skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The bullshit part is trying to apply a geographic model of governance and taxation onto a technology that is location-independent. It has nothing to do with treating businesses one way or the other.

Politicians want to view economic data as somehow being "owned" by a county, state, or country. So they make policies that are supposed to manage (for lack of a better word) commerce inside those boundaries.

But we don't live in that world any more. The problem here isn't a lack of taxes for some businesses. The problem is an attitude that somehow you can sit above it all and pick and chose who to favor and who not to. It's 20th-century thinking applied to a 21st-century world. The only thing this will accomplish is 1) hurting the poor, and 2) creating a bunch of nonsense paperwork. Commerce will still happen without taxes; it's just the disadvantaged and new businesses that will have extra inertia to deal with.

Yes, if you frame it in terms of "what's fair to business" then sure, the argument works in favor of taxation. My problem is that the argument itself is stated in outdated terms.

The beauty of Congress leaving the net alone wasn't that it was laissez faire. It was that nobody understood exactly what the net meant to the future. Seems like this is still the case, but politicians have decided they've waited around long enough. It's time for their piece of the action.
I think the problem aren't those who don't _want_ to do some engineering, but those who simply don't understand it.
Can't you make some apps in your spare time? It might be even better to learn instead of a junior position.
> when I want to look at a PDF in browser

does that ever happen?

> but the web app/page is forcing me to save it to disk and then re-open it in another app.

because SumatraPDF actually loads faster than Adobe's browser plugin. Plus it's more secure, lacking all the weird scripting crud that shouldn't be in a document format anyway, smaller and open source. Only downside is that it can be really, really, really yellow.
Inside the Race to Build the World’s Fastest Bitcoin Miner
I don't think anyone genuinely finds this impressive. People simply up-vote because it's written in JavaScript and allows for some immediate clicking gratification. Which, I agree, is sad. (And will be vehemently denied.)

I wouldn't really mind if this phenomenon didn't drain attention and resources from other technologies.
Kendall Square's New Rules
Bullshit article, nice way to shoehorn software engineers into people shy awkward mole people.

Also calling software engineers for techies just feels like the author is deliberately trying to insult.
How does this level the field between brick & mortar and online business?

I manage operations for a small brand that operates both as an online business (recent venture) and brick & mortar (2 stores, 2 different states). It seems that this would help us by taxing us more and increasing our IT costs in terms of implementation? If you are operating a small business (retailers,service provider) in this day and age - it is almost a necessity to have some online presence.

With the existence of simple ecommerce tools like shopify and bigcommerce at the hands of traditional businesses making entry simple - added restrictions may deter these brick & mortar businesses from entering the online space at all.
But it's so ... yellow.
Counter-point to Jason Calacanis post about Google Fiber
GitHub uses URI templates extensively: https://api.github.com/
People still use quaternions. They are an excellent method of representing spatial rotations, since they avoid Gimbal lock (and similar phenomena caused singularities in polar coordinates).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotati...
thats what got me excited, when I watched Elon Musk talking about this project on TEd, since then I am following this project of SpaceX.
The Conference Circuit
Interesting in that I've seen the exact opposite: Chrome hits the disk a lot harder, especially on startup, compared to Firefox.
Not that I care, but do the people who are down voting me, care to explain why? I don't think my comment was derogatory or anything, I just failed to understand why this article was amusing, and wanted to know what makes it interesting. I am sure other people might have the same question, and would have benefitted from the answers.
This has been my issue with angular and the reason that I'm still using other frameworks when I can. Knockout makes you consciously use set all the time. You rarely are shooting your self in the foot. Angular requires you to remember what scope you are in. If you use something like postal to do messaging you have to use apply constantly.

The magic of angular that was proposed to me was that I could use POJOs instead of inherited objects, but I end up just trading one hardship for another.

I'm not sure if there is some fancy way of wrapping everydamnthing in apply or not, but that would be helpful.
Show HN: SimpleTreejs, easy way to create 'toggleable' trees
Adobe? Ha. I'll take Chrome or Pdf.js in Firefox, both of which are as fast or faster than the also fast Sumatra.
I could be unique as a techie where I have never came across a tech person who said that - "I won't take orders from him". Is that a real story or fabled one?

Likely the story which is supposed to set tone for rest of the article is entirely put forward as figure of speech. Any programmer in right mind can't deny role of a business person in the team. Heck - me & my co-founder are hard core techies and we are often exasperated dealing with clients (not that we hate it), government taxes and all sort of taxes/regulations our company has to file. We do wish, if someone can make all that pain go away!

We even for a moment never underestimate things a dedicated business person could do but like everything else finding right one is hard work.
Crossed? How/why?

