skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's a very interesting and good thought.

Maybe my whole point of view is skewed: I'm reasonably safe in my job even without a savings account (got none. Is that a bad idea? Yeah, probably. But that's a different point).

That said, Germany isn't alone in the rules I'd take as granted. What I rely on here is just a decent time between being let go and being without salary. I don't claim to have a lot of experience here, but I know that this exists in various other EU countries and was told that this is common in IL as well, for example.

If you want to fire me, you still need to pay me for a ~reasonable~ amount of time (and I need to work, of course). I'll try to find another job during that time.

Startups seem to have a tendency to go down in flames (what law could order a company that has no money to pay salaries?) or are exempt of a lot of laws that make me feel safe (as I said, here in Germany the law makes it far easier to drop people while you're below a certain, single digit(?) head count).

I'm ignoring your 'build up savings' suggestions. It's a good one. I agree. And if I'll ever manage to do that, I'll either keep it for my family or .. for my own startup (if that might be realistic). It still wouldn't be a cushion to join a startup myself. The point of the OP of this thread seemed to be that you have to find a ratio between decent pay and nice equity. I understand. I agree.

I just think that this totally ignores the cost of searching for another job in this silly "I pay you X. That means that you make X * 12 / year. Let's compare that to the shares now, with various outcomes in the list" kind of posts.

That's ignoring a big issue for the guy signing the contract. Saying 'Yeah, if it goes down you lost $marketValue - $startupSalary' is just .. well .. stupid. Unless you _know_ that there's an instant job opportunity for the guy at the end. No? Nothing nearby / close to family? Nothing that allows enough free time or fits the _basic_ interests of the guy that was let go?

Ah well, that's what a savings account is for, right?

Disclaimer: No personal grudges here, I just don't think that these discussions are .. sensible. In general. Most of the time these arguments are lead from the mind of a 23 year old single with a lot of self esteem and confidence.

I handed my membership card in, a couple of years ago. It's nice on this side of the fence, but the perspective really changes a lot.
Babylon is a bitch
Microsoft has 50 billion in cash. They need to buy their way back. Video platform: buy Netflix and Hulu. Music: buy Pandora, Spotify, and eMusic. Cellphones: start shipping the Mozilla phone platform on Microsoft hardware. Social: add social features to Skype and integrate it into aforementioned products, and buy MySpace on the cheap and integrate it.

Edit: I'm not saying I want this. As a user of all of these services (except MySpace) I like them the way they are. But if I were Microsoft CEO this is what I would do.
Sucks to see a "Website is currently unreachable" with a Cloudflare icon/logo/link at the bottom...
Mine had a small but distinctive scratch on the back. The sticker was also off-center and poorly applied. Though I did briefly question my sanity. I suppose I don't know for certain, though the phone was working when I mailed it.

The buyer's profile showed he was frequently buying and selling cell phones, both working and broken.
Unfortunately Paypal refused to provide the credit card company info in this case
For some reason, this reminds me of the sad people who would create their own IRC (internet relay chat) server, then create bots to talk to. And hang out alone on their IRC server with their bots.

In the future, will we have "crazy bot lady" like today's "crazy cat lady"?
I'm surprised that people still use ebay, I gradually moved to Amazon marketplace/trade-ins 5-8 years ago and reading this, I'm glad I did.
And yet people complain that imgur strips exif data.
> I still leave convenience aliases intact. Nobody needs to be typing --color=auto every time they ls.

Hm. All of my aliases are convenience aliases:

cls=clear # Yes, I started out in DOS

ls=ls --color=auto

ll=ls -l

ll.=ls -al

And that's it. It's amazing how different peoples' workflows become once a tool allows a certain level of customizability.
"The App Store for hardware" So....a store?
I actually did film my opening of his return package because it was very obvious at that point that I was getting scammed. But I was expecting an empty box or a brick or something, not a similar phone.
Aisle50 (YCS11) seeks non-hacker customer service guru - Chicago
This is an opportunity for a non-hacker to join a YCS11 company that is 11 people, growing, healthy and funded by elite VCs. We’re looking for an energetic person who can keep our customers - our lifeblood - sated and happy.

