skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Business relationships can have various kinds of fiduciary duties even if breach of those duties results in minimal economic harms. The gravity of the harms might influence the damages awarded in the judgment of the case, but one party (or the other) acting contrary to a fiduciary duty would still influence what judgment results (who wins or loses).

The well written news article submitted here reports "a judge on the Delaware Chancery Court began hearing testimony Monday in a corporate governance battle between eBay, the popular online auction site, and Craigslist, the online classified advertising site." So the governing law is the corporations law of the state of Delaware, and there must be a large body of precedents in that jurisdiction (which is the favored state of the United States for forming business corporations) about what the duties are of various parties to business transactions under contract theories in situations that might lead to corporate mergers. This should be an interesting case.

And, yes, I am a lawyer, although most of the incorporation law I practice is nonprofit incorporation in my own state, not for-profit incorporation in Delaware.
From watching videos of JooJoo, UI latency and scrolling performance are quite terrible.

It seems that rendering is done on the CPU, when it should've been on a GPU accelerated compositor or tiled surface manager.

That would probably save significant battery life (which we haven't heard anything about) and really kick ass at performance.

SoC GPU + CPU combos are fairly inexpensive parts, but even the first gen iPhone PowerVR MBX lite would've had reasonable performance.

More ranting on my blog: http://www.satine.org/archives/2009/12/08/gpu-my-joojoo/
If we're not interested in running preexistant Linux applications on Android, then Gtk and Qt don't really matter so much. Android already has it's own Gui tools.
I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude. But it would certainly be a better conversation if you stated your own opinion rather than trying to explain others'. How does one know you don't implicitly agree?
EntityCube - Biography Generator (by Microsoft Research)
Straight back at Eric Schmidt: "If you have to look at people's personal data to do something, maybe you shouldn't be doing it"
What in your opinion makes this lame?
5% -Completed
I have yet to see them make the case that running stuff from my Linux desktop (which I am quite happy with, thanks) on my phone is going to work very well. My feeling is that it won't, and so having Gtk and Qt just won't buy them much.
Ousterhout's ideas and papers had already been out for a while, and Tcl itself had been around for 10 years at that point. So it's definitely a case of NIH.
Not to mention the Doner Kebap you get in Germany vs the Turkish original.
I don't have to worry about healthcare (living in a country with a pretty good socialised system) and I'm still too much of a chicken to go fulltime.
Of course, in reality, most people aren't exactly these two extremes, great implementer and great innovator. Everyone has both traits in different amounts, and if you have a functioning team, they can be split up unevenly.

In this way of looking at things, I'll freely admit to being more of an implementer. If someone asks for what they want, I'll do my best to make the software do it in a way that's efficient and delights the user.

Given vague instructions, I'll do my best, but with mixed results.

But when I team up with someone who always has new ideas - I can actually sort through them, figure out which ones will work, which ones will meet the goals, and synthesize them into great product. Most people can't do that with their own ideas.

I think the original quote - and it's short, not a full essay, so this criticism is mildly unfair - elevates the innovator too much over the implementer. When in reality, you win when you have both, that know their own strengths and limitations, and are grateful for the other. I produce better work when I pair up with an innovator, and so does he or she. And the two of us will dominate over a dual-innovator team.

Also, realize implicitly in everything Paul Graham says, you can add the words, "For a startup technology company." That's what he knows, that's what he values. There's a lot of work out there that needs implementers, and innovators would be frustrated, unsuccessful, and miserable at. Don't feel threatened if you're not Paul Graham's Ideal Entrepreneur/Programmer. I'm not. I'll never be extremely rich, most likely, but I'm happy, good at my job, valued by my company. I say this because opinions like this caused me a _lot_ of self doubt in my early twenties, and they turned out to not be the accurate predictor of DOOM that I feared. If you're smart, and willing to do a good day's work, success is out there - not at a company run by someone like Graham, but he wouldn't have success at a company for you either.
When someone is being downmodded, and doesn't know why, I try to be a good netizen and offer an explanation. Otherwise, I stick to my own opinion :)
I can't actually find a link to the study in the 5 minutes before work, so I guess we'll have to throw that out.

It's not that you'd make errors in typing, of course your compiler will check those. It's that code you don't write is bug-free, and every line you do write has a non-zero chance of containing a logic (not syntax) error...

But anyway, it's very easy to write 3x LOC in Java. If you don't write much smaller Python code, you don't know how to code in Python. I can't think of a single task (mind you, I'm a Rubyist, so I very well could be wrong) that would take less in Java, and even ones with identical LOC, you still have things like

BufferedReader myFile = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(argFilename));

vs

myFile = open(argFilename)
reminds me of this riff on privacy by Bruce Schneier from a few years back addressing the same notion that Schmidt is quoted here to believe

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_p...
There is no way to judge art other than by subjective opinion.

