skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The original paper by Hyde and Mertz can be found at http://tctvideo.madison.com/uw/gender.pdf . In it, the authors reference data from the Program for International Student Assessment as their primary evidence in attempting to discredit the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis (apart from their discussion of differing degrees of female membership on IMO teams). Careful examination of the 2006 PISA data, however, indicates a positive correlation between variance ratio and mean performance amongst OECD countries with above average performance (selected to control for availability of educational resources, and overall social stigma against mathematics). This suggests that countries which have taken action to reduce Variance Ratio in order to equalize educational outcomes have also reduced overall mean outcomes.

In other words, countries which have successfully suppressed greater male variance (if it is inherent) or have through cultural engineering increased apparent female variance, have done so at the cost of reducing mean outcome.

It is worth noting, however, that this result was achieved by looking at countries that were assumed to already have adequate educational resources, and have already achieved above average mean outcomes--presumably through some sort of cultural emphasis on the value of mathematics. Both of these effects appear greater than that of suppression of male variability.
Escheatment may not be new, but this is certainly a poor application. Abandoned money in banks probably dwarfs that of calling card remainders. Claiming a few hundred dollars (or more) from a bank account is a good use of my time. Claiming $1.03 from my calling card is not a good use of my time.

How exactly will D.C. redistribute the pre-purchased minutes to their rightful owners? My guess is they wont, which is why calling it a cash grab is appropriate.
It's not a definitional matter. You can't have a right if nobody is obligated to honor it. Someone can walk up to you and say you have the right to free speech, but if in fact you say something the government doesn't like, you get tossed in jail, and nobody defends you, including the government, then you don't have the right to free speech, no matter how much you are told you do.

Mistaking being told you have rights for actually having rights is extraordinarily dangerous. An amazing number of so-called "rights" enshrined in Constitutions around the world are of this nature, and it's both sad and funny when somebody waves around, say, the Chinese constitution [1] and claims that it actually means that the Chinese have free speech (article 35) or freedom of religious belief (article 36), both of which are transparently false. People have died or been imprisoned for life for making that mistake. You may have the "right", but nobody has the obligations... so you in fact do not have the right. Just words.

(One of the great innovations of the Anglo-Saxon legal system was not just saying the word "right", but taking it seriously. Many countries around the world have learned how to say the word "right", far fewer have actually discovered how to follow up on it.)

[1] http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/constitution/constitution.... - in fact this entire document is a steaming pile of bullshit rights that don't actually exist.
Perhaps 'understandable' rather than 'forgivable' in the financial sense?

People are less likely to question why you have thousands of dollars of debt if it's for something obvious, like your mortgage for your house or your undergraduate degree.
Unsecured Business Loans - EZUnsecured.com 
I found this Company on Google when I searched for Unsecured Financing and they were # 1, so I checked it out and applied online. I thought they did made their money on the back-end from the Lenders but they explained that was not the case with Unsecured Loans, so I ended up agreeing to pay them 8% of the Financing the got me. It took about 3 weeks to see Results but they got me a $25,000 Approval at 12% Interest - 7 Years Amortization from a Bank I had never heard of. They also got me a Credit Card with a $15,000 Limit on it which came in handy as well. So, I liked it and that was exactly what I needed to get my Business where I wanted it. If you want more reviews on them, they are on the YellowPages and you can look here: http://www.switchboard.com/reno-nv/ezunsecuredcom-2126120413. I recommend them - Give it a shot if you need money.
To expand on the first part: with something up front saying "this key is signed using system FOO", you'll be able to support multiple systems in the future. This means that you'll be able to handle multiple systems (and upgrades) easily.
(Disclaimer: Read this when it came out, haven't re-RTFA.)

Sad, but accurate. On one hand, some humanities academics are directly responsible for this; the attitude of many academicians that research was the "real work" and teaching was just commoditized grunt work ended up hosing the humanities. Physicists can afford to cop that attitude, because if they're great researchers the university will put up with poor/no teaching, but those in the humanities can't, because the transfer of culture to rising generations (e.g. education) is the raison d'etre of humanities departments.

On the other hand, the corporatization of the university and research world in general has been an unmitigated disaster, and it'd be better for all of us if the trend reversed.
It will be interesting to see if anyone has their identity stolen as an indirect consequence of this decision.
Indeed. But we can see that Japan is already working all the tiles in its BFC and has been for some time, which explains why it's not growing any more.
You can get some of the PISA mathematics test questions (on which Hyde & Mertz variance ratio claims are based) from the 2006 PISA at http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/14/10/38709418.pdf [pdf]. A cursory examination of these questions makes your claim appear accurate.
the problem with the @mention box is that it doesn't tell you when you have a mention. So new users won't even know that it exists.

