skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with your first point. The "black market" isn't a place you just go to if you want to buy illegal shit. The fact is, if the shooter didn't have legal, easy access to an assault rifle, he wouldn't have been able to do the damage he did. Period.

"It is not entirely coincidental that Aurora and Columbine happened 20 miles from each other."

Well, yeah, it is. Assault rifles are legal in most states. What does being in Colorado have to do with anything?
Exactly. If it can be proven that an alleged infringer actually came up with the same idea independently, that should demonstrate that the idea is not non-obvious and therefore the patent is invalid.
Livestream.com starts at $45/mo and seems pretty easy to set up.

http://new.livestream.com/broadcast-live/pricing-plans
Presumably there's some kind of legal construct that could act as a poison pill. i.e. some kind of contract that says "if this patent is used for [insert evil purposes here], it is immediately converted to GPL."

Also, I refuse to lump defensive patent holders in with organizations like shell-corporation patent trolls or Intellectual Ventures. From what I can tell, IV isn't even bothering to try and execute on ideas they come up with. They simply brainstorm, apply for the patent based on the idea vapors, and then go after anyone who is putting in the blood and sweat to try and actually build it.
If losethos is bad, why not let it circulate?

God says...
C:\Text\WEALTH.TXT

om thinks of
deriving any revenue from it. He consumes it as sparingly as he can,
and endeavours, by his labour, to acquire something which may supply its
place before it be consumed altogether. His revenue is, in this case,
derived from his labour only. This is the state of the greater part of
the labouring poor in all countries.

But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him for months or
years, he naturally endeavours to derive a revenue from the greater
part of it, reserving only so m
First, autarch is correct that you're confusing copyright with trademark.

Second, fax was never a trademark (or copyrighted), its origination is from Latin, 'fac simile'.

Finally, Xerox and Kleenex (and others like Hoover) didn't become generic because they didn't defend their trademarks, the problem was never that rival brands named their products using these names. If I buy a bottle of Pepsi and call it "a coke" then Coca-Cola can't raise any legal objection against either Pepsi or me, and it is this sort of thing that might (and to an extent, already has) lead to other brands being called "coke".
What defines the natural lifespan of a product?
I realize that many Quicksilver fans will be upset with my comments but I can't rely on something that was essentially broken for five years and count on it being something I can use a couple of hundred times everyday.

What happens the next time something gets broken after a major OS update? I can't wait for a few months to get it working again.

I'm not saying that open source software is lousy. I use it all the time. It's just that in certain situations you need the person there who created it.
"Mr. Lerner said that since the children assert the Rauschenberg has no dollar value for estate purposes, they could not claim a charitable deduction by donating “Canyon” to a museum."
You're merely in the wrong company. It can be hard to find the "first" job but once you've demonstrated experience, most places find a math degree equivalent to a CS degree. Open source is one way -- find a project in the area you want to move in, and start becoming active on the mailing list and contributing patches.

That said, have you considered a Master's degree instead? I know quite a few people who did those in their spare time but I know of no one who has completed a Ph.D without being involved full time. The Ph.D is more important if you are interested in doing research in computer science, not if you want to be a programmer.
For me, my biggest reason to love Android is that it is Linux. My phone is rooted. My tablets are rooted. And they all run an ssh daemon and various tools. They're backed up and synchronized via rsync and so on.

To me, to be "better" I need the same control. If B2G delivers that, then maybe.
It's true that you are better of with the private insurances, but the health care system in Germany is still way better than the one in most other west european countries.
Want a better job? Put more info in your Hacker News profile. Email address, Github link, personal website, LinkedIn...so when you write these posts, people can contact you if they're interested.
Yes sorry, finger-brain-interface issues !
It's not smart to publicly badmouth an entrepreneur you've invested in.
12 year old in critical condition after van collision
Exactly.