> There are forms of art where accuracy is prized, but in any kind of modern art, any rule can be broken if the result is interesting.
> Are you saying you like none of Picasso's later work? Or even Dalí's?

I do like Picasso's and Dali's work and also Cezanne's work. I even like the picture I linked to. But this is the key part:

> if the result is interesting.

I don't see how the wrong perspective and tilted platter add to the appeal of the painting. It seems to be an accident.
I won't downvote you either, but to answer your first question, it is group think because it is a vague one-liner that puts down a rather great accomplishment from an underdog in favor of a mainstream brand name. The added fact that "it's not the most intelligent" comment and it is indeed being upvoted reinforces the argument that groupthink is at play.
"If you have something to hide, maybe you shouldn't be doing it" is valid not only in the context of net privacy but much more so as a general rule.
My corollary: if you have something to hide, and doing it is a good or neutral thing, then you have identified a bug in society. You probably ought to fix that.
I am always amazed when people fall in love with an artist I consider a talentless hack.

PS: In the tradition of things you can't say. Science killed philosophy as a meaningful activity. And the camera killed painting as meaningful activity. They have become the refuge of talented youths and over-educated idiots.
Ask HN: Are hours spent dealing with billing, billable?
I have a client who recently refused to pay a very large bill on time and was 60 days late. It took me 3 hours total of emails, phone calls, etc. to get him to arrive at a payment plan.

Then I went and billed him for 1 of those hours. He doesn't want to pay that hour. I did it half to get some pay back on my time, half to stick it to him. Do I have any grounds for this or should I just drop the hour?
I'd suggest the author's (mis)conceptions about the limits of browser based apps is 7 years out of date. It's not even an explicit argument, it's just an unspoken assumption that web apps aren't the real thing. Actually, maybe it is explicitly stated: "But the browser, being a viewer of HTML5+CSS+JavaScript is not capable of ‘blowing you away', so we have to move beyond it."

But, every negative point he raises about web apps (which aren't many or particularly fundamental) is being worked on feverishly by Google (and Apple, and others).

But even if you take his argument seriously, he's only saying that rich-client will be thin, platform-specific wrappers round the APIs of what are fundamentally cross-platform web apps. Hardly a resounding victory.
Octopart (YC 07) Powers Product Search for EETimes
You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding.
If you wanted to end Google, all you would have to do is offer a reward for a whistleblower to videotape a privacy violation at Mountain View.

Imagine putting that on Youtube.

(EDIT: yes, I know they own Youtube. Of course they'll take it down. But it would be reposted on Vimeo and the like, and the publicity for the takedown would cause the Streisand effect).
We need a privacy contract similar to Richard Stallman's GNU General Public License. Something standard that both parties can quickly understand and agree to.

Idea: A new competing search engine could release a General Privacy Agreement along with their search service.
I think the reasons are cultural rather than regulatory or fiscal.
I had this same problem, except I didn't have a laptop making noise I had 5 Dell poweredge 2650's (yes i realize how outdated they are) plus 4 other home brew servers. I rewired my network, and placed them in a closet. I'm at the point now where the hum actually helps me sleep better.

on another note, the servers keep the closet a comfortable 70º on average (I leave the door open during the day, so air circulates) which is the perfect temperature while my homebrew is fermenting, I'd like to think I have a wonderful nerd eco-system.
Eric Schmidt has never had anything to hide, like cheating on his wife... Oh wait...

All of these guys are hypocrites; when will you guys realize this? Oh, and that gas-guzzling 767 with the private shower is being used to "create good in places like Africa" (or whatever they had said), right?
Oddly, the link says 5 tips, but the article linked only had 3. The original article with all 5 tips can be found at http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/01/5-tips-to-beco...
Cool, so Google will be publishing the search histories of all Google employees by name?

Hypocrite.
I'd like to hear Erich Schmidt's half of the story.

This is typical Internet drama. We have seen it a million times. I give the guy the benefit of doubt since this wouldn't be the first occasion some journalist taken a sentence out of context.
I don't think he'd like that at all.

The article links to a story about Google blocking CNET reporters for a year after they used Google search to find details about Schmidt: http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/

Really, all this "privacy" nonsense is for the little people, not important folk like Eric Schmidt, anyway.
Here's some further data, based on indirect evidence rather than recording:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/temper...

As you can see on the graphs, the last decade is still the hottest.
Solutions:

1) Accelerometer (as someone already mentioned)

2) Trigger encryption upon disconnect from your particular network

3) GPS

4) Very simple one: re-route AC power inside the machine chassis through a SPST momentary switch glued to the underside. When the machine is lifted, power is cut.

