skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sigh, yet another misapplication of the term "Ponzi scheme". Even the author almost admits that "Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme. It is simply a ["George Goodman"] supermoney scheme."

Carl Menger's definition of money ("money is the most marketable commodity") rings true enough, although I would also suggest adding that it must have a rather long (if not indefinite) shelf-life, and some sort of recognizable quality to it (such as purity, authenticity, whatever). But it seems everybody overplays the notion that money must be something material that is valuable for its own sake. Clearly that is not always the case, else why is fiat currency still regarded as money? There is - dare I say? - now a spiritual aspect to money, also valuable for its own sake. That immaterial thing is "faith".

"Faith" in the money-sense is about what the money represents. Money is now just a token for something given up as part of a long chain of on-going deferred barters. It certainly helps if a hegemonic force declares these tokens as legal tender, but it's the faith that make them useful beyond settling tax bills and law suits. Strangely, it is about putting faith into special forms of metal, paper, and plastic over having to have any faith in people.

A "Ponzi scheme" is a confidence trick, a deliberate lie, an unfaithful venture; it's a swindle that masquerades as an investment. That is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin has more in common with tulip bulbs and Beanie Babies than a Ponzi scheme; and, even then, it's not quite the same as bulbs or Babies, except that it is yet another opportunity at speculation.

Just because a government won't accept Pieces-of-Eight, spices, or tobacco leaves as legal tender doesn't make them not money. Bitcoin doesn't, however, have any hegemonic backing, and it certainly doesn't have any materiality to it. It's not even obvious if it can be said to be valuable for its own sake.

Yet the Bitcoin project has long aspired to be money, and it can succeed at that so long as there is sufficient faith in it. In this way, it's the same as any national fiat currency. What's new and different is that it's all hash-code, and time will tell if people can put their faith into that.
> Middle managers have to not just follow it, but enthusiastically agree with it.

Reminds me, when I was offered such a job by my boss and didn't get it, because the rest of the management team didn't think I was "loyal" enough.

I never heard such a justification for positions I had before.

Most of the time people give me jobs because I knew to do something they didn't or didn't have the time to do it on their own.

In the end some "more loyal" person got the job. And I thought, oh so they really just wanted a person who didn't disagree with them...
Just a side not, whether you're targeting people with projects or not. The opening phrase recruiters use of "are you looking for a job" or "are you interested in a position" especially when they say they've done background work is all wrong. If I says yes to either of those I've lost the power position. Recruiters should come with reasons why you should join that position, why you should leave etc.
That's not an unpopular opinion -- I know a fair number of Mac users and I don't think I know any of them who are devoted fans of Apple's application (rather than system) software. I've been using Macs more or less full time since 1999; over those 15 years some of their applications have been pretty good, subjectively speaking, but in general Apple is pretty frustrating in this regard. They'll come up with a neat application, let it languish way too long, then go into a fit and rewrite large swaths of it in strange and occasionally compatibility-breaking ways. Every time I look at iPhoto (admittedly not often) it seems to be an entirely different program. The current version of Pages can now almost do everything that the previous version of Pages could, but not quite. Aperture started life as a pretty brilliant program then sat around drooling on its shoes while Lightroom raced past it. And as we head into 2015, iTunes still has blocking dialogue boxes, which makes things a wee bit inconvenient if you're trying to use it as a media server. (Which you really shouldn't. I'm a masochist, I guess.)
@nitai, is razuna free for open source projects or just has 30-day trial for all users?
A Raspberry Pi accessory similar to this would probably sell pretty well. It might make sense to use the Raspberry Pi "Compute Module": http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-compute-module-new-p... It would be cool if Adafruit made a PiTFT that just accepted a Compute Module directly.

I put together a Motorola Atrix Lapdock Raspberry Pi, like this, but it's pretty bulky: http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Raspberry-Pi-Lapdock-Con...
I have no idea about the cockroach's muscle:body ratio relative to commonly eaten animals. But again, this is following an absurdist line of argument.

Our culture will produce many food science innovations before we get around to engineering lobster sized cockroaches. (And even if we did, you are likely back to square 1 in terms of eating large, environmentally inefficient animals for protein.)
Take my statement as shorthand for "I don't believe that it's possible to purchase a public good and the economic theory that public goods should be privatized is legitimate only insofar as it would lead to desirable revolution". I'm happy to disagree, though -- it's not exactly a settled question and I doubt either of us are going to convince the other during this conversation.
Crosswalk’s Performance Boosting Potential
That's very good news. BIG threat to GoDaddy :D
Fascinating. Is there something in hand sanitizer or lotion that makes this happen, or is it just any fluid that facilitates the transfer?
Very curious, how did this get onto the HN front page?
But I am pretty sure that there is always room for the brilliant idea that no one can grasp when you pitch it.

