skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The USB spec defines maximum plug sizes and minimum port spacings, different for all connector series (A/B/mini x/micro x). USB A plug/device dimensions are specified as 16x8mm MAX, i don't remember minimum spacing between A ports and google isn't cooperating, but it's also defined somewhere in there. There are some problems however:

If you don't want to put an USB logo on your device or otherwise use USB trademarks you don't need to follow the spec to the letter and USB IF can't do anything about it (see every other usb novelty device like lamps, fans etc).

If your device is too large you just need to ship it with an extension cable and it's ok.
End of tenancy cleaning services in London - CCL Cleaners
You need to read more by the author. He's in favour of massively simplifying the tax code through a General Anti-Avoidance Rule.
that image at the bottom of the article is both professionally taken and unique to this article (I put it into Google Image search and TinyEye - neither had relevant results)

It has been rotated. A Google Images search for "Patriot Magnum" found a number of similar images:

http://www.pricesearchindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/M...

http://image.ebuyer.com/customer/promos/patriot/prod-magnum....
About classifying computer viruses as a form of life:

"Maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive."

Other (constructive) computer programs could just as well be seen as a form of life. The difference would simply be that one spreads without our immediate consent and the other needs to convince us that it is useful to us before being allowed to spread (kind of like pilot fish). Both use a combination of pre-existing infrastructure/ecosystem to procreate - our brains, computers, language and other methods of communication.

They are all the form of life called memes or temes by Susan Blackmore (http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes....). (Also Dawkins et al)
http://doublebuffered.com/2009/06/16/the-players-are-wrong-b...
Is Your Market Position Defensible?
Starbucks' UK employees benefit from UK public services (e.g. healthcare) funded by UK tax. As a result, Starbucks can pay them less than they would in a country with poorer public services (e.g. the US). So yes, Starbucks should be paying the UK for the people it employs from here, not the other way around. If they could run their stores remotely from the US I'd have no problem with them paying no corporation tax in the UK (they'd still have to pay VAT, which they do), because they wouldn't then be benefiting from the UK's tax-funded services.
To expand on the point, the purpose of income taxes is to force the broadest shoulders to bear the largest burden. Whether you feel it's ethical to do so, for the purpose of the discussion we say it's OK - after all we can point to many cases where things were earned by means other than hard work.

Things like payroll, VAT and business rates are based on some kind of consumption and are independent of the magnitude of your success. Changing the tax on these things will probably control how successful/profitable you are, meaning if you set it too high your revenue drops off from businesses failing - so clearly you can't optimise on consumption taxes alone. Hence the need to also tax success in some way.

Unfortunately, taxing a very direct measure of success (income) doesn't work. What alternatives do we have? This is the key question.
How could one possibly know what they would pay for the service if they only see one page with features and not even a demo?
Listing benefits is also a good thing on a product page.
A fine example of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspuns_tenth_rule at work.
Have you been to the UK recently?
Do you know who Jimmy Carr is?
This is largely a theoretical argument that we hackers like to bring up as a way to dismis the tor network.

The truth that we all learned after the lulsec debacle was that the FBI will resort to much simpler and more effective low-tech procedures to spy on their prey.
iTunes Match is the closest I've gotten. I pay for the upgraded storage and its enough to store my entire music library. Anywhere I go I can listen to anything I own with no delay (assume a decent network connection).
Healthy population is not only a factor of your government handling the diapers to your hand, and paying back for old people to go to a hot springs vacation. There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people.

Well it's obvious why: once you make welfare (almost) free, people abuse of it because they do not see the cost and they have nothing to report to no one.
Kind of agree with this - traditional VCs are only likely to be interested in the billion dollar/pound companies.

Many angels and small funds will be happy with £10m/year - it's just a case of picking the right type of investor for your company.
How do you disable a monitor then?

I have found the display options. As far as I am aware you have to use the console to disable a monitor and you have to give it a bunch of crazy commands.

Some of the navigating between open programs stuff is good. Really nothing else I can think of is. Other parts are acceptable, but really the control panel is wanting(like with the monitors), file navigation and dev tools are bad, removing usb drives is annoying, I hate itunes for a variety of reasons. Media playback is about as bad as windows, however, vlc for mac is worse than windows, but I don't blame apple for that except for the fullscreen issues relating back to monitor control. I also find decompressing files to be annoying, but on windows that is 3rd party as well if you want something good. I haven't found anything on the mac that is as robust as 3rd party windows tools yet for decompression.

