skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was lead architect at SimpleGeo and spent most of the time working on our distributed geospatial database. I haven't looked at the MongoDB implementation in years, but at that time it was really a toy compared to what other people were doing. Basically, they used a space-filling curve to do dimensionality reduction and then stored geospatial data in the same b-tree index that they use for everything else. It's suitable for a lot of trivial use cases at scale, and even for non-trivial use cases at low data/throughput scale. But the architecture was (too lazy to determine if it still is) not suitable for large data set sizes, query throughput, or distribution for fault tolerance / improved locality, etc.

At the time it was really frustrating to here comments like yours since the MongoDB solution was superficially similar to the consumer, but was basically worse on every measurable dimension if you knew what you were doing. I hadn't heard of SpaceCurve before today, but I skimmed the linked article and some other stuff on the blog and it looks like this guy knows what he's talking about. My guess is it's a much better geospatial architecture than MongoDB's.
I use LastPass on Android, Windows and OS X, that means at least $80.
Handy Swift extensions each weekday
Agreed, but it's still a massive improvement over mandating that all encryption used by citizens be thoroughly crippled. The status quo should be that the degree to which Government can intrude into citizens privacy is limited by law and subject to open public debate. We're not quite there yet, either in the US or here in the UK, but dropping the idea of crippled encryption is at least a step back from the brink even if it's not enough steps back for my liking. It's at least an implicit acknowledgement that the EFF/privacy hippies aren't completely wrong.
Hi Sam,
Have YC considered doing a lower tier of funding?

Funding 120k is good for early startups, but I think YC could have far more reach and impact if it had an option to provide less capital to a greater number of startups. The purpose being to allow founders to support themselves and fully focus on their startup without having to worry about daily jobs.

I see two major benefits:
1) YC would have greater and broader impact since for the same amount of seed would be possible to found 12-15 more companies that are ready to move from the idea to execution stage.

2) (this touches me personally) For non US founders, we have to worry about rent, food etc. I believe that if founders had the oportunity to fully focus on their startups for 3 months without a daily job, it would have tremendous impact for the early startups, and as a nice side effect YC could have another pool of really good candidates/ideas. At the end of the 3 months the founders would have had a chance to demonstrate themselves, their execution level, etc., at a very low cost.

I truly believe the ROI on something like this would be considerable.

I know that capital is not the only (and arguably not even the most important) advantage of been admitted to YC, but personally speaking, if I had this option 3 years ago I'd have pursued it no questions asked. I feel that there might be other founders that would be in the same boat.

Do you have any thoughts on this?
Thanks!
Carlos.
>It's not the same as commanding them not to discuss in general anywhere, but IT IS shuting them up from discussion in your (the site owner's I mean) premises. Essentially the message is "I don't like how you are discussing, and I'm stopping you from discussing here anymore".
The thing is that that's (a news site comment section) is the only place that all readers of it can discuss it as a community -- the only place that's not disjointed (each own's blog, some social news link site, etc) and the place that guarantess more than any other that readers of the same news piece have a chance to see those comments, and that the writer and outlet will see them too (and publicly).

Yeah, but they don't owe anyone that. You're positing some duty to provide space for conversation, apparently based on the fact that some sites have provided that space in the past. That's essentially an appeal to tradition while ignoring the actual reality of comments on the internet, which is that A) they almost never contribute meaningfully to a site, B) the only way we've found to create meaningful comment sections is through labor-intensive human moderation that most sites don't want to pay for (and have no duty to pay for), and C) in place of meaningful discussion, most un- or lightly-moderated comment sections are full of terrible people saying terrible things.

I'm going to repeat something I said downthread, but no one is preventing anyone from having a voice online. They're just saying that they don't have to publish your voice if they don't want to. You're arguing that the NYT/CNN/$FILL_IN_ORG have some moral duty to provide a space for people to have conversations on their site, about their content, without putting any limits on what is said. You're not describing it that way, because once you confront the reality of that, it becomes ridiculous. Comments, in that sense, aren't "a letter to the editor", they're "I get to tell the editor to publish something and he can't decline." And yeah, having to go read it on your own blog might make the reading experience "disjointed" (whatever that means - clicking a pingback link is about as low-friction as I can imagine in terms of finding pieces responding to the original, especially placed in any kind of historical context), but that's your problem, not the person or organization publishing something. They don't owe you engagement; if you want to engage, make your own site and build your own audience. You don't just get to piggyback on someone else's success to broadcast your thoughts because you want to.
No. Monsanto created novel genes, based on real ones.
There's the opportunity cost to the attacker as well.