You're right, but I don't think the author would claim otherwise.

The article is not about the possibility of breakout success, but about lone, reasonably skilled game developers being able to make a consistent living. Not the same thing.
Agreed.

I personally prefer retro on the older machines. One can play and code via emulation, which is quite good these days, or get some older gear and go that route.

Both work for me. I enjoy the real gear for those machines I am familiar with and own. (Apple ][, Atari 8 bit, CoCo) Emulation is great for others.

Emulation is good for coding either way. We get modern tools. There is a fun experience to be had working right on the hardware, but it's hard to put in the time. Emulation helps a lot with that.
Except that the myth of the one-idea-making-a-fortune is mostly that. A myth. Minecraft, as incredible as it was, wasn't the only game of its kind. People routinely underestimate the role of luck in these things.

There is room for the one great idea. But the point is that the minimum production values on the platforms that sell that idea has risen beyond one person now. As it did in the 16-bit era in the late 80s and early 90s. I thought it was interesting that Monument Valley made it into the list at the end. Made by a graphic design agency, not a bedroom coder.
Thats amazing! Job well done.
Here in the East Bay (San Fran Area), the charter school my kids attend gets ~$1300 less per student. So every student that moves from a non-charter to a charter frees up ~$1300 to be used another way by the district (or at least reduces the financial burden of the district if it is already almost destitute). So I wonder... if all those ~1200 charter students were attending the non-charter schools in the district, what happens to that ~$1.5 Million gap? I don't imagine that the school district just has an extra $1.5M sitting around to cover the difference. So does it spread that cut around so now all public schools get less per student? It seems to me that the charter school is saving money not sucking it out. Even if they are only as good as the non-charter schools, they would be doing the same job for less money.
Good news are hard to come by. When seminal papers will get there first, things will be well on their way!
Good Article. I'm actively trying to move out of the industry (or into a company that has more opportunity connected with non-games) now after almost 10 years in.

I'm fortunate that my skills are way more transferable than the majority of game developers (I build and lead SaaS teams), but it can be a bit of a slog to actually shift gears.

Games are a place to be if you're really passionate about it or you feel like there's another hill to take. In general tho, there are much more meaningful things you can do with your life (like raise kids). So I'm on the hunt for a job that lets me continue to build awesome products while have the ability to see my kid on a regular basis (not just 6 months out of the year).
Good recommendation below.

The other path is to visit sites and forums that focus on older hardware. New productions are frequent, emulation good, help at the ready.
Were you on Twitter in the weeks before the game released? They did tons of promotion. It's not billboards on 280, but that's not how advertising is in the App Store world.

As far as the game experience, it's far from being in the best of its genre (and I know many game designers who agree on that point). People like it because it's artsy and lends itself nicely to casual play, which is fine. But whatever, that's besides the point- which is that it's far from a one man indie success.
I feel really dense asking this, but I don't have the faintest idea how the procedures you've mentioned prevent consumption of liquid nitrogen.

When chilling a glass, you dump out the LN. OK. That makes some sense. But then when making ice cream, you put LN directly into the bowl while mixing. Huh?

edit: I can see why you don't want to provide too many details. I will just say this story, while very interesting, terrified me.
In the United States, they will never do this. Our society is too heavily influenced by the "Protestant work ethic", and we have a folk lore about hard work and success. Plus many politicians are "pro-business" and take the stance many business owners do: that we should be grateful for having a job and be willing to sacrifice for our company without any expectation of reward.
Given the legendary meat-grind that is the Google interview process, perhaps people need to be tricked to overcome the initial aversion. Since Google can throw money at recruitment, they basically don't care about wasting their own time, which means they might waste quite a lot of yours.
> Though something of a tossed-off ranty blog post

Touché.
I also take adderall, and it really helps.

I also drink a lot of coffee though. Usually 3 cups before lunch, then I'm done for the day.
Well yes, it can be that simple, if you have no ethics yourself. The ethics of investing in say companies that do animal testing for instance isn't a question of if people will buy those products, it is a question of do you want to fund that action.

This is the same thing. Do you have a moral issue with marijuana? If you do, is it really ethical to fund a company that sells it?
Eh.

One of the many libertarian lies is that all uncoerced transactions are somehow value-neutral. For example, it's certainly a valid question whether it's ethical to support a weapons manufacturer, for example, no matter who's buying.

In this particular case, I think this is an ethical positive. I would classify MJ funding as a net good, as it will encourage legalization -- prevent a lot of wasted resources and people.
Unbreakable crypto is a genie long out of the bottle.

No amount of wishing, legislating, or fear-mongering is going to prevent terrorist organizations from implementing these well-described, mathematically sound, publicly available algorithms.

Since we cannot prevent terrorists from using crypto, the only ones without crypto will be non-terrorists.

