skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The issues with Evony are not made up. I was introduced to it by a friend, but became very leary of it when 1) I could not really find out information about the company that runs it, 2) seeing numerous customer service complaints related to payments and their ievony client, 3) the reported copying of other games (Civilization, Age of Empires) including images and text, 4) the use of certain of the advertising images that call into question their rights to use them (http://blog.costumecraze.com/2009/05/dubious-civony-game-use... (note, Evony was originally called Civony)).

I also find their monetization model fails to understand the value most people place on the dollar. $30 = 300 game cents, and with that you'd find most items needed are in the 50 game cent($5) to 200 game cent ($20) range. Fine for those willing to pay it, but I think they're failing to recognize the true potential of the game at those exchange rates.So in the end, I refer to it as the carny model of payments. It's about hooking a few new (and gullible) customers.
I've read about this a few times, but never really knew what the quality would be like. It's good to hear it's pretty well done.
Green math always seems to be fuzzy. Nice article.
Isle of Islay: 100% Tidal Power
journal paywalls suck

I have never understood why research funded by taxpayers' money is not available to the general public free of charge. Does anybody know why this system still exists?

Edit: is http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=27... the article? It says it's a "draft" (lacks the publisher's final edits) version, but it should provide you with the information you need.

Edit 2: PDF: http://omploader.org/vMjd0OQ/nihms129980.pdf
> Energy is exactly equal to the cost.

Ok, what does that mean? In physics, if something is exactly equal to an amount of energy, it has to be measured in the same unit as energy (joule). But cost is measured in dollars (or some other currency). So the above statement makes no sense.

> why does stuff cost? Because it takes energy to make it, and to transport it.

That is a factor for cost, but not the only factor.

> R&D, marketing: You have pay someone. Why does he need money? Because he spends it on things that cost energy to make.

By this argument, a product takes more energy to produce if the workers negotiate a better wage - because after work, they spend their extra money on something that costs energy to make. I'm not convinced that this makes sense. Taken to the extreme this would mean: A product made by unpaid volunteers takes far less energy to produce than an equivalent product made by paid workers.
Man, you can do good at copy-writing. Actually, I found your reply quite appealing and it follows some guidelines of lots of copy-writing books that I'm trying to read these days. But,anyway, thanks for sharing.
Of course, not driving a car is even more greener.
Instead of assuming everyone is idiots, try assuming you need to gather more convincing evidence to support your ideas. It might not be more correct but it will probably be more productive.
That's the idea behind 14ninetytwo (http://www.14ninetytwo.com/) here in Columbus, OH.
That kind of interface is one of those things I've always thought would be awesome but never bothered to try out, and haven't seen in action until now.
Massive Twitter Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability
Yeah, I've used it too. Got great feedback and it only took about 3 hrs to get all 10 responses. Definitely worth $10.
To an extent I think you're right and some people will do it regardless. On the other hand, smoothly flowing traffic creates an incentive to not zoom ahead in the merge lane. There's less of a feeling of a need to cut ahead and people don't seem to do it as much when there isn't already a jam. (That is, the jam provides an incentive to cut in front of everyone)

And if people were to implement this strategy, the provided space gives an incentive for those zooming ahead to merge a little sooner rather than risk waiting half a minute for someone to let them in right at the exit. It's been my experience that most of the "cheaters" will merge a little sooner if there's space rather than zoom up right to the end. They'll still be passing you, which is IMO aggravating, but at least things will move a little sooner.
Maybe it isn't the essays themselves but the militant self-promotion from Joel and apparently his employee who posted this story.

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=JacobK

I mean no offense, but JacobK doesn't really contribute at all to HN except to post his own self-promotional stories. Fog Creek isn't completely unique, but I see this masked soft sell all the time...

"Here is my new X feature that makes my product awesome. Here is how/why I came up with this idea, yay for me."

It's one thing to speak from experience, but I find it a little distasteful when you use it to shill a product. Fortunately many writers (like PGs essays) communicate substance without the marketing spin.

Okay Joel, we know you single-handedly wrote every line of code in Microsoft Excel. And you create homemade fairy languages like wasabi where nobody knows what the hell you are talking about but is supposedly awesome. It's all talk and no game. Contrast this with DHH. Sure he is a self-promotional prick. But guess what? He actually helps people. He puts good material out that isn't just "I came up with X which is so much better than X and here is why I'm awesome."

Listening to Joel's tech advice is like getting child-rearing advice from Lynne Spears and Dina Lohan, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

For example he is obsessed with private office for developers. Okay, whatever. Except Microsoft is waning and FogCreek has 15 employees... If someone at Facebook or Google wrote an article about private office I would listen, but they don't and they don't. Joel is a hierarchical "corporate coder" from the 1980s, and that's the only people who would benefit from his advice.