Sure, they could walk around your barriers and scam your relative... or they could shrug it off, carry on with their list, and scam another five or ten people in the same time frame.
> moving to Northern climates with reduced sunlight resulted in decreased melanin (to ensure sufficient vitamin D)

The Vitamin D hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis, and probably not true. In the summer you produce enough after 10-15 minutes, and in the winter you produce none at all above a certain latitude. Furthermore, if it were a simple "loss of melanin" mutation, you would expect something similar to the favism mutation (G6PD deficiency) which protects against malaria - there are lots of ways to have a loss of function mutation, and you see a bunch with G6PD deficiency. Compare to SLC24A5 gene mutation, which reduces melanin production and accounts for a substantial fraction of paleness, and exists in 1 form that is fixed in most European populations. So paleness was probably selected for some other reason. FWIW there is also basically 1 blue eye mutation and 1 main blonde hair mutation.

> which allowed more ultraviolet damage thus increased mutations (blue eyes, red hair and so on).

I think you basically have this backwards. At the equator, in the evolutionary environment, you need dark skin to survive. Otherwise the sun will cook you. So there is very strong selection pressure to maintain that. Further from the equator, that selection pressure is relaxed. But it is not UV rays causing the mutations - rather, these random mutations happen (for whatever reason) and are not immediately culled by UV radiation, so if they provide some other advantage, it's possible they will win out.

Note: Everything I posted is also conjecture, I don't think anyone really knows why paleness mutations exist :)
> But systemd is not only an init daemon anymore and the systemd developers work actively to cut off everything that is not systemd (see the udev saga as an example)

http://www.landley.net/notes-2015.html#05-07-2015 is a lovely entry from Rob Landley about trying to maintain an alternative to udev, and getting the runaround by GregKH and Kay Sievers.

> or make idiotic decisions (NTP server defaults?).

Love the excuse for that. "Systemd is not meant for end users, and distros should set their own servers anyways".

Its like anyone thats not a developers working for/on the large name distros are users (aka consumers, aka mooo) and should shut up and accept what the distros ship.
It totally depends on the company. Are you going to get as meaningful (i.e. more than 1%) equity grant and real responsibility? Do the founders seems good, and good to work with?

Obviously if you can join the next Facebook as an early employee, that's really great :)
Quote stuffing works because you know before hand which orders to filter out and don't need to expend resources considering them while everyone else does. An advanced player can build this into an FPGA to achieve greater performance.
Announcing First ‪‎Microbiome‬ ‪ResearchKit‬ App, Focus on Bacteria and Weight
Hello @sama, do you see -as mr president- YC (with YCR, YCF, alumni and partners) acting more and more as a self-sustaining network in the coming years? How do you think big corps and govs will react? It's extremely interesting to see this emerge but also scary, if you think of unpredictable consequences. How do you feel? Thanks and good luck.
Sam,

we've applied to YC Winter 2016 within the first five days, but thinking about making minor changes to the application. Does "editing" have a negative-effect? Do you read the whole application again or just the edits? Thanks in advance!
The Obama administration has continued flawed policies in many areas, especially those infringing on the 4th Amendment.
Again, HN rules require the original title, unless the title itself is bad/linkbaity. Using a quote from the article to get around this is still linkbait.
It's ok as long as you have a plan to make money eventually (i.e. http://blog.samaltman.com/unit-economics)

However, why not charge on day 1? It sounds like something people should pay for. And charging always makes it clear if people really like your service or not.
Based on the current performance of the first YC Fellowship, will you have future editions of this programme? You guys mention that it's for founders who haven't raised any money at all (although something such as a free-equity grant from a university is ok).

If you do plan to invest in YC Fellows via an equity deal in the near future, how acceptable would a -very small- investment from FFF for exchange in equity would be before getting the Fellowship?
It maps out ethnicity in nearly every metro and even suburban area I can see.
This is the entire point of the YC Fellowships, and their plan for that is to scale it to an order of magnitude plus beyond normal YC. They're doing a trial run this year of YCF, and it sounds like that's going well.
You may be interested in the YC Fellowship.

https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/
When I started my job I got a laptop with the extension for LastPass installed to Safari. One of the first things I encountered was an error dialog, modal for the entire Safari app, telling me of some nonsense problem with Lastpass, which at that point I hadn't even used yet! So I never started using it after that.

I occasionally use 1Password for the iPhone, but still mostly rely on the built-in OS X Keychain app. 1Password is too expensive for the Mac and all the other managers don't seem to place much emphasis on UX.

This class of application is quite poor to use overall. Even as nice as 1Password is, its syncing story is not very good.
Can't watch their demo video -- blocked because of copyright infringement. Whoops.
I have just purchase ng-book-2 5 minutes ago. As far as my research shows, it's the most relevant learning material at this point.

I have decided to stop thinking and researching. Decided to give it a go for $39. If it's not suitable for me, it's just that amount.