The whole point is that there is just too much of a learning curve with twitter for regular people. Unless you start actively using twitter, you have no incentive to learn it.
How a Personal Trainer Can Help You Reach Your Fitness Goals
'webcams' specifically

That's my staple test for any search engine because I know the top 40 results for google almost by heart.
I was positively surprised by this article. Much better than I anticipated...

It's good to remind myself that in social gatherings what matters is not what is being discussed, but rather how it is being discussed. I used to hate small-talk because I thought I learned nothing while doing it, but then I realized that small-talk is not an exchange of verbal information, but rather a way to categorize and label strangers, and to find common ground that may lead to less superficial discussion. Once I figured that out, small-talk became a challenge: if you know the rules of the game, you can play it to your advantage.
A good summary seems to be "Just keep your mouth shut." And I don't think that is very good advice. It's not much different than avoiding all social gatherings altogether.
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1030348

The other submission already has comments.

I think this is yet another case that my suggested duplication detector would have found automatically:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012215
Anyone sell stuff on ebay? I have an app idea.
I've got a really simple app I'm building for my wife, as she's starting to sell stuff. I was wondering if anyone here sells stuff regularly, and has active listings. My idea is really simple, it's a quick dashboard of your items with a place to comment and share on twitter and facebook. You can use the dashboard to check in on your items, as well as link to from your postings ("see my other auctions"). I have a prototype working, which I'm happy to share. Could this be an affiliate business? Anyone interested in kicking this idea around?
What about graduate school in computer science? Surely a Ph.D. in CS would have fallback options at places like Google or Microsoft where their graduate work won't have been wasted?
I think that is a fake too; I dont believe they have a flag.
Elliott Bisnow brings other young entrepreneurs together in Summit Series
How is it not still a net win? The automated systems fail a lot less often than humans. Even if they can't get the failure rate to 0%, it is still making things safer to replace humans by robots.
Burj Dubai is now Burj Khalifa (Tallest Building in the world)
3 Tips to Help You Finally Figure Out How to Lose Belly Fat Once and For All
and http://runthere.com/
This should be called: "How to still get invited to a few parties without enjoying them, but at least knowing you're not going to make a total ass out of yourself."

Not that I've figured it all out or anything, but I'm sure tips like learning to control your body, voice and emotional state, listening intently and making sure that the insightful analysis of our everyday world you can provide will actually enrich people's lives would be far better advice.
A lot of highly trained, unemployed talent pool of people available for teaching pretty much any humanities subject. Over priced tuition to be taught by a grad student or adjunct anyway.

The situation is looking very ripe for a disruptive business model offering the same quality of education online for a much lower price.
Being awkward and being geeky is not the same thing. Talking about what you enjoy is not awkward. Talking down to people who don't follow your field of interest is offensive and silly. Telling people about your passion -- if they ask -- is not a bad thing. Sometimes you are forced into situations where you must "play some social game," but even in those situations, being yourself is usually a better strategy.

Sometimes socializing is a weird prisoners dilemma -- but with many repeated trials.
If You're Typing The Letters A-E-S Into Your Code, You're Doing It Wrong
Mars images reveal evidence of ancient lakes
There are "sniffer" devices that can detect the minutest traces of target chemicals. Parts-per-million or parts-per-billion detectors are no longer unusual. http://www.officer.com/web/online/Investigation/Sniffer-Devi...
Most of the technical PhDs do just fine. There are too many biology PhDs though.
You aren't paying for the knowledge but the brand name on your resume. One student's fees alone probably covers two TAs salaries...
Link to the actual article http://us.mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/AnyArticle/p.rdt?URL=h...
This is the perfect example of why I will continue to hedge my bets on permissively-licensed open source (X/MIT/BSD).

Postgres and SQL are great products and should fill any gaps should you consider switching from MySQL (or Oracle).
Yeah, but that comes with its own costs, e.g. some of the Dreamliner's delays are due to coordination problems with the many subcontractors who are making much more of this plane than has previously been the pattern with Boeing.

That's only a part, the new type of construction (composites), at least at this scale, is a factor as well.

But there's no denying that adding communications costs hurts a lot in big (well, any size of) projects. And if your history supposition is correct, why did the smaller companies combine?
Arthur Dent: I wonder what'll happen if I press this button.

