skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Bluntly, that's the point of investing. The investor assumes the risk that their invested capital vaporizes. The risk assumption predicates the possibility of higher returns than a less risky investment. It's not a savings account with guaranteed returns.

Last time I heard vague numbers thrown around, 90% of VC-funded startups fold, 9% go into some kind of functional equilibrium, and 1% make it big. Ergo, you should actually reckon on failure being the norm.
Judging by the comments - I must be the only one who feels that you can get more done in a phone call than by email. Something that can take 30 minutes to do back and forth by email or IM (usually longer, since it is asynchronous), can be resolved by a quick 2-3 minute phone call.

The back and forth required to flesh out requirements and ideas just takes too long to express well in an email.

And the small talk? A small price to pay for having all of your questions answered in a timely manner. Plus, it gets me better at interacting with people, which is always a winning proposition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Let's not act like this is something new. Your rights to privacy have been gone for some time.
100% agree - thank you.

Similar to the advice you read on "creating your own luck", you need to put yourself in situations where "serendipity" can happen more easily. In other words, if you want to become an actor, move to L.A. If you want to work in Finance, hang out in Wall Street, etc. There are of course no guarantees, and of course you can become an actor without living in L.A., and a financial analyst without being on wall street.

If you walk through a bad neighborhood by yourself late at night with a George Costanza like wallet bulging in your back pocket, you increase your chances of being mugged. It won't happen every time, but you are certainly "tempting fate".

So, "walk" in "neighborhoods" where you tempt fate in your favor. Go to meetups. Volunteer at organizations where people are trying to solve important problems. Ask people you find interesting to go for a coffee. Socialize with small business owners. Contribute to open source projects.

There is an interesting Forbes article on "The Four Essential Personality Traits Of Every Entrepreneur", one of which is "Luck-Dominant":

"...luck-dominant founders—which make up more than 25% of founders in the authors’ studies—are men and women whose positivity and intellectual curiosity create circumstances where a positive outcome is more likely. In other words, “they’re lucky by attitude, not by fate.”

(link to article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/10/11/the-fo...)
Yikes - working on getting it back up now. I guess load balancing for our www site needs to move up in priority.

In the meantime, you can see much of the same info on our AngelList page: https://angel.co/snowshoe-stamp
Thanks everyone for the response it helped a lot.
I have had a gate-checked bag forgotten about and left in the boarding ramp. So yes, problems are still possible with gate check.
I don't know whether exactly that is possible, but I have had the following happen: my bag got gate-checked on an intra-US connecting flight, and my carrier then wouldn't return it until I reached my final destination in London.

Which meant that I didn't have it with me when my flight to London was cancelled and I had to stay overnight in Chicago (too bad since it had my washkit and a change of clothes in it) and that when the replacement flight was also cancelled and I ended up going to London with a different carrier, my bag didn't get home until a couple of days after I did.

I will not be flying with United Airlines again in a hurry.
for some reason i find this hilariously funny.
He did also claim that weev did the Right Thing. I don't think that assertion is clearly accurate.

It's entirely possible that I'm focusing too much on motive; possibly the end effect (hole fixed) matters more than why weev did it in the first place.
I am an introvert, but have forced myself to embrace and even love picking up the phone. There is no better way to get a message across than to talk to someone (even better in person). What's even better is that you recount the conversation, action items, points taken away after the call with an email. This combination has worked beautifully for me, and I highly recommend it.
Correct. My point is that SCOTUS has not said word one about these standards.

"Constitutionally reasonable administrative searches" in the context of an airport are legal, per SCOTUS. Consent has nothing to do with it, that concept does not apply here.

But, critically, SCOTUS has never ruled on whether the current TSA techniques are constitutionally reasonable. The only thing for sure is that the 3rd says that they must be 'minimally intrusive' and 'escalat[e] in invasiveness only after a lower level of screening disclose[s] a reason to conduct a more probing search'.

For further reading: United States Vs. Aukui from the 9th http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1265662.html
There is a difference between "consent" and "putting up with because you want something else more."

I generally have a greater need to fly than to avoid being felt up. This does not mean I consent to being felt up. The fact that the Supreme Court mistakes this for consent bothers me greatly.
Company still has a significant amount of cash left in the bank that they're returning to investors. Someone below quoted 25m? I wouldn't be surprised if it was even higher.
How on earth is creating a single-purpose account shadier than writing on HN under a pseudonym, which is common practice here? Your name isn't on your profile either. Some of us are comfortable putting our names behind our words. Others can't do that, and our norm is that that's fine.