This is an entry-level position, but it’s an important one as this person will be the point of first contact for the people who use our product. This is a full-time job that comes with a full slate of benefits. This is a great job for a recent college grad.

We expect this person to grow with the position and with Aisle50.

About us:

+ We’re the only major grocery brands deal site that exists; it’s hard to do and we do it well

+ We’re in Chicago and so is the job

+ We have sales relationships with more than ten companies with revs of $1B+

+ We eat free lunch together every day complete with five flavors of Kettle Chips

About you:

+ Hungry to build something

+ Entrepreneurial

+ College degree

+ Not required, but nice: customer-service or retail experience

To apply, email your resume and five sentences about yourself.

Email: avalanchesafety@aisle50.com
Children could be local while you would still stay global.

Children could be quite global too - Internet and Internet games in particular are appealing for children too.
It's not just budget ,the Voyager program took advantage of a favorable planetary alignment that wouldn't recur for 175 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Grand_Tour

I have no idea how favorable this was, i.e. whether you could get the same effect today with more propulsion, but it's quite possible that we don't have the technology to do this in any reasonable timeframe today.
It was two years old and it wasn't in great condition. I priced it out and I think it cost me about $50 or so, which was worth it for the total lack of hassle.

The complaints for eBay etc. are exaggerated, but they are a problem. The last few times I listed things on eBay it didn't matter that I set the item to only be sold in the US, only paid through PayPal, etc. I got messages from people offering to buy it if I would just ship it out of the country and accept a money order. Then there are the messages offering to buy it if I contact them directly and cancel the auction so they can save the fee. You see that kind of stuff now and then on Craigslist too.

The amount of time and hassle I saved was worth far more than $50. If it had been $250, I would have certainly gone with Craigslist.
How we used Twitter ads to generate word-of-mouth hype
Wouldn't doing something like that (providing fake ID at pickup) be considered Mail Fraud? I seem to recall mail fraud investigations having really big teeth.
Not that it's going to stem the tide nor anything, but someone made a very interesting point of the significance the Surface Pro could have for the medical sector: http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/143vgu/the_windows_....

tl;dr: The medical sector is entrenched in ancient Windows-based software, but the backwards compatibility of Windows 8 will allow them to move from desktop computers to Surfaces (tablets, if you will).

Or maybe it might have some significance. I have no idea what the numbers are, but I assume a couple of the people here trying to disrupt the market could give us the low-down.
Yeah, that's a good point. This introduces a new inventory consideration, namely CPU model demands (they'll have to determine the best distribution of proc models across each product). Probably not too big a deal
I actually count on it http://www.gadgettrak.com/blog/2011/08/24/photographer-recov...
Shouldn't the item be shipped to dispute resolution (or their agents). On confirmation of the ID of the item (eg IMEI match or serial number or whatever) they can asses the item against the description.

If the item matches then return to the complainant (buyer) at the buyer's cost + add a service charge. Seller keeps all their money. Buyer's account marked for fraud watch.

If the item doesn't match then refund the buyer with a chargeback, return item to seller at the seller's cost + add a service charge. Seller loses their money. Seller's account marked for fraud watch; selling fees increased.

Items not paid to be returned can be sold on to help cover admin costs for items that buyer's or sellers do not want returning.

Note that in the OP ebay claim to have assessed that the items didn't match the description and so buyer protection is invalidated. But they haven't checked and so are defrauding the seller in respect to this claim.
Or he could have change exif data and spoof his location
Post to WordPress blogs with Emacs & Org-mode
I don't have much sympathy for this seller.

- General Delivery is a big red flag, paypal confirmed or no.

- You should check buyer feedback in advance, not afterwards.

- don't leave feedback until you have the cash in your own bank account.

