dataminer

Regarding the cheap money, isn't it better for markets to decide the interest rate rather than the Fed? Are there any examples in history where a country left the interest rate to be set by the market.

Accoring to http://torontostar.morningstar.ca/globalhome/industry/news.a... Google has 17 Billion offshore and 20 Billion in US they are not as cash strapped as Microsoft which has almost all its cash outside of US.

It seems the "inventor" behind lodsys was also involved in webvention lawsuits [1] for the image rollover patents [2] and demanding $80000 for licensing fees [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/patent-troll... [2] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...

Windows Live Messenger has 330 million active users according to wikipedia, Microsoft could have improved it instead of the current bloated crap it currently is. If it was as lightweight as gtalk, provided voip capability and a good iphone app capability I would start using it and so would all those 330 million active users.

I had similar experience as you while doing sales on ebay, the moment I switched from "return not accepted" to "returns accepted, full refund including the shipping cost" sales went up 3 folds and covered any negligible cost associated with returns. Customers will trust you more when there is a full refund policy in place and will not think twice when buying from you.

a water bottle

I have been using google talk but recently switched to skype because my wife got an iphone and google talk does not work on it. Skype on iphone is really painless to use and call quality is also very good.

I have accounts on Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger since their early days but my use of both of these services has diminished over last couple of years. I have observed the same attitude among my friends and family, all of them still have those accounts but they are active users of other services. I hope skype doesn't end up like Hotmail, windows live messenger.

Ryan Singer http://twitter.com/rjs if you are into design, interfaces, software engineering and getting things done

and as reported by BBC, he left the city to live in peace and quiet for a while.

I have worked in two different kind of companies during summers while I was in highschool, a Japanese auto parts manufacturing company had a very interesting structure, from the President to the temp assembly line associate, all wore white uniforms when they arrived at work. Management offices were in middle of the factory floor completely accessible to any employee. Everyone sat in same cafeterias and enjoyed similar company perks. There was absolutely no segregation and the flow of ideas were amazing, problems got reported and were acted upon fast, it was very agile company. I really enjoyed working there and so did other employees.

The other company (auto parts manufacturer as well) had similar badge system as discussed in the article, employees with lowest ranking badge were considered the "lowest class", no one except their immediate supervisor talked to them and listened to them. This segregation meant they had no incentive to work intelligently or report problems. All they wanted to do was to do their jobs and get the hell out.

It was quite educating to work under the two contrasting management structure. The first one was a breath of fresh air and the second was very suffocating.

Its a similar case in Canada, even though we produce and export oil, gas price here are usually a dollar more than US gas price because of higher taxes.

Does Paypal website payments pro offer transparent redirect like Braintree?

I doubt if Lazaridis response would have been any different, since he is quite defensive these days, but BBC could have framed it as a privacy issue which is a more accurate description.

Actually eBay is quite safe to buy if you pay via Paypal. eBay has a policy of 45 day return period during which you can file a case in eBay resolution center under "item significantly not as described" and send the item back to the seller, eBay will then refund the full amount you paid to the seller (price + shipping). However, you have to pay for the return shipping. I believe payments via Paypal on a 3rd party website are also covered by the same policy. This makes it very safe to buy from eBay or through Paypal. I feel more secure buying from eBay then buying from a local retailer.

Sequoia invested in youtube and it turned out very well for them. Color is more likely the next youtube instead of next facebook.

I haven't tried Color yet, but from what I have read it makes it dead easy to share photos and form social groups. Remember the real breakthrough of youtube was you click on a link and the video starts playing, it was and still is the most hassle free way of watch videos, there were no codecs to download, no heavy flash pages to load just fast and easy. People like easy and Color is making it easy to share photos and form social groups.

About $41 million, yes that is high but now the company can go to work instead of worrying about the next round of financing.

I am using firefox 4 beta and its almost as fast as chrome plus some extensions I can't live without are not mature enough in chrome for example pentadactyl + nosquint (hinting doesnt work well with vimium + autozoom), gmail checker (checks multiple gmail accounts), firebug and other development extensions.

You are right, if you are not hooked on some extensions chrome is a good option, my wife is a full time chrome user.

Beside having very thoughtful founders, I think US revolution succeeded because the power was not concentrated in federal government, states were more or less as powerful. Most other revolutions failed because a dictator was removed to install another dictator without any devolution of power.

I am on Teksavvy and a Netflix subscriber. I found Netflix catalog to be quite good, it may not have any blockbusters from the past few decades but it has a very good selection of indie, foreign and old movies. Netflix Canada also has good selection of tv series e.g. Mad Men, Topgear etc. Its definitely worth it for monthly price which is half the price of a movie ticket.

This is a great alternative to vimperator, just switched to pentadactyl and really like numbered hinting.

The author concluded with "because real change in the world is a rare thing, and it’s a shame that people would miss the chance to watch it unfold."

I really hope that real change happens in Tunisia, most of the revolutions even though successful in short term do not bring the real change, because people falsely assume that removing a single dictator will change the course of a country, however its only the end of the beginning.

The hard part comes next where the society as a whole has to make a concerted effort to create independent political and economic institutions which keep check on each other. Most of the time, specially in Asian and African region, this step is forgotten and the only result revolution achieves is replacement of old dictator by a new dictator.

noscript + flashblock + adblock give me a faster browsing experience too. I do disable adblock on nytimes, reddit, google and any other site which provides good content so that it keeps on getting revenue from ads.

I invest in antiques toys, watches and watch parts and some metal by buying antique silver coins and gold coins. With advent of ebay, antiques have become quite liquid. However, just as with any other investment vehicle, antiques require due diligence and knowledge of the market. I have almost doubled the investment in current year. This year's home run was three sets of Rolex Submariner 6536 watch parts sold for $6000 which were bought for $400.

My biggest loss was a Rolex Moonphase Watch I bought on ebay for $14000 last year, which turned out to be a very good fake and even confused a couple of Christies Specialists. So I learned my biggest lesson, if it is too good to be true walk away. Rolex Moonphase in Steel Case with Black Dial usually goes for > $250000 and I should have known better before paying $14000 for it.

Here is my advice on investing your money, start slow, study your market, keep a diverse portfolio, target 10-15% per year return, if you reach that you are already ahead of inflation and increasing your networth. With practice you will get better at it.

Getting good at investing takes time and effort, but its well worth it, for me antiques were a hobby which turned into good investments, for you it might be stocks, land, startups, commodities etc. But same principles apply to all of them, you have to be passionate about your investments, know your market, learn from your mistakes, never put all eggs in one basket and walk away if its too good to be true.

Its a good idea to use Keepass and Keyfox to generate different secure passwords for every site instead of using one weak password for all the sites.

I make it 6 :)

This might be slightly off topic, but I see Ryan's name in the announcement, he did a very interesting talk about "Designing with Forces: How to Apply Christopher Alexander in Everyday Work" http://vimeo.com/10875362

What a wonderful suggestion! Thank you, I have just read the first chapter and it was an eye opener.

Khan Academy on Chartbeat

http://chartbeat.com/dashboard2/?url=khanacademy.org&k=0...

This might be helpful

http://blog.iteleportmobile.com/quality-over-quantity-how-we...

There were couple of points he attributed to the success.

1) Eyecandy (he said it is 50% of the battle, on iphone people love eyecandy) 2) Getting genuine reviews on the blogs which allowed the app to go viral 3) Make an app for yourself, if it helps you getting something done and you can't live without it, others may also find it useful.

You should "tell hn" about your app and "ask hn" for some thoughts, ideas. Congratulations on shipping the app.