The comment you're responding to isn't a drive-by. It makes a substantive argument. If it's wrong, address the wrongness.
Should tablets replace textbooks in K-12 schools?
I met David a few weeks ago to talk about patents and software. I have to say that coming out of that meeting I felt a lot better about things than going in.

He has good intentions. He worked hard to get provisions in the new law that would allow his office to fix the most egregious problems.

They are opening the first satellite patent office in San Jose specifically to address software and technology hardware patents.

I have to agree with him -- we need to give the new laws a chance to work. They just went into effect a few months ago.
Show HN: Startup Investments from CrunchBase Visualized
You inferred from his words that correlation proves causation. Whether he implied it or not is in dispute.
How to Program with Java Podcast #7 - Methods
Until it gets accidentally turned on by a browser update, or by some rogue plugin (wouldn't put it past Adobe actually), or by an optional Windows Update, or by some grayware that I mindlessly install on a computer.

If it's off by default, it should be in a plugin. If you want it, come and get it.
It doesn't have Facebook integration. It has support for a Social API, which is a structured way to essentially build social toolbars if you will. Facebook just happens to have implemented it. Facebook integration comes when you visit Facebook's Messenger for Firefox page and turn it on and "install" the messenger.
Control the robotic tree decorator for charity
I wish I had thought to keep links, but I've seen enough reports of people being picked out of the line for further review based on race, gender, and other attributes to want to see an investigation.
It's extraordinarily trivial for the Feds to then outlaw the use of encryption (in any given convenient manner) if it were to ever become a problem. Or, eg simply require that all encrypted data be unencrypted upon request by any law enforcement (or else 20 years in prison).

Encryption solves absolutely nothing unless you're physically outside of the US.

The only way to deal with what's happening is to peacefully dismantle the monster in DC through voting (good luck of course). You can't have a government the size of the US, without it becoming totalitarian and destroying civil liberties - there's nothing else for something that big to do.
As if they don't expect December to arrive..
Hmmm...if only it were that easy. When my SIM isn't in the phone, the "Cellular" menu under General in Settings is grayed out and it says "No SIM" to the right of it. If I can't get in that menu, I can't get to the Cellular Data Network submenu.

This is iOS 6, remember. I think the instructions you linked to on the HF wiki were written for iOS 5, since they talk about General -> Network -> Cellular Data, instead of General -> Cellular -> Cellular Data...that menu got renamed in iOS 6. They no workie, at least without a T-Mobile SIM.
Spot-on. I think people tend to just read the word "unreasonable" out of the text, because it's a wiggle-word. But it's not the Supreme Court that put that word in there, it was the framers. And the framers did so knowing that "reasonable" is a signal word inviting judicial line-drawing.
There's also Simple Object Access Protocol.
The point of privacy in public policy, or any other right for that matter, isn't that we get things right 100% of the time. We didn't suddenly give up on the idea of mass detention of people by race after we set up Japanese Internment Camps. We are going to get things wrong, regularly. Think of the Constitution and our civil liberty norms as an error correction code. At any one point in time, we'll have flipped numerous bits the wrong way; the point is that over time, the US is overall run in the fashion it was originally intended to run in.
I think you make a good and interesting point. However, in my opinion, there is no zero sum game when it comes to this topic. Some situations are better handled just by email while some need to be handled by a phone call if face to face is not possible.

Example, if I just need to confirm a Yes or No to someone, email is good. Why waste time getting on the phone, making conversation just because it will be rude to just sticking to the point etc. However, if I have to negotiate something or agree/decide on something, better do phone call if face to face not possible. Email is the last thing u want unless u like to see your inbox flooded with back and forth agreements/disagreements/whatifs/buts.
Fun fact of the day: No other profession allows you to X-ray the general public without receiving health physics training or certification.

What could possibly go wrong? I don't know, and neither do you, and neither does the guy running the machine.
If you think about it this one, then wouldn't it be best to compare homicides per kilometer or mile? The point the parent was making is entirely valid though- the United States is a huge country compared to most.
It's a shame there isn't some simple standard (de-facto or otherwise) way of documenting REST APIs such that an idiomatic client library for each language could be generated automatically.

The OPTIONS method is a really underused part of HTTP and would be great for this purpose: http://zacstewart.com/2012/04/14/http-options-method.html
Twitter Offers A Total Of $1M In Free Credits To 10,000 New Advertisers
This is a message board comment that says that the US is well on its way towards invading Canada.
The legal restitution is likely to be identical, as this is a post-Patriot act age of gag orders. However, with multiple competitors it's a lot harder to shut down something like wikileaks in a completely silent and uniform manner, without indication that it's been silenced.