5) More, that I won't list here, because they will end up in the swines' handbooks. Use your imagination.
the parent comment is vague enough to be interpreted as offensive.

This is false. There is absolutely nothing in the parent comment that could reasonably be interpreted as racist/offensive toward Indians.

I assume you're fixated on the "Cupertino" part of the sentence, but this part of his comment is a completely normal construct of English to creatively refer to a person or organization. Another example of this would be if Microsoft lost a patent suit against a European company and someone said:

"Somewhere in Redmond, a chair is being flung against a wall.".

The above quote would have nothing to do with racism or "US vs. Europe". It would be a creative way to refer to Microsoft, specifically to Steve Ballmer who is rumored to have thrown a chair across the room after receiving some bad news.

Your interpretation of the possibility of the comment being offensive is simply wrong, and it's unacceptable to accuse someone of racism based on an incorrect interpretation of a comment which you weren't even sure about. At the very least, you should have politely asked the poster to clarify.
I don't think you should charge him for that hour. You might instead try to charge him interest for being late (or add interest to payment plan).

However, personally, I think it's better to move on and instead spend your time diversifying your customer base. A friend of mine says the nice thing about consulting is "you can fire your customer."
You do not say which country (and thus legal jurisdiction) you live in - so that probably means you live and work in the USA.

If you were in the UK then you can't normally recover time spent in persuading your debtors to pay their bills. You can however start to charge interest on the outstanding balance after a reasonable period of time - and after giving due notice.

Perhaps others can contribute answers that relate to other countries.
I bet that he wishes he could roll-back that comment!

I think that most non-tech people would be very surprised if they realized how much personal data our corporate overlords have collected.
In fields I know something about (unlike art, which I don't), "interesting" and "well-done" are not very correlated.
I guess "Don't be evil" now becomes "Don't be paranoid"

From Wikipedia Article about Google Chrome:
Chrome sends details about its usage to Google through both optional and non-optional user tracking mechanisms
Except that Google owns Youtube.

Imagine that getting taken down from Youtube in record time.
No Waiting Room
I used to miss the presence of such a notification feature. But, with the more recent proliferation of comments including "one liners", I'm becoming increasingly appreciative of this approach. Yet another example of apparent lack of a feature actually being a feature.
This article, or at least the headline, really belongs on the Onion.
Hi neovive, the Slicehost and CloudServers brands are two separate products within Rackspace. That's why there's no mention of the former.
Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges
Free Premium accounts of rapidshare,megashare etc
free tools and premium accounts of many sites free download
I would rather hide, thank you. In a fight between me and the world, my bet is on the world.
The register suggests it is possible to avoid Google products, but the web is literally infested with Google ads and that is a tracking mechanism.
I do work with denormalized data structures and schemas as well, but that data is usually derived from a normalized source and it's read-only. All the issues related to redundancy don't exist in a DW/BI scenario.

One area where SQL is clearly limiting is text processing and I'm doing a lot of that. There's just no way you could do text analytics in a regular SQL database. I'm sure there are other areas like that, so I agree with you that innovation in the database space is welcome, even if it has acquired that slightly unfortunate name "NoSQL".
Thoreau's cabin was only 45 minutes' walk outside of Concord, however.
If you dig past the hype, it's very much like Collecta inside of Google's normal search. These forms of search are dominated by twitter, and to a lesser extent blogs, but other data streams are coming in. Public Facebook data is on deck.

How can a service cross the chasm between our social connections and our web usage without full relationship information from the user?

I'm zealously interested in this question, as it is vitally connected to my future if I want to build virtual search agents customized to users.
Definitive? It doesn't even address the ideas put forth in the essay.
Agreed, there's no need for designers to be treated as some sort of cadre of white knights. This is just basic business ethics - you could find similar situations in any job at any company.
I disagree. I think every action is polarized. Some actions are just further towards one end of the spectrum than others.
From the article:

"We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish."

The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports--or to Sweden--to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.
This is why philosopher kings aren't allowed possessions.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, and the future absence of privacy will not really be about Google... Google is just a harbringer.

Universal sousveillance is the future, but since you'll be less and less able to tell whether you're in the future in this sense, acting as though you are might be prudent. :)
It seems like he's actually telling you, the user, not to be evil. Sad.
IIRC, lua was pretty much the first embeddable interpreter that had a memory footprint acceptable in games - both in absolute size (esp. not linking the compiler), and in terms of allocation patterns, as consoles tended to have small direct caches.

I remember several attempts to ship with an existing language (eg: Python, Java). A couple did succeed, but at a large cost.

