mindviews

There is already some crowdsourcing of patent research being done like at http://www.articleonepartners.com/ which essentially offers monetary rewards for the top contributions of prior-art or whatever the particular study asks for. Granted, you don't get to pick which patents are listed to research, but I suspect this sort of bounty program greatly lowers the cost and increases the breadth of material available to patent researchers for any number of purposes. And if patents can be challenged for a reasonably small cost, that should mean more silly patents actually get challenged.

It gives you time for genuine discovery. Burn out, if you've ever experienced it, is not about exhaustion. It comes from forcing yourself in one direction so long that you forget all of the other things that are fulfilling to you. It takes time for all of those old desires to percolate up to the surface where you can recognize them now that you're no longer focused on that one thing. A month is great if you're balanced but exhausted and need a vacation since you're not trying to change your thinking habits. It just takes longer to recover from burn out because changing your state of mind is exactly the point.

Let me grab two key excerpts from the article (one from the beginning and one from the end) and reverse the order in which they appear.

> Taken individually, members of the New Elite are isolated from mainstream America as a result of lifestyle choices that are nobody's business but their own. But add them all up, and they mean that the New Elite lives in a world that doesn't intersect with mainstream America in many important ways. When the tea party says the New Elite doesn't get America, there is some truth in the accusation.

> What sets the tea party apart from other observers of the New Elite is its hostility, rooted in the charge that elites are isolated from mainstream America and ignorant about the lives of ordinary Americans.

Taken in that sense (and I believe that is the basic point of the article) there is reason to believe that a large segment of the population feels unrepresented. Probably unrespected, too. Looking at some of the early comments I can see HN-ers writing "Why should we care about X?" or "What makes X more American?" when X is characteristic of small town, rural, or blue collar America? Despite the slant the article implies, X isn't more American, but it is still American.

This is my theory: the Tea Party folks see the things that the "New Elites" care about and see "New Elite culture" on TV/etc. and in that sense have some exposure to it, but the reverse doesn't seem to be true. Those on the bottom spend more time looking up than those at the top spend looking down. And there are very few non-"New Elites" in positions of power to represent them. That's my best guess.

When people in power make decisions that can affect thousands or millions, you don't want to have a blind spot that misses how your actions will impact or be viewed by a large swath of the population. It does seem like the "New Elite" occupies many positions of power in government and society as a whole. And it looks at least plausible that the "New Elites" have a cultural blind spot for the people that now rally under a Tea Party banner. Despite some of the political slanting of the article, I think that's an important point to recognize.

Thanks - this one works for me.

Does HN have guidelines for submitting links that are behind a paywall? I ask because I don't have a WSJ account and couldn't read the linked article - then realized I can't remember the last time I got stuck at a paywall dead end on HN. I checked the guidelines and didn't see anything. Are we supposed to flag these or just leave them alone? Thanks.

I've read both "Experience and Nature" and "How We Think" and can recommend both. "How We Think" was published first and is shorter - would make for a good introduction to Dewey. "Experience and Nature" is longer and has more weight but is also more work to read. I haven't read more than excerpts from his other works so I can't add much. Otherwise, I intend to read "The Public and its Problems" which is supposed to be a good work on democracy.

Given that philosophy as practiced in academia is as much about creating arguments as about the ideas themselves, I suggest "The Philosopher's Toolkit" as a useful reference.

For what I'll call "hard philosophy" I put my votes for books by Hilary Putnam and John Dewey. As a rationalist seeking a solid basis for ethics in the physical world, I've found both authors quite instructive. Perhaps "Objectivity" by Nicholas Rescher belongs here as well.

There's a whole other class of what I call "idea books" and I've seen a few of them listed in the comments, too. Given the reading examples you mentioned, I'm assuming you're looking more at "hard philosophy" so I'll skip the other kind of suggestions unless you ask for them.

If you're willing to put in a little work learning some design principles, that will help you out enormously when it comes to deciding which logo is best for your product. Whether you buy an inexpensive one off the web or create one yourself, you'll be able to make better design decisions.

For an introduction/overview to logo design and a set of resources, check out: http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/12/02/logo-design-resourc... Especially spend some time looking at logo redesign critiques since you'll get a better feel for why a particular logo might be better or worse. Also find some examples of bad logo design - that should give you a sense of what to stay away from.

To learn how to think about logo creation, skim a bunch of the "process" and "logo design roundup" posts: http://imjustcreative.com/category/branding-identity/ If you decide to create your own, a typographic logo is probably a good place to start and there are several of the "process" samples that go into a lot of depth for that type. This is my single favorite place to learn about logo design.

And finally, for a solid overview of graphic design principles, there are a bunch of good tutorials collected here: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/web/50-totally-free-lessons... Knowing a few of the design basics will help improve everything you create (not just your logo) much more than you may realize now.

Knuth played a joke and "announced" iTeX.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=knuth

And if you're looking for a good doorway into the .NET blogging community (well, maybe it's more of a firehose):

http://www.alvinashcraft.com/

No, this looks like the Underpants Gnomes formulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(South_Park)

I'm in the same area - I'm sure between Caltech, JPL, and places like Idealab there should be some more of us around. I'll organize a local meetup if we can get a few more people - if you're from the area and interested, reply here or send me an email (in my profile).