But many of these rights (eg, the right to carry arms, the right to enter into contracts, etc) are limited to adults.
The difference with your car analogy is that the car doesn't stop working because other cars are adopting new technology or that the roads became worse. Quicksilver broke once Leopard was released.
I can say with certainty that if you make a POTS call from Skype that can be intercepted. I wouldn't be surprised if these new changes allow skype to skype calls to be intercepted too. In the USA all phone conversations need to be interceptable by law (CALEA).
>In mobile, Mozilla's browsers play little to no role

If this, is the case, then it won't be for long. I am strongly of the opinion that Firefox is, by a good way, the best mobile browser available (but of course not 'allowed' on iOS).
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Specification & Special Feature
FFS, not that crap, not again, not here.
Conversational Terrorism: How Not to Talk
That lawyer sets a great example to follow.
I don't believe 7% is enough. When i did my own math it got me to some like 15% figure. Which is easy to stick with in my opinion.

Also, since retirement is a 70-year plan (you start after college, and you finish when you die - and insurers now put in their calculation than the average person aged 30 now will die at 93) - you don't need 'funds'. Just put money in the stock market. This is scary when you have a 5-15 year planning horizon, stock market performance over such an interval varies widely. But over 70 years, you get nearly same return whatever 70-year interval you take, so simply buying stocks is okay for a retirement plan.
Only tangentially related, but I'd like to know:

The Wikipedia article on the incident says "The first phone calls to emergency services via 9-1-1 were made at 12:39 a.m. The police arrived within 90 seconds and apprehended the suspect."

I'm wondering, can this be true? Are they really that fast? If so, impressive.
Geeks, Not Ninjas - A finite tale of infinite mazes
"We worked with Bitly and its data on millions of Web clicks to find the most influential media outlets in the country."

This is the real "value" of link shorteners.

Link shortening needs to be an RFC, implemented within the browser and any other http tool.
This article is a troll rant. Sebastian Anthony is clearly neither a market analyst nor a mobile OS expert. He compiled a bunch of a half-thought, smug driven, psudo talking points; slapped on a controversial sounding title and called it a job well done.
Really? This is the very first quote he has in the article:

"Sparrow OWE me new features, since when you're buying a software produced by a startup, you're also supporting the development."
I fail to see the need for up-to-date stats on who has died and where. It fills the exact same need for an dopamine rush that traditional news does. "Compellingness" is just another way of saying it satisfies the mind's desire for more little chemical hits.

Anyone that has a direct need for the information (family, friends) can get it through the usual channels. For everyone else, it's just morbid fascination no matter how you attempt to justify it.
This is nonsense. Even for "natural compounds", phase 3 clinical trials are necessary to prove efficacy. These trials cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Nobody is going to put up that kind of money unless there's profit in it, period.

Oh yeah, also: most phase 3 trials fail.
If you are a power linux user why pay for someone to install linux? What is emperor linux?
They could legitimately complain, but anyone without a service contract who says that Microsoft owes them further updates is being a jerk.
Setting paranoia about you being one of them aside, and asking you to set aside your kneejerk reaction to being against this being posted, would you care to elaborate? I've never seen this before and it seems quite interesting.
I think there's software and software. Software for the masses, that adresses the masses needs, well, hello commoditization. Now there's another job which is to tell people with bucks how to make more bucks with computers. If they have 10 bucks, well, your value will be in the range of 1-2 bucks. If they have one billion, then you might help them a bit more and grab the money. The only one who make money with the masses are Apple, Google and the like. Except a few really complicated things like Amazon, PayPal or really "sweet spots" like facebook, I'd think the probability to have a deal is super low. So what's the solution ? Well I don't know. I guess we won't be able to advertise things ad infinitum... So we'll be back to added value sooner or later.
Firefox OS is a nice idea, but it’s predicated on open standards: Anyone can take Firefox OS’s additions to HTML5 and produce their own implementation. If developers get on board — at least one Mozilla bigwig has stated that they “want to attract hundreds of thousands of developers” — and lots of open web apps begin to appear, then Google can simply implement the same specification in Chrome, Microsoft can implement it in IE10, and Apple can implement it in Safari. Even if you’re worried about the commercial interests of Apple or Google — or if you’re a carrier trying to extricate yourself — there’s nothing stopping you from installing the Android Open Source Project on your phone.

