skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
State and federal funding has shrunk dramatically, and universities must make up the shortfall through tuition. At my university they are building new dormitories, from money out of the general fund, and they hope to recover this through increased enrollment.

They are expanding the faculty, too. But here is the problem: there isn't an infinite supply of capable students; the squabble that is going to happen for the few capable students in the mediocre horde isn't going to be fun. I predict that the model isn't going to be successful, but I cannot see what is going to take its place.
From the site you linked: "'You can't take my photo without permission'. Oh yes you can, usually." It's fairly clear cut that there's little you can do about it.

And I know for sure that banks don't forbid camera phones at least in general, because my father worked at one and all his people had blackberries. This was years ago, and camera phones have only become more ubiquitous.
I'm guessing you've tried all of the obvious phone numbers and
email addresses?

http://www.planetonline.net/contactus.php

Sales at 1.877.264.4032
Tech Support 1.818.592.2999
Customer Service 1.818.532.5510 or 1.866.662.4176
Accounting at: 1.818.532.5000 Opt 5.

$ whois planetonline.com

Billing Contact:
Planet Online
Linda Hablian
20501 ventura blvd. Suite 148
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
United States
Phone: +1.8185325213
Email: lhablian@gmail.com
I can just emit PS and use ps2pdf. PS is just text, so any language can do that. There's already an API - it's called Unix pipes!
doctape: ain't nobody got time for that
All that. And, if you're at a small firm, you're often chasing small commissions with cheapskate clients who use all kinds of methods to stiff and delay payments. It's tough to build a good portfolio that way. (Like lots of design work in that regard.) Add in the cyclical nature of the construction trade, and it's a rough business.
This hack lets you run Facebook Home on any Android device
Hacker News readers who are interested in how share buybacks work and how they can be a very good idea (even in the tech industry) should read up on Henry Singleton & Teledyne:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Earl_Singleton
http://observer.com/2003/04/the-brain-behind-teledyne-a-grea...

Think of it as a way to reinvest in the future of your current business without having to actually expand it (which, in the case of a company at Apple's size/stage, would likely be wasted on low-returning incremental investments). Apple returning capital is a good thing -- it's how businesses should work.
FSFE: German Parliament says: Stop Granting Software Patents
LulzSec attacked Australian government systems in June 2011 [1]. Given that Oz is not exactly a high-profile target, it wouldn't surprise me if one of the members was Ozzie - especially as this guy allegedly had inside access to gov systems.

I am however skeptical that he's the "leader".

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-17/lulzsec-leaks-australi...
What should I do? I'm no longer in love with my startup.
I joined the startup scene in SF as a non-tech employee of an ok company (funded, but definitely not on the front page of tech trades). I was fresh out of college and it's been a bit over two years since I've been with the company.

I'm no longer enthused about the problem we're solving, the product, or the space in general. However, I really like my team. We have a great company culture, there's lots of flexibility to wfh, etc... I suppose if this were a romantic relationship, you could say I'm well past the honeymoon stage.

Has anyone else ever felt this way or can anyone else offer tips on how I can get the fire back?
My last comment tends to agree with you.

It seems there are many people who need this solution even with the products already out there. I hope you find lots of them and solve their problem with your product. One thing that could help with getting more customers is to create a Wordpress plug-in so more people can find you.

Good luck!
I have received feedback on projects I have worked on both at tech meetups and from potential users on the web. For me, it is more helpful to hear why the person feels the way that they do. In both cases, listening to how a person interprets my project helps me hone my marketing and feature prioritization.
If you say so, but I fail to see how the two don't overlap significantly.
Hardly the first university to step up to the chopping block faced with growing expenses y/y.

FRBNY website has some nice chart porn for those looking for more insight into the student loan debt bubble thats in full upswing :D
How do you think Apple makes its products ? Magic ?

They have to communicate and partner with lots of suppliers from small to large around the world. They also have content partnerships with Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, Tom Tom, Yelp etc. And the there is the huge array of media partnerships in the iTunes Store.

Seems like a LOT of partnerships actually.
Architecture is currently oversupplied with architects. The salaries are not that great, especially for starting (it runs under $50k and more likely in the low 40s).

sources

http://www.ehow.com/info_8019468_average-starting-architect-...

http://stats.bls.gov/oes/current/oes171011.htm

(a few architecture boards I frequent, for the cool pictures, are full of endless complaining about the lack of jobs and the poor pay for starting architects)

http://www.jobshadow.com/interview-with-a-general-architectf...

Starting salary right now is probably $32,000 to $33,000. Then, licensed architects, usually licensed architects are making around $50,000. It varies between all of their capabilities .
> but long term that sort of crap would stop.

No it wouldn't. People would start banks, make lots of money personally, loose tons of money for the bank, and then do it again happily.