If this really fits in the budget profile that gets approved, then it seems reasonable to me. (All of the following thoughts are dependent on that condition!)

That gives us essentially a period of time for Shuttle to overlap commercial human space-flight so we can prove the new and let it compete directly for the chance to win out over the old. The fiat switch from one system to another under the old plan simply left too many holes for doubters to poke at.

I like the idea of using Orion + unused ISS modules as the foundation for a deep space vehicle; at least we'd have some kind of ship to use when we pick a destination. I'm not convinced Shuttle-C is necessary given the current outline, but if we do build a deep space vehicle I could imagine times when launching a really big payload would be useful.

Also via NASA Watch, a great 5-min answer to what NASA means to us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQhNZENMG1o

Agreed - this also matches my anecdotal observations and much of what I've read over the last 2 years.

What I can't decide is if in the US this is more driven by a major structural change in the economy (i.e. capitalism's creative destruction) or if companies across the board were using the recession as an excuse to lay off unneeded workers due to broader productivity increases (i.e. capitalism's efficiency-rewarding) or both.

Some sectors seem to be more creative destruction (think auto companies and financial firms) while it looks to me like the broader economy responded by locking in productivity gains (eliminating unproductive positions to save costs) to give themselves enough padding to weather the downturn. Maybe the broader productivity gains were enough that the growing parts of the economy won't need to re-hire as many workers to maintain their growth rates. That means that job creation is going to have to be a lot of "new" jobs - ones in new and/or growing industries - and not just refilling the old jobs.

That's just my armchair analysis, so I'm not sure how accurate it will end up being.

Here are a few basic thoughts given some physics and geometry arguments.

First off, the ring-shadow would be seasonal. On the northern Summer Solstice, the ring-shadow would fall on the southern hemisphere to the fullest extent. Near the Equinoxes the rings would be lit mostly edge-on. (For the math types, think about the sun's angle at noon wrt the Equator over the year as a sine wave. Then change in position is the derivative of sin(x) which is just cos(x).) In short, the sun's angle changes the slowest near the Solistices and fastest nearest the Equinoxes. That means locations near the Equator should be minimally affected by a few yearly ring-shaded days while low-mid latitude locations would have a significant number of mostly ring-shaded days each year.

Given the ring width in the video, it looks like most ring-shaded locations would have at least part of the day in direct sunlight. Also, because the shaded days occur around the winter solstice, plants already in hibernation shouldn't have a problem with the lack of direct sunlight. So, temperature would probably be the main concern for life. The ring-shadow should make winter colder and start cold weather earlier in the year. I would suspect weather patterns to be affected, but I couldn't even begin to predict those sorts of changes. However, at a global scale we're talking about blocking some reasonable percentage of incoming sunlight (10% per day near the solstice maybe?) so global temperature would almost have to be lower with an impact that large.

One other note. The ring system wouldn't be stable with our moon - tidal forces would distort the ring shape until ring particles hit the atmosphere and fall out of orbit. So I'm afraid we'd have to choose one or the other. As pretty as a ring system would be, I think it would be bad for our satellites and make it that much harder to send people into space. So, my personal vote is that we keep the moon.

The exit for the 5 North from the 110 freeway is a left exit with a wicked left turn. This means that a) people unfamiliar with the area don't know to be in the left lane to make the exit and b) because of the sharp left turn, everyone has to slow down to <25mph and traffic backs up making the exit difficult to merge into if you're late getting into the lane. It's a bad interchange because that one lane can back up for a mile during rush hour. It's such a poorly designed exit that Caltrans recently added in lights to the lane divider in the pavement to signal that people cannot merge into that lane within about 1/4 mile of the exit during rush hour.

I like to use separate files for organization during development and then merge and minify for deployment. Just make sure you have an automated process because you don't want to make mistakes doing it by hand.

A reason. What's the need that isn't being met?

I think the existing industry has a lot of the basics covered - wired and wireless communication in many locations. Improvements in coverage and performance seem mostly incremental and not disruptive enough to make for a successful startup. Maybe the bulk of telecom opportunities are building on top of that infrastructure - but isn't that exactly what the internet boom has been?

I think "cooperative" might be a little closer to the idea than "generous" - has more of a sense of both parties coming out ahead. Good observations and analysis.

I bet the spike has to do with the changes in the FTC rules for robocalls. As of Sept 1st, pre-recorded calls require the telemarketers to have written consent from consumers or face a fine of up to $16,000 per call. I started hearing about this change on the news in the last week or two and I bet the spike is dominated by the "do not call" term as people are looking for more information on what kind of calls they can look forward to not getting. More info near the end of this FTC press release: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/09/twi.shtm

[Edit] Should have taken a minute to finish reading the stats and not just look at the pretty graph. ynniv looks right about the Jaycee Dugard search being included. Why that's in these stats is a mystery of the google...

