skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Google's Street View uncovers Pompeii ruins
Too bad it isn't real time and able to find tennis courts anywhere that Google Maps has coverage. I guess, however, that all that image recognition is highly CPU intensive and thus he has to generate results for an area, cache them, and then deliver them.
No, Facebook definitely looks into email addresses from address books to make suggestions. I know because Facebook has made suggestions of people I have no common friend-of-friends with.

The only interaction I had with them was via email (mostly for work-related questions).
In other words, typically Intel-style MASSIVE OVERKILL. Splendid.
UFO investigations unit closed by Ministry of Defence
Do you think "ramen profitable" means "able to afford only ramen, and not somewhere indoors to sleep"?

In my world, "ramen profitable" means covering basic expenses, of which (modest) health insurance is most certainly one.

Put another way: health insurance is not a luxury item.
Browser Plug-in Adoption Percentage? (2nd try)
A friend of mine asked me whether I knew of any stats detailing the average percentage of users that will download a plug-in to view website content. I couldn't find anything, so I thought I would ask HN.
Is there any study, or evidence out there that details these percentages? For instance, when faced with the prospect of downloading a plug-in such as Adobe ConnectPro to view website content, how many visitors on average would download it, and how many would pass?
I think it also illustrates where this article goes wrong. You don't say NO to the client, you say NO to a potential customer before they become the client.

Citing the second part of the comic - Client: "Our last designer was an IDIOT". Then the next appropriate question is - What idiot hired/managed him?

You're about to become the 'last designer'
I am involved in the current #1 free app in the chinese store, and it's getting 2500 downloads a day, and the number is going up every day by 50-100.
Optimistic, yes, but I think that's FB's goal.
I think you are posting this in the wrong place. This is not the boomtango site. Try the contact information here:

http://www.boomtango.com/contact.shtml

[flagged]
That's a setting, you can change it. If you don't check the defaults it's your own fault.
Old school technique. He should have just used SIFT keypoints or something. Much faster and more accurate.

Still, cool demo.
Must have been more than one writer involved—items 7–10 are in serious need of punctuation and general editing. (‘Kodak won’t cease to exit.’; ‘Its fate as a standalone company is however looking more and more like an inevitable fate.’)
Agh, sorry: out of gold stars. Does an upvote work?

(BTW, that totally made my day. I love HN... :)
>Yes, but the correct thing to do in this situation is to pay the $5,000 for the Hello World program, NOT post it (you never promised to publicize the results)

Just to play the devil's advocate, what's stopping unscrupulous companies from canceling the prize and saying they did the above?

They say, "I'm sorry, you weren't the winner" to any contestant who asked, and without a public announcement of who the winner was, they could get away without paying the prize money to anyone.
I am wondering how potential clients would look at an NDA in that industry. If they are not used to that, it might scare them away.
Various Artists - Blood Spills Mixtape @ DatPiff.com
Health insurance is a cost that comes out of your profit. If you are ramen profitable after the costs of health insurance are removed you'd be even more profitable if the cost of health insurance was not there.

If you're ramen profitable without the cost of health insurance, then by definition, you can't afford to pay for health insurance.
Maybe the question is: if you didn't have to worry about healthcare would you leave your current job for something else.
In my career, I had lots of very sharp colleagues that had no choice but to stay at their "ok" jobs because someone on the family has more than average health needs.
What do you mean that Google is a tier 1 ISP? Do they provide transit to anyone?

Interestingly, if you can advertise a sub-block and override the bigger block's advertisement, what's stopping people from just stealing sub-blocks from ISPs?
I have a friend who is self-employed as a web designer. He pays $269 a month for Health Insurance. That's lower than his car payment, house payment, monthly food bill, etc... In fact, by his own admission it's only $100 more than he spends at Starbucks every month.

Health Insurance is a political issue that pertains to the poor who can't afford many of the things people on this board take for granted (like morning coffee). Anyone who has the means to quit their job and start a company also should have the means to pay for Health Insurance

Also, if this was a huge issue for startups than wouldn't it stand to reason that Canada, the UK, France and others would have thriving Startup industries? Ones that far out pace the U.S.?
You only get price gouged if you don't negotiate or shop around.

