Elcho

It obviously can be dangerous at times but considering how many people want to be police officers this pay level seems corrupt.

This is just anecdotal but I've met far more people who want to be police officers / fireman than engineers or doctors; surely there is a large supply of eligible candidates, I can't believe that there is any shortage of capable labor to justify this almost CEO level of pay.

I like taking walks and listening to pod casts, the problem is the opposite; I'm laughing and muttering to myself as I walk along, unnerving all those elderly immigrants.

However it is a good idea to walk without ipods/mp3 players as much as you can bear, walking helps your mind wander or meditate without having to 'learn how to breathe'.

I find it hard to accept that the majority of small businesses last that long without making an operating profit, 8 years of continuous loss? What bank would accept this?

I'm referring to retail banking which is the norm outside the atypical tech start ups sector of all new entrant small businesses.

I'm assuming that a good chunk of all new businesses started are restaurants, corner stores, dentists & hair dressers etc. Surely it can't possibly be that these guys have to tough out a curve like this/face such a failure rate, which begs the question; if hairdressers can run a small business reliably then why can't a tech company aim to produce value right from the start?

You can get podcasts based on this book, from the MIT's itunes page; MIT 6.046J introduction to algorithms.

Its not quite as good as seeing it on the page but it might help if your out for a walk or in the car.

Companies rebrand/change their logo all the time, where in the article does it provide data comparing the rate of change of company names in down times vs the good times?

This is just fitting a convenient 'depression 2.0' story to some logo redesigns; if this happened two years ago, the same redesigns would be interpreted entirely differently, perhaps it would be about 'increasing market share in a more globalized world'.

But we can all see this window on the mainstream; where HN is special is finding those whom have synthezised a clearer or more thought provoking picture of the mainstream either through direct experience or a unique perspective.

I think the distinction is between hacks and hackers. They may provoke discussion and grab attention but its just the previous media's generation's form of flaming on an industrialized scale, these articles are without the kind of integrity you get from the truly engaged and first hand experience that HN is so good at fishing out.

That's a fair point, but a balance needs to be struck, at times it seems like every other article is from a large circulation newspaper or magazine and if that trend continues it could spoil HN.

Can we cool it with the New York Times articles? I've noticed more and more of these puff pieces and its lowering the tone.