Most important of all, however, is that a us gov monopoly precludes the use of foreign competitors from countries with better speech laws.

As far as the post office is concerned: Leaving their numerical financial situation aside (which is hard to ascertain exactly due to the opaque nature of government spending) there is simply no excuse for why, after decades and decades, they haven't implemented any of the modern efficiency mechanisms or services that modern post offices have.
At least if they had to force you to decrypt, you would know that they had access to your data and they couldn't read it secretly. Also, forcing you to decrypt something would presumably require an order from a judge, which would presumably require the police to show probable cause.
Why do you need the right to not be searched at an airport or courthouse more than any place else? Speaking in hyperbole, I would rather have my fourth amendment rights broken voluntarily at an airport or by necessity at a courthouse than, for example, while I'm at home sleeping with my family or walking down the street minding my own business. While I disagree with the TSA searches and do not fly for that very reason, I also fundamentally disagree that you most need the fourth amendment protections while entering an airport.
BBC, Digital Spy, Tech Crunch, HN, Facebook/Twitter.
Video on demand service Vdio launches in private beta, will integrate with Rdio
Thats probably a relatively small part, but influential as it scares people away from paying for things online.

The larger segments are (1)I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. The credit card company takes the money back off you. and (2) I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. I say you sent me a brick. The credit card company takes the money back off you.
I agree. When I heard HP was buying Autonomy for that much, I immediately thought of MS's purchase of aQuantive. And now both end up with huge write-downs.
I think Mixpanel just shot to the top of list of analytics I'm willing and wanting to integrate, even before Google Analytics (of course it's needed regardless).
Show HN: A Recursive Photo Mosaic Experiment
But we are talking about anthropogenic climate change.

Indeed we are. I put those graphs up precisely to show that the anthropogenic changes are mere noise in the natural order of climate change, regardless of scale. I contend that the dismissal of such historical context is intended to mislead.
Yep, this annoys me mightily too but I've always thought of it as a web-design fail rather than a browser fail.

I was about to ask how the new Firefox knows what constitutes a "fixed header" and what doesn't - like, what if the overlay only goes part way across the page, or something? Then I read at the above link that they've drawn up some clever heuristics to guess the 'right' scroll amount in each case.

"It works well on many pages. No doubt there are some pages it doesn't work on. It seems like a good idea to start conservatively here."

I cautiously welcome this 'fix' for my own casual web browsing, while fearing for the rare trouble it might cause a responsible web dev who might have a legitimate need for a particular kind of overlay while having page up/down still work in the currently established way. No such need springs to mind but I'm sure that if I thought about it for long enough, in this age of games in the browser and whatnot... (some sort of fancy web comic perhaps?). Now needing to workaround what is more complex and unpredictable behaviour, this is the kind of push/pull between web developers and browser implementers which a few years down the line could turn into a bloody impossible mess for all concerned.
Should Marketers Learn To Code?
A long-time HNer here. We launched a public demo of our product today that allows you to visualize and drill-down into startup investment data from Crunchbase.

The demo is still rough on the edges, but we'd appreciate any kind of feedback from HN community. In the future Fount will allow uploading of any spreadsheet-style data for easy browsing and collaboration on touch devices.
This is a thread full of passionately argued polemics about the US national security state and not one link to the legislation proposed in any incarnation. After the debacle that was the trade press reporting on CISPA, it is probably a bad bet that Declan McCullagh got this exactly right.

Obviously, a provision that allows law enforcement warrantless access to random people's email would be a terrible thing. It seems a little unlikely that in the wake of the Patraeus scandal, that's what Leahy would really be proposing. Maybe it is. Can we FIND OUT?

Late edit: here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4811489
We need standards and accountability if we're willing to accept that situations exist where safety trumps rights. I haven't seen a threat that warranted an ongoing suspension of rights.
I'm coming off of a ZipFizz addiction... Need this.
Debian is now available on the AWS marketplace
Maybe it'll be a Christmas present. :-)
I agree with everything said here. The important thing is to set time limits for pre-planned phone calls. If it's an impromptu call and you don't have much time, make sure you stay on topic.

The other thing I've never seen happen in a business email is gossip. Due to natural shifts in the conversation, you learn things that may not be mentioned in an email. There are things people won't put down in an email because of whatever reason (it's in writing, could be perceived as off-topic), that they'll bring up suddenly if they think of it while talking. Some of that is important information to know.
That's such a bad argument. I do no such thing. However, the reality of my profession requires me to fly. So I "consent" only under considerable duress. The choice is literally "put food on the table" or submit to incredibly intrusive security.