Something to keep an eye on in general - a raw food diet is used and promoted in anorexia circles and can be cover for an underlying eating disorder. It can be hard on this diet to eat enough calories to be healthy. The "legitimacy" of the diet can be a way to hide an eating disorder from family and friends (when it is in fact being used to restrict calorie intake).

For Twitter (the service) I'd vote $100M to $1B.

For Twitter (the company) which could build and/or partner up with other services I'd vote $1B+. (my actual vote above)

On the flip side, a company like Get Satisfaction that is pushing for open dialog on support issues should be perfectly comfortable eating their own dog food here. 37Signals made what I believe to be a legitimate public complaint, Get Satisfaction made what I believe to be a quick and acceptable public response. I suppose the only loss here is that this wasn't handled on Get Satisfaction's own support site.

Exclusivity is necessary for a community to maintain its character. I don’t have a problem with making it clear what the HN community interests are.

Also, technical != elitist. I think the community is much more interested in maintaining its technical character than declaring itself "better". People who feel excluded should understand what HN is about and that it may not be their cup of tea. HN members should be welcoming to the folks who self-identify as technical but shouldn’t go around calling non-technical folks "idiots". Asserting the HN identity doesn’t mean degrading others’, and I think most people here understand that - please ignore those who don’t.

I think it’s smart business because when your customer base is huge you don’t know everything that will be needed ahead of time. All those people out there trying to solve problems will find the pain points and need solutions - that’s the whole point of listening to your customers. The catch is that other people may be listening to your customers as well. Thus innovation and competition.

I think Microsoft sees itself as a "platform" company, not a "product" company. In that context, it doesn’t need to be first to win - it simply needs to be the best at integrating the pieces into a cohesive unit. Platforms are for dealing with general problems and not specific ones, so individual features may get copied or innovative companies may get bought when you’re trying to build a common base that a large number of people can build on. The strategy of keeping an eye on what’s being done and incorporating the best and trying to improve on it sounds like a smart business strategy for a platform company to me.

IE would be the poster-child for leveraging the OS. The products that leverage the OS seem to be the free ones, now - so I guess that hits a price/performance sweet spot. What else is there besides IE that falls in this category? Media Player, maybe. But even though it's free and the default on windows, everyone I know has at least one other media player they use regularly (e.g., iTunes). IIS? Personally, I think IIS is quite good and can stand on its own merit. Sharepoint? I still don't understand its popularity in the corporate world, but you can't really claim it's leveraging the OS - maybe it's leveraging SQL Server?

Products that stand on their own merit: MS Office (though PowerPoint looks like the one most in danger of being passed), XBox (it's not #1, but it's clearly competitive), Visual Studio (destroyed the competition)

To me, it looks like Microsoft's winners by and large win by delivering a quality product, not being bundled with Windows.

Didn't look like he pointed out any bugs - but that's not really the main point of a code review. It's all well and good for the compiler to understand the code and have it execute properly, but is it human-readable? Or maintainable? Having looked at the source file, I'd say that particular method is neither.

> So, Why would anyone go for asp.net?

The .NET development environment.

Visual Studio is dead simple to install and use. Add-ins have been easy to install, too. (I'm looking at you, Eclipse!) The .NET Framework has great breadth and depth. It integrates well with MS SQL Server. There are plenty of quality 3rd party tools/libraries that work with the stack. API documentation is easy to get to. Building install packages is a snap. Visual designers can make building/understanding components or the database schema easier. Code generation from the designers can fill in boiler-plate stuff yet still leave it visible if you need to dig around in there by hand.

As for ASP.NET WebForms (which is the sample you've given), it was meant to make it easier for Windows Forms developers to do web page design. WebForms imitates the WinForms structure and calling conventions, so you can make a working web page act more like a desktop app in terms of the programming model. Obviously, you run into limitations rather quickly because the WebForms abstraction is very leaky.

ASP.NET MVC would be a good pick for new projects if you are already an experienced web developer. You get all the benefits of the .NET stack without the limitations of WebForms. You get control over the markup that gets generated and it does a good job with separation of concerns. I recommend.

Yes, the launch is the real cost driver for space economics. Launch costs alone are in the neighborhood of $10,000/kg for large American providers and somewhat less in other providers/countries. I believe no one has come close to the $1,000/kg mark yet.

Because launch is so expensive, people then spend a lot more money making sure the payloads are ultra-reliable (launching a replacement is just too expensive). Because costs are so high, there isn't enough business to really get good economies of scale (yet...go SpaceX!) - so a lot of money goes into design and testing of new rockets that will only see 10-100 units built.

As for launch itself, fuel is pretty cheap - turbopumps are expensive. It is the high-precision machining of parts that ends up costing you. If you can reuse the hardware, then you get savings for future launches and everyone is happy.

I know of some folks in NYC who do this for a living - they use trained dogs to scare flocks of geese away from parks, courtyards, etc. Mostly for "aesthetic" reasons (read: geese poop a lot). I'm not sure how long the geese stay away after, though. In any event, it's full time work and they get to play with dogs all day. Not bad, eh?