skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's not that awesome when you remember that correlation does not necessarily equal causation.
Googlle Opens A School In India. Wait. Read That Name Again.
It is unquestionably the future
it's because the y axis is linear ... i don't sense any overdoing
I was not saying anything about your actual beliefs; I was talking about what your brief, context-free zinger seems to convey. Without further explanation, most people assume you're a troll; more explanation on your part would have at least prevented people like me from misunderstanding.
Bear in mind that HTML wasn't intended to do any of this.

You say it has a "long way to go", but the fact that you're even comparing web apps to desktop apps without talking about ActiveX or Java applets (as we did 10-13 years ago) is a sign that open standard HTML/CSS/JS has come a very long way. Given the challenges of developing cross-platform standards compared to proprietary or platform-specific APIs, I'm personally amazed that any of this stuff works.
When To Rewrite
The businessmodel was based on overtaxed SMS services. You'd be able to sign up for updates about parties, where your friends were, etc. and each SMS would cost around 20 cents. What made this work well was the fact that the overtaxed SMS is initiated by the server meaning that users that are signed up can receive a SMS and the 20 cents are immediately drawn from their mobile account. We had a a system set up so that people had to not only opt-in, but also accept a SMS when they signed up for this so that they wouldn't feel cheated. We had other things such as a monthly maximum, etc. set up to make sure everyone was OK with it.

As you'll quickly realise the fact that overtaxed SMS services are initiated from the server can be misused - get a bunch of random phone numbers and send them all a SMS that costs $10. Someone did this, and the law was quickly changed so that a load of back-and-forth SMS'es were required to make the payment go through. Since each SMS costs money to send it ended up actually costing money to have this service running.
I didn't have the descriptor files because it wasn't an officially supported API. And that happens, lots! Often times people aren't interested in nailing down their API enough to 'officially' publish an interface.. XML makes it easy for you to use it anyways.

Parsing XML doesn't include lots and lots of code, at least not for me. As I said, the amount of code to parse a Proto built class into my own datastructure is almost identical to me doing it from a DOM tree save for some type conversion.

The other plus is that proto buffers involve firing up those tools and incorporating them into your project. How often do you just want something really simple, say the current temp in a zip code? That's a few lines of code to pull out via XML, without the trouble of pulling down the proto buffer definition, building the classes for your language etc..
the graph gives an important ratio that's hard to capture in scatter plot

age/cost (the slope)

also, how do you identify your datapoints in scatter-plot neatly?

to me this graph gives surprisingly rich information packed
Hilbert’s Second Problem, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems...
China seizes 8,500 tonnes of smuggled waste tires from U.S.
James, if you are using supervisord for managing backends, you could take servers out of rotation with help of (shamelessly advertised) ngx_supervisord+upstream_fair combo.

Side-channel for changing upstreams on the fly (with no entires in nginx configuration) is on the roadmap for ngx_supervisord-2.0, but sadly I don't see this happening in the foreseeable future...

Also, could you explain what do you mean by non-trivial health checks?
The original post mentions "overtaxed" SMS messages, so maybe their model involved some kind of money transfers between users. This could have been rendered illegal as a side effect of legislation that attempted to limit text message lending.

(SMS loans may not be familiar to Americans. They're a widespread and very profitable business in some European countries, and there have been attempts to curtail them through legislation due to perceived ethical concerns. The idea is that you can get a loan by sending a text message, and the money is transferred directly to your account -- great when you run out of money while drinking on the town... The fees are extremely high compared to any other kind of loan, of course.)

Edit -- my guess was wrong :) The original poster provided the details.
I hope HTML5's spec decided on a clean, simple date format that is easy to type.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3339#section-5.6
they should use stunnel modified to work with x-forward headers instead of nginx. nginx adds little benefit if you're only using it for the ssl part of request handling.
The world doesn't need an Apple tablet, or any other
In support of your point, we should remember that HTML was originally envisioned as document markup. Now that the web is not really comprised of documents but applications, HTML is changing to represent this. Non-HTML solutions have to lead the standardization process so that the standards committee knows what to standardize. We didn't know ten years ago that it would even make sense to put some of this stuff into HTML.
They have a text format if someone chooses to share it with you. Saying that protocol buffers have a text format makes about as much sense as saying XML has a binary format. Both are true, but it misses the point.

You can get pedantic about needing a spec for everything, but the web isn't really built that way. Do you really track down the full docs for every API you interact with? Say you are just pulling down some information from tumblr via their API or the like? Probably not.. you just throw it in a browser a few times, pull out the fields you need and get on with it. XML lets you do that, quickly and easily and most of the time will work just fine forever more. XML is great for the same reasons HTML is great. It is fast and loose and lets you so easily introspect APIs that you can get your work done quickly.
One would notice a much wider gap if international languages are considered. A query for myself in Indian National language returns 228K results on Google, 5K results on Bing, No results on Cuil and Yahoo is too ashamed to tell me the count.