My mom is uninsured. She negotiates everything and often pays less than I do (I once compared her bill to mine). If you pay cash up front, the doctor's office will be very nice to you. Additionally, they give you stuff for free that an insurance company might pay for. An actual exchange:

Mom: "$300 for a splint? No thanks, I'll just have my son tape my finger to a piece of wood."

Doctor's office lady: "Oops, my mistake, I thought you had insurance. We only charge people for stuff like that when they have insurance."
That's impressive.

It seems to be missing a few. All the examples I've seen missed are actually single courts (like in the backyard of a house). To see the examples, go to Palo Alto/5 miles and look just to the west of Sharon Heights golf club, near the Valley Rd, Walsh Rd, Sargent Ln, Moore Rd area. I can count 9 single courts that are not labeled.

EDIT: Looking closer, these 9 could be just outside the 5 mile radius of the search.
Not so much: http://cr.yp.to/qhasm.html

The version of our Ruby x86 assembler on my desk does register allocation as well.
You can't get a sensible one-size-fits-all number. It depends on both the content and the plugin. When NBC requires people to download Microsoft Silverlight to watch the Olympics, they can probably get a very high conversion rate. If you're the IRS or a major employer and you want people to download an Adobe plugin in order to view tax info, then most will probably do it. If you're a company I've never heard of asking me to download a plugin I've never heard of, then I'm going to do it only if you really convince me that I absolutely need to try your service.
Actually the social gaming companies that are actually hauling any real money in (IE Zynga) sell their credits themselves. You either pay Zynga directly by credit card, or you can pay indirectly through paypal. Those are the only two options, but as for games on facebook the points are still only going into a single game and cannot be used in different games by one developer, or in games by different developers, like a facebook controlled 'currency' could.

Essentially, it would be if Apple didn't allow you to put money onto your account. You instead have to use your credit card to make a transaction on every single song purchase. It would be stupid, and Apple wouldn't make nearly as much money as it could.

> We’ve found once you get into these digital-only goods and services there’s massive opportunity for fraud. We couldn’t find a single company that could manage or solve that problem for us. We had to build the whole infrastructure in-house. We had to go out and get relationships with credit-card processing companies.
- Mark Pincus

Facebook would have a unique opportunity to step in and dominate this market. If Zynga cannot control these transaction companies, how can smaller developers? Like I said, tapping into this market could mean Facebook could not only boost revenues to many of these social gaming companies, but it could be taking profits off of every transaction. 5/6ths of Zynga's users are from social networking sites, meaning Facebook could easily take profits from 5/6ths of Zynga's users by being trustworthy. There are then plenty of other developers in the market, especially thousands of smaller developers, who could make Facebook hundreds of millions that they're not tapping.
This is cool, but kinda hacky... I mean what if I want to use the output for say, going to the error in the copied code? Does screen have a way to attach to stdin/stdout/stderr for a process it is running? While still displaying in the host terminal as well (something akin to tee)?
I think designers have this problem since anyone can have opinions about design. It's also hard to argue objectively why one design should be better than another, since design is subjective (for most parts).

Maybe the design process should be more "Google like" and include more design patterns that are field tested. The basic principle should be to use data to back up claims instead of subjective arguments. An example, if the customer wants an "intro page", then point to a "anti pattern" that argues against intro pages. Etc.
I'd agree with those as a summary too. My zero-th problem was that I thought 10,000 pounds was a paycheck I could live on!

I did feel pretty terrible about leaving the project at the time, and I never left a half-finished game again. I'm not sure this attitude makes rational sense from a selfish point-of-view, but I knew I was leaving my colleagues with more work by quitting.
If I understand you correctly, a more interesting question would be "What are the reasons you are not jumping into a startup right now?"