Edit: original title was "Visual Website Optimizer crosses 2500 paying customers" hence the question. It has since been changed.
Would have loved to see what happened to the dummy cowboy. The final fews frames are not very clear due to the smoke and dust.
"However luckily confusing backtrace message plus google usually leads to a useful stack overflow answer, else I'd find this process much more painful."

Template related error messages have historically been a huge pain, but modern versions of Clang and g++ are doing a much better job than they used to. If you haven't tried C++ recently (say last year or two), you might try again with a newer version of Clang.
It is unfortunate, but the integration of a link inside a page may affect it's page rank in google search results. This is enough, in my opinion, to justify the concern of the link target owner and legitimate the request to get the link removed. However, the harm, if any, needs to be established and proven for a trial to be successful I guess.
The Valley Needs A Valleywag — Or Something (February)
Fullscreen Layout with Page Transitions
Don't get me wrong, I'm optimistic myself. I'm just a bit concerned about how some poorly defined cohort of 'people who don't read HN' are going to fare; not all of those trends are looking super rosy.
Probably the only thing I don’t love about BugHub for Mac is that the titlebar buttons move down when pressed. Otherwise perfect.
If you are buffering your technical team away communication with real customers, you are going to fail.

Their understanding of the problem is the key to your startup succeeding.

The first is hyperbole and patently false. The last is definitely true, but has nothing to do with the first. It seems like either you've never actually been in this situation or you're conflating "real customers" with "tech-savvy investors:" The former will frustrate technical people and vice versa; the latter will expect to hear from your tech team as proof of viability.

The technical team must be involved in strategy and business...

Also false. I've been in situations where this has been done both successfully and unsuccessfully, and the successes came either from a coincidence of multiply-educated people or by brute-force right-place-right-time situations -- another coincidence. Technical people can be good and insightful in this way, but it's by absolutely no means something to be assumed.

...and both founders should be technical and business founders. Or at least, respect and understand both sides.

This discounts almost everyone, since most people just don't have both educations or the time for them, and the education alone is worth little without experience, which takes a lot more time. You did get it right at the end, though; founders on all sides should have a basic understanding of and respect for those who are handling the other aspects of the business.

Basically, most people who are very skilled are so in one field. Don't ignore them just because they're not also your ideal candidate from another field; you will more often than not end up with someone who's mediocre at doing two things and is now responsible for both of them.
I was wondering why I had these tally marks on the back of my left hand.
Wow, that's a great suggestion. Valve + finance + ML. I can't imagine a better fit off the top of my head.
Many of the customers stubbornly remain location-based.
>> when I want to look at a PDF in browser
> does that ever happen?
I do this all the time. I hate downloading crap that I'm probably just going to glance at once then discard.
PG says a business co-founder is not needed at a startup... at the beginning.

I don't often disagree with PG but while his statement is technically true, if you have no experience bringing a product to market you'll NEED to either get LUCKY first time around (good luck with that) or find someone with this experience.

I have been in the business of selling products online (physical products, software and ebooks) and I still find it a challenge every-time I am faced with a new product and a new market but I have to pay my bills, so I get it done.

Bottom line, it’s true that a developer doesn't NEED a business guy at the beginning, but having one who knows what he is doing will certainly save you a lot of heartache.

Likewise a business-guy doesn't NEED a developer at the beginning; if you're a true entrepreneur, you'll make it work without one.

PS: I'm a business guy (I earned this title by starting a handful of successful companies) who learnt how to code and now works at a start-up as a Junior DEVELOPER to gain some experience. The way I now see it, coding is a fundamental skill you need to be part of the software industry and while it may never be my core competency, not-knowing how to code will never hold me back.
This is an old controversy. If you are an employer that does this, you could face legal action from Facebook's legal team.

"by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges."

http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-and-privacy/protectin...

I was really happy that Facebook came out with that. I don't think the policy will change even with the next CISPA-like thing going on.
It's an outstanding product. The competitors fail to have all the features they offer.
Visualize JavaScript Code Flow with TraceGL
Very impressive stuff!
I'm sure the fear of being called a sociopath has scared many people from doing what they want...

If a business just wants something, can it really be sociopathic in the same way a person wants something?
> does that ever happen?

Yes, I do this all the time. I read a _lot_, and I often don't want to save the file on my hard drive unless I'm going to refer to it again in the future. And if I do, I can just choose "Save" at that point.
Ask HN: How much longer will we say ecommerce?
It seems that as more and more commerce takes place over the internet we will eventually just drop the 'e' no?
Shapeways has a whole library of items that other people have designed that you can print. I ordered several as stocking stuffers at Christmas. Holding them in your hand is a good way to get what this whole 3D printing thing is about.

