skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Very good points. This is one most people don't realize or fully understand:

> Employer provided health "insurance" can be paid for with before-tax dollars.

Employers that offer health insurance write it off as an expense. They don't payroll taxes on it (unemployment or social security). That means it's roughly 10% cheaper for the employer to offer health insurance instead of pay the equivalent in salary.

From the employee's side, an employee pays tax on salary before medical spending under normal circumstances, but health insurance is untaxed. So if an employee gets higher salary, he'd pay taxes on his salary, then buy his antibiotics. If insurance covers it, no taxes.

That's why insurance covers inane little things - both employers and employees want all medical spending to be covered by health insurance for tax reasons. Health insurance covered = no payroll taxes for employer, no income taxes for employee.

Now, the massive question is -- Why? This seems crazy, no? For most other perks, there's some taxes paid at some point. That's why your company doesn't buy all your food, housing, clothing, everything, and write it all off for you.

Answer: Lobbying. Insurance companies lobby hard and donate lots of money to political candidates. Both parties - Republican and Democrat - are in on this arrangement. This is one of the reasons insurance is so crooked - perverse incentives that both parties support.

On insurance, the Republicans say, "We're lowering your taxes!" The Democrats say, "We're helping people!" That's not quite right for either of them. They're making the system complicated and driving up costs that make the insurance companies and medical complex wealthier at everyone else's expense.

The artificially inflated costs make the system much worse for middle class people, as they lose flexibility in choosing their doctors, getting exact treatments they want, and so on. It hurts people who make responsible health and budgeting decisions, because they'd rather have the salary than the insurance coverage - but then their employer would pay 10% of what they gave in salary, and the employee would pay 30-60% on the income. As opposed to 0%/0% taxes on the insurance. It hurts the poor the worst, because they're least likely to have health insurance at all, and they get stuck in the artificially high priced market.

Just a terrible system all the way around. It'd be much better to cut taxes a few percent for all brackets and eliminate the health insurance writeoff entirely. Or alternatively, allow anyone to write any health expenses off the taxes. There'd be many, many better ways than the current system, which is bad for everyone except insurance companies, some medical people (though many of them feel handcuffed by the system and also dislike it), and of course, the politicians getting campaign money, sports tickets, dinners, vacations, gifts, and the rest of the legally-sanctioned corruption.
Ubuntu response:

http://www.asoftsite.org/s9y/archives/162-What-is-this-Multi...

Basically, this is a quick and dirty way to gather some usage data. Seems reasonable to me.
I'd been looking for a name for what the author terms "yo-yo" code. I've often wondered if others have to deal with such head scratchers too.
Ryanair say these things for the publicity. Quite often you'll see a Ryanair story about charging for toilets, or obese passengers... Keeps them on the front page.
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Depends on what your definition of registry is. If the current registry is stored in two non consecutive disk blocks (due to fragmentation), is that still a registry? Think of per application files as disk blocks, with the registry API caching those into memory and operating as if it was a single database.
Oh noes! "unfiltered internet access" is bad.
Yep, availability of Google services, but he completely solved the account problem. This is a very nice solution, altough I fear having to share everyhing could get labourious.
COBRA is not seriously expensive. Why does everyone think it is? It costs exactly the same amount it cost you while you were employed. It just comes out of your savings instead of your wages.

It lasts a year and a half, after which you should have another job, private insurance (if you want to be self employed), or medicaid if you can't find another job.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=745855
I wonder how Archimedes would feel after watching this.. :P
Stanford University

http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/
There are some adverts that viewers send each other, a nice analysis of that trend is the spreadable media series of articles by Henry Jenkins (http://henryjenkins.org/2009/04/how_sarah_spread_and_what_it... - this is a kind of summary).
I'm not fond of scrolling (or ctrl+clicking) up and down to see what every little subroutine does to understand the code I have to fix. Only if it's my own code, I can be somewhat sure the tiny function does indeed SetOrderDate, but maybe it also modifies order's XML or changes some global variables... I can never be sure and I have to look, so reading bulldozed code is almost like reading huge routine but with way more scrolling.
Why is this hacker news? Anyways, it's annoying when they're reiterating the same line all the time...

"Ryanair promises four things: low fares, a good on-time record, few cancellations and few lost bags."

Fares aren't low. Easyjet beats them most of the time. Their prices are low only on the front page. It's only 30£ both ways... just add 50£ airport fees (I wonder why other airlines charge only <10£ for the same airport) each way, 20£ if you want to add even 1 piece of luggage, 10£ if you don't opt-out of fast boarding and we're going to ask you to select your nationality many times (only slightly indicating that by doing that you agree to buy insurance). Oh, and 10-15£ fee for handling any credit card at the end. And other things...