Joel had the benefit of being first-mover. He actually wrote stuff before anyone else was writing. On the internet where the writer/reader ratio is 1/1000 just being willing to start the discussion gets you halfway there. It's the Bill O'Reilly school of self-promotion.

Disclaimer, I have an irrational aversion to anything Spolsky gets close to... :)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=706988
> Anthropogenic Global Warming ...

That brings up an interesting point. After all, the OP didn't say "anthropogenic"; he only said "global warming". And some people deny that as well. That gives us three positions: (1) the earth is warming up and humans made it happen, (2) the earth is warming up and humans didn't make it happen, and (3) the earth is not warming up. And then there are endless variations about how much it will warm up, and how much this is a problem, etc.

My point is that, when two sides debate an issue, they can both be wrong. Simply because we are presented with two positions, does not mean we have to choose one of them.

Thus, when the conservatives say one thing, and the liberals say another, we probably need to pick one of the two as something to vote for, but not necessarily as something to believe.
A health insurance broker. You can find one on local.google.com.

I'm assuming you're in California, if you're not (or you're having a tough time finding a broker) I can probably find a broker to refer you to. (I'm in the insurance industry on the brokerage side of the fence.)
You can certainly program robots to do that. The question is whether you can program them not to without losing something important (robustness against unexpected conditions or malicious robots, for example).
I respect this guy's patience, but the primary reason that one car can make such a big difference in this case is because 520 (one of the most important commuter roads in the Seattle area) is just two lanes in each direction. One car on a three lane road will just be passed.

The counter-point to this, in my opinion, is that at some point psychology comes in to play and you have people starting to get aggressive and angry because of a few people forming a "rolling-road-block". It's not rational but it definitely happens.

I would support 3PM-7PM dynamic speed limits on 520W toward the bridge. If the speed was brought from 60 (just past 405) to 30 as you approach the bridge it could probably keep things moving smoothly through the traffic burst.
Youtube launching revenue sharing program
If you want to help traffic, stop hitting your damn brakes so much. Brakes are for strong deceleration, and most deceleration in traffic can be handled by letting off the gas. Once you get good at this, follow as closely as possible in a traffic jam without applying your brakes.* There's nothing better a skilled driver can do to alleviate a traffic jam. The jam is physically shorter and people behind you are less likely to apply their own brakes as a result of these measures.

* This has the added benefit of making for a smoother ride, which also encourages those behind you to ease off the brakes.
IBM is shipping jobs overseas because

... wait for it ...

(1) the complete cost of employing an American, including taxes, regulations, compliance, etc., is much higher than employing an Indian national.

That's it.

That's the complete list.

Question: when we raise taxes by 40% [ http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/08/ya_know_plus_or_minu... ] to close the budget gap, and start taxing employers even more for universal health coverage, and do X and Y and Z over the next 10 years ... will this make American workers more or less affordable as compared with off-shore workers?
That (in addition to the fact that everyone lives in the suburbs) perhaps provides some of the explanation for why Atlanta rush hour traffic seems to be some of the worst in the country, despite having more lanes and a smaller population than cities that have better traffic.
I once had the displeasure of using Fogbugz (hosted version). You could only reply to a bug if it was sent in via E-mail. Any other correspondence was to be performed via actually editing the ticket data, inline.

I called to ask if there was a way and the dude I talked to actually insinuated that I had not taken time to read the documentation. WTF?

Apparently that requirement was a "feature" -- they assumed that a bug entered manually did not require correspondence.

Yes, I was told that as well.
uses != requires

Oil is used for peak power generation that can quickly adapt to chaning demand, however, hydroelectric energy storage is used to do the exact same thing.
Incredibly well said. Reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."
- The American President (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112346/)
> Companies like IBM that take this position [i.e. buying the most affordable engineering talent they can, even if it's off shore ] are hurting America.

B.S.

If you can purchase one apple for $1 or an identical apple for $10, failing to buy the $10 apple is (a) smart; (b) maximizes societal utility.

It's spending money uselessly that destroys valu.
Uses = requires right now.

Uses also = requires in very massive quantities in order to produce and deploy whatever is going to (partially) replace it.

Do you really think wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear power plants don't require oil to build, construct and, to a nontrivial extent, operate?
Let me ask you this - who would you consider to be more creative?