The items I ordered:

http://www.shapeways.com/model/24470/gyroid.html

http://www.shapeways.com/model/335195/the-code-prize-fire-co...

http://www.shapeways.com/model/683524/super-mario-mobius-str...
There are always new or old words to replace to castrated ones. I'll bet most people will pause at you calling them ass nugget or dullard, for instance.
Businessman jailed after making £50m selling fake bomb detectors
Same story, submitted hours before (by me), is the actual primary source (follow the slate links to vulture then to my story), flagged

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592733

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/22/futurama-not-renewed-comed...

edit I'm not complaining, but it is a little bit frustrating to have it flagged then see a 3rd-level derived article show up. How can I prevent it in the future?
Existing players are probably fine with Internet sales tax. It's another barrier to entry.
One thing that certainly helps is online courses like Coursera, Udacity and others.

In my case this works wonderfully because I work so much better when there're multiple deadlines for the assignments, instead of a vague end.
I wouldn't just say 'quite common'. I'd say it's the norm.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BritishBrevity

...usual warning about a tvtropes link, and your subsequent drop in productivity
I have no idea why this has to be so gender specific. Every argument works equally well in terms of fathers as well, yet she doesn't even take that second to even consider the issue. She doesn't think to write about people, but only about women. You get the feeling that the author has spent so long thinking of women as 'us' and men as 'them' that she actually sees the two as two completely separate species.

Terribly sad, maybe the next generation of feminists will be able to break out of the box they've made for themselves, and devote themselves to more general philosophic introspection.
Should I be surprised that it doesn't work in IE?
If long series are appealing to people that's cool, it's not for us though. We are happy with movies, educational and news.
55% of net users use the same password for most, if not all, websites.
First, people have done similar things in Flash and Java applets before. At the time, both of those technologies allowed for running things inside the browser.

Second, I am pretty sure that if someone have done this in another language (Python, Ruby, F#) and provided a platform for easy delivery and sandboxing, the most common response would be "we don't need this, this is stupid".
And tertiary, too. Plenty of grad-students in American institutions have their undergrad degree from some cheaper place abroad.

Hell, some of us Americans have left America to go do degrees and careers elsewhere, due to its extreme disinvestment in science. One friend of mine to Montreal and quite possibly Germany for his PhD, me to Israel...
Ask HN: What would change in a neighborhood that installed Gigabit Internet?
I am helping a non-profit that is trying to bring gigabit internet to a main street in a neighborhood of Saint Louis. I want to explain to small businesses (restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, retail stores) how internet speeds that are 100 times faster will impact them (positively). My sense is that right now most of these people use the internet for emails, streaming movies, ordering things on Amazon, and Facebook/Pinterest. What will happen to a neighborhood and non-computer savvy people living in places that are among the first to install this capacity?
The corollary, of course, is that men should also embrace the "good enough" life. If one cannot be successful working 40 hours a week, if taking a sabbatical or two destroys a career then we as a society have failed.

It's win-win, too. People that are happy and do not suffer from chronic stress are much more productive employees. It's better to get a solid 40 hours out of an employee than a poor 80.
Faster App Performance with 5 Simple Algorithms.
Almost the entirety of the cost of an orbital launch is in manufacturing and operational costs. Cost of fuel is basically just noise. If you can reduce operational turnaround time and operational complexity, even at a cost of payload, then you'll save so much money it'll be worth it in the long term. SpaceX is aiming for a re-assemble, gas up and go workflow. If they can pull it off it might reduce their per flight launch costs by a factor of 10 in the short term and perhaps as much as 100 if they get really good at it (although that's likely several generations of hardware down the line, at best). With that sort of thing on offer a reduction in payload is easily justifiable.

Imagine if somebody replaced your car with a version that had twice the carrying capacity, but would only run for one tank of gas. It wouldn't be a worthwhile trade would it?
I think Rob Walling's "What the Hell Does a 'Business Guy' Do?" article does a good job of answering the question. Link: http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2011/04/19/what-the-hell-does-a...

After reading this article, I thought, "Okay, 'business guy' = marketer." That added a lot of clarity for me.
Not when you correct it by the subset of people who would consider breaking into your house. Lockpicking and bumping are very easy, even for the amateur criminal.
It looks like they have already retracted, apologised and offered wine and chocolate via the comments.
"Right click" is meaningless to Mac laptops and every mobile device. For that reason alone, I dislike using the text "Right click to save."

I dunno how I feel about forcing a download without a bit more clarity to the user.
Its refreshing to see this is in a scripting language that works on any browser. Take it as inspiration and do something better.
Or fathers, for that matter. I've had nothing but joy from my good-enough life of no scholarly career and no time to write code that will change the world — but all the time in the world to lavish on the two best little girls I've ever met, and a little boy on the way.
The reaction is good. I don't know for how long is suitable, but I would lean towards a similar time as if a physical object share its characteristics, for how long should the iphone map mess still be mentioned in polite discussion? What if the whole phone was also complete unusable (disabled) for a week after the release, and then had its features cut down for people who had already bought it. What if apple refused refunds? What if the issues was all brought because of a more intrusive DRM, intentionally put there to prevent people from copying content out of the phone.

