a client perspective, it looks more like the provider is irresponsible and incompetent, than a mere inconvenience (especially when there's money or job security on the line for the client party).

Then again, I think being cold and going for the "we apologize for any inconvenience" line can have some advantages over being personal - it implies you are more objective and reliable.
kind of a honeypot then? nice.
And if you try even harder, you can make something that is compact, but elegant and functional. It is still architecture, but it is good architecture. It's not the architecture that is the problem, it is the architect. Or specifically the motivations provided to the architect based on the compensation they are given. Unwieldy and atrocious looks like it took longer to the untrained eye, even if it probably didn't, so they face less grilling about the claimed effort involved. Simple to use is, in my experience, rarely simple to build. But it is simple to understand, and there is a unreasonable cognitive bias that simple to understand means simple to conceive. If that point can become more a part of everyone's collective wisdom, I suspect we would cure at least part of the motivation for creating these unwieldy systems.
They do. I haven't been in awhile, but the router would seem to get wedged every hour or two. You have to tell one of the workers and they'll run upstairs and reset the thing.
Counter-intuitively, we must be willing to be playfully creative if we want to make serious money. Let's reintroduce enjoyment into what we do. Sustainable creativity is not possible without levity and experimentation.
I hope she's able to reinvigorate yahoo, but speaking from general ignorance about the person (other than her published resume) this seems like a very conventional hire, just like using heidrick was conventional, and just like most every yahoo product is currently conventional. nothing wrong with that, just doesn't strike me as the kick-start, explosive action yahoo's been trying to convince everyone it's been in the process of making to turn itself around.
The use of universities as a general source of credentials is probably nothing more than inertia from the days when only a select few could attend. There really is no good reason why everyone should get their education from a research institution, especially when they have no intention of going into research.

I suspect that the system is self-destructing right now. The more degrees that universities award, the less it will matter that it came from a university. This will bring about the end of most university education, and hence most universities (because they can't all be doing worthwhile research).
Safari Adblock wouldn't help at all with this widget problem.

Also, Safari Adblock's crap. If you really want to block ads, use http://glimmerblocker.org/

The site has pretty bad usability with About page as well. You can't even see close/next/previous links on pages.
Looks very interesting.

I noticed that there are shortcuts for Paypal, but I don't see any copy about how secure those transactions are. I'd suggest adding at least some information on the matter, as some people tend to get paranoid about money transactions over wireless.
Screenbin - like pastebin, but for screen
Well, to be fair, I was writing an essay.
There is good wifi and a large (15 seat) backroom that is dead empty between 8am and 3pm.
Tubes are clogged so we're falling back on the original dump truck method.
Thanks for giving us a head's up about the FAQ. I've fixed it, so we don't confuse anyone else. You've done a good deed! Let us know if you find anything else.
I don't know what's wrong with having a canned response. Addressing a problem and ensuring folks that it's being rectified goes a lot longer than leaving your customers out to dry or changing their diapers for them.

But, I guess it's easier said than done if you're ordering a bigger meal than you can eat when your approach to running a business is making it about you, and not your customers (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-03/mf_signals...).
Wow. This is why I love HN; it's little gems like that make me come out of my lurk-shell and say thank you. This is amazingly simple, which makes me wonder why I'm writing so much PHP/SQL and not writing code as eloquent as this.
Using White Space Effectively In Web Design
> Amazon now owes tax on said $500,000

No. The rule is that if Amazon does enough biz with NY affiliates, it has to pay sales tax on all sales to NY residents. (Of course, it can collect said sales tax from NY residents.)
Top 29 Free UX Tools and Extensions
Feature Request: The ability to tag two posts as identical, and combine their comments.
It's not so much the size of the space, but how tightly the letters of each word are kerned. In a proportional font, all the letters in a word are more tightly packed together, making each word appear as a more separated object. This in turn makes spaces between words easier to see.
I think you're giving MSFT's marketing department a too much credit, that sounds clever ;)
Full-fledged startups tend to fail too often in the real world. Better maximize your chances and have a bag of proven experiments/prototypes before you start IMHO.
It beats the hell out of some stupid-ass whale picture.

But there is a difference between an outage on a free service and a paid service.
"edit: Now I am reading his blog more closely and he only started posting his answers in December. He started reading SICP in July"

well, he didn't do too much for the first 3 or so months. so he really got down to work around September iirc.
In fairness, the Factory pattern is useful when you want to unit test classes with mocks. In dynamic languages, this is easy, but more static languages require jumping through hoops.

Alternately, you could use something like Google Guice, but that's (sorta) a factory-factory.

Basically, no one likes the situation, but they've chosen their tradeoffs, which they see as the lesser of N evils.
I just got you a customer. :D I got on the bus and some girl just barely made it on and was telling me how she just called her friend to check the cta site and that she's so glad she caught it. I told her she can check by txt using your service.

Hint hint: first thing she responded was "how much does it cost?" and was surprised when I said free.
One point: If wages are trending downwards, then wages for professors should also trend downwards. This might make tuition trend downwards as well.

(all trends are in real dollars, costs may simply grow slower than inflation)

Other solutions may be a globalization of the educational system. Currently, US institutions are the top. Perhaps that will change, and costs will decrease as suppliers increase.
> Are there subtle (or not subtle) arguments against a "to qualify for patent protection you actually need to build this" clause?

What does "build" mean? Can I get an idea, file a patent application and then start building? Or, do I have to build before I file? What if it takes longer for me to build than it takes the patent to issue? (Or, I can't legally sell when the patent issues, as is often the case for drug companies.)

If I make one instance and try to sell it, have I satisfied the "build" constraint? Or, do have to successfully sell stuff continuously? What if I can't legally sell because the thing that I'm building requires the use of IP that I can't get a license for?
Thanks to everyone who brought this to my attention. The widget should be gone now for everyone.

Somewhat ironically, all of this complaining got the post to the front page of Hacker News. Next time I'll have to do it on the merit of the post, alone.
I agree that explaining the reasons/remediation is a good idea.

If you pay X for a service, generally you'll have an idea of the service level and value you expect. I think most people are reasonable about this.

Customers that go off the rails (no pun intended) because of an outage in a free/inexpensive service are probably customers you don't want to have.
And the Winner Is......Carol Bartz
Who is Carol Bartz
You should have gotten a notification either way. Drop us an email at help@txtful.com if you don't get it soon.
Your commission check is in the mail :D
The thing is, if you're writing a Ruby framework and there's a tiny chance someone will want to extend some part of it, they can do it without you needing layers of ClassFactoryFactory crud.
I figured that was the idea.
Minesweeper is in NP, only.
Man, I miss Stephenson's old writing style.

His newer work is good, but nothing compared to his first few.
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see why javascript is any better than a proprietary markup language for rendering Facebook data? Either way you're tied to a proprietary platform. If you want to mock it out for your own purposes how much easier will it be to do with Javascript than FBML (I guess maybe a little bit easier)?