skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not saying we don't need $3 or $30 or $300 life saving treatments. If the treatment is worth it - if a living person generates enough wealth to cover the treatment - then of course it's good for the economy. The fact that the polio vaccine was worth the investment is why people in America chose to put money into it. But an outside force artificially lowering the cost of the treatment to basically zero means that you are keeping people alive that are not able to generate any wealth at all. In fact, in a place with too many people and not enough ways for them to generate wealth (land or jobs), you are perpetuating conditions that breed violence and corruption, leading to negative wealth creation through your actions.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to help, if possible - but we need to attack the right problem. The reason we don't is that because there is a real cost to us to do so. People who are all for money towards cheap vaccines want to help as long as it doesn't cost them anything other then their admiration.

"Preventing these diseases with a simple vaccine is going to give a much greater economic boost to poor countries than giving them clean energy technologies or superhighways."

If America continues polluting the world to the point where temperatures rise above 2C and global climate patterns are disrupted, we will have directly caused the deaths and suffering of tens or hundreds of millions of people. Not causing those deaths is indeed a greater economic boost then cheaper vaccines. We need clean energy everywhere, starting with the US and China.

Infrastructure that supports trade is an excellent investment. Superhighways? That makes it sound like you've never left the suburbs, man. These places need a road connecting their capital to everywhere else that can handle 2 lanes of traffic each way, and a port that can handle a decent size ship. No, they don't already have that.

"That, sir borders on the racist. What countries are you referring to?"

Who said anything about races? I'm referring to any country where managing natural resources is a substantially larger portion of the economy then leveraging human capital. In that case, ruling elites have huge financial incentives to actively deter development of human capital. That would be a challenge to their rule. Their government might have "democracy" and laws that sound great, but at the end of the day the job of the police and military is to keep the powerful in power, and in that sense they are nothing more then a glorified gang.

I would believe Bill Gate's sincerity if he permanently moved to a developing country and tried building a profitable business (any business!) there. If you want people to live a wealthy lifestyle, they need a way to generate that wealth themselves.
First paragraph of the story reads:

"Scientist at the heart of the 'Climategate' email scandal broke the law when they refused to give raw data to the public, the privacy watchdog has ruled."

The first word appears to be a misprint since the ensuing sentence requires a plural subject. The same story appeared in other news sources today. Try doing a Google News search.

You can have the last word if you want. I'm done.
Why wait?

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/0001193125100...
I am surprised you fall in the trap of this guy who attacks Calacanis to change or shape a bad image of him. I don't know anyone of them, and it's obvious this is a personal attack.

Who is this guy who will tell someone else how to run their company?
His publications are here: http://www.mit.edu/~parrilo/pubs/index.html. This one in particular: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.0808v1 looks like it might be related.
What about spamming copies of real 419 spams, and if anyone responds, send them a explanation and warning about 419 scams?
Tweening and Interpolating OpenGL Objects with Scheme
The Coldest Winter - SF
What happened here is that person lost their job because we (the US) can way out-compete them with our superior technology and global military might. Then they tried to go steal some food because they didn't have any money, and lost the fight, and now they are dying from their wounds. You think the right thing to do at this point is help this person, and that if we do so, we should feel good about it. I think a bigger priority is not causing another 10 people tomorrow from having to go through the same problem.
This is a new startup selling firewood in San Francisco (it's my neighbor) - I really like the clever/creative website.
No I'm not foolish! I want to help Google kill IE 6. Perhaps it'll bite me in my butt, perhaps it won't, but I think the last person to know that would be you.
It seems, though, that small businesses aren't the employers who would be targeted by this law—every story I've ever heard about a wrongful firing has been regarding a large corporation. In such places, there is no single face for the employee to appeal to within the company, and thus no people that are able to fix the "people issue"—this is the exact situation where outside intervention would be helpful.

If the law could distinguish small from large businesses, why not set this law to only affect the large ones?
See also an alternative implementation in the LTU discussion http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1331#comment-15165.

Also, for those who missed it, Guy Steele's older post about why tail calls are important: http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community/blog/Objec...
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/alf6y/i_am_a_music_vid...
Does it have multitasking?
I think 3rd world aid could do with a lot less "imagining" and more hard facts about causes and effects. I am not saying "don't help them", but I think it is naive to think to just give them things or money would make things fine. More likely than not they are poor because they are being exploited and suppressed. Who knows, maybe some dictator will just take all the vaccine shipments and sell them to another country. (Granted, I am imagining here, too).
Stanley Kubrick's use case for the iPad [img]
Google Takes Aim at Beijing Censorship
1) Those studies are very hard to do, because you can't set up control conditions. "A Farewell to Alms" by Clark has historical data which might be the closest thing to. For example, per capita income in Europe went way up after the Plague.

