skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There will undoubtedly be some students who prefer to buy from Amazon and Half. We do, however, believe that enough students would want to participate in a system with their peers. There's psychological and financial upside to the idea which resonates with many students we've conducted surveys with.

We don't have to or even expect to replace Amazon or local bookstores. Not in the short time anyway.
Google Chrome for Mac now in beta
Blah. It looks nice, but I hate it when hardware manufacturers forget that people have other hardware in their cabinets to consider. Now there's this oddly shaped thing that you can't put anything on top of and won't fit in standard shelves.
It seems like what you've done is to reduce your liabilities (you hold no textbook inventory) by pushing that onto a student. If it works, awesome -- brilliant business strategy!

However, a few questions:
- do you have reason to believe that there is a small entrepreneurial subset of students who want to deal with the extra hassle of shipping/receiving books for a few extra bucks?
- do you think students won't realize that they can buy used, sell back, and end up ahead (versus your system)?

Have you done any customer development or validation on this? I highly recommend Steve Blank's method. Students are easy to get ahold of, and generally willing to talk to people, so it'll be a good test of your idea. Go through his customer discovery and validation steps first, before you build any more.

In short, it seems like your value add to the student who owns the book is to say "hey, rent your books and own them, make more than you otherwise would!" This implies that the other side of the transaction will be the source of this revenue. I don't see the renters getting very much value from using this system (versus buying used and selling at the end of the semester). THen again, I'm not your target, so get out there and talk to students!
The quote doesn't have anything to do with shame. Not sure how you read into that...

The message is simply that any information on the Internet is subject to the risk of exposure. We use credit cards knowing that the risk is very low - but we all know its possible your credit card number will be intercepted, misused, etc. This is a fact, not a question of morality.
If three or four major insurers can handle the current system, why wouldn't the government be able to take on that role? It already handles much bigger systems, like transportation.
If you are with a provider that is everywhere anyway, like Vodafone or T-mobile, the idea of roaming is very obviously just about gouging money. It's not as if T-mobile has to pay a third party by the Mb to ship data from Germany to the UK, they own all the infrastructure anyway!
It's unnecessary. I personally think that between an iPod touch and a Macbook, there's no issue with the currently-existing portable market. I use an iPod to read and write and browse the Internet without any complaints. For $500 especially this is nothing interesting without the controversy.

Now, that's one of the reasons I'm interested now in the Apple Tablet. I'd bet that if Apple is releasing one, it's because they've figured out something clever that I'm not seeing myself, and their product will stand out from its competitors in terms of core functionality, and I'd like to see what that is.
Unfortunately, it shares Firefox's sloppy page scroll performance. Bleh. Guess I'll be sticking with Safari.
Maybe no one in the western world cares about your search for nurse+handcuffs, but what about in China? Iran? How do they comply with the laws in those countries?
I love the side bar with the slang terms defined. It reminded me of an article in the NYT in 1992 about grunge slang in Seattle... which was made up on the spot during an interview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak
Difficulty rampup (and the rate at which you introduce new concepts) is very tricky to do right. Valve did a lot of user testing for Portal to get it as smooth as they did.

If you're interested in this stuff, don't miss Portal's developer commentary.
Build a Business, win $100,000
the users are their own worst nightmares when it comes to privacy. Just look at facebook for evidence.
You might be interested in the Venice Beach public art walls. They are repainted every weekend with high quality "graffiti".

http://www.veniceartwalls.com/
I'm still looking forward to the five day public review and comment period on all new legislation. Has this been implemented yet? Does anyone have an update?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/234...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=916713
The sad thing here really is how obviously limited his perspective is. Maybe this is true in the U.S. (but I'm pretty sure privacy is still something highly valued here) but what about foreign citizens? What about people who have things to hide from the chinese government? What about governments that have things to hide from their people? Oh, wait, Google already answered that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#China
"I get the feeling that somewhere in Cupertino, a room full of Apple engineers are giggling."

Since nobody here saw Apple's tablet yet, I don't get the point of the comparison. Do you automatically assume it will be miles ahead just because it's coming from Apple?

For me the "Hacker" part of Hacker News is that I tend to root for the smaller guy, with the clearly unpolished/non-existent PR dept, that actually delivered a product.
Retaining my data makes it easier for Google to give me good results in the future.

The problem is not that Google stores your data. The problem is that disclosing that data has social and legal consequences. Why shoot the messenger?
I would like to be able to invoke the 4th amendment like this, but I'm having trouble thinking through how one would establish - if Google handed data to the feds under the Patriot Act - that the feds would be searching or seizing anything that was on my person, nor in my house, nor my papers, nor my effects.