Ford Prefect: Don't.

Arthur Dent: [presses it] Oh.

Ford Prefect: What happened?

Arthur Dent: A sign lit up saying "Please do not press this button again."
While they explained audio compression well enough, they really botched the explanation of uncompressed PCM and MP3, and failed to mention 24-bit/192khz at all. The result is that one means of information compression used in MP3 (masking) is posited as an improvement over uncompressed PCM. Here's a quick summary of why your music sounds like crap tho:

reality -> microphone -> pre-amp -> digital conversion -> mixing -> mastering -> compression -- MP3 -- decompression -> analog conversion -> EQ and/or "enhancement" -> amp -> headphones -> ear

Every single arrow is a loss of quality. The studio makes sure that everything from reality to mixing uses the best equipment. Then they purposely butcher the quality to make it "pop". Next is where you muck it up based on the format you buy. MP3 has terrible detail reproduction (most obvious in cymbals), CD is okay and by far the most common, and DVD-audio is best but rare (vinyl is the most rare, and comparison with digital audio is complicated). Then, shoddy MP3 decompression aside, most consumers elect to reproduce their music using underpowered amplifiers and cheap headphones or cheaper speakers.

So, half of it is the studio's fault, and half is yours. I bet most people don't even notice that an iPod has better analog sound reproduction than any computer. But the studio's errors are more damaging, because there is nothing we can do about them. No matter how much you learn to love your music, or how much equipment you buy, you can never undo the one step in which they destroy the quality of the product.
1. Recognize that people will know you are a geek from the moment they meet you

Assume nothing. If you're not sure about something, ask. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt at least once.

2. Don't try to change people's preconceived notions of geeks

Don't try to change anything about anyone else. Just be yourself and engage them.

3. Don't get too comfortable and start being yourself

Always be yourself. Who else are you going to be? And who is going to be you?

4. Try to talk as little as possible, and when you do speak, only ask superficial questions

Take advantage of this excellent opportunity to engage with other people. Learning is maximized for everyone when all talk and listen.

5. But don't ask questions about things that normal people should know

How else would you know what's "normal" unless you ask?

6. Temporarily let go of the urge to achieve absolute precision in speaking

Sometimes absolute precision is exactly what's needed to improve communication. The trick is to know when. Learning when comes from practice.

7. Don't correct anyone even when they're incorrect or imprecise

Again, the trick is in judging context, which comes from practice. If they said they did something a million times, obviously no correction is needed. If they're giving instructions on defusing a live bomb, then you better correct them.

8. Don't use words that an 8th grader doesn't understand

Again, how would you know? Be yourself, say what you mean, and learn from the feedback.

9. If somebody asks you about your job or hobbies, answer in one sentence

Answer in as many sentences as you deem appropriate. You're probably a pretty smart person. Exercise you judgement, which will become stronger just as if you exercised your biceps.

10. If everyone around is enjoying the ambient music, background live performance, etc., don't jump in with any analysis

Why not? Sometimes the most interesting conversations get started this way. Again, your judgement is way more important than OP's rules.

11. Never start a sentence with "Did you know that ..."

Sames as #10.

12. Never start a sentence with "You should really ..."

Probably better stated as, "Only give advice when it's asked for."

I'd prefer this simple list of social tips:

1. Be yourself. Being rejected by someone else for being yourself is a self-correcting problem. They just saved both of you lots of time and energy.

2. Treat others how you'd like to be treated.

3. If you spend lots of time alone, take advantage of an opportunity to be with others by engaging and learning.

4. Use your best judgement (That's what it's there for.)

5. Have fun.

6. Take any list of rules with the word "actionable" with a grain of salt.
Keeping one's mouth shut is actually great advice! The less one says, the less one has the chance to screw up. Is this the same as avoiding social gatherings? I don't think so. You can keep your mouth shut and cause good impression by being a good listener.

Let's face it: most people like to talk more than they like to listen. While at a social event, you can quickly study the people you're talking to, try to figure what motivates them, and then ask carefully-thought questions that will make them talk for hours. You don't need to pay attention to what they say, you merely need to give the impression that you do. Listening enough so you can ask more questions is always a good idea. If you keep a good posture and obey the rules of etiquette, you can go through a party without talking at all, and people will perceive you as a polite person, a good listener, a gentleman.