Google clearly is gold mining the long tail.
Well in any case, it my point still stands. They overcharge for insurance. In the end someone still has to pay that extra amount.
Perhaps, but this administrative overhead would likely be existent with a public option too.
Agreed. Here's the same data in a scatter plot (second chart down). Far, far easier to grasp.

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009...
I've always heard the statistic that religious people giving more

The statistic they showed was religious people being more likely to give at all: this doesn't say anything about how much they give, or the distribution of giving.

It's dangerous to extrapolate too much from limited data.
of the three countries that have highest (and surprisingly parallel) slope: japan, south kore, mexico ... it suggests that #visit correlates with LE ... and health coverage is unimportant

but there are countries that have less #visit but more expensive (it suggests patients go to doctor not only for consultation) ... so #visit is an unreliable predictor so is cost

to me it seems the most predictive is location (yes, the country names are data points too) ... if i want to live long, i'll settle in japan and do what the average japanese for their healthy lifestyle
Momentum and The Web
Couldn't agree more and it's a point a lot of people are hush-huse about because it's easier to point the finger at the system than poor personal habits.

just a small sample... http://grab.by/1v6n
I recommend reading this, incidentally by the same author: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/11/02/why-do-we-have-a...

It won't answer your question, but it will give you insight into the messy way the web evolves, which is about the closest thing to an answer you'll ever get.
That's exactly what I was looking for; thanks!
I don't understand your first point; the relationship between two variables is more clear to me from a scatter plot. And that's something else that bothers me about the graph: when I look at a graph with lines, I expect to see trends. But the lines in this graph are actually single data points.

We're on the web, so it would be neat to be able to use the mouse to hover over data points to see labels.
I already read around 300-400 words per minute most of the time, with a maximum speed of around 1000 words per minute. The barrier here is comprehension, not the speed with which we can read words on the screen. Plus, when I'm reading words normally, it's easier for me to adjust my reading rate when I miss a word or need to think more about a particular part of the text before going on. I just don't see the appeal of scrolling text past a fixed point at "high" speed.
About point 3, teh shortage of doctors is not strictly a US thing. I know in Canada doctors often migrate to the US for a better pay, putting pressure on salaries.

Point 1 is not really different in many other countries.
1) no way, my data certainly won't.

2) Android and Iphone will take a larger marketshare, but RIM will come back with a much revamped blackberry, and microsoft will re-do their windows mobile and this time they might even get it right.

3) facebook will die and will be replaced by the next fad

4) 3D displays are a lot harder than it seems, those that you can buy right now are all seriously inferior to people used to Hi-Def and 3D doesn't offer that much more of a user experience unless the user is completely free to go around the display.

5) is probably spot on

6) I don't think so, but what will happen is that people will be a lot more careful. 1987 to 2009 took 22 years, I think the next economic crash is a little further out, but eventually it will happen. All that it takes for that is to wait long enough, eventually people forget the previous one.

7) is pretty US centric, if you want a fixed health care system tomorrow move to Europe, Cuba or Colombia.

8) There is no drug war, that's just a figment of some peoples imaginations.

9) The energy solutions will immediately be offset by an increase in consumption by the developing world, I figure the energy-almost-crisis will be here for at least another 50 years. The only thing that will solve the energy crisis is cheap, pollution free fusion power. That will take a while.

10) The internet will force transparency on to politicians at a level that they are not used to and might actually bring something good, but the evolution of politics in America starts with making it a real democracy first, until then the two party system will rule. The day there is a 'coalition' government in the USA will be the day that there is a real possibility of change, instead of just 'lipservice' change.
Wholesale UGG Nightfall
If you are employed but your employer does not offer insurance, ask if they would pay for an individual plan out of payroll withholding. I've done this and it lets you buy insurance pre-tax even if your employer does not have a plan. This is a significant savings.
TLDR;

Armchair quarterbacks always like to take up either the pro or con side of potential new trends and products. They all operate on blind speculation and random presumptions based on their own limited views (or fanboyisms).

Apple may or may not release a tablet-type device. It may or may not be a PC or an uber-iPod touch. It may succeed or fail. NOBODY KNOWS.
Try a lost three decades. Real median household income hasn't increased since the 70s.

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/family_a.htm
2. Android and iPhone kill off all the other mobile phone platforms. Android will be bigger (it will run on all of the "free" cell phones), but iPhone will still be "cooler", and will work more seamlessly with Apple's tablet computer.