- For expensive items, don't just get signature confirmation, pay the extra few $ for insurance. I insure anything over $50, for two reasons: you can claim against the insurance if the buyer alleges the goods are damaged/missing, and if the buyer is scamming then the insurance means they're trying to commit fraud against the carrier, who are more likely to prosecute it aggressively. This is also why I prefer to ship via the post office. Sorry, but if you shipped an $850 item without insuring the shipment, you're foolish.
There are several studies showing that hard deadlines usually result in better performance and higher completion rates, so you're not alone[1]. It also has the advantage of creating a community on the same page as you are.

So there's no clear-cut answer. Making hard deadlines optional could very well cause more damage and less completion even if it's better for a few individuals. I hope that Coursera is collecting analytics on how people perform with different types of deadlines, so that they can come up with the best overall solution.

[1]: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/13/3/219.short
How? There's nothing anti-competitive here. Just because we've been able to swap CPUs for years doesn't make it a legal obligation. After all, I can't upgrade the processor in my phone, tablet, or graphics card.
Ray Ozzie’s Startup Talko Raises $4 Million
Masonry, infinite scrolling and Django
They do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons
I just checked YesItIs.org, and it now appears that the domain is parked and the website inaccessible. Can anyone say, "hit & run"?
I'd vote mtgox, but they actually require to see your voter registration to allow trading into US dollars, my local currency, and I haven't furnished it. As well as state issued photo ident. You can buy them from me! I will accept either document as authentic proof, otherwise in #bitcoin-OTC on Irc.free node.net they are rather partial to the Gpg key as the mode for proving identity and tracking of scammers.

Don't you want to upgrade your currency, to the one where charge backs can not ever be issued against you, and its the whole world and science that keeps your money safe from hackers?
What specific challenges do you have?
> SSL doesn't stop people seeing what servers you connect to, or the amount of traffic you exchange with each one.

Tor does, however - all except the exit node, that is.
That depends on how you define "a top 10% executive founder".
So the real test is whether Apple is still buying these known-"bad" LG panels. Anybody got a recently-manufactured rMBP with LG in it?
Somebody on another site got paid in counterfeit bills on a used iPad.
There is no other explanation for getting rid of buyer reputation and providing no protection to sellers.

I disagree. Back in the old days when I used to use eBay before they removed buyer feedback, it was considered unwise to ever leave a seller negative feedback because they might turn around and leave you negative feedback in retaliation. By removing buyer feedback, it allows buyers to leave unbiased seller feedback without fear of retribution.

One could argue that seller feedback is much more important than buyer feedback because the buyer has to pay first and then trust that the seller will ship them the item as described in a timely fashion. Ideally, the worst thing a buyer should be able to do is not pay, in which case the seller just has to start over and re-list the item in a new auction. It seems like the problem here isn't a lack of buyer feedback so much as a lack of due process for chargebacks, which ends up enabling fraud.
SFFT: Sparse Fast Fourier Transform
Please don't, Microsoft. They've made a royal mess of Skype - and the subsequent deprecation of MSN/Windows/Live Messenger.

They've also got more design talent than they probably know what to do with.

I do think that they should find something to do with the Xbox/media centre platform where some of your suggestions might apply.

As much as Microsoft have pissed off game developers and failed to lower the entry bar compared to iOS, console competitors like Nintendo and Sony are struggling a lot, which could put Microsoft in a much better position.
Thanks for taking the time.
I think you're completely missing the point, because there's a large grey area that requires human intervention in deciding if fraud occurred. The larger the volume the larger the resources needed to review every single claim.
Why The Daily Failed
Unfortunately that only lets you block people with bad feedback. You cant say "you cant buy unless you have 10+ feedback"

Most scammers have no bad feedback, they are just new accounts with 5-10 positive feedback for bogus items.
Tweetro Plus Paid Version Arrives in Windows Store
That doesn't take into account Black Friday sales which more and more people are waiting for before purchasing.

http://microsoft-news.com/black-friday-boosts-windows-8-net-...