So you end up paying ~200£ for a flight that's advertised as 30£. They also wanted to be excluded some time ago from services that listed their real prices.

Oh and on-time flights... that's easy - just say that a 3h flight will take 3.5h - this way they're always 'on time' and passengers can wait some time at the airport (I'm used to arriving 30 min. early on my usual flight)
> Ryanair story about charging for , or obese passengers...

I see no problem with it. It is torture to sit on a flight next to an extremely obese person. They take up more plane space so they should pay more. They also turn a 13 hour flight into 13 hour torture for those on the left, right and in front of them.

The same goes for hand luggage. You get stupid ass people that will remove your laptop (only luggage) from a safe place and put it so that it can fall down to make place for their 3 pieces of luggage.
I'm not daft enough to be using Karmic alphas on my home computer but on the current 9.04 version with bundled Firefox 3.0, the default Ubuntu start page and the "real" Google homepage give quite different search results.

Perhaps it's down to the Ubuntu page delivering US search results or something, I don't know - but I definitely prefer the standard Google page.

Ubuntu: http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-2070091971271392%3A...

Google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Radio+1&btnG=...
> It's accurate that what we have is not insurance. Real health insurance would look more like life insurance, with fixed premiums that can't increase if your health degrades over time.

That is what I have. It is called a “hospital plan”. It only covers me when I am in an accident and need to go to the hospital. And it is amazing what cost savings it induces over people with full blown medical schemes.

I found that things such as spectacles is over priced by 300%-400% (you can get away a lot cheaper). Dentists will take useless digital x-rays to rape a medical scheme – and most people don’t mind because they aren’t paying for it. Doctors also take useless digital ex-rays (for any slight back problem) - even though they aren’t experts and will only look at it for a few seconds. Doctors sometimes prescribe the newest (and most expensive) anti-biotic instead of a cheaper thing that will also do the trick.
Paying out of pocket eliminates all that.
also, bumptechnologies.com is using linode as DNS. Doesn't linode only offer DNS to domains hosted there?
I wasn't able to type a colon either. I also wasn't able to type '+', '_', '<', '>', '|', '?', and '~'. These all have the common pattern of being shifted on a normal US keyboard, so I'm going to assume it's related to that.
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Amazon Has Launched Their Mobile Application for Android
Somewhat buggy:

>>> print 1, 2, 3
1 1 1
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I don't fly, but friends who've used Ryanair have tales of people going down the aeroplane aisle with catalogues, scratch cards, lottery tickets and all sorts of other junk for sale right through the flight. I've even heard an apocryphal story of someone being woken up so they couldn't sleep through the salespeople!
I've flown on both Easyjet and Ryanair many times - I'm Irish living in UK and no other low-cost airline will compete with Ryanair on its home turf - and I cannot agree with you. Easyjet are usually 10-50% more expensive, but I normally pay the extra for the reduced stress level, fewer ads and higher convenience of destination airport.
Anyone know what the procedure was that they did for his daughter?
Unfortunately they got shot down on grounds of discrimination for that suggestion. It's one of their crazy schemes I would have actually supported. Airlines have always annoyed me with the fact that you have to pay crazy money if your luggage is 1kg overweight but the guy next to you weighs 80kg more than you and pays the same.

Ryanair annoy me in other ways though, such as the mad dash for the seats, and their habit of introducing hidden fees late in the booking process. (they happen to be the only airline to service the journey to my girlfriend's parents with direct flights, so we use them a few times a year)

Odd: from the article:

“Will we give you a refund on a nonrefundable ticket because your granny died unexpectedly?” he asked. “No! Go away. We’re not interested in your sob stories! What part of ‘no refund’ do you not understand?”

whereas Ryanair do actually fully refund tickets if an immediate relative dies.
The Perfect Non-Apology Apology
Yeah and disabled people and ill people. The take up precious time and space!

Is it not a slippery slope where people who are not standardised are charged more? Maybe non standard people should sit at the back of the plane so no one has to see them?

I thought we'd progressed beyond this but it seems we are still a greedy, self centred species at heart willing to condemn a fellow member for a few pathetic dollars and a few minutes of our lives.
Yes, that happens on every flight. Catalogue after ~1h in the air, and lottery ~1h before landing. The prices are usually lower than on the airport, but higher than in shops.
If you want to know, then go to the post office, and follow unmarked trucks.
Microsoft shipping IE with easy-to-enable advertisement blockers, might be the biggest blow they could deal to Google at the moment.