2) I don't think he is being uber-sneaky about this - I believe he has mostly intentions. But good intentions don't guarantee positive (or optimal) results.

I also think Gates wants to be respected by society, and before he started giving billions away his street-rep was of a geeky, conniving person. Now he is a Times person of the year and everyone loves him. You don't think he thought about that?
I hope the comments from the first TechCrunch 'Twttr' posts are cached somewhere.

No one could get passed how to pronounce it. "Twitter or Twatter?"
Open-source when standardizing microblogging intercommunication like Twitter?
Control Freaks: Investors Seeking Order
Corporations can artificially create a monopsony, just like they can artificially create a monopoly. The music industry, for example, relies on making its talent pool—who are in high demand by the customers—feel like they are in lower demand compared to the record labels themselves, so the industry will be in a better bargaining position.

Sure, once the market is as efficient as it can be, if there's still a monopsony, that's tough for the employee. But if the monopsony can be annihilated without affecting its constituent employers and employees, all the better for all involved.
With regards to personal attacks, see my reply below.

No management directives were given in the original article, nor my comment. For all we know, this "business model" is being forced upon Mahalo given the present economic climate.

Although I think it unlikely, Jason himself may not feel he has any other option and is being forced by the other investors in the company down this revenue path.

I urge you to read the original article and the previously posted comments on this thread for the full context of Mahlo's behavior and Mr. Calacanis' response. It's the double-speak and clearly disingenuous ignorance of his response which is the crux of the matter.
"I refuse to believe that the loss of life is perferable than the preservation of life. And quite frankly, arguments from classical economics seem rather cold given the subject matter."

I don't think he said that. What he said is that improving the economy might help more people than just handing out vaccines. By improving the economy, people get vaccines anyway (they can buy them themselves).
Tesla Bets the Farm on the Model S
> Is it unfair for an employee to be fired for a bumper sticker? Yes.

Is it though? If I'm working at starbucks and my bumper sticker says 'VOTE OBAMA', perhaps that would be crossing the line. What if it says 'Don't Drink Starbucks!'. Perhaps I get a job at a republican political think tank that works for the GOP? Do I really expect not to be fired if I have a bumper sticker left over saying 'vote Obama'?
The thing to consider is who Android is meant to gain mindshare with. If it is manufacturers and service providers, the splintering isn't disastrous at all. It has achieved great market penetration because it is a ready-to-go affordable option. The customizability mainly serves to reassure skittish manufacturers who might choose differently if that wasn't a "feature."
Your points only emphasize that this is a personal contrariness, that puts others/us in the middle for no reason, using Calacanis any kind of company tactics from the author's point of view, as an edge to make a public issue.

old-fashion publicity trick
Great initiative. Note that for 3l33t (severe) bugs found they will pay $1337 instead.
manage the costs == doing something about it
Jailbreaking is particularly annoying to me as an app developer. My phone was jailbroken before I started writing apps, but I've had to keep it clean in order to get the necessary OS updates, and to have the same environment as most of users. But we have a fair number of users with jailbroken phones who like to use our app with external GPS devices on iPod touches, and it's really hard to support them.
Fingerprinting web applications (Wordpress, Joomla and Mediawiki)
How can they artificially create a monopsony? By talking secretly to each other? It seems to me that if there is a real need, then they would have a hard time doing that.

Take software developers - if it is still true that they are still in high demand. How would corporations go about creating a Monopsony for software developers? Stop producing software? But if software is in high demand, how would they be able to prevent other companies starting up that develop software?
Very interesting research describing a simple way to detect which version a web app is running.

They just fingerprint a few css/js files, get their md5sums and create a list of them for each version...
Google camera appears to catch illegal tree-cutting
I hate concepts like this — good idea, no chance that the designers will ever execute it.

Especially when the designers don't notice the difference between additive and subtractive color.
The universality and expressiveness of fold
How many of the people still using IE6 also use Google Docs? Aren't all IE6 users either in a corporate environment (where, surely, they have a copy of Office) or, uh, not savvy?
Don't feel bad. I've been messing around with Haskell a while myself, and I start to lose it around the functional dependencies.
Can we create a real meetup.com meetup or whatever it is the kids are using these days for this?
I fail to see how there's a "middle" here at all.

We're both participants in a public online discussion regarding the behavior of the CEO of a company which, at least for me, I can say I have no legal vested interest or direct financial dealings.

Fundamentally, this is between Mr. Calacanis, the management of Mahalo, and Google.