"While the days leading up to Black Friday had Windows 8 running below 1% US net usage, Thanks Giving and Black Friday saw a large number of new Windows 8 PCs hitting the market, taking its US share above 2%. While the number reduced over the next week,indicating that Windows 8 users are mainly at home rather than at work, it returned to 2.12% yesterday, indicating the new level was real and not just an artefact of increased usage over the holiday break."

Also, Steam's hardware surveys shows that Windows 8 is at 5% of the userbase, despite's Gabe's comments about the "catastrophe".

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-8-thunders-past-ma...

The lesser said about Charlie's rants and non-sequitir arguments on SemiAccurate(which should be titled SemiWrong) the better. Just reading his previous articles makes me want to add that site to my /etc/hosts blacklist.
Funnily enough, its not taught as a foreign language. That would be much better, because most Irish people only care about being able to speak it. Its currently taught like Latin is - a lot of rote learning of tenses and conjugations, then literature and poetry study.

My grandaunt is a famous Irish poet - her work is part of the curriculum. When she tutored me she focussed on reading from newspapers and speaking out loud, because going straight to literature makes no sense.
People focus too much on percentages of installed users. Better to look at the total user count (and compare that to the engineering cost of supporting the platform). It doesn't matter if OS X has 3% or even 0.1% of users. If the number of addressable customers is high enough, then it can be worth it to support that platform.
That's an extremely fancy way of saying SMS was created with a focus on 7-bit characters.
>So you're saying: "It's very complicated, you won't understand my arguments."

No, that's not at all what he's saying.
He's saying that intellectual property is actually an immensely broad and complicated issue. (Rather: That's what I interpreted him to be saying; I could be wrong here.)

I don't think you can really make a statement like "IP laws lead to slower development of science and industry..." because "IP laws" are such a broad category of laws. Do you mean patents? What kind of patents? (Does a 5 year patent on medicines, something proposed by the Pirate Party, count as an IP law that reduces development? Why? How does it differ from other patents that are longer / renewable?) Can I make a contract to stop someone from disclosing an idea of mine? Is that an IP law? (Probably) Is it aggregating money into the hands of the few? (More dubious claim there...)

Don't get me wrong, I tend to agree that there should be limits on the sorts of monopolies that IP laws tend to foster, and I think that the current IP regimes that are dominant are typically very damaging. But I also think there could be certain IP controls that are acceptable and positive. (Allowing for IP regimes that are basically "trade secrets only" seems a bit inadequate to me, especially since patents offer valuable protections to certain kinds of innovations.) This is a view that your wildly over-broad/under-specified interpretation of IP would not accommodate.
You're assuming sarcasm rather than a "whoa, seriously?" response, which given your social circle is I think fairly unusual isn't accusing you of lying so much as asking if he read it correctly.

I certainly did that.

Of course, assuming bad faith and then using his age as an argument as to why your knee jerk reaction was ok apparently is also an option - but not up to your usual standard. I think perhaps the 'emotional minefield' part is crucial here, and next time you should step away for that hour before replying at all.

In this case stepping away for an hour would not have helped. Because with a strong emotional frame in my head, I had no path from there to seeing any other reaction. It was going to take someone else, in this case you, to show me another possible way to frame it. I'll need to take time to digest that fact before I try to figure out how to avoid responding that way in the future.

Thank you for your helpful response. I'm sorry that I had the reaction that I did. These things happen with humans. Some days more easily than others. Some humans more easily than others.

PS: Ironically, knowing a few successful startup founders is one of the most normal things about my social circle.
Who Wants to Beta Test Our Mobile App?
We're looking for people to test our mobile app and provide any feedback you may have! Pleas sign up for our beta list at datemapps.com to get the invite. Thanks everyone.

