skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
OP infers that McDonald's intended for Wendy's to fail on their first day. Based upon my experience in foodservice (including 7 years with McDonald's), I don't believe it. They never conducted business that way, and I doubt that they do now.

Years of study have taught something counter-intuitive in the fast food industry (especially in a small town where everybody knows everybody else): the better Wendy's does, the better McDonald's does. With more choices downtown, there will be more traffic.

The best food service organizations welcome others, not as competitors to fight over a bigger piece of pie, but as "partners" to make the whole pie bigger.

It's up to us to figure out how this lesson applies to our industry. There's probably a symbiotic relationship out there for us to find as well.
As is Wikileaks
Anybody else annoyed by what a blatant advertisement this is for a self-help program?

"My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. ... After graduating from "luck school", she has passed her driving test after three years of trying, was no longer accident-prone and became more confident. ... The Luck Factor (Century), is available for £9.99 + £1.99 p&p. To order, please call Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 155 7222."

To me the news here is, "Publishing company uses newspaper it owns to promote one of its books."
Computer Forensics Wiki
I switched from DH, where I had constant outage problems, to Slicehost and Linode, both of which have never had outages (for me), for only $15 more a month...
See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=878115
Commercial airline pilot. Especially one that keeps flying into disaster-prone areas and managing to touch down without incident.
"""We have our network administrator heading to the data center now and should be there in 20 minutes or so."""

Huh. He could not dial in to login to the router? No emergency DSL line for maintenance?
That was one of the biggest things I worry about - the learning curve of all the gestures. A mouse and keyboard are quite straightforward in terms of how the operate. A 10GUI interface would require a significant amount of training and practice. At which point maybe yes - it will become completely natural.
Yeah, I didn't quite grasp how turning a small volume of fast moving air into a larger volume of slow moving air maps to the concept of "amplification" either.
Re: the prediction.

Doesn't it help to have a documented piece of prior art like the Linux demo in this video when it comes to patent defence and implementation on other platforms?

Of course, R. Clayton Miller may have patented too. Or he could see it in the same vein as the safety match and just record it to give it away.
"We have our network administrator heading to the data center now and should be there in 20 minutes or so. More updates to come."

If they host a million domains, why isn't someone on site 24x7?
Paradox: When Cloud is Both the Wrong and the Right Answer
I like to think of HN as being as far away from that atrocity of 2+2 as I can. Can't believe a simple poker article brings mention of that cesspool.

Anyway, Loved your blog back in the day Matt.
> He has intestinal cancer and may not have long to live.

That's sad. James Randi is just simply incredible. All the best to him.
Why the international Kindle is an achivement.
Wouldn't you agree that the web's current ecosystem-via-API nature is a good example of this?
Give yourself a stylish look with wholesale dresses
All these wholesale dresses are made available in a whole lot of styles as well as materials that can give the women an elegant look. Also the evening gowns and formal wear that are available for the women can be worn by them at the formal evening party with the family and friends. For more information log on to www.allysfashion.com
Slightly off topic, but I think its always wise to check argc before assuming argv[0] is populated. Its convention only that argv[0] is the name of the program. Got me once when using execve.

if(argv[1] == NULL)
I can't imagine why anybody who is putting their heart into their work would take you up on this offer. It's easy enough to get a cheap place to live (i.e. rent a room) for a while, even in Boston, SF or NYC. Your offer of bandwidth of server space is probably worth $150/month, which is the cost of a cheap physical box somewhere. The other service you're providing is... food. You know, I just don't see any real value in what you'd be providing to people.

And, btw, there's very little that's academic about building startups. If that's how you're thinking of it, I'd suggest getting a bit of experience in this area first.

pg can suggest ideas like this because he can give real advice based on experience, star power, and access to his network. Your heart is surely in the right place, but cheap server space, food and a place to live in Richmond Indiana doesn't quite add up.

From your perspective, have you done the math on this?
I've been thinking along the same lines, looking at properties that could work.
Ultimately, I foresee one major problem -- their bandwidth, servers, food, electricity, water, heat, etc. will cost you hard cash, while they live rent-free, with no incentive to change the status quo.

My alternative would be to charge rent... to their investors.

I envision a group of investors to whom the tenants would apply. Investors pay rent to you on behalf of the entrepreneur(s) of their choice. As long as they keep the investors happy, they stay at your place, and you have the financial means to make it work.

I've identified multiple sites at which this plan could work, but would need an investor of my own to quit my day job, move into a site, and get it ready.
Anesthesia Management Solutions Improve Patient Safety
Discover the benefits of an efficient anesthesia management solution to improve your operating room procedures
A previous item about juggling affecting the brain's structure:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5615.php
Interesting? You obviously haven't played much poker in a casino environment. Now it doesn't apply to everyone obviously, but by and large the most shady, degenerate low lives I have ever met in my life collectively have come from my hours at poker. And most of the conversations involve shallow discussion of hands by ego maniacs or complaints of beats.

