skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What? No double popped-collar neon polos? I thought that was his trademark.

On a serious note, please make the website as great as the iPhone app. It's really lacking, and that integration will be really cool.
My guess is that pharmacies will simply be barred from accepting cash. The credit card processors are already set up for bureaucrats to monitor at their leisure.
As a postscript to this I'd just like to add that I do all my 'design' in Inkscape which is free so there is no need to spend a lot of money.
I hope he gets more than slides before the meeting. He should get an essay, maybe with graphics.

There is nothing as mind numbing as communication via bullet point in powerpoint.
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How did highly paid experts get things wrong? I'd argue that they were responding to incentives put in place by (not all that well paid) policymakers.
I wouldn't be worried. Cloning websites never goes as well as the poster of the RFP. The poster will be playing catchup without differentiation. You have an advantage, just keep innovating and developing it. Even if there is a really good developer that can clone it, it will be hard for them to clone, catch up and surpass.
> You'd think that such a smart guy would have realized...

This is the best theory I've seen yet to explain his behavior:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/37f51351f5340e58...

It makes a lot of sense, in light of the man's biography.

See this:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/

for an informed critic's perspective on the details.
It means something a bit different to everyone else, but it involves things like:

- When you merely "visit" a new place, you are getting the manicured, prepared, bite-sized, "tourist" version of it. This prevents one from seeing anything from more than just the "oh neat that's a big tower" perspective.

- When you meet the locals in a new place, you are absorbing their culture and perspectives - something that is nearly impossible to do when you're secluded in a luxury resort all the time, or stuck on a tour bus with people from your home country/city.

This perspective IMHO enriches oneself and allows us to understand what makes other people tick - and I firmly believe that if people took more time to figure out how other people think, the world would have a lot fewer problems.
"Wolfram is not a crank..."
Have you tried/thought about VirtualBox?
This article, IMO, exemplifies a lack of understanding by members of the free software community. You can't say "The international free software movement has decisively placed themselves in opposition to laws which restrict information freedom by prioritizing intellectual property and the ownership of information by corporations over the civil right to information and software." while supporting licenses like the GPL which depend solely on copyright law to restrict the way software is distributed.
interesting...

I have always wondered about the correlation between intellect and the decision to make huge life decisions based on one's own beliefs.

Simply having a consistent set of beliefs (or seeing the inconsistency in mainstream beliefs) will make someone seem more like a hard core libertarian or socialist.

But what does it take for such a person to hit the street and start trying to make change happen? Are such people ever revolutionaries? Or are they content to have a logically consistent worldview but sit on the sidelines?
Fedora, too AFAIK.
I strongly disagree with the premise of this article.

There is a major difference between free software, which obeys and even relies on copyright to enforce its rules, and this generalized pirate movement which wants the right to copy anything, anytime, freely.
Yes, that would be useful. And it remains open to you to try both now and compare how they make you feel.

The article seems to be claiming that all lifestyles without meditation lead to suffering. This is a pretty strong claim, don't you think? It goes beyond benefit and utility. At root, all of us are trying to feel better. Even physicists are motivated by perceptions of beauty.

People seem to think that being motivated by feelings isn't rational. But irrationality ultimately feels bad.
The problem is that it's already too late to help the people that need to hear this advice.
Potassium Dichromate is a fairly nasty chemical due to the face is has Chromium in a high oxidation state. They have pretty much written it out of Chemistry experiments in undergraduate chem courses.
Thank you all very much for your feedback! I truly appreciate all of it, both positive and negative.
You don't know what you're talking about. Meditation absolutely solves problems, it teaches you to control your mind and your emotions and most people need to be better at that.

It's just a matter of awareness, meditation is nothing more than practicing awareness of how your own mind and body operates. There's nothing unscientific or irrational about this, in fact it's quite rational.

Meditation is also not anything remotely similar to a religion, nor does it require you to believe anything absurd. That you chunk them together like that says you haven't really ever looked to deeply into the subject.
random gossip?
It probably says a lot about my social circle to think that I was actually horrified that there are people out there that wouldn't get this.

