skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Either way, it's shameful that Fab can sue for look/feel.

Uh, really? You're talking about trademark and trade dress. Why, on this green Earth, should you not be able to protect your marks or dress?

Also, this article points to Braniff, Trans-Texas, and Continental suing Southwest as a historical corollary: It's not. Southwest was sued because it was operating outside of federal regulations (which it claimed it could avoid because it only operated in Texas) [1]. Fab is suing based on marks and dress--something wildly different from Southwest's suit.

Additionally, trademark law nearly requires you to vigilantly protect your marks. In that way, it protects against selective suits and bullying where beneficial.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#Foundation_...
That isn't at all what I said, it is exactly ridicule.

The UK didn't raid the embassy.

If the embassy says 'we are harboring this criminal' that is inherently diplomatically difficult. There is absolutely historical precedent for sharply worded letters back and forth.
So if your (small) business takes $60,000 in a year, you will pay square $3300; effectively a rate of 5.5%.

If your business takes $160,000 in a year, you end up paying square a rate of around 2.06%.

Is this really that revolutionary? (.. am I oversimplifying the situation?)
5 Amazing Uses of Near Field Communication
Thanks for testing our api.

We have trained our system so that it knows typical/common female and male facial features.

Our machine learning algorithm will generate a score from 0.0 to1.0 representing gender.

We are still tuning our age and emotion recognition. We will release (most likely in just a couple of weeks) it when we feel it's good and reliable enough for public use.
This is a terrible attitude. Among the other things that have been pointed out, not all desktop browsers have Flash. For example, no computer I own has Flash installed on the system. If I need Flash for some reason, I keep Chrome around, but it has to be a damn good reason to bother with.
The TCO of Web Applications (Compute and Database) in the Cloud
Same here in Montevideo, Uruguay.

I actually had thought of a variant on the idea, but never implemented it. I love it, and would like to have it implemented here (maybe if things are going better for me next year, I could partner with them :) ).

There's a lot of potential IMO.
Just like any other type. Everything is passed by value in C. Everything.
I don't hate objective c / XCode nearly enough to pursue a solution like this even though I like and appreciate ruby. In my opinion the only way this would be the future is if apple started providing support for it.
Could you be more specific with respect to 'empirical evidence'?

In Germany, according to the Federal Statistical Office (https://www.destatis.de), more hours are spent for unpaid work (100 billion hours) than for paid work (60 billion hours) (as of 2009). This gap seems to keep increasing.

Also in Germany, numerous (sorry, can't find a citation right now) polls showed that about 80% of the people still want (and will) work more or less fulltime with a BIG. Funny enough, also about 80% of the people think that with a BIG the _other_ people won't continue to do so and instead become (or are already) lazy.
As someone who's reached my 40s and never been particularly concerned with any more financial success than it takes to pay my bills, I wish I had heard more advice like this when I was younger. Because it's still pretty good advice.

You don't have to throw every ounce of effort you have into your career and work harder than everyone else. But you do have to have skills someone wants and put in effort to build a career. How specialized those skills are and how much effort depends on what the job market is like and what your goals are. In any case, no one owes you a job -- but they might give you one if you can demonstrate that you can help them meet their goals.

Whether that's waiting tables or a low level professional job or a "rock star" developer or running your own business empire, those basic principles are still true. And there's nothing wrong with any of those as long as you're happy with the tradeoffs involved.
theNewAesthetic.js (Artware Javascript Library)
From the homepage:
"""
theNewAesthetic.js is an executable-essay / open-source javascript artware-library for quick [re]production of 'New Aesthetic' compositions and related new-media art tropes. theNewAesthetic.js is also the latest project in an ongoing series of New-Media Art One-Liners
"""
Ok, thanks. Was looking for a img rec lib for floorplan drawings when I fell upon your post - hence the question.
He seems like a reasonable fellow who is open to alternatives and willing to evaluate them based on merit. i.e. He doesn't really fit the profile of a "fanboy".
Right now we're only on one page. Tabs on the same page work really well, because the user can see inside the tab while they see the tip. We're planning to offer cross-page tutorials, but wanted to confirm that it was interesting to publisher/app owners first.

Edit: forgot to say that creating a new tutorial on another page works as a great stop-gap.
USPS won't take UPS or FedEx. UPS and FedEx don't have a way into my building. I don't have a car to get out to the airport where the UPS center is. University mail room policy is no personal packages at work. So I basically can't shop online.
The title is somewhat misleading. It is an HTML5 game that was open-sourced, not specifically a game engine.
Yes, that's the idea. If we choose to be lax and rely solely on our "intuition", all we will see are fragments of pieces that look familiar. We can't help but to compare these components to contemporary examples.