This proposal only serves to enshrine within the government the chilling capability and authority to surveil its citizens.
Ask HN: How to Organize?
Most people seem to go through a life phase from around ages 9 to 15 where they learn how to organize and arrange their environment, how to clean up, etc. I am 27 and never went through this phase. Every day I look around my massively cluttered apartment and feel like I'm missing some essential skill that others learned earlier in life. I know this is really basic stuff, but what do I do?

Specifically:

* How do I efficiently clean up an area and keep it clean while still using it?

* How do I put away a large number of miscellaneous items in a manner that I know where they are and can easily be found again?

* How do I put away bowls and food storage containers such that they don't avalanche on me when I open the cabinet?

* How do I organize important documents such that I never lose them and can retrieve them after several years?

* About how much time should I expect to be devoted to house chores each day/week?

* What chores should I do on a regular basis, and how often? (How often should I dust? Vacuum? Clean toilets?)
Hehe. I am biased to be Electrical Engineer.
Well, as a long-time gamer who loves these sorts of toy-box games, I'd say it's one of the very best. So THERE! :)

For more modest success by an actual one-man developer, you can look at Michael Brough's games. I think he makes a living off of them now, even though they're very niche.
The idea isn't to solve that problem, but to limit the damage significantly.

I should be able to give a Russian mob hacker on crack access to my machine without worrying too much about them doing anything I don't give them permission to do.
His other dead company.
I'm constantly tempted to jump head first into the fight to help fix the giant living machine we've been slowly breaking for decades.

I've got notes scribbled down on a better dietary framework, on creating incentive systems for farmers, on improving distribution to consumers. There are so many different areas of the problem to tackle that its a little overwhelming to know where to start or how best to get involved.

I'm genuinely saddened to know how far removed I am from the food I eat and the fact that helping seems so far-fetched just makes me all the more distraught.
That's Nominative Determinism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism

Think someone called Crapper being a toilet salesman, or Smith being a Blacksmith, Baker being a Baker etc.

I.e. a funny non-science based upon misunderstanding historical coincidence (profession being used as surnames, family marketing name being used as a crass synoniem for something else) with causation.
How to Move a Running Linux Process to the Screen Terminal Multiplexor
Protective ear plasters pioneer the monitoring of serious head injuries
One person dev will rise every time there is a new viable games platform. Because such platforms will initially have low market penetration, small customer bases, and be high risk for larger developers. But as soon as those platforms are established, one person teams will be eaten alive by others.

VR is primed to be a game tech. You can maybe do some interesting stuff now, when the only hardware out there is a few hundred thousand dev-kits. But if the Oculus launch goes okay, the production values needed to compete will very quickly take it out of one-person territory.

Of course, there are always new tech. But for every platform that turns into money, there are many that are dead ends. Many single person devs who crash and burn because they are early to a party that never starts. I developed WAP games. I know this :)
Anti-telco hunt? They're on a pro-consumer hunt, and we should be thanking them for it. If the incumbent's have their way we'll be stuck paying per MB for ALL data while the rest of the world laughs away.
Page source for infinit.io
> Suppose that Verizon did use "Title II money" (i.e. revenues from rate increases on wireline subscribers) to fund FiOS deployment. That may very well not be kosher according to the rules

The article doesn't seem to be based on any argument he makes that the use of money is not "kosher according to the rules", instead it is about his argument that Verizon failing to mention that their broadband network is funded that way is an omission of a relevant fact which results in their other statements in their filings in the Open Internet proceedings being misleading, in violation of a specific legal prohibition on such material omissions that result in material filed with the FCC being incorrect or misleading.

Its not a call for investigation of misuse of funds, its a call for investigation of perjury.

> Should we launch a federal investigation to see if Apple subsidized iPhone development by increasing Mac prices?

If Apple makes a filing under penalty of perjury in which they claim they did not, or omit the fact that they did when there is evidence that they did, and that omission is such that it results in other claims they made misleading, and there are specific laws governing the kind of filing they made which prohibit such omissions, sure.
I finally understand that funny feeling every time I carry a computer in my backpack. That exact scene. Thanks a lot.
I believe the job of a manager is to be effective, not to be right. If you feel compelled to disagree then you may be more worried about being right than effecting positive change. Of course you must engage with the institution and the choices it makes – but in my experience there are usually better ways to do that than disagreement.
I like the material, particularly when it's juxtaposed with nature, but its use on the Barclays Center doesn't do it for me. There's nothing around the structure that relieves it.
Google Play grows bigger than Apple's App Store in 2014
> We're going around in circles I think.

Just you, my friend. If you recall, here is the point you were challenging:

> this is a band-aid over the fact that OSes have terrible permission separation and application isolation. If OSes were better architected from a security point of view, it would be substantially less of a problem.