It was however, pretty easy to sit down with a copy of Kernighan&Pike "The UNIX Programming Environment" and bang out a lightweight compiler/bytecode interpreter that did everything the game needed - keeping precious RAM for gameplay.
Privacy protects from abusive power, and privacy protects from irrational judgment: true but incomplete. Privacy allows us to tolerate these problems - rather than being forced to confront them. That may not be a good thing.
without wanting to labor a point (and that does cover a big portion of human civilisation, I agree) that is still far short of anything I would call "long scale".

I do think we need more work to push it back at least to 10,000 years if possible (particularly because it is important to see the effect of NO organised civilization in comparison)
I don't understand why this is so bad. Google's trying to make sure you get more relevant results. If you already know what you want to find, you don't need a search engine.
Who else does the good/neutral thing? Make common cause with them.
My tip when using cron: Use comments liberally. Say what the command is doing, where to find out more information and write your name so that when I open up the crontab on some system I can actually find out what it is supposed to be doing. Comments are essential in a script which is not under any version control and is shared by many different users.
Or disable/zap CSS.

EDIT: One relatively non-invasive means:

https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_style_s...

I suggest that one not use bookmarklets without examining them first, confirming for oneself that the are safe. Fortunately, this one's very brief and apparent.
In twenty years, does privacy still exist? What about in a hundred?

I'm definitely not a fan of exposing data that people wish to keep private. It seems conceivable, though, that privacy is an idea that won't survive time and technology.
Cf: wikileaks
Sematic arguments of GNU/Linux aside, that 'real-ness' has actual implications on time-to-market and resources needed. The Maemo platform has a huge edge because of that. How long did it take a PDF reader to show up for Android? How trivial is it make a PDF reader for Maemo? I blame that on Dalvik/Android.

Apple is king of the (initial) user experience. But user-experience isn't everything. The dominance of windows should demonstrate that there /are/ other factors in play.
Freakonomics: Touring Gangland
Any camera can do this, "rendering" in the sense of "an objective, accurate, realistic view of the world".

Distortions and imperfections in the artwork convey the artist's subjective view of the world, and you need an artist for that.

Imagine a perfect rendering of what's depicted in Picasso's Guernica. It wouldn't work. And that came from someone who could probably do academic realism in a handstand and blindfolded ;)
If only search engines weren't expensive to launch and run... it's about making the money back.
This isn't just a test between paragraph and bullet format, though. I found the bulleted text to be much more meaningful. The paragraph talked about why the union was great (we're big, we want to make life better, etc). The bullets talked about what they could do for you (actionable things like job coaching, and "Income insurance that guarantees you 80% of your salary"). The text within the bullets is much more compelling!
Do you close the door when you go to the bathroom?
Hey, congrats guys. Always been a fan of Octoparts.
Your conclusion that "people don't care that much about conversations on HN" is mystifying, since HN is its conversations. I see no problem with having to explicitly check for new comments; I prefer to look at things when I'm ready than to be interrupted.
Steve Blank: Someone Stole My Startup Idea
Quote from deceiver.com (http://deceiver.com/2009/12/07/no-sleep-till-carbonhagen/): "Taking a private jet to a conference on stopping global warming is a bit like traveling in a sedan chair carried by indentured servants to a summit on stopping human trafficking."
Great marketing or a great product?
I think what they are trying to do is to create a systemic shocking amount of CO2 to totally throw our climate off kilter, and thus cool things down. Kind of like reverse psychology for climate change.
At least he is telling you that all your searches are forwarded to the authorities under the patriot act.
The cell phone companies haven't got round to warning you that your phone's location is given to the police 8million times.
"This seems backward. Almost certainly, there is something wrong with you if you don't think things you don't dare say out loud."

- http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
Too bound by the status quo and churning out pointless papers.
This -> http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ fixes it right up.
Bringing up the limos and planes makes sense; bringing up the caviar and expensive food doesn't. At a certain point it seems like the author is just trying to foment generic populist outrage.
Looking for dedicated servers and flexible storage solution
We are now looking for an ISP providing us with dedicated servers and a lot of flexible storage (comparable to Rackspace uNAS) - but not Rackspace. Anyone?
Squeegee or whatever it's called has a decent following in Canada and a lot of European countries where craigslist didn't get there first. In the US though I think their traffic has actually been falling.
Chandra, the CEO of Fusion Garage, is Singaporean, not Indian. He is of Indian origin (i.e. his parents were Indian) but he was born & raised in Singapore.
I don't quite understand why this recent trend has started, but things are showing up on HN that were on Reddit a few days ago.

3 days ago in this case.

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ab8jt/googles_ce...

It's like a very slow echo.
There are perhaps other qualities in Cezanne's paintings, but PG is far from being the only person who considers Cezanne's drawing skills quite deficient.