Definitely better than wasting my effort thinking and researching.
Oh this is interesting. Reminds me of the EzBake platform that's only been briefly talked about (http://www.cloudera.com/content/cloudera/en/resources/librar...).

I wonder how many agencies will allow developers to jump into this; seems many of the agencies have a "must be built internally here" attitude about some of this stuff. Still, looks like a good step forward.
I forgot about Hamachi! I used to love that back in college, and you are right, they destroyed it. Salted the earth.
What is the weirdest or most outlandish application you've seen to date?

Did you accept it?

Was it successful?
I believe that you are making a distinction without a difference. Operating over extremely short timeframes is what allows electronic traders to provide such efficient pricing.
Will there be a Startup School this year?
What's hot in JavaScript world this week (FSJS #20)
CLU was way ahead of most of the mainstream languages of 80s. I remember that coding the compiler for generics and Pascal-like unit system I added on top of the standard spec was quite fun! I was compiling generics to an intermediate language opcode and then generating the machine language during the linking phase. Oh, those good old days!
I think is nice for building PaaS like backends AKA microservices and also to automate large deployments when you need isolated small machines.
On the other hand, as long as backdoors remain out of legislation, those companies are still free to say "no".
"If not, why isn't there a bigger push for market infrastructure that doesn't advantage high frequency trades?" because most of those who could do the pushing are ignorant and/or confused about the economics of competitive markets and how competition benefits society as a whole and not really those who are competing
Hey HN, Faction is a platform that allows you to quickly build and customize web apps. You can connect to your Stripe platform and register customers. Feedback appreciated.
Hi Sam,

Thanks for engaging with the HN crowd :)
I have spoken to Jessica (Livingston) about this, but wanted to get your thoughts as well.

My question is simple, yet complex at its nature:

How important is the relationship of the founders?
(For simplicity let's assume there are two of them).
Show HN: Instagram on the Google Maps
Oh. I had one of those that I played with for quite a while as a kid. I'm guessing it was from Edmund Scientific.
In the US, "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable." See Mayo v. Prometheus (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=505607866460473...)
In some cases like my great grandfather, I suspect he actually enjoyed the conversation because he was bored. Even though we went to his house nearly every day, there's still a lot of hours in the day.

He didn't get scammed over the phone but he probably had his driveway re-sealed 4-5 times a year. We would chase them away but they knew they could get him when there was nobody else around. Sickening people who do this.

It seemed possible that he knew his driveway didn't need sealed, but he would sit outside and chat with them for the 3-4 hours it took to do the job.
Eliminating the sub-penny rule would probably be counter-productive for most US equities. You would not see further spread compression (most stocks' natural spreads are already greater than one cent), and displayed size would likely shrink (this latter bit is exactly what happened when prices decimalized). A better alternative would be a tick-size schedule that's a function of price, as is generally done in Japan and Europe.
We have this: http://fellowship.ycombinator.com
The other day I heard someone say (and I'm not exaggerating or excluding key context here), "I think Obama is similar to Hitler. He's changing our Constitution and taking away our freedoms." I couldn't begin to list the things Obama said Bush had overreached on and would end, that he later renewed in one form or another.
Instmap allows you to see Instagram photos nearby or anywhere in the world.

It can be used as tool to explore activities in a certain area or just geek way to find Instagram accounts of your neighbours.

Also you can embed it to your website to display activities around some event.

Ability to sign in and see your feed on the map is coming soon.

-

Since I am the only one who working on this project, I would like to hear your opinion.

I will appreciate your feedback and do my best to improve the app.
Last I checked there wasn't even a portable way to make a new filesystem. POSIX standard is a lot like the C standard, far above and almost completely hardware agnostic.
The obvious reason is that your friends are searching for things. When you talk to your friends and your friend mentions that he's going through a divorce, the odds are great that he's looked up a divorce lawyer online, because you're friends, FB figures you'd be interested in the same thing and starts serving you ads for divorce attorneys.

Or if your friend is renovating his house and does a search for new cabinets, you'll see cabinets show up in your ads. And you won't think anything about it until you talk to your friend about his renovations. Then you get home, and your FB is full of renovation ads.

Never attribute to malice or competence (voice fingerprinting for ad targeting )what can adequately be explained by a stupid algorithm ("my friends and I must like the same things" ad targeting).
As a student I feel my interests are outside the traditional lines of what is taught in the classroom so was wondering what you thought the best way to bring entrepreneurship to schools was, particularly middle and high schools?
Hey don't forget Groovy. If you have ever liked Ruby but don't want the weight of JRuby, try out Groovy. It made big waves before Scala.
Maybe there's more to add, but pg did explain why they felt Sam was the best choice: http://blog.ycombinator.com/sam-altman-for-president
That could just be from gentrification pushing lower income people out of the city center. Similar things have happened in DC, Chicago, etc. This Wired article shows some of that effect. http://www.wired.com/2013/08/how-segregated-is-your-city-thi...
At this point in time that is like asking of someone can support MS Office using simpler tools.