(a) a person who could be more creative doing piece work at a factory
(b) a person who may be less creative performing some form of art

Both these individuals may have arrived at their respective current jobs in life but I'm not saying that opportunities had nothing to do with it. With respect to rich people, I am saying that high income earners have to maintain a higher output of creativity on average to maintain that income as a function of their job. I'm not saying that luck doesn't have a lot to do with it, or that geography or ancestry doesn't have to do with it.
"The principle of revealed preference." If he's not buying it, he's not really valuing it

Exactly!
Ask HN, The Yelp Fee.  what do you think?
I read this site a few years back and I've done a bit experimenting. I'm convinced that leaving space in front and avoiding sudden changes on speed are really helpful. Some times I have even seen traffic jams disapear if I leave a lot of space in front.
This is a fascinating view into how Bob thinks. This article, right up until the conclusion is excellent.

It lays out in great detail how the ever rising health care costs are hurting companies. It also in detail explains how the car companies were only focused on the short term and that ended up bankrupting them. But IBM takes the long view and that's why they are still in business.

And Bob concludes that the problem is short tern thinking? That took me by surprise since it's almost the exact opposite of the case he just made.

Bob thinks this is all because of focus on short term profits and we somehow need to stop that. But how?

Isn't it obvious that instead we should make the US worker more competitive?

For labor intensive industries that may only go so far when people in the developing world work for A LOT less. But not all industries are labor intensive. And the standard of living in China is rising fairly fast. A bit slower but still rising in India.

Isn't reducing the costs of health care and pensions the most obvious answer to how to make US workers more competitive?

Exactly how to do it for health care is a political topic, so lets not discuss that on HN. But even Bob mentioned severing the pension from the company.
Law of unintended consequences strikes again. ;)
If I say I made a cake 'from scratch' (idiom: 'from nothing'), do you quibble that flour and eggs were indeed used, and that they are clearly not 'nothing'?
Because Mozilla employs a bunch of PR people, and has millions of active fanboys, but has very little to actually publicize.
We occasionally do fund startups led by non-techies. They should be doing something at least related to technology though, because it's hard to really be a startup without that.
Twitter now tracking link clicks
Maybe it's been going on for a while and I just noticed it.

Using twitters web interface I clicked on this link http://bit.ly/olSOg and below are the abbreviated headers that I saw:

GET /link_click_count?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FolSOg&linkType=web&tweetId=3540807536&userId=2533331 HTTP/1.1
Host: twitter.com
...

HTTP/1.x 302 Moved Temporarily
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:30:15 GMT
Server: hi
Last-Modified: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:30:15 GMT
Status: 302 Found
Location: http://bit.ly/olSOg

...

GET /olSOg HTTP/1.1

Host: bit.ly

...

HTTP/1.x 301 Moved Permanently

Server: nginx/0.7.42

Location: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist_makeover
You're right. It calls 'void foo(Object o);'

import junit.framework.TestCase;

public class TestMultimethods extends TestCase {
public void test() {
Object test = new Integer(4);
X x = new X();
assertEquals(x.foo(test), "foo(Object)");
}
}

class X {
String foo(Object i) { return "foo(Object)"; }
String foo(Integer i) { return "foo(Integer)"; }
}
I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but if you're really interested in tech stuff I'd suggest moving to a western country (preferably the US).
dn;dc
I have been following this lawsuit for a number of years and can't understand where in the hell is SCO finding the money to fund this lawsuit and what end result they are trying to achieve.........
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. [might not be Voltaire]
I totally agree that this boycott business is nonsense. I don't understand why some people seem to believe that everyone has to agree with you. Is the case for health care reform so weak that people need to jump on anyone who dissents? Mackey doesn't even draw a salary so by boycotting Whole Foods it isn't affecting him directly. He's a libertarian sort of guy but that's nothing new. I shop at Whole Foods every week and have no plans to stop that any time soon. My wife and I joke that we should be spending more there now that some people are boycotting.
That's not "zen" -- it's artificial regularity. Zen would be driving at what feels like a natural speed, only adjusting that when circumstances dictate, and "letting go" of your attachment to forward progress when something stands in your way. Instead, you're driving at an artificially limited speed to try to regularize your driving experience. You're tricking yourself into feeling less frustrated by consciously eliminating frustration triggers from the driving experience; a zen approach would involve simply choosing to feel less frustrated by "realizing" that the frustration triggers really don't matter.

> Even though you'd assume leaving a huge gap in front is an invitation for other motorists to cut ahead, they rarely do - especially in congestion.

That's heavily dependent on time and place. I've lived in many different regions, and done a lot of driving in those areas. I've noticed that the tendency to fill in gaps is heavily dependent on local driving culture and the specific demographics on the road at a particular time of day.

> I absolutely swear by this driving method. It's easier on the car, easier on the heart, and even serves to create a bubble of calm around you in an otherwise turbulent flow of traffic.