There is more but just in general the gui is skin deep just like all the software apple makes.
This was an amazing read. It elegantly covers Life from the inception of the universe to what might occur next.

What I liked the most was when he talked about "externally transmitted information". I never thought of books and written knowledge as being part of human evolution as much as DNA, though it definitely fits the description.
Programmer (Blood) Types
The windshield and air vent implementations scare me. How is having an interactive, 10" screen in your field of vision whilst driving a good idea?
We use mathematical language to explain things around us. Many of the mathematical 'truths' are based around this. If we saw different things mathematical truths would be totally different.

You can assume anything to be true in Math and build a universe from that truth.

A good book to read around this subject is Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
You can't really complain that Chinese companies exploit a market left untouched by culturally-ignorant Western companies. I bet if more US companies spent more time targeting the Chinese market in the right way (i.e. perfect i18n support, interfaces built with Chinese languages in mind etc), these knockoffs would get less traction.

(Of course there's always the political problem, the knockoffs are often State-sponsored etc etc, but I bet they'd suffer in face of superior competition, if they actually had real competition.)
An ess-ess-dee / A solid-state drive
A simple Javascript method for reading POST data in Node.js
Then half of the Internet has pretty bold convictions.
"This is complete rubbish. Common sense suggests that if it gave wildly different output then nobody would be using it. But yet everybody does. And likewise if each iPhone executed code differently people would be buying up old iPhones in droves to test. But again they don't."

We use old iphones and older versions of ios to test on.....

I don't really see how you could get by if you didn't.
Go to spotify.com and click on Sign up in the top right hand corner of the page.

On that page there should be a link under the big facebook F: "create an account using your e-mail address"

You may need to log out of Facebook if you're logged in.
That's a business-to-business transaction, there wouldn't be any tax on it even if both companies were in the UK.

There would be taxes on the profits of a UK company, which IMO is the wrong way to go about it; just tax the income made by UK investors who own shares in a company (wherever that company happens to be based). The money can bounce around through as many shell companies as you like, but at some point it becomes an individual's income; tax it there.
Hi casca,

I totally understand and have actually stopped signing up for startups without a clear business model (even YC ones). I hope that our model means that we will be and if for some reason we aren't, because we make your data fully portable and completely yours, it would be very easy for you to move. Please feel free to email me at hello@columns.co if you want to discuss this further.
Ask HN: How to earn $400 per month?
Hi everyone, I am a regular reader of HackerNews. I am from Karachi, Pakistan, a third world country. HN lets me feel to be a part of the main tech world, which is very exciting.

I am a developer by heart, with lots of skills in all areas, mobile, desktop, web etc. I have friends who are good at design.

My dilemma is that I need $400 per month to spend a solid life, since I left my day job to take part in a startup incubation program; which pays just $200 per month and since I'll have to live out of city, $50 will be spent on rent and food.

I am willing to do anything, build anything, can someone guide me how do I start something that earns me exactly $400 per month? Thank you for reading.
In 1997, linux on the desktop was a niche market, only for people who didn't mind editing a text configuration file now and then. Nowadays, you give a desktop with Ubuntu to grandma and she'll be perfectly happy with it.

The latter point (about Ubuntu being suitable for grandma) is true, but irrelevant. In 2012, Linux on the desktop is every bit as much a niche market as it was in 1997.

That's fifteen years of hard work by lots of people that has won negligible market share. Which is a huge problem, if you care about Linux on the desktop.

Moreover, there has definitely been an exodus of sorts, especially among developers. You see far, far more Apple machines in developers' hands in 2012 than you did in 1997. Some of these folks have switched from Windows, but a significant number switched from Linux or BSD. And losing developers means losing applications, which means even less likelihood of a market-share breakthrough.
The Dangers for Libellous Tweeters in the UK
I would say:

That depends on how hard you're trying to work around it.

If you're shifting profits around the globe deliberately to avoid taxes in the places you generated those profits - yes. Other people will draw the line in different places, as demonstrated by the comments here!
Microsoft will sell between 1.8-3 million Surfaces this quarter
>There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people.

Citation needed. All the evidence I've seen is that the French are much healthier than Americans.
I really liked this post. His experience - there are folk talking on mailing lists, there are folk actually doing stuff, and the two groups rarely overlap - matches mine. The concern I have with gnome 3 is that there is sufficient change to trip me up when I'm trying to get stuff done ;-)
I must be the only guy that still has an old 270Gb HDD and a 4Gb USB.
But maybe as we acquire knowledge we will be able to explain why constant have given values. For example: the distance from Earth to the Sun during a given day of a year could in the past be considered a magic number. But today, thanks to Kepler, we understand why this distance has a given value and we know that it could not be different without changing the mass or velocities of bodies.
> And if I did buy through an affiliate link, I would be happy that Jeff earned some money for his post.