Most social gatherings are work, they're not supposed to be fun. They're not meant to be relaxing. Stay frosty and don't be yourself under any circumstances.
There's two points in this article

1) Your req can disappear

2) Your candidate can disappear

The latter has nothing to do with big company vs. little company. The former may be somewhat more of an issue in the face of large company politics, but startups and small companies have hiring freezes and shifting priorities as well.
I am a proud member of the doing-it-wrong society.
But to be fair, this is a really tiny subset. It's really more correct to call it an augmented infix expression parser. There's no symbol table -- there are 26 fixed variables named 'a' through 'z', and no arrays/pointers nor other way of doing indirection, so 26 values is all you get. And there are no functions, so no recursion. So it's not even turing complete.

It is, however, a pretty neat hack if you're interested in the essence of how a parser and code generator works. This kind of thing isn't nearly as complicated as a lot of people assume, and this is a fun existence proof of that fact.
You're assuming that in-class education is the most significant thing gained out of college experience. Not necessarily true.

I am doing communications degree(easiest on campus). And you are right, if all I gained from it was material from my COMM classes, it would be pretty crap. But I each semester, at least 50% of my classes are in topics I am really interested in at the b-school.

Personally I like doing my communications degree because I can easily get the degree part of it taken care of and then nitpick classes all over the places that interest me. I came into school hoping to goto b-school. But the intro classes and the prerequisites at the b-school are so exhaustive and boring I gave up.

You might argue I am a special case. Probably. But here's one way you can make humanities work in your favor. They give you the much-hyped "college degree" and they let you pursue your other passions. For example, my COMM classes are full of basketball players:)
Developer goes into details ($, process) about his app "Lose It or Lose It"
There are actually two third-party plugins for Excel that let you use IronPython for scripting to some degree: DiscoveryScript at http://www.xefion.com/getting_started_diss.html and PyXLL at http://www.pyxll.com/ -- I don't use either, though, so I can't comment on how good they are.

(BTW thanks for the kind words about Resolver One -- that's my day job :-)
I hope so ! I'm still pondering whether to do a Ph.D. or not myself. Almost done with M.Sc...
In my own opinion, I do really think there would still be terrorists in this world, even if everyone had enough food to eat, medical care and lived in a free society.

A significant part of terrorism is based on an imbalance of power, where one group exploits another or merely when one group feels significantly slighted or oppressed by another group.

That is why, I believe, that these educated people become radicals after their western education. They see a huge power imbalance that marginalizes them and their culture. They see a culture and history that conspires against their way of life, where the entrenched powers exploit every possible avenue to stay on top, some times at the cost of other players

Theses terrorists strike out not because they lack for food, medical care or freedom, but because they identify with a group that has been oppressed or subjected to the whims of another power to which they don't identify or resent. It is especially effective if that other power conceptually conspires against their preferred way of life.

In other words, your measures would merely raise the standard of living, but would not eradicate the power differences that give rise to the fundamental fuel of terrorism. I would agree that it would reduce the incidence of terrorism overall, as it would become harder to find martyrs, but it would not eradicate the phenomena.
Exactly. Universities sell credentials, not knowledge. If universities actually did sell knowledge, they would have been put out of business by public libraries long ago.
I wouldn't push any definition too far on this point because the lines tend to blur all too quickly.

I think what I reacted to in the original post was the assumption that, in the whole universe of startup activity, only companies going for broke with industry-changing ideas can be called startups. This would mean that the only startups worthy of the name are those funded by VCs and this simply is not the case.

In addition, even if you as a founder go for VC funding, you need to understand the potential range of exits realistically available to your company because this affects how hard you want to push for a high valuation, etc. (e.g., if you push for a $60M valuation in, say, a B round, and the VCs routinely expect a 10x return, then you had better be prepared to build a more "strategic" company and to take the risks associated with it if your realistic exit path at that point will be $600M given the expectations of the VCs - maybe better in such a case not to push for the ultimate valuation to give your company more flexibility in how much it needs to scale before shooting for an exit - there is a big difference between a startup shooting to be a niche-market player versus one that wants to shake up an entire industry, and this distinction affects how its strategic goals are defined, who will manage it, and many other issues - founders need to keep such distinctions in mind as part of their strategic thinking about their companies and not just blindly go for broke).
It's not a matter of the general attitude of academics, it's criterion imposed by the institution - as the article says, it's an incredibly competitive world. Humanities must work extremely hard to achieve the requirement for tenure. A lot of them know quite well that teaching gets slighted in this process but simply don't have the time to do everything.

If by "some humanities academics", you mean the deans and heads of departments, you might be right but otherwise you're blaming the soldiers for the large-scale situation.
You're not one of the boys until you're one of the boys