That may, to some extent, be an illusion. Some people are infuriated by other drivers they perceive as holding them up -- which often includes people who are "wasting" lane space by letting a gap of thirty car lengths lie unused in front of them. Personally, I only get annoyed with such people when they try to keep other people from filling that gap, because as far as I'm concerned a steady gap (given a steady general traffic speed) creates irregularities in grouping through which ambient traffic can accelerate itself, but people who maintain a huge gap then rush to block out people who want to move into it are increasing the danger of driving and doing nothing to help improve the flow of traffic.
Order checks online
Stylish personal checks are checks that are unique to a person's style. Many people are tired of the plain standard bank checks that are always offered. People want a different look and feel with their personal checks. This is why many people look to Order Checks Online to see what other kinds of checks they can purchase without always having to rely on their bank to buy checks from.
The Whole Foods CEO wasn't just having opinions. He was actively opining (which spell check assures me is a word) that we shouldn't have a public health care system.

Why should advertisers not advertise on Glen Beck's show? For those who don't know, Beck opined on his show that President Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. . . I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." That's an opinion as well.

Beck's opinion is, to most, more inflammatory than Mackey's, but that can make Mackey's all the more dangerous (if you're someone who would like to see public healthcare). The fact is that Mackey seems to be a liberal of sorts (in fact, Whole Foods offers health insurance to their employees) and an at least somewhat successful business person (I don't actually know enough about Whole Foods, but they don't seem to be going bankrupt).

So, his words are quite a threat to the agenda of those who would like to see a public health plan. And his words have that much more power because they're coming from someone who seems to have liberal leanings and is running a business that does provide health care to their employees. If someone is advocating for the opposite of what you would like, should you not take that into consideration? We vote with our feet every day. He took action against public health care in trying to change people's opinions through his piece. I know many who stopped buying CDs because of the RIAA's positions.

I will grant that his piece was a lot more thoughtful and measured than many have passed on, but this is an issue that is very contentious and many people feel (I'm not making any judgement here) that his words contribute to a negative impact on the possibility of a public health plan and that the lack of such a plan will have a negative impact on their life. As such, they don't want to spend their money at his business.
Review: The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Freakonomics: Read this if you believe in Peak Oil
related link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/opinion/25lynch.html?_r=1
This is either misleading or just confused. India funds roughly 25% of health care costs through the government, and has lower employment costs, yet you imply that if we were to incrementally approach their health-care system, the difference in employment costs would widen.

Edit: incidentally I agree with your point that IBM's issue is as simple as lower employment costs, but I'd suggest it's lower because Indians have a lower overall cost of living and lower standard of living, and the best students generally want to move to a country where they aren't climbing over mountains of trash and starving people all the time. I think we ought to let more of them do so, but in the meantime, of course companies are going to move to where the cheaper resources are.
IIRC it wasn't Voltaire who said this.
I just finished listening to the audio book format of On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins:

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/080507853...

(Hopefully I get this right... was pretty sleep deprived while listening to it.) In the book he describes the core part of intelligence as prediction - our brain is constantly making predictions from sensory inputs. While our brains do take in huge amounts of data, Hawkins' theory suggests that it is being operated on in massive parallelism - with different predictions happening simultaneously. Thus it isn't so much that all that data is being thrown away, as it is all being checked against known patterns from previous memories. He lays out reasoning for how intelligence, creativity, etc. are formed on top of this prediction model. It is a very interesting read.
The thing that drives me nuts the most is slow people who stay in the left lane in the passing lanes that are sometimes put in on 2 lane highways (ie, 2 lanes going in the same direction for a time). Some states (Minnesota for sure) simply make a solid line to shunt drivers over to the right lane and it makes a huge difference, but around here (Wisconsin) they don't do that and inevitably I'll end up stuck driving 45 on a behind an old camper on a 2 lane highway because they refuse to keep right.
Uniqueness of Card Stock
I think Cringely is talking about a kind of vicious cycle where since you buy your apples for 1/10th the price, you fire 90% of your workforce. If everyone does this, and if there aren't new jobs to take in that redundant workforce, you could end up in a death spiral where you find that even though your apples are dirt cheap, there's no one left to buy your expensive apple tarts. So you drive yourself out of business by reducing your costs.

Obviously this can only happen if the assumption holds, that there are no new jobs to absorb the redundancies, and that this is happening across the economy.

That said, a case could be made that these assumptions are correct - what's your argument against them?
"If I were to boycott Whole Foods or critique Mackey it’d be for poor or manipulative timing, and not much else."

Maybe that's enough?

I'm not big on boycotts, but rich business people pissing off their core constituents by opposing reforms they seek and offering fringe ideas as alternatives right in the middle of a big debate about a fundamental part of society just seems dumb. I thought we were pro dumb actions having consequences round here.
Virtualization and the Network: Key Voices and Events