What this author (promoter) seems to either forget or ignore is that gambling, and poker in particular, is synonymous with hustlers, criminals and two-bit cheats.
With the putrid prestige-farming removed.
Corporate Identity Design
Corporate Communication Agency – Ideaz Inc, India is a corporate communications agency that provides corporate identity design solutions in India.
McD's is a franchise, so why can't this simply be the action of one rogue franchise owner?
The deal was that it was a part of ArsDigita Corp, and it died when the founders were sued. If you don't know about that, I suggest you read up on Philip Greenspun's take on things that took place in spring/summer 2001 (when AdUni's first and only class graduated):

http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/
That's nice, and $15/month probably buys you a lot over DH -- but it's not like Slicehost is immune:

http://status.slicehost.com/2009/9/22/stl-a-network-issues-2

http://status.slicehost.com/2009/3/27/stl-b-network-issues-0...
Not the intended point, but it reminds me of the good side of living in Italy. I just got back from lunch at a nice trattoria, where I had a plate of fusilli with "speck" (like prosciutto), cream, and rucola (I think it's argula or something like that in English) for less than 5 euros. There's a time and a place for McDonalds, but every day at lunch is way too much.
That's nothing - there are a few Chinese jets left that have a little guy with an abacus crouched in the nose.

[ Sorry, couldn't resist, I liked the mental image too much. ]
War! Huh!

(To actually contribute something to this previously useless posting(self); "What is it good for?" "Absolutely nothing" is from Edwin Starr's song "War". I think I first heard it in the movies "Rush Hour".. (Yes, I'm young I guess))
Really good idea, but I'd be afraid of seeing nine other guys show up, so better replace "first come first served" with something else.
The Guardian successfully challenged the ban: http://twitter.com/arusbridger/status/4833101511
This is a very impressive list. I heard that previous events have all been great. I'm really excited to meet many of you.

I wonder how many of the Startup School attendees, like us, also apply for Y-Combinator this year?
Rucola = arugula in the US, rocket in the UK. Mmm.
If investors were paying, they would know. They won't be visiting very often at a high price tag if the pitches aren't good and if the chances of closing a deal aren't good.

That's my point. Most investors have to pay a couple grand to attend TechCrunch50.
Isn't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Time_Protocol better than uTP?
Hacking Higher Education: Graduate from Harvard for $40k
A couple months ago, Merlin Mann (an American blogger) apologized for largely starting the trend of calling damn near everything a "hack" by heavily overusing it on 43folders.
How To Set Up Apache2 With mod_fcgid And PHP5 On Fedora 11
I may be an ignorant philistine but I fail to see why the credentials of a painter should matter when appreciating a piece of art.
Wikileaks is a provider of primary sources, like any good historical archive. In this case it's providing a PDF of the Minton report. The summary Wikileaks provide is, of course, a secondary source, but people are linking to the page because it hosts the PDF, not because it happens to summarise the contents of the report and its historical context.

The Guardian, reporting on the Trafigura case, are a secondary source (when referencing the report), and a primary source when writing about the gagging order that has been applied to them. The Spectator blog article is a secondary source writing about the gagging order. These distinctions are standard in both historiography and journalism.
Posted as a follow-up to "Student Loans are the New Indentured Servitude" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=877896) - happy to answer your questions, based on my research for this post.

You can find part 1 of this series here: http://personalmba.com/hacking-higher-education-clep/

The moral of the story: if you’re going to go to college (and you might need to), be a smart student – find a better way to get what you need as quickly and as inexpensively as possible, avoid debt, and never pay retail.
Benefits of Bulk Powder Processing
Bulk Powder Processing can improve efficiency of food processing - Powder-Solutions can make this process clean and contamination-free
It could be, but I still doubt it. McDonald's runs a very tight ship; franchisees have little latitude to go "rogue". It's highly unlikely that a franchisee could shut down one day without corporate approval. They have traditionally welcomed others into their neighborhoods (while still maintaining #1 position, of course).

[Little known unpublished McDonald's fact: Not sure if it's still true, but at one time they honored all competitors coupons. Yes, they'd give you a free Big Mac with a free Whopper coupon.]
It's a ballsy move, since a whole day of lost sales is a pretty serious thing for a McDonald's store. The margins are pretty slim.

