skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Guanxi" is a huge factor in dealings involving the Chinese government, and even in day to day Chinese business. One difference between the Chinese and American system of connections and favors may be that Chinese put a heavy emphasis on family relations, which doesn't seem overly prevalent here. Well, save for certain notable exceptions.

On another note, the problem of "guanxi" extends to the microlending arena. China's lending capital for microloans is small, and even then, the funds are generally directed to those with connections to the government. I'm working with a nonprofit called Wokai (http://www.wokai.org), and we're working to raise loan capital from people around the world for microloans to Chinese farmers. We operate pretty similarly to Kiva, except that due to Chinese regulations we can't return money to lenders - therefore, we solicit contributions that turn into perpetual loan capital.
'Chinese people deserve better.'

Really, what business is this of yours? I feel like Westerners are always looking down their noses at the Chinese political situation but people don't seem to take into account China's historical context. China IS getting better (and rather rapidly). Less than 100 years ago, China still had an Emperor. With that in mind, how many centuries has Western democracy had to mature?

My personal belief is that democracy develops very gradually, sometimes punctuated by sharp periods of rapid change (e.g., revolutions, foreign colonization).
Giant 'soap bubble' found floating in space
For non trivial games I always suggest taking the opengl (gl-es) route.

This sample project should get you started:
http://www.71squared.co.uk/iPhone/CrashLanding.zip

This is from Apple itself . It has been removed from their site since the audio code is outdated (it's no longer compatible with most recent OS versions).

It also contains some wrapper code to easily load images into textures and to generate textures with a string of text and a specified font and size.
Why is that? Is it approximating then, or just unreliable?
The US system is not private. There are so many regulations, tax codes, and state mandates that you can't possibly consider the current situation a free market solution.

If you compare the complex mess in the US to a simpler federal-based system, of course the simpler one looks better. However, remove all regulations and tax implications from the US and prices will dive bomb and quality will improve.
It's true that the usual explanation with the Bernoulli effect is wrong, but the idea that the Coanda effect is important for normal flight is also wrong. The relationship between wing camber, angle of attack, and lift is a little more complicated than the post, or the presentation it references, implies. See http://av8n.com/how/htm/airfoils.html#sec-other-fallacies for more details.

A few planes have been built with the Coanda effect in mind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YC-14), but in general it isn't very important.
I count 16,

Chinese citizenship: Wong Kwong Yu, Zhang Li, Zhang Jindong, Chu Mang Yee, Zhang Cheng Fei, Guo Guangchang, Liu Yongxing, Xu Jiayin, Liu Yonghao, Lu Guanqiu, William Ding, Zong Qinghou, Li Wei, Song Weiping, Liang Wengen, Chen Fashu

Hong Kong: Li Sze Lim

Australia: Shi Zhengrong

USA: Roger Wang

Nineteen if you count these other guys. All reside in China.

Interestingly enough, this list does not include the people listed at the bottom of the article: Hu Haifeng, Winston Wen Yunsong, Jiang Mianheng, Li Xiaopeng, and Levin Zhu.
Patio, you're on a roll buddy. Keep the sales stuff coming; HN will turn to sourceforge without these "getting paid" articles ;-)
Does having the Digg voting widget or other similar social bookmarking tools cheapen the article?
Apple's iTouch Tablet Will Become Its Flagship Product
Why don’t Americans understand science better? Start with the scientists.
Watch the Night of Champions Live Stream Webcast | Buzz Online 24/7
Actually, I prefer to think of your name being Trev Zorgo Zuld, like some kind of arcane coder from days long past, skilled in the obscurities of Fortran and COBOL.
"Dangerous Knowledge" - BBC documentary on mathematicians gone insane
Microsoft Offers to Add Rival Browsers to Settle Case
> My observation is that black women in their twenties and early thirties want to marry and commit at a time when black men their age are more likely to enjoy playing the field.