That's not consent, that's coercion.
AC/DC Finally Brings Its Dirty Deeds to iTunes
This post summed up my feeling exactly as it pertains to phones. I spend at least 30 minutes before a scheduled call nervously glancing at the time, mentally preparing myself for the interaction.

Extroverts don't have the capability to understand introversion, as we don't understand them. This is just a simple fact of life.
Ah, the land where the police use trojans to surveil you.
I guess I'm not the only one who feels that way. What I value most in my browser: security, usability, speed, and standards compliance. Since FF is not perfect (but always improving) in all of these areas, I'd rather see progress there than feature creep.

Everything else can be a plugin. I guess that means the plugin mechanism better be pretty good.

If I recall, these were some of the reasons people flocked to Chrome (Speed & Usability).
...at the cost of a much higher learning curve.

There was a long email thread on the play framework, but as someone who is doing Play 2/Scala, they're nothing even close to the same framework, enough that calling it the same name is silly. Further, the deprecation of Play 1 does no favors, and I'm just hoping that as things go forward, a fork will emerge.

I'm also hoping that Play 2 will stop taking so ing long to compile longer projects. Is 2.1 going to make me not want to claw my eyes out?

Nice work on the new Json API, though.
How to Run JavaScript Programs Without an Internet Connection
Yes but it's also fairly clear that homicide in the UK is also aligned with socio-economic and racial lines.

It's still far less prevalent than in the US.
Hi, I'm in Vermont!

I've always voted against Leahy, but I have almost no hope in voting him out. I think the last incumbent US Senator from Vermont to lose re-election was Luke Poland in 1867.
"If I can optimize your front-end code, get you higher performance and SEO rankings, are you going to hesitate / ignore me because of my lack of years in the field?"

This is a testable hypothesis. Test it.

Seriously. Most people who fail are defeated not by external forces, but by forces from within. Stop worrying and start testing.
I've never, ever, ever had a 2-3 minute phone call. In any business call, that's just the small talk. Usually you spend the first 5 chatting, then 5 talking about the subject matter and then 10 trying to explain or clarifying details.

Saying goodbye and hanging up is another thing we introverts are terrible at too.
I think you could at least have it implemented in NaCl in Chrome, if the Javascript versions fail.
Am I the only person that thinks that DatePicker really sucks because there's no way to actually enter a date thru a "keyboard"?
Beyond waiting for Rick to give you a direct answer himself, let me give you the standard answer given elsewhere. If piracy, be that software sharing or music or video or painting or anything else that is included in the term information sharing; If that shall be enforced, the laws needed to do so are intrinsic privacy and freedom hostile.

You may not have a private data storage utility, because those can be used to share illegal information (Mega upload).

You may not have common carry principal, or private communication, because ISP need to prevent the sharing of illegal information (mutiple laws regardin ISP and ISP piracy prevention).

You may not have encryption, because those can be used to share illegal information (copyright vs Tor/Freenet discussion).

You may not have a open wifi and help a neighbour, because those might be used in the sharing of illegal information (openwifi and IP-address equal a person discussion).

You may not have the keys to your own bought phone or knowing what code runs on it, because you might install illegal acquired software (mobile phone drm).

You may not remove malware from your computer, because it wont be able to see if you install illegal acquired software (PC drm like sony rootkit).

You may not upload video to youtube if you don't agree to it being sent to and scanned by a central copyright body that review the material and have ad's being forcefully included if they want (Youtube policy and practice).

You may not provide provide internet connection to a other human being without first spying and recording any traffic sent (data retention and other similar laws)

You may not have privacy and freedom at universities, libraries and school, places previous know for freedom of thought and expression, because they pro-active spy and record any actions on the network to protect themselves. (common education constitution practice)

Maybe I missed some, as i will will have to think for a bit more. Others might be able to add to the list. All above listed items are current fights or lost fights caused by copyright enforcement laws and practices.
No point. It's shitty living somewhere with a government that would propose this sort of thing. It's also like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, as the NSA et al have already tapped everyone's fibers years ago.

Furthermore - it's not a secret that they did so. Books have been written on the matter. The public got suitably outraged, and then nothing happened. The taps are all still there, and the equipment's all been upgraded as the capacities have increased.

It truly doesn't matter what these laws say. Your communications in the US are all already monitored as a fact of life.
I'm surprised that HTML doesn't have a <note> construct; it seems like something that fit the original concept, and should have been a part of the initial design. Browsers could legitimately have a lot of latitude about how to render them, in or out of a page.