I worked for them once. We had a kitchen fire while preparing the store to open, about 5am. McDonald's brought in a crash team of people that worked with the fire department, insurance adjusters, cleanup workers, and health inspectors to get that store back into shape to open...at 7pm THAT NIGHT. On a SUNDAY. That's how serious lost business is.
…and their associated article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/13/guardian-gagged-...
My guess is they only have low to mid level support 24/7.
During F1 races in hot climates you can see people blowing air into the car and the driver's helmet with a vortex tube on the end of a shop air line.
I do all of this, and my personal life has had lots of good luck in the last five years, but at the utter expense of my professional luck. I have had an astounding series of bad luck, especially recently. I do all the things you mention, the article mentions, etc. And still, it seems as if my luck as gone from bad to worse. It's shocking to me. Certainly a large part of this is my fault; I had too much hubris and self-confidence, and was sure if things had been going a certain way, they would continue that way even to some extent. But bad luck happens, just as good luck happens, with no priming for the condition at all.
Placebos Have Side Effects Too
Rubik'S Cube appearances in movies
I wish I could know how the luckies and unluckies would have done on the "marshmallow test" as 4-year-olds.

(Then I'd make the "luckies" be guards and the "unluckies" be prisoners...)
What? No. Maybe you should read this article. Perhaps you can interchange "Luck" with "Fortune", but it contains a few principles that could benefit you in the future.
Anyone with serious uptime requirements avoids DreamHost. It sounds strange considering their size but it probably just isn't really in their budget. I used to have a DH account and it's pretty good for what it is. Now I have a VPS though.
Photo Montage Builder
You can build as many products as you like within the Photact system and view them as many times as you like. The only time you will be asked to pay is if you want to release those products to be viewed outside Photact, or if you want to print them.
But now all the other lower priced fans are off the shelf. Nothing to compare prices against.
US House of Representatives decommissions its last mainframe
Boring politics belong on Reddit IMHO. Not at the top of HN.
Poll: Where are you in your programming career ?
Career programmers, I think, like athletes start off as babes in the woods, then become experts, peak and then slowly find that they're no longer the fastest kid on the block. Where on this trajectory are you, if you consider yourself to be a career programmer (as in programming is your 'thing', that which you do best)?
I haven't started yet
I'm a beginning programmer
I'm an advanced programmer
I'm an expert programmer
I'm at my peak
I'm over the hill
I no longer program but I'm still interested
How Twitter Got an App Store: The Oneforty Story (Part 2)
It's a nice idea, but I am missing the information on what made it happen? Somehow all the women united to claim their rights to a toilet? But why? How where they informed, how did they agree? It's not like they synced via Twitter, did they?

Or was there no hack involved at all, and it is simple economics instead? As the article said, women are becoming more economically independent, and they are rare, so they can make demands. Naturally, a toilet is the first thing that comes to mind.
Well, this is about allegations of toxic waste dumping done on behalf of Trafigura, which has poisoned hundreds and possibly killed some people.

I'm sorry if you feel that corporate murder is a boring topic.
That was a very interesting article and brought up a couple of tools I wasn't aware of. I'm unsure of your intended audience, so take this with a grain of salt: your writing style tends to be verbose and you could do without much of the introduction.

That said, I'll be looking forward to part 2!
How is it "outing" if the promotional materials explain how the device works?
I think it's a great idea, but I would just do it for profit. Make it like a fraternity house, a reasonable month to month charge for room, board, & wifi. The only thing I'd be concerned about is access to customers. Richmond does seem like it's a little out of the way.
How To Get Listed On Google- Link It Up
Alright, hotshot – pop quiz! When it comes to getting your blog or website listed on Google, what’s one of the first things Google looks at when determining how your blog or website gets listed on Google’s SERPS (search engine results pages)? Read this tutorial to find out!
Definitely. The more people who get used to using applications that are online-only and who get used to having their data on other people's servers rather than on their hard drive or a USB stick, the more demand there will be for everyone else providing web applications.

Plus the demand for broadband and hardware goes up every time something new and useful appears, as some group of people buys or upgrades so they can use the new service (e.g. buying netbooks so more of the family can use facebook at once without buying full PCs; or upgrading to better broadband for youtube).

The growing availability of APIs enabling functionality without reinventing the wheel is very important as well.
I just prefer reading about this sort of thing other places. Not on HN.

You're right though, reading about corporate murder doesn't interest me :/ Just like reading about serial killers doesn't interest me all that much.

You seem to be implying somehow that I think corporate murder is ok or not a serious issue :/ An odd leap you're making there.
HSAs are awesome if you are eligible. But, if you don't have a high deductible plan, you're not eligible. So this doesn't benefit people with lower deductibles from their employer who might still benefit from going to a doctor with a plan like this.
So 2005! Where is the "Stackoverflow for computer forensics?" ;)
> I just prefer reading about this sort of thing other places. Not on HN.

plus what's with the holier-than-thou act? yeesh.
I think the unluckies would resist the marshmallows better. The hight degree of worry strikes me as mind over emotion. Then again the variables might be independent and there would be no correlation between EQ and luck.
What does your skill level have to do with your career status?
They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety

This may be tangential to the discussion at hand, but for many, like myself, who tend to be shy and hesitant to reach out to others, this seems like one good way to overcome that. If you make it into a game, it can become less stressful. Anyone else have any other ideas like this?