Of course, they are unlikely to do so now that they have invested so heavily in emulating Google's business model.
Maybe it depends on a route... I'm flying Bristol -- DE and Bristol -- PL. The only reason I'm using ryanair instead of easyjet is that they fly to my exact destination - with easyjet, I'd have to be the next 3-4h in travel (so together with the flight I'm losing a whole day). I'm prepared pay additional ~70£ to avoid that.
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..exactly, like the time they claimed it was faster and cheaper travelling from London to Brussels and were in breach of advertising standards. I think they were on CNN, BBC, Ch4 etc.. every hour to get their point across. Damn fine advertising strategy.
Public Key Encryption
The Medical Algorithms Project
Ask YC: Where/how do YC founders get health insurance?
And how many founders live without insurance in the beginning?
Think bigger! It should be a reality show. Which algorithm gets voted off the island this week?

Seriously I'd watch a documentary on this - you'd need someone who could illustrate and dramatize the statistical/mathematical content, but I bet there's people who can do that well.
One more http://www.andrewpeace.com/rsajax/
what are the ryanair prices to the same location Easyjet lands? I'll bet they could well be cheaper.
Hmz, reminds me I've been to lazy about making e-mail back-ups. Starting one right now.
I don't know about this person's specific situation, but state laws do make a difference. In some states, the high-deductible coverage can be obtained by a single 20-something for $60ish a month. Here in NY, we have this goofy community rating law, where premiums on individual insurance plans can't be affected by your age. So there is no individual insurance option, even for 20-somethings and even with a high-deductible, that doesn't cost at least a few hundred dollars a month. Do a few searches on eHealthInsurance.com and you'll see what I mean.
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The idea that teenagers under 17 need to be shielded from certain language is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure they can handle it. I listened to NIN as a 14 year old, read "profane" Heinlein stories and watched numerous violent movies. I don't feel particularly corrupted by it.
Local Technology Councils Have Tough Work
I've had trouble with 1&1 chasing me for money for ye olde accounts, and even in one case where the domain was transferred out - they keep card details on file and auto-renew without notification.

Then, when the card is declined because it's expired in the two years since the domain was first registered, they start sending irritating debt collection letters demanding the renewal fee plus £15.

It's happened to plenty of people - just stick "1&1 debt collectors" into Google. I've moved all my domains over to a UK-based outfit called 123-reg; they're just as cheap as 1&1 but their renewals are done in a sane way, with a reminder email and the cancellation of the package if you don't pay.
As well as weighing your luggage at the check in desk, they should weigh you. And if you're too fat, tell you to go away and diet, or pay an excess.
I read an article that discussed the CEO's vision of having completely free flights... by turning the plane into a flying casino.
I'd argue that you should never use your web host as a DNS provider. Eventually you will get sick of your webhost and moving your site is a lot easier if they don't lay claim to your domain.
Have you not sat next to a morbidly obese sweating person whose mounds of fat are spilling onto your leg, arm, shoulder? You should try it some day.

The fairest system IMHO would be to give everyone a "total weight allowance" that includes, you, and all your luggage. And if you're so big you spill onto other peoples laps, buy extra seats.

Next you'll be suggesting we give terrorists equal rights on flights as well! They're people too!
Have you read the book "Dreadnought"? I think you'd really enjoy it; it's by RKM and it's subtitled: "England, Germany and the coming of the Great War."

It's one of the most entertaining books I've ever read.

What is interesting to me, though, is how Great Britain was an amazingly capitalist power. I never really realized the extent to which the entire empire -- which never really made that much money for the government -- was just a thin candy shell around British commerce, which made England the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. It's staggering to see, during the Naval Arms Race, how tiny england, with half the population of massively industrialized Germany, dedicated itself to laying 2 keels to every 1 that Germany laid down.

I agree with your sentiment that the socialist countries forced a degree of socialism on the more independent, capitalist nations. Look at Great Britain! It causes physical pain to look back and see what the taxation picture was before the world wars.

But.

There are other emergences of socialism that are called for and accepted because they're the best workable way of providing something that's necessary, either for business reasons or the demands of human liberty.

Sure, maybe someone can figure out a way to have all private toll roads, and make that work without ridiculous regulation and abuse ... in the meantime, we have to move goods. We're going to socialize that, fully realizing how hard de-socializing is, because we have crap to get done.

On the other end of the spectrum, child labor laws. I'm of one accord with the thrust of an observation made by Paul Graham -- 'maybe child labor laws are saving kids from something they don't need saving from; maybe 17-year-olds could do something.' Bravo! Until we can figure out a way of carefully instilling a culture of real productivity into youth, however, we had an existing problem of four-year-olds working with machinery that sometimes ate their fingers.