I hardly think this is unique to black men and women, this seems a general description of all men and women and is easily compensated for by the fact that women tend to marry older men and men marry younger women.
Can You Protect Your Image While on Facebook?
I was impressed by the author's creativity, but yeah. Almost everything would absolutely flop in the real world, and probably have a negative effect on the local perception of your business.

Things like "sponsor an event" and "write for newspapers" work, yeah, but they're not really what I'd term guerrilla...
Ah and yet, this still does not qualify as something that "hurts the feelings of the Chinese people." If you don't hear that magical phrase, they don't really mean it.

Reference:
http://www.danwei.org/foreign_affairs/a_map_of_hurt_feelings...
More accurately titled "I want you to believe Apple will have another iPhone-like hit because I'm long on Apple stock, and I'm pitching my hopes on the Apple tablet rumours finally being correct (it's got to happen someday, hasn't it?)".

But that's not quite so catchy a title.
> We are witnessing a transition in the way the Internet is used. Mobile content requires a tailor made user experience that is not efficiently delivered by the traditional website model. Although we have grown accustomed to navigating the Web by browsing websites on our PC, consumers are showing an affinity for the App Store model.

Couldn't agree more.

Some of us might dislike this but it's hard not to see where the users are going.

At least in the near future. But I can't foresee a reason for turning back to the browser.

Appstores are also a solution to all the speculations about how to monetize content. If the medium is the message, websites (when interacting with them with the browser) are mostly perceived as free content. Appstores are a different brainframe.

Like I said in other comments I'm just observing the trend. I'm not saying that I'm absolutely happy with this.
do you have pictures of the windmill?
I know a few of these guys personally. They started making iphone games but lately their success has been garnering them contracts with local businesses to make internal iphone applications. You might want to get in contact with them.

http://www.resolutegames.com/
Reducing the RMSE isn't quite that simple. Teams have been working for years to improve the algorithm by 10%. You can't just "boost it up" in order to win. It takes serious work. BPC is still working to improve their algorithm like everyone else but questioning whether they "expected this to happen" is ridiculous. None of the top teams "deserve to lose", they've all done great work and deserve a round of applause, regardless if they are the ultimate winner.
I don't see how can it be more popular than iPhone/iPod Touch and successors.
Summary:

<address>,
<q>,
<optgroup>,
<acronym> or <abbr>,
<fieldset> and <legend>
Safari 4, Opera 10, Firefox 3.5 are all stable releases and they all support @font-face.

The only issue is how to support fonts from languages other languages as the font file size will be really big. And this is where the debate on fonts come in.
sure: http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/

That documents the whole building from start to finish, including the 3d computer controlled router/plasmacutter we built in order to fabricate all the parts.

The whole thing including making the tools took about a year and half.

A single picture of the completed machine is here:

http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/firstrun.jp...

It's a variable pitch 3 blader with a 'drum' type rotor that holds 18 2x1x.5" neos. Total power about 2000 Watts, design power was 2.5 KW so not perfect but still pretty good.
Tersus - an open source, purely visual IDE for iPhone and web apps
I have mentioned in my article where you can get free legal and small size @font-face friendly fonts from. Though it is quite hard to find a small-sized font for languages other than english.
Usually a pyramid graphic indicates that the lower levels are necessary to achieve the higher levels. This is also the point of the Maslows pyramid which he references.

This graphic seem to indicate that "name calling" is necessary footwork to refute the central point in an argument. Perhaps that is the point, but I'm pretty sure that was not what pg originally meant!
Probably one of the more important things is to have a realistic budget. If you're thinking anything less then a few grand, I can tell you you're not going to find a good developer in the states.

Try local meetup groups for iPhone devs, they're pretty common all over the country. If you can't find anyone, send me an email (in profile) and I can put you in touch with a dev.
"Really, what business is this of yours?"

Every human being deserves better, Chinese or not. We are all on the same boat after all.