[Edit - Formatting]
Italian article with picture: http://www.eltiempo.com/culturayocio/arte_eltiempo_vivein/AR...
Because people appreciate it by monetary value ... "ooh it's worth £12,000,000 it must be really good art" and monetary value of art is down to scarcity and excellent marketing giving rich people (and public institutions that should know better but are run by fashion snobs) something to spend unfortunately large amounts of money on.
Okay - so those are the fundamentals and it seems as though you deem yourself healthy. From your diet, I would assume you are vegetarian - is that correct? I am a vegetarian and here's the main thing I have to watch out for: getting enough iron. If I don't get enough iron, I am sleepy, cranky, tired-feeling, and just have a general malaise. This leads to less focus and less "patience" to deal with the mundane. Is it possible you are either anemic, borderline anemic or whether you are iron-deficient?
From what I understand of it, it's common knowledge they will be paying for it, but can opt out if they don't like it.
I don't think there's any value in killing the pleasant surprise.
online CRM, government ERP software
Vserve Tech provides the most innovative and comprehensive approach to ERP software solutions and implementation for small to mid sized manufacturing and distribution companies with one year free technical support.
Damn the torpedoes
TBH, I just found this sufficiently frightening that I wanted to spread the news, and HN came to mind.
The Future of HTML 5
Why Email No Longer Rules…
Yes, cute story but I don't believe it was intentionally done for that reason. I've met my share of fast food managers and I can say that none of them would have been smart enough to envision such a thing. That leaves the franchisee since McDs, the corporation, is not going to be that involved. Was the franchisee that smart? Maybe - you have to have a lot going for you before McDs will hand you the keys. But I doubt it - more likely it is just coincidence. But hey - lots of great life lessons come from coincidence, right?
Plan to write big software - and you have already lost
TechMeetup alongside Startup School
There a few of us scots invading SF for the startup school, so to get the most out of the trip I think it would be a good chance to meetup with some of the local tech people outside of startup school and see what everyone is working on (and to show everyone what we are working on).

there are 3 things that would need to be sorted, date, venue and format

Date: the sunday after might be the best?

Venue: I have talked to some poeple and noisebridge looks like a good candidate.

Format: since startup school will have all the big keynote type talks, I think this should be quickfire talks, three 5 minute talks about your startup in a row, then a 20 minute break for socialising, and do that two or three times?

hopefully we can get some pizza and more importantly beer :) on the go.

Does this sound good? if you think a different venue/date/format would be best then just say nothing is set in stone. any anyone who wants to present their startup, speak up :)
I can think of two reasons to call it a hack.

1) Its an unexpected and clever way to get a toilet. You can think of it as hacking the culture (where marriage is highly valued) or the men (who really want to get married).

2) The OP wanted to post this here and wondered how to make it look like "HN material." (If I'm wrong, please let me know, just what popped to mind).
That, just like athletes and mathematicians there seems to be a relationship between the two for programmers.

Somewhere (I'm guessing early thirties, but it could be a bit later) there is this pinnacle of capability (as a programmer), and that seems to coincide with your peak in your career (as a programmer). After that I guess you have some choices, go into management, maybe slowly ride the slope down while holding your own against the 'new kids on the block' because of your longer experience.

It seems to be a pattern, but if you think that that is a wrong assumption then I'm all ears to hear about it.

Last I looked the sharpest cookies where all well under 45, and most programmers that are over 50 are really on the way out. Exceptions would be nice to hear about.

I'm 45 myself, I used to have near perfect memory, being able to hold just about everything I had written in my head, you could wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me some symptom of a bug in 'e' (an editor I once wrote) and I would probably be able to give you a rough idea (as in function name + associated variable names) of where the problem would be. I can't do that anymore.

But that doesn't mean I'm 'done' as a coder, I still enjoy it tremendously and I'm forcing myself to learn new stuff all the time because I think that is what will somehow stave off the inevitable. But that may be an illusion, I don't know that for sure.

If you know of lots of examples that show that careers of programmers and their skill levels are not related then I'm all ears, it certainly hasn't been my experience.
A few years ago I found myself working 70+ hour weeks for nearly 2 months because the client whose project I was put on had sold their software product to a large telecommunications company before it was even specced out, let alone developed.

I don't mind faking screenshots to drum up business and test how viable an idea is, but if you accept money for software that doesn't exist, and then demand a ridiculous turn over time from your development team (whether in-house or outsourced), then you're scum.
Then again, my dirty fan only cost $20 (2 meters high fan, made in China).