I'd love to see a ranked set of answers to that, organized along a timeline. Since there is so much politics infused in this, however, I imagine healthcare/health insurance is going to rank a lot higher now than say five years ago.

As a historical note, every startup that I've ever know that started humbly had no health insurance (although the founders had plenty of healthcare). So it can't be a determining factor in success, although it may be a determining factor in attempts.

On the attempt side, most startups fail, so anything you'd invest in them -- money, health insurance, food, lodging, etc -- is odds-on an overall loss. This is why raising startup capital can be difficult. If I had to pick a freebie to get from anybody, it would easily be lodging. You can do a lot with four walls and good internet connectivity. Much more than having some sort of insurance.

In my opinion, of course.
It depends on your age. When you're in your 20's and single and your employees are also, healthcare isn't usually a huge issue. But when you work for startup(s) during your 20's your body will take a toll from all of the hours of hard work, lack of sleep and bad diet. When that, and the likelihood of having a family, catches up to you, you will find healthcare a necessity.

You may have to pay for recurring prescriptions. The birth of a child, and many other things that will surely become necessities.
$300 for a splint is one thing. Try negotiating an MRI when you've just been in a car accident.

Its a real problem. Insurance companies have a ton of weight by virtue of representing many patients, which they effectively leverage for lower prices. Those paying out of pocket have no such leverage, and pay much more.
Prescriptions too, please. I pay an extra $40 or so a month for blue cross extended health.
An In-Depth Look At Pivot, Microsoft’s Newest Data Visualization Tool
Optimize your blog’s loading speed with Google’s Site Performance Tool
can you please tell me the actual domain name ? I am dieing for last 24 hrs.
The part in the comic about the client photoshopping the design a bit seems fine to me, as long as they are just moving components around the screen (switching column locations, etc). I wouldn't blanketly suggest it is bad for the client to do this, since it may be easier to communicate what they want in photoshop than in text.
Right, but can you have overlapping blocks? The wikipedia page says nothing about that. It talks about combining smaller blocks to make bigger ones (which is the interesting part). So, if I understand correctly, some routers will see Level3's 8...* advertisement and not Google's 8.8.8.*. They will route 8.8.8.8 to Level3, and that's OK, because Level3 is not going to just drop the packets on the floor. They will forward to Google.

So this is why I said, in my original post, that Level3 is the home of Google's DNS service. If routers are respecting Google's own advertisement, it has to somehow be done with the permission of Level3.
Your Mom obviously gave birth to you. Out of curiosity, how did she pay for it? Did she negotiate the price?
I have a very basic Facebook page, with just enough personal information so that people I've lost contact with over the years can find me if they wish to.

But I prefer to keep up with friends and family either in person, or via phone or email, and I don't update my own page more than once every few weeks.

I found Twitter to be far too expensive (in terms of wasted time) to be worth bothering with. It's not just the necessarily regular checking for new tweets, but the fact that this distracts me and breaks the flow of whatever I am supposed to be doing. I would guess that twitter users waste many hours per week (and possibly per day for heavy users) like this, in exchange for relatively few insightful comments or useful links.

I think it plays off people's desire for instant gratification, but the opportunity cost of using it is very high.
GPSD and Code Excellence
Munsell Color Space data files
Chicago has a low cost of living?
What Google Gains from Google Public DNS
Why not http://translate.google.com/
I've been doing this for years.

Need medicine for high cholesterol? Doc prescribes $100-a-month latest whiz-bang pill. Say to doc, "Dude, can't you do better than that?"

Get a $10-a-month pill from Wal-Mart that works just as well.

It's a real eye-opener. Businesses will charge anything as long as the customer doesn't actually have to write a check for it.

EDIT: Since many of you haven't experienced this, I'll share another story.

I tell the doc I have sleep apnea and would like to try a CPAP machine. He says first I need sleep study, which is around $2K. Why? Well because the new insurance guidelines say you should have one. So we talk a bit, and it becomes clear that it's not needed. Cross out $2K.