And yes. China is making some progress, but, still, it has a long way to go. Switching from an imperial totalitarian state to a communist one (also an unavoidable consequence of the past couple thousand years of Chinese history) makes for not that much of a change after all. At least not much when you consider the human condition.

And it is my business as it shifts the "Overton window" towards a position more on the totalitarian end of the spectrum. While recognizing China made a lot of progress in the past century (making up for the couple thousand years before) it is still unacceptable. Mind you my children will have to live in a world where a totalitarian state ruled with iron fist by a political aristocracy is a major commercial partner of just about every other country. And this arrangement may start putting ideas into some minds that would be better if left empty.

At least for me it's not acceptable.
You are an ass hat.

(Apologies, I just so rarely get to name call in a way that is supported in graph format)
To all those that feel the need to mod this down if you do not agree with me then feel free to write why you don't agree.

Do you think that having a leg up is somehow detrimental to your progress ? Is it a coincidence that people with connections (or party affiliations) have an easier time of amassing wealth in China ? Is that same coincidence at work when the son of a politician makes a fortune or becomes a politician himself in a western society ?
Handling Financial Pressure
Help Design a Zombie Game and Help Fight Parkinson’s
Weird, you're right. I would assume it's an earlier version of the NYT's graphic. Looks like they were made by the same person.

All things being equal, however, I'll trust the NYT over "some redditor"
Programs:

http://www.iventures10.com in Champaign, IL

http://iaccelerator.org in Ahmenabad, India

YEurope did provide office space.

Seedcamp:
Basekit (Eden Ventures, NESTA), Toksta (TAG) and UberVu (Eden Ventures) have received follow-on funding.
> I don't see the point in 5 or 10 teams joining forces to improve the results for a tiny percentage and win the prize.

I think the point is who gets the million dollars. It makes sense that people would group up, probably into as few additional participants as it would take to ensure winning. If you and I were in the vicinity of being able to win independently and we knew we would lose otherwise, I think we have every incentive to team up.
> But I can't foresee a reason for turning back to the browser.

That, of course, depends on how much the browser changes. Maybe it'll compel MS to adopt HTML 5 (plus extensions) just to cut off some of Apple's air supply.
Open Source, compliant Google Wave Server
How to Start an Advertising Company
Yes, you have to wait 24 hours from your last submission.
Indeed, after I read the title I thought that one of the reasons the startup failed is the fact that it was "VC funded".
I didn't mod you down, but I read you plea for critiques and am happy to give you one.

"Getting a leg up" is a broad phrase that could mean anything from knowing people at the local country club to paying off government officials for special treatment.

In western societies, the idea is that governments change on a regular basis. This prevents, in theory, high-ranking government officials from getting into bed on a permanent basis with companies. Note that corruption doesn't magically go away: what probably happens is that you trade off one set of crooks for another. But -- and this is a very important but -- it changes.

Some types of getting a leg up are certainly fine. Some aren't. It's a really important distinction to make, because it lets some systems flex and adapt and leaves others incapable of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.
You might look at Aubrey de Grey's thesis on this topic. His focus is applied biogerontology, but the general incentives and situation he describes can be applied just as well to any field of science. See the diagrams in this short article:

The Curious Case of the Catatonic Biogerontologists
http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/viewarticle.cfm?articl...
Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't, but Netflix defined it as 30 days from the first submission over a 10% improvement. I'm sure there's some reason why they did it that way, but I don't know what it is.
How is the concept of an iTouch tablet any different from a jailbroken iPhone with a bigger screen and a DisplayPort output?
"Latency is physics, bandwidth is money."
What Are The Benefits Of A Colon Cleanse
BPC is a meta-team as well. It's made up of four other teams. Some members of BPC won the Progress Prizes in previous years.

I can completely understand joining forces to win the prize. $1,000,000 isn't chump change, and a smaller percentage of it is better than none.
Karma for introducing me to the term Overton window. And I do agree with you that we should encourage China to continue to liberalize. I just wanted to try to offset what I feel is a somewhat one-sided view of the Chinese situation.