The person who ultimately holds the bag will be far far far removed from those who caused the losses.
Yeah, but then you aren't getting a below-market wage anymore, either.

That's the thing about big companies... it doesn't matter if you are willing to work for less; they've got a budget and will hire the best person they can get for that budget. If you don't have the experience, and are willing to get paid less than what the job-role would normally pay to get the job? yeah, that's a pretty effective way to get experience, learn the job, and then switch companies and get paid full-rate for the job role a few years later. and yeah, you will probably need to do that at a small company (startup or otherwise) where the fact that you are willing to do the job role for half what someone with experience will want matters.

But yeah, I wouldn't really say you are working for below-market wages, 'cause you are presumably getting a reasonable wage for your level of experience (even if it's a low wage for the job role.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagnos...
never heard of that ;) Indeed, manual processing is an option if you are ok to add some code any time a user want a new PDF design. That's not a really scalable process if your number of PDFs is increasing. It's also not a viable option for less technical users
You're both right. I do that too but I didn't think this product category was something notable which warranted a deep discussion. Looks like I was wrong.
Actually maps is getting better organically. It surpasses Google Maps in a number of cities and being vector has a much better overall experience.

The cloud services should be split. iTunes Music Store has been pretty rock solid since its inception. It's really iCloud Sync and the Mail features that need work.
There's some value in what you are saying.

However, it still sounds like a circular argument to me - ie. Youth: "No form of participation you are giving us amounts to representation." Old people: "You are not participating in this system the way the existing power base determines acceptable, therefore you deserve what you get".

Objectively, with regards to votes, it's well acknowledged that democracy only functions well with an educated populace. The reality is that the US promotes a two-tiered (have and have-not) education system and an extremely centralized, near-on centralized corporate stranglehold on the mass media.

While it is still possible for an individual citizen to make an informed vote, the effort (to say nothing of social isolation) required to properly research and voice an opinion on any given issue against the mass media line can be extreme, whilst accountability for political promises at campaign time versus actual behaviour of those in office is essentially zero. Now honestly, that's not very democratic, is it?

Of course, to be apathetic and disenchanted is easy: proposing an alternative and effecting a transition is the not insignificant challenge. Thus, I am quite interested to see what kinds of transparency policies the Wikileaks Party proposes in Australia, and how this is echoed in Europe through the Pirate Party.

We live in interesting times!
I'm sure it's computationally equivalent to what you're doing - it's a function from some input data and some template to a PDF file - so I don't follow your thesis that it would be less scalable (for some definition of scalable that you don't give).

You could even use some tech like Handlebars to do it with Node.js, so using your existing stack.
You're assuming that blockbuster movies are a business model that will continue to work in the future. That's highly questionable - in the game industry developers and publishers are being forced to accept the possibility that the blockbuster model is no longer going to be a reliable source of revenue or the right way to develop things. I won't claim to know enough to say whether this is true for film or television, but it is at least reasonable to ask 'maybe the reason these products require fragile, overcomplicated DRM solutions is because we're building the wrong products'.

I hate to use this analogy, but this really seems like a potential buggy-whip situation: It's quite possible that the content Big Media is producing is simply no longer relevant, even if the lack of relevance is due to changes in how people consume media and not because people are somehow no longer interested in explosions or big-name actors.
from free to 40 grand a year...
There are a couple of steps that a carrier couple could take in that situation:

* IVF-PGD (like the couple in the article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagnos...

* Use a donor egg or sperm

* Adoption

* For certain diseases like phenylketonuria, which are not life-threatening if certain dietary restrictions are followed, the pregnancy can proceed as normal but the baby can't be fed anything with phenylalanine in it.
If I remember correctly, the renter isn't allowed to copy keys (presumably because he could then use them to break in to the flat a few years later).
sudoscience I really appreciate your detailed input!

As it turns out the video is confusing viewers about some of the features of the site and will have to be changed asap.

a) They don't provide benefit to the customer

You mentioned that users may not want to buy total outfits and that other users prefer to have an outfit chosen by someone else. The outfits that shoppers create are saved on completion and displayed on the website (think pinterest) for others to comment on, save or purchase. Each item could be purchased individually or as a whole outfit. If buying the entire outfit is not required would the website appeal to you?

If a casual shopper does not want to create an outfit but instead is looking to buy a certain item or maybe change his/her style she will be able to follow other users (think lyst.com) based on the outfits that they create and make purchases then.

b)Their product isn't directed towards the right customer

You are right about the cost of items vs. purchasing them online. The $600 Jimmy Choo does not reflect the type of user that I would expect to have. On the flip side there are online luxury retailers that serve up items well over 1k (net-a-porter) but that is a smaller market.

b) The demo doesn't work

Bootstrapping. The demo is not intended to work as you see in the video and I understand that a viewers expectations may be broken after giving it a try. I did not want to use one of those someones-hand-draws-explanation-of-website videos. When I created the video I wanted it to be flashy and enticing, encouraging the viewer to sign up for the future service. Would you recommend that I change the video to someones-hand or remove the try me section entirely? Which was more attractive to you, the video or being able to get it a (very limited) try?