This is more of a 2012 prediction than it is a 2020 prediction. Mobile technology is evolving so quickly, and there are so many potential competitors (not just Google, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia), that there is no way to know what systems will power 2020's mobile devices.
5. One mutated gene is the reason humans have language, and chimpanzees, our closest relative, do not. Overstated? Seems unlikely to be just one gene. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/282009

12. Scientists have discovered how to scan brain activity and convert what people are seeing or remembering into crude video images. Really? Including what people are remembering? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/living/article...
This is solid.
Thank you. As I suspected, I can immediately read the scatter plot. And the correlation that I wondered about is indeed there.
What they charge your insurance, and what your insurance actually pays them, are often wildly different numbers.
good 2nd calls, except 6) ... 1987 was a bit technical actually, while we had 1998 (asia), 2000-2001 (dotcom/tech), and with those US twin decifits (currency/government) still out of whack, it won't take long for the next one. We only patched things very superficially.
I certainly see something like number 1 happening much sooner than later. I actually think something that works like dropbox could achieve this. Keep a copy locally on my machine, but have it all sync'd and stored online. There wasn't really a need for this 10 years ago. We pretty much had one computer. Now we have many, and the number will only grow larger. Mobile phone, kindle, tablet, game console, netbook, desktop pc,etc. are all computers. Someone needs to create something so all of these devices can be in sync/talk to each other. I envision a day where any system I buy or log in to can access the same settings, files, etc. instantly.
Arrington takes Steven Frischling to task for "caving." Yet Frischling's own attorney advised him that he had no legal basis for hiding his source.

I imagine that Arrington's own attorney would advise him essentially the same way. I assume that Arrington and his company would comply with all other types of subpoenas; assuming similar legal advice in a similar situation it's hard to see why he would refuse to comply with this particular type of subpoena.

Bloggers may look like journalists to many of us, and many bloggers may feel like journalists, but at least at present, as I understand it, bloggers are not journalists in the eyes of the court. Bloggers are merely average Joes with no special status. That should probably change, but we're far from there yet.

Essentially, Arrington is blaming the victim. I suppose Frischling should have worn a more modest constitutional dress if he didn't want to be raped by the TSA. And yes, I consider threatening someone with the loss of their job to be rape-like, and certainly far outside the bounds of professional law enforcement conduct.

By the way, Chris Elliot, the other threatened blogger, wrote a very classy thank you to all the people who helped him through the episode. He has nothing but good words for Steven Frischling, and for the professional conduct of the DHS agent who served the subpoena.

http://www.elliott.org/blog/to-the-team-of-friends-allies-an...
This is like when our brain remembers something but cannot recall it, unless reminded of something similar in either structural or superficial features.

Maybe Google (or other search engines) could improve its 'similar pages' functionality by emulating some of the ways brains recall things.
If I were in the Bay, I would definitely audit http://courses.haas.berkeley.edu/descriptions/Descriptions/M...
> Do you have data on the number of people who die because the FDA has not approved a drug that may save their life?

That question wasn't directed at me, but finding out some data wouldn't be too difficult - you'd look up what life saving medicines had come to market since the stricter FDA regulations were enacted, what year the medicine entered trials, how many people died while they were in FDA trials before release. You could come up with some rough numbers for that, but the FDA doesn't post any information on added costs and deaths during trial periods. Obviously the safety trials save some lives, but the efficacy standard the FDA has is extremely high and adds millions and years to costs.

> I would be more comfortable with point 4 if we once again banned prescription drug advertisements.

The tough question is for drugs that people not be aware there's solutions for - erectile dysfunction, for instance. A lot of men just assumed that was something you had to live with when you got older before Viagra came out. Advertising for Viagra was probably a win for everyone involved - it educated doctors and patients that it's available, and obviously men and their partners were quite happy with its effects.

So some advertising definitely has positive benefits, but I see what you're getting at with snake oil claims if the FDA isn't as strict about playing gatekeeper. Something to think more about.
3) I think facebook is here to stay. Whether it lasts through time to be google status is yet to be seen, but I really think it could be. It's interesting hearing paul's predictions as he saw google become GOOGLE.
Ask HN: What do you think about this idea?
Reading an essay from PG, the phrase "Make things that save money" made me think about what a startup could do in order to save people money. I made a list of common things in which people spends money: food, transport, technology...

About food and groceries, how I could save money?. If I buy food with a lot of other people in a wholesale supermarket(I don't know if it's the correct name) I could save some money.

So, my idea is to become an intermediate between clients and the store. Through a web the clients buy what they need(with a minimun of $X), and when it reaches a certain quantity I contact the store and buy the groceries.

What do you think about it?, I'm into something or the idea sucks because x?.
Graphs are abused.