Maybe I should talk to a shrink... Or anyone else who didn't do science or engineering at university, for that matter.
Can you give examples? I'm genuinely interested. Rosalind Franklin and DNA is about the only 'greatest discovery' I know of where I think credit wasn't given where it was due.

Also, SW hasn't gotten anywhere near a 'greatest discovery', so I'm not sure the comparison is valid.
Tell HN: PG's 6 Unexpected Advantages of "Cheapness" in a Startup
Preface: So this afternoon I had the opportunity to attend a session at TiEcon on early-stage funding, in which Paul was a panelist.

Here's his list of 6 unexpected advantages:

1. You don't have to spend a lot of time raising money.

2. You are forced to grow a culture of efficiency within your company.

3. The only way to impress somebody is to build something great.

4. You don't attract the wrong type of people (the ones who are obviously only in it for the money)

5. You can't buy things so you're forced to build them.

6. You can't afford to hire someone to do sales. You have to do it yourself, which forces you to interact with the end-user.
What a completely useless site. Unless you are careless enough to run javascript, the site will not return any information. They say "To see full output you need to enable Javascript in your browser", but really return NO information without javascript. I don't know what they return with javascript, because I don't use it, like any sensible person.
So, which?
Yeah, I'm having a little trouble grasping why this is at the top of the front page.
So Wolfram's in the news and suddenly a 2-year-old ad hominem attack on usenet is somehow relevant?
I would think it is table games not because of floor space, but because of high rollers. No one is playing slots for $50,000 a spin.
Not sure why this is on the front page but we might as well learn from it. I thought there is a lot to be learned from:

"In his teens, he was groomed to become the next Einstein, and not only has he not lived up to expectations but, as a scientist, he has produced precious little."
I've seen this in a few places, actually - it's good to know whose bandwidth I'm wasting every time I highlight some text for readability reasons.
flagged. Gotta start flagging stuff like this I guess.
How is it relevant? Many entrepreneurs fail several times before having a success. Does it really matter to you if their product is good?
I'm aware of its oxidation potential. Although I am not from a chemistry background, I do my best to use and store potentially dangerous chemicals as prescribed by their MSDS sheets.

I use it for a printing-out-process called Gum Bichromate printing, and there isn't really a safer substitute sensitiser for this process that I'm aware of.

The thing I'm not sure about is why I had to register with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) to buy the stuff.
What time does the preakness start 2009
In a war of large corporations with nearly-unlimited resources against someone who just wants to listen to some music, I'll take the someone who just wants to listen to some music every time.

I'm a fan of the underdog, especially one who's had progressively more power removed from their bailiwick -- fair use? Almost gone. Time-shifting? They'd take that away if they could. DMCA? What a travesty.

Time the balance shifts the other way for a while.
Suggestion, in case anyone from DDG is reading this. Switch the locations of the about link and the share link. I tried to click about, and in the process moused over the share link, which popped up some box that covered the about link.
Exactly whose expectations has he "not lived up to"? I'm reminded of a Forbes article (http://www.forbes.com/asap/2000/1127/162_print.html):

"in the eyes of the public, he is a successful chief executive. To his scientific peers, he is a brilliant could-have-been, a young man who set the world on fire by reinvigorating an obscure scientific field called cellular automata—and in the process kicked off Chaos Theory—before selling out to the blandishments of corporate life."

This just sounds like the usual snubbing of careers outside academica by the academic establishment.
Along with my downvote, I have a productive suggestion for you. Go read:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind....

It's an f'ing great blog post from an absurdly talented writer, so in addition to the personal jab I'm making by directing you to it, I'm also trying to enhance your evening (or morning or whenever you read this) by giving you something fun to look at.

Because your argument is, to an exasperating degree, "excluding the middle". Meditation or beer bongs. And if that weren't enough, you take it a step further than even this sanctimonious article about meditation, and draw a straight line from drunk, stoned fraternity people to, for instance, attendance at baseball games.

Whatever you think it is meditation has done for you, it isn't in evidence tonight.
Put up or shut up.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

...or retract your insipid allegation.