I'd also like to point out that, despite how the Western media often presents it, the CCP isn't monolithic. Power swings between two poles: Beijing and Shanghai (Beijing being the political and military hub, Shanghai being the economic hub). For example, Jiang Zemin represented the South and was what we would consider more economically liberal and now Hu is more friendly toward the military, more focused on 'political stability', and more representative of the North. I highly suspect the next president will be a conscious swing back to the 'liberal' side of the spectrum.

And the power hubs tend to alternate every decade or so. I suspect when democracy does start to trickle down to the Chinese population, the party will split somewhere along this line. We just need to give it a few more decades.
PZ Myers's blog has a good comment on this opinion piece:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/solution_blame_sc...

Earlier on his blog he provided detailed criticisms of the book by the same authors.
I believe it is a consequence of A) netflix evaluating the algorithms in terms of the squared error and B) different classification algorithms making different types of mistakes.

Take a simple example, with two movies (A and B), and two algorithms (X and Y). Say Alg. X rates movie A perfectly, but is off by 2 for movie B. Meanwhile, Alg. Y rates movie B perfectly, but is off by 2 for movie A.

The squared errors for the different algorithms will be:

Alg X: 4 (=0^2 + 2^2)

Alg Y: 4 (=2^2 + 0^2)

Mean of Alg X and Alg Y: 2 (=1^2 + 1^2)
I think the common element is that the people around you are the key to your lot in life. In western societies that is being born into some money or knowing people that have some, in China it means the party.

Neither of those are a guarantee, but statistically speaking you'd expect people with connections or with parents in high places to do better than those without.

Rags-to-riches stories exist, but for every pauper that 'made it' there are hundreds if not thousands or more that don't stand a chance.

In a fair society everybody has equal chances at birth, but such a society does not exist (or at least I'm not aware of one). China is 'unfair' because it apparently gives the children of the party bosses extreme advantages, the west is unfair because if your parents have money you're likely to leverage that.

Oh, and I absolutely agree that this is the kind of 'leg up' that should be illegal, it's cronyism pure and simple. But then again, so is the 'Bush dynasty'. Or is there a gene for politics ?
It is overkill, but dedicated special purpose hardware like a hardware SSL Accelerator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSL_acceleration) is certainly useful, and its not unfathomable that one of these would use an FPGA.
We just need to give it a few more decades.

Here's hoping that world events allow them time to do so.

What is required is a way for one bunch of people to say "hell, the people running the government right now are idiots. Idiots I say! Let's completely do things differently!" and be able to assume power and change things without force of arms or violence.

And do this on a regular basis.

I know I'll feel better when that day comes. Because well, sometimes the folks running things are idiots. And they have all the guns.
Unity3d!
I think it's the web nerds equivalent of mechanics talking about Formula 1 race cars, most people who are in the field will never even be closing to needing that level of technology, but when you do you really do.

If you are doing lots of ssl connections some form of accelerator, whether drop in cards or a standalone box, are well worth the cost.
Maybe it's just me, but I've never actually believed that Microsoft bundling a browser (that they made, of course) is monopolistic. It seems like Microsoft is pushing a value-add with their products. Of course, it serves their agenda, but everything every company does serves their agenda -- that's why they're companies. I don't see the difference between Microsoft bundling IE with Windows and Apple offering a free iPod with new Macs during "Back to School." And yet, no one ever suggests that maybe Apple should be offering a choice between a free iPod and a free Zune.

Not only that, but I'm also troubled by the inclusion of other browsers. Why should Firefox get the free publicity? Because they're popular? Well that seems to be the same argument against IE. Personally, my favorite Windows browser is Opera, but how much do you want to bet that that certainly won't be on their list.
The only tag I thought was actually useful is <optgroup>, when you have Categories (labels) in your drop-down <select> that you don't want to be selectable.
That's the common element, sure. And we see this everywhere, no matter what the political system.