Nobody has a problem with that. I would be happy too. But if he really does earn money, the problem here would be fact that he isn't mentioning it.
Oracle Invests in Engine Yard
That's what we are hoping! Because we aren't trying to be a massive company that does everything but instead a small, sustainable business, even if we don't have MASS market appeal we will still have an appeal for people like us that will fund the business.
Totally!... it will surely reach it kickstarter goal
I would remove a lot of this copy that is referring to 'business model' - that's a term that you want to use with your business partners and investors, but not with your customers. I understand why you are bringing it up - to illustrate your transparency and commitment to privacy, but you should really just say that. Also, "We want customers, not users." sounds equally as bad.
Wow, that is one ugly interface. Give me knobs any day over this crap.
> Parse is a less evil PayPal.

Stripe? Square? not sure you mean Parse.
Sure. That just means people have different moral evaluations of a company's conduct. It doesn't mean people shouldn't or can't sensibly have such evaluations.
In the same boat as you... waiting (im)patiently but no email yet!
Google IS paying taxes like everyone else. Most large corporations do not pay taxes locally, in case you do not know. If they were paying locally, they would be at disadvantage versus other organizations who know how to lower their taxes, and lose out in the end. Why focus on these three companies only when ALL other large corporations are doing the same without being threatened?
I think it's aimed at consumers, trying to patch up their public relations. Taken at face value (and overlooking the comments), it does sound vaguely comforting - they quote a big number for taxes paid, protest that they're not making much money, and talk about the local things they source (so caring of them, not to fly sandwiches in from China!). If you were unsure, but kind of liked going to Starbucks, I imagine you could well go away thinking that maybe the allegations were overblown.
Every purchase I can justifiably put through my Pty Ltd company, I do so, to minimise the amount of tax I pay.

Is that categorically different?
Obviously the results of the Windows 8/Surface launch are being classed as another epic failure for MS. They spent billions on advertising and probably got very little in return. This is the start of the end of MS as we knew it. SS is just the one of many high profile rats jumping a sinking ship.
Well, if it does everything they says it does, does that still make it any good? raises eyebrow
If there's enough force (hydraulic?) behind the handles I can see it actually being an advantage in the winter to free them.

I could also see the Model X being pretty suitable for a northern climate. I'd love to have one here in Maine to test out.
"Trying to rationalize why one company should not pay taxes while others do is bad."

It is not particularly bad if you take into account where they actually make their money.

Would you levy UK taxes on every penny Google makes, simply because their sites are accessible in the UK and used by UK residents? That would make no sense.

Google should be taxed fairly on the business they do in the UK, sure, but nothing more. I think that was the grandparent's point: Google likely does less business in the UK than Starbucks or Amazon, and even then the business that they do perform is more immaterial and it's harder to identify the source.

Thus it makes some sense that Google's evasion is "less surprising" in a way, because it is on a smaller scale. No one is saying that Google should not have to pay taxes on the business it does in the UK; we are simply quantifying what it means to do business and in what way.

This is, in fact, quite logical thinking, and there's no need to be alarmed.
Does anyone know? how much it will weigh? I looked on the description but found nothing. It seems it adds weight but it is great anyway!
Beautifully done if a little overresponsive on a touchscreen.
I really dislike this kind of logic. Just because a greater problem exists, does not mean nobody should be allowed to focus on anything else. Should I not be allowed to volunteer or donate money to Hurricate Sandy relief efforts in the NYC area because more people die of cancer?
Thanks slap_shot. I guess what we are trying to do is explain to people like us (geeks) what we really mean by being sustainable and trusted. It annoys me when companies don't explain WHY they are something they claim to be.
Machines can run any set process WE program them to. They will never be able to have a conscious mind to come up with new processes themselves.
If I were paid to write that blog post then that's exactly how I'd want you to see it too. Not being a fan or anti-fan of Jeff Atwood myself I feel, as an objective observer, that if this wasn't an ad then my name isn't Bill. I read this thinking I was going to read about SSDs then I thought it was about USB 3 and then it wasn't long before I was being sold the Blue SuperSoonic Dongle 3000. He mentions it by its full name a bunch of times and does a comparison, albeit indirectly, with other USB drives, and on and on. I work in marketing. I know when I'm being marketed to. Its part of my job to market to others in this really subtle way. I wish I was this good.
>Amazon has done a large amount of damage to the UK high street

To blame Amazon is to only look at one side of the argument...