When World of Warcraft first came out, there was so much outcry because it was simply "Everquest dumbed down". Players had taken the component that looked familiar in WoW - the grind - and compared it unfavorably simply because that was the only available metric. In reality, the focus of the design was placed elsewhere entirely and the game itself caused a paradigm shift for grinding to be regarded as negative.

For us as intelligent thinkers to willfully ignore this fundamental problem of introducing something new with familiar components and dive down into a circle of hate would constitute being a hater.
I actually had to stay home from work today to take delivery of a tent that UPS would not leave, and would not allow me to pick up from the UPS facility. This sounds like a really awesome idea.
What about chargebacks after 250,000/yr?
I understand. That's a shame though.
If you chose a supplier at random, they yes, some of those will probably disappear after a few months. But if you spend some time digging around a little, you'll find things like "Best Provider of the Year" type posts (e.g. http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/best-low-end-providers-in-2011... ). These tend not to be fly by nighters.

Consider starting with that list, and look for recent offers by them. Also read the comments on each offer looking for irregularities. Lowendbox has a decent community, they know when an offer smells, or when a fly-by-nighter drops in. Granted it won't be perfect, but you can reduce the risk of a provider disappearing all of a sudden with a little bit of reading and digging.

Two in particular I find trustworthy: VooServers and Evorack

But beware, many low-end-box type providers use stock standard off-the-shelf tools and software, including WHM. So if you have a religious disagreement with passwords in cleartext emails, you should steer well clear of lowendbox/WHM combinations and go for a highend supplier instead.

Or perhaps a more practical method, don't use a secure password when you sign up, and make it more secure on the VM itself when you log in for the first time

YMMV.
> The Swedish police want to talk to him. He fled the country before his interview.

Assange is transparently a scumbag at best, and rapist at worst, but this isn't true.

He was given permission to leave Sweden: the authorities had finished with him. They changed their minds weeks later.

And they can talk to him as much as they like. In London. Even in the Ecuadorean embassy. He's offered this much many times.

He cooperated, and now it's escalated due to political motivation.

How is this so hard to understand?
You're operating on incomplete information. The subsequent lifetime plans offered between 2004-2007 cost considerably more than $200, and most of the original VC200 paid more later on, following the Joyent-Textdrive merger/acquisition, to upgrade to larger lifetime packages and additional services. Scroll down and you'll find users whose per-month equivalent is comparable to a bottom-end Linode VPS.

Judging from Twitter and forum discussions today, most of the remaining lifetime customers use other hosts for many projects, but retain their Joyent packages for sites with relatively minimal requirements: non-profits, simple personal sites, etc. What they paid for wasn't server specs or even the quality of service: it was the explicit promise, in return for paying a chunk of change up-front, of not having to think about hosting options or plan a migration while Joyent remained in business. You can't simply apply a per-month calculation for that.
For anyone interested, I highly recommend David Swensen's book "Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment." Swensen is the highly successful manager of Yale's endowment. While no book on investing is without flaws, I have found it to be some of the most understandable, well-argued and supported advice around.

Short answer: he recommends a portfolio of low-cost index funds/ETFs covering several asset classes and regular rebalancing to target allocation weights. I have generally followed his advice to good effect using Vanguard index funds.
Picplum (YC S11) aims to make photo printing effortless
Just thinking of a specific case, but what do you think about subscription games that promise a lifetime membership (e.g. Star Trek online), then end up going F2P anyway?

I would postulate that this is a similar issue, as you are now being charged for the game _again_ via the F2P model. That said, it seems like it would be a harder one to solve; would the paid content have to be available to the lifetime subscribers for free? Would you stop the game from going F2P to uphold the lifetime/unlimited advertising limitations?

In the latter case I'm sure companies would just stop offering unlimited plans for games like this. I think it also sends the wrong message: if you're offering "unlimited" plans at launch, you obviously don't have that much faith in the longevity of your subscription game.

I agree that companies need to stop offering unlimited use of a product or service where their costs keep scaling with use. Companies always need to base this sort of pricing on the maximum possible natural lifetime of the product, not on when they can pull it if they get into hot water. We had the same thing here in New Zealand when the incumbent ISP offered "unlimited" ADSL plans. Their network of course got clobberred, and they backtracked on it and paid out all customers who'd been on the plan after a complaint to the government about false advertising (they started surreptitiously shaping traffic after some months). They later bought the plans back, but with much more fine print, and much more traffic shaping and regulation on the connections.
This is a very good point, I wasn't entirely clear there. I meant free in the context of someone who's already using a debit (I assume processed-as-credit at most merchants) card, yet missing out on many of the benefits offered by many credit cards.