At the moment, health in the States is a joke compared to the rest of the first world.

Currently, the system of incentives we have pressures people to sacrifice their precious health for a few extra short-term dollars. Because of the economic circumstances of their parents, children will die in this country that would have grown to adulthood in the rest of the first world. The incentives are set up to encourage reckless behavior that will eventually result in a crushing burden of debt, so people will be trapped in poverty who could have escaped in other countries.

These are massive, existing problems in the US. Now, you can't blame a country for doing what the rest of the first world has done, which is to say: let's fix the problem.

It seems unreasonable to expect any other behavior.
Great work. I immediately stored it to help my future hosting decisions. Small feature suggestions: include percentages in the pie charts to make them more readable. (Especially for colour blind)
Well, Google App Engine isn't exactly suitable for innovative applications since you're locked to what their environment offers you (e.g. no background processes!?). Azure I don't know, is that generally available yet?
How People Can Get You To Do What They Want
It used to be to protect the staff handling the luggages so they don't have to wreck their backs lifting your heavy stuff. Although some airlines charge you if you exceed 15kgs some if you go over 20 so that is strange for the same airport. Some saw an opportunity and lowered their barrier so they can rip you off.
Still...it's our whining nature. Pay 5000$ for a business class ticket with a full service carrier and you will have none of these problems. I can visit places/friends more often now thanks to low cost flights even if I don't like them.
How many of those bots are RSS headline bots?
I also suffered the same, in my case I got suspended two times. First time, I could recover my account (2 or 3 days later), but then, I had to wait for about 5 months... and it's such an horrible thing ... (and makes you think about google and it's situation, or how almost everybody uses at least one google product).

By the way: I currently run my own email server, but I couldn't resist myself, so I have a little weird configuration. My email servers stores a copy of every mail received, then sends it back to my Google Apps account (that can be done easily with a few tweaks). At least I can enjoy Google talk and the Gmail interface, without the fear of losing everything if I get suspended one more time (I hope not).
"Fares aren't low."

I paid 16 Euro for a Ryanair flight from Belgium to the UK, I'd say that's pretty low.
Good advice, but compilers often issue warnings like "x may be used uninitialized" even when it cannot happen.
This article is all about a company (does't matter much that this is RyanAir) that chooses to identify itself by four promises, and they keep them. They deliberately choose not to value things that other companies will value (customer support) in order to attract customers.... and guess what? It works.

Startups should think about their core values and choose a set that they think will work the best.

Hey.... wasn't Hacker News that website with news-links of interest to hackers and startups?
That's what OpenVz, KVM or Xen is for. I don't know about Ubuntu, but on the latest Debian getting an OpenVz setup going is an apt-get of a single package and then you have the pleasure of having your dev stuff nicely isolated and there's no reason to worry about whether the distro is good for both desktop and server anymore (it also means you can make conservative choices for the servers that'd be "unpleasant" to live with on the desktop...)

My home box is running 14-15 containers now - I spin up a new one for all larger projects, plus a few others. It's lightweight enough that I don't notice the overhead.
There are many people still using XP and I can't see that as a problem.

Three years is not an eternity - what fraction of PCs currently in existence were bought in the last three years? Not so few that we can treat this length of time as effectively infinite.

If IE6 works then why are you so insistent on people abandoning it? Is it to make it easier for those creating web pages? If so, just provide a lower level of support for the IE6 user.
That demo is also at a lower resolution than 1600 x 1200.

However, the average frame rate is almost useless, it's the minimum that's important and an absolute minimum of 24FPS on the most demanding demo is perfectly playable. Mostly when you play the game it's far higher than that, but in the middle of a huge firefight when vegetation is being chopped to bit's it's still playable.

PS: I wish most reviewers would note the worst frame rate instead of letting 100FPS in some areas cover for sub 30FPS in others. EX: http://www.guru3d.com/article/palit-geforce-gtx-260-sp216-so...
You don't gather usage data without informing the individual you are gathering it from. It's a violation of privacy. This is completely unreasonable.
From my experience:

It is expensive. I was paying $1.2k per month on my COBRA.

It is not the same amount it costs while you were employed. It is the cost the company would otherwise pay for the benefit. What companies deduct from your paycheck is not the full amount, which under COBRA you will be responsible for. In addition, the company pays the benefits with pre-tax dollars (so they actually have an incentive to provide the most expensive insurance), while you now will be paying COBRA with after-tax dollars (hopefully from your savings). And remember there is no steady income coming in anymore.

Private individual insurance is very restrictive. It is not the same kind of coverage one would expect with a group insurance through the employer.
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