We're both mere spectators. By replying personally, Mr. Calacanis chose to make this a personal public issue--in both the original article & this forum. That's entirely within his purview. I'm sure he's experienced enough to know the potential ramifications of those actions.
That's a good argument; one that I've seen raised in favor of web apps in the ChromeOS context multiple times. I have no doubt that Nerd Apocalypse in your sense is not on the radar. The question I'm trying to raise (and I'm really trying to raise a question; not defending one model or the other, at least not yet) is not essentially about the economics, though.

I'm wondering how likely it is for a child to get curious about what this "computing" thing is, discover the basic distinction between hardware and software, wonder how one goes beyond the software that ships as default with the device, how one makes a computer do something vaguely defined, random, outside the intended use scenarios, fun, or extremely specific, with an iPad, Chrome OS device, or similar future sandboxed information appliance. How much more or less likely it is compared to a 386DX with a bulky CRT, that runs DOS and expects the user to type a word by default, or an Amiga 500 that expects the user to insert a floppy by default. Getting curious in the first place is a prerequisite; it comes before one can consider paying Apple $99 a year to get the tools with which to satisfy that curiosity.

My line of thinking is that we're witnessing not a huge shift in what personal computing is defined as, but the gradual total disappearance of what we've come to know as computing from the retail market in favour of narrowly targeted information appliances with intentional limitations that aim to make "computing" invisible in the whole experience. It's true that these devices will not saturate or dominate the market any time soon. But the number of pockets that vote for them will definitely bias the industry towards a specific direction, and the culture they create in this decade will set the tone for the culture of the next era, just like how our past experiences with Pascal, Windows 3.1, DOS, what have you, influence the way we evaluate today's technology.
He replied 2 hours after... Not so quickly.
and probably never will.
Who's buying?
(video) NYC Resistor, group of “hackers for good”
... but we don't put search results within search results!

We target put 300-500+ original words on each page we index--just like a newspaper or blog.

I know this is highly personally for you, but you don't have to make things up Aaron!

Also:

1. Google is VERY smart about how people can try to game the system and they WILL NOT RANK pages with low content value--you know this!

2. In the small number of cases when a page manager makes a small content page we build it out the SECOND IT GETS OVER 25-50 views.

We WANT TO HAVE high quality pages and we produce a ton of them every day. We DON'T want short pages because google will penalize you for them.

We used to remove this pages from the index with nofollow and that got removed by accident--not that it matters because GOOGLE IS SMART and doesn't rank them anyway.

We are going to have them all noindexed again just so you will move your hate and venom on to someone else..... also because it will help our page rank!

that's the irony of this.... if we don't have these short pages we will DO BETTER! That's why we noindexed them to being with.

So, for that, I thank you for the free SEO of advice.

Also, you will be happy to know that you attention has sent us some more quality writers who want to take part in our revenue sharing content system, as well as a client who wants to work with our Q&A/knowledge platform.

if you were a sales person i would have to pay you a fat commission... instead I'll buy you a dinner and a couple of beers at the next SMX so you can chill out.

seriously dude... chill, life is short! worry about the people in Haiti or the fact that the iPad doesn't have a USB port!
Agreed, even aiming for trees is a better prospect than concrete. You may run the risk of impalement, however you run a greater chance of catching a ton of weak branches and landing in a bed of mulch a foot thick. Again a corn field would be better than concrete, especially if you had horizontal momentum.

Water is a bad idea, as stated in the article. If you're lucky, hitting a waterfall could possibly allow you to survive unharmed, although your targeting would have to be world-class. Landing mid-stream of a waterfall (that's not over rocks) would allow you to land in aerated water, which is essentially a giant cushion. Similarly, if you're over sea you'd either want to follow down a piece of your plane, or pray a major ocean liner just went down, because you'd want to hit the aerated water they'll leave behind.

Also note: If you're over Venezuela, don't target any tall waterfalls. Hitting Angel falls is pointless, the water that hits the ground (not much does, most turns into vapor) is falling at its own terminal velocity . . . so you'll just hit wet stone at 120MPH. Concrete + Water, both things you're told to avoid.
Apparently enough for Google to take a stand here.
I don't think so. We always see the PAD running the same application/GUI which seems to be an all-in-one reader supporting video, photos, and text. I can't remember any instances of the PAD being used for much more. Not even audio/video chat which was reserved for the personal communicators and wall/desk consoles. At one point we see Picard's desk covered with multiple pads further suggesting they were uni-taskers. Multi-tasking certainly existed in the 80's so the vision of future technology in Star Trek TNG seems to be one of mainframe computing, data in the cloud, and multiple specialized task-centric devices (personal communicator, tricorder, PADS) and good ole' fashion desktops (consoles) being used for more advanced tasks.
If only he'd realised it wouldn't be available until the sequel.
I know that IE users are more likely to click on ads, but I haven't heard much about which versions are more likely to click through. Most of the visitors I get to my sites via adwords are on IE 7 and 8; but that's just anecdotal evidence.