I disagree about the tragedy of the commons part -- specifically that it's any tragedy. In order to keep the discussion simple I'm not going to go into the potential for abuse (which is a serious problem) and the charge-vs-credit card distinction, but overall I find cards to be enormously beneficial compared to cash: I can buy pricier items without having to travel to the bank to take out cash in advance or mess around with checks (an annoying, less-secure system that rather scares me fraud-wise), I can buy gas without going inside the building, I can buy things online with ease, I can dispute charges in case of fraud or if a merchant trys to pull a fast one or never ships me the item (and I've been able to do this successfully), and I wouldn't really be out any money if someone stole my wallet, I'd just need to make a few phone calls and get some new cards overnighted to me. For free. It's tremendously convenient, and to me, completely worthwhile.

It's amazing how quickly the world can change these days: it's an industry that's about a hundred years old that pretty thoroughly changed the world and has already made it to the "unpopular incumbent" stage.
> It seems to me to be predicated on the ability to keep a lot of state in your head.

There's some research and discussion among educators and neuroscientists about how working memory may be more important than IQ. IANAE but my anecdotal experience also supports this.

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=working+memory+more+important
I'd suggest changing your name from pllop to just about anything else. Immediately.

Pllop is the sound of a small pebble falling into a pond.

Americans associate a 'plop' sound with taking a poo, or as a verb roughly meaning to sit down quickly out of exhaustion.
Basic Income isn't Libertarian at all.

Friedman wasn't a Basic Income proponent. He was a proponent of negative taxation. He was only interested in being consistent with the way we treat income tax and welfare. He felt that the welfare manager's job of determining exactly how to administer relief to recipients was something that couldn't be done properly. He preferred just giving cash based upon income levels on a sliding scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

Given the abuse of the Welfare system over the half century since Friedman supported negative taxation, I don't doubt that he would have different views and controls for such a system were he alive today.

A lot of ideas sounded good 50 or 100 years ago that we have tried but have failed. It doesn't mean we should keep trying them.
Thanks, that's a very important gotcha in current payment systems. Most interesting thinking of ways to work within that seemingly draconian framework!
Oddly, I didn't run away from Objective-C and Xcode screaming. But I have run screaming away from Ruby on Rails a number of times. I do acknowledge that this is likely a personal shortcoming though.
Exactly. This is obvious. That is why law enforcement wants to perform interrogations in an environment they control, when they are dealing with a suspect.
The Gender War is a two hour documentary by journalist Evin Rubar, about radical feminism and its influence on Swedish politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yta55u2zP2U&list=PL849AE3...

Now, before you downvote me, as I see some 'enlightened' readers already have, consider whether a male would get a fair trial in Sweden on any sexual accusation.

Is this not 'radical feminism'? Is it not also kind of insane? Don't shoot the messenger.
The Anatomy of the Perfect PPC Ad
A company steals over a billion dollars from its customers? No one is indicted?

American justice seems to be broken when it comes to the financial sector.
Sorry I was stealing your castle. I guess you didn't see me apologize considering chat text doesn't work.
So, if your corporate records are stored in a kiosk box, doesn't that mean that you can set up your company's address there?

Could one use this sort of thing to convert any café into a co-working outfit?
> I feel that a smart and tasteful person can outguess Wall Street in areas he's an expert in

The problem is telling the difference between luck and skill. It is very rare to have a sustained period of getting things right. And survivorship bias muddies things even further http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Here is an (illegal) way of appearing to have skill. Send a newsletter to a large number of people telling half things will go up and telling half things will go down. Then send the next newsletter to the half you were right about. Rinse and repeat. To the group you are still sending several newsletters later you'll look like a genius with an incredible string of correct insights/predictions.
Ting does this. They're a virtual operator that runs on Sprint's network. https://ting.com/plans
It would be nice if this blog post, or makr.io articulated what it is that makes makr.io different and special. For example, the blog post says "Take a deep dive into their interaction mechanics". If that's the secret sauce that makes makr.io special then how about hearing a description of that?
I'm not an investor but I would imagine the answer is in pattern matching. Investors who meet a ton of people inevitably will have longer relationships with some of them and find out in the end whether a founder has a "strong" or "weak" personality.

I think it's reasonable to call this pattern matching a "gut feeling." Eventually, with more data points, I would assume the pattern matching becomes more nuanced and would be able to better distinguish who is faking and who isn't.
The visual analysis method looks very interesting Mike! Will you identify or extract information from pages with product info, events, food recipes or product reviews?
I really like this idea. As someone who doesn't have an office to send packages to or a doorman, I will use it.