That in turn invoke the old chestnut about how 99% of MS Office users use 1% of its features, but each use a different 1%.
Exactly. I also wonder if the "canceled" orders are really just changing orders (either "cancel/replace" or "change" messages sent to the exchange) i.e. the desire to buy or sell is still there, just at a different price.
Especially in Boston. Boston has a TON of startups in the area.
A or B.
>The problem with bullying in real life is the physical threat. You can't ignore that guy at the bar or the school bully. On the internet you very much can.

Unless they send a SWAT team to your house that shoots you, or publish your information all over the web so that your creepy stalker ex can find where you live now and people can steal your identity and ruin your credit, or tell lies about you to your work and get you fired, or overwhelm you with thousands of hateful messages threatening personal harm to you, or do any of the other thousand things that people do, constantly, to other people on the internet that cause them harm in real life.

Seriously, we're on a site that has news in the name. You read tech news and have been on the internet for a while, right? How is this still a confusing phenomenon?
The solution they came up with is more flexible, so they could end up with simpler (and cheaper) sourcing and inventory management overall by ordering fewer screw lengths in the first place.
I thought you were making a joke, but it literally says:

"Obama 'will not —for now— call for legislation requiring companies to decode messages for law enforcement.'"
And this is precisely why I'm not using other people's (proprietary) password managers.

And if you really have to pick a proprietary thing, then 1Password has always been better because it doesn't have an online component, syncs with Dropbox only if you want it to and whatever happens with the app, the Dropbox sync includes an HTML/JS interface that can read the dumped passwords, plus the format is documented.
After running TEN successful Kickstarters, this guy knows a thing or 2
No negative effect, but partners that read your application before the edits won't read it again.
I want to point out that SpaceX doesn't patent any of their tech, as their competitors are sovereign states that would have no problem copying the technology.
How big is that 'lost cause' pile? If you don't mind sharing.
How does YC determine the need and market fit of startups focused on underserved communities and emerging markets within developing countries (such as Africa) and what expertise do the YC partners have to offer with regards to startups focused on these markets?
Unfortunately, a lot of elderly are just as likely to be scammed by a trusted relative or close friend.
Scientific evidence for popular health supplements
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10359038
They are encrypting it locally. It isn't anything to doubt- it's been shown time and time again.

Nowhere in the payload that gets sent to them is your key. The only way you could consider your passwords compromised is if you think there's already a rainbow table out there to decrypt everything, which is ludicrous.
I wasnt invited to the Fellowship, I'm still working on the idea but my cofounders lost interest. Should I apply or wait till I find new cofounders.
We will probably make it an ongoing program, and if so we will make it an equity deal.

I'm not sure what our ongoing stance on having already raised money will be, but likely there will be some sort of carveout for a very small amount of friends and family money.
Create PDF invoices with Python and xtopdf
This is pretty irrelevant to the actual conversation but, it's honing isn't it? Have I been saying it wrong this whole time?
Hi Sam,

I have a question relating to AI and YCR.

I remember your blog about AI mentioning how many of the best private companies are very secretive about their advances and research.

Was YCombinator Research heavily influenced by this secrecy in specifically the AI fields?

Is YCR going to have a focus on AI, at least initially?

Can you give any insight into the fields of research you are focusing on?
A lot of these policies continue because they're considered optimal/necessary by the layer of thinktanks and technocrats that feed Washington its data. I doubt any administration could change them, no matter what was said on their campaign trail.
Really? I can, what country are you in? At least there's animated sections under the main heading.
Hi Sam,

In your opinion, what is the greatest impediment to getting better software into government. Second, is there a market opportunity in alleviating this/these impediments?
You can't fit more transactions into 1,048,576 bytes with more efficiency. It's pretty clear.
Times sets goal of doubling digital revenue–to $800 M.–by 2020
My dad used to work on these and older stuff as a field tech for DEC. There's lots of good stuff on that github page I can show him. Good info!
Want to do an escrow? I'll take your money.
> The payoff is convenience

It's true for any level of password management. KeePass is less secure but more convenient than simply memorizing each of your long, secure passwords. Choosing less secure passwords or repeating passwords is more convenient than memorizing long, unique passwords.

Finding the right balance of convenience & security is critical for securing the myriad accounts of the "masses." We know that the average person isn't going to bother memorizing long unique passwords - even the most security conscious person won't do that (except for maybe a handful of super-critical passwords).
You don't want a felony record, but there are classes below that, including "infraction" which for the most part doesn't count.