Rather, it seems more likely that the feds would be knocking on Google's house and seizing a portion of their "papers" that recorded the times that I've come over to visit. I don't think I own their log entries for my searches. Moreover, does a corporation get protection under that amendment, and even if they do, there's already the "warrant" mechanism.
Of course it needs your query string, but it could run your search and then forget about it. Arguably Google was better when it didn't take your history into account when calculating the results.
> When you put the stuff on the wall in a room full of other paintings, it looks like there's a spotlight shining on his paintings and other ones have been sprayed with a light coating of mud.

What is this due to? Cezanne's skill with color? Or something else?
So much for "do no evil".
"they just won't advertise themselves as conformant to the standard."

But they should advertise themselves as non-conformant to the standard.
Is there a site to coordinate some HN meetups? I'd really like to get one going in the San Diego area.
When I use my credit card online I accept the fact that it may be exposed. That doesn't mean I should have to publicly release my credit card number though does it?

I think a lot of people are having a knee-jerk reaction thinking that this guy is giving moral advice. What I see here is just a statement of fact: if you don't want something to ever possibly be known about you, don't put in online.

Readers of this site should know better than the general public that there is always a risk of data getting into the wrong hands. Even if you trust the host. Even if you encrypted the data. etc.
Miles for Nothing: How the Government Helped Frequent Fliers Make a Mint
This one of the crapiest websites I have ever seen. Very slow and horrible design
Cool design. I absolutely love Boxee. My problem with THIS device is this: just like all these media streaming devices, the box is another toy. I'd rather spend something in the range of a mac mini that ran a real OS, had boxee as one option, let me add other apps, and store all my media. There's a chance this has nvidia ion in it, but i doubt it does full 1080p.
Global warming and the impact on human health | My Complaint
Though the article is from 2006, it's timely
I'd like to challenge it in the way the essay challenged it, that is that the comparison is fatuous wanking. A 'good' argument to the contrary might involve, well, a good argument to the contrary. Rather than fatuous wanking.
If I'm not behind the times, wouldn't there be antitrust problems from the huge percentage of the chipset market that would be held by the combined company?
you spent 16 hours a day painting. You produce the greatest masterpieces man has ever seen...

The cultural bias is staring at us right here: You've implicitly assumed that working 16 hours per day is the way to produce great work. Not necessarily true.

There are, of course, artists who do their work in intense sleepless binges, because when the spirit moves them they forget everything else, even food and sleep. There are also artists who can't work unless they're drunk or stoned. But consider the possibility that this is not the source of their power. This is a handicap that they must overcome.

I know it's difficult to imagine a twenty-year-old version of Steve Wozniak that was even more productive. But everything we know about sleep suggests that if Steve had been able to convince himself to get more rest in the middle of his legendary weekend-long hacking binges, he would indeed have been even more productive. Woz got through that, of course, because he had the brain cycles to waste.

As for this:

Artists of all types do the whole obsessive addiction thing all the time, but we don't point at them and say "hey, you better chill out, don't worry about trying to achieve Artistic Nirvana...

No, we don't, but that's a flaw in our culture. Are you suggesting that it would have been a bad idea to try and get, say, Ramanujan to take some time out to rest and feed himself, rather than letting him remain so addicted to short-term mathematical highs that he let his health decline and died at an early age?

Our romantic artistic culture idolizes burnouts and addicts: Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis. This leads to the illusion that acting like a burnout and acting like an artist are aspects of the same thing. But being a great artist is more about persistence than intensity. It is actually far better for your development as a musician, for example, to practice a few hours a day for a long series of days than to try to pack more practice into each day. Your mind needs rest to assimilate and organize what it learns.

Another point: Many of the musicians who spend 20 hours a day in the studio do so for economic reasons. Every hour of studio time costs money, lots of money, and getting set up in the studio takes hours and hours of work, so once you get set up you have to use the studio as intensely as possible before you have to break down the instruments and pack them up. It makes one wonder how much of the I-don't-need-sleep-I'm-a-superhacker culture derives from the days when hacking took place in night-long binges because the computer's time was cheaper late at night. That was a rational reason to stay up all night. But now computers are cheaper than furniture and there's no reason for a tech worker not to get some sleep. You'll think better.
Fusion Garage JooJoo Tablet Hands-On
So what's the plan? They all ride bicycles on that one day, and then resume their standard travel mode outrage free the next day?
Gmaps and Gcal aren't rendered properly. Am I the only one?
For some definition of "handles", sure.