So he writes a prescription and sends me to a place in town that sells the machines. Cost? $1600. Price for same machine on the net? $350.00

I call the doc back and he faxes the prescription to the internet vendor and Bob's your uncle.

This is about $3500.00 that 99% of everybody else would have had their insurance pay that wasn't strictly necessary.

Negotiating your own healthcare prices is a terrific eye-opener.
England v Ireland Hospitality | six nation hospitality
Corporate Hospitality Group is pleasure to offer dreaming England v Ireland hospitality package on a competitive price. Watch it on Sat Feb 27, 2010 in Six nations 2010.
You beat me to it. My first reaction was "Wait - how is preserving Erlang's syntax but losing the VM a good thing?". I'd love projects going the other direction - a more modern syntax built on Erlang's rock-solid VM + OTP libraries.
Dallas Texas meets all six.. but IMHO it sucks for small startups (plenty of big tech firms though!)

I always wondered why this is.. my hunch is that is way to conservative for "innovative" minds (hence why Austin rocks)
England V Wales hospitality | six nation hospitality
Corporate Hospitality Group is pleasure to offer dreaming England v Wales hospitality package on a competitive price. Watch it on Sat Feb 06, 2010 in Six nations 2010.
"...healthcare isn't a necessity. Many people can go for years with no health issues..."

If you mean that most young people in the developed world (who've been delivered by trained midwives, checked over by a doctor at birth, had all their vaccinations, regular eye tests and dental checkups, and managed not to break a bone during childhood or adolescence) generally haven't needed to see a doctor or go to hospital for urgent medical attention, then you've got a point.

Of course, as they get older, they'll almost certainly need some sort of medical treatment.
Ask HN: Should I be worried about this?
This is off-topic, but I would appreciate comments from the folks here on HN.

I've recently discovered that there is an "Appreciation Society" for me on Facebook. SHould I be worried? Is there anything I should do?

It feels a little creepy to be honest, although all the comments seem to be positive and generally "feel good". I'm just concerned that someone or something might turn nasty and I wouldn't have any control over it.

Thoughts and comments welcome. Thanks.
The pitch is a product. I would bill them for it.
Mushrooms and green tea may lower breast-cancer risk
An Average of the World's Flags by Population
Also discussed here : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=911119

and here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970088

Link to challenge site:
https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/default.aspx
You're nitpicking.

Gross viewer satisfaction by some definition of 'viewer' & satisfactions.

I don't think that's a nitpick. I'll sometimes watch a TV show, but still not be wholly satisfied with it. He's pointing out a problem with the metric. With the current economics, companies that produce TV would be most pleased if a whole ton of somewhat dissatisfied people watch a show, versus a few that love a show. The economics encourage mediocrity.
Speriamo di si`! I want to be able to send friends and relatives in the US pictures of where I live in Padova.
Except under very strict circumstances, not charging everyone (including insurance companies) exactly the same amount for everything according to a practice fee schedule is illegal under the US healthcare system. Just because the insurance company doesn't actually pay the full amount (contract law gets mixed in here), it doesn't mean that a self pay patient gets to have free services. One reason medical costs are so high is because doctors are generally paid the lesser of the service charge amount on their fee schedule or the insurance company contractually allowed amount. Simple game theory dictates their prices be as high as possible.

Self pay patients can be charged less if a standard sliding fee schedule is created by the practice. This is to make sure that discounts are applied uniformly across all self pay patients against some criteria (e.g. 10% discount for families at 400% of the federal poverty level). I'm sure there are other ways too, but they must be applied consistently.
Yeah, I've been curious about Venice for a while. That would be cool in so many ways.
This could be offloaded to the client though, maybe using an applet.
Impressive site. Looking at that was one of those "DOH! Why didn't I think of that!" moments, which is usually the indicator that you've got a good idea :)
Optimistic for Facebook, pessimistic for the rest of us.
I hate when articles like this are split across multiple pages. Sure they want to increase the number of their page views for ad revenue, but I'd love to know the bounce rate on these multi-page lists. I did not bother to go further.
Sun-Tanned Russian Raises $1 Million For Stealth Mobile App “Friends Around Me”
Sure, bit it's useful to convey some information in graphical form. Many of the constructs he employs (progress circles, use of color gradients to indicate data age) are really good.