Would you now concede this point?
GoFundMe Tops Kickstarter as World’s #1 Crowdfunding Platform
Erdős’s Book and the Asymptotic Religion
I can imagine a brand-new CS graduate settling for $40k, if they lived in a small town where living was cheap and jobs were scarce, but offering $40k for a senior position just seems insulting, no matter where the company is located.

CrystalMD would do better to offer $1/year for this job, since what they are actually looking for is an angel investor whose capital happens to come in the form of engineering time.
I see, and I agree, you have a point.

I still stand to what I wrote , because I think it is important to stress that it is important to follow your ideas, even if their odds might be low. Being downvoted is somewhat ironical on a meta level.
It looks like CrunchBase may have gotten hacked. Their URL for Google points to a spam domain.
Argo Raises $1.5M to Stitch Together Companies’ Small Data
Any fluid facilitates the trasfer, but the researchers state:

"The dermal penetration enhancing chemicals present in personal care products as well as hand sanitizers cause a breakdown of the dermal barrier leading to an increase in transdermal absorption"
I'm thinking of buying Liquid Intelligence for my sister and brother-in-law, but I'm half-worried they'll think I'm subtly trying to kill them.
Golden Apple – 1 percentile
$12/yr - not bad at all. I might recommend this next time a friend asks how to buy a domain.

Namecheap takes great care of me at $10/year though, so I'm not very compelled to switch.
And who knows for what else...
Tell me if I missed it, but the chance to make a living as an independent game has increased, didn't?
Companies get as big as their market will allow it.
Saying no one can make a living from games anymore because of the big companies is like saying
there can be no more start-ups because of Google and Facebook.

The gaming market is big and fast.
It's fine if you don't want to run anymore but there are a lot more other people in the race who have a chance of seeing the finishing line.
This was referenced in earlier posts here but these are also chopped up and edited to fit.

And besides, this is also pop. The original article mostly discusses pop rock (compared to rock music generally created for other markets than top 40 pop) but country follows the same industry trends. There's country music that's meant to get on the radio and sell hit records and there's country music that is going for something different.

Just as you have a Maroon 5 for every White Stripes, you have an Old 97's or Eddie Spaghetti for every band on this list of 6 nearly identical songs.
Bidvista
That is lower than most non-technical positions for medium to large companies. For startups I can understand if it comes with a chunk of equity, but for $70k, you will have a hard time meeting living costs.
An uncoerced transaction must result in each person getting something they personally value more than what they are giving up or the trade will not take place, meaning that if you measure society by how much people believe they have, all free transactions produce a net gain. That's not "libertarianism", that's just micro-econ 101. (Any who deny the basic correctness of microecon 101 are so far lost to me that any discussion between us is pretty much useless.)

That doesn't mean that if you use another measure that all such transactions have a net positive value to society, though, and I don't feel even remotely non-Libertarian for saying that... where "libertarianism" would come in would be in arguing about what those standards should be and who gets to pick them. A libertarian will be far more inclined to accept the two participant's personal valuation and let micro-econ function with less constraint, but not 100%; 100% would make them anarcho-capitalists, an even rarer breed of person.
Depends on how you see it.

Looks like author is deeply affected by what happened there recently, which must have distracted a lot. That he links with focus.

So, in a way - I find it okey, very unusual though.
Yes, I was effectively making my own version of that, though it was file-based instead of string-based.
Normally very very restricted and these days probably requiring security clearance certainly Team leaders on some projects (and not secret squirrel ones) in BT where vetted to TS (Developed Vetting) Level.

Back when I worked in the early days of email (pre internet) on dialcom systems. I had level 6 (SYSAD) on all of Telecom Golds prime's plus Level 7 on the Billing systems and even the BT Security had mandated removal of some of the interesting commands

There where probably 15 or so people in the country that had that level of access
This is incredibly distressing news for anyone who allows purchases with BTC. For the rest of us, I don't know what exactly this changes in the privacy domain; anonymous sales were never really part of anyone's business model that I can think of.
Number of apps doesn't matter if the majority of those (in any app store) are bad quality. I've seen a developer with 17.000 apps.
Ask HN: Push Payments to Debit Cards?
Hey guys I was looking into a solution that would allow me to pay my app users with a push to debit card type of service.
I know stripe does thishttps://stripe.com/blog/send-money-to-debit-cards as well as balanced payments https://www.balancedpayments.com/push-to-card

I was wondering if anyone knew anyone else who would do this? I reached out to balanced payments but their solution won't be ready till the second quarter to start. Stripe seems like the best choice but I just wanted to reach out and see if anyone had any suggestions or know anything?

Thanks.
I'm guessing buying rhino horns is fine. Or for that matter buying any kind of mass-produced anything manufactured in some place in the middle of nowhere with no environmental regulations and people with little job security. It's obvious that the perfectly rational choice between starving today or getting a tumor 20 years from now is completely uncoerced.