Most of our transportation is actually handled by local/state departments. The Federal govt just gives the states money to keep the interstates from falling apart.

Libertarianism is distributed computing applied to economics.
Vedea, A New Language for Visually Working With Data
Using Fake Documents to Get a Valid U.S. Passport
To improve on your distinction, I would say painting, programming, building, writing, etc... all produce that sense of fulfillment from within; even if you go to excessive lengths with it.

Psycho-active drugs do not. They provide an external stimulus to those receptors in the body that make you feel like you are being fulfilled. Over time, those receptors get burnt out and the spurious feeling of fulfillment can only be maintained with the substance.

Narcotics are and are not a big deal; I dabbled with them for a short period of time and can safely say that there are far more users than many people think exists. Users that go to work everyday, have kids, and generally seem to be square. They are a big deal in the sense that you are replacing self-empowered fulfillment with a drug; they aren't a big deal in the sense that everything in our environment produces altered states of consciousness. Food (especially), a beautiful sunset, the aroma of baking bread, &c...

My rule of thumb: if it makes you feel genuinely good, then do it! Psycho-active drugs have never made me feel genuinely good; to some people though, it may. Writing, programming, hiking, swimming, sailing, dancing, &c... have all been things that make me feel genuinely good.
Google Chrome for the holidays: Mac, Linux and extensions in beta
Oh, I'm sure that there are unintended consequences in any system that complex. But I'll tell you from unfortunate personal experience, if you go to an ER in the middle of the night in any American city, you'll see a crowd of people in the waiting room. Most of them are uninsured and poor, and thus don't have a doctor to go to for routine things, so they go without medical care until it is an emergency.

It's not efficient.
In this situation you really have to look at 1) how many people are asking for this, 2) how vocal are they, and 3) how much development effort do you need to put into adding an option in the menu to change the laser sounds?

Sorry to answer your question with a question (or three), but comparing your answers to these questions will give you a good context for choosing a solution.
Your mentor really put your health above your relationship with God? I take it Job went about things the wrong way?
New research centers on the link between nutrition and brain function
The AspireRevo nettop I picked up for $200 has an Atom 230 and a NVidia Ion chipset in it, and has zero problems playing back 1080p video in XBMC for Linux... Honestly, I'd be more surprised if it didn't playback 1080p.

EDIT: I will say based on the fact they're supporting hardware decoding on Windows (and maybe Linux?), I'd much rather pick up an Ion-based nettop and install Boxee as a software app.
When people read his quote I think tend to think of embarrassing things they themselves have searched for, but no one is going to subpoena (or even care) about your search for "nurse + handcuffs".

How about in a divorce trial, when character is at issue, and you are fighting for child custody rights?

More generally, the argument of as long as you aren't doing anything wrong, why should you be worried has been debunked, I think rather convincingly in places like http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_p...

edit: someone submitted the link a little while ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984088 hopefully the discussion can continue.
IVictrola - an analogue ipod amplifier
After they spent 18 million redesigning the recovery.gov website, http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/18m-being-spent-to-... resulting in an end product that provides false information http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created-congressio... why should we be optimistic that this isn't just another hole to throw money down? As I recall the recovery site was sold to the people as a step towards open government.
Anything on Google would be your papers and effects, I would think. The spirit of the law is to protect your privacy, and it's not the place of government to search your affairs just because new technology makes that possible and practical.

Also, the government is not demanding data from Google because they're interested in Google; they're interested in you.
Get Angular - web app development
Google Pushes Out Personalized Search
Other: Squirrel
A Spacy Problem
Nuclear Explosions since 1942 (map)
Benchmarking Javascript Templating Libraries
Somebody just made a conservatively a few million bucks in about an hour's worth of work.

What A/B testing software do you use? ;)
A large part of that broadcast was also targeted at the civilian, middle management Federal bureaucrat. They need buy in from the rank and file content managers of federal program offices because that is where the bulk of the non-headline Federal data lies. (not things like legislation - but rather research, stats, etc)

There is very little groc-ing of these types of efforts on that level because by and large the federal government outsourced all it's IT years ago. The people that run the show at these levels are by and large print journalism people with little experience with the web - much less the open web. They are used to completing a project and getting a "web page" set up for it by simply tasking a contractor to turn a PDF brochure into a web site.

The contractors are set up to act as worker bees rather than consultants and there are very few feds at the middle management level that have an understanding of the underlying technologies to innovate in this area without help. The CTO's office is trying to set up models to follow and help the ideas permeate the civilian workforce.
Even if that was the case, people want things as cheap as they can get them, so even if they CAN vote with their dollars, they won't do it at an unnecessary cost to themselves.
A Tale of Three Editors
First point: Just to clarify, you're calling Bacon a talentless hack? Bacon, the master of nightmarish imagery?