What about the high levels of rent on the high street, and the costs of parking etc.?

Councils, landlords and others all have played their part in the damage to the high street too.
I don't know, "We want customers, not users." immediately made sense to me but I think I'm part of the target market which seems to be people who are aware of what "free" services do with your data and have at least some concern about it.

The real question is if the target market is big enough to build a sustainable business.
But if you buy this phone now, and you can reasonably expect there to be a new version out in a years time with LTE support... right about the kind of time that you start to get good LTE coverage. It's the same story in the UK. There is only a few trial areas with LTE at the moment.
IMHO, yes. I'm in a similar situation. Things the company needs (justifiably) the company buys.

I consider it very different to using accounting tricks to make profits disappear out of the country entirely, based on bogus internal charging.
Could you please elaborate on privacy and security features you use, on storing and transmitting the contacts.
As a somewhat meta comment, it kind of blows my mind that it's possible today to market a product on the grounds that you, as a customer, pay for it. "Look! We're not free!" is actually something the customer is expected to understand the implications of, and appreciate as a feature.

I do understand the implications, I'm not looking for explanations, I just think it's quite ... funny.
Perhaps ask SpaceX to do it - they shipped fresh ice cream in a refrigerator in their supply mission...
I'll say it...I'm nervous.
Thoughts on making science work better.
So I guess the main point of this article was to get some ideas down and provide a quick summary of things I've learnt in the past year. Getting feedback is helpful as it shows where I can drill down in to more detail in future posts.

For now quick responses to your points:

1. We spent a lot of time playing around with ideas, thinking big, making assumptions about what people wanted. We should have just built something small, quickly, put it out there and got feedback. Basically build a smaller MVP.

2. Knowing the basics is a good place to start - it at least makes it easier to hire the right people if you understand the role a bit.

3. Agree with your counter point. Specifically we spent a lot of time agonising over Rails or Django - when for our project there wouldn't have been much difference between the two - either would have been just as good. Getting the MVP built would have been a more constructive use of time.
Somewhat tangential but related: I'm not familiar with data privacy regulation in the US, but under EU regulation most of the "trust" guarantees made by this startup would be legally mandatory.

Does anyone know: Under US law, would a company be legally allowed to sell personal data without my permission? Would it be allowed to retain my data against my express wish?
> or http://raditts.com/phyles/xiao3.swf

I was looking for this movie. Thanks!
Distributed Scheduled Queue With Redis
Implementing a distributed scheduled queue server on top of Redis.
Let me know if you liked it!
It's a problem because it spreads out the blame on a lot of people. Management can point to the shareholders. The shareholders argue they each own just a small bit of the shares and aren't involved at all in the day to day business. It's a systemic fault.
That would actually have the opposite effect: corporations would simply "optimize" even more around the UK system, and it'd be easier for them to push money even further away from the reach of UK authorities.

What is needed is a strong European effort to align taxation, which would remove any benefit from schemes like the Double-Dutch and Double-Irish, and then levy heavy taxes on capital flight outside European borders. This, of course, if our elites actually cared about tax evasion, which they really don't -- can't risk to find those revolving doors shut when it's your turn to bow out.
Loosecubes is Shutting Down
What a shame... I really loved their service. Also, quite surprising given they raised a pretty big Series A just a few months ago. http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/loosecubes-series-a/
In case you missed it, this was written in 1996. A very interesting read indeed. Yet it is somehow disappointing to see that 16 years later, there are yet not a lot of examples of what he calls the "self-designing" of the human race. Quite contrarily there's still a strong opposition (both amongst the legislators and the general public) against stem cell research and human cloning in many countries.
i think you have mischaracterized the competition by accusing them of selling your contacts. so you have lost my trust right there.

also, the contrast between the text and bg is too low.
One thing we want to combat against as well as direct selling of data which as you note is normally illegal is the use of your data within the company for other purposes (Google comes up as an obvious choice in selling advertisements against the information in your personal email, contacts and documents).
iOS and WP8 both cannot pull in custom phone number fields from Google Contacts.

For example, some people I have a mobile number, but then I also have a "Google Voice" number with them. When pulling that contact in to my iPad, it loses the Google Voice number.

Does Columns keep the custom free text fields? I assume iOS and WP8 don't because they both pull in Google's contacts using Outlook.