Thanks again for taking the time to offer your insight!
My advice: tell your manager. Maybe you take on more responsibility, perhaps change roles to stretch your skills. don't suffer in silence.

I was a non-tech employee in a startup just like you. Seven years later I have a highly technical role. Soon I'll move on to something else (management?). Moving roles and changing responsibilities has personally kept me enriched and challenged.
This. While I don't like DRM, I feel like this boxing out of DRM-using media companies is pointless. Consumers continue to subscribe to media sources they find convenient and many use DRM. This may not last forever, but I'm inclined to vote bring all these people into the fold on the modern web so it's a place for everyone. Nobody's forcing anybody to use DRM.
500 billion Google fonts downloaded
I don't know how it works in the US, but here in Europe you wouldn't be allowed to copy a home key without proof of ownership.
My favorite line from 'The Bourne Ultimatum' is "Don't judge a live operation from an armchair!". Don't be so quick to judge or think following a text book is going to lead you to the promised land. Richard Branson, Larry and Sergey, warren buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Williams, Ted Turner did not read "The Four Steps to Epiphany" so let's stop with the common knowledge line.
UCD forces you to decide and keep focused on the target audience from the very beginning. That approach helps every corner of the business, I believe and would surely have helped you save the day. But as you said correctly, lesson learned.
Alternatively, that I have a sense of humor. :)
Thanks for writing this. It's very insightful.

One question - do you have any interest in spanish and/or the bible, or is this purely a business exercise?
A buyback doesn't inherently increase the price of the shares. A buyback works like this: Start with a company with an operating business valued at $750M and a pile of cash in the amount of $250M. You own 100 shares out of 1000 (10%). Your shares are worth $1B * (100/1000) == $100M. The company now does a buyback of $50M. They buy 50 shares from other shareholders and cancel them. You now own 100 shares out of 950 of a company with an operating business valued at $750M and a pile of cash in the amount of $200M. Your shares are worth $950M * (100/950) == $100M.

That doesn't mean the share price won't change in practice, but not because of the math, rather because of what investors make of the decision.
I do data mining. Ready here we go.

10% of people who used service discovered they have BrandonWirtz's Disease.

Requirements:
Male.
Primarily Caucasion as primarily limited to Arian Descent.
Symptoms onset at 55.
Not symptomatic for those with BMI under 22.

With this information I can take the 100% and cut the list to 50% that are male. 50% that are caucasion. (25%) Would have already know if they were over 55 so we cut another 25% Strip last names for ones that would not be of the right heritage. Suddenly the eligible candidates are only 12% of the total. I know that 80% of those are the people on that list.

That's how mining works.

You can't share data anonymously becuase each facet of data allows me more information to piece things together.

Sharing has to be opt in. But if it is opt in then it is no longer statiscitally relevant. Because just as an example. People are going to be less apt to share data if they have a disease associated with a stigma. Which will skew the results.

[Brandon Wirtz's Disease is an imaginary disease used for demonstration only. I don't have any genes shared with other humans as I am from another planet.]
+1

The world's most annoying web sites are ones that you have to register or email for before you even know what the site does.

I can only say that you're more patient that I am. I saw the first page and that I have to cough up an email just to get further. Then, I just closed that tab... never to look at this site again.
Starting a consulting business. Can I get some feedback on my new site?
Thanks for the tip. What's the best way to approach this conversation without them becoming alarmed?
Apple used to run an awesome developer program; it's dropped off a lot in the past decade. All the stuff which "forums" do now, used to be directly done by Apple. It's amazing; it used to be as good as MSDN if not better.

They could dominate this today, especially since it's mostly standard open source with only a little bit of Apple extra. There is no reason for Apple not to have awesome web development resources for Apple enhanced platforms (like how Microsoft does with .Net/.Asp/etc.) at the level of what it does with Objective-C. And, since Objective-C is essentially only an Apple thing, Apple should be out in the lead in education making Objective-C a super-approachable language, like Google does with Go.
Would love feedback/comments on my new product
Hi!

I'm new to HN & I recently launched a new site called ExpertCircle (www.expertcircle.com). We are currently in private beta mode.

I would love for the HN community to visit the site and provide ANY feedback they have. The access code to get into the site is: expertcircle2013.