I want whatever you're smoking.

It may help you to understand that...

Good grief. Can we keep this kind of meanness out of HN comment threads or do I need to find another community?
Contempt masquerading as "compassion" is still contempt. This argument is any more significant than loving the sinner and hating the sin.
I agree, I just dislike all of this being linked to the free software community, and dislike the hypocrisy of a good portion of the community with respect to copyright.
There was a lot of discussion when New Kind of Science came out. It was...long. Some people wondered if there was some tidbit hidden within the excessive girth to justify all the hype. Most people assumed that if Wolfram really did have a good idea, he would have put it in a more accessible format (like a 5 page paper).

All that stuff about "groomed to be the next Einstein" is just kind of silly. Mathematica isn't too bad a thing to have on your resume.
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You know, sometimes you can have beer, have a laugh with others, and just enjoy being.
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I think people are just having trouble reconciling some conflicting data they are getting.

I know:

1) Wolfram is a very smart man - probably smarter than you or I (depending on the value of 'you'). This is backed up by numerous bona fides such as having published particle physics papers at 16, a Caltech PhD at 20, a successful math research company with $20M/yr revenue, etc.

2) Wolfram has been promoting an idea that he claims will change the world for years. Most people, even other very smart people, think his idea is either useless, redundant, or just plain wrong.

People are just looking for a way to reconcile these two pieces of data. Particularly because too often in the past ideas that were dismissed as useless/redundant/wrong have turned out to be right (and revolutionary).

This posting scratches that itch. Even better, it provides an explanation that appeals to my inner slacker (i.e., requires no action to be taken) while most other obvious explanations require something to be fixed (i.e., require action to be taken).
Ask HN: What do you eat?
A little lighter subject for this late saturday evening. I have considered starting a site along the lines of "startup recipes."

These recipes would be focused on inexpensive meals that don't take a lot of time away from coding but still provide excellent nutrition and lasting energy.

Of course we all know the "ramen profitable" stage, but Ramen is horrible for the body. Restaurants in general produce not that great of food and the amount of time saved by having them cook it isn't always advantageous considering you have to drive there, stand in line and be away from the computer. Not to mention the expense of convenience makes them not the best choice economically.

I went to college in New Orleans, so I became aware quickly of lots of inexpensive dishes that could be cooked without a lot of distraction: Red beans 'n' Rice, Gumbo, and Jambalaya. I also like to make a nice Pot Roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots in there.

So, my question for you is, what do you eat to keep yourself going while you are coding or working on your startup or just living?
What is Facebook's motivation for doing this?

It doesn't seem like it'd improve employee retention -- the folks would take the money and run!
So what about when a group like Pirate Bay decides to start using GPL'ed software without following the GPL rules because they don't care about copyright?

I'm sorry, but I think music theft is about one of the lamest things you can do. If you really like music, you'll support the artists. I don't want to hear the BS line, "oh, they don't get any money from the record sales anyway." Sure, so when the record companies collapse and there's no one to distribute their albums or pay the recording costs, then what? They may not get much money DIRECTLY from record sales, but that's really not the point. If you steal music, you are completely and utterly useless to the music community, and it would be better off without you. You are a short-sighted mooch, and you're just bringing people down for your own temporary benefit.
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Twitter: We Will make money by the end of the year
I don't believe that salaries at Facebook are hugely depressed based on burgeoning stock options. Glassdoor (self-) reports them in the >100k range.
Ask HN: Why is WolframAlpha serving rendered text images instead of plain text?
I am after some thoughts on why they would be doing this. I am a developer/designer and cannot think of any good reason for doing what can be done in CSS. Any ideas?

Sample : http://www4d.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP6202195gdebi63ebi5b100001e27378a70be39cd?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=46

* srry, for unclickable link
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My standard definition of introversion is you are primarily an introvert if you find certain social situations like parties draining. Extroverts get energized by social situations like parties.

When it comes to travel, I find that I am more extroverted primarily because traveling alone sucks.

