antpicnic

The one tip that will really help you to code 10x faster - know when to ask for help.

How odd that HP calls these servers Project Moonshot. A moonshot used to be slang for something with a low probability of success.

In the Seattle area, we have OneBusAway. You can access it from the web, by texting, phone, and via apps for Android,iPhone, and WP7.

OneBusAway started as a graduate student project at the University of Washington.

http://onebusaway.org/

We need to encourage entrepreneurs of all ages who want to start all types of businesses.

For example, a friend of ours started a business creating fantastic pastries and desserts for restaurants. Her company will never go public. But she employs 8 or 9 people who probably never would be hired by a tech startup.

A couple of the big obstacles to starting a business need to be addressed:

1. Healthcare - our friend wouldn't have started her business if she didn't have coverage through her husband's employer. She couldn't afford the financial risk.

2. Intellectual property laws are a mess. Everyone on HN already knows about the patent fiasco, but the continual and unjustified extension of copyright law also presents an obstacle for some endeavors.

The economy has become much more dependent on service jobs. We're not very good at increasing the productivity of services jobs yet. How do you increase the productivity of a psychologist, artist, or even a server at a fancy restaurant?

When I first started programming, I used the hunt and peck method. Life was tedious.

Then I took a class called "One Hour to Touch Type" from the University of Washington's Experimental College. I actually learned the entire keyboard in about an hour. I practiced about 20 minutes per day for a month to become proficient.

The 10th most popular book at the Seattle Public Library is "I Stink!" by Jim and Kate Mcmullan. It's about garbage trucks in NYC and targets children ages 4-8.

Google needs Bing to be moderately successful to avoid an anti-trust lawsuit.

Bing is a win for Microsoft either way. If it gets about 30% market share, then Bing makes Microsoft money and forces Google to invest more in search. If even the largest software company after investing billions can't stop Google's growth in search, then Microsoft and others will claim that that Google is a monopoly. So it should be subject to anti-trust laws.

In the old days, when General Motors completely dominated the car industry, they made sure to keep their market share under 25%. They believed, probably correctly, that a higher share would bring anti-trust sanctions.

The data doesn't seem to agree with your supposition of runaway state spending. According to the Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/486.html), state and local spending as a percentage of income has trended downward since 1994. The overall state and local tax burden as a percentage of income was 10.4% in 1994 and 8.9% in 2008 (the last year shown in the table).

Having said that, I'm opposed to the initiative. WA needs fundamental tax reform including replacing the B&O tax with a value added tax as well as changes to reduce the regressivity of the state tax system. The initiative is a band-aid.

I'd like to hear Apple's side of the story. This topic has been all over the Internet today. Is the candidate just trying to get free PR?

We were in Ashland,OR for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival a few years ago. The public radio station repeatedly said they were located in "the mythical state of Jefferson".

Move to Seattle. Washington state has no income tax or capital gains tax.

Too bad they didn't match Linode's offerings. http://www.linode.com/

Medicare, not Social Security, is the primary problem. Social Security's problems can be resolved using a similar adjustment like that done in the 80's. Push out the retirement age and there is no problem.

Medicare and healthcare costs are an enormous problem. Expect a combination of tax increases, benefit cuts, and means testing. If Congress finally acts to eliminate waste, the growth in healthcare costs can be slowed.

Fine Homebuilding

WoodenBoat

I like to keep the back issues.

Everything else I either read online or get from the library.

I suggest reading the classic "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

Lesson 9: Count on the federal government bailing out the company insuring your credit default swaps. Otherwise, your "investments" will be worthless.

Seattle's Swedish hospital is offering a similar service at their Ballard Campus.

http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=2907&oTopID=1050

For some queries, Wolfram Alpha is excellent. As mentioned in other comments, Wolfram's marketing sucks not the search engine.

Like all potentially disruptive products, it meets the needs of a particular niche well, For example, try "population density" in W-A and Google. Be sure to click on the "More" links to expand W-A's results. Amazing.

Over time Google may have a problem. I'm using Twitter for real-time search, W-A where it's strong, and even using Live.com when Google doesn't return meaningful results.

The article says:

"To qualify as a small business, the corporation, when the stock is issued, may not have gross assets exceeding $50 million (including the proceeds of the newly issued stock) and may not be an S corporation."

Except they forgot to include any numbers. What good is a budget without numbers?

How can we help but go through a slow period while households and banks repair their balance sheets? Just increasing the savings rate from the current 5% in January to a more sustainable 10-14% means people will need to forgo a of consumption. I doubt the wheels will fall off completely.

You younger folks on HN have a great opportunity to save your money now and make a killing in 25 years. The stock market could lose another 30% and then move laterally for several years. But over a few decades, you might average 8% returns annually. Just remember to sell out before the great crash of 2049.

Doesn't it seem likely that MS created Silverlight so they could build web based versions of their applications that don't suck? I wouldn't be surprised to see Office 14 really blur the lines between desktop and web based software.

That being said, Microsoft will probably continue to flounder until they commit to a new BHAG.