I'm actually interested in seeing how they'll address utilization if it gets popular. What if 100% of the spaces are taken, and someone decides to wait a few days to pick up their package. Is there a penalty fee to prevent such behavior?
Going deeper: how I read Hacker News
I skim the headlines, open interesting articles, give them a quick read, and save them to a bookmarking service.

When I have time, I go back to these saved articles to go deeper. Basically, I use the articles as a point to start from with the goal of reviewing relevant things that could benefit from more depth (programming, usually). I’ll read a book, build something, or go to a meetup to learn more and apply the knowledge.

This simple system works very well. I recommend this. It helps me stay both in the shallow and the deep end.
If you're in a business with small-ish margins and your suppliers don't charge you extra for taking credit card, a cashback or other rewards card can actually measurably move the bottom line.
How Statwing (YC S12) Makes It Easier To Ask Questions About Data
Well stated.

"And therefore there is no great loss if we remove fear of dying from the list of motivators to work."

It's unbelievable that our species is still debating whether or not "fear of dying" should be a motivator of everyday behavior at work.
You're correct. My only point is that it is not enough of an issue here in the US that accumulating evidence to fire somebody is not a primary reason to institute performance reviews company-wide (in general).
Is it ok for a lawyer to ask the judge if she's smoking crack? If not, why is it ok for the judge to? Just wondering.
It's definitely targeted at getting more businesses that do $120,000 - $300,000 on credit cards annually.

I'm guessing they were having issues with adoption in that sector so they rolled this out to make it a little tastier.

They probably have the best penetration in the under $120k/year sector, because of the ease of setup, low overhead, no monthly fees, etc.

I have a good friend who runs a small shop (> $50k/year) and she loves square. Got them up and running painlessly, their iPad is their cash register / POS system, and she pays a manageable amount to Square for it. She keeps asking me when Square is going to start doing online payments, because their transactions tend to be small online PayPal's 2.9% + 30¢ is painful in comparison.
Apple 'Messed Up' with Retail Store Cutbacks, Denies Mass Layoffs
Fixing the Biggest Lie on the Web
With regards to the etiquette of when you can drop people's names into the conversation, I would ask somebody over there in the Valley as my understanding is there are thorny social norms there and I'm only barely conversant on them.

With regards to expressing urgency, maybe something like: "I appreciate that you've got a busy schedule. Boy, can I empathize, it seems like I have to slide the actual running of the company in between the fundraising. But, you know, the market's the market right now. I'll tell you the same thing I'd tell everyone else: we'd be happy to pencil you in for X but our situation is evolving and there may not be an open window for this by X."

(I've never raised money, but when I sell consulting gigs, I typically throw in a true observation like "I have N weeks of availability. My experience is that I usually book up." Ask the 500 crew, but it seems to me like "We're a 500/YC/etc startup. Historically, the rounds sometimes close out quickly." is absolutely true, conveys urgency, leverages social proof, and doesn't say anything you wouldn't want retweeted.)
As a recent neophyte, I will use my anecdotal data of size 1 to hazard an answer. I believe once syntax has become relatively understood is when a programmer should start mapping (mentally or on paper) the steps they need to successfully complete a program.
I read when I'm bored at work.

I work when I'm busy.

When I read I read what interests me.
I haven't used RubyMotion, but Rails isn't really the best introduction to Ruby. Ruby gives you the ability to fairly easily create a lot of magic, but for just writing a Ruby program outside of Rails you can still certainly do things in a quite straightforward way where it's very clear what's doing what and why things are getting called. There's some really nice syntatic sugar and functional features that are, to my mind at least, much less "write only" than Perl's while giving you a bit more of that more-than-one-way-to-do-it flexibility than Python.
> http://wlcentral.org/node/2671

"Julian Assange's mother Christine recently tweeted the following facts about extraditions involving the US, the UK, Sweden, and Australia."

So basically, Julian's mom told you so. Okay...
Even browsers support have supported alternate font styles for years now. http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/11/firefox-4-font-feature-supp...
Web Development is Tough Shit
Interesting that so much of negotation comes down to brinkmanship and confidence.

n.b. Truthfully conveying to investors/clients/etc that the market circumstances concerning one's availability can quickly change in a fashion against their interests and that as a consequence they should decide quickly does not require any particular state of one's pipeline.

Saying 'We might not be available next week' as you do above is not as convincing as saying 'We have 10 meetings this week with potential investors, and we have a closing date of next Tuesday when we'll decide who to go with' or something similar, if that is a truth which they can then confirm with other contacts. I imagine the more truthful and specific you can be about having interest the more convincing it is going to be as a reason for them to be interested.
Vimeo is down.
"Boo! It looks like your browser doesn't support 3D transforms."

Latest Chrome on Centos6 using a ssh socks proxy.

edit: solved thanks to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4393135