Second point: Define meaningful. Philosophy, science, photography, painting, all are essentially ways of passing time before death, if we want to use the cosmic scale; on the personal level each activity has different meanings to different people. I'm not a big philosopher, but I enjoy that much more than science. Science bores me.

Where is it written that philosophy can't evolve based on scientific findings? And what makes you think painting's not useful? Perhaps portraits aren't as meaningful, but even there, designing a web site for a musician I commissioned a painting of him rather than a photo. With paintings you can specify colors ahead of time and make something that fits for the design. So there's an example of an archaic medium being used for modern purposes.

I don't like very much your us-versus-them mentality here. I don't like your suggestion that there's such a thing as too much education. My policy is, to each their own. I'll continue to be fascinated by those over-educated idiots I call my friends, and you can continue to do whatever you choose with your own time.
Please don't link directly to exe downloads.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice?

Not that you could tell from the article's headline. Either The Register is being sensationalist, or just didn't see it in those terms.
Isn't this a bit apples vs oranges? LinkedIn should be comparing themselves to social networks, job sites, etc.
AMD / ATI?
Speculation: Because those aren't as mobile as a phone, and because Android needs something to differentiate itself from the iPhone. First seamless turn by turn directions, now this.
Not hardly. When a Smalltalk image comes back, it's in the exactly the same state as it was when it took a "snapshot" then quit. Can't say the same for a Unix box.

There are some deliberate modifications. Like the "command line" array is whatever the command line was when the VM was re-invoked. Sockets deliberately aren't active for security reasons. But where the state isn't exactly the same, it's for a specific reason.

Even processes (green threads) are frozen halfway through, and continue chugging along when we return from snaphot!
cc companies accept the risk of fraud, you (theoretically) have little legal risk.
Yes, but that was smaller/smaller. This is bigger/bigger, so it's not necessarily proof that it would be allowed.
In a few words, then, the coffee-table book is the wave of the future. As one who has not purchased a Kindle, I find this less than comforting.
Yeah I disagree with Eric on this point. There are many things I think are fine and acceptable to do, but they don't need to be a part of my public life.

I don't want employers, grandparents, and the government to have access to my private and personal life.

No reason everyone should know movies, books, music, games, sexuality, political beliefs, and everything else about me.
Ask HN: Single person working on a web app. What platform to use?
I can code in three languages/platforms: Java (its been long time), ruby on rails (beginner) and Drupal/PHP (beginner). This app is a pet project I really want to complete and involves some good business logic as well as need to have nice front end.

Really cannot decide which platform to chose. I have some work started in RoR and some in Drupal and I have not been able to make up my mind about what is the way to go.

What do you suggest?
Google sues companies that offer fake "Google Money" schemes
We've done a survey and have had positive feedback so far. We don't believe that means the idea will work because there's more friction in real life than in taking a survey. But it's given us enough motivation to determine if students will really use this system.

We hope that in time we can make it more financially viable for students. At first we'll need early adopters who buy into the idea of renting from students instead of bookstores. That seems to be an easy sell since few students aren't frustrated with the options available. The trick will be providing them with a great experience so they, in turn, become evangelists to the rest of the student population.

But yes, we share your concerns...and plan to squash them :).
According to the google keyword tool, approximately 368,000 people search for the exact phrase [search engine] each month worldwide, and 135,000 in the US. I wonder what those people are really expecting to find when they search Google for search engine. I would think the Wikipedia result would be the most relevant.
Looking at the respective balance sheets of both companies, it's certainly possible. I was thinking it might not be.. but was surprised to see Intel has a 110bn market cap versus nVidia's 8..
If you look at successful people - no matter if it's in business, sports of mathematics then one thing they have in common is hard and challenging work over longer periods of time. You won't get good at golf, programming or business by not practicing it a lot - and others that work harder than you will outperform you at some point, no matter what your initial talents are.

Is hard work an addiction? It probably is, but not like a cocaine addiction, but more like a become-good-at-golf addiction.

Hard work and becoming really good at something requires sacrifices, no matter if it's for sports or startups. And becoming really good at something isn't for everyone.

I want to become really good at what I do, I love my work and I spend a lot of time "working" (or at least practicing). I don't think hard work is a problem and I don't think DHH should tell us that it's a problem. We all have different values in life and we have different ways of achieving success. I mostly work hard because I enjoy it and because I want to become better.
Chrome extensions are live and kicking.