Fouad@DateMaps
I think "Sticky-D" is a much better interpretation. It is got "swag" or "je ne sais quoi" for the more literate crowd. But "stickied" makes me think of old ladies and post-it notes.
Voyager did pass Pioneer 10 (1972) in the late 1990s. The alignment mentioned by others made the difference. New Horizons, which is going to Pluto, had the fastest launch speed of any man made object.
But as I said, only a fringe minority care even slightly about the things Schneier wants regulated: e.g. data retention. To most people these are very low priorities. Should government actually being empowered here, it will push in the opposite direction he wants, because strong political interests are on the other side. He would probably happier with the outcome of deregulation. And that's politically achievable; what he wants to do with strong regulation, is not.

That's my point: Schneier is not dictator. Network regulation would be in his interest, if he could dictate what form it would take; as a minority in a democracy, he's on the wrong end of the regulatory pointy stick.

You're right, I'm treating a democracy as competing factions, not as a cooperating monolith ("people fighting themselves" ; "people governing themselves").
Yes, really.

Keep in mind a LOT has changed since the beginning. When eBay did that pivot, there were far less options for small retails sellers to put their products online easily and efficiently.

Ultimately, I think it would be near impossible to serve both markets well. eBay certainly serves the amateurs poorly, so that area is ripe for competition (IMO). Maybe serving the "pro" market would be bigger overall, and maybe even more profitable, but an "amateur eBay" executed properly would make someone a metric fuckton of dollars.
Check out my command-line tool, rotten: https://github.com/dtrejo/rotten

npm install -g rotten

It helps you discover

* Which remote branches are empty (all code is in master), also outputs a command to delete them all.

* Which remote branches still have lots of code that needs to be merged

* How long remote branches have been waiting to be merged.

.

Why is this useful?

* discover which projects are languishing

* discover which engineers are unhappy that their code is not being reviewed/merged

* discover how effective your development process is
The flipside of this is you hire inexperienced developers who take a bad deal out of sheer inexperience. I was stupid after college and did took a terrible salary with what I learned a few months later was a small options package. I saw others do it too, and it just created bad energy, retention, and talent acquisition problems.
Strictly speaking, the RTGs will continue generating power past that time -- it just won't be enough to power any of the instruments or the radio; the thermocouples also degrade, which further impacts the power produced. (tomato, tomahto) Attitude propellant is also an issue. Around 2020, they'll start to turn off instruments until they don't have enough power to run any of them anymore. Apparently, they haven't picked the shutdown order yet -- but they have 10 years to decide, so no rush. =)

NASA's timeline for the Voyager lifetimes: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/spacecraftlife.html
I know a number of old people that never learned how to use or were never confident in using a desktop OS that now only use tablets. My father as well, but for other reasons.

Also think of how long the shift from desktops to laptops took; for a decade they were just secondary machines and everyone who had a laptop also had a desktop. Now... the only person I know to even own a desktop built it himself 6 years ago and stopped upgrading it altogether a few years ago in favor of laptops.

A similar shift to tablets isn't as inevitable as the shift to laptops was (in hindsight), but if it's happening it's proceeding in much the same way, only faster.
It wouldn't be the first time that someone devised and implemented poor policy, meanwhile touting it as an infallible act of genius...
You cant set a flag for having little or no feedback, only bad feedback.

So if I am a brand new ebay account with zero feedback, I can still buy.

Its annoying.
HTML5 a jump backwards in web standards?
With that comment form, anybody can be anybody.
Any chance the picture itself is a fake? He looks like a cardboard cutout propped up against a bush.
Exactly because you really are not.

By the time you get diluted you effectively are a stockholder with way too much of your net worth locked into one likely extremely volatile company. If you are lucky enough to be in a succesful startup you still have to survive the inevitable whiplash when your liquidity frees up.

Ironically and sadly I have a couple old-timer friends who have been through IPOs where they have lost money on the whole damn thing mostly due to taxes and poor timing.
Especially for sellers with thousands of sales. They would get no benefit from scamming you even if they could because bad feedback = lots of lost sales.
The point the author makes under that heading is: One need not worry about job security at a specific startup, because if it goes bust one can always join another startup.