The main point being, complex data doesn't have to look ugly.
2006: Can anyone stop MySpace?
1997: Can anyone stop Netscape?
1999: Can anyone stop Webvan?

etc. etc.
It is the earlier post by zedshaw that made a general claim that when the provider gets paid by an advertiser, a user cannot count on being looked after (more then in direct payments). I gave an example of industry that for decades has been proving this statement wrong. I get pounced, red herrings swinging.

In the eyes of many, myself included, the example of TV proves your point wrong. TV content producers seem to be motivated and geared to produce mindless dreck for the LCD viewer. Hits happen occasionally and unpredictably, so that's not actually what they try to do. Excellent reviews from critics doesn't mean you can charge advertisers more. Mediocrity is the rule of the day.
Duplicate of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=976338
Tell me the story about how she negotiated minor surgery that one time. "$20,000 for a C-section? No thanks, I'll just have my son sterilize the dremel and the staple gun." That story is awesome.
However, the user interface of the Sentry Gun the marines used in Aliens II was very realistic: http://www.inetres.com/gp/sf/aliens/sentry02.jpg
Where are the female scientists in research articles?
She has negotiated for post-hoc price reductions on emergency care.

Hospitals have leeway in what they charge. If you make it clear that you will be a pain in the ass unless they give you a good deal, they will do so. This is where you drop words like bankruptcy, $25/month for 30 years payment plans, and threaten to contest every single item (out of 47) on the bill. They will take all sorts of nickel&dime charges off your bill, lower prices here and there, etc, giving you a reasonable deal.
> You don't say NO to the client, you say NO to a potential customer before they become the client.

This is critical, and it's fairly easy to recognize potential 'problem clients' when there's still time to escape.
From a PC Mag article on the same tool:

"The technique is impressive and useful, but not all it may seem. First, it recovers the encryption keys from a physical memory dump file which must be generated separately with other software (for instance ManTech Physical Memory Dump Utility) requiring administrator access to the system."

That said, I would be surprised if Bitlocker didn't come with NSA approved "password recovery" mechanisms.
IPhone app development with Ruby web services
Couldn't you just defer to functionality when pressed on a design decision?

If you can't justify your decisions then I'd say having to humor the client is fair-game.
Putting aside Dave's obvious bias and the question of ads, frankly, I'm shocked he misses the obvious: Google DNS is intended to work with Chrome's DNS prefetch, which is arguably the key technique that makes Chrome so fast.
Picol - Pictorial Communication Language
The biggest thing that would probably help is not changing the features to SIFT, but to make the recognition part using a classifier rather than the set of rules he's using.

Thus, instead of having to join edges into lines, and then applying rules about parallelism, etc., one could take a set of training examples and train a classifier (e.g., support vector machine) on it.

But I agree, cool demo.
Has YCombinator or some other sort of startup incubator considered offering health plans for startups? We're a pretty uniform population, low risk, and probably a bit smarter about lifestyle choices. I could imagine a package deal (office space, funding, health insurance) DONE.
Are you a weasel negotiator?
This idea (not you, mind you; just your retarded idea) is retarded. Healthcare isn't a necessity until it is.

As a 22 year old, you are unlikely to suffer congestive heart failure. But you also clearly have no idea what it costs to get hit by a car, to have a sudden unexplained seizure, or a burst appendix.

The problem with health care isn't that perscriptions cost to much or that it costs too much to see a doctor. Any of us can pay for a doctor's visit. The problem is that a 4-night stay at hospital will bankrupt you.
Of course, but bonus is based on P&L, and no one's going to give a 24-year-old enough trading freedom to run up the kind of profit that would justify an 8-figure bonus.

Starting a hedge fund is different-- if you start a hedge fund, you can make that kind of money-- but <0.001% of people under 30 have the kind of connections needed to get investors.