What would a suitable time frame be when such a thing should no longer be discussed? I don't know, but I suspect it would still be mentioned years later. I also suspect that no other phone manufacturer would dare to put similar DRM in a phone because of it. We are not there yet with software, but I personally would encourage such outcry when ever it happen.
it really doesn't.
Sure, but what marketable skill are you able to learn with Wikipedia alone?
Well Google will probably peer someday with direcpceu.com (Hughes)

I think it's using a satellite network in orbit just like people with rural internet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PanAmSat
I and a colleague used Knapsack algorithm for a very interesting use case. You can find it here https://github.com/heroic/Rucksack
Would Anyone Care If Your Startup Disappeared?
Create an OpenStack instance with just Curl
Amazing stuff, I've played with it this morning and it's a great way to debug applications. Whereas you can normally only step forward, you can step back in your debugging session which is pretty awesome.
1) There probably should be a sales tax, more and more of the economy is moving onto the Internet, and local state coffers are hurting for it

2) Figuring out local sales tax is hideously difficult, it opens lots of great opportunities for new startups as payment processors who "do taxes right"

3) Other bigger stories have consumed the media
So in general it's more complex than I opined in the three minutes it took to post, but it doesn't seem to be impossible. If anything it's complexity merits a service. This would require a few people and sme coordination, but should be doable.

Who's with me? New start up.
Yuck, browser specific things? What about the browsers you didn't mention? I would prefer there to be one standard way, not complicated tricks to be set up for each browser.

My GF also hates to download files for viewing. Why I have to download this video, pdf, audio file, why I can't simply use it in the browser. I simply want to see the content, not to save the file permanenty on computer.
TraceGL: JavaScript code flow visualisation in WebGL
Activity Based Pricing: When Is It The Right Choice for Your Startup?
What we discovered by scanning 235 OSS apps for security issues
I used https://github.com/flintinatux/spintax_parser/blob/c356ebd88...
Don't other browsers have a "temporary downloads" folder? For when you select "open this file with (...)" in the download dialog? Opera does.

Now I finally sort of understand why people like opening PDFs in browser plugins, I suppose ...

> I usually end up with a clusterfuck of a download directory (mine has 20 GB already in half a year, most of it is one-off downloads!)

yeah well but that is your own fault for saving temporary downloads in a non /tmp directory. just put them somewhere where they'll get cleaned out every so often. this is a computer, you don't even have to take the trash out yourself, but it's still up to you to differentiate between "to discard" and "to keep".`
Of course they are improving. Improving alone is not innovation.
Yeah I think that's what it is unless told otherwise. Quite impressive stuff!
Much of the advice in here is really good and actually applies to men too. It seems obvious to point out that a multidimensional life is richer, but it took me a long time to find out. Family life and personal development are no less important than a career, but the latter takes up, almost by default, most of our critical cycles. Creating the proper balance requires that we step back and evaluate how to spend our lives rather than merely following the well worn patterns. I doubt that anybody wishes, upon dying, that they had spent more time at the office.
Note I said in case the download attribute is set on the link, in which case, no, it would not require any request, it just follows the instructions set in the HTML.
Go is not a Google product. That was my point.
Also the sha1sum of the document. Thanks.
So will we see VPNs in Delaware spike from this? It's not clear to me if this is just extending already existing state sales taxes to the Internet, or if these are new, additional taxes.
>> when I want to look at a PDF in browser
> does that ever happen?

Yeah, I've done it a few times. It's handy when I know I'm not going to save the PDF for any length of time. Using Foxit Reader helps with this since it's a lot lighter than anything from Adobe.
Parachutes are a pain in the ass to replace. But more than that taking a dunk in the ocean isn't so good for rockets, and spending the better part of a day with a search and recovery team and all the relevant equipment necessary out looking for the rocket and hauling it back home isn't cheap, it also adds a lot of delay to the whole workflow. Compare that to a propulsive landing on the launch pad next to the assembly facilities. You don't have to have a whole special team of folks on hand. The first stage is back in your hands in a matter of hours, where it can be transported back to the assembly building using a simple crane or other specialized equipment. And it can be inserted into the processing workflow much faster than if it had been out in the ocean, and with less overhead of having to clean it, refurbish it, inspect it, etc.
Windows does not have a /tmp, and Chrome doesn't offer an easy(!) way to switch download locations per download.