Some of the stats on wealth creation are interesting. If I remember correctly, it's very unusual for children of rich people to also generate a lot of wealth on their own. That's why you see one rich guy trying his best to keep his kids from squandering everything. If you're lucky you send them to a lot of schooling and they do acceptably well.

It's the hustlers that make the money, no matter the system.

I don't think you can have "fair" -- it's an overloaded term and can be stretched to fit anything. What you can have is enough controlled chaos and change that patterns are not easy to spot and exploit.

I'm not familiar with the term "Bush dynasty". Do you mean the fact that a bunch of them are in politics? If so, you'd have to add the Gores, the Kennedys. and a lot more to that category. I'm concerned that we're creating a system of nobility here with all of the offices that effectively have no competition and all of the families that hand down political power, but that seems a little off-topic for this thread.

I wouldn't say China is unfair because children of bosses get the goodies. I would say China is unstable because the same bosses rule for generations and the same kids get the same handouts. We see this pattern in a lot of places, but China has it the worst.

It's just the type of thing that Chinese communism was supposed to stop from having, so if anything you'd think they would be sensitive to this.
Inspiring article. Not really a "HOWTO", but the story of an advertising startup; launched 1999, profitable in 2 years, 450k split 7-ways in annual Manhattan salary, etc. Short OK read.
Why Comments Matter
Hm. a hundred years after first plane took off, we still argue how exactly do they fly...
Or, start with the various leaders who discovered that anti-intellectualism is a great defense against criticism of bad ideas that they want to do anyway. This tactic isn't new -- remember Adlai Stevenson? Notice that the issues where public and scientific opinion diverge the most are the most politicized ones? It doesn't just happen in America; this is the effect of politicians and religious leaders targeting mindshare while scientists simply can't make that the priority. We eggheads don't stand a chance unless our research lines up with someone else's goals.
No drupal?
My favorite N. Korea travelogue is this fellow's, done by train:
http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/

He's a train hobbyist, a touch obsessed with timetables. He noticed that Moscow-Pyongyang routes were hypothetically opened. He secured a travel visa through the normal routes, and as it turned out, his visa was valid for any entrance to N. Korea.

As a result, he entered the DPRK through the Russian border. He was able to walk around in normal N. Korean train stations and talk to the locals, without any government guides or monitors.
For anyone interested in this I recommend the really great "What makes airplanes fly" by Peter P Wegener.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Airplanes-Peter-Wegener/dp/...

This book was part of a course he taught for non aerospace engineers. His explanations of tough topics like boundary layer theory and airfoils are clear
Good comments were made on a similar list of underused html elements that was submitted some time ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=481067
I sort of agree with you in some parts, this is not really something that I've considered monopolistic.

Additionally, I think that Microsoft could have largely avoided all this had they just put the effort into making a standards-compliant browser that actually worked, and maybe also making it cross-platform. Much of this browser fight seems to start from web developers and programmers who are tired of developing work-arounds for IE.

Had IE been the standards-compliance leader, I think that MS would have had a good pulpit to say "we feel it would endanger the security of our users to offer or suggest an alternate browser platform that does not offer the same compliance with W3C standards as our product".

So, I have mixed emotions on this. It's less about IE specifically and more about listening to your users and not breaking the intarwebs.
I fail to see how having a public plan option would make drug companies stop investing in R&D.

Is it because you think the public plan would negotiate drug rates too low?

Don't the major private insurance plans already negotiate drug rates?

It is true that America is an innovator in health care, but I don't think that will change when the govt is signing the checks.

We also have the best missiles, bombs, and tanks. And all of that is govt funded.
In practice, I'm not sure that Chinese "incumbency rates" are too different from U.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_stagnation_in_the...

China has had major shifts in power about ever 10 to 20 years for the last 4 years. I don't think the U.S. is doing much better.
How to say "Hello World" in 200+ different (programming) languages
Looks promising. I like the fact that you can demo the iphone apps with no iphone...
Shopzilla gets many benefits from a faster site [video]