I think this is where the author contradicts his own argument. Do you know how many small businesses can be created on an open platform such as Firefox OS? It let's individuals and small development teams compete directly against Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. It truly levels the playing field, in my view. Or at least, that's what I hope Firefox OS will be capable of.

As a developer and designer, I (for one) can't wait to try out Firefox OS. If it works well, I'll start using it more. And by all indications I've seen, it will probably work pretty well :)
It's from facsilimile - but the first commercial product and the first to include the 'fax' was Xerox's MAGNAFAX, although they seem to have used the term LDX rather than FAX for the process.

Coca cola famously won a case preventing others calling themselves "Coke" but lost the Cola part when it was shown that they regarded it as a general term for any similar drink. I suspect Apple's lawyers are more careful when anybody else tries to call a tablet a something-PAD.
To create a view like this one: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201109/inc-500-infographic-a-day...
Hopefully to understand how we live daily as software developers
I think living in ones car is a terrible plan, but an ok safety net (My backup plan was to live in my car next to the bay in Emeryville). At a minimum share a house with a bunch of people. If you want to do your best work, don't be homeless. It adds stress to your life after awhile. Get two weeks at the hostel to start and negotiate a discount for a long stay.

In Summer the kids go away, but during the academic year it is booming. Every week visit each of these places to network with people:

Berkeley campus

Stanford campus

noisebridge hackerspace

Fry's electronics

A classy bar in SF financial district (order only one drink and hold it all night as a prop)

Every month:

linux user group

2600 meeting

some FOSS interest group meeting
It's not "crap". If a group of people made a concerted effort to apply these principles to almost any discussion forum out there, they could very effectively control it. And it's a bit naive to assume they already don't.
But in general, citizens of the United States, regardless of age, have the same rights.

That's simply not true. It wasn't until the 26th amendment, in 1971 that the right to vote was set as 18 in the US. Before that even that right was dependant on state based laws. (Note that under 18's don't have the right to vote at all)

OTOH, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District[1] holds that children DO have the right to freedom of expression.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/do-children-teenagers-have-c... is a pretty reasonable discussion

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independen...
Great product?
Given this, what could be a legimate goal of this project?

There are more than a few language X -> Y translators (not compilers), and I suspect they all miss some aspects of the source or target language.
subtle troll is subtle
Home for start-up business? Yes. For tech start-ups? I don't think so. I have yet to meet one engineer-driven tech start-up from Berlin. Most founders I met and know are some business guys with oh-so-clever ideas looking for just the right CTO guy to make their plan reality. And most German developers I know also never thought about working for a start-up. They happily flock to every large German company you may know. The previous start-up I worked for had more Spanish developers than German ones.
They are being nice because it's protected under "parody" free speech and they'd lose.

I don't drink so I am not very familiar with their label but I definitely don't think of JD when I see it.
That is an interesting point in all of this, though I don't think open source is the real solution. There are lots of abandoned open source projects lying around.
It's shortened from facsilimile, which is from the Latin "fac simile" as I said. It was always a description, not a brand name.

Coca-Cola can prevent other companies from calling their products "coke" - but there aren't companies out there calling their products "Xerox" or "Kleenex". Their problem is that consumers refer to other products using their brand names, so the fact that Coca-Cola have preserved their trademark is irrelevant if there are people (and there are) who see a bottle of Pepsi and say "I'm going to grab a coke".
It's at least not bad whiskey.
I don't want to defend the handling of this particular estate, but the justification for estate taxes in general is that it is counter to the interests of a democracy to have a hereditary aristocracy. It's not just that we hate the idea of trust fund babies -- they actually hurt America.
Ironically, publishing an article like this is very irresponsible since readers of slate are far more likely to be liberal and if the argument was compelling enough it could actually move the needle.
>because BAs don't go as deeply into the subject matter as a BS

Some places, like Oxford and Cambridge, only give BAs not BSs - so it's not always a good guide unless you know the institute.
>This do-it-yourself pension system has failed. It has failed because it expects individuals without investment expertise to reap the same results as professional investors and money managers.