So, if you've got something that says IE 6 users are more likely to click on advertisements than any other version of IE, I'd love to see it - maybe we should still be paying attention to them.
PubCouch: A CouchDB Interface to PubChem
No Flash? Phht...
Thank you so much for introducing me to this textbook. I've only read a little sample (what Amazon will let me see when I "look inside"), but I can see it's an improvement over at least 95% of the books I've seen.
The funny part is that they (Apple) are waging war against those grown tinkers that they created. The sweet irony doesn't stop there. Today's little hackers are just as motivated to seize control of their technological world as those in past years. I have learned from watching my own children that just about nothing can stop a motivated child.

All they are doing with their endless keys and locks and walled gardens is creating an unstoppable army of new hackers for whom the latest and greatest "content protection system" won't even be worth a raised eyebrow and for whom the legal harassment has become nothing more than background noise.
How I Became a Barefoot Runner http://suburbiarebooted.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-i-became-ba...
You can find a version of tailcall in the Python cookbook or here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/decorator#dealing-with-third-par...
This is fairly primitive. The techniques used by tools like nmap to fingerprint operating systems were established in the early 90's by Comer, and they involve behavioral testing. You should assume that even if you modify all the files in your (say) Wordpress distribution, an attacker can still fingerprint it.
The Jihadist Next Door
The iPad And Chrome OS Netbooks Are On A Collision Course
I've already been tinkering with a little LCARS library for my iPhone. I got seriously inspired this Wednesday to pursue it further!
Do I Have A Personal Injury Claim?
All too often people suffer personal injuries at various levels but they do not to anything about it. Those that do choose to react receive significantly higher compensation from the offender or offenders. In the case of personal injury, most people do not understand their rights or the importance of a prompt reaction. Therefore it is necessary to understand various types of personal injuries and the surrounding situations.
Saving money through car insurance quotes
Comparing car insurance quotes is a great way to save money. If you're looking to find low rates for car insurance in the least amount of time, just go to a car insurance website and request free quotes.
While I used the impact on small business to most starkly bring out the impact of such a law, the impact on larger businesses would be no less radical. The "people issue" is just as acute in large businesses as it is in small. And the effect of mandating cause-only terminations in large businesses would be to create something resembling a union-like environment in which "guarantees" tend to replace incentives, and this is something that employees themselves have consistently rejected when they vote down things such as unions in the private sector.

In addition, the pattern is clear in this area: a labor law of this type applies "only" to large companies when it is enacted. Within a few years, it is either made universal or is applied by extension of the law to smaller and smaller enterprises. Thus, once it is acknowledged in principle that government-mandated "guarantees" trump private associational rights, it would only be a matter of time before such guarantees applied far more pervasively, if not universally, in the workplace.

Thus, in my view, the issue needs to be addressed as a matter of principle and not as a function of the size of the employer. People can disagree but, if they accept this for large companies as a matter of pragmatism, they will (in my view) find it applying to the small businesses of the not too distant future as well.
The difference is, the code given here actually works out of the box.
It wasn't lost on me. I did, however get some quizzical glaces when I brought it up in less geeky settings.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081099
Frankly, the answer to the question you pose is "no." But I'm fascinated with the "Bad Romance" video. Can't stop watching it.
Adobe Plays the Porn Card in Flash Campaign Against iPad
Pretty fast if you're being mentioned all over the web and you're not already a HN user (he just signed up for that comment), AND neither the story linked to or the title on HN said anything about Tynt or what they do.
Python one-liner anyone?

>>> reduce(int.__mul__, range(1,6))
120
Agreed, I imagine I'd remove my pants and attach them around my waist with my belt, tying the ankles shut. Similarly I'd tie off the wrists of my shit (I always wear a long-sleeved t-shirt when I fly, I'm naturally warm so a jacket makes me hot and a regular t-shirt makes me cold) and hold that.

As another poster said, falling like you're hugging the top of a giant ball can reduce your terminal velocity by an extra 5MPH, but it's unstable. However with your pants acting like a drogue, you might be able to stay stable enough to use it's effect.

I'd agree with you however, gaining lateral velocity instead of vertical is perhaps key because 'tuck and roll' could probably save your life. It's also worth remembering that the human body can survive more g-force through their back than their front, so the 'tuck and roll' landing increases your odds. Although carrying a backpack full of foam would be preferable if you wanted to try the 'tuck and roll' landing.
It is a definite must if you want to be a really famous developer.

I think if you want to be a really great developer you should write code.
I hate to be the detractor here, because getting rid of IE6 would be great for everyone, but do we really expect discontinuing Google Docs and Google Sites to have any effect on IE6 market share? They're mostly corporate users, which means they're probably using MS Office (and have a web team or contractor) anyway.