Our goal is to create a recommendation engine for business owners and entrepreneur to find the best products & vendors for their business. The site might look a little 'thin' - we will be adding a lot more features as we go forward. This is as MVP as it gets :)

Thanks again for your help!
AMD Radeon HD 7990: Eight Games And A Beastly Card For $1,000
By scalable I mean accessible to a large number of user because that won't require too specific skills. My assumption is CSS is a more common skills than linux commands
My first thought was that maybe we don't need things to "be there" or "arrive", especially when they are complex and integral (in some respects) as a choice of a database, or at least the data representation or the database.

Then I thought of SQLite, and what it's allowed, which is ubiquitous instance databases for light usage and/or rapid prototyping. Maybe what we need is the equivalent of SQLite for NoSQL databases. Does that exist yet?
They would probably then get a loan from a credit union or a sovereign fund, or bond buyers with appetite for junk, or one of those fancy Silicon Valley social lending sites.

It's not like Cooper Union is the paragon of financial prudence here, borrowing money to play the stock market.

At least BofA could repo your landlady's estate, rent it out, and have it bounce back by now.
I don't see how your conclusion follows from the data. It appears to have been a very wise decision by the bank, given that even though Copper Union's investments have gone bad they're still paying the loan back. If I were a bank I would jump at an opportunity to own a loan that's backed by the land under the Chrysler building.
If they went to college and graduated young they could have 6 years experience. That's considered senior base on job postings.
Stress that you love the team, culture, etc. I think that'll help them to realize you truly want to stick with the company, you are simply not excited about your specific role anymore.
The book "design is how it works" has some great examples of how successful companies started, and got their design right. It is often a case of: scratching your own itch.

Developers should become part of other demographics, so they start to feel other people's itches. Understanding the itch is the best way to create the right product.
Ask HN: Why was Google Maps down today?
I tried throughout the day to look up locations on maps but I kept getting an error page. It said "system 27 is down". Did anyone else experience this? I've looked all day here for a thread or link explaining what happened, but thus far I haven't seen anything. And of course, google doesn't exactly have a call center where I could ask someone. So, what happened?
Do nothing that you do not love!
Don't take pseut's comments to heart. You're obviously excited about your product, which no one should begrudge you. I think the HN audience is pretty accepting of self promotion, as long as it is not too in your face.

Mind you, you have to admit, promoting your product on HN by saying "we skipped doing a show HN" is a little ironic.
I'm confused by the implication that running an image without permission but with credit is legal, but without permission but without credit is illegal. Copyright, in the US anyway, so far as I know has no such relationship to whether proper attribution/credit is given.

(If the given work was publicly licensed CC-BY, that's another story. Then you HAVE permission, under that license only if you credit. But that's something the CC-BY license does, not some built-in part of copyright law).

It's certainly _good manners_ regardless of the law. But, while you may or may not be illegally 'pirating' an image to use it in a facebook post without permission, whether or not you give proper attribution is unlikely to be determining factor of whether you are or not.
Wow that's really fun. The tools on the side are great. The only problem is the design is very ugly, making it hard to work with.
All theses library are about creating a PDF from scratch whereas our API should allow to customize an already existing PDF
The Human Brain Has 100 Billion Neurons-As Many Cells as Stars in the Milky Way
The Economics of Suicide
tl;dr OP bought a lottery ticket that didn't pan out and isn't happy about it.
Nobody bats 1000. To extend the metaphor, a baseball player is considered highly successful if he can hit one out of three pitches.

People tend to emphasize their successes. Not only does it naturally fit our desire to inflate our ego but confidence is often considered important to attracting others to ventures.

This skewed emphasis is especially prominent online. See http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/24/why-facebook-makes-you...
I had a lovely 2-3 month contract with Counsyl last year to help them build some internal systems. I have to say that they really have their stuff together and working with the team was a lot of fun. I've mostly had to stay silent the last year about what they're doing due to NDA and such, and won't say much here, but I HIGHLY recommend anyone looking to have kids consider going through Counsyl's program.

Also, if you are an engineer and are approached to join the team, give it every consideration. Those guys are so smart it's scary. Learning how microfluidic assays work was one of the coolest things I'd seen in a long time.
"Don't judge a live operation from an armchair!".

Dude, you're preaching to the choir here. I'm not judging anybody, just expressing some surprise.

Don't be so quick to judge or think following a text book is going to lead you to the promised land

I never said that following a textbook would lead anybody to the promised land. Please don't put words into my mouth. If you disagree with what I actually said, fine, disagree, it's your right. But attacking something I never said isn't benefiting anybody.

Richard Branson, Larry and Sergey, warren buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Williams, Ted Turner did not read "The Four Steps to Epiphany" so let's stop with the common knowledge line.

I didn't say they did, and that statement has nothing to do with this discussion. In 2011+, among this crowd (HN people, people who have gone through YC, etc.) it sure seems to be common knowledge. And if it's not as common as I thought, then I guess that is exactly what surprises me, because it dang sure seems like common knowledge.