It has failed because it relies on people to make rational choices and to save money. To be fair, those were considered reasonable expectations until the last few decades.

You don't need 'investment expertise'. You put your money in a Vanguard index fund, and you don't pull it out until you're done working. With a savings rate of even 10%, you're golden by traditional retirement age.

The main problem I have with .. pretty much every article on retirement ever is this line:

>To maintain living standards into old age we need roughly 20 times our annual income in financial wealth.

Really? Your living standard is entirely dictated by how much money you spend?

I had a conversation with my mother recently about their retirement plans - she's "done the math", and they won't be able to retire until a few years after they planned to. I was somewhat surprised, and asked for details - she apparently can't picture living comfortably on less than $130,000 per year. My wife and I have a comparable lifestyle, and are living on $31,000 without even working hard at it.

My advice to everyone: spend less.

You're chucking great gobs of money at things that don't make you happy; just STOP DOING THAT and you will have enough to retire on by the time you're 50.
... interesting author ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Landsburg#Popular_writin... )

> Landsburg also addressed legal issues: in a Slate column from 2003, he proposed punishing jurors when a jury's decision is later "proven" to be wrong, such as when an acquitted defendant later admits to committing the crime. If a jury's judgement is later "proven" to be right, Landsburg suggested the jurors should be financially rewarded.[4]

> http://www.thebigquestions.com/2012/03/02/rush-to-judgment/

> To his far greater credit, he did so with a spot-on analogy: If I can reasonably be required to pay for someone else’s sex life (absent any argument about externalities or other market failures), then I can reasonably demand to share in the benefits.
Houses for the web: Smart Devices vs Hubs
When you look into it, you'll find that almost every American whiskey --- both the stuff you can get at Safeway and the enthusiast bottles --- rolls up somehow to a large corporation.
SAP has 1200 employees in Vancouver, at the former Crystal/Business Objects site on Mainland St.
I can't upvote this enough. Furthermore, this sentence:

>i'm dumping 15k in, the last of my savings.. i'm all in

Was a big, red flag for me. Would you dump your life savings into lottery tickets? Don't delude yourself...a startup is just about as hopeless as winning the lottery. You said you've worked at startups. I imagine you've seen, first hand, what the chances of success are.

Seriously, don't blow your emergency fund on the lottery. I know this is a very anti-HN comment, but realistically (statistically!) most startups end in financial failure.

Set aside 6 months of expenses, use the rest of the money to bootstrap your idea as much as you can. Outsource as much as you can afford and get as much traction as feasibly possible. Aim to be profitable from day one.

If you aren't profitable by time you start depleting your emergency fund, THEN consider funding if you think you have a viable product. Or just get a job to help pay for it.
So I've only been tangentially involved with these online education companies, what makes Coursera classes so much worse than Udacity?
I'm so knowledgeable about liquors and stuff, I can't stand dilettante whiskey drinking. Beotians! those that think that the black sticker bottle contains but urine and alcohol.

Go be a liquor nerd somewhere else.
Ask HN: Why is there no stopping Apple's monopoly of tablet/phone's browsers?
If there is lawsuit after lawsuit against microsoft for things such as, e.g., having Internet Explorer pre-installed, bundling their media player with the operating system, etc., then why the fuck hasn't there been anything done about the fact iOS, as now more than ever, being in a dominant position in the tablet/smartphone market offers literally NO alternatives of browsers or outlets with which to install software (App Store)?<p>Have they built something that slots perfectly in a loophole which prevents any kind of requirement of freedom of choice for browsers, and indeed all software?
I'm also finishing StartupChile and 24pfilms is flat-sharing with us in Buenos Aires right now. We're returning to London for a while but Berlin is still on our list (nowhere else in Europe is on our list).
> you also get to understand the methods of obtaining the knowledge

I don't understand what you mean by this at all.
Yes of course I realize this. There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself.