As the old koan goes, "whereever you go, there you are". You may not outrun your shadow, however, travel can help figure out who you are.
"that's the going rate"

Didn't the "going rate" turn out to be dumb and unsustainable for the nation as a whole?
To make you pay for the API.
I especially like #4...

Technically, #1 is possibly the only incorrect one on the list. If you don't have any money, you are quite likely to try to get some, or at least obsess and waste a lot of time worrying about money.

#6 is so important... It's one of those truths that you only understand after it happened to you once. Until it hits you, you just think "yeah, sure, I know my customers alright".
I don't know for sure - but my guess is mathematica outputs images?
The answer to "buid or buy" is more nuanced than "always build".
> Sure, so when the record companies collapse and there's no one to distribute their albums or pay the recording costs, then what?

What a ridiculous thing to say. What would happen then? The middlemen would be cut out. Artists will distribute their creations themselves. If they're not savvy enough for that, optimized CMS will sprout about that'll make it easier for them to do so. The best thing is that record-chosen records won't come to top, the best and most preferred things will (to use a crude example, they'll find their way to the top in a Digg-like fashion). This is exactly what needs to happen. This is exactly the turn that needs to be taken. As for the recording costs -- well, the only people that can afford it at the moment are the artists that are ALREADY at the top. Musicianship is a risky business to get into in the first place, and it's just really their responsibility to make smart and systematic decisions themselves in the circumstances they're in. Beside that, the matter of the fact is that it's becoming very possible to do more 1) with less people, and 2) with less money. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UPMEmCqZo -- a HQ video, that anyone reasonable would have to admit beats professionally-created movies in terms of quality (I'll myself admit that the acting isn't the best it could have been).

When this happens, a new connection will be born between the artists and the customers. And I think this newfangled connection might encourage a few more people to purchase music (which, hopefully, will go at a cheaper cost than before due to this new, middleman-less, direct artist-to-customer relationship).
"If you don't have any money", then "you don't have to spend a lot of time raising money"?

Am I the only one baffled?
And yet... every with every inteligent rearrangement of said existing 'sounds', 'thoughts' and feelings, we create and experiance new and wonderful things.
If you're going to opine about the virtues of the public commons, then why not support artists who produce copyright free content? There are plenty out there. The hypocrisy of the pirate movement is seen when the lion's share of the content they consume is the high-budget stuff produced in big studios. This is in stark contrast to the free software community, in which genuinely free software is used far more than pirated commercial software.

Content pirates are parasites that are killing their host. They take and offer nothing in return. They certainly don't add the magnitude of value to the world that is offered by the free software movement.
How strange... from their FAQ (under Web and other Practicalities - http://www.wolframalpha.com/faqs.html):

"Do I need images enabled in my browser to use Wolfram|Alpha?

Yes. All its output content is rendered as images, for consistency."

Perhaps they didn't want to make sure the data was styled & displayed well in all browsers (ahem... ie6)?

clickable: http://www4d.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP6202195gdebi6...
Once you get into the site itself the design is fine. I think the negative reaction you are seeing is more about the landing page. To sum it up; it has a web 1.0 feel. There is a lot of text, and it seems like a pretty intense sales pitch.

I'd cut that landing page down to the bare essentials.

The site itself feels very complete, but without content it is impossible to understand what the point really is. I registered and as others mentioned, I had no clue what to do. The "what to do" drop down is great, but so much to read. I don't have the patience to read all that (and I want to help you), so I wouldn't expect a user to read it.

Regarding content; you need to champion a topic. Pick something you know that would relate to other people. If you can't think of something, do something technical.. The site can't be empty, and the things that people see must be current.

good luck, looks like a strong start
its not like they hide the text that much though;

jsonArray.popups.i_0100_1 = {"stringified": "Brisbane,Queensland","mInput": "","mOutput": "", "popLinks": {"Brisbane, Queensland":"Brisbane"} };
I actually think #1 is accurate – if you don't have any money, and you're already working on your product, then you obviously aren't burning through tons of cash just to stay operational. If developing your product is eating through cash, you have to keep spending time trying to raise more to keep going, instead of working on your product.