Graphs are meant to present data clearly and concisely. The most clear and concise presentation method should be used. If it is not, there are reasons to be skeptical.

This graph is not the best presentation imaginable; it's not even mediocre. It is meant to appeal visually to those who already have reached the conclusions it is meant to illicit; it is graph porn.

Health care spending and quality is very complex. What about adjusting for relative wealth (not merely the health care spending share of GDP), lifestyles, racial composition (if I am correct, there are biological differences in addition to the obvious socio-economic ones), preferences (how much would you spend for an extra month), etc. Asking questions like why other countries spend less on drugs (does the U.S. subsidize medical research by spending more or is it merely the one that allows rent seeking or both?)

After doing so, I believe you will still find evidence suggesting that the U.S. system spends more than it should and there can be clearly identified inefficiencies. That is the distilled information that is interesting -- not the merely manipulative.
The slope of the line is an artifact of the visualization choice.
Project Stack Push/Pop
Are you totally crazy? point 1 = end of privacy, freedom and sanity which is why we must pray that it will never, ever happen.
That's true, but I think the current one will have much longer term effects in terms of banking reforms and that's what hopefully will stave off the next one for a long time.
I for one am waiting for an affordable SSD based system for my next laptop. (Running ubuntu)
Google is a business essential service. If facebook would go down it would be an inconvenience but the world will continue.

Google has literally become mission critical for millions of people doing their everyday job from doctors to scientists. Someone should make a little program to track how many google searches you do on a daily basis, that would be a really interesting bit of knowledge.
I don't think 2007-2012 crash/depression has ended yet.
Exactly. To put all our data in the hands of untrusted and not-beholden third parties is really asking for trouble at a level that is hard to even comprehend.

Anyway, the first major cloud dataloss will put an end to that one. And that's only a matter of time.
Wooden Combination Lock
The article is comaring FreeBSD to Linux in general (not BSD-in-general vs Linux-in-general as I had thought from the title).
See how little difference that "warmup" makes for these tiny programs - with the obvious exception of the binary-trees program -

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/help.php#java
It's not about showing correlation. It's about showing that we're not getting what we're paying for.
Google Nexus One Hands On (with Video)
Search is essential. If Google went down, people would start using Bing or Yahoo, and would be fine.
Poll: How many google searches do you do each day?
After a thread somewhere else on HN this question seems worth asking. The reason why is that I think that google has gone from 'a good improvement' to 'very important' to 'a must'. (of course there's bing now as well, so let's include that).
- I use google
- I use bing
- I use another search engine for primary search needs
- 0-10
- 11-30
- 31-50
- 50-100
- 100+
He makes a good point though about it being an 'in-between' device. If it's less than a laptop and more than an ipod and iphone does that mean people will carry another device or are they going to make choices ?
1. Predicting that it will happen isn't the same as saying that it's a good thing.

2. Even if it does happen, that doesn't mean everybody would be forced to use it. If you don't want to put your data on Dropbox you don't have to.

3. From a technical perspective, isn't it premature to conclude that hosting all our data means the end of privacy? For example, I can host all my data on my own server and connect all my devices to it without compromising my privacy. I am sure smart people are working on other solutions. (I think the end of privacy will pretty much happen anyway, but I'm not sure that cloud computing will be the culprit.)
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I just posted a poll and I already clued in to that before I finished writing it.
As an avid FreeBSD user, I must say that the article didn't really provide an unbiased comparison of Linux to FreeBSD. It didn't offer any of the advantages Linux may have over BSD.

Linux has an amazing community with better application support. Linux also has an optimized C library. For example, you should take a look at BSD's strlen() versus GNU's strlen().
The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs, Part 2
I think the end of privacy will pretty much happen anyway, but I'm not sure that cloud computing will be the culprit.

Agreed on that one.

Moving everything into the cloud will just speed things up for the culprits ;)
I could be very very wrong on this, but ill throw it out there. Facebook going away would be much worse. We can just replace Google with Bing and the search results would be good enough. The advertising would shift there too. Our social graph on facebook? That's a whole lot harder to re-create. The other data we have there (interactions, photos,etc.) could not be recreated easily either. Just my two cents
Their source:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.800-mini-ice-...

Some more details in the ESF press release:

"Geological evidence shows that the Big Freeze was brought about by a sudden influx of freshwater, when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This vast pulse, a greater volume than all of North America’s Great Lakes combined, diluted the North Atlantic conveyor belt and brought it to a halt."

http://www.esf.org/media-centre/press-releases/ext-single-ne...

And the background on "Big Freeze" mini ice-age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
assuming civilization doesn't collapse first

interesting assumption that might be worth expanding
More scheme videos at http://community.schemewiki.org/?scheme-presentations