Feel free to scan through the US list and pick out the many dozens that fit. Just reading down the top of the list, in the last decade or two I see Tuscon 2011, Geneva County massacre 2009, Cupertino quarry shooting 2009, Oikos University shooting 2012, Seal Beach shooting 2011, Aurora shooting 2012, Columbine 1999, Brown's Chicken massacre 1993, Northern Illinois University shooting 2008. That's from the first 4 or 5 states in that list.

There has been exactly three massacres of this type in recent UK history (~last 50 years). There are dozens in the US just in the last couple of decades. So implying that UK has a similar incidence of random killing spree gun crime as the grandparent did is disingenuous.
From the patent examiner AMA on reddit, and from comments that patent law professionals have made here, it seems that those involved with patents are a bit out of touch with the reality for software professionals.

The patent database is a tool, it's not reality. The way that patents are written and treated is also out of touch with reality.
Again, the problem Sparrow, and all desktop/mobile apps face(d) is the one-time nature of their revenue. You must try to establish a recurring revenue model if you want a long term sustainable business.

Ironically, despite objections, I think recurring revenue models are better for the user in the long run: it keeps the developers solvent so you don't have any "oh shit, discontinued?" moments, it reduces the temptation for feature-bloat to drive upgrades, it allows you to more easily stomach pricing the software closer to what it is worth to you (a lot) than to its incremental production cost ($0), while still allowing you to send market feedback if the product ceases to be useful to you.
How to gain deep programming knowledge
While everything written is true, I disagree with the notion. I personally believe that it is the duty of every citizen to utilize his or her vote in an informed manner. But this is a purely ideological standpoint -- of course one vote very seldom matters.
Yep. Great product.
Guatamala tried the reverse of that--they paid Chiquita chiquita's declared tax value for their land... pennies per acre. The US overthrew their democratically elected government over it.
I cannot understand why you cannot understand that.

It’s relatively simple: Many people believe that it’s important to make moral choices even if the law doesn’t force you to. That’s a pretty widely spread view. Not everyone has it (you don’t seem to), but you should be perfectly able to understand it. It’s not like that’s something new.
Guns aren't necessary to wreak havoc. He could have brought in explosives, poison gas, knives, etc.
You mean parody fair use. Tricky, and thus risky, and so probably not worth it. Jack Daniels has a very distinctive brand, and the publisher used it to promote a commercial product.

So, for example, a risqu� parody of an L.L. Bean magazine advertisement was found not to constitute infringement. L.L. Bean, Inc. v. Drake Publishers, Inc., 811 F.2d 26, 28 (1st Cir. 1987). Similarly, the use of a pig-like character named "Spa'am" in a Muppet movie was found not to violate Hormel's rights in the trademark "Spam." Hormel Foods Corp. v. Jim Henson Prods., 73 F.3d 497 (2d Cir. 1996). On the other hand, "Gucchie Goo" diaper bags were found not to be protected under the parody defenseGucci Shops, Inc. v. R.H. Macy & Co., 446 F. Supp. 838 (S.D.N.Y. 1977). Similarly, posters bearing the logo "Enjoy Cocaine" were found to violate the rights of Coca-Cola in the slogan "Enjoy Coca-ColaCoca-Cola Co. v. Gemini Rising, Inc., 346 F. Supp. 1183 (E.D.N.Y. 1972). Thus, although the courts recognize a parody defense, the precise contours of such a defense are difficult to outline with any precision. [em mine]

Your point is well taken though. It's probably not a slam dunk case.
May I ask why you didn't get a part-time job where-ever you lived and bootstrap an initial MVP of your idea? Not trying to be hostile, I'm genuinely curious.

Dropping yourself